A Welsh View

Lego Olympics

A team of Lego enthusiasts have recreated some of the Beijing olympic buildings including the Bird’s Nest stadium, Water Cube swimming center and the Olympic Village. Lots more photos here.

Man Spends Six Months Completing 24,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle

A man has spent 6 months completing the world's biggest piece jigsaw. The jigsaw consisted of 4 puzzles each containing 6,000 pieces which when put together create one giant 24,000 piece puzzle. You can view images of the puzzle here.

TRON 2: The Story Behind the Comic Con Teaser Trailer

/Film has posted more information about the Tron 2 teaser trailer that I posted yesterday. It appears it wasn't actually a trailer rather it was the product of 6 months of hard work by director Joseph Kosinski who made the 3-minute teaser to convince Disney that a remake was commercially viable.

Thai School Offers Transsexual Toilet

A secondary school in Thailand's impoverished north-east has three sets of toilets. One for the boys, one for the girls and one for the boys who want to be girls.

The headteacher, Sitisak Sumontha, estimates that in any year between 10% and 20% of his boys consider themselves to be transgender.

"They used to be teased every time they used the boys' toilets," he said, "so they started using the girls' toilets instead. But that made the girls feel uncomfortable. It made these boys unhappy, and started to affect their work."

The introduction of the new toilets was welcomed by the transgender boys, who must wear boys' uniforms, but can use feminine accessories. [Link w/ video]

Video: Tree Almost Crushes Car

How lucky were they?

The 50 Best Pun Stores

Some of these shop signs are great. It was hard choosing just one for this post.

Video: Woman Rocks Out In A Library

What do you think she's listening to?

Olympic Shrubbery at the Beijing Botanical Garden

Image via Inhabitat

Inhabitat.com has posted some photos of some real works of art at the Beijing Botanical Garden.

Video: Tron 2 Trailer

Here's an extremely poor quality bootleg trailer for the Tron remake due out in 2011. I've never seen the original so I don't really know what it's about or if it was any good. Is it worth renting? [via]

Diners Flock To Flooded Restaurant In China

The owner of a flooded restaurant in China scrapped plans to close it down - after business picked up.

The heaviest rains in 50 years flooded the restaurant and after word spread quickly, they were struggling to keep up with the orders.

"It's very cool. Not only in temperature, but also for a fun new way of having a meal," said one diner. Link

$10,000,000,000 Now $1 in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe will knock 10 zeros off the country's hyper-inflated currency next month, making 10 billion dollars one dollar.

Computers, electronic calculators and automated teller machines at banks have not been able to handle basic transactions in billions and trillions of dollars.

A $500 billion dollar bill was due to be released in circulation on Friday but I'm not sure if this announcement will change that. [via]

Video: Girl Climbs Into Vending Machine

Automat Arrest

[via]

Video: Bowling Ball Ramp Launch From Moving Car Gone Wrong

Joker Arrested For Stealing Dark Knight Swag

Police in Michigan have arrested a man who they say tried to steal posters and other items related to the new Batman movie from a cinema lobby while dressed up as the Joker. He was dressed in a green wig, purple suit and had his face painted to look like the Joker. Link [via]

Video: CCTV Captures Guy Wearing Bodysuit And High Heels

Video: Entire Bridge Span Captured Falling Down

I wouldn't be surprised if this bridge was actually being stolen.

Adobe Lightroom 2 Review

Photographer Thomas Hawk has posted a great in-depth review of the new features in the newly released Adobe Lightroom 2. The software has some great improvements over version 1.2.

Wes Craven In Scream 4 Talks

Fan created poster

I'm a huge fan of the first Scream movie, and the other two weren't too bad, but I'm not sure if a fourth installment would work.

I can still remember getting tickets from FHM to watch an early screening of the movie and being gutted when Drew Barrymore was killed in the opening scene. I watched the movie a year before getting access to the Internet so hadn't read anything about the movie.

Eel Energy Drink Goes On Sale In Japan

An energy drink has gone on sale in Japan that contains eel extracts.

Called "Unagi Nobori," or "Surging Eel," and made by Japan Tobacco Inc, the drink has been released just in time for the eel-eating season.

Many Japanese believe eating eel boosts stamina in hot weather.

The fizzy, yellow-colored drink contains extracts from the head and bones of eel and five vitamins -- A, B1, B2, D and E -- contained in the fish. Link

Buy Your Own Universe

Forget buying a plot of land on the moon, for a bargain $9,999 you can buy your very own parallel universe.

19 Portrait Photography Tutorials

A great collection of tutorials to help you take better portraits.

Video: Bizarre Car Accident

The car was obviously speeding but any ideas on how the car managed to end up in this position. According to the post on LiveLeak, the driver wasn't badly injured.

Video: Traffic in Tehran

Organised chaos?

Video: Releasing Balloons For Orphans Does Not Go As Planned

NASA's Most Embarrassing Mistakes

From equipment installed backwards to problems with the metric system, NASA's failures can be as fascinating as its successes. Wired discusses some of the more embarrasing mistakes.

Want To Help Produce A Movie?

I learnt about a site today whilst completing a survey on YouGov that is going to allow members of the public to take part in the production of a real movie.

CoProducer.org will allow people to choose the title of the movie, audition for roles, evaluate the script, choose the best trailer, edit the movie, help market it. Basically, people will have a say in every aspect of the movie.

The movie has already been funded so they aren't looking for people to contribute any more money. To reward people who contribute, if you complete between 6 and 12 surveys you will be entitled to receive an equal share of 55% of all profits.

If you want to take part, you need to visit the CoProuducer website and enter your email address before the end of July.

Video: Mr T 'Gay' Snickers Advert

An advert for Snickers featuring Mr T that was taken off the air after receiving just 2 complaints.

The real reason that the advert was taken off the air was because a U.S.lobby group called the Human Rights Campaign the campaign even though it hadn't aired in the States.

The group criticised Mars – which makes Snickers – for condoning ‘the notion that the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community is a group of second class citizens and that violence against GLBT people is not only acceptable but humorous’.

This is despite the advert, as well as another featuring Mr T being received positively in the UK. [via]

Using Your Browser URL History To Estimate Gender

An online tool that tries to determine your sex by analysing your browsing history. On my work PC I was 74% male and at home 50%.

Video: World's First Sandcastle Hotel

The world's first ever sand hotel has been made in Dorset and is accepting its first guests for £10 a night.

It took 1,000 tonnes of sand and a team of four sculptors working 14 hours a day for seven days to build the structure on Weymouth beach.

Guests can book to stay in the hotel, which includes beds made out of sand, until the rain washes it away.

Those who checked in today probably should have checked the weather as the hotel has probably washed away.

More photos here.

Poll: Would you stay in a sand castle hotel?

Exotic Fruits

I'm not a big fruit eater (I don't venture beyond apples) so some of these exotic fruits look a little disgusting. I'm sure most of them would taste nice to fruit lovers.

Biggest Guns Ever Built

Dark Roasted Blend has posted a large collection of some of the largest guns ever made.

Tokuda The 73-Year-Old Japanese Porn Star

CNN has an interview with Shigeo Tokunda, a 73-year-old 'porn star' from Japan. Since retiring as a 9 to 5 travel agent, Tokunda (his porn star name) has starred in over 200 adult videos.

Surprisingly his videos are selling well, even to the surprise of the company producing the videos:-

"To be honest, I don't understand why people are buying these videos," he says. "I think our older customers must feel a sense of security by watching videos with an actor who is in the same generation."

1890s Levi Jeans For Sale On eBay

Would you pay over $7,000 for a pair of 1890's Levi jeans? A pair found in the Mojave desert are currently on sale at $7,300 on eBay. [via]

Monkey Pig

A pig has been born in China that slightly resembles a monkey. The 'monkey-pig' has two thin lips, a small nose and two big eyes. Its rear legs are also much longer than its forelegs, causing it to jump instead of walk. Link

Cuil Search Engine

Former 'Googleers' have released a search engine that they think will beat that of their former employers. Cuil (pronounced 'cool') is supposed to index, faster and more cheaply, a far larger portion of the Web than Google - Cuil currently indexes over 120 billion pages, three times more than Google.

I gave it a quick whirl and the first search threw an error but the second one worked. The results by default come back in three columns but you can change to two columns. The layout is awful and confusing. They have included too much information with each result and the multi-column layout is difficult to read.

The results also include images which tend to be unrelated to the website. Like many other startup search engines, Cuil are going got have a hard time trying to convince Googlers to switch to another search engine. [via]

Funny Spam Email Titles

Lately spam emails have been changing. As well as trying to sell you penis enhancement pill/rings (they don't work!), they've been trying to spread viruses by disguising links as news articles. Some are slightly believable but others wouldn't look out of place in the Weekly World News. Here's a selection that I've received over the last few days.

• Jesus Christ To Star In Next Series Of Big Brother
• Jesus Christ To Star In Next Series Of Batman
• Man killed by flying cocktail glass
• Boy breaks tooth from biting dog
• Osama trains goats for tactical bombing
• Tupac Shakur Speaks Out From Beyond The Grave: "Stop Releasing My Stanky Old Songs"
• World Leaders Gather To Roast Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
• Al-Qaeda Gets Nuke, Blows Themselves Up
• Laika The Russian Space Dog, Returns To Earth
• Drunken man caught humping goat

If only the news was this interesting.

Photos Of Strange Looking Trees

Video: Freak Revolving Door Accident

Freak Revolving Door Accident

Views Of Jupiter

The Big Picture at the Boston Globe has posted some stunning photos of Jupiter and its moons. [via]

20 Album Covers Recreated in LEGO

20 albums recreated in LEGO. [via]

Video: If There Was No Punctuation

This cracks me up every time I watch it.

Zimbabwe Preparing To Release $500 Billion Note

Last week I posted about Zimbabwe introducing a $100 billion note. Just a week later the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe are preparing to issue a $500 billion note which is equal to less than 4 U.S. dollars.

But due to cash shortages, Zimbabweans are finding it difficult to get hold of currency to purchase essential goods. At present people are limited to withdrawing $100 billion a day which isn't enough to buy a loaf of bread.

British Artist Paints Using RC Cars As His Brushes

This painting of a Chevy Camaro was created by a British artist who soaked the wheels of remote controlled cars in paint and then drove them around a canvas. He also uses full-size tires to fill in large blocks of colour. He's currently demonstrating his skills at the British International Motor Show. [via]

Video: Compilation of Darwin Award Winners

Many classics in this compilation.

Dark Knight vs Titanic

Will Dark Knight gross more than Titanic's $600m? JoBlo.com doesn't think so.

360-Degree Buffet

Now this is what I call a buffet. Check out the 'ceiling booze'.

Update: The restaurant is called the Blue Moon and is located in Lima, Peru. Panoramas.dk has a better 360 taken from a different angle. The restaurant claims to have the second largest bottle collection in the world with 17,500 on display with 5,000 stored away from public view.

The 10 Greatest Misspelled Tattoos

Plenty more here.

Video: Groverfield

A Sesame Street inspired Cloverfield parody. [via]

For Sale: One Slightly Used Yellow Penis Enhancement Ring

I've been meaning to post an update about the Peloop Penis Enlargement ring I've been testing. I've binned it. I wore it for around 2 weeks and besides falling off occasionally when using the toilet, it didn't do a thing. Of course, I wasn't expecting it to. If anyone wants to give it a go, I'll go and retrieve it from the bin ;o)

Game: I-Fluid

I-Pilot is a unique game in which you pilot a droplet of water around a kitchen. The water interacts with all objects and just like in real-life, hitting a cloth will mean that your droplet will be absorbed and hitting more water will mean that your droplet increases in size.

The game is for PC only and you can download a demo here. The demo of the game is below. [via]