Hogwarts made from matchsticks

(via Neatorama)

This is just incredible. I’m always amazed at the work done by folks with the skill, determination, patience, and vision to do things like this. I’d get bored or frustrated way before you could identify any actual buildings. Someone, though, has the determination needed to reconstruct Hogwarts (based on what is seen in the Harry Potter movies) out of matchsticks.

matchstick-hogwarts01.jpgMatchstick Marvels will be taking you on an enchanted trip to J. K. Rowling’s world of Harry Potter this year. Acton will be displaying his matchstick version of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at the Matchstick Marvels museum in Gladbrook, IA. The model is based on Hollywood’s version of Hogwarts seen in the Harry Potter blockbuster movies. When finished in December of this year, it will contain over a half-million matchsticks held together with 15 gallons of carpenter’s wood glue.

Check back at the site periodically for updates on the building. All construction is expected to be finished by December 2006.

[tags]Hogwarts rebuilt with matchsticks[/tags]

Extreme Origami

Discover has this great article about really fine-tuned origami work. Your typical origami design usually has single digit number of folds, rarely getting close to two dozen. Folks like Robert Lang use special software (written by Lang) to help them analyze the ways to fo ld a single square of origami paper to come up with amazingly detailed origami sculptures. There are also folks like Satoshi Kamiya who create these masterpieces without the aid of software.

Here are examples of Lang’s work (a seven inch walking insect) and Kamiya’s work (a dragon).

origamia-walkingsticksmall.jpg origami-dragon1000b.jpg

[tags]Extreme origami[/tags]

Evil twins

What can you do to make a beautiful woman even better?  Make her evil.  This recent Worth1000 photochop contest has entrants do just that.  There are some non-female evil entries, but most of them are females made to appear more evil.  Here are a couple of my favorite, plus links to a few more I want to highlight.

evil-alba2.jpg (you knew someone would do this, and you knew I had to post it – I’m so in love with Jessica)

Continue reading “Evil twins”

Chuck Norris vs. Zombie Bruce Lee

I wish I had done this.  But I lack skill and imagination necessary to pull it off.  It’s a “The Movies” generated machinima of Chuck Norris fighting a zombified Bruce Lee.  As we all know, such a meeting must never come to pass, lest the very world on which we live be destroyed from that much awesomeness being in such close quarters.  But in machinima, anything can happen.

[tags]Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee zombie, Chuck Norris vs. Zombie Bruce Lee[/tags]

Super-size yellow jacket nests

I read about these giant yellow jacket nests last yellowjackets.jpgweek, but just didn’t feel the need to post about it at the time. Now that a co-worker has sent me an article with a good picture of one of the super-sized nests, I thought it might be time to share. Read over at The Montgomery Adviser about giant yellow jacket nests (giant nests, not giant yellow jackets, by the way) which host up to 100,000 yellow jackets. Typically, entomologists say, they see nests of around 3000 yellow jackets. These super nests, as noted above, have up to 100,000 yellow jackets, and have multiple queens in the hive.

MOBILE — To the bafflement of insect experts, gigantic yellow jacket nests have started turning up in old barns, unoccupied houses, cars and underground cavities across the southern two-thirds of Alabama.

. . .

At one site in Barbour County, the nest was as large as a Volkswagen Beetle, said Andy McLean, an Orkin pesticide service manager in Dothan who helped remove it from an abandoned barn about a month ago.

. . .

Entomologist Dr. Charles Ray at the Alabama Cooperative Extension System in Auburn said he’s aware of about 16 of what he described as “super-sized” nests in south Alabama.

Ray said he’s seen 10 of them and cautioned people about going near them because of the yellow jacket’s painful sting.

For the record, I don’t believe I have to be warned to stay away from a nest of yellow jackets that is the size of a car or a barn. I used to work with a guy who said yellow jackets were hornets with a bad attitude and a mean streak. That seems about right. Oh, and while these folks don’t offer guidance on dealing with 100,000 yellow jacket nests, at Do Your Own Pest Control you can get some guidance on ridding yourself of these pests.

[tags]Super-size my yellow jacket nest, 100K yellow jackets in a car[/tags]

Eye candy – freaky chick looking freaky hot

Again, some of these are for my enjoyment.  Feel free to skip by any you don’t like.  For those that didn’t skip, can anyone tell me what this picture is from?  She moved up a couple of notches on my women I most want for things I shouldn’t talk about, at least not as a married man, list after seeing this image.
ricci-freaky.jpg

[tags]Christina Ricci, Eye Candy[/tags]

How it should have ended

I’m sure you’ve thought you could come up with a better ending to a movie sometime.  It turns out that a lot of other folks feel the same way about their skills.  As a result of the work others have done to write up how movies should have ended, we now have The Official How It Should Have Ended web site.  I particularly liked the Star Wars Episode IV rewritten ending, but several of the works on the site are worth checking out.

[tags]How it should have ended, Change the movie ending and show others what you’ve done[/tags]