Everybody knows the popular animation movie Shrek has a large fan-base, but some of those fans go as far as to get married dressed as their favorite characters.

British nurse Christine England and her fiance Keith got married last month, wearing the costumes of Fiona and Shrek. They spent over three hours putting on the costumes and green make-up, but it was worth it, since it was a wedding neither of them will forget.

Christine tried to get her 18 years old son to dress-up like Donkey, but “he wasn’t having any of it”. The 100 guests attending the wedding were also dressed in funky, fairytale costumes.

via Daily Mail

The Germans have done it again. I really thought they were a really serious people, focused only on their work, but it turns out they know how to have fun as well.

After they organized the Ice Swimming Festival in Neuburg, early this year, the Germans strike again with the 2009 Office-Chair Racing Championship. The rather unusual racing competition was held on April 25, in Bad Koening Zell, in western Germany. Competitors raced on a 200-meter-long course, in basic or modded office-chairs.

The Office-Chair Racing Championship was first held in 2008, but it’s already growing in popularity and, who knows, it could become an Olympic sport pretty soon.

Photos by Reuters

83-years-old Bette Calman is living proof that the ancient art of yoga can do wonders on the human body.

Bette Calman has been practicing and teaching yoga for the last 40 years and, although other people her age can hardly move anymore, she can pool of difficult yoga moves that put teenagers to shame. She can execute the “peacock” a difficult position in which the body is held horizontally, using only the power of the arms,  the “bridge”, “lotus” and can stand on her head with unnatural ease.

Asked when she is going to retire, Calman said

‘You’re never too old. The body is a remarkable instrument.

‘It can stretch and stretch, and get better all the time. Forget age’

Ms Bette Calman teaches up to 11 classes every week, in Williamstown, Australia, teaching others the remarkable effects of yoga.

via Daily Mail

photos by Barcroft Media

Are you addicted to chocolate? Do you want to stop eating the sweet treat, but can’t live without its taste? Now you don’t have to, Le Whif lets you taste chocolate without putting-on extra weight.

Harvard professor David Edwards and his students have created the revolutionary inhaling device as a conclusion to our eating habits. Over the years people have started eating in smaller quantities but more frequently, much like breathing.

Sure you will have to live without that wonderful sensation of chocolate melting on your tongue, but that keeps the extra kilograms off your body, I’d say it’s worth a try. Le Whif contains chocolate particles big enough not to reach the lungs, and small enough to have virtually no calories.

Le Whif chocolate inhaler comes in 4 different flavors: raspberry, mint, mango and simple chocolate, and it goes on sale on April 29, at a price of 1.50 English pounds.

Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility Project, or P.U.M.A., is a revolutionary vehicle designed by GM and Segway.

The self-balancing P.U.M.A.  reaches a top-speed of 35 mph and has a lithium batery that makes it run for 35 miles, on a single charge. It also features a vehicle to vehicle (V2V) system said that will prevent many accidents from happening. Like the Segway, P.U.M.A. will basically drive itself, allowing the driver and passenger to enjoy the experience more.

It’s not exactly certain whether P.U.M.A. will ever go into production, but don’t expect to see it on the streets anytime before 2012. I have to admit, coming from GM, this is an impressive vehicle.

via Cnet Asia

Are you worried your PC could be more environment-friendly? You’re right, but don’t worry, thanks to Recompute you don’t have to give up web-surfing.

Recompute is a green concept that means to completely revolutionize the computer industry. Instead of a plastic, aluminum or iron case, Recompute uses a recyclable and renewable case, made out of corrugated cardboard.

Recompute uses only 3 electronic components, a motherboarde with processor and memory, a power-source and a hard-drive. It’s designed to allow the user to take parts like the keyboard or mouse from an old comuter. The electronic parts can be recycled easily, without having to use tools.

via core77

Believe it or not the same Russian Greenpeace activist got busted by the police again, just days after the first incident.

If there’s one think I admire about the poor environmental activist who faced the Russian police a few days back, it’s his persistence. The man actually got released by the police andreturned in front of Moscow’s City Hall, tocontinue his protest to Russia building incineration plants.

Sadly for the Greenpeace guy he wasn’t more successful than the first time. The police came and picked him up again, this time in a smaller car, so they made him take out his trash-can costume to fit. Third time’s a charm maybe?

Known as the toughest competition in the world, the Tough Guy Race asked its question again in 2009, “Are you strong enough?”

More than 5,000 people gathered at the start line of the Tough Guy Race this year, only to face the torture of a 13 km endurance course, designed by a former Grenadier Guardsman named Billy Wilson, in 1986. Competitors had to run and crawl through mud and flames, while dodging smoke bombs, barbed wire and electric charges.

The Tough Guy course is so dangerous the competitors had to sign a disclaimer saying “It’s my own bloody fault for being here”. Accordingto the official site of the Tough Guy Race, there were many broken arms and legs tis year, but luckily no one lost their lives.

This year’s competition looks even worse than Tough Guy Race 2008.

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Japan opens ice hotel, tourists rush to book rooms.

Following the model of norththern-European countries like Sweden, Japan opened an ice hotel in Alpha Resort Tomamu’s ice village, on Hokkaido Island. The living-rooms, bath-rooms and bed-rooms are all made out of ice, and it costs two people 80,000 yen ($696) to spend the night.

Dinner is served on an ice plate while drinks come in ice glasses, so you have to sip them quickly, before they freeze.

Japan’s ice hotel is not for everyone of course, if you can’t handle the cold, you better not pack your bags just yet. Guests sleep dressed appropriately , in layers and thick winter jackets. If you think you can handle freezing cold, the hotel closes on February 15, so hurry up.

The ice hotel of Hokkaido looks good but it still doesn’t come close to Sweden’s ice hotel.

Photo credits: Xinhua/Reuters

The traditional Neuburg Ice Swimming event is considered the biggest swimming event in Europe.

This year over 2,000 brave swimmers from all over Germany gathered in Neuburg an der Donau for the 40th anniversary of the event. Neuburg Ice Swimming 2009 took place on January 31. Europe’s biggest swimming extravaganza featured swimmers desguised as sea-gods, frogs, clowns and other crazy things, and funny messages referring to new US President Barack Obama and the international financial crysis.

As you can see from the photos, Neuburg an der Donau hosted quite a fun event this year.Seems like a breeze compared to the ice swimming in Russia

Photo credits: Johannes Simon (Getty Images)

For some Americans the Super Bowl was not the most important sports even of the past week, the Wing Bowl was.

You gotta love Buffalo wings, they’re delicious, but would you get up at 5 in the morning to eat as man as you can?That’s what the contestants of Wing Bowl 2009 had to do in order to win the 17the edition of the event, on January 30.

23-year-old first-timer Jonathan Squibb managed to eat his way through 203 delicious chicken wings, 23 more than the runer-up. Squibb‘s prizes were a brand new Mini Cooper and a very good meal, of course. he said he’ll be back next year to defend his title.

Wing Bowl 2009 took place at the Wachovia Center, in Philadelphia, a town that is said came up with this competition 17 years ago because the locals were getting tired of their sports teams never winning competitions.

I’d enter Wing Bowl over The Big Eat any day.

Image Credits: William Thomas Cain (Getty Images)

55 Mexican cooks worked hard to create the world’s largest cheesecake.

The giant cheesake was presented to the world on january 25, in Mexico City. It took the 55 cooks 60 hours to make, using almost a whole ton of cream cheese, nearly a ton of yogurt, 350 kg of pastry, 250 kg of sugar and 50 kg of butter. The final result was a 2 ton calorie bomb.

This was the first cheesecake record aknowledged by the Guinness Book of Records, so there wasn’t any competition. The  world’s largest cheesecake was sliced into pieces and given to over 20,000 people throughout Mexico City.

Photo credits: Luis Acosta/AFP/Getty Images

For the first time ever, a polar bear has been spotted floating on a small iceberg, in London.

It’s not ever day you see a polar bear floating on the river Thames, let alone one that is 100% recyclable. To celebrate the opening of Eden, a new natural history television channel, a sculpture of a stranded polar bear and his cub was comissioned and set afloat in Greenwich, southeast London.

The whole point of Eden‘s 16-foot-sculpture was to attract attention on a burning environemental issue, the melting of the polar bear‘s habitat. If extreme measures are not taken, the largest land predator on Earth could become extinct.

The recyclable polar bear was launched on the Thames on January 26, at 6:30 in the morning, and traveled for 7.5 miles before stopping beside Tower Bridge for a photo shoot.

via Planetsave.com

More like a beach full of timber but there are some planks in the sea as well.

Two weekends ago, the Sussex shoreline was covered by nothing but wet timber from the sunken Greek vessel, Ice Prince. The ship sunk  26 milles off Portland Bill, but most of the 2,000 tons of timber it was carrying was washed on Sussex coast-line.

Authorities warned locals not to remove any of the planks from the beaches, as they risked a fine of up to 2,500 pounds. Despite the warning many British came with whatever vehicles they had, to load-up some waterlogged wooden planks. One thief was caught as he was loading his hatchback Mazda.

Didn’t know Russia builds super-cars? That’s alright, they didn’t, until now.

Marussia is the invention of Russian GT driver Nikolai Fomenko and it has become the first Grand Turismo car built in Russia. That’s not the most important thing about Marussia, since most of the parts come from abroad, but the fact that you can change its body as easy as replacing a mobile phone’s facet.

The steel frame that holds the 3,5 litre engine and all the other important parts is the core of the Marussia, while the ultra-light plastic body can be easily changed by the owner.

Marussia is a true GT racer, producing 300 horse-power and accelerating from 0 to 100 km. per hour in just 4.2 seconds.