Playing in the mud, every child’s dream and every mother’s nightmare came true this year in Westland, Michigan during the Mud Day celebrations.

200 tons of topsoil, 20,000 gallons of water and over 1000 children under 12 years old, now this is what I call chaos. Mud Day is the only day of the year when playing in mud is not only allowed but encouraged. Sponsored by Westland Country Parks and Recreation, Mud Day 2008 had several events like a wheelbarrow race through the mud or the crowning of Mister Mud 2008 as well as free activities like kids covering each-other in mud and just wearing mud on their heads.

So remember, next year, if you have a kid under 12 and want to reward him with an entire day of frolicking in the mud, head over to Westland on July 8 for Mud Day.

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Very popular in childhood cartoons, flying with party balloons never really seemed possible in real life.

Kent Couch, a petrol-station owner from Bend, Oregon fulfilled his childhood dream of lifting up to the sky with a little help from a hand-full of balloons. Fine, so they were like 150 party balloons tied to a garden chair, but the fact that he managed to fly for more than235 miles in about nine hours is quite the accomplishment.

His party-balloon flight won him a place in the Guinness Book of Records and helped him become a sort of local celebrity. Couch first tried to reach Idaho last year, but he only covered 193 miles before running dangerously low on helium and having to land his unusual flying machine, but this time he made the proper modifications and succeeded.

Kent Couch left Bend on July 5th carrying a BB-gun and a blowgun to pop balloons if he went to high-up and a few 15-gallon barrels of cherry-flavored Kool-Aid as ballast, to release if he got too low. That’s how he managed to land his balloon carried garden chair, he popped balloons until he touched the ground.

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One of the world’s most fascinating legends is Jason and the Argonaut’s journey for the Golden Fleece. Now there are those who want to retake the unbelievable journey in an identical wooden ship.

A replica of the Argo has been built according to the known designs for warships in the Mycenaean era, equipped with a ram used to break the hull of enemy ships. The ship will carry 50 oarsmen with another 22 standing by on a ship sailing behind the Argo. The modern argonauts will spend 2 months at sea, sailing 2000 nautical miles (3700 km), but unfortunately won’t be able to follow the journey of the original Greek heroes. Turkey has refused to guarantee safe passage for the 28.5 meters long ship through the Bosporus Strait, so the adventurers won’t be able to reach the city of Colchis, in modern Georgia. It will however retrace part of the argonauts return voyage.

Argo and the 50 argonauts left on June 13 and will reach their destination on August 11.

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Run for your lives criminals, the Segway-riding Chinese Special Forces are here!

As the price of gas surges every day, people are trying to come up with alternatives and for the Chinese military, one of them is the Segway. During an exercise that took place in Jinan, China, the giro-engine-powered vehicles were used to fight of criminals. I was surprised when I saw the photos, I even thought it was silly, but then I did some research and found out that policemen in several US cities use Segways instead of police cars and they are pretty happy with them. It makes sense if you think about it, Segways are a lot smaller,they fit through tight spaces and they reach speeds of up to 12 miles per hour.

So i for one won’t be surprised if I start seeing Segway-riding policemen on the streets of my city in a few years.

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Conceived by Korean designer Won-Seok-Lee, the “B-membrane” is one of the most interesting PC prototypes I’ve ever seen.

The B-membrane looks nothing like a conventional computer, more like a spaceship or space station, but it is indeed a PC, able to project an image of your desktop on any surface you can point its omni-directional projector at, thus rendering even the slimmest LCD monitor useless. It also has a membrane keyboard and mouse that appear only when you need them too, and an optical drive.

The B-membrane isn’t useless even when it is shut-down, its smart projector turns it into an ambient light-effects system to spice up the look of your crib.

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One think I’ve never done is eat in the toilet, well it seems many people would love to do that and pay for it.

A new Toilet Restaurant has opened in Hangzhou, China as a result of the impact the first Toilet Restaurant, from Taipei, Taiwan had on the public. Now, the company is thinking of opening a whole network of Toilet Restaurants across the world and I’m pretty sure they are going to be successful.

Toilet Dining concept is about sitting on a toilet seat, serving your food from a toilet bowl or a bidet and wiping your mouth with toilet paper-looking napkins, practically everything you see around you has nothing to do with a real restaurant or kitchen, it’s all toilet-wear.

I wouldn’t try it, I’m sure my appetite wouldn’t be the same in that place, but tourists love this stuff, so Toilet Restaurant is a sure hit.

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This man was stuck for two hours in a small hole in the pavement in the city of Swansea.

Would you go down a hole in the sidewalk to retrieve a lighter you dropped in? I know I wouldn’t, screw it, I’d buy a knew one. Well not this brave man, he must have loved his lighter because he went feet-first into the whole just to get it back. Before he even realized it he was in the whole down to his armpits and couldn’t move.

That’s when the show began, passers-by started to laugh at the unfortunate young man, some even tried to help him out but they almost pulled his arms out of their sockets and his body didn’t move an inch. The man was a little tipsy and you can see from the photos he wasn’t very upset with the whole situation. Witnesses say he spent some time at a pub before his daring act (that explains a lot) but no one can figure out how he got into that hole, it was only 40 cm in diameter.

After two hours of being laughed at by passers-by and shoppers, this dare-devil was saved by the firemen of the Swansea city center.

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I’ve heard of a seal as a pet, but a Lama, that’s something you don’t see every day. Sock is white Lama living in Muellheim an der Ruhr, a town in western Germany. She has been living in an apartment with Nicole Doepper for three years now, ever since one of her back legs had to be amputated. Nicole takes Sock the Lama everywhere with her but she hopes at one point she will get the Lama used to the wildlife. So far however, all attempts have failed, perhaps Sock just loves the comfort of the indoors too much.

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One of the wackiest competitions on Earth and also one of the funniest.

This year’s World’s Ugliest Dog competition was held at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma. Twelve dogs battled for the title of world’s ugliest dog, and in the end only Gus came out on top. Winers are selected from two classes, the Pedigree class and the Mutt class. Gus won the Pedigrees class and went on to beat Reggie who had won the Mutt class. After winning the competition Gus had to meet the Ring of Champions which included winners from the previous year.

Gus is a Chinese Crested, suffering from skin cancer, he only has three legs (one was amputated due to the skin tumor) and one eye (he lost the other in a battle with a tomcat) and no hair. He was adopted by a Jeanenne Teed and her daughter Janey after they had heard he was being kept in a crate in somebody’s garage.

For winning the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest, Gus got $1,600 ,which the owners say will go to his radiation treatment.

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Although this is definitely one of the most original things I’ve seen lately, I don’t think I’ll be having a drink there.

The Ukrainian town of Truskavets, famous for its mineral springs, has just added another major attraction on its menu for tourists. A giant coffin, 20 meters long, six meters wide and 6 meters tall has been built by a group of undertakers and will serve as a bar. Named Eternity by its founders, the coffin bar will serve “Nine Days” and “Forty Days” salads to its customers on normal size coffins that will serve as tables. As you can see in the photos, the bar uses funeral flower arrangements and real coffins as decorations and according to one of the undertakers, the waitresses will be dressed to match the theme.

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The city of Schiedam was and remains to this day, the poorest city in the Netherlands and the Yellow Brick Road, that connects the center of the city to the new train station, is not only meant to make the city more beautiful, but also to symbolize the road to prosperity and success. Yellow Brick Road also has a shine that resembles that of gold.

Sure she does not have ebony-black hair and she doesn’t have 7 dwarfs pampering her, but hey this is real life. The young lady in the photos is Nicola Roberts, member of the popular British pop group, Girls Aloud. Here she is with fellow band member Kimberley Walsh during their vacation in L.A. Somebody needs a tan!

Officials have decided! According to a report, Indonesian commuters riding on the roofs of trains will be sprayed with colored liquid so that security officers can identify and arrest them.

Rush hours are the most stressful. Electric trains that link Indonesian capital to the towns nearby are full of passengers during rush hours, with many sitting on the roofs due to a lack of space inside or to avoid paying.

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