21-year-old Lisa Courtney, from Welwyn Garden City, UK, has the world’s biggest Pokemon collection in the world, according to the newest edition of Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition.

Lisa received her title in June 2009, when her collection numbered 12,113 different Pokemon items. Now the passionate collector says she owns over 13,400 items. Since new Pokemon stuff comes out in Japan almost daily, Lisa says she won’t stop collecting any time soon.

She’s been to japan five times already and is planning a new shopping trip. Lisa Courtney started collecting Pokemon memorabilia 13 years ago, when her mother gave her a Nintendo magazine featuring the popular animated characters. She fell in love with Pokemon and hasn’t gotten over it since.

During her troubled adolescence, when schoolmates bullied her, laughed at her physical disabilities and even called her names like “Elephant Man”, Lisa turned to her beloved Pokemon collection, for comfort. Her entire family understood her passion and were very supportive, especially with the giant Pokemon collection taking up most of the house.

Lisa Courtney says holding a record for something she feels so passionate about is an indescribable feeling.

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24-year-old Ruslan Moukanov managed to prove it’s not all about the money when you want to drive the car of your dreams.

For the young Kazakh, the exclusive Rolls Royce Phantom seemed like an unreachable dream, when he first saw some photos of it, years ago, in the local library. Since raising 500,000 euros was out of the question, Ruslan had to come up with another way of getting the car of his dreams.

Using only his auto-tuning skills, this Rolls Royce fan managed to give his old Mercedes Benz a total make-over and turn into a perfect replica of the Phantom. It might not drive like one and the materials used might be “a little” cheaper, but for the ,3000 euros Ruslan spent, it doesn’t get much better than this. Congrats!

via AutoRoyalty

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Stop! Don’t even think about screaming “Photoshopped!” because Mike Libby’s Insect Lab is 100% real. And so are his incredible Steampunk insects.

Mike began his unusual project on a day like any other, when he found an intact dead beetle. Thinking about how the little bug functioned as a mechanical device, he remembered he had also found an old wristwatch and decided to combine the two. After dissecting the beetle and mounting the mechanical parts, he realized he quite liked his new craft and decided to stick to it.

Now Mike Libby creates all kinds of Steampunk insects, from scorpions to ordinary beetles and dragonflies. He only works with non-endangered species from all around the world, fitting them with mechanisms from antique watches as well as old typewriter and sewing-machine parts.

Check out Mike Libby’s Insect Lab and feel free to email him if you want to purchase any of his Steampunk wonders or place a special order.

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I’m a big Merc fan myself, and the SL600 is definitely on my “to get list”, but this Swarovski-covered neck-twister is not my style.

But, apparently, most Mercedes fans are crazy about Swarovski crystals and it was once again proven at the 2010 Tokyo Auto Salon, where the sparkling SL600, covered with 300,000 Swarovski crystals, stole the show.

Created by Garson/D.A.D, a popular car accessory company, the two Sworovski SL600 made their second appearance at the annual auto show in Tokyo, after they were first introduced last year. They were still the stars of the show, though.

via AsiaOne

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The Suzuki Hayabusa motorcycle is cool enough just the way it comes out the factory doors, but the guys at PitStopMotorsport took it one step further.

All you Predator fans out there, hold on to your jaws, because it’s about to hit the ground. PitStopMotorsport specializes in tuning and modding bikes and the Predator Bike is definitely one of their best works yet. And the best thing about is the awesome bike is totally street-legal.

via Zuzutop

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One of the most popular tourist destinations in Switzerland, the open air Ice-Palace features an impressive collection of castles, towers and grottoes made of ice.

The Ice Palace (Eispaläste) is located in the middle of a forest, near Black Lake, in western Switzerland. Designed by Karl Neuhaus, a talented ice sculptor, the Ice Palace celebrates its 23rd exhibition. The cold climate in the Freibourg area can only sustain this frozen masterpiece for around three months, from Christmas until early March.

The best time to visit the Swiss Ice Palace is after sundown, when all the structures and sculptures are illuminated with colorful lights. It’s a truly memorable sights that attracts thousands of tourists every year.

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If you ask me, it looks more like lave gushing out of the Earth, but if the artist says it’s fire, I’m sure not going to argue.

Cole Blaq proved his LEGO mastery by creating what many thought impossible, flames out of LEGO bricks. Using light gradient in the center and red on the edges of his creation, and an overhead lamp for the glow, Cole managed to get the desired fiery effect, without any light sources inside the LEGO sculpture.

What’s even more awesome is that if you look carefully you can see the artist’s name (COLE) engulfed by flames. Pretty cool.

via Brothers Brick

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British artist Adam Sheldon recreated Jesus’ crucifixion using some pieces of burned toast and a scraping knife. His work of art is now on display at the Anglican Church of St Peter, in Lincs.

33-year-old Adam Sheldon took on the project at the request of his mother, who worships at St. Peter’s Church. Before starting work on his 1.8 ,meters long, 1.1 meters wide masterpiece, Adam scraped the Last Supper on three pieces of toast, to perfect his technique.

He used a regular toaster to burn the pieces of bread, then dried and flattened them so they would fit in a giant frame. Using a scraping knife he managed to create the lighter parts of the artwork, and darkened the background with a blowtorch.

At first, the reverend and parishioners were stunned by Sheldon’s creation, because they didn’t expect something this…original, but now they’re thrilled to have such art on the walls of their church. The artwork was so skillfully scraped, some believed it was actually painted on tiles, before realizing the tiles are really pieces of bread.

The toast crucifixion of Jesus will be on display at the Anglican Church of Saint Peter until January 30, if the rats don’t get to it by then.

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Every year on January 17,the people of San Bartolome de Pinares celebrate St. Anthony by riding their horses, donkeys and mules through piles of burning tree branches.

The unique tradition of leaping over and through flames dates back 500 years, but the men and women of San Bartolome de Pinares still celebrate it religiously. They gather all the branches they find in the days leading up to the festivities, and when dusk falls on the eve of Saint Anthony’s, they light them ablaze. Riders lead their mounts through the burning piles of the village, accompanied by sounds of drums and Spanish bagpipes.

Jumping through the flames is said to bring the animals the protection of St. Anthony Abad, acknowledged as the patron of domestic animals, ever since the Middle-Ages. Locals believe the fire purifies their animals and protects them against illnesses, all year long.

Animal rights activists don’t buy the whole purification deal, but in a country like Spain, where traditions like bullfighting, Shearing of the Beasts or Day of the Geese, they don’t have too many hopes of putting an end to it. Plus, the owners say their animals remain unharmed…

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You know the trouble with wedding dresses? You can’t really do anything with them after the wedding. But artist Lukka Sigurdardottir has come-up with a solution.

Since you can’t wear your wedding-dress again, you might as well eat it, right? Lukka Sigurdardottir dress is made of cake. Checkered-cake that is, covered by a delicious frosting. Oh, an even better idea just came to me. How about you use this as a wedding cake as well, huh? Now we’re talking serious savings and in tough financial times like these, you can never save enough.

via gatherandnest

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The folk art of Temari Balls began in China, but it was introduced in Japan roughly 600 years ago, where it flourished and evolved into a true art-form.

Legend has it, the first Japanese Temari Balls were made from old kimono threads, by mothers who wanted to make their kids something to play with. Silk strings would be wadded up to for a ball that would be wrapped in layers of string. In time, Temari makers started making intricate patterns and Temari slowly turned from a toy into a form of artistic expression.

Traditionally, Temari balls are given to children on New Year’s Eve, by their mothers. Inside the balls, women would put a small piece of paper with a written wish for the child. Since the kid could never find out what the wish was without him destroying the toy, the wish had a greater chance of coming true.

Also known as “gotenmari”, some Temari Balls have a variety of noise-makers inside, to make them more fun. They can be used in handball games and it is said the old Temari Balls were so tightly wrapped, they would bounce.

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Make the entire world your disco. I bet that’s what French artist Michel de Broin thought to himself when he decided to create the world’s largest disco-ball.

It might sound like a crazy idea, but Michael de Broin actually did it. Using a 7.5 meter disco-ball, featuring 1,000 mirror pieces, the artist managed to light up Paris on a winter night. He did so by hanging the giant disco-ball 50 meters up, using a giant crane, and projecting light onto it.

The ball was hung up in the Jardin de Luxumburg and the light effects that covered Paris were more than worth the effort of bulding the whole installation. plus now Michel de Broin could enter the record books for the World’s Largest Disco-Ball.

via Lifelounge

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Located inside the Olympic Stadium, in Beijing, the World Chocolate Dream Park is an Asian version of Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, in real life.

Announced last year, as a way of pleasing the increasing number of Chinese chocoholics, the World Chocolate Dream Park is finally open to the public. As promised, the chocolate theme-park features a number of China’s historical and cultural symbols, including a 12-meter-long  chocolate replica of the Great Wall, an army of 560 terracotta soldiers of Emperor Qingshihuang made of chocolate, and a traditional Chinese painting of Panorama Along the Upper River During the Qingming Festival, in original size.

The chocolate terracotta army was announced as life-size, back in 2009, but the miniatures aren’t too shabby. According to a Chinese official, many European chocolate makers wanted in on the project, considering it’s a great way to advertise chocolate to a huge market that’s just discovering it.

Photos via Xinhua

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In an attempt to undermine Kim Jong Il’s authority in North Korea, members of  South Korean nongovernmental organizations constantly send balloons filled with leaflets into North Korea.

On January 10, 2010 activists for the freedom of North Korea and the unification of the peninsula, from Paju, 51 km north of Seoul, sent two helium-inflated balloons into North Korea. They attached bags of leaflets and sweets to them, hoping to convince their northern neighbors to rise against Kim Jong Il’s dictatorship.

This practice has been going on for the last two years and North Korea has repeatedly asked Southern authorities to punish organizations who send the balloons and undermine the country’s regime. In spite of nuclear-war hints from its northern neighbor, South Korea hasn’t taken any measures against the activists.

The constant nuclear threat, reports of serious human rights violations and the existence of political prisoner camps in North Korea, make the signing of a peace treaty between the two countries virtually impossible.

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Ukrainian artist Oksana Mas has created an unusual mosaic portrait of the Virgin Mary, using 15,000 painted Easter Eggs.

Unveiled yesterday, inside the gorgeous Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, the giant mosaic weighs 2.5 tons and is made out of 15,000 wooden Easter Eggs. Oksana Mas started working on her masterpiece nine months ago, painting the eggs all by herself, but later children from all across the country got involved and helped out with the painting.

The Easter-egg portrait of the Virgin Mary, by Oksana Mas, measures 7×7 meters.

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