By Spooky onMay 26th, 2009 Category: Foods, Pics, WTF
Fried insects are considered delicacies in many cultures, but ant sauce? That’s something new.
During the April-June season, thousands of Colombian farmers collect giant ants, named ulonas, cook them and sell them as a traditional exotic dish. The ants are roasted in big bowls, bagged and shipped to stores around the country.
Some people eat the roasted ants, known as Culonas, as snacks, while others use them to make a special sauce that goes great with potato chips. To me, this looks almost as “tasty” as the Chinese fried insects menu.
Balancing on a wire is a tough job for a human, let alone for a goat. Still, the animal trainers at a Chinese circus managed to teach this goat how to keep its balance while having a small monkey perform stunts on its head.
The longest motorcycle in the world can be found in Russia.
It was built back in December of 2005, by Oleg Rogov, and acknowledged as the world’s longest bike by the Guinness Book of Records. This super-bike can fit 16 people, but the question that has been on everyone’s mind ever since it was first announced, was: can you ride it? It’s hard to believe 16 heavy bikers could move using the world’s longest motorcycle.
After the Buddha-phone, the Chinese deliver another cool gadget, the Spider-phone.
Available in red and black, the TV98+ Spider-phone features a 2 megapixels camera, rotating display, dual SIM slots and a microSD slot. It supports/800/900/1800/1900 networks and is priced at around $152. The phone is covered with spider-webs and features the star of the latest Spider-man movies, Tobey Maguire, on the box.
Unfortunately, you won’t find the Spider-phone in stores outside of China and Hong-Kong anytime soon.
By Spooky onFebruary 6th, 2009 Category: Auto, Pics
Are you sad because you can’t afford to buy that Harley-Davidson chopper you’ve always dreamed of? That’s ok, the economic crysis hit us all hard, but don’t worry you can build a fine chopper yourself, like this guy did.
This Chinese dude proves to us all that if you want something really bad you can achieve it. He wanted a motorcycle, but he didn’t have the cash for a new one, so he built it from junk. It may not be the best-looking chopper you’ve ever seen, but it works, and that’s all that matters to this guy.
By Spooky onJanuary 19th, 2009 Category: News, Tech
After the disaster caused by the huge earthquake in May 2008, China is looking for safer schools for its children.
And a possible solution is the temporary schools proposed by Japanese architect, Shigeru Ban. After the terrible earthquake that hit China and caused over 69,000 casualties, Ban brought his ingenious idea to the attention of the authorities, who approved the project. He and a team of Chinese students started building safe schools out of cardboard pillars, plywood roofs and polycarbonate as insulation.
The cardboard and plywood schools are temporary, but in case of an earthquake, should the structures collapse, the materials are nowhere near heavy enough to cause serious injury. The materials used are fireproof and waterproof. Shigeru Ban hopes soon he will be able to build multi-storied buildings out of cardboard.
By Spooky onJanuary 15th, 2009 Category: Animals, Pics
Silkworms are extraordinary creatures that play a huge economic role in the world of man.
If you didn’t know the silkworm is the only completely domesticated insect in the world, which means it can not survive naturally in the wild.They are bread for their precious cocoon, that is processed into the precious material we know as silk.
Silkworms are only fed mulberry tree leaves, on which they nibble non-stop, day and night. This causes them to grow incredibly fast and start creating their precious cocoon. That is made out of a continuous silk thread between 300m and 900 m long.
Koreans appreciate the silkworm as a delicacy as they are a great source of protein and after they die they become infected with Beauveria bassiana fungus, which is used in Chinese traditional medicine.
How far would you go to show how much you like a sports competition? I bet you wouldn’t go nearly as far as this dude, who tattooed his forehead with the 2008 Beijing Olympics logo and most of his body with the Olympic mascots, the Chinese Wall and other Chinese stuff. Now that’s a real Olympics fan if I ever saw one.
By Spooky onJanuary 5th, 2009 Category: Art, Travel
The artists that gather every year, in the Chinese city of Harbin, to create icy masterpieces, have really outdone themselves in 2008. For the 25th edition of the Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpting Festival, over 2,000 ice sculputures were revealed to the audience, spread-out over a surface of over 400 square meters.
Over 140 thousand cubic meters of ice and over 100 cubic meters of snow were used to create the freezing works of art.
By Spooky onOctober 25th, 2008 Category: Events, News
A Chinese balance-beam artist attempted a new world record for balancing on a wire 700 meters into the air with no safety measures. Unfortunately things didn’t go exactly as planned and one false step almost ended his career and his life. Fortunately he was quick enough to grab on to the wire he was balancing on.
Though he couldn’t control his emotions and started acting all hysterical, he managed to hold-on until the cavalry showed up and got him down safely. I bet he won’t be trying to break any records in the near future.
By Spooky onOctober 9th, 2008 Category: Auto, Pics
One of the coolest motorcycles I’ve ever seen and a true competitor for the Tomahawk bike.
The Cat1 Uber-bike is the creation of artist Byron Hemmes. It is known as the Jaguar Concept Motorcycle, one of the many bike concepts based on popular car and motorcycle logos by Massow Concept Cycles. The Cat1 is the first one that was actually constructed and what a beauty it turned out to be.
The Jaguar Concept Bike is powered by a 1200cc Buell 97 S3 Thunderbolt engine, its body is build out of high-quality stainless steel and the leaping jaguar on which the rider sits has been covered in high-end ebony lacquer. Jaguar is planning to use this powerful bike in a new, radical brand-awareness campaign.
This one-of-a-kind Cat1 Uber-bike has been priced at $567,000. You can find its official specs below:
• Length: 2.3 meters • Wheel center to center: 1.7 meters • 1200cc Buell 97 S3 Thunderbolt engine • Body made from high-grade stainless steel • Air intakes and exhaust system custom-engineered to suit cat profile • Cat fairing: Fiberglass finished in ultra-high-gloss ebony polyurethane lacquer • Handlebar width: 1 meter • Weight: 360 kg • Seat: Stingray
I always knew being a professional athlete meant making serious sacrifices and that gymnasts don’t really have a childhood, but this like modern day torture to me. It’s nice to compete and win a title for your country but I have to wonder if it’s worth going through all this… As a parent I couldn’t let my kids go through anything like this, no matter how much I wanted them to be successful in sports, it’s just too much.
By Spooky onAugust 13th, 2008 Category: Foods, News
The Chinese have done a great job so far as hosts of this year’s Olympic games and they deserve to be praised. But the food they offer foreign tourists…now that’s a whole other story. I love traveling and one of the things I love to do most when I visit a foreign land is try out the local menu.
I’m not picky when it comes to food but just looking at those scorpions on a stick kills my appetite. I hear roaches and other insects are very nutritious and I’d probably eat them if my life depended on it, but actually paying for them…never.
A team of LEGO and sports enthusiasts presented a LEGO model of some of the buildings built by the Chinese for the 2008 Olympic Games. The model was presented in Hong Kong and includes small scale replicas of buildings such as Bird’s Nest stadium, Water Cube swimming center and the Olympic Village.
The LEGO Beijing Olympics were created by members of the Hong Kong LEGO users group and took more than 100 hours to complete. Great effort, the model looks amazing.
