As Japan has fewer and fewer children, toy companies there have discovered an alternative market: adults who are nostalgic for their childhood toys (in this case: a very geek-chic belt!)
Major toymaker Bandai recently launched adult-size reproductions of an action hero belt worn on the 1970s megahit Kamen Rider ("Masked Rider") TV series.The new belt sells for about 30,000 yen, the equivalent of $270.
Kawauchi said it would give hard-working middle-aged men an opportunity to spend money on themselves by buying the leather belt, which flashes with LED lights.
As the former boys have acquired not only purchasing power but also girth, the belt stretches 44 inches, about double the size of the children’s version that first came out in 1971.Bandai sold a staggering 3.8 million of the original Kamen Rider belts, letting a generation of Japanese boys shout out "Transform!" and spin their arms around to become cyborg heroes with blinking belts.
If you have been living under a rock and don’t know what cthulhu is, maybe you should start here: Wikipedia’s entry on HP Lovecraft and Cthulhu Mythos, then read his work here: Link
Authorities said that Sarah and Kris Everson faked having a sextuplet as a hoax to tap the generosity of others to pay their bills!
Those who heard the Eversons’ sad story of tight finances set up a Web site to solicit contributions — including a van, washer and dryer, cash and gift certificates. A real estate agent was even working to find the family new housing.
Hours before admitting it was a scam, Sarah Everson showed an Associated Press reporter pictures of her in maternity clothes, her baring a huge pregnant-looking midsection, even sonogram images she claimed were of her infants. She showed off a tiny nursery, a closet full of baby clothes and the tiny diapers premature newborns must wear.
She said the entire story of her children’s births was being kept secret by a court order enacted because a member of her husband’s family was trying to kill the Eversons and their new sextuplets.
America’s Overvalued Real Estate Blog’s entries are each "a nasty overpriced wreck". This one is titled Garden Shed:
Occasionally, nasty overpriced wrecks are described as "garden sheds". However, this particularly disgraceful Seattle listing might actually have started its life as a storage facility for horticultural implements. …
And who can blame the current owner of this garden shed. Just install two windows, a door and some inside partition walls, and quicker than you can call a local realtor and say "reasonably priced starter home", he has a $375k property on the market. That is the sad reality when a city suffers from a bubble; sheds become houses, crack houses become single family homes, and beach huts become seaside mansions.
Many more overvalued properties listed! Link (Thanks Dave Birt!)
Yves Brun and colleagues from Indiana University discovered that the world’s strongest glue is produced by the bacterium Caulobacter crescentus to stick to river rocks.
The adhesive can withstand an enormous amount of stress, equal to the force felt by a quarter with more than three cars piled on top of it. That’s two to three times more force than the best retail glues can handle.
"There are obvious applications since this adhesive works on wet surfaces," said study leader Yves Brun, an Indiana University bacteriologist. "One possibility would be as a biodegradable surgical adhesive."
But making it has proved challenging. Like a mess of chewing gum, the gunk globs to everything, including the tools used to create it.
A new FBI-style crime-fighting agency called the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) has been launched in the UK, complete with a logo designed to scare the living daylights out of criminals:
The Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) has chosen a fierce big cat bearing its fangs and leaping over a stylised silver globe, with a crown capping it all.
It’s bold but bears a striking resemblance to the logo of the 1980s children’s cartoon series Thundercats. So was the comparison to the show – which featured humanoid cats battling evil mutants in the Earth’s distant future – intentional? Soca declined to comment.
Former Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, D-Los Angeles, left, kicks Zhang Xiao Ju betweent the legs during a demonstration performed by Buddist monks at the Capitol in Sacramento. In their first visit to the United States, a group of Shaolin martial artists from SongShan, China, on Monday demonstrated acrobatic flips and shows of strength. With the monks urging him on, Wesson made several kicks to the monk, who showed no emotion.
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