Fed up with horrible train service (it only runs once a week and at speed not much more than walking pace!), Cambodians have created their own rail service using trains made from bamboo:

A tiny electric generator engine provides the power, and the passenger accommodation is a bamboo platform that rests on top of two sets of wheels. A dried-grass mat to sit on counts as a luxury.

It would be a white-knuckle ride – if there were actually anything to hold on to.

The bamboo trains reach about 40km/h (25mph), with the track just a couple of inches below the passengers. Warped and broken rails make for a bone-shaking journey.

But the drivers insist it is a safe form of transport.

"We’re very careful," said 18-year-old Sok Kimhor, a 10-year veteran of the bamboo trains. "We look out for children and animals running across the lines, and we have to slow down when other trains come along."

Link – via Fortrean Times

If you think you’re having a bad day, at least a piece of your skull hasn’t fallen off like Sambhu Roy’s:

Doctors say a large, dead section of 25-year-old electrician Sambhu Roy’s skull came away Sunday after severe burns starved it of blood.

"When he came to us late last year, his scalp was completely burned and within months it came off exposing the skull," Ratan Lal Bandyopadhyay, the surgeon who treated Roy told Reuters Wednesday.

"Later, we noticed that the part of his skull was loosening due to lack of blood supply to the affected area, which can happen in such extensive burn cases."

The piece came off Sunday and hundreds of people and dozens of doctors now crowd around his bed, where he lies holding the bone.

Link – via starspirit

Update 7/5/05: BBC news article has more photos: Link – Thanks LanceR!

Michael Khor of Victoria, Australia, turned an ancient 26" wooden TV set into this gorgeous aquarium.

Link – via J-Walk Blog

Hoopeston, Illinois, a small midwestern town known as the Sweet Corn Capital of the World got its first witch school:

It’s a humble beginning, Hubbard says. The school is adorned with a "Witch School" sign and has maintained a quiet presence since moving to Hoopeston in 2003. He says that with an estimated 30 new students to 50 new students registering on the Web site every day, the "cyberministry" is rapidly growing.

The town’s residents weren’t amused:

When Hubbard first announced plans to house Witch School in Hoopeston, population 6,000, it caused an uproar among some residents, who feared the school would bring notoriety to the central Illinois town.

In 2003 as he finalized plans to move from Chicago to Hoopeston, residents of the town and its surrounding areas mobilized, signing petitions in opposition to the school and lobbying the City Council to try to stop it.

But the Witch School perservered:

When Witch School finally opens its doors to the public on July 1, Hubbard says he won’t expect a flood of visitors, though he feels it will be a step toward acceptance as Wiccans in Hoopeston.

"Three years ago the question was did we have a right to be here," he said. "Now it’s can we be successful."

Religion News Blog article | AOL News

14-year-old Swiss teen and naval enthusiast Aron Kreier spent 4 years to build his own pedal-powered submarine made from parts of a pig trough.

Link to photo [article in German], News Article – via Fortrean Times

Why settle for a boring computer mouse when you can surft in style with Road Mice, a cool wireless computer mouse that looks just like the car of your dreams?

Road Mice is available in various Chevy, Chrysler, Dodge, and Ford models including the popular Dodge Viper shown to the left.

It's the perfect gift for the auto-enthusiast in your life!

Jinnai Tomonori can make anything funny – even Tetris. It’s probably funnier in Japanese, but you won’t need a translation to figure out what’s going on …

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Unique Daily

SuperMegaMau made his own PC case from wood for just 22.4 euros.

The final result without components in it weighs about 6.6Kg (2.2 lb). There’s no reason to buy cases The final price was 22.4 euros, I Doubt there are many cases cheaper than this one in the market. The varnish cans were practically new… They’re good for some 30 more cases like this one … lol

Any one can build one of these, considering that this was my first wood construction…

Link – via digg

If you haven’t seen it before, check out Neatorama’s Ultimate Case Mod page.

Mouse Hitched a Ride on Toad. Torrential monsoon rains and lightning storms hit northern India hard. This mouse was caught in a flood, until he jumped on the back of some toad who gave him a ride… From the website:

There’s nothing like a friend to help you out when times are tough… And this mouse found himself an unlikely ally when floodwaters devastated parts of northern India.

He hitched a ride to safety on the back of a friendly frog which ferried him back to the bank when the mouse was swept into a swollen river near Lucknow, the state capital of Uttar Pradesh.

Link

When the Barbados coastguard boarded a white ghost ship that washed up the shores of the island, they made a gruesome find: 11 petrified corpses of young men, huddled in piles in the small cabin. They also find a mysterious note:

"I would like to send to my family in Bassada [a town in the interior of Senegal] a sum of money. Please excuse me and goodbye. This is the end of my life in this big Moroccan sea," the note said, according to a Barbados paper, the Daily Nation. Relatives of those aboard have been contacting the Barbadian authorities from as far afield as Senegal, Spain and Portugal. They have added pieces to the puzzle – based on telephone calls with relatives before they boarded, and with people who stayed in contact with the boat during the first stage of the voyage.

Read the full story: Link – via grow-a-brain

Last month, 4-year old Matthew Burgos won Little Mister Apricot pageant title in Stanislaus County. Then he did something that caused him to be unceremoniously stripped of the title by the Apricot Board (yes, apparently there is such a thing).

Matthew’s crime? After he was crowned, he flipped off the crowd …

At Mil’s Cafe, now all the talk is what happened next, when Matthew was unceremoniously relieved of his crown. The reason – the unfortunate flip of the finger.

Matthew’s mom understands why the apricot board took Matthew’s title, but wishes some townsfolk would just get over it.

“I think it is ridiculous, I mean he’s four years old,” she says.

CBS 13 asked the Patterson Apricot Fiesta Board to comment, they would not, except to confirm the story. First runner-up Michael Montiel will now assume the role of Little Mr. Apricot. Matthew doesn’t even know he’s been stripped of the title. His mom and dad say he likely wouldn’t understand, anyway.

Link – via Dlisted

BuckyBalls Magnetic Toys are 216 rare earth magnet balls that can be shaped and molded into virtually any shape.

Tear 'em apart and snap 'em back together in unlimited ways for hours of fun! Watch the video for a quick demo of what BuckyBalls can do.

Remember to get two for twice the fun! Link

Linda Walker woke up from a stroke to find that her brain changed her Newcastle accent into something else:

The 60-year-old may have Foreign Accent Syndrome, where patients speak differently after a brain injury.

The former university administrator says she hates what has happened to her and now feels like a different person.

Mrs Walker said: "My sister-in-law said that I sounded Italian, then my brother said I sounded Slovakian and someone else said I sounded French Canadian.

"But the latest is that I sound Jamaican, I just don’t know how to explain it.

Link – via Linkfilter | Foreign Accent Syndrome [wiki]

The Disney Experience has a very cool DIY paper model of the pirate ship Wicked Wench from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland.

Link – via Boing Boing

What would happen if you unleash a 500 lb rubber band ball rolling down a hill onto a junker car?

See for yourself: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Cynical-C

Neatorama reader Peter Durston wrote about his comic "Benson" and how it started:

It all started in Australia in 2002, when the boredom of working at a call centre forced two guys to draw comics to keep their sanity. Since no talking was permitted, they would collaborate on the strips by taking turns to draw a square each. In this way, they created many hilarious comic strips, until one of them moved to London.

But did that stop them? No sir! Now they continue to create the comic strips by posting them back and forth to each other. Before each strip is completed, it’s been around the world six times!

Link – Thanks Peter!