The dialogue in this short film may sound like English, but it is mostly fake. Commenters who’ve taken English as a second language say this is what our language sounds like to those who don’t yet understand it. It may sound to you like someone who is mocking English. I can tell you from experience that this is the kind of thing a native English speaker hears when her sense of hearing is going downhill. NSFW language -I think. -via The Daily What

Previously: Italian musician Adriano Celentano sings nonsense with an American accent.

Are you on the hunt for a way to look like a Zombie without having to go to the trouble of becoming a member of the undead? You need Zombie Teeth from the NeatoShop? This great set of reusable rotten teeth will have you blending in with your Zombie friends in no time.

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Halloween and Zombie fun!

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A Japanese pop group has fooled their fans by creating a fake member. No I don’t mean this was just another airhead pop star with no personality or talent. This was an actual non-existent computer generated person made from the faces of her band mates. The group even offers an app on its website that allows you do make a similar person mash up.

This week, Eguchi Aimi, the newest member of the all-girl Japanese pop group AKB48, was revealed to be a fake human. She was perfectly cute, but Eguchi was nothing more than a computer composite of her six band mates; she existed only in a virtual world. The bizarre, and clever, publicity stunt was unveiled in the above video, which shows exactly how the virtual beauty was created.

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Konapun is a Japanese toy that was produced by Bandai between 2007 and 2009. It allowed children to cook what convincingly appears to be food, but is not actually edible:

The toy goes to amazing lengths to make it look and feel like a realistic cooking process. So for example, if you are making something fried like donuts you drop the “donuts” into fake “oil” and it bubbles as if it was really frying. This bubbling/frying effect is used in several Konapun toys such as the hamburger grill and one that makes tempura.

It’s astounding how real each of the food items look in the end. For example, the rice separates into tiny clumps that look just like sticky rice. And the marinara sauce on the spaghetti is runny and looks just like real sauce. Couple that with the kits’ tiny mixing bowls, spatulas, cookie cutters, and other tools, and it makes for a fascinating toy.

Link -via Boing Boing

Books make for great decorative touches around the house, no doubt. But as the Kindle Uprising advances, fewer and fewer print books are being sold and, hey, maybe someday you’ll need a great title to slip under the side table lamp and there will be no book. For this highly unlikely situation, Italian artist Emanuela Ligabue has you covered. Her collection of wooden-blocks-turned-books is kind of quirky and interesting, though I confess that I’d paint my own fake books before buying one. Check out more of Ligabue’s designs on Flavorpill. Link

Image: Emanuela Ligabue

Just like eating fifty cent tacos, sometimes paying less for something isn’t always a good idea. Such is the lesson that some folks have learned buying bargain priced 500GB  hard drives from China that turn out not to be a lot less than what they appear.

It’s a 128-MB flash-drive. Working in a “looped” mode – when it runs out of space, it starts overwriting from the beginning. My friend said they’re still trying to figure out how did the Chinese do that. Because the drive reports “correct” file sizes and disk-capacity. And the “looped-overwriting” does not touch the other files present on the drive.

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Last year, one Chinese-language newspaper reported that an Alhambra taxi driver was arrested near Los Angeles International Airport after producing counterfeit military identification while trying to get out of a traffic stop.

Investigators learned that the recruits were told that the military IDs could be used to avoid getting traffic tickets and to receive certain types of military benefits and discounts, Eimiller said.

Some of the recruits were so convinced that they were part of the U.S. military that they actually visited real Army recruiting centers and tried to pay their monthly dues directly to the U.S. government, Eimiller said. That was another tipoff when investigators began looking into the group.

Local Chinese American leaders on Wednesday said they were shocked that a group that was such a familiar presence in the community is now being accused of being a fraud.

If convicted of all charges, Daniel Deng could face 11 years in prison. Link -via Metafilter

(Image credit: FBI)

Film fans and critics often rail against so-called “quote whores”—reviewers who are willing to write a positive notice for any movie as long as the studios wine and dine them enough—and David Manning of the Ridgefield Press was seemingly one of the worst. Around 2000, his glowing reviews frequently appeared on the posters for such universally loathed films as The Animal (“another winner!”) and Hollow Man (“stupendous!”). Manning would have been a running contender for America’s worst working film critic, save for one key detail: he didn’t exist. As it turned out, a marketing executive at Sony had invented Manning as a tool for building positive press for films released by the corporation’s subsidiary Columbia Pictures.

Read more about Manning and nine other nonexistent folks you may know at Top Tenz. Link

The ransom request was repeated in later text messages as well as warnings that the man not go to police, which he ignored.

Police launched a search and spotted her car, which they followed to a shopping mall in the town of Gandia on the Mediterranean coast.

“The woman, who was travelling alone and was in perfect health, was the supposed victim of the kidnapping,” the police statement said.

At first she told police that she had been released that morning but later confessed to faking her abduction “to find out what her husband would be willing to do for her”.

There’s no word on whether the perpetrator found her husband’s response acceptable. Link -via Arbroath

(Image created with Ransom Note Generator)

Prank Packs are gift boxes with ridiculously fake products printed on the outside. Give a gift in one of these and be ready for an uncomfortably awkward expression of gratitude: “Uh, thanks, I always wanted a motorized rolling pin (or a talking coffee cup, or a hat that doubles as a fish net).” That’s when you show them the nice personal gift that you put inside! This year’s new designs include the pictured iArm, the Pet Petter, and the Family Blankeez. Link

Investigations were launched, and the nation’s sports minister muttered to the press about “shadowy handlers” and “mafia groups.” After what must have been a grueling piece of detective work, the investigators pinned their suspicions on Tchanile Bana, a former national-team coach who had recently been suspended for taking another fake team  to a tournament in Egypt. Bana confessed, apologized, was banned from the game for three years, and insisted—maybe a little too fervently—that he had acted alone.

Of course, there’s a lot more to the story, which you can read at Slate. Link -via the Presurfer

I must say I don’t always understand the purpose of certain furniture designs. My best guess is, much like the models who walk down the runway in ridiculous outfits, they are simply meant to serve as inspiration for the more mundane creations they spawn for the regular folk. Regardless, this is an interesting twist… a chair that’s useless by itself, but perfectly designed to integrate (and aesthetically enhance) any gross and uncomfortable chair you have lying around.

Titled the ‘Chair Dress’ by Design Studio Maezm, the actual product in this case cannot even be sat upon without bending too the floor – its soft frame and sofa-style is not sufficient to hold up your weight. However, the chair you place it over as a cover can (hopefully) pick up the extra pounds … and the ‘dressing’ has some basic structural rigidity from its thickness and shape.

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Link via Nerdesque

Frank McCourt (RIP) may be better known for his Pulitzer Prize winning memoir Angela's Ashes, but little did we know that he's also a teacher of creative writing at Ralph McKee high school.

Reader's Digest has an excerpt from another one of Frank's memoir, Teacher Man, about his experience dealing with his students' forged notes:

Isn’t it remarkable, I thought, how the students whined and said it was hard putting 200 words together on any subject? But when they forged excuse notes, they were brilliant. The notes I had could be turned into an anthology of Great American Excuses. They were samples of talent never mentioned in song, story or study.

How could I have ignored this treasure trove, these gems of fiction and fantasy? Here was American high school writing at its best—raw, real, urgent, lucid, brief, and lying. I read:

• The stove caught fire and the wallpaper went up and the fire department kept us out of the house all night.

• Arnold was getting off the train and the door closed on his school bag and the train took it away. He yelled to the conductor who said very vulgar things as the train drove away.

• His sister’s dog ate his homework and I hope it chokes him.

• We were evicted from our apartment and the mean sheriff said if my son kept yelling for his notebook he’d have us all arrested.

The writers of these notes didn’t realize that honest excuse notes were usually dull: “Peter was late because the alarm clock didn’t go off.” One day I typed out a dozen excuse notes and distributed them to my senior classes. The students read them silently, intently. “Mr. McCourt, who wrote these?” asked one boy.

“You did,” I said. “I omitted names to protect the guilty. They’re supposed to be written by parents, but you and I know the real authors. Yes, Mikey?”

“So what are we supposed to do?”

“This is the first class to study the art of the excuse note—the first class, ever, to practice writing them. You’re so lucky to have a teacher like me who has taken your best writing and turned it into a subject worthy of study.”

Everyone smiled as I went on, “You didn’t settle for the old alarm clock story. You used your imaginations. One day you might be writing excuses for your own children when they’re late or absent or up to some devilment. So try it now. Imagine you have a 15-year-old who needs an excuse for falling behind in English. Let it rip.”

Link - Thanks Yan!