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Bonnie & Clyde, Napoleon & Josephine and Louis XV & Madame de Pompadour…they’re all great love stories -on paper at least. But when you actually learn the whole story for all of these romances, they’re a lot less sweet.
It was only a week or so ago that Miss C posted a link to Oddee’s 10 Things You Probably Don’t Know About Sex, but as it turns out, there is plenty more information you might be missing out on. That’s why io9 was able to post a similar article with almost the exact same title with almost no crossover between the two. Here’s some more info you might not know that the “seven year itch” is real:
If you’re measuring by way of divorce, the myth of the seven year itch may not be a myth after all; according to the 2009 U.S. Census Bureau, the median duration of first marriages that end in divorce is 7.9 years.
Like the Oddee one, there are no naughty pictures, but it still might be something you won’t want to read at work.
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, these kitties want to show us just how to celebrate the upcoming holiday. Isn’t love beautiful?
Can you imagine anything more romantic, personal, and memorable than a proposal at a pizza chain? Pizza Hut is offering a deluxe Valentine’s Day proposal package that includes an engagement ring (no diamonds though -it’s ruby), photographer, videographer, limousine, fireworks, and a ten dollar pizza! The cost? Just $10,010. Better hurry and reserve your package, because they are only selling ten of them. But hey, if you miss out on the deal, you can a) make your proposal a surprise, 2) do it in a more personal place, and c) save enough money to pay for a nice wedding and/or honeymoon. Link -via Jezebel
Here comes the dragonborn bride. Let’s face it, its funny and unique, but this certainly isn’t the most romantic first dance ever.
Via Geekologie
Looking for something really different to give your loved one this Valentine’s Day? How about a roach?
How better to express your appreciation for that special someone than to name one of the Bronx Zoo’s 58,000 Madagascar hissing cockroach after them? Best of all, when you purchase this everlasting gift, you’ll help support the Wildlife Conservation Society and its five parks in New York City.
Ok, so technically, it might not be the most romantic gift, but it’s certainly something that won’t soon be forgotten, which is more than you can say about a dozed roses.
Link Via The Mary Sue
What more could an amorous porcupine ask for than a heart-shaped box of corn and a bouquet of red roses? It’s all just so romantic.
Via BoingBoing
I have no idea how the gentleman in question managed to smuggle this Pokemon card into the rest of the deck what with the giant diamond ring attached to it and all, but however he did it, the proposal idea is certainly impressive.
Link Via The Daily What
The Oatmeal is certainly the first site I think of for cards when I want to slide a note over to my secret crush at the Neatorama office. That’s why the site’s Valentine’s Day cards are just so darn wonderful… of course, that might also be why Zeon has a restraining order against me.
If you’re married, you’ve almost certainly misplaced your wedding ring at one place or another and even if you’ve never actually lost it, you probably know someone else who has. After all, a little band of gold or platinum is pretty easy to lose track of, even if it is important to hold on to. But while many people lose their rings, it’s pretty rare to actually find them again. Even so, it has been known to happen. Here are some of the most amazing stories of people who have lost their wedding or engagement rings, only to find them again.
Image Via Jason Pier in DC [Flickr]
Anthea Capewell lost her wedding ring and engagement ring in 1976, when they fell off her finger as she closed her garden gate. After a long and thorough search, she and her husband could only find the engagement ring. Eight years later, the couple moved out of the house, which is why it was even more amazing that 33 years after the ring was lost, Anthea received a call from her old neighbor who claimed to have found the ring. The neighbors discovered the ring buried in some weeds underneath a hedge that was shared by the two homes.
The discovery was such a pleasant surprise for the couple that Anthea and her husband immediately decided to renew their wedding vows in the next year.
In 1974, a year after Donna Claver was married, the pregnant woman set her engagement ring on the tank lid of her toilet while she put lotion on. Unfortunately, the ring slipped into the bowl. Despite Donna and husband Terry’s best efforts, including unbolting the toilet and shaking it vigorously, the ring was stuck inside the hole at the bottom of the bowl and couldn’t be removed. Because the couple was too poor to afford a new toilet, they eventually gave up and put the fixture back in place, expecting to never retrieve their lost ring.
As the years went by, the Clavers moved out of the home and it was sold over and over, but just last year, Terry happened to be roofing a house across the street from his old home when he noticed the new owners carrying the toilet to the trash. Remembering his wife’s lost ring, Terry climbed off the roof and told the gentlemen he’d be happy to throw the toilet away for them. He then took the fixture to his shop and broke it with a sledgehammer. Finally, the ring was free.
Amazingly, after a little cleaning, the ring still looked brand new 36 years later.
Toy surprises are usually reserved for cereals and Cracker Jack boxes, that’s why when Krista Berg discovered a man’s wedding ring in the bag of NutroMax she bought for her pup Otto, she figured it wasn’t meant as a bonus gift. Whereas most people would probably invoke the law of finder’s keepers, Krista decided to call around. When no one at the dog food plant had lost their ring, she tried calling the store where she bought the food and got in touch with Mike Stoddard, the rightful owner of the wedding ring. Mike was glad that Krista found his ring and not someone else, noting, “most people would just keep it.”
When 77 year-old Bridget Pericolo put her wedding and engagement rings into a Dixie cup for safe keeping, she certainly didn’t expect the adventure that followed. It all started when her husband thought the cup was trash and tossed it away with the rest of the garbage.
Unfortunately, by that time, the local trash truck had already come by and collected the couple’s garbage bags. Bridget immediately called the local sanitation department, only to have the supervisor tell her that the truck couldn’t be stopped until the end of their route.
more …
When you watch a movie or TV show featuring characters in your own profession, it’s natural to criticize the fact that the writers are not as familiar with that profession as someone who actually does it for a living. It would be nice to get professional credit for such criticism, wouldn’t it? A doctor from the Netherlands managed to get his study published in a medical journal from research obtained by reading romance novels. The eight novels were set in the world of medicine, and the actual medicine in this fiction was found to be “sometimes incorrect.”
CONCLUSION: The doctors novels which were studied give an unbalanced and distorted view of medical practice. The medical information was sometimes incorrect, partly due to lack of knowledge by the author, partly due to incorrect translation from English. The reality of medical practice was not represented accurately in either of the series investigated, although the medical information in the ‘Doctors novels’ series appeared to be accurate more often than that in the ‘Dr. Anne’ series.
I wonder if he got a grant for this. Read more at Improbable Research. Link
Come
on, 'fess up. Are you a Twilight hater?
The latest installment of the series, Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part I, was released over the weekend, and raked in more than $283.5 million worldwide ($139.5 million in the United States alone, that's the fifth-best opening weekend ever).
Surely a sparkly movie that made $283.5 million in a weekend can't be wrong, but if you talked to a Twilight hater (including many professional film critics - Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune said that watching Twilight made it seem like "time itself begins to crawl backward"), you'd be surprised at the virulence of their contempt.
But why all that hate? Erika Christakis of TIME Magazine thinks it's all about hating the female fantasy:
Why is it that female fantasies are such a source of derision and fear? The male species is allowed all manner of violent, creepy, ludicrous and degrading movie tropes, and while we may not embrace them as high art, no one questions them seriously as entertainment, even when sometimes we probably should. (Violent imagery is, after all, associated with violent behavior.) You want to saw someone in half or put their head in a vice? Showcase naked strippers as a fake plot device? Pair a beautiful and successful career woman with a slovenly, unemployed man? Pretend you are Wolverine? Go right ahead. We know you can’t really be serious. But watch a tender wedding night between a virginal, undead superhero and his teenage, human bride, and the scolds come out in force. Are parents worried that their teenage daughter actually wants to be impregnated by a 100-year-old vampire who can crush a headboard with his hands (and perform an emergency C-section with his teeth)?
Maybe part of the reason critics deplore these movies is not only because they are so unfamiliar with kooky heterosexual female fantasies but also because they don’t really like what these fantasies say about men.
Link | See also The 7 Harshest Critics' Jabs at Breaking Dawn
Few things are as awwwwwww-inspiring as an elderly couple in puppy love. Olivia Gissing has a photoblog entitled Old People Holding Hands devoted to this theme. Link -via Bit Rebels
Geeky-themed weddings are always fun and I have seen my share of superhero, Renaissance and Star Wars weddings around the blogosphere, I hadn’t seen many Harry Potter weddings until now. Fortunately, The Mary Sue has a great round up of these adorable occasions and the photos are simply adorable.
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While there’s nothing wrong with giving your gal a glass of champagne before getting down on one knee to propose, some people prefer to go a less traditional and more personalized route. Of course, if the potential bride and groom both happen to be a bit geeky, then it follows that a customized wedding proposal might just have a bit of a nerd-twist to it as well. Here is a small sampling of some of the geekiest wedding proposals ever.
Be warned, if you tend to cry after watching emotionally-charged moments, this article (particularly the videos) might have you spraying your computer with tears. I know I was misty-eyed while writing it.
I have to admit, this just might be my favorite wedding proposal ever. Ben and his girlfriend, Tora, were both seriously addicted to the popular Gearbox RPG shooter Borderlands. That’s why when Ben decided to ask Tora to marry him, he decided to ask Gearbox for help popping the question. The company’s response was more positive than Ben ever could have hoped for, as they spent a week working on a special Borderlands-themed wedding proposal video for the couple. It even featured a few hilarious quips from the robot character, Claptrap.
Ben got all of Tora’s friends and family members together under the guise of throwing her a birthday party and unveiled the video by saying he got a hold of a new Borderlands trailer. Needless to say, after watching the video, Tora’s response was a big fat “yes,” although she did later admitted that she was a little upset that Ben got to go to the Gearbox studio without her.
This guy and his girlfriend both seriously love Mario (if you couldn’t tell already by looking at the room) so in order to ask his girlfriend to marry him, he set up a functional Mario question mark box that would drop the ring when she hit it with her head. While the set up is exactly as geeky as you might expect, it’s surprisingly emotionally touching when she tries to hold back her tears as she jumps to hit the box.
Video link
If your girlfriend loves the game Bejeweled and you happen to be a software programmer, you can do something above and beyond if you’re so inclined. Or at least, that’s what Bernie Peng did when he decided to propose, using his programming skills to create a custom Bejeweled game. Once the score got high enough, the regular screen would clear out and a ring would appear on the DS screen. Bernie then dropped to one knee and presented her with a pink ring that looked like it belonged in the game.
As if the story weren’t great enough on its own, the company that makes Bejeweled was so impressed by Bernie’s proposal that they offered to pay for the couple’s honeymoon and they volunteered to supply all of the wedding guests with a free version of Bejeweled. Now that’s a great way to capitalize on the publicity of the wedding proposal!
more …
When people talk about literary loves, they mention Rhett and Scarlet, Heathcliff and Catherine, or Romeo and Juliet. It’s about time some more modern love stories joined them. The Best Damn Creative Writing Blog assembled a list of modern novels with great love stories. If you haven’t read these, this might be the nudge you need! For example: The Solitude of Prime Numbers.
When Alice and Mattia first meet in grade school, they realize that they have one thing in common–they are not yet ready for love. Both have been shaped by profound childhood tragedies that crippled their trust in the world around them. But years later, they eventually learn to trust each other enough to overcome their awkwardness. The Solitude of Prime Numbers is an absolutely flawless literary debut from one of Italy’s most promising new authors and the romance between Alice and Mattia–unconventional though it may be–is one for the history books.
Meet the lovers of nine more modern novels you may want to explore. Link
Last year, John Farrier wrote a great Neatogeek post about geeky love songs. While the twelve listed were great, there were still plenty more great geek ballads out there. Here are ten more love songs sure to get your nerd juices flowing.
How is it nerdy? This is the song that inspired me to write this list. It’s an ultimate geek love song in that a woman is able to seduce her love interest not through her looks but through chemistry and other scientific fields.
Choice lyrics: It’s poetry in motion/And now she’s making love to me/The spheres are in commotion/The elements in harmony/She blinded me with science/”She blinded me with science!”/And hit me with technology
Video:
How is it nerdy? It might just be impossible to write a romantic song with more Dungeons and Dragons references.
Choice lyrics: I picked up spell resistance from the enchanted school/So I could bend up all these magic pretences/And though always use it as a general rule /This time I’m lowering all my defences
Video: There’s no official video for the song, but here’s a YouTube video with the song.
Video link
How is it nerdy? MC Chris is one of the biggest stars of the nerdcore hip hop scene and this serenade to a nerd shows just how geeky he can be, even when discussing matters of the heart.
Choice lyrics: She’s romantic, known to panic/With anxiety attacks/Literary, it’s so scary/Reading Brontes back to back/She’s playing Ragnarok on her mom’s Magnavox/She’s underneath my skin like a million nanobots
Video:
How is it nerdy? It’s not even about a girl, it really is about loving a computer and how the computer is far better than a real girlfriend.
Choice lyrics: I’ve never been quite so happy/all I need to do is click on you/and we’ll be joined/in the most soul-less way/and we’ll never/ever ruin each other’s day
more …
What happens in the few days leading up to Valentines Day? Several preparatory activities are explained in line graphs, from gift purchases to texting to bikini waxes at Cool Material. Link -via Buzzfeed
While humans are not biologically programmed to be monogamous (only 3% of all mammals are), our social structure is largely based around romantic partnerships. To celebrate our own romantic attachments, lets reflect on some of nature’s most loving couples.
If you’re looking for the animal mating ritual that most closely resembles human dating, don’t look to primates, even mammals, instead, check out the albatross. These massive seabirds take a long time to reach sexual maturity –up to 10 years in some species, but they certainly don’t make up for it by rushing into a relationship. When they first start coming to the breeding colonies, young birds sit back and learn from their elders, observing the specie’s elaborate mating rituals that include dancing, preening, staring, pointing, and vocalizations. After years of trial and error, the birds learn to participate in these mating rituals. They will then start dancing with many partners, but year after year, they will trim down their dance card until they have selected the one partner they want to be with for the rest of their lives.
Once the partner is chosen, the pair will develop their own unique language comprised of bits of their mating ritual. Interestingly, once they have mated, they will never use most of the ritual again. While it seems like a massive undertaking, egg laying and chick rearing is a major time investment for albatrosses and the couples do everything they can to ensure they will be a successful mating pair.
While most birds are monogamous, few are quite as dependent on their mates as the female hornbill is on the male. The couple gets in the mood by singing duets together. The male starts the tune, then the female jumps in and the calls then join in unison. The pair will occupy a large nest inside the hollow of a massive tree. Once the eggs are laid and fertilized, the female will then seal herself in the nest. The male will then provide food for her and her chicks through a small hole in the nest. This goes on for about two months, then the female will leave the nest, sealing up the chicks inside. The mother and father will then take turns bringing the chicks food until they are grown enough to break the seal and survive on their own.
Of course lovebirds belong on this list, just look at their name. But what makes this specific parrot species so darn romantic that they are often given as wedding presents to symbolize the couple’s lifelong commitment to one another? Like most birds, lovebirds are monogamous, but its their habit of sitting beside another and cuddling that has made them such a strong image of love. Their tight pairings led the ancient Greeks to believe the birds would die if they lost their mates.
The peach-faced lovebirds find a partner when they are two months old. The female fluffs up her feathers to tell the male that she is interested and he then starts to perform a courtship dance that involves bobbing his head and scratching her head.
Once the couple lays eggs, the female will incubate the nest while the male goes out to get her food. When the chicks hatch, the dad gets the food, feeds it to the mother who then regurgitates the meal for the chicks.
All cranes are monogamous and they all have their own intricate mating dances, but the brogla’s are particularly fascinating. They mate with their partners every year, often in the same nesting area, but no matter how long they’ve been together, they always keep the passion flowing, performing their intricate mating dance every year. Just how complex is this ritual? Well, there is a reason it is considered the most elaborate mating dance in the animal kingdom.
The dances generally start with a bird picking up a clump of grass and tossing it in the air and catching it in its mouth. Then the dance starts to involve jumping, extending wings, stretching bowing, walking calling and head bobbing. Sometimes only one bird will dance, sometimes a pair will dance together, in other situations, the whole colony will jump in, starting up a massive brogla dance club.
You may already know that male seahorses are the ones who carry the litter, but did you know they go through an intimate courtship first? They hold tails, swim snout to snout and change colors to show one another that they are ready for romance. This process can last for days before the pair engages in a courtship dance that lasts up to eight hours.
Once the male is pregnant, the female sticks around until he gives birth. She visits him every morning, holding his tail, changing colors and flirting with him to ensure that he will continue to nurture the eggs until they hatch.
Source Image via San Diego Shooter [Flickr]
These slimy garden pests may not seem too romantic, particularly when you consider the fact that they are hermaphrodites, but they just may have inspired the Greek tales of cupid. Although snails are hermaphrodites, they require another partner to lay eggs. Their courtship process largely comes down to the animals circling one another and firing off “love darts” at each other, one third of which miss the target. The mucus-covered darts stimulate the animal’s female reproductive organs so they can hold more sperm. Once the darts are in place, the partners trade sperm cells for as long as six hours.
Next time you hear stories of the arrow-shooting cherub, just imagine a giant snail shooting darts before copulation. For some reason it’s just not as good of a Valentine’s Day card though.
Source Image via nutmeg66 [Flickr]
Most rodents are far from romantic, but the prairie vole is one of a handful of monogamous creatures that fall under the title. The male voles will move in with their first girlfriend and stick with her for the rest of their lives. During mating season, they will mark their territory and defend it from any trespassers by chattering its teeth and raising its arms. The male is particularly aggressive towards females who attempt to enter the territory and will even attack potential home wreckers. The happy couple will not only share pup-raising, but also groom each other and huddle together for warmth.
While the other animals on this list are romantic in their monogamous relationships, bonobos are romantic in an entirely different manner. These primates copulate while facing each other and to participate in open mouth kissing. If the other creatures represent our ideal life-long bond of romance, bonobos personify our most popular forms of physical intimacy. I think it’s important we look at these factors too. After all, we don’t just fall in love, we also “make love.”
Source Image via CourtneyBolton [Flickr]
I don’t know about all of you, but this article sure put me in a romantic mood. Who needs wine and roses when you can dance like a crane, sing like an albatross and shoot love darts like a snail?
If you want to give a kiss to impress for Valentines Day, you should brush up on what you think you know and what you don’t know about French kissing. Above all, you don’t want to be one of the types of kissers guaranteed to be a turn-off.
The Saint Bernard–someone who slobbers way too much, leaving their partner’s face looking like a microwaved glazed donut.
The Wrecking Ball–someone who lunges in so hard they clank their teeth against the other person’s, breaking more than the moment and possibly leaving their partner with the smile of a hockey player.
The Meat Grinder–someone who forgets (or doesn’t care) that they have braces and like a Saw film proceeds to attack their partner’s tongue and lips with their cheese grater grill.
Vlad the Impaler–someone who repeatedly shoves their Gene Simmons-sized tongue down their partner’s throat, testing their gag reflex.
Oh, there are more, which you’ll find at Geeks Are Sexy. Link
The Bridge of Love in Vrnjacka Banja, Serbia, is a place where young women traditionally go to affirm their ardor for their lovers. A woman will write the name of her beloved on the lock, attach it to the railing, and then toss the key into the river. From a travel website:
If not for the padlocks that cover its railings, you might not even notice the Bridge of Love in the center of Banja. Though it is just one of 15 bridges in Vrnjacka Banja this bridge with a sad story has become the symbol of the city.
Locals tell the story of Relja and Nada, two young lovers who would meet here every night before WWI. Once the war broke out, Relja, who was an officer in the Royal Army, went off to war and never came back. He moved to Greece, married, and forgot all about Nada. Heartbroken, Nada waited for him on the Bridge of Love until her dying day. To avoid reliving Nada’s bitter love story, local love struck girls started coming to the bridge every night to secretly “lock up” their boyfriends’ hearts with padlocks. They did this with the hope of holding on their love for all eternity.
Link via Dumage via Digg | Photo: TrekEarth user bacasha75
When Alex and Donna Voutsinas were photographed together at Disney World, they didn’t know each other. In fact, they didn’t even live in the same country. But fifteen years later, they met and married:
That fateful realization came just one week before their wedding eight years ago. Alex and Donna had been going through old family snapshots. There, in the blurry background of a picture of 5-year-old Donna was 3-year-old Alex being pushed down Main Street at the same moment in 1980 by his father. The senior Voutsinas’s distinctive jet-black hair with its white tuft caught his eye.
“My mother pulled out albums from the same trip. My dad is wearing exactly the same outfit.”
Other pictures from that trip showed Alex on his dad’s shoulders. The boy in the background of Donna’s picture and the boy in those pictures were the same.
Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: Voutsinas Family
Everyone loves a good love story, but when you’re single or competitive, sometimes it’s nice to hear a story about an epic romantic fail to help cheer you up. That’s why we’ve decided to help brighten your Valentine’s Day with this depressingly hilarious list of romantic misfires. If you’re alone on the holiday, it should help remind you that relationships don’t always mean smooth sailing. If you’re in a relationship, these stories might just help you avoid tragic mishaps of your own. Whatever your specific situation this year, have a happy Valentine’s Day and try not to end up like one of these poor suckers.
Putting a ring inside your girl friend’s Wendy’s Frosty may seem romantic, but when you and your friends encourage her to chug it, you might just ruin the surprise. At least, that’s what happened to Reed Harris, when his girlfriend, Kaitlin Whipple, opened up her gullet and downed the contents on her Frosty, only to see her cheering crowd suddenly go blank and look at each other with worry. “I felt nothing at all,” she told Lauer. “I was racing my friends, so there was no way I was going to lose that competition.”
That’s right, Kaitlin drank her engagement ring and had to go to the hospital, where the ring was found via X-ray. Reed proposed to Kaitlin with the X-ray image of the ring in place of the actual jewelry. A few days later, with the help of plenty of fiber, the couple recovered the ring –and promptly had it cleaned!
Source: MSNBC Image via Kaitlin’s Website.
Lest you think that Kaitlin is the only woman to have swallowed her diamond ring during an engagement proposal gone wrong, here’s a proposal story that “takes the cake.” Mr. Chen, a resident of China, thought it would be really romantic to bake his engagement ring into a cake to surprise his girlfriend. Chen said he was inspired by romantic comedies he’s seen, which always tends to be a bad start.
His girlfriend, Wen, was eating the cake when he bent down on his knee to propose, and then she suddenly passed out. “I realized I had just swallowed the ring with a full mouth of cake,” she said.
Chen called the police who told him to visit the hospital, where they were able to use a catheter to remove the ring. When Wen woke up, she promptly said yes.
Source: Ananova Image via Chotda [Flickr] (not the actual cake in the story)
Admittedly, giving your girlfriend a balloon and then having a ring fall out when you pop it is really romantic, but I’m sure we can all see the infinite number of things that could go wrong through this method of “popping the question.” Lefkos Hajji didn’t consider all those potential problems when he had a florist hide a ring worth over $1,000 inside a balloon.
Thought the florist warned him to hold on tight to the balloon, Lefkos lost the balloon moments after leaving the shop when a gust of wind tore it from his hands. He claims he chased the balloon in his car for two days before he gave up hope. “I just watched as it went further and further into the air. I felt like such a plonker. It cost a fortune and I knew my girlfriend would kill me.”
While Lefkos may get a lot of points on the romantic scale, his inability to see the obvious dangers in this plan indicate that he may be a little short on the intelligence side. Evidence that his IQ is lower than the average bear is even stronger when you consider that the girl he is so in love with, presumably for her kindness and lovingness, refuses to speak with him until he gets her a new one. Personally, I would laugh and feel bad if my boyfriend did something like this. Of course, I think if he were to come up with a plan like this, he’d have an easy work around to prevent the danger from ever happening. –For example, this all could have been avoided if Lefkos put a note that said “will you marry me” in the balloon and then handed the girl the ring when she read the note. It’s just as sweet, not as dangerous.
Source: The Sun UK Image via Kaptain Kobold [Flickr] (not the balloon in the story)
I’ve always thought that if you were going to ask a girl to marry you in front of a massive audience, you’d better know she’s going to say yes. In this situation, even if the girl says yes, you still can’t be sure she actually meant it when she had that much pressure on her to agree. Of course, not every girl will say yes no matter how much she feels pressure, as seen in the video above, where a woman rejects her prospective husband in front of a full arena and tv cameras.
Video link
Like women swallowing wedding rings, rejecting potential spouses in public is not entirely uncommon. This woman’s face tells the answer before he even asks. This could have been a really romantic moment of television, but when the girl’s obviously not into it, the result is just plain awkward…not to mention painful. This couldn’t have been good for the show’s ratings.
Video link
Sometimes all it takes for a proposal to go wrong is a little too much romance. When one man proposed on top of a steep hiking trail, the girl was so excited that she managed to fall off the cliffs after excitedly saying yes. She dropped ten feet off a steep rockface (like the one seen above) and went unconscious after hitting the ground. Luckily, park police were able to fly her out of the area with a helicopter and none of her injuries were life-threatening.
Source: NY Daily News Image via Sharron McClellan [Flickr]
It’s generally not a great idea to use government resources to scare the hell out of your girlfriend just so you can pop the question, but Baltimore State Delegate Jon S. Cardin is far too much of a risk-taker to heed such common sense. As such, he thought it would be a great idea to borrow a friend’s yacht and then convince local, on-duty police to raid the vessel with both boats and a helicopter, all in a strange, elaborate method of proposing to his girlfriend. Officers searched the boat and Megan Homer thought she was about to be handcuffed when Jon bent down on one knee and asked for her hand.
Unfortunately for Mr. Cardin, officials for the Baltimore Police Department asked for his explanation. The officials were furious to hear about such an abuse of police resources when the city was already strapped for resources and police were in short supply even at dangerous crime scenes. Anthony Guglielmi, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, stated “The Police Department is not in the business of renting out the helicopter and the boats for bachelor parties and birthdays. We’re in the business of upholding public safety in Baltimore.”
When Cardin actually addressed the public about the matter, he claimed the police performed a “routine safety check,” and left out the part about the helicopter. At least he promised to reimburse the city for any expenses related to the proposal.
Source: Baltimore Sun Image via Chris Hau [Flickr]
Marriage proposals are not the only romantic gestures that go wrong of course. Even something as simple as a kiss can go very, very wrong in some situations. Take for example the Chinese woman who became partially deaf for two months after receiving a mind-numbingly passionate kiss from her lover. Somehow the kiss created pressure build up in her head so severe that her right ear drum blew out, leaving it completely deaf.
“While kissing is normally very safe, doctors advise people to proceed with caution,” said the Chinese newspaper that originally covered the story.
Source: Reuters Image via Life Photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt
Speaking of kisses that really make an impact, it’s important to know the cultural implications of public displays of affection before you kiss someone publicly on stage. Richard Gere learned this the hard way when he managed to piss off practically everyone in India by kissing the Celebrity Big Brother winner, Shilpa Shetty, on stage during an Aids awareness rally in New Dehli. In India, it is considered obscene to publicly display any form of affection and Gere’s kissing Shetty’s hands and face were considered vulgar to those watching. Some people were so incensed by his actions that they actually burned effigies of him on the street, while protesters in other areas shouted “death to Shilpa Shetty.”
Source: BBC
Getting a life-sized portrait of your wife and children tattooed on your back might not be on most people’s to do list, but it most certainly displays a life-long commitment to your spouse. Unfortunately for Alan Jenkins, his wife was most certainly not willing to return the favor. While he was going through the 20-hour long, $1500 process of a full-back tattoo, she was busy cheating with a man who was 10-years-her-junior that she met at work. Of course, Alan didn’t find out until after the tattoo was complete, “I had it because I thought we loved each other – I feel very betrayed.” Strangely, he’s decided to not have her image removed.
His wife, Lisa, tried to defend herself by saying she never meant to fall in love with fitness instructor Kaspars Gavars and that she never wanted Alan to get the tattoo in the first place. Still, waiting for your husband to complete his tattoo before you tell him about your affair is pretty heinous.
This incident reminds me of the scene in “Born In East L.A.” where Cheech is told to remove the tattoo of a woman on someone’s back. Since he obviously can’t remove it, he draws devil horns and a mustache on the face. Maybe Alan needs to see this movie for some ideas.
Source: Daily Mail UK
In olden times, it was ok to walk your sweetie all the way down the tarmac just to spend the most possible time together before kissing each other goodbye, but in the days of the TSA, it’s not so simple. Personally, I thought this was pretty common knowledge, but I guess I was wrong because apparently, because one man actually shut down a whole airport for five hours just to kiss his girlfriend goodbye.
The couple remains unidentified, but I’m sure more than a few people at the airport wish they knew who was responsible for making every single passenger go through security a second time, delaying flights for hours. The TSA agent that left his post, letting the man slip into the secure area undetected, was suspended on administrative leave.
Source: Reuters Image
One of the most frequent reasons men seem to get in trouble for romantic gestures is in a strange attempt to impress a girl. While outrageous methods occasionally catch a woman’s eye, many stupid ideas not only fall flat, but also result in arrests and mayhem.
James Miller is a perfect example. This young Romeo had a bit too much to drink one night and decided that relying on cupid wasn’t good enough to take his relationship to the next level –instead, he decided, he needed to be cupid. So he took the next logical step and jumped onto the field of a soccer game dressed in only his boxers, shooting roses from an arrow at the crowd of entertained onlookers.
Naturally, he was arrested, fined and banned from any further soccer games for the next three years. Unfortunately for Miller though, his girlfriend, Jade Thompson, had quite the opposite reaction to his stunt and dumped him shortly after the incident. To make matters worse, since he’s in the military, his superior officers warned that he may even be court-martialed for the stunt.
“That sort of behavior always seems to work some romantic magic in the movies. Now I have no girlfriend and no job,” he explained outside of a courtroom hearing.
Source: Telegraph UK
What could be worse than streaking along a soccer field to impress a girl? Drunkenly stealing a plane and then crashing it into a soybean field. Michael Santos had already lost his driver’s license permanently, but that didn’t deter his desire to impress his girlfriend by showing her that he could fly a plane.
So, he drove her to the airport while drunk, broke into a plane and then managed to catch the wing on fire before he even reached the end of the taxiway. He then missed a curve in the runway veered into a soybean field and cut up a bunch of the plants with the plane’s propeller. Police estimate the damage to be around $160,000.
No word yet on whether his girlfriend actually stuck by him after this moronic stunt, but the fact that she got into the plane with her drunken boyfriend is a good indicator that she seems to lack common sense enough to dump him for this.
Source: MSNBC Image via Cranky Guy Media [Flickr] (not the actual plane involved)
The spirit of capitalism is alive and well in China, or at least when it comes to trying to impress women. A man in the Heilongjiang province was arrested last year after trying to impress his girlfriend by depositing a 250 million yuan ($36.5 million) check into his bank account. The only problem, the check was a fake and he bought it only so he could look cool by depositing it in front of her.
I’m sure you can guess what happened afterward; bank clerks knew the check was fake and called the police and the man was arrested. He immediately confessed that he bought the fake check for the sake of impressing his lover.
The moral here is it’s better to be poor and honest than truthful while under arrest.
Source: China Daily
What about you readers? Have any love stories from hell, or know someone else that does? Do share.
Create a romance novel cover with your picture on it with Romance Novel Yourself. Check out the presentation of my book, then make your own from one of several different covers! Link -via the Generator Blog
Dick Kleis, a farmer in Zwingle, Iowa, decided to express his affection for his wife in a way that she would (apparently) appreciate. On the occasion of her birthday, he wrote out “HAP B DAY LUV U” in giant letters made of manure across his field:
But Carole Kleis isn’t just any woman — she’s the wife of a farmer, and a little natural fertilizer doesn’t bother her a bit, even if this particular usage is rather unusual.
“He’s done weird things before for birthdays,” she said. “But maybe not this weird.” [...]
“I was going to put a heart out there after the happy birthday, but I ran out of manure,” he said. “It’s not hard. Any manure will work but the good, soft, gushy, warm stuff works the best. It kind of melts the snow.”
Link via The Presurfer | Photo: My Fox DC
Have you lost that "lovin’ feelin’"? The Righteous Brothers may not know it when they sang the number-one hit single in 1965, but you can blame a hormone called neutrophin:
A team from the University of Pisa in Italy found the bodily chemistry which makes people sexually attractive to new partners lasts, at most, two years. [...]
The Italian researchers tested the levels of the hormones called neutrophins in the blood of volunteers who were rated on a passionate love scale.
Levels of these chemical messengers were much higher in those who were in the early stages of romance. [...]
But in people who had been with their partners for between one and two years these so-called "love molecules" had gone, even though the relationship had survived.
The scientists found that the lust molecule was replaced by the so-called "cuddle hormone" – oxytocin – in couples who had been together for several years.
Have you ever written a love letter? How did it turn out? Sappy or clever?
I betcha it’s not as awesome as this one sent about 100 years ago by William Weightman. He wrote the entire thing in rebus (for example, the word "dearest" is formed using a picture of a deer followed by the letters "est.")
That’s just one of 7 fascinating love letters in this post by Shaun Usher (the guy behind deputy dog and Letters of Note blogs)
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Eavesy.
There’s office romance, and then there’s post-it office romance! Here’s a cute short film by Academy Film’s directors Simon Atkinson and Adam Trowley (better known as Si & Ad) about how two office workers express their love for each other using office supplies.
Cute! Link [embedded YouTube]
If you like the roses above, or just forgot about Valentine’s Day until all the roses were sold out, there’s an easy to follow instruction guide for them over on Instructables right now.
A group of researchers are studying the biological basis of romantic love. No matter how much we talk about love from the heart (or other organs), they’ve found it really is all in your head.
In humans, there are four tiny areas of the brain that some researchers say form a circuit of love. [Dr. Bianca] Acevedo, who works at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, is part of a team that has isolated those regions with the unromantic names of ventral tegmental area (VTA), the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and raphe nucleus.
The hot spot is the teardrop-shaped VTA. When people newly in love were put in a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine and shown pictures of their beloved, the VTA lit up. Same for people still madly in love after 20 years.
The VTA is part of a key reward system in the brain.
“These are cells that make dopamine and send it to different brain regions,” said Helen Fisher, a researcher and professor at Rutgers University. “This part of the system becomes activated because you’re trying to win life’s greatest prize – a mating partner.”
Link -via Geek Like Me
(image credit: Larry Young, PhD.)
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