If she could just stop getting kidnapped, Link would finally be able to give her his heart, but I doubt that’s ever going to happen. Oh well, we can still appreciate the card, created by Adam Bing, even if Zelda herself will never get it.

Link Via Kotaku

The perfect geeky Valentine for any Whovians out there. I don’t know about you guys, but I’d love to get a homemade card tailored to my personal interests like this.

Link Via The Daily What

Mitch O’Connell posted 34 vintage valentine cards that appear to be the type children would exchange at school, yet many of them contain double entendres, whether intentional or not. Link -via Boing Boing

Let your geekiness show in the valentines you send! Express your love for your sweetie plus your love for your favorite video game, online community, scientific discipline, movie, or TV show. There are lots to select from, but you won’t find them in your local greeting card store -no, these out-of-the ordinary valentines are found on the internet. Shown here are some valentines based on the TV series Breaking Bad, by Beth at Butt Horn. See the rest of the collection at mental_floss. Link

Longest Kiss

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I don’t know about you guys, but I would need a serious Chap Stick infusion after kissing someone for 46 and a half hours. The couple, Ekkachai and Laksana Tiranarat, was part of a contest held in Thailand in 2011, which led to seven couples breaking the existing record of 32 hours that was set back in 2009.

 Longest Underwater Kiss

It takes two people who can both hold their breath for a long while to break this record, which is why it is so impressive that Italians Michele Fucarino and Elisa Lazzarini were able to hold their breath while kissing for 3 minutes and 24 seconds.

Longest Underwater Mouth-to-Mouth Kiss

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While the Italian couple may have set the record for longest underwater kiss without breathing, Antonio de la Rosa Suarez holds a different but equally impressive record for kissing underwater. In his case, two women took turns kissing him while passing air to him. He stayed down there for 7 minutes, which seems like a relatively short record given that he was allowed to breathe during the process. Maybe one of you guys could take a crack at this one.

Most Expensive Kiss

Love Sharon Stone? Not as much as Joni Rimm apparently. Rimm actually shelled out $50,000 for one kiss with the actress, who offered up a lick-smacking session as part of a charity auction supporting Project Angel Foods, a charity dedicated to providing free meals for people with HIV and AIDS.

Most Simultaneous Underwater Marriages

As if having a giant wedding ceremony wasn’t romantic enough, the fact that 34 couples opted to exchange wedding vows underwater on Valentine’s Day makes this one sweet occasion, even if kissing the bride 33 feet underwater isn’t exactly an easy proposition.

Longest Hug

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It seems strange, but the world’s longest hug was actually almost a full day shorter than the world’s longest kiss. At only 24 hours and 33 minutes, it seems that this record, held by Ron O’Neil and Theresa Kerr, is just begging to be broken –so if you want to get in the book, better start locking arms now.

Longest Hug Marathon

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Did you know that January 21 is National Hugging Day? Six couples in the UK certainly were when they worked to break the record for longest hug marathon on the cuddly holiday. The hugging marathon lasted for 24 hours and 44 minutes, although two of the couples dropped out as they broke their hugs during the marathon.

If you’re wondering what makes a hug marathon different from a regular hugging record, it’s the simple fact that marathoners are permitted to take a five minute long break every hour, which they can save up for a longer break if they want. Given that this record is only 11 minutes longer than the longest hug record and it allows you breaks for food and bathroom time, it seems like it might be even easier to break.

Largest Group Hug

Of course, if you don’t want to hug just one person for an extended period, you can always opt to be part of the largest hug. The current record involved 10,554 participants hugging in Ottawa in 2010. That’s a whole lot of arms!

Most Hugs In A 24 Hour Period

(Video Link)

For those with a lot of love to share though, you can always try hugging lots of strangers, opting to achieve the most hugs in a 24 hour period. This record seems pretty hard to break though, given that the current record holder, Jeff Ondash, managed to get in 7,777 hugs in only 24 hours while standing outside of a Vegas casino on Valentine’s Day.

Oldest Couple to Get Married

Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that record breaking requires a youthful vigor. In fact, many are awarded to the oldest people to participate in a given activity. In the case of the oldest couple to get married, based on their aggregate age, the record goes to Francois Frenandez and Madeleine Francineau who were married in 2002 at the ages of 96 and 94, respectively.

Longest Marriage

As for the couple who tested out the “til death do us part” section of their vows more than any other couple, that goes to Herbert and Zelmyra Fisher, who were married for over 86 years. If 60 years is the Diamond Anniversary, does anyone know what the 80^th is?

Most Marriage Vow Renewals

While they may not be anywhere close to the longest marriage record, Lauren and David Blair have celebrated the most vow renewals –exchanging vows over 100 times after only having been married 27 years. While it might sound like overkill, just think of all the great honeymoons the couple got to enjoy.

The Oldest Cultivated Decorative Plant

To be fair, this one doesn’t sound romantic by the title, but the fact that roses have been cultivated for their beauty longer than any other plant is pretty impressive and adds an impressive context to a Valentine’s Day bouquet. The flowers have been grown since at least 50 AD, when the Romans started growing them in plantations and hot houses to ensure a year-round supply.

Image Via alice_ling [Flickr]

Largest Chocolate

Want some chocolates to go with your flowers? Well, nothing would impress your date quite like the world’s largest chocolate. Created by Hershey’s in 2007, this massive Kiss weighed in at 30,540 pounds. Better hope he or she doesn’t try to eat it all in one sitting or you might just spend Valentine’s Day in the ER.

Image Via vanderwal [Flickr]

Most Expensive Diamond

If diamonds are a girl’s best friend, then the 100 carat diamond that sold for $16,561,171 in 1995 must be the best friend a gal could ever hope for.

So, any of you think you could break some of these records? Personally, the only one I think I’d ever want to be involved with would be the bear hug. I just don’t think I could deal with kissing someone for over 24 hours at a time.

Okay, I’ve got one of Shakespeare’s love sonnets in the original Klingon. Now I need a good valentine before Tuesday. Thankfully, Eric Goodnight of How-To Geek has a step-by-step tutorial with screenshots that shows how to make a geeky valentine with Photoshop. He also has eleven ready to use, including the two you see above.

Link -via Geek Crafts

The Golden Girls were wonderful in proving to America that older women are still interested in romantic pursuits.Now you can celebrate your love interest in the style of these classic women with these fantastic Golden Girls Valentine’s Day cards.

Link Via Craftzine

Google Maps has a cute new function called Map Your Valentine. It lets you create a heart around a special location and send a message to your sweetie. When received through email, the valentine reads “I picked this place especially for you.”

Link via Fast Company

Especially for National Public Radio fans, these eight Valentine images are full of in-jokes. Link -via Buzzfeed

Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy Blog has a collection of astronomical images that display valentine heart shapes -which just goes to show you can find anything if you look heart, er, hard enough. This picture is of the W5 star-forming region taken by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The gallery ends with an extremely geeky bit of graffiti. Link

Mr Ward, now 88, said: ‘I knew Doris was the one for me the moment I met her. It was a heck of a night during the Blitz, but at least it meant we met each other. I gave her the Valentine’s card then and she is still my Valentine now.”

Mrs Ward’s card – which reads “Two hearts entwine this Valentine. True love makes it sincere” – is not the only thing that has endured the passing of time.

“Harry is quite romantic and we are still going strong together after all these years,” she said.

“The secret to our happy marriage is that we never go to bed without a kiss goodnight. We are as still in love as the day he first gave me this card.”

Link | Photo (unrelated) via Flickr user Partha Sarathi Sahana used under Creative Commons license

Albatrosses

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.

Source

Great Hornbills

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.

Source

Lovebirds

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.

Sources: #1 and #2

Brolgas

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.

Sources: #1 and #2

Seahorses

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]

Garden Snails

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]

Prairie Voles

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.

Sources: #1 and #2

Bonobos

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?

Transport yourself back to grade school -to 30 years ago when this Super Friends Valentine package hit the stores. Pages from the 11 x 17″ book of valentines are scanned big so you can print, cut, and put these simple paper crafts together, such as putting wheels on Batgirl’s Batcycle. Pages and pages are available at Andertoons. Link -Thanks, Mark Anderson!

This valentine, made out of palladium atoms, is eight nanometers across. It formed spontaneously this week while researchers Zhiwei Wang and David Pearmain of the University of Birmingham’s Nanoscale Physics Research Laboratory were working:

Although the palladium Valentine was a nice surprise for the scientists, they actually have other reasons for studying the palladium atoms. Professor Richard Palmer, head of the Laboratory explained:

“Size-selected atomic clusters, of the kind which fused together to assemble the atomic heart, are of practical relevance as model catalysts; the palladium/carbon system is employed as a real industrial catalyst in the fine chemicals sector. Precise control of the atomic architecture of the clusters may lead to enhanced yield and especially selectivity in complex catalytic reactions, as well as reducing the number of metal atoms needed to catalyze the reaction.”

Link via Gizmodo | Image: Nanoscale Physics Research Laboratory

Artist Alexandria Neonakis created Valentines inspired by the TV show Lost. At the link, you’ll find her deviantART gallery, which also contains valentines for The Office, Left 4 Dead, and Team Fortress 2.

Link via Popped Culture

Link Via Weird Stuff News

When I was in high school, I worked at an antique store and developed a strange love for things that most 15-year-old girls do not usually adore (Depression glass, anyone?). That included vintage Valentines. I still have a few old ones that I’ve been saving for a “special occasion” for the past 11 years or so, but maybe now I don’t have to hoard them since Fred Flare is selling repros. Love them!!

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