How crazy are people on Black Friday? Are the deals so good that they would trample someone to death? Here's a tragic Wal-Mart stampede that left one worker dead and got several people (including a pregnant woman) injured:

The Black Friday stampede plunged the Valley Stream outlet into chaos, knocking several employees to the ground and sending others scurrying atop vending machines to avoid the horde. [...]

"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," said Wal-Mart worker Jimmy Overby, 43. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. "They took me down, too ... I didn't know if I was going to live through it. I literally had to fight people off my back," Overby said.

Damour, a temporary maintenance worker from Jamaica, Queens, was gasping for air as shoppers continued to surge into the store after its 5 a.m. opening, witnesses said.

Even officers who arrived to perform CPR on the trampled worker were stepped on by wild-eyed shoppers streaming inside, a cop at the scene said.

"They pushed him down and walked all over him," Damour's sobbing sister, Danielle, 41, said. "How could these people do that?

If that's not bad enough, even after being told that someone was killed, they kept on shopping!

Link (with video tape of the stampede)

(Photo: Augustine for The Daily News)

For his daughter's fourth birthday, Will Turnbow decided that he's going to make the bestest Super Mario cake EVAR! Behold the Super Mario Galaxy cake, complete with spinning Luigi, flying Mario, and a rockin' Bowser! It. Is. Simply. Awesome. Link

Here's a YouTube clip of the cake "in action"

[YouTube clip]

Nijhel "IX: Mendoza (that's pronounced "nine") searched for his long lost son for 17 years ... and found him at last on MySpace!

Kristi Tedesco of KVOA Tucson has the story:

Mendoza wrote commented on his son's profile with an entry that neither he nor his son will ever forget, "Sorry to post on such a public forum but I'm anxious to get in touch with you soon. Love, your father IX Mendoza."

Chea Mitchell says, "Everyone was sitting down for dinner. I was checking my MySpace account and I get the comment saying it's from my dad with a phone number. I just stared at the screen for a while and said, 'Hey, mom. That's his name, right?'"

They talked on the phone. Mendoza tells us, "It was just like old friends that had been apart for a little while."

Even though Mendoza hasn't seen Chea since he was an infant, there was an instant connection. He says, "We really like zombie movies and sci-fi movies."

Eventually, Chea came to visit. He says, "I had all these brothers and sisters coming at me and hugging me and it was pretty epic."

http://www.kvoa.com/global/story.asp?s=9422682 (with video clip)

Remember the game Quidditch in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books? Well it turns out that a non-wizard version of the game is taking college campuses by storm. And yes, they do it with broomsticks up their butts:

The earthbound variation is called Muggle Quidditch. The sport originated in 2005 when a student at Middlebury College adapted the game for the nonmagical world. Its popularity quickly spread, and today more than 150 colleges throughout the United States have Quidditch teams. [...]

While the wizards in the Potter series play Quidditch on flying broomsticks, Muggles (author J. K. Rowling’s word for nonmagical people) run holding a broom between their legs. It’s a lot harder than it looks, and just as awkward, says Stack, who is team captain while Culleton is studying abroad.

“We’re a small, kind of ragtag group,” she says. “Not everyone has brooms yet, so some people play with Wiffle bats or lacrosse sticks. And we only have two hoops. You’re supposed to have three on each end of the field.”

As in the fictional game, each Muggle Quidditch team has seven players: three chasers, two beaters, a keeper, and a seeker. Chasers score points by throwing a quaffle, or volleyball, through one of three hoops (worth 10 points) while trying to avoid bludgers, or dodgeballs, that are thrown by beaters. (If chasers are hit by a bludger, they must drop the quaffle.) The keeper’s job is to protect the three goalposts, while the seeker must capture the snitch — a sock stuffed with tennis balls carried by a person (typically a cross-country runner) dressed in gold. Capturing the snitch nets an additional 30 points and ends the game.

Aah, to be young and going to nerdvana, er ... college: Link (with video clip goodness, of course) - via Geekologie

Nick of Nick's World of Synthesizers decided to build a spring reverberator ... out of Slinky and cucumber! Here's the Springatron 3000:

This is basically a giant spring reverb made from 10 slinkys. I was trying to make the best sounding spring reverb possible, I think I achieved this but it is probably the most inconvenient spring reverb ever made. The reverb time (sustain) is so long that the springs need damping and I found that the best material for doing this is a slice of cucumber wedged under the end of each spring, other materials like foam or rubber tend to kill all the treble.

http://nicksworldofsynthesizers.com/springs.html (with MP3 audio clips) - via Make

The folks at Extreme Craft blog spotted a dinner at the Eureka Gem Show at Redwood Acres fairground, California, that rocks (literally!) The food are made of rocks, gems, and minerals. I think they cheated on the parsley, but who could resist that yummy rock bacon?

Link

Did your stuff yourself so much on Thanksgiving that your pants no longer fit you? Well, don't worry - here's a gadget that will solve your problem:

When your waistband feels too snug, reach for the Waistband Stretcher. You don't have to get rid of your favorite jeans, skirts or slacks thanks to this simple waist-band stretching device that lets you add from 1-5 inches (depending on size of garment) to the waist of cotton pants, skirts, and shorts. Just moisten the garment's waistband, insert the waistband stretcher, extend the garment to the desired size and let dry - voila, a more comfortable fit!

Link - Thanks Juergen!

Photo: brickfrenzy [Flickr]

Thanksgiving may be over, but turkey-related madness continues! Here's a weaponized turkey mecha that is both whimsical and technically elaborate by Adrian Drake of Brickfrenzy: Link - via The Brothers Brick

Ryan Estrada wrote to us about his website, Cartoon Commune, where you can get your own made-to-order (and very reasonably priced) custom comic books, children's books, illustrations, animations and songs. Cartoon Commune has a team of 5 illustrators, each with their unique styles, so you can select one that matches your taste.

What to do with a custom comic? Well, for one, they make a fantastic gift:

Turn your significant other into a superhero. Have your kid's bedtime story adapted into a book they can read themselves. Turn your 'how we got together' story into an unique wedding favor, or anniversary gift. Get a new "our song" that's actually written about the two of you.

Ryan Estrada drew for us a fantastic comic book starring Neatoramanaut and Neatoramabot - besides the cute drawing, he even rhymed the captions!

Check it out here: Link (and get your own here) - Thanks Ryan!

Photo: Jose Hernandez / National Geographic Magazine

National Geographic Magazine has just announced the winners of their 2008 International Photo Contest. Amongst the fantastic entries is this particularly amazing shot by Jose Fernandez:

This is a shot of three eagles fighting over a fish in Homer, Alaska, from March 2008. You can see the fish at the top of the image flying by itself, but it was caught in its fall by another eagle.

See the gallery of winning photos here: Link - Thanks Marilyn!

Mona Tofu by Ju Duoqi

Chinese artist Ju Duoqi, 35, specializes in a unique art medium: vegetables! (well, technically digital veggies - but who cares?). Behold her masterpiece above, the veggie Mona Lisa ("Mona Tofu") made out of rice, sea kelp, and tofu.

In The Vegetable Museum series, she revisits in a stunning way some masterpieces of the western painting. Making use of vegetables and food of China’s everyday life – tofu, cabbage, ginger, lotus roots, coriander, sweet potato… – and through digital manipulation, she presents a puzzling series of vegetable compositions representing world famous paintings like Mona Lisa, The Cene by Leonard Da Vinci, The Dream by Pablo Picasso or Marilyn Monroe by Warhol.

Here are a few more:

Napoleon on Potatoes by Ju Duoqi

Van Gogh made of Leek by Ju Duoqi

See many more at Paris-Beijing Photo Gallery: http://www.parisbeijingphotogallery.com/main/juduoqiworks.asp - via Compass WebWorks

Previously on Neatorama:

• Album Covers Made of Food
• Carl Warner's Foodscapes

When Anadel Carrizales pulled over to help a blonde in a black miniskirt whose car appeared to have broken down on a Mexican highway, he thought that he was his lucky day ... but all he got was a super sticky situation:

Once he had stopped, the woman walked up and told him an accomplice was pointing a gun at him, said David Perales, a spokesman for state investigators.

She then tied him up with packing tape, super-glued his hands to the steering wheel of his truck and demanded money. Carrizales didn't have any cash, but the woman took his credit cards and fled.

"He probably thought it was his lucky day when he saw the woman in the miniskirt, but was surprised when she tied him up," Perales said.

With his motor still running and his hands still glued to the wheel, Carrizales managed to drive a few miles (kilometers) down the road until he found a police officer to help him.

Link

Robert Ballard, the explorer who found the wreckage of the Titanic, has just revealed that the expedition was actually a cover story for the US Navy about two lost nuclear submarines:

The Navy was not interested in the Titanic. … I mean, they funded the technology because it had so many military applications. And I was a naval intelligence officer for 30 years, and so I did a lot of missions for the Navy. Many remain classified, my best stuff. Rats …

Yes, the Titanic was a cover for a series of military operations. The Titanic was here, and over here was the Scorpion and over here was the Thresher (as he says this, he arranges three objects on a tabletop, roughly in a line, the center one depicting the Titanic).

And had that not occurred, I probably would not have found the Titanic because they wouldn't have funded me. I mean, if the Titanic was in the Indian Ocean, it'd probably still be in the Indian Ocean. But … it was straddled by two very interesting subs that we had lost — and the Scorpion was lost on war patrol … and it was carrying nuclear weapons. So it was a very hot sub to the Navy …

Link

Meet Sal Giangrande, the self-styled "Couch Doctor" of New York. Sal has a pretty unique business niche: he saws and re-assembles couches for people who couldn't fit their old couch into their new apartments but don't want to give up either one:

'I can't watch," said Andrew Clarke, shutting his eyes.

"You shouldn't," the doctor said calmly.

The doctor's assistant pulled out an electric saw. He started slicing. The ground was already strewn with staples that had been yanked out. After one, two, three . . . seven incisions, Clarke's $4,000, perfectly worn-in, brown leather couch lay in pieces with the 88-inch-long back surgically separated from the arms and bottom. Clarke's cherished couch looked like a dissected moose.

"Gosh," he mumbled, his eyes wide, "whatever it takes."

Sal Giangrande calls himself the New York Couch Doctor, but in fact he's New York's Doctor Whatever It Takes for desperate people like Clarke, who couldn't shimmy his old couch into his new apartment and wasn't willing to give up either one.

The young real estate executive was moving from one apartment to another in the same brick building in the heart of west Greenwich Village. The new place was bigger and had a spectacular view of the Hudson River but was situated in the middle of a narrow hallway.

"The movers tried several times, several angles, but they couldn't get the couch around the turn from the hallway into the new place," Clarke said. He was ready to dump it when his doorman told him about the Couch Doctor -- aka Sal Giangrande.

Geraldine Baum of the Los Angeles Times has more on this fascinating story about New Yorkers and their sofabsessions: Link

(Photo: Carolyn Cole/LA Times)

Congratulations to John Dawkins and Penny Cooper, who got married last week and therefore set a new UK record for oldest newlyweds!

Three months ago 90-year-old Penny Cooper made a leap-year proposal to 89-year-old John Dawkins, who she met at a charity event.

The couple, who have a combined aged of 179, tied the knot at a register office in Devon on Tuesday.

Link