Instructables user lizzomarek made an amazing model of the castle from the anime movie Howl's Moving Castle. It's made in the Japanese pottery tradition of raku-yaki and given a steampunk flair. There's a really neat video about halfway down the page at the link showing the castle, still glowing red hot, coming out of the kiln.

Link via Make

Previously: Two models of Howl's Moving Castle in paper

Etsy seller Donna Terraza doesn't specialize in Star Wars scenes, and that's a real shame because it's a medium that, like everything else, can only benefit by more Star Wars content. Terraza has, however, produced two fine works showing Yoda and a stormtrooper, respectively, at the links.

Link and Link via Walyou

(Video Link)

Extreme ironing is a sport in which people take an iron, an ironing board, and clothing to extreme locations, such as mountaintops or erupting volcanoes. Participants then proceed to neatly iron the items of clothing. Security camera footage in the UK caught one man ironing in the middle of a freeway. That section had been temporarily closed, so there wasn't much risk. Still, it's a good start, and the bathrobe was certainly an appropriate costume.

Link via Geekosystem

Passover begins today, so, naturally, Phillip Torrone used a laser to etch an image of Spock into a matzoh wafer. This is especially amusing since Leonard Nimoy is Jewish and the Vulcan salute is derived from a Jewish tradition.

Link via blastr

(Video Link)

Last year, Teddie Films produced an excellent Star Wars parody of Ke$ha's "Tik Tok" which got a lot of attention on the Internet. That crew is back, now lampooning Rebecca Black's song "Friday". "Prime Day" is narrated by Princess Leia, and she's taking the rebellion a little less seriously. Here's a selection from the lyrics, available in full at the video link:

7am, waking up in the morning
Gotta be fresh, gotta do my hair
Gotta roll my buns, gotta have blue milk
Force in everything, light saber's glowin'
Attack is goin on, everybody's fightin'
Meeting at bay nine-ty-four
Gotta find Kenobi, I see my friends

Solo in the front seat
Luke is in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which one is my mate?

via Nerd Bastards | Previously: Rebecca Black's "Friday" as Radical Text

We often post about inventive cakes and cupcakes, especially those made with other delicious foods inside, such as Oreos and Cadbury Creme Eggs. Now it's no longer necessary to scrounge around for such confections. Thanks to the specializing tendency of the Internet, there's a blog devoted entirely to baking foods inside cakes and cupcakes. Pictured above is on example from Bake It in a Cake -- a banana cupcake with a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup inside and topped with chocolate buttercream and chocolate chips.

Link via The Breda Fallacy

(Video Link)

So much time is lost when switching partners. These two boys have got it all figured out!

via Joe Carter

A Jalopnik reader sent in this photo of a custom motorcycle with dangerously high ape hanger handlebars:

The high handlebars — "ape hangers" in chopper speak — rank among the tallest in the world, and far exceed the 15-inch height above the seat allowed by Missouri state law. We'd guess the tassels are there for both fashion and safety; they give the bike that backstage-at-Altamont vibe and can be used as grips when the rider inevitably loses control after all the blood drains from his arms.

Link

Maxime Ansiau, an artist based in Amsterdam, has made four sets of conjoined porcelain plates showing very tall or very wide buildings. I have no idea how she does it, but I'm most curious.

http://www.maximeansiau.com/index.php?/project/plates/ via Colossal

(Video Link)

YouTube user T. Shamir, who made the excellent tiny cannon that we featured last year, has machined a crossbow from gold, silver, and steel. It comes with a tiny aperture sight and a pull of 5.9 pounds. The above video shows the impressive capabilities of this little crossbow and the various bolts that Shamir made. Among them, toward the end, is a flaming bolt that sets its target on fire.

via Geekologie

The Lucasfilm Animation building in Singapore looks rather like a sandcrawler, don't you think? This is just an artist's conception, as groundbreaking occurred only this week.

Link via CrunchGear | Images: FuriousFanboys, CrunchGear, Lucasfilm

(Video Link)

This tree in Lewisburg, Tennessee has a lot of pollen. A gentle shake reveals how much.

via Geekosystem

We've posted about wood gas burning cars before, but those were cars not inherently cool, namely a Yugo and an old Citroën. An El Camino, on the other hand, is awesome even if it can't run. This one, however, dubbed the El Kamina, works quite well on a wood-burning engine:

Juhas Sipilä’s 1987 El Camino, affectionately dubbed “El Kamina” (The Stove), features a very steampunk-like woodgas generator taking up about half of the truckbed. El Kamina’s 400 Chevy engine can take the 4,400 pound truck about 125 miles on 175 pounds of biomass, or about 1.4 pounds of biomass-per-mile. The truck itself can carry enough fuel for around 800 total miles of travel.

Video at the link.

Link via Glenn Reynolds | Photo: Juha Sipilä

Melissa Smith of Zoey Cakes has made what may be the ultimate Cadbury Creme Egg creation. It's baked with an egg inside, covered with vanilla buttercream frosting, and then topped with a mini egg.

Link via Craft | Zoey Cakes

Previously: Giant Cadbury Egg

It's hard to find much information about this type of firearm. Steve of The Firearm Blog suspects that these weapons were decorative rather than practical. There are apparently a couple examples on display in the armory at Castle Eltz in western Germany.

Link | Photo: RC-MIR.com