As of Saturday, fourteen couples in Thailand were competing to engage in the longest continuous kiss. They've already broken the previous record of 32 hours, 7 minutes, and 14 seconds. Does that sound romantic? Just remember that every so often, the couple gets to take a "comfort break". While still kissing.
NurdRage offers up an especially nerdy Valentine's Day present: glow in the dark flowers. It's a simple process. Just drain the contents of a magic marker into a jar of water. Cut the stems off of some flowers and stick them in the jar. Let the flowers sit in the solution overnight. In the morning, after they have absorbed the fluorescent dye, they'll glow in the dark when exposed to ultraviolet light.
Kentucky Fried Chicken's famous or infamous (depending on your point of view) Double Down sandwich, a concoction comprised of two chicken breasts with bacon and cheese between them, has an arrest record with the Escambia County, Florida Sheriff's Office. Presumably the officers created the record for training purposes. Presumably.
Chung-Tang Ho made a solid cabinet made of wooden inserts that push out the back as you insert items through the front. Or, as Droog's description puts it "The cabinet is in fact a sculpture in the round you and your objects can participate in."
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."
Tolkien, in addition to establishing the genre of modern fantasy (I've just had a lengthy discussion with my English major wife about the legitimacy of this attribution), also created the word "dwarves" as a plural form of "dwarf". Tolkien explains why in one appendix to LOTR:
It may be observed that in this book as in The Hobbit the form dwarves is used, although the dictionaries tell us that the plural of dwarf is dwarfs. It should be dwarrows (or dwerrows), if singular and plural had each gone its own way down the years, as have man and men, or goose and geese. But we no longer speak of a dwarf as often as we do of a man, or even of a goose, and memories have not been fresh enough among Men to keep hold of a special plural for a race now abandoned to folk-tales, where at least a shadow of truth is preserved, or at last to nonsense-stories in which they have become mere figures of fun. But in the Third Age something of their old character and power is still glimpsed, if already a little dimmed: these are the descendants of the Naugrim of the Elder Days, in whose hearts still burns the ancient fire of Aule the Smith, and the embers smoulder of their long grudge against the Elves; in in whose hands still lives the skill in works of stone that none have surpassed.
The top of a tractor trailer is covered with snow. In fact, it looks like it's a few feet deep. When that pile hits an overpass, it sends snow everywhere over the roadway.
Sure, anyone can hack together a clumsy steampunk costume. But when professional prop makers, costume designers, and photographers come together, you get a high-grade product like this. Full credit to David Ashby Linda Hamilton, Christa Wood, and Matt Nicholson for their marvelous creation.
These daredevils in Moab, Utah, are swinging across a canyon using what they call a "swingline". John at Super Punch says that it "makes bungee jumping look sane", which is a pretty good description. The scene at 2:00 is particularly spectacular.
Daisy and Caspar are dogs. Every Saturday, their hoomin makes pancakes for them. Caspar is very mellow and waits patiently for pancakes to be inserted into his mouth. Daisy, as you can see, is not.
About 1 in 2.5 adults under the age of 40 has been inked. The Washington Post presents an interactive infographic illustrating the major styles of tattooing that can be found in the United States today. At the link, hovering over any area on the statue's body shows a closer view of each style.
Link via Nerdcore | Image: Wilson Andrews, Bonnie Berkowitz and Alberto Cuadra/The Washington Post
Harry Ward got to know Doris in a bomb shelter in Bristol, UK, during an air raid in November, 1940. Three months later, he gave his sweetheart a card on Valentine's Day as he left town to go to war. They married the next year, then had children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. They still use the same card every year:
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."
I doubt that this toy is licensed by Disney, but CLOT's TRON: Legacy Bambi toy nonetheless goes on sale on Valentine's Day. They can be found a shop called "Man Is In the Forest" in Shanghai. There are three more pictures at the link.
