(Photo: Southwest Coast National Scenic Area)

Okay, we can dispense with the marketing meeting because I already have the solution to our problem. Women dig shoes, right? Especially shopping for high heeled shoes. So here's what we're going to do: we're going to make the new church look like a shoe!

It's a fool-proof plan that has become a reality in Taiwan. The new church building is 17 meters tall and has 320 enormous blue glass panels that form the body of a shoe. ITV News reports:

Southwest Coast National Scenic Area spokesman Zheng Rongfeng told local media the church would also include 100 "female-oriented" features including chairs for "lovers", biscuits and cake.

What would a church building for guys look like?

Nope, never mind. I don't want to know.

-via The Presurfer

Natasha of the food blog Through the Eyes of My Belly has started publishing her work very recently. It was only last week that she introduced herself to the people of the internet with her bacon and chocolate shot glasses.

I expect to see only wonderful things from Natasha. She's promptly followed up on that culinary marvel with edible shots made of mozzarella cheese and filled with marinara sauce.

To make them, first, she cut a block of mozzarella into large chunks with hollowed-out tops. She rolled these in flour, washed them in egg, then rolled them again in bread crumbs. After freezing them solid for 2 hours, she deep fried the cheese chunks and filled them with marinara sauce. Yummy!

-via Foodiggity

(Photo: Curtin University/Desert Fireball Network)

Prof. Phil Bland of Curtin University is ecstatically happy for a reason. The rock that he holds in his hand is the oldest in the world. It's an extremely rare meteorite that he dates back to 4.5 billion years. That's older than the Earth.

Bland and his colleagues were racing to find the meteorite. It had been spotted in a remote dry lake bed in southern Australia. That lake bed was about to fill with rainwater. So the research team was using every means at its disposal to track down the rumored meteorite. They found the 1.7-kilogram rock just hours before the rain arrived. ABC News reports:

Curtin University team leader Phil Bland hand-dug the meteorite from a 42-centimetre-deep hole in a remote section of the lake bed just hours before the arrival of heavy rains would have washed away any remaining clues.

"It was an amazing team effort, we got there by the skin of our teeth," Professor Bland said.

"It is older than the Earth itself. It's the oldest rock you'll ever hold in your hand.

"It came to us from beyond the orbit of Mars, so in between Mars and Jupiter."

The three-day operation to find the meteorite involved an aerial spotter, a drone, two researchers on a quad bike and local Aboriginal guides Dean Stuart and Dave Strangways looking in the sticky clay.

-via My Modern Met

(Photo: Las Vegas Footgolf)

Kick the ball in the hole and scream "GOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLLL!" Then fall over with a broken leg.

Got it? Now you're ready to play Footgolf. It's played like golf in that the goal is to put your ball into the hole with as few strokes as possible. The main difference is that you kick a soccer ball instead of swinging a club.

Footgolf is a growing sport that is starting to take over some golf courses as the popularity of that sport wanes. In fact, there was even a World Cup in Argentina that drew 230 footgolfers from 26 countries. Atlas Obscura writes about this exciting new sport:

A round of FootGolf takes half the time of a normal round of golf, and the only equipment required is a size 5 soccer ball. The simplicity of the sport has helped attract soccer players and golfers, adults and kids alike. A typical FootGolf uniform features knee-high argyle socks and shorts, with many athletes opting for newsboy caps. Cleats, however, are off limits.

According to Juan Fernandez, director of marketing for the American FootGolf League (AFGL), there are now 450 courses in 49 states. “The golf industry is embracing FootGolf right now; at the beginning they were just looking at us,” says Fernandez, who has worked at AFGL since 2012. “Now they see that FootGolf is here to stay.”

(Photo: NuDown)

The winter apparel company NuDown has developed a new way to stay warm during the winter while permitting variable temperatures. After all, you may want to wear a parka while walking through -10°F temperatures outside. But once you're indoors, the parka becomes way too hot to wear.

NuDown's jackets are inflatable with a hand pump that stores in a side pocket. Just pump in air to increase the insulation inside the jacket. Then release it for warmer environments. Fast Co Design reports:

The jackets are each fitted with a pump that you inflate when you need to—instead of throwing on more bulky layers, just add air. NuDown says 20 pumps will add enough insulation to keep out the chill on chilly days, 30 pumps will give wearers more warmth on blustery days, and 40 or more is supposedly enough for the harshest conditions (the company gives the example of waiting on a windy ski lift). If the coat gets too toasty, deflate it to cool down.

Each pump supposedly adds one degree Fahrenheit of comfort, but for temps dipping below 20 degrees Fahrenheit, NuDown recommends using its Argon Gas Upgrade kit. The add-on will inject your coat with argon, the same gas that's used in double-pane windows and dry suits, since argon is better at insulating than air.

(Video Link)

Making a movie trailer is easy, right? Wrong. And you get a distinct sense of this by watching trailers from the 1930s and 40s. They come across as awkward introductions by amateur narrators.

That's because composing a 2-minute movie trailer has become a carefully refined and highly competitive artform. Jack Nugent explains how trailers work as a form of storytelling and how this medium has been repeatedly re-invented as movie studios strive to drive the largest audiences possible to movie theaters.

Content warning: foul language.

-via Joe Carter

Moesha took her seat on the jetliner. Behind her sat a turkey.

Her experience was unusual, but not unique. The New York Daily News reports that Delta Airlines permits passengers who need emotional support during flight to bring their turkeys:

Delta allowed the turkey to gobble on the flight through its compliance with the Air Carrier Access Act, which lets customers travel on the airline with their emotional support animals.

“While we can’t always accommodate all pets, Delta employees made a judgment call based in part on extensive documentation from the customer,” a Delta spokesperson said in a statement, regarding the turkey.

The turkey was spotted in a photo on a seat and also in a wheelchair being moved around the airport.

I'm not surprised. As God as my witness I thought turkeys could fly.

-via Ace of Spades HQ

So at most it will give you a paper cut.

Marco Ercoli is an Italian artist who lives in Rome. Among other media, he creates 1:1 scale sculptures out of stacks of sticky notes. His subjects include guns, a grenade, and even a full-size car. They're vibrantly colorful imitations of the originals.

-via Lustik

(Photo: The Princess of Hair)

Well, now that my wife is a bit less angry over the tie-dye hair incident, it's time to do something new. Mistakes were made, but let's move on to the next newest and awesomest hairstyle trend: glow-in-the-dark rainbow hair. Yes, these are the magificent results of hair dye that glows under black light.

Police in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia arrested a man wanted for an assault and a string of car thefts. His last victim gave him a lot of trouble.

The owner pumped gas and went inside to pay for it. The thief then got inside the car and tried to drive away. The owner jump kicked through the open car window into the car. After some fighting, he was able to get fully inside. 

(Image: CBS)

I grew up watching Star Trek from about the age of 6 or 7. It's existed in some form throughout my life and is the most prominent narrative lens for me. So I found myself nodding often as I read Charlie Jane Anders's arguments for the greatness of the Star Trek story.

Although Star Trek doesn't get a lot of respect from some science fiction purists, Anders argues that it is superior to many other major science fiction franchises. For example, the Star Trek universe is enormous. It's filled with countless worlds, species, and characters that have been fleshed out in detail:

Everybody’s doing shared universes nowadays, and to a large extent this is an attempt to imitate what Marvel and DC accomplished in their comics, decades ago. But on television and in the movies, Star Trek was one of the first series to create a universe in which different ships, and different crews, felt like they all belonged to the same basic setting without being just “spin-offs.” Add in the book-only series like New Frontier, Corps of Engineers, Vanguard, Seekers and so on, and you’ve got a capacious galaxy. Star Wars always comes back to being about the Skywalkers and their friends, in the main media series, but Star Trek is just about Starfleet, and any Starfleet officer could star in a Star Trek show or movie.

Only a few Star Trek episodes are truly brilliant. But there are 727 episodes of the various series and 12 feature films. With Star Trek, you can enjoy a steady diet of good storytelling for a very long time.

(Video Link)

About once or twice a day, I'll get a mention on Twitter. But Demy de Zeeuw is different. He's a famous soccer player, so his social media following ranks in the millions. When he sets the Instagram app on his phone to push alerts, the result is a massive, continous stream of notifications. In a mere 2 days, his social media profiles gathered 13 million views. Zeeuw writes:

“When you post epic content on Instagram … this is [what] your push notifications will look like,” he wrote in the Facebook post.

(Photos: Scott Hein/Gothamist)

There are no signs or doors. You don't get a menu or a place to sit.

The mysterious proprietor known only as "Papa" has occupied the old newstand for several years. Knock at the right time--he has no posted hours--and he'll give you the best Caribbean food, such as this:

People in the know use Papa to get their fix of curry goat and chicken. Scott Heins of Gothamist visited and learned more about the secretive source of top-end Caribbean cuisine:

"Six or ten?" Papa asks each customer—his dishes of curry goat, marinated chicken, oxtail, and sauteed fish comes in only two prices, and are sized to match. Rice, beans, and chopped vegetables accompany each, and everything arrives piping hot in a styrofoam container. Your dining options are, of course, limited, but then the benches of Brower Park are only a 5 minute stroll away. […]

Despite a total lack of advertising and promotion in a neighborhood brimming with West Indian eateries, the chicken cavern has managed to keep its simple and tasty operation running. Papa opens the window when his morning prep work is finished, and closes up shop when the day's stock runs out.

-via Messy Nessy Chic

(Video Link)

Jacqueline Sloan Ziegler's daughter, Kailyn, loves to do cartwheels. And she's good at them, too! Oakland the Pit Bull would like to get into the action, but he can't get the hang of the movement. Keep practicing, Oakland (warning: auto-start video).

-via Tastefully Offensive

If you're a foreigner, then Norway's winter weather right now is brutal. But if you're Norwegian, then it's just a bit breezy outside. Trym Nordgaard illustrates the Norwegian attitude as he casually sips his coffee in the morning.

(Video Link)

Content warning: foul language.

-via Boing Boing