Kevin McKinney built a treehouse for his two daughters on top of an 8 foot wide Giant Redwood stump. The house has a cantilevered porch, observation deck, sink, closet, and interior stalactites! McKinney is documenting the ongoing project in photographs. http://www.paralleldesign.com/mckinney/kevin-01.htm -via reddit

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Charles McCowan parked his truck in front of a convenience store, leaving his dog Max inside. When he came out, the truck was gone! McCowan called police to report the theft. Officers found the truck in a parking lot across the street with the 80-pound boxer still inside. Security video shows the car had rolled backwards across five lanes of traffic! Apparently, Max had knocked the truck out of gear. Link -via Arbroath

This year is the 30th anniversary of the Diagram Prize for the oddest book title of the year. The finalists for the annual award have been announced by The Bookseller. They are:

I Was Tortured By the Pygmy Love Queen
How to Write a How to Write Book
Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues
Cheese Problems Solved
If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs
People who Mattered in Southend and Beyond: From King Canute to Dr Feelgood

I’m still giggling over the description of the Pygmy Love Queen book. The titles that almost made the shortlist are also intriguing. Now the public can vote at The Bookseller site. The winner will be announced March 28th. http://www.thebookseller.com/news/53656-oddest-book-titles-prize-shortlist-announced.html -via Metafilter

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If you watch this karate chop shown slowly enough to really see what happens, you may decide not to take up martial arts. -via Cynical-C

The Oscars will be awarded this Sunday night, for the 80th time. Movie Poster Addict has compiled all 79 posters for movies that have won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. I’m sorry to say that I have only seen 39 of them. Cimarron (pictured) won in 1931. Link -Thanks, deadmen!

You’ve probably seen the Lamp/Lamp from designer Hironao Tsubui. It sells for ¥2,100, or about $20. But you can make your own version with a steady hand and the proper glue! http://www.vvank.com/?page_id=9%22 -via the Presurfer

That’s about as blue as a building can get.

The borough of Delfshaven, Rotterdam, asked Schildersbedrijf N&F Hijnen to come up with a plan for a block of derelict buildings, which will eventually be demolished. The agreement with the neighbourhood is that the block will remain blue as long as there isn't a new plan for the area.

This was once one of the most unseen blocks of houses in Rotterdam, and by applying a layer of only 2 micron of blue paint onto it, it became Rotterdam's most photographed one.

Link -via Dump Trumpet

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I’m impressed. -via mental_floss

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If you are going to the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo, you want to be there on drill day. Zookeepers train for escaped animal emergencies once a year, but they can’t use real animals for drills, so they dress up as zoo animals! A recent drill featured two escaped “zebras”.

Some 150 zoo workers, policemen and ambulance crew played their part, wearing hard hats and wielding sticks and nets in an attempt to capture the escapee.

The fake zebra finally fell to a fake tranquiliser gun.

Link -via Arbroath

Now you can party like it’s MCMXCIX! Or MIM, if you don't want to spend as much. If you’re tired of people making fire extinguisher jokes as you blow out the candles at your birthday party, try Roman Candles. And there’s a small chance that some people might not know that L is 50. Link -via Grow-A-Brain

io9 has a guide for how TV and movie producers should treat hardcore science fiction fans. For example:

Fans love inconsistencies. Fans claim to hate contradictions in long-running stories, but actually that stuff is catnip to them. If Londo Mollari says he has seven penises in one episode and then refers to his twelve penises in another episode, the fans will spend hours coming up with explanations for the discrepancy.

Ain't it the truth? The debate over Star Wars inconsistencies has kept forums alive for years. Link -via Fark

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Those of us of a certain age will remember seeing this late at night when some TV stations used it as their sign off. It’s from J. Alan Wall’s TV Sign-Offs, a collection of achived footage from the days when stations went off the air at night. Afterwards, you would get either static or a test pattern (two terms that you don’t hear much anymore). Link -via Fark

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Phun is fun! Phun was created as a MSc project by Emil Ernerfeldt (who also created the music) for supervisor Kenneth Bodin, HPC2N/VRlab, Umeå University, Sweden. The program is free to download. http://www.acc.umu.se/~emilk/ -via Viral Video Chart

Dave Steward of Fort Madison, Iowa was fired from his job after seven years because he posted a Dilbert comic strip on an office bulletin board. In the offending strip, Dilbert compared company decision-makers to “drunken lemurs”. Management checked surveillance tapes to find out which employee was responsible. The story became national news after the company fought Steward’s claim for unemployment benefits. Now Dilbert creator Scott Adams is incorporating Steward’s story in his comic strip. A series of strips on the case begins today.

In one of the strips, Adams gives his take on Steward's dismissal.

Catbert: "Wally, I have to fire you for posting a comic comparing managers to drunken lemurs. You won't be eligible for unemployment benefits unless you can prove you were stupid as opposed to malicious. Can you prove you're stupid?"

Wally: "Is there another explanation for working here?"

Steward, who is still unemployed, says he will keep the strips in a scrapbook. http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080220/NEWS/802200382 to story. Link to daily Dilbert strip. -via Fark

(image credit: Scott Adams)

Steve James is serious about the environment. He built his own home near Dumfries, Scotland out of natural and recycled materials for a total cost of about £4,000.

"Actually, you could make it for less than that," James says. "I'd cut the wood myself next time instead of going to the sawmill. That would knock off a thousand." He finds the whole concept of mortgages quite amusing.

The walls are made of straw bales, and the roof is turf with flowers growing on it. It has a rainwater collection system, a composting toilet, and a woodburning stove. With the help of friends, he built it in about ten months. Now he’s helping other people learn about alternative building methods. Link to story. Link to James’ website. -via Metafilter