There are only 21 Lamborghini Reventóns in the world and each costs about $1.6 million. That was beyond the price range of Wang Jian of Jiangsu province, China. So he took an old Nissan van, a Volkswagen sedan and sheet metal and built a slightly low-end replica.
Link -via American Digest
The United States have the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. China has the Strategic Pork Reserve. And Canada? Apparently it has its own strategic maple syrup reserve and it's been hit by sticky-fingered thieves in what is probably the sweetest heist of all time:
The warehouse in rural Quebec held more than C$30 million ($30.4 million) worth of maple syrup, a whopping 10 million pounds of the amber pancake topping.
It was not clear exactly how much of the sweet stuff was taken in the heist, which occurred at some point over the last few days and was uncovered during a routine inventory check.
"We don't know yet how much is missing - we do know it is significant," said Anne-Marie Granger Godbout, executive director of the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers.
Numerous barrels in the warehouse were emptied of their sticky contents. The remaining barrels need to be weighed and tested to ensure the syrup inside had not been tampered with.
The robbers "were wise enough, they tried to hide their crime," said Granger Godbout. "We just want to make sure we know how much is missing and how much is still there."
Aunt Jemima is wanted for questioning.
The Vancouver Sun reports: Link (Photo: Shutterstock)
This amazing handgun is a masterpiece of Seventeenth Century engineering and metalworking. The Lorenzoni pistol can, hypothetically, fire seven shots before reloading. Watch the video to see how this magnificently machined device cycled.
The captain has turned off the fasten seatbelts light. You are now free to move about the cabin for the next five seconds. Then we'll begin our descent. Thank you for flying Loginair from Westray to Papa Westray in the Orkney Islands.
Something Awful has a wonderful forum thread led by member Assassin Princess, who is a children's party princess for hire. She describes her job, tells funny stories about the people who enlist her services, and encourages others to go into the party entertainment business.
The very poorest children, the ones whose parents are renting a princess because they could never afford to go to Disney World, those children are wonderful. They will sit and listen to you politely through the whole spiel. They know this is a special treat that their parents worked for and they don't intend to take a minute of it for granted. They're the kids I work extra hard for and remember. The middle and upper class children always have a party full of little girls in those 80 dollar Disney store dresses, with all the accessories. The less well-to-do children's parties are always in normal clothes, though a lot of the children wear their church dresses for the occasion. It just breaks your heart to do a party for them, which means so MUCH to them, then turn around and do a party for little Sienna-Jayden-Madison, who is completely jaded by the age of four and can't even focus on a five minute story before she becomes bored and distracted. The parents of less well-off children tell us that their little girl will spend months talking about the time Cinderella came to her house. The very upper-class kids forget about the princess while she's still IN their house.
Many of her stories are funny, and others will make you go all verklempt. Assassin Princess is also a costume maker, cosplayer, comic book writer, and an artist. Her illustrations appear throughout the forum discussion, and yes, we get to see her in various costumes, too. Link -via Metafilter
A bus driver alerted police and emergency personnel when one of the tourists on his sightseeing tour went missing. The excursion to Iceland's Eldgjá volcanic canyon was put on hold for hours while a search was carried out. A helicopter was even summoned for the search-and-rescue operation.
However, the search was called off at 3 am when it turned out that the missing woman had been on the bus all along and even participated in the search for herself, mbl.is reports.
Before reentering the bus after the stop at Eldgjá, the woman had changed her clothes and freshened up, resulting in the other passengers not recognizing her.
According to information from the Coast Guard, a helicopter was ready to be sent to the area to assist with the search but the plans were put off due to foggy conditions. Around 50 people participated in the search on vehicles and by foot.
The unidentified woman hadn't recognized herself in the description of the lost woman. Link -via Boing Boing
(Image credit: Páll Stefánsson)
Photo: Alex
Wild
Alex Wild (previously on Neatorama) took this photo of an Apioscelis jumping stick insect in the Jatun Sacha reserve, Napo, Ecuador, that looks straight out of a sci-fi movie.
The American Civil War ended in 1865, but as of last September, the Department of Veterans Affairs still pays out two pensions from that conflict. Privacy rules prevent the release of the names or reasons for the pensions, but it's likely that the recipients are the disabled elderly children of veterans:
Department of Veteran Affairs spokesman Phil Budahn says the VA last checked in on the benefits recipients in the fall. Both were alive, but in poor health.
Budahn says it's likely that the children of the Civil War veterans, who have wished to remain anonymous, both had illnesses that prevented them from ever becoming self-sufficient..
Trevor Plante, a reference chief at the National Archives says it's also possible that the beneficiaries were young when their fathers died and had no living mothers to care for them, which would also qualify them for their fathers' pensions.
Link -via Hell in a Handbasket | Photo (unrelated) via the Ohio Historical Society
These diet tips have been vetted by scholarly journals and the scientific community at one time or another. Still, your mileage may vary. -via The Daily What Geek
It's life imitating Mr. Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie , where the hapless hero unwittingly destroyed Whistler's Mother. Here's the story of how a woman decided to "restore" a deteriorated fresco in Spain:
LinkEcce Homo (Behold the Man) by Elias Garcia Martinez has held pride of place in the Sanctuary of Mercy Church near Zaragoza for more than 100 years.
The woman took her brush to it after years of deterioration due to moisture. [...]
The woman, in her 80s, was reportedly upset at the way the fresco had deteriorated and took it on herself to "restore" the image.
BBC Europe correspondent Christian Fraser says the delicate brush strokes of Elias Garcia Martinez have been buried under a haphazard splattering of paint.
The once-dignified portrait now resembles a crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic, he says.
Kumbhalgarh, the second longest wall on earth, can be found in the state of Rajasthan in western India. The 36-kilometer wall was built beginning with the rule of Rana Kumbha in the year 1443. Read about the history of the wall and see more gorgeous pictures at Kuriositas. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Benjamin Vander Steen)
Joe Rinaudo owns a photoplayer from 1926. What's a photoplayer? I'm glad you asked. It's a machine that allows a performer to play many instruments simultaneously. During the days of silent movies, theaters would use them to play background music. Mr. Rinaudo spent years restoring and mastering his. Now I want one.
Sunny looks like Pikachu, but he's a yellow cockatiel. Here he shows off his musical talents with the theme from the TV show The Addams Family. -via Buzzfeed
Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. The concept of infinity may scare you, but you won’t be tested on this TED Education explanation. However, it will blow your mind. -via The Daily What Geek
It's not uncommon for fishermen to catch 30 to 100 pound white sturgeon in British Columbia's Fraser River. But this one, caught on a rod and reel, weighed about 1,100 pounds and was more than 12 feet long. It may be over a hundred years old:
It could also be 35 years older than the angler, Michael Snell, 65, of Salisbury, England. Snell, who was fishing with his wife, Margaret, called the catch a fish of a lifetime.
"It is the most excitement I've ever had with a fish," said Snell, who took 1 1/2 hours to eventually land the fish along the shoreline. "It all happened so quickly. When we picked her head up out of the water, it was almost three-feet wide. I never knew a fish could be that large."
By comparison, the world-record swordfish is 1,182 pounds. The world record for a white sturgeon? It is 468 pounds taken in Benicia, Calif., according to the 2012 International Game Fish Association book of World Record Game Fishes.
The Snells and their professional guide took photos of the fish, tagged it and released it back into the river.
News Story and Video -via Neo-Neocon | Photo: Great River Fishing Adventures
