Dragging their LEDs behind them!  My husband grew up in the UK and fondly remembers the family pet Border Collie that herded the children around ‘though it had never seen a sheep in its life.’  These  mates have gone the extra mile and done away with the dogs, attaching LED ‘blankets’ over their herds to make formations in extreme sheepherding! This is pretty cool and kind of creepy at the same time– via Heavy.

I don’t even pretend to know the mechanics of making humanoid robots or the process of designing them. Over the last few years we’ve seen a ton of ‘learning’ robots, which is amazing and wondrous in the capabilities their human creators have bestowed in them. Asimo wowed and amazed when it could keep its balance, Qrio charmed and delighted doing a fan dance for school children and plenty of “less-pretty” models have paved the way for the new ‘feeling’ robots.

Scientists like to spout that robots will be as commonplace in our homes at the family pet and even emotionally connected us and us to them (a la A.I.) but Japan has come out with possibly the creepiest ever robot to grace the planet. It’s a baby- a learning, crying, kicking baby about 3 feet long and though it resembles a human with silicon skin and does have asian features, there’s something completely frightening about the way it suddenly STARES at you as if calculating how to dismantle your brain and eat it (think the little girl in the Ring). Again, I know nothing about design of robotics but I should think after all that work on its internals you’d pay a little more attention to the creep factor on the outside…

Via Darkroastedblend: Darkroasted blend brings us delicious, wide-screen shots of that BladeRunner-like city of Tokyo by Thomas Birke, who traveled to Tokyo for 3 weeks last year to take photos of the ‘future.’ An interview with the photographer can be found here. Anyone who has been to Toyko or seen good photos of it know that it gives the feeling of the dark yet bright cityscapes found in the famous Bladerunner movie of the 1980s. Maximize your screen and enjoy!

2001: a space odyssey that is. Greenmagoos has kindly posted original concept sketches from the ’stargate’ ending sequence in Kubrick’s classic. Personally I love looking at concept art as I myself do hundreds of preliminary ideas before I get to the final stage, so enjoy!

Let’s face it, as human beings we love to be scared. How else do you explain our love of horror films, roller coasters and eating cockroaches (well, for some…)?  I stumbled across the blog KinderTrauma via Ephemera and have spent way too much time now reading over the stuff that scared the pants off of other readers in their childhood. If you remember a film, tv advert  or book that made you want to hide under the bed, submit it. If not, looking through these creepy old baddies is just plain fun. My own kindertrauma stems from Children of the Corn (the first one of course!) and the film Watership Down when the bad rabbits tear the ears of the ones who tried to run away from the warren. CREEPY!!

It’s spring and the time of year for the Washington, DC Cherry Blossom viewing as well as the Sakura viewing time for our cousins in Japan. Sakura (cherry) blossoms are beloved in Japanese culture for their fleeting beauty and figure in the title of one of my favourite anime films in recent years, Makoto Shinkai’s 5 Seconds per Centimetre (referring to the rate at which Sakura blossoms fall from the tree), told in three parts: 1. Cherry Blossom 2. Cosmonaut  3. 5 Centimetres per Second.


 It’s eye candy, I admit. The animation is gorgeous, the story, a little sweet for me but I’m a sucker for pretty things. Check out the trailer and it’s predecessor The Place Promised in our Early Days (didn’t like that one nearly so much but still a decent watch).

Or actually, maybe you have.

image: Neatorama

While I am anxiously awaiting the chance (read: money) to get a Wii so I can old-skool on NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams, I ran across this post on Neatorama highlighting 14 bizarre video games not only developed but sold to the unsuspecting masses.  

See if any of these ring a bell with you:  Socks the Cat Rocks Hell (super NES), Michael Jordon: chaos in the windy city (super NES), Toobin’ (Atari), Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball (Super NES), Cool Spot Mega Drive (I played this!), Michael Jaskcon’s Moonwalker (Sega Genesis), the Typing of the Dead, Exodus (yes, the biblical one), the Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy, Drum Master (Nintendo DS), John Deere’s Harvest in the Heartland, Face Training (Nintendo DS), Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom (Nintendo), Toilet Kids.

While this is an excellent list, it’s a shame they left out the bizarreness that is the WarioWare games (picking your nose is a skill we must all practise??), Katamari (fun, but let’s face it, strange).

We dare to you find something cuter than little Japanese kids all decked out in kimono and on Shichi go san (3-5-7), children ages 3,5, and 7 are celebrated and prayed for to have long lives. This festival is instantly recognisable in Japan for its bright and beautiful attire.

Why only ages 3,5 and 7? These are considered lucky numbers to the Japanese when parents measure the growth of their children. The festival is celebrated on 15th November, the most auspicious day in the Japanese calendar.  Children are given candy that symbolizes a thousand years called chitose-ame.

 Girls of course wear ceremonial kimono but boys also dress for the occasion wearing trousers called hakama and jackets called haori. The children resemble beautiful packages all wrapped up in bright colours. If you’re not aware of what goes into dressing in kimono, check out the proper way to dress in Yukata (summer kimono) on JapaneseLifestyle to really appreciate the cultural value of these pieces.

The annual Hallowe’en parade in Greenwich Village is the nation’s largest public Hallowe’en celebration and is attended by over 2 million people. I went to the parade about 7 years ago with some college mates and it was wall-to-wall people to the point of nearly crushing. But contrary to popular belief, New Yorkers are great people and it’s an event not to miss.

People show up to the parade in just about everything and the official site keeps plenty of photos of every year’s new creations. One of the high points of this night of colour and revellry are the huge street puppets put on by 50,000 participants through HERE Theatre’s Dream Music
Puppetry Program.

If you’ll be in the area and would like to get in on this year’s puppetry contact the Volunteers .

No, this is not a post about St. Therese but rather the fantastic floats of the Rose Bowl Parade. The fantastic parade is put on every year by the Tournament of Roses Association, a nonprofit organization dating back to 1890 and started nonchalantly as a small parade of flower-covered carriages and family events.

If you’re one of the 40 million Americans who catches the parade every year you’ve certainly seen some astounding floats which are made entirely of natural materials (seeds, flowers, plants). If you’re in Pasedena, about.com has the nitty gritty on viewing the floats in style or on the cheap and ehow lets you in on the secrets to being a volunteer and working hours upon hours to place individual flora and fauna on next year’s masterpieces.