Xin Liangkun, 53, of Dalian city, created an unique five layered ball in 10 years. He created the ball such that each of the five balls can turn inside without touching the others. In a television documentary he claimed that no one could reproduce the ball.

“This ball was my first piece, and only I understand how it was made,” he told a television documentary. “If anyone can reproduce it, I’l give him my three-storey building, and the collections within it.”

But young porcelain amateur from Luoyang city, Sun Zheng, created the exact same thing in six month.

Promise is promise but it was not easy for Xin to hand over his home and his prized porcelain collecion. He tried to prove that the replica wasn’t similar to the one he created but unsucessfully.

A court ruled that Xin’s TV pledge has the same validity as a signed contract, and must be fulfilled.

If Xin does not appeal within 15 days he will lose his £100,000 three-storey home and his prized porcelain collection.(ananova)

We went to see Calgary Tower last weekend and I am posting some photos and videos of the tower. Thanks to the clouds, we were not lucky enough to see the mountain but the view of the city and the virtually “stepping out into” space on glass floor at a height of 525 ft. was simply amazing. One of my friend took a video (posted below) of the view from the glass floor which is new addition (added in June 2005) to the old tower.

View from the glass floor on the tower (video posted below)

The tower officially opened on June 30th, 1968. The 191 m (627 ft)tower is considered one of the first Towers of its kind, offering the best view of the City of Calgary. At the time of construction, it was the tallest building in Canada, although it was surpassed that same year by the Toronto-Dominion Centre in Toronto, prior to opening. (Don’t want to copy everything, you can visit wikipedia article on the tower for more information).

During 1988 Winter Olympic, the torch lighted on top of the tower made it the World’s Largest Olympic Torch. This and other facts about the tower can be found in the Official Site of Calgary Tower.

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Calgary Tower: Photos and Video

I came across a pink blog some time back and today was going through the neat, short and witty posts of Cynthia. Pixie Tail is one of her numerous tails equally witty and interesting. I love the way she tells:

I have four blogs, four dogs, two cats, and one husband.

That’s a big family!!

Twelve people have been injured and two people are missing after a hot-air balloon caught fire in mid-air before crashing to the ground in a trailer park in Surrey, B.C. According to witness, people were screaming, jumping out of the balloon when it caught fire.

As many as 14 people may have been on board at the time of the accident. As of early Saturday morning, two people were still unaccounted for. The hot air balloon’s basket bursts into flames shortly after takeoff when it was about 25 feet off the ground in Surrey, B.C., Friday evening Aug. 24, 2007.

Even worse when the balloon landed on the ground, one of its propane tanks shot out from the side of the balloon and hit a mobile home in the RV park.

The balloon was operated by Fantasy Balloons Charters based in Langley, British Columbia and was one of several balloons in flight at the time.

Another similar incident occurred in Manitoba earlier this month left 12 people were injured with some suffering second- and third-degree burns.

Photos and news from CTV, CBC and ABC

I used to walked by the side of this electrical box everyday for the last 2 years and today I realized the writing on it. Or was it today somebody tamperd it… who knows. But the modification doesn’t look that fresh. Whatever may be the case, it seems whoever has changed it has a good sense of humor!

Mountain Goats are amazing climbers and we were lucky to see them in real when we went on our tour to Jasper. It might be the frequent encounters and people feeding them, they seem a bit more friendly to human. I am posting the small clip I took of them blocking the traffic on the highway.

If you are interested to learn more about them you can visit Jasper Journal website. I was busy taking the following video clip so I borrowed the above photo from the journal website :-;.

I took this video sometime back. It is sort of cute how the little squirrel is eating flower.

In one of my posts about Bao, one of the readers, Natalie, commented telling that he is not the tallest man in the world. I searched for the man and found that he is a shy guy and would not let people measure his height. I collected some of his photos and was going to post about the man, but today I got news that he is indeed 20 cm. taller than the Chinese man.

The Chinese hero Bao Xishun loses his title as a Ukrainian vet is decleared officially the tallest man in the world.

The Guiness Book of World Records decleared Leonid Stadnik, 36, who lives in a small poor village in northwestern Ukraine, is 2.57 meters (8 feet and 5.5 inches) tall the tallest man in the world.

Stadnik is more than 20 centimeters (8 inches) taller than the former title-holder/fallen hero Bao, who measures at a stumpy 2.36 meters (7 feet and 9 inches).

Stadnik’s growth spurt started at age 14 after a brain operation apparently stimulated his pituitary gland.

Source

I posted a post about a blog “The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs” written by an anonymous blogger. The New York Times has pulled the mask off a blogger known affectionately as “Fake Steve Jobs,” author of “The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs,” a satirical blog based on Apple’s chief. Fake Steve is really Dan Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes.

The blog has been around for the last 14 months and nobody was able to pin point the author of the blog. Various news media was determined to discover Fake Steve’s identity. Some thought it was tech columnist Andy Ihnatko. Others thought it was actor Harry Shearer. Still others called out various well-known tech bloggers as the true Fake Steve.

“Well it had to happen,” Lyons, 46, wrote in his August 5 blog post. “Honestly, I can’t believe it’s taken this long. But as you may have heard, I’ve been busted by a newspaper reporter. My cover has been blown.”

news source

I was walking around the city and found this bench ad in a bad shape! The ad reads “always hiring” and it seems like they are yet to find the right person to repaint the ad.