It took Pat Acton more than two years and 602,000 matchsticks to build his latest masterpiece, a detailed scale model of Harry Potter's Hogwarts school. The model features all the turrets, walkways and towers seen in the films. He is currently working on scale model of the Minas Tirith fortified city from The Lord of the Rings movies. Pat says,"The Minas Tirith model will contain hundreds of city buildings. It will also be topped with the Tree of Gondor and the White Tower of Etchelion. The dimensions on it will be roughly 10 feet long and about nine feet wide. The great tower is seven feet tall." Imagine what this guy could do if he harnessed the power of Lego.

If you think the tomato throwing festival in Valencia is the craziest party going on in Spain, you've never heard of the baby jumpers of Castrillo de Murcia. Since 1620 grown men have been donning costumes and leaping over mattresses of babies in a rite meant to ward off the devil. We have a similar ritual at the office where CowboyNeal jumps over a row of cheeseburgers to ensure better internet connectivity.

57-year-old Edward Smith wants everyone to know that he is not "sick" or mentally disturbed. He likes movies about cars, he writes poetry about them, he sings and talks to them and sometimes when the mood strikes, he makes love to them. Edward first had sex with a car at 15 and now estimates that over 1,000 cars can call him lover. He currently lives with his "girlfriend," a white Volkswagen Beetle named Vanilla. Could someone please give this man a hug and tell him everything is going to be ok?

nz17 writes "While the administrator is away the managers will play. A custom Web server went missing at an unnamed public university, but who was the culprit? The department manager. Thinking that the Linux Web server (which used a Microsoft Xbox for its hardware) was a normal game console, he snuck the device out of the server room and home for his son to play over the holiday weekend. The philosophy students who used the server for their class were not amused."

Jamie stumbled upon a very choice video this morning called I Will Derive. To the tune of some song you've never heard before, singing about subjects you know nothing about... oh and a a TI-84 cameo. It features the dopiest dancing you'll see on YouTube today. I promise.

Italy's Fortezza Medicea top-security prison may be the only prison that has more people trying to get in than escape. A couple of nights a year the prison is turned into a restaurant in an attempt to teach inmates job skills and raise money for charity. To get a reservation you have to pass a background check and submit to metal detector tests before seating. Best of all, when someone talks about a tossed salad at Fortezza Medicea, they mean lettuce.

A British lab has won a $2m grant to study whether or not a robot could be safely employed in a kitchen to stir soup. A lab spokeswoman said, "It will specifically look at the problems of a human and a robot working together in the same space, for example in a kitchen where the service robot is performing a task such as stirring soup, while you add cream." If there had only been an industrial revolution during the 1800s where people started working closely with machines we might have already had an answer to this daunting question.

Those who enjoy drinking beer, playing video games, and (oddly enough) peeing in urinals may be able to reach true nirvana after all. "Place to Pee" is a new video game that relies on a player's ability to hit sensors in a urinal to control game play. While this may seem extremely male-centric, don't worry, ladies, the game designers have thought of you too, and have designed a specialized paper cone for participation. Man, it's a bad day to be a janitor.

A Brazilian tour company is in hot water, after it was revealed that it was offering tours of Rio de Janeiro slums, including photos with the local drug gang members. For $55 you get a 4 hour tour of Rocinha, the city's largest slum, including a visit to the "bocas de fumo" where traffickers sell drugs to Rio residents. If you don't want to pay for the flight to Brazil, I will drive you into the slums of Detroit for the same price. Pictures with gang members are at their discretion.

Duct Tape, the gamers best friend.

This is how you leave no doubt that you were a nerd.

Sports helps teach kids pride, self-reliance and the shame of coming in fourth.

A Chinese restaurant in Changchun city has received some criticism for keeping ornamental carp in the four meter long urinal in the men's bathroom. A spokesman for the restaurant says the urinal contains a mixture of urine and water which was not harmful to the fish. The owner added that the fish were intended as an attraction for diners and were not used in dishes. I'm surprised this hasn't caught on in more businesses. I know I would enjoy golf a lot more if I could relieve myself into a box of kittens at every hole.

How do you make the next meal with your parents or in-laws a bit more palatable? Why not get the fine people at "Dinner In The Sky" to strap you in a chair, haul you up 50 meters with a crane and cater a gourmet meal for you? They even offer an insurance package in case your dinner party can't survive a 15-story fall. I can't wait until someone does Dinner In A Bathysphere or Dinner In A War Zone.

If you combine the movie "Platoon" with "Combat" for the Atari 2600, this is what you get. Sometimes I miss the days when all video game characters were squares of various colors.

Pagan prisoners in England have won the right to keep twigs in their cells to use as wands. The new policy regarding pagans was announced by Justice Reform Minister Maria Eagle who said, "Prison service policy is to enable prisoners of different faith traditions, including paganism, to practice their religion. Religious artifacts are allowed for relevant faiths within the constraints of good order and discipline. The religious artifacts for pagan prisoners include a flexible twig for a wand." Now that wands have been allowed, it can only be a matter of time before inmates have access to rods, staves and miscellaneous magic items.

David Waterman, a 41-year-old Ashtead fireman, is facing legal action for refusing to take down a pirate flag he raised to celebrate his daughter's pirate-themed eighth birthday party after a neighbor complained. Under current laws, any flag flying outside a residential property has to have planning permission unless it is a national flag. When asked to comment on the flag, the neighbor said "The history of the ninja, in fact, is marked by a strong code of moral and just behavior that applies not only to the fighting or military aspects, but also to the everyday life and birthday parties. Learning to attain sei shin (or right mind) is essential to becoming a ninja and virtually impossible with the flag of your enemy flying next door."

mernil links to an unsubtle piece in The Weekly Standard, excerpting: "You just knew it was coming: At the request of the Swiss government, an ethics panel has weighed in on the 'dignity' of plants and opined that the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong. This is no hoax. The concept of what could be called 'plant rights' is being seriously debated."

Jim Piculas, a substitute teacher in Florida, recently lost his job. The reason he was fired is magically ridiculous. Among other issues he has been accused of Wizardry. That's right, Wizardry. Jim does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears. The trick is so good that it has propelled his community 200 years in the past.

As part of a team building exercise, Chad Hudgens agreed to be waterboarded. "He lay on his back with his head downhill, co-workers knelt on either side of him, pinning the young sales rep down while their supervisor poured water from a gallon jug over his nose and mouth." His boss told the employees present, "You saw how hard Chad fought for air right there. I want you to go back inside and fight that hard to make sales." Chad thought about it for a few days and is now suing. General counsel for the company, George Brunt says, "We're not the mean waterboarding company that people think we are. I don't know if this would even be an issue if it weren't for Guantanamo Bay." He added that the company has seen great success with other torture themed training such as "The Iron Boot of Productivity" and "Drawn and Quarterly Reports."