You are too fat for this ride

focus group dialogue, originally uploaded by bijoubaby.

When I visited Disney World, lo these many years ago, we had a tragic/hilarious experience on the old Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Our boats suddenly stopped in their tracks, and we remained stuck for what felt like a very long time. While we waited, the audio track looped and the animatronic pirates went OCD on us, chasing girls in circles and taking swig after swig from bottles of rum.

Eventually, a Disney "Cast Member" came along and helped an obese person to disembark from a boat further up the line. Relieved of its excess weight, the boat buoyed up again and the ride continued. According to MiceAge ("its [sic] a larger world after all"--scroll down to the third article), the phenomenon is more common than I realized. Disney is doing renovations on the Small World ride for this very reason:

Quite simply, the boats weren't designed to handle multiple adults weighing more than 200 pounds, and they now routinely bottom out in the shallow flume and get stuck. The Imagineers who designed the unique flume ride system for the World's Fair assumed that adult men would average 175 pounds, and adult women would average 135 pounds. Needless to say, those 1960's statistics are hopelessly out of date in today's world.

Exactly how out-of-date are they? The CDC reports that average weight in 2002 was 191 pounds for men, and 164.3 pounds for women: "nearly 25 pounds heavier on average" than in 1960. Really, though, it's not the statistical average that's the problem; it's the hyper-obese outliers that break the system. Or it could be that the weight of a typical park goer in the fattest place on earth is slightly higher than the national average.

Happy autumn!

Best wishes for a pleasant autumn, from Lola to you! Next to spring, fall is my very favourite season. When the leaves start to turn, it's time to take out our warm clothes, and pack up our shorts and t-shirts. I start wearing slippers around the house. I drink apple cider and hot chocolate. I knit hats while the Cowboys beat the Vikings on Sunday afternoon football.

What are your most fun autumn day activities?

Minnesota RollerGirls home opener

IMG_5692, originally uploaded by Bitwise.

After a series of away games, the Minnesota RollerGirls returned to the legendary Roy Wilkins Auditorium last night for their 2007 season opener. I didn't plan on attending, until the Current came through with a pair of free tickets for me, again! They gave away limited-edition t-shirts to the first 200 people, so Jenna and I took the bus down early to wait in line. Unfortunately, hundreds of roller derby fans had already beat us there.

Two teams from our local RollerGirls league took on visiting contenders from out-of-state. In the first bout, the Hood Rats from Nebraska's No Coast Derby Girls got dominated by the lovely Dagger Dolls. When the first half was finished, they went backstage to rest, while we watched the Cincinnati Rollergirls All-Stars put a serious hurtin' to hometown heroes, the Garda Belts.

Jenna started to feel unwell about halfway through the second bout, and eating a plate of nachos supreme didn't help. We packed up at the half time break and got home by 9:30. She lay down on the couch while I enjoyed a cold PBR for less than $4.75. Roller derby plus (cheap) beer equals one great night!

Knitting is weird

It's very strange how using simple repetitive motions, with such basic tools and a single strand of fiber, can make anything from a potholder to a sweater. I haven't knit in a long while. Recently I picked up my needles again, and after a brief refresher course, my hands remembered everything they had to do.

I'm making a winter hat with some hand-dyed Merino wool yarn from Aisha Celia. I started out using the Center Square pattern from Knitty.com, but it wasn't working out and I had to rip it apart. After some re-calculation I picked up a new set of double-pointed needles at the Yarnery and started over.

Now I'm almost to the point where I had stopped before. Looks like this time, it's going to be the perfect size for a snug new hat!

Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together

Dude! Finally! The fourth volume in Bryan Lee O'Malley's rock-and-roll comic series will be published soon, and there are preview pages on his website! You should totally look at them! I hardly ever read comics anymore except for on the Internet, but I am in love with these books.

I'll be checking this out from the library as soon as it's released. Scott Pilgrim is so good that I would actually consider buying the books one day... if I ever get volume 9 of Bone and finish that series.

Citizen Police Academy: week 2

Hooker Tracks, originally uploaded by telethon.

Last time we learned--among other things--about St. Paul's historic bicycle patrol. This week we met a modern-day bike cop who told us stories about riding through the skyways of downtown St. Paul and hiding in plain sight on the streets. People don't see bikes. That extends to criminals and to bicycle police, who can ride up and apprehend bad guys before they can resolve the mental discrepancy of an officer who's not in a squad car.

Fun facts about the Ramsey County Emergency Communication Center (ECC):

• A telecommunicator can take 400 calls in an 8-hour shift (that's 50 calls per hour!)
  
• They can track a cell phone signal from the tower to within 50 meters of the calling phone.
  
• Noise complaints are the lowest call priority. For example, if you report a barking dog, they will wait 75 minutes to dispatch. The dog's probably not going to be barking any more by then. Our presenter said that they don't get many of these complaints.

The highlight of my evening was an undercover Vice officer. Because some details had already appeared in the newspaper, he was able to talk about a recent case involving a prostitute named "Fancy." Myth busted: if you ask a cop if he's a cop, he CAN lie to you and say that he's not a cop. This is not entrapment. You will still be arrested if you sell him drugs or whatever. Stoners beware.

The most entertaining part of class was question and comment time. One of our classmates, apropos of nothing, told the bike cop that women don't like riding bikes. A woman tried to ask the ECC speaker something about squad cars connecting to satellites and calling other countries, except nobody could figure out what the question was.

The same lady also seemed to ask the Vice cop if he could remove prostitution from the Internet. He looked somewhat confused, but answered, "no, we can't do that."

"Well, you should," she said under her breath.

Fakeproject graffiti coloring book

Fakeproject Corporation of America has made a coloring book for graffiti writers. There's a free PDF so you can print out blank illustrations and decorate them with the colors and designs of your choice. Use them as practice for tagging, or a legal alternative to vandalism!

Letterboxing in Como Park (part 2)

With three fresh stamps in my logbook, I started following directions to my fourth and final box of the day. I saved 10,000 Lakes for last because it had the most cryptic clues. It took me into parts of the park that I had never seen before. First stop was the monument above. It was conveniently located next to a restroom building, which became my second stop.

I blew my nose on some two-ply, then back to the trail. I had to duck under an intimidating barricade to access the next location. The hole in this table is beautiful in an urban-decay kind of way. It's complemented by some charming graffiti.

This structure near the park bench looks like something you might find playing Oblivion, deep in an imaginary forest, although the chain link fence gives it away. This eroded architecture looks like it must have been part of a larger building at some point. I would like to find out more about it. Does anyone know its history?

Finding this letterbox was a fun little journey, but the best surprise was what I discovered next. Tucked inside the box was a tiny "hitch hiker." These mini-letterboxes are designed to travel from one box to another, carried to new locations whenever they're discovered. I stuck this one in my pocket to drop off when I go letterboxing again. I wonder where it will end up next?

Letterboxing in Como Park (part 1)

This weekend I went in search of four letterboxes in St. Paul's popular Como Park. More than one set of clues contained instructions to "rehide well," since it's usually such a busy area. But on this cool, damp Sunday afternoon, it was almost empty. A perfect day for letterboxing!

The damp air near the conservatory was filled with cheery carousel music. I moved away into silence, following directions for the Claddaghs past the Japanese garden and into a small patch of woods. After uncovering these two boxes, and carefully re-hiding them again under branches and leaves, I went straight for the next one.

Snot was dripping down my nose and into my mouth by the time I found Fall 2007: Harvest. It was hidden beside a path that must be impossibly busy during nice days. It's a limited-edition letterbox, due to be removed on the last day of autumn (December 21). There was a nice two-color stamp inside. Alas, I only brought one pad of ink.

In part two, I find the best letterbox ever.

NaNo Technology: speech recognition

PhotonQ-Nanobiobots BloodReplication's PetriDish, originally uploaded by PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE.

In previous NaNoWriMo years, I had lots of free time to write at home (or at work, as the case may be). This year, I'm spending up to two hours in the car every day, driving to a job that actually challenges me and keeps me busy. That doesn't leave lots of time to write a 50,000-word novel.

What's the ideal solution? Writing in my car, of course! By dictating during my commute, I could reach my quota before I get home, and keep my evenings open for family time. Therefore, I started researching speech-to-text solutions.

This PC World article lays out the procedure for pairing a digital voice recorder with speech recognition software. The writer sounds satisfied with the results he got using a Sony ICD-SX57 and Nuance Software's Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9, but other reviews have been less favorable. I'm leaning towards an O'Reilly-recommended Olympus DS-2. It's less expensive but still more than I can afford right now. Does anyone out there have a recommendation for doing this on the cheap?

Citizen Police Academy: week 1

Saint Paul Police Bicycle Patrol outside T.C. Borg Cycle House (1897)

Starting this week, my wife and I are attending the St. Paul P.D. Citizen Police Academy. It's a free (taxpayer-funded), 11-week class, "to educate the citizens of Saint Paul with the operation of their police department."

Day one was introductions and the history of the department. We started with a speech by the chief. He is obviously passionate about his job, and proud of his department. I learned that the St. Paul police are the best in the world, but also, they are people like you and I.

Each week I'll be posting our experiences as we learn more about what these men and women do every day.

"American Vagabonds?"

A controversial photo set has surfaced on a Spanish-language website. Click to see a series of more images like the one above (via Kevin Kelly). The subjects are compelling and well-shot.

More interesting than the photos themselves, however, are the comments at the bottom of the page. There's a lot of anger there despite the fact that nobody seems to know who the photographer or the subjects really are. Whether or not they're actually homeless, jobless 'vagabundos,' all you have to do is bring up these topics and people just start freaking out.

Hate makes me sad. There's too much of it in the world and a disproportionate amount online. This is why I try to avoid reading comments... except in my own blog, of course, where all my commentators are intelligent and friendly!

Spoon! all-ages show at First Avenue

Spoon @ First Avenue 10/10/07, originally uploaded by jcbehm.

Spoon was in town this week for two nights of shows at the First Ave. The Current gave away tickets for weeks in advance. I called Mark Wheat and he added me to the guest list, plus one.

I was not very familiar with Spoon before the show, but hey, free tickets! So on Thursday night my brother and I went downtown to hear them play. Now I am a Spoon fan.

Have you been to any good shows lately?

Water ski champion

This summer I went water skiing for the second time. Or perhaps, I should say, that I attempted to water ski for the second time. The first attempt was when I was just a wee tot in my church's youth group, and I barely pulled my head above water before bailing out. This time I almost got it right.

In total, I think that I made four tries. On round one, I took a face dive and swallowed half a gallon of lake water through my nose holes. I coughed and sputtered a bit and then found the skis, which had been torn off, and got ready for round two. For my next attempts, I was able to pull my body up so that my butt skipped across the water, but I couldn't quite get onto my feet.

Afterwards, I held on to a tube-type thing called the Y-Not (so named because it is Y-shaped) while my sister-in-law's husband's step-grandfather pulled me behind his boat. I was dripping with blood when I climbed out of the water, and discovered that I had suffered some minor battle damage to my elbows and bashed the hell out of my bad knee. It looked worse than the photo shows, but it hurt less than it looks. So it goes.

Calecia Biker in Lowrider issue #1

page 22, originally uploaded by Iowahawk Blog.

Lowrider bicycles are making a comeback, but they don't build 'em like they used to. Here is an original model from the first ever print issue of Lowrider Magazine. I love how his saddle is practically scraping the whitewall tires, about one foot off the ground. Also, nice hat!

The IowaHawk blog has more scans, but sadly, this is the only bike-related photo.

Steampunk keyboard & monitor

This made the rounds a while back, but it's still awesome: Jake Von Slatt's steampunk keyboard. If you are so inclined, he provides instructions for modifying an IBM Model M into a beautiful, brass, typewriter-keyed computer keyboard. Next, he built an LCD monitor in the same style.

He hints that the desk is missing a mouse, but what will he build after that? One can only hope that it will be a steampunk case mod!

Custom Zelda DS Lite

This Nintendo DS Lite is the platform for a brilliant mod. The gold paint job is reminiscent of the original NES cartridge, and a 3-D Triforce medallion on the cover is backlit with blue LEDs. Additional photos at Joystiq and Softpedia.

There are many more complex case mods in the world (see e.g. the Metroid Wii), but I'm overwhelmed at the level of skill required to do something similar. This DS inspires me to try a simple repainting on my own. "How hard could it be?" I wondered.

After reading Linear's painting tutorial, my naïve enthusiasm has been dampened, though not extinguished. It might be a good winter activity. Or I could get a Dremel kit for Christmas, and start a wildly ambitious project.

Photos aquatic & microscopic

Image credit: Charles Krebs, water-scavenger beetle larva (Hydrophilidae sp.)

Today, links to a couple of recent photography galleries.

At Wired, winning photomicrograph images from Nikon's Small World competition.

The Smithsonian gallery shows photos of fantastic deep-sea animals. There is an amazing diversity of life on earth. I am getting some great ideas for my Spore creatures!

Dorodango no Tetsujin

hikaru dorodango by master Kayo sensei, originally uploaded by iwishicoulddescribeittoyoubetter.

Craftzine's feature on hikaru dorodango ('shiny mud balls') made it look so simple that I had to give it a try. If Japanese schoolchildren can do it, than it couldn't be too difficult. Plus I already had everything you need: water, and dirt. I made a sifter by poking holes in a paper cup. Then I got to work forming my dorodango.

Playing with mud is fun. I like the smell and feel of it. As children, we can play in the mud for the sake of play, but as adults we need an excuse. Hikaru dorodango is an opportunity to reclaim this childhood activity. You may be surprised by how much you enjoy it! There are online instructions if you would like to create your own hikaru dorodango.

Chicken Run Rescue

Mary Britton Clouse runs a chicken rescue out of her home on Lowry Ave. Some of the birds are abandoned, and others are saved from fighting rings or ceremonial slaughter. According to the Star Tribune article, it's the only chicken adoption organization in the nation. How wonderful that someone is finding homes for chickens right here in neighboring Minneapolis.

Custom action figures

Photo swiped & cropped from Wired

A while ago, Wired ran an article on action figure modding. It's an interesting concept but I wasn't blown away by any of the examples in their gallery (except the seriously awesome Skeletor shown above). Then I saw Jin Saotome's Master Chief on Kotaku. I was so impressed by the incredible level of detail on this 8-inch figure, I'd be proud to own it, even though I don't play Halo.

I would love to have a modder selling these at a Craftstravaganza, except the price would probably have to be somewhere on the scale of a customized Blythe doll. Master Chief is on eBay and bidding is already over $300 with four and a half days to go!

Back to nature

Nobody moved into my handmade bird house this year, but it's still providing a valuable function in our urban forest. See that big pile of morning glory vines at the corner of our backyard fence? The swallow house I built is buried underneath all that foliage!

I took this photo over a month ago, and the cluster has only grown thicker with time. This mighty bush grew from just five wimpy seedlings. It seems to be putting all its energy into bulking up the branches, producing only a handful of morning blooms. Meanwhile, all around our yard tiny morning glory plants are springing up, and burgeoning with dozens of flowers.

October Challenge: daily blogging for 1 month

April 18, originally uploaded by hesmywatermelon.

I'm participating in the Zen Habits "October Challenge." From their site:

The purpose of these monthly challenges is to form a new habit in 30 days by doing them daily [...] The only rules:

1. Choose only 1 habit. You might want to do more than 1, but it’s pretty difficult.
2. Make it easy — you want to be able to accomplish it. Don’t make it too challenging.
3. Report daily, or as often as you can. Accountability is what makes this work.

I was going to pick weightlifting, because it's a habit I would really like to get back into. However, I've tried to start up again several times before and it's hard, so that violates rule #2. Instead, I decided to do one new blog post every day throughout October. I enjoy writing (it's good practice for NaNoWriMo!) and I haven't been very consistent lately, so I've got lots of catching up to do anyway.

Best part is, the daily reporting (rule #3) is automatic. Now it's your job to hold me accountable. My reader(s?) have permission to rake me across the coals if you don't see a new blog post daily before midnight (Central Standard Time). OK? Let's go!

Bicycle-lawnmower hybrids

Look at the list of ingenious pedal-powered mowers on treehugger.com. Some of these contraptions remind me of the mutant bikes made by chopper clubs like Black Label and the Rat Patrol. In fact the "Suburban Intruder" pictured above was put together by Cyclecide, whose crazy creations never fail to impress.

Sadly, our urban yard is far too small to justify a riding mower of any kind, whether manual or run on gasoline. I did consider buying a modern reel mower. If only our home's previous owner hadn't left behind a perfectly good Toro, that's probably what I'd be using now.

KnockMan Family instrument toys

I was at Robot Love today and became enamored with the KnockMan Family, cute little toys that you wind-up to make noise. All the figures are charming, but this one takes the cake: Pololon is a tiny guitar-man with strings you can tune (watch the video)!

I officially have too much useless plastic crap cluttering up my desk. Regardless, KnockMans have been added to my lust list. I could make room in my collection for one more gadget if I got it as a gift. Why, it could even be friends with my solar-powered Sunshine Buddy.

Pok Pok Pok...

Life After _______ (fill in the disaster)

Hybrid Earthship Snow, originally uploaded by Earthship Kirsten.

Wired today has an interesting interview with a couple of controversial environmentalists. From the comments there, I went to a site about Peak Oil (subtitle: Life After the Oil Crash). I really enjoy reading about these apocalypse scenarios--so much so, that I'm using them as fodder for this year's NaNoWriMo.

Regardless of what the future holds, though, it's smart to become more self-sufficient. In the event of a global catastrophe, the only difference that most of us can make is an influence on our own, personal circumstances. So we have bird flu kits and canned food and bottled water. That's interesting for fiction but scary in real life. We stockpile emergency supplies and hope we never have to use them.

But, there are also fun ways to prepare for the collapse of civilization! Raising chickens and bees, growing our own food, and investing in sustainable energy sources, for example. My retirement goal is to structure my life so that if the grid goes down, I'll be so prepared that I don't even notice. Come on, everyone, let's all build earthships and live in a Sui Generis commune!

Zen Habits: Simple Productivity

I recently discovered a wonderful blog on simplicity and productivity called Zen Habits. Aside from containing great advice and wisdom, the writer's style is very straightforward and accessible (good qualities for me strive for).

I find that just reading it makes me feel more serene. Highly recommended if you have ever wanted to find focus, replace bad habits with good ones, and gain control of your life. Check it out.

Stencil a t-shirt with bleach

Stencil Revolution posts a step-by-step tutorial on using spray bottle bleach to "tattoo" images on fabric. The roadblock for me is taking time to cut a proper stencil. If I can tackle that, this looks like an easy application technique with awesome results.

Talk Like a Pirate Day

I don't recommend that you actually talk like a pirate, but there are other ways to celebrate this dubious holiday, based on your level of commitment to living the life:

1. Slap on an eyepatch, drink some rum, and perch a parrot on your shoulder. That's real ultimate pirate power!
2. If you're content to play at being a pirate via the magic of videogame entertainment, Sid Meier's Pirates! is a fun facsimile, for a little while. I picked up this game for about a dollar at the local Savers thrift store, and I totally got my money's worth in pirate fun.
3. One level deeper is the online game Puzzle Pirates (which you can try for free), wherein you pretend to be a pirate who pretends to do piratey things as represented by minigames. Avast! It's meta-tastic!
   

I played Puzzle Pirates for a couple of months until I got married. It was very fun. They have added a bunch of puzzles since then, enough so that I'm considering giving it another look, just to try out the new content. As you might imagine, I especially enjoy the distilling game.

Nickel Dickel Day

This year was my first time attending Waconia's annual Nickel Dickel Day celebration. It was good times all around. When we arrived, I noticed a sign for a book sale and of course that had to be our first stop. Here's what $3 buys you at the Carver County library:

• 11 hardcover books
• 9 paperbacks
• 1 video cassette tape
• 3 compact discs
• 2 LP records
  

There's a flat price for whatever you can cram into a grocery bag, so some of that is filler. But, I also found some books from my to-read list. It was a great start to a great Nickel Dickel Day! Then there was a car show. Here are two Mustangs and a Thunderbird.

An essay on the disparity of gender roles in Harvest Moon

Lately I've been playing Harvest Moon on the Gameboy Advance. There are two versions of this game; one in which the main character is a boy, and one where it's a girl. In Japan these are appended "for boy" and "for girl." This clear distinction is muddied in the import subtitles, which are "Friends of Mineral Town" and "More Friends of Mineral Town," respectively.

As a series, Harvest Moon has been critiqued for sexism, so I was intrigued by this release. A previous game (Back to Nature) was the first to offer a choice of gender for your on-screen avatar, but the girls' version was dumbed-down in comparison, including a premature ending. The game is over when girls get married, whereas boys can continue to play indefinitely--and their wives dutifully stay at home and have a baby one year after the wedding. So, that's awesome.

By contrast, the gameplay in Friends of Mineral Town for Girls is supposed to be almost identical to the one for boys. They even added improvements, instead of taking features away! Progress! Just for fun, I fired up both games on my emulator to look for differences, and I was in for a treat right away. The opening stories are polar opposites of each other.

If you play as a boy, there's a touching tale about befriending an old farmer and fond memories of a rural vacation. After he dies, you inherit his farm. The game begins as you attempt to continue his legacy. That's nice.

Now here's the introductory sequence if you play as a girl. You dream of escaping the daily grind for a slow-paced life in the country. In the newspaper, you see a farm for sale and decide to buy it, sight unseen. Only when you arrive on the property do you realize that you have been suckered! The fields are littered with detritus and the buildings are in disrepair. Now you're out whatever money you spent, and since you already sold your apartment, you're stuck here. Stupid girl! To top off this heartwarming scenario, the mayor of the town comes out and laughs at you. Way to go, Harvest Moon. Stay classy.

Tomato days

I have fallen behind on my blog posting schedule, and now I'm trying to... ketchup? These tomatoes were plucked from our backyard garden in early September. We got a bountiful harvest this year, and plenty more green fruits are ripening even now. The bulk of last year's crop withered and died on the vine, but this year's plants are huge and super-productive!

Paper Critters papercraft generator

Do you like cute toys? Do you like papercraft? You will want to check out Paper Critters, a web tool for designing little block-head creatures.

They're like collectible mini figures that you make yourself, and just like anything you make yourself, most are not going to turn out very well. I looked through several pages of the user-submitted "colony" and they're are all crap. You can probably do better.

Hard Cider Part IV: The Bottling

It's judgment time for my first batch of homebrewed hard cider. If you need a refresher, the adventure begins here. In late December I did fermentation, and racking about two months after that. I haven't spoken of it since then, because nothing has happened to my cider in the past seven months, other than sitting in secondary (and hypothetically becoming more clear and refined with age).

Recently, I opened up the bucket again and bottled two fifths of my premiere beverage in one-gallon jugs. The tasting was hosted by our friends in their new home. The cider was critically acclaimed. The apple flavor is subdued, but distinctive; slightly tart, somewhat yeasty. We experimented with several additives to hack the taste--including sugar cubes and fresh (regular) apple cider--but the majority opinion seemed to favor drinking it straight.

This process has been a great first homebrew learning experiment. For my next batch, I think I'll try a more complex recipe. But before I can start, I have four gallons of cider I need to drink. Is anyone thirsty?

Along for the ride

I still don't have a motorcycle yet, so I try to get rides as a passenger whenever possible. It's so much fun, that it makes me want one even more, but it's still better than not riding at all! Last weekend we visited Jenna's family and my father-in-law pulled his Road Star out of the garage for me. I got to sit on the back seat while we took a tour of bustling downtown Waconia.

His brother's restored '62 Honda Dream was there. I shared a photo of this bike before, and I took some detail shots this time around since we had brought my wife's fancy new camera with us. Later that night, I got to ride on another motorcycle when John picked me up for the Bike Depot board meeting. Thanks John!

Backyard apiculture: hobby honey

Bohol Bee Farm, originally uploaded by EnDriNa.

I like bees. Not because I'm crazy about the insects themselves--although they do make good subjects for bug photography--but because they produce that sweet, sweet honey. When I was young, one of my neighbors kept bees, and they gave us free honey sometimes. I thought of them during our last trip to the Minneapolis Farmer's Market, where one of the vendors had a very attractive bee frame display.

Fun Fact: Minnesota is one of the top five honey-producing states in the country, and the vast majority of those bees are tended by amateur keepers.

One of the threats facing honeybees today is pesticide-resistant mites (varroa destructor). A researcher at our own University of Minnesota is leading the way in breeding "hygienic" bees that throw out infected larvae from the hive. And if you want to learn more about beekeeping, she also teaches an introductory course for aspiring apiculturalists.

Mushiking is awesome, extinction is not

Japanese kids love bugs, they love arcade games, and they love them some trading cards. Mushiking combines arcade beetle battles with collectible cards that are dispensed by the machine, and swiped to control the on-screen action.

Although this game is only the latest phenomenon to cash in on the beetle craze, it is being blamed for an increase in illegal importation of endangered bugs from Turkey. According to the Times Online article, "[a] million beetles a year are being imported into Japan, where they are sold for as much as 40,000 yen (£170) each on internet auction sites."

Conservation groups are concerned that the stag beetle Lucanus cervus akbesianus could be wiped out entirely. They're in a serious crisis. Let's get to breeding these beautiful creatures, so that our grandchildren can still run away screaming from giant bugs on their doorsteps.