Awesome Etc

Ahoy mateys, it be International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Perhaps ye be wantin’ to pick up this Pirate Tee and his scurvy dog? If not, we leave ye be with these pirates. Shiver me timbers!

Physics class needn’t be boring: a Rubens’ Tube uses sound waves, propane and fire to put on a pyrotechnics show. It was MADE for hard rock: skip to 2:00 to really watch things cook.

These Lego motorcycles by Milto almost look life sized, but it’s really just forced perspective tricks. Either way, check out his gallery here, which also includes Batmobiles and Bugattis.

Above is a methane rocket test by XCOR Aerospace; check out those shock diamonds! There are certain advantages to methane, including lower price, higher density and easier storage.

Our buddies over at Dark Roasted Blend have posted The World’s Biggest Airplanes, which include everything from steampunk airships to monstrous, sky-splitting Russian planes.

We had a good laugh with this video from College Humor about Professor Wikipedia. It starts off slowly but hits the nail on the head regarding Wikipedia’s usefulness (or lack thereof).

Those of us old enough to remember the Atari 2600 will love these Atari Modern Classics pictures from The -Minus World; they’re a wonderful take on retro package design.

Design minimalists will love MinimalSites.com: it collects websites with simple and clean layouts, and then allows visitors to vote and comment on them; you can sort by date or rating.

Greg “Craola” Simkins has a surreal style which isn’t easily forgotten (we love the Cadillac UFO above). Once a graffiti artist, he’s worked with Vans, Kid Robot and Disney. Thanks, Ben!

Opening 9/25 at Le Gallery in Toronto, David Tratrimas’ Habitat Machines are architectural compositions made from household objects such as coffee pots and waffle irons.

Bandai’s Luminodot is like a Lite-Brite on steroids, with space for up to 3500 pegs on its 70×50 screen. If you can find someone in Japan to buy it for you, it’ll be available in October.

We’ve seen pixel cities before, but Ryan Allen’s Google-maps based Goon City is special because Something Awful forum members are helping out, ensuring plenty of wackiness.

The iPhone has always been delicious, but these cupcakes by Nick and Danielle Bilton really take the cake. They won Ignite NYC’s Cupcake Decorating contest last night.

Above: Designer toy store Rotofugi does a great job turning the tables on toy collectors with this funky commercial. Bearbrick, Gloomy Bear and Wee Ninjas all make cameos: Ninja, please!

And you thought your surge protector was overloaded: photographer Thomas Kalak has a great collection of wires gone mad throughout Bangkok; some of these pics are truly frightening.

Igarashi Designs’ near-future vehicles would be perfect for the upcoming 007 flick; our favorite is this one-manned helicopter. Note: they’ve actually worked on Areaware’s Strida bike.

Causecast.org is like YouTube for social causes, with videos and pitches for everything from human rights to the environment; above is Jenny McCarthy speaking for autism.

Shakerboys is a hypnotic video by West London based artists Viewmanoid that makes you want to take the day off and chill; it’d be perfect as an iTunes Visualizer plugin.

Design You Trust has a collection of 84 retro-futuristic images available as a RAR file. They’re mostly collected from German magazines; several are perfect as desktop wallpapers.

Mega construction-bot Devastator is confirmed for Transformers 2; he’ll be composed of seven different vehicles. We can only hope it looks like the rendering above by Josh Nizzi.

Every Easter Sunday Eve, two rival churches in Vrondados, Greece engage in a “rocket war” with the aim to hit the other’s belltower; they use up to 80,000 fireworks in the display.

Dan McPharlin’s Analogue Miniatures have us awestruck; made with framing matboards, most of his models are musically themed, mixing dials and sliders with keyboards.

Ad agency BigMan’s website is one of coolest we’ve seen; the interface is dominated by a Big Man (of course) and lots of flashing, sliding bits of text: kinda like Times Square on crack.