As a kid you probably enjoyed making sandcastles on the beach but did you ever think sandcastles could be so big, so elaborate or intricate? Some take it seriously, very seriously. Amateurs, artists and businesses from around the globe compete to win the prestige, prizes and press attention from their sandcastles AKA sand sculptures, the more accurate term for this peculiar endeavour. Even the corporates at companies such as eBay take a good sandcastle seriously, eBay commissioned a monster 75 tonne sand sculpture for their 10th anniversary. These sand sculptures are typically made using river sand, which is a finer material when compared with beach sand and therefore more suited to being sculpted. Unlike your puny childhood attempt at sand castle glory, some of these oversized sandcastles withstand weeks of erosion before disappearing. Here are some of the finest examples of sand sculptures from around the world!

Lifesize Skoda, Sydney

Lifesize Skoda: Who would have thought it? For many long years the humble Skoda bore the brunt of a near-constant stream of contempt and abuse from the western car-owning world. Derided and written off as a poor man’s car (and a poor car for most), Skoda was bought over by Volkswagen in 1991 and like a Czech Phoenix has been transformed into a reliable and respectable brand with sales figures to match. Part of their renewal has been a successful viral marketing campaign, like when Skoda introduced their vehicles to Australia in a manner in which Aussies can relate – a life-sized car on Sydney’s Palm Beach scultped using 60 tonnes of sand. Since then Skoda have gone on to create a replica Fabia cake!

Neptune’s Sandcastle, Virginia Beach

Neptune’s Sandcastle: Neptune’s Sandcastle is the largest sandcastle in the world, which was sculpted for the 2006 Virginia Beach Neptune Festival. This 37ft, 4 storey tall sandcastle easily trumped the previous 32.5ft world record. Neptune’s Castle kept six, skillful, sand sculpters from Team Sandtastic busy moving and shaping over 3,000,000lbs of fine sand until it was completed. Check out the video for a timelapse of how they do it.

Rapunzel’s Castle, Fraser Valley

Rapunzel’s Castle: As the old story of Rapunzel goes, the fair lady was trapped in the tower by an evil witch until her Prince came along. This stunning castle was sculpted for the annual sand sculpting competition at the Harrison Hot Springs Resort in the Fraser Valley of BC Canada.

Boracay Island, Philippines

Boracay Island: Boracay Island in the Philippines is a tropical paradise famed for crystal blue waters, thriving marine life and palm-fringed whiter-than-white sand beaches. Tourists on holiday from Australia and Europe are drawn to Boracay Island for all these reasons and while they are there they might see an intricate shoreline creation such as this one! Castles like this have stiff competition on Boracay. This place seems to be the center of the sand sculpting world!

The Sandcastle Group, Myrtle Beach

The Sandcastle Group: The Sandcastle Group are holders of the World’s Longest Sand Sculpture, which stood at 16.39 miles long on Myrtle Beach, Florida. Reyelt and his team mobilised 8,000 volunteers to help construct it, all of whom are Guinness world record holders. The same poeple who were responsible for this monstrous sand castle recieved Guinness World Records in the past for the 25,000 tonne ‘Blue Beard’s Castle’ in 1985 and the five-storey high Lost City of Atlantis in 1986.

Sandsation, Berlin

Sandsation: Martin Tulinius created this small piece of paradise on earth back in August 2007 for the fifth annual Sandsation event in Berlin, Germany. And around 100,000 Germans filed through to enjoy some of the best sand sculptures in the world.

Castle to the Sun, Casco

Castle to the Sun: It took 40 dump truck loads to get the 1,000,000lbs of sand needed for the Castle to the Sun sculpture. Project leader Ed Jarrett spent his summer building this colossal 31.5ft tall sandcastle at Camp Sunshine with help from the kids staying at the camp and community volunteers. The sandcastle was to raise funds to benefit the camp for children with life threatening illnesses. You can see a time elapsed series of photos documenting the building process.

Zadanyuk & Varano, Fraser Valley

Zadanyuk & Varano: Winners of the World Championships of Sand Sculpture 2007 at Harrison Hot Springs, BC were sculpting masters Pavel Zadanyuk of Moscow and Richard Varano from Florida. The duo created Beauty and the Beast which won the Gold Medal with 1,951 votes of over 10,000 cast.

Sandology, Byron Beach

Sandology: You could have walked past this beautiful yet modest sandcastle creation and missed its significance. This sandcastle was created by Steve Machell of Sandology in 2005 on Byron Bay beach specifically for a marriage proposal. I wonder if Sarah said yes?

Here’s the Church, Fraser Valley

Here’s the Church: Here’s the Church, a sculpture that garnered 1855 votes to win the Silver Medal also at the World Championships of Sand Sculpture 2007 Harrison Hot Springs. Sculptors Michael Velling of Federal Way, Washington and John Gowdy of Venice, Italy had to settle for second best.

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10 of the Most Amazing Sand Sculptures From Around the World

New Year’s Eve is just as much about spectacular fireworks displays as it is about expensive club entry fees, booze and parties. In recent years there has been growing competition between the world’s major cities as to who can lay claim to the title of best New Year’s Eve fireworks extravaganza, and 2008 was no exception. This year’s party was characterised by displays of war-like proportions; in London the display was of such magnitude that at one stage it seemed Donald Rumsfeld was back to open another can of shock-and-awe whoopass for the world to see! Here are the best displays we could find captured on video. Turn your speakers way up, grab a drink and watch as these major cities quite literally blow up our taxes!

London, UK

London: At the stroke of midnight on Big Ben, London ushered in the new year with an incredible 10 minute long pyrotechnic and light spectacular. The focal point of London’s fireworks display was the London Eye, which was used as a backdrop for lighting and as a launch site for over 100,000 pyrotechnics. The intensity and rhythm of the display half way through resembled, perhaps deliberately, the theatre of war. There were even two speed boats being used as mobile launch pads as they scurried around the Thames River. Several pauses in the action were needed to allow the huge plumes of smoke to disperse and to give the 700,000 strong crowd a chance to ready themselves for the next visual and sonic onslaught and booming finale. The total cost of the display was ~ $2,500,000, or $250,000 per minute. If you were in London for New Years Eve, you saw the best fireworks display anywhere in the world!

Sydney, Australia

Sydney: Well over one million people lined the banks of Sydney Harbour to be among the first making it into 2008. Up to 3,000 privately owned boats squeezed into the harbour for the best vantage point to see this dazzling show. All other Australian cities usually have to play second fiddle to Sydney’s amazing fireworks display on New Years Eve – and 2008 was no different. Come to think of it, most cities in the world would find it cahard to beat Sydney’s pyro-music-light display. Sydney blew up something in the order of $3,500,000 million of fireworks to create 30,000 effects from Sydney Harbour Bridge, six barges covering 3.75 miles of the harbour plus eight skyscrapers in the CBD for a 12 minute long display.

Las Vegas, USA

Las Vegas: Vegas brought in the New Year in the only way it knows how – with a gigantic 20 minute long fireworks and light spectacle backed by performances from a plethora of famous entertainers. The night opened up with Robbie Maddison’s record breaking motorcycle jump at the Rio Suite and Hotel. Then the real party began as the Strip exploded in an eight minute long pyrotechnic extravaganza with fireworks launching from seven casino-rooftop locations.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Rio de Janeiro: After taking in a few bands in the city center the party moved down to Copacabana Beach where all eyes were skyward at midnight for a impressive barrage of fireworks as roughly two million Brazilians and tourists (give or take a few hundred thousand) say “despedida” to 2007 and “Olá” to 2008. Brazilians, as you well know, like to party and what is really cool about the fireworks in Rio is that they last longer than the usual few minutes – Rio’s fireworks last for well over fifteen minutes! Fireworks are set off from hotel tops and barges out to sea creating one of the best shows anywhere.

Dubai, UAE

Dubai: What more would you expect from this booming city than a fireworks spectacular? Dubai wanted to start 2008 with a bang while attempting to break the world record with one of the largest and most artistically detailed fireworks display in history. The emirate employed the services of NYC-based fireworks specialists ‘Grucci’ to design and orchestrate the two-minutes of dazzling fireworks at Dubai Marina. Incidentally, ‘Grucci’ are the same folks who were responsible for the fireworks at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. A piano concerto led the evening up to the countdown at midnight when fireworks from over 25 locations along the beachfront were launched up to a record breaking 2,000ft. The ‘love and peace’ theme was evident in a stunning rainbow that illuminated the skyline from the Emirates Towers and down the Sheikh Zayed Road.

Taipei, Taiwan

Taipei: As with most Asian fireworks displays, the creative folks behind the New Year’s Eve fireworks in Taipei made good use of the city skyline. For over three minutes the Taipei 101 Tower was the focal point of everyone’s attention. Not only is Taipei 101 ridiculously tall (standing at 1,671ft) but it also holds the title as the largest countdown clock in the world for use specifically in New Year’s Eve celebrations. The fact that the display was launched from the top 8 floors of one of the tallest buildings on earth made Taipei’s fireworks unforgettable.

Hong Kong, PRC

Hong Kong: It’s the Olympics this year in China and Hong Kong was eager to impress. The highpoint of Hong Kong’s celebrations was the IFC One building, which towers above the skyline at 1,335ft tall. The locals of Hong Kong love a good fireworks show and hundreds of thousands gathered around the Central District, Causeway Bay and Tsim Sha Tsui areas to get a good view of the display. If you enjoy the sound of fireworks as much as the visual aspect you needed to get as close as possible to the IFC building itself or the fireworks won’t be very loud. This video was taken from a distance so the sound wasn’t so impressive, but visually the fireworks display was unreal.

Prague, Czech Republic

Prague: Who would have thought of Prague as a New Year’s Eve destination? Prague actually has two fireworks celebrations, the professional display put on along the River Vltava near Prague Castle, which caters to families and tourists. Afterwards there is … the ‘unscripted display’ in the Old Town Square put on by the good people of Prague which is basically an opportunity to risk your life in a free-for-all of rockets and bangers. Alongside the famous ‘Running of the Bulls‘ spending New Year’s Eve in Prague must surely rank highly for those seeking dangerous fun. Check out the footage from the 2007 New Year’s Eve display for a better idea of what goes on. Its an unscripted war zone!

Paris, France

Paris: Les Champs Elysees looked beautiful, L’Arc de Triumph was elegant and the Eiffel Tower was lit up like a Christmas tree but the fireworks were to be honest, quite modest. Still the French revelers, numbered in the hundreds of thousands, were treated to a few minutes of fireworks as rockets, mines, bombs and comets were unleashed from three locations around the Eiffel Tower. Paris does go much bigger for fireworks when they celebrate Bastille Day on 14th July. For a much more dramatic (and perhaps magical) New Year’s Eve in France check out the seven minute long fireworks extravaganza at Disneyland Paris.

New York, USA

New York: Perhaps I’m a purist when it comes to pyrotechnics and this may come as a surprise to some but … New York came in low down the list due to the fact that the fireworks play second fiddle to the famous New Year’s Eve Ball descending from the flagpole atop One Times Square. Over one million Yankees don’t seem to mind as they packed into Times Square in celebration, joined by millions more nationwide and a further estimated billion worldwide via a live televised feed. Honestly, I thought NYC would do NYE better.

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The 10 Best Fireworks Displays of New Years Eve 2008

WinTV-HVR-950 is a little stick that sticks into your USB port on your laptop and with the help of a portable aerial; it catches TV signals in the air, both analog and digital.

This device includes an application that lets you record programs as you see it. It also lets you schedule the recording just like your TV tuner card. Sounds perfect for some late night shows huh!

The WinTV is priced at $99 and is available in the market.

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Portable TV for TV fanatics

When you are out in the woods and if you have run out of matches, you could probably try lighting up the wood using a condom and some water. Water filled inside a condom acts as lens which can concentrate sun rays onto a particular spot to light fire. This video should give you a pretty good illustration:

Suppose you get hurt while camping and you need to protect the wound from infections. Condoms would be your answer. The following video shows you how a condom could be used in keeping the water away from wounds.

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Condoms for Campers

Soltronics solar powered headphones can play radio for 18 hours with just 2 hours of solar charging. A solar film in embedded on top on the headphones which charges a Ni-MH AAA battery which is placed in one of the ear pieces. It is expensively priced at $49.95 at Scientifics.

These headphones could well replace iPod nanos for runners and other athletes. It also looks like a great gadget to be used while on a camping trip. But, I am not sure if a radio signal signal would be made available on camping grounds.

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Solar Powered Headphones