Legend of the Fist: Return of Chen Zhen is a continuation of the saga of Chen Zhen, a legendary character of classic kung fu movies. For Westerners, the character is similar to James Bond, a cool action hero that has been played by everyone from Daniel Craig to Pierce Brosnan to Sean Connery. Similarly, Chen Zhen has been portrayed by some of the most famous kung fu actors in the world, including Bruce Lee and Jet Li.
This incarnation of Zhen is a follow up to the 1995 Chinese television show Fist of Fury and stars Donnie Yen, who played Zhen in the show. Comparing Donnie Yen to Bruce Lee is a little like comparing Daniel Craig to Sean Connery –it is difficult to say anyone is better than the actor who embodies the classic character, but for someone to be close to that level is incredible in itself.
Donnie Yen is an excellent fighter who started his career doing choreography for kung fu movies. But his skills extend far beyond his action sequences. He is also an incredible actor and his on-screen romance with Kiki (Shu Qi) shows that Yen can be just as sensitive as he can be tough.
Shu Qi is also great in the film and she looks simply stunning in the 1920’s period clothing of her character. In fact, all of the character’s costumes look wonderful, as do the settings. The film does an excellent job portraying a post-WWI China preparing for the invasion of the Japanese. There is a perfect balance between classic Chinese culture and Westernized Jazz Age styles that set the scene both stylistically and thematically.
The cinematography is gorgeous as well, pairing swooping shots of the city and detailed pans of the bouncing night club that serves as one of the main settings. This also makes for extremely satisfying violence as the shots look stunning while the full-force gore flies across the screen. In the first few minutes of the film, there was ample killing, including a graphic slicing of one enemy’s Achilles heel and a brutal throat slashing. If you can’t handle violence, you probably won’t like the film.
That being said, I think most people will greatly enjoy Legend of the Fist. The clothing, setting and romance are suitable for those looking for a touching love story and those looking for action are sure to be pleased. The film manages a perfect balance of beauty, violence, love, betrayal and revenge -enough to keep everyone watching.
They’re both known for their rock and roll lifestyles and bizarre ramblings, so can you tell the who said these 15 quotes, Hunter S. Thompson or Charlie Sheen?
These absolutely precious animals certainly know how to keep things romantic. In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, we want to see your cutest critter kisses. So we’ve partnered up with the tee-shirt company 604Republic to reward you for showing off your romantic side.
UPDATE: Because we weren’t getting enough entries, we’ve changed the rules of the contest. To enter, just start following 604Republic on Twitter or like their Facebook page, then leave a message on their Facebook page or compose any tweet with the hashtag #kissingcritters. That’s it and good luck.
One person from each service will be chosen at random on Saturday the 19th to win a free tee-shirt of his or her choice from 604Republic –a great gift for your special someone, or a nice way to treat yourself. Winners (and their picture submissions) will be posted here after the contest is over.
Years ago, scientists in the USSR set out to discover how quickly a selectively bred animal could start to become domesticated. They started with red foxes and the offspring soon started to have gentler, friendlier personalities and their looks started to change as well. They started turning silver.
After the fall of communism, the scientists lost their funding and started selling offspring of the domesticated foxes as pets in order to further their research. You can buy your own for just under $6,000.
Hi everyone! I’m sure that most of you have arrived here after clicking on the link at the end of the first half of the series on Neatorama, but if you haven’t, please click here to check out part one. That being said, enjoy the second part of the series covering arachnids, insects, snakes, fish and more.
Also called the “blind wolf spider,†the “no-eyed big-eyed spider†and “pe’epe’emaka’ole” (in Hawaiian) the kaua’i cave wolf spider lives only in a five lava flow caves in the Kaua’i Island of Hawaii. While wolf spiders are known for having two large eyes in the center of their eight eyes, this species has no eyes at all. While most spiders have sensory hairs on their body and legs, these wolf spiders have particularly long hairs that they use to help them compensate with their lack of sight. Its most common food source is the Kaua’i cave amphipod and other arthropods. They are about three quarters of an inch long and present no danger to people.
The Kaua’i cave wolf spider is being threatened with extinction since the introduction of the brown recluse spider to the island, which is competing with the cave wolf spider for food. They also are at risk due to their environment constantly shrinking because the basalt caves they inhabit are constantly filling with sediment at a slow pace, decreasing the size of the caves. To make matters worse, the spiders reproduce at a rate one tenth the speed of most wolf spiders. The female spiders carry the egg sac in their mouth until the offspring hatch and then they carry them on their backs until the babies are ready to survive on their own.
Insects
Kaua’i Cave Amphipod
These small amphipods live in the same caves as the Kaua’i Cave wolf spiders and provide them with their primary food source. They live in a more caves than the wolf spider, but are still endangered and put at risk by many of the same threats. The creatures have no eyes, no pigment and are nearly translucent. They eat the feces of other insects and the roots of plants that grow through the cave roofs.
Tooth Cave Pseusoscorpion
Pseusoscorpions are similar to scorpions, but they have poison in their claws rather than their tails. In fact, they don’t have tails at all. At only about a quarter of an inch, the tooth cave pseusoscopions aren’t much of a threat to humans, but they are a deadly predator to the small insects that reside in limestone caves in Texas.
Unfortunately, because they live in such a small area and already have such a small population, they are at high risk of extinction and the recent introduction of red ants into the area has resulted in a serious threat to the pseusoscorpion’s longevity as the ants eat both the pseuspscorpion and on their food sources.
Arachnocampa
These weird creatures from Australia were originally believed to be related to European glowworm beetles, but they are actually gnats. The majority of their lifecycle occurs during their larvae stage. During this period, they spin a nest of silk on cave ceilings and then hang up to 70 silk threads around their nests. Each thread snare is about a foot long and hung by mucus drop. The larvae light up their bodies and their snares reflect the glow, attracting flying and wall-climbing insects which are then trapped in the threads and eaten by the worms. Some of the worms even have poisonous mucus on their silk threads, making their traps even more effective. If the worm is really hungry, it may even cannibalize other larvae or adult flies.
The creatures are larvae for about 6 months to a year, then they enter the pupa stage, which lasts for about a week or two. At this point, the males stop glowing and the females continue glowing, most scientists believe she keeps the glowing abilities to help attract mates. As flies, they only live a short time and essentially only have time to mate and lay eggs.
These beetles have no eyes, and longer legs and antennae than most beetles. They prefer cave environments with near 100% humidity where the temperature doesn’t exceed 54 degrees Fahrenheit. While olms were technically the first cave species discovered, these were the first to be recognized as animals exclusive to cave life when they were found in 1831.
The cave they were discovered in is now a major tourist attraction as it not only houses these guys, it also contains olms, making it a historical monument to the study of troglobites.
The blind cave beetle feeds on the carcasses of cave animals and on other organic material, including dung. Females lay relatively few eggs compared with other beetles and the eggs take a long time to develop fully. Other than these few details, very little is known about the beetles.
Unlike the crickets in your backyard, these guys have no wings and even longer legs and antennae, which help them navigate their dark settings. One of the newly discovered cave crickets from Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, located in a remote strip of land on the Utah-Arizona border, is notable for having functional pinschers on its rear end, but scientists still have not found a purpose for this strange adaptation.
Because they usually can’t see in their environments, they often jump towards any perceived threat, hoping to scare it away. Like many cave animals, they lack a lot of pigment and youngsters appear translucent, but they do darken a bit as they get older.
Since food can often be scarce, cave crickets go to desperate lengths to avoid starvation –even eating their own limbs which cannot regenerate back. This seems like a risky venture considering that missing limbs can make food even harder to find.
Snakes generally don’t live in caves because the environment is too cold for them, but the tropical caves of Thailand are just hot enough to support the Cave Dwelling Rat Snake. Living in caves has provided them with a unique coloration as they are beige and colorless in the front half, but fade into a grey black shade (with a cool white stripe) near the tail. They also have blue stripes on their eyes. Not all of my encounters with fer-de-lances were the most pleasing, as on one occasion, I wished I had the AR-10 upper’s to my gun so I could feel safe.
The snakes are not venomous and can grow fairly long, to about 7 feet. This length can be quite beneficial when your food source relies on your being able to dangle from crevices near the front of the cave so you can snag bats as they come and go. While the snakes are practically blind while hunting, they rely on special heat sensitive receptors that allow them to see where each bat is based on its body heat.
While many cave species are endangered, the cave dwelling rat snake is doing just fine –to the point where many people keep them as pets. They are popular due to their distinct markings and seem to survive just fine on a diet of rats in place of bats.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t include bacteria in an article about animals, but snotties are pretty cool -in a disgusting way. These single-celled bacteria survive in some of the most extreme environments on earth. They thrive in caves containing volcanic sulfur compounds including hydrogen sulfide and sulfuric acids.
The bacteria live together in massive colonies that hang from the ceiling and resemble stalactites made from mucus. Because they live in such extreme environments, their waste products are incredibly acidic and have similar properties as battery acid.
Cavefish
There are at least 80 varieties of cavefish, but one thing they have in common is a small size –most are smaller than 5 inches when fully grown. Because they live in the dark, the fish have all found their own way to adapt to their surroundings by using sensory organs on their skin to help them navigate. All cavefish rely on some source of fresh water, so they are only found in caves that have streams running into them.
Waterfall Climbing Cave Fishes
While scientists still don’t know much about this species that is only found in Thailand, the little bit they do know is absolutely fascinating. They have no pigment and no eyes, like many cave species, and have managed to develop their own incredible specialization for survival.
The fish has microscopic hooks on its fins which allow it to grab onto rocks and climb up nearly vertical terrain. This ability has allowed the species to survive inside of cave waterfalls, where they eat bacteria that grows on the rocks and flows in the water.
Blind Cave Tetras
As its name implies, these fish are blind. The young fish are born with eyes, but as the fish ages, skin grows over its eyes, which then degenerate. They use lateral lines on the sides of their body to navigate through the water based on fluctuating water pressure.
While many cave species are unrelated to any above surface animals, the blind cave tetra is just like the Mexican tetra, only blind and pigmentless. The two can still interbreed.
Like the cave dwelling rat snake, they are not at risk of endangerment and, as such, are a popular addition in aquariums. Owners even claim that, despite having no eyes, the fish are able to grab the falling food in the tank faster than their sighted relatives. This may have to do with their improved sense of smell and the special organ in their brains that is light-sensitive and can thus sense the fish flakes overhead.
Native to only one geothermal pool named The Devil’s Hole, inside a limestone cavern in Death Valley, these fish are famous for surviving for tens of thousands of years with a reliance on a submerged limestone shelf that is no more than 90 square feet in size. While their total territory expands a bit beyond the reach of the shelf, they use it for spawning and find most of their food on the shelf.
Ecologists and scientists are fascinated by the fish’s ability to survive so long in such a small area, but they also use it as a poster child for eco-friendly practices. If humans destroy the aquifer through polluted water or by using too much groundwater, the fish will be done for. At any given time, there are no more than 500 Devil’s Hole pupfish on earth and their numbers dwindle to half of that each winter.
Ozark Cavefish
This cavefish not only lacks visible eyes (like other cave animals, its skin has grown over them), it lacks any optic nerves. They are small, reaching no more than two inches long and have no skin pigment. To compensate for its lack of vision, the fish rely on sensory organs on their skin to catch microorganisms, insects, fungi, small crustaceans and salamander larvae. When food is really scarce, they’ve been known to eat their young. They get most of their nutrients through the tree roots from above the surface, bat guano in the water and brown leaf litter that has washed into the cave.
There are currently 15 caves in the Ozarks that are known to have these species. Some of them are linked to springs and wells that were used by early settlers. When these people pulled up a bucket of water with a cavefish in it, they considered it to be a sign of good luck.
Alabama Cavefish
This eyeless, pigmentless cavefish is one of the rarest in the world as it only lives in the underground pools of Key Cave in Alabama. Scientists believe there are only 100 of the fish left on the planet. Like the Ozark cavefish, it survives largely thanks to the nutrients derived from guano dropped into the water. Also like the Ozark fish, it uses sensory organs on its skin to navigate its dark home.
The fish is believed to incubate its young in its mouth to protect its young. Their population growth is the slowest amongst all cave dwellers, making them one of the most at risk species on earth.
Cave Crayfish
There are approximately 40 species of cave crayfish in North America. Many are isolated to single caves and most are albino or translucent in color. Perhaps one of the most interesting things about these crayfish though is their longevity. Because they have such low metabolisms and sedentary lifestyles, they live rather long, many up to 75 years. One species, the Orconectes australis of Shelta Cave in Alabama, can still mate when its 100 years old and can live up to 175 years old.
Also called the “blind cave shrimp,†this little troglobite has no eyes and no pigment like many other cave species. They serve as a perfect example of the dangers faced by many cave animals as one of the three populations of the species was almost wiped out in the eighties when a truck carrying cyanide salts overturned near Mammoth Cave and almost destroyed the entire ecosystem.
Cave animals are some of the weirdest, most specialized animals on the planet. But this list, while long, is by no means exhaustive. If you know anything about any other cave animals, share it in the comments! Also, I’d just like to remind you all that if you haven’t yet read the first half of the series over on Neatorama, here’s the link.
Have you ever wondered why old ladies sometimes have blue or purple hair? As it turns out, there are motives and mistakes that lead to the hair bluing. First off, many older women find their hair starts turning an ivory/yellow color that is hardly attractive.
To fix this, many of them turn to blue hair rinses that can balance out the yellow color…unfortunately, as you age, your eyes become less sensitive to the color blue so many of them use way too much blue rinse. In their eyes, their hair is a nice, even shade of white, while the rest of us see a bright blue mess.
Blue hair is becoming less common these days because fewer people smoke, reducing yellowing of the hair, and because better home hair dyes are available, so fewer women run the risk of bluing their locks with a rinse.
Good news! In honor of the coolest holiday in America, we’re going to be exclusively limiting our content to Halloween-related topics this week. Hope you enjoy the festivities.
As long as I’m making one of these rare site announcements, I’d also like to ask if any of our regular readers know anything about Word Press layouts. Specifically how to make my archives look like the homepage instead of a list like they appear now.
As an avid roller derby enthusiast (I would be a participant, but I can’t afford insurance -contrary to popular belief, blogging doesn’t make you a millionaire), I love not only roller derby, but the simple pleasures of roller skating. That’s why I was inspired to learn more about the history of skating. With any luck, this article may even motivate you to strap on some roller skates or at least check out a roller derby game in your local area.
The first set of roller skates was created by an unknown Dutchman in the early 1700’s. The devices were known as skeelers and they were made by nailing wooden spools to strips of wood and then attaching them to shoes. Rudimentary at best, these devices never really took off.
One of the first people to bring attention to the concept was London inventor Joseph Merlin created a more refined version that comprised of boots with metal wheels on them. They may have taken off quickly, but Merlin had a bad plan to bring attention to his invention. He used them to crash a party in a by skating into the crowd while playing the violin. Because the early skate models could hardly turn or stop, he almost immediately crashed into a wall-length mirror, which brought him plenty of attention…although likely not the kind he was looking for.
The first time skates got the public’s attention (in a positive way) was when they were used during an 1818 summer performance of the German ballet Der Maler oder die Wintervergn Ugungen, which called for an ice skating scene. Since real ice skates couldn’t be used at that time of year, the company opted to improvise with roller skates. Within the next year, the first patent for a land-based skate was filed in France. The first design included two to four rollers made from copper, wood or ivory and arranged in a single row.
If you though roller waitresses were a creation of the nineteen fifties, think again. They aren’t even a phenomenon of the last century. The idea actually started back in a tavern near Berlin in 1840. Beer halls in the area were massive, so waitresses opted to skate across the hall to better serve their patrons, and the number of people seeing skating waitresses help bring popularity to the sport in turn. By 1857, there was enough public interest in roller skating to open the first public rinks.
The modern roller skate wasn’t perfected until 1863, when American inventor James Plimpton came up with the idea to set up two parallel sets of wheels. The wheels were made of boxwood and attached to rubber springs. This was a huge step forward in skate technology because it allowed users to turn on a smooth curve, where previous skate models couldn’t. Plimpton also helped popularize skating by opening rinks, leasing skates at the rinks and teaching people how to use his invention.
As roller rinks started to gain popularity, skaters began to experiment with the versatility of their skates. Artistic skating, speed skating and roller hockey all became popular hobbies in skate rinks around the world. The speed skating competitions eventually led to the idea of a “roller derby,†which was originally just an endurance race. During the depression much of the endurance aspect was abandoned and a point system was put in place, along with rules of contact, setting the stage for modern roller derby.
In the fifties, skaters began staging theatrical plays combined with the rules of the game and this act gained a lot of popularity by the sixties and seventies, taking away focus on the athletic aspect and focusing on the theatrics.
When disco hit the scene, skating found a new renaissance. Over 4,000 roller discos were opened in the late 70s and skating discos started to be prominently featured in Hollywood movies. Skating lost a lot of popularity throughout the 80s, but when inline skates started to become popular in the early 90s, rinks started seeing more customers again. These skates also revolutionized the concept of roller hockey, allowing the sport to be as close as possible to ice hockey. Inline skates also allowed for a number of aggressive skating methods that were impossible with regular quad skates, bringing skating out of the rink and onto the concrete.
Right as the inline skating trend started to fade away at the end of the 90s, grassroots roller derby organizations started to sprout up, focusing on the athleticism of the sport again and removing the theatrics. At the same time, jam skating, a form of hip hop dancing on skates, also started to soar in popularity. These activities, paired with the continued success of roller hockey allowed many skating rinks to survive in a time where fewer casual roller skaters are to be found.
With the roller skating industry constantly changing in nature, it’s hard to tell what the future of the sport will be. But if you like skating, roller derby, roller hockey or anything else involving roller skates, you can help keep the sport alive by supporting your local rink, particularly during October, National Roller Skating Month.
Some people are shocked when I tell them I have pet chinchillas, but my small rodents are hardly the strangest pets around. Even pet raccoons, snakes, spiders, pigeons and skunks aren’t that weird when you take a look at some of the wildest pets in the world.
Bobcats
A friend of my family’s once adopted a baby bobcat, its angry hisses on the first day they brought it home were both adorable and pathetic. Surprisingly, bobcat ownership isn’t all that rare. A quick search on Google can provide you with an array of resources on where to get a bobcat and how to raise it. There are also plenty of happy owners of the wild cats that post videos of their pets on YouTube, like the one below:
Lions
Lions on the other hand, are quite a bit rarer when it comes to pet ownership. The most famous pet lion was Christian The Lion, who was made famous in a viral video that has made its rounds on the internet many times over. If you’re one of the three people on earth that haven’t seen it, be sure to watch the clip below. Christian was adopted from Harrods London, but his owners eventually gave him up to a big cat reserve when they realized that owning an animal that can reach over 500 pounds just isn’t very practical in a big city like London. After a year, the two men visited him at the game reserve and were delighted to discover that their feline friend still remembered them and gave them massive cat hugs.
Tigers
When I was a youngster, I always wanted to own my own pet tiger. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one and many other people never gave up this eccentric fantasy. There are many tiger owners out there, some of whom operate within the law and some of whom don’t. Tigers are one of the most dangerous feline species and their nature doesn’t change when they are privately owned. In fact, at the beginning of this year, a Toronto man was mauled to death by his pet tiger a few years before that, the same tiger attacked a 10-year old boy.
Despite the incredibly complex laws regarding tiger ownership and the dangers of living with the big cats, you can still buy pet tigers online thanks to buytigers.com. I wish I was making this up, but I’m not. Here’s a bit from their site, “We have been shipping tigers worldwide since 1984, giving our lucky customers the chance to own the most fashionable animal in earth. This is for true nature lovers and purists, and it comes 5 months old, already trained to be nice with its owner, to eat meat and respond to basilar voice orders.†Only $13,000! I’m pretty sure this is a scam, if only because the price tag seems too low.
Alligators
A lot of people are creeped out by the idea of pet iguanas. If you think that’s weird, just imagine entering someone’s home that’s dominated by a twelve foot long alligator. While the creatures may be considered the most docile of the crocodilians, they can still turn murderous and are exceptionally difficult to care for. Unlike the big cats above, these animals will almost never bond with their owners. On the upside, they can be pretty cute as youngsters as you can see in this YouTube clip:
Bears
Pet bears may actually be the issue that closes the gaps in American laws regarding exotic animal ownership. When a man in Ohio’s bear attacked the person hired to care for the animal, the Humane Society took the opportunity to push for tighter regulations on exotic animal ownership. Of course, all the people who already own alligators, tigers and bears would be grandfathered in if legislation were enacted, but at least it could prevent problems in the future.
Pet bears are actually one of the most common exotic pets of old, as they can be rather friendly when raised from an early age and they are also very common in many countries. America’s sweetheart, Mary Pickford, even had a pet bear at one point. That’s them above.
Capybaras
Not all wild pets are so dangerous though. Most people don’t really want to own a predator that weighs more than their whole family. One of the most famous non-predator exotic pets is Caplin, a pet capybara happily living in Texas. Caplin’s owner, Melanie Typaldos says her pet has been easier to train than a dog and that she just needs to use a few popsicles to teach him a new trick. The hundred pound rodents are known for being semi-aquatic, so Melanie ensures that Caplin gets plenty of swim time at the family’s home. You can see him loving his family and swimming in the clip below:
Otters
If you’ve ever seen the movie “Ring Of Bright Water,†then you know that otters are another water-loving mammal that can actually make a surprisingly sweet pet. The movie is loosely based on the autobiographical tale of Gavin Maxwell after he bought a pet otter in 1956. You can see the trailer below and if you haven’t seen the movie yet, watch it. It is one of my favorite movies of all time, and I assure you I see a lot of movies.
Hippos
Calvin Coolidge owned a pygmy hippo during his time in office, but the president quickly gave the animal over to the Smithsonian National Zoo. Interestingly, “Billy†was one of the first pygmy hippos in captivity in the states and is a great grandfather to most of the pygmy hippos now residing in American zoos.
But having a pygmy hippo and giving it away to the zoo is nothing compared to the dedication of a South African couple that has been looking after Jessica the Hippo (seen above). The young hippo was washed up on the shore with her umbilical cord still attached, so Tony Joubert and his wife committed themselves to take care of the abandoned baby. Jessica sleeps on a mattress on the family’s porch, gets massages every night, plays with her dog friends and is fed piles of yams every day. She’s even allowed to come inside and watch tv with the rest of the family. Jessica has her own website and was even featured in her own television special shown on Animal Planet.
Santa’s not the only one with pet reindeer, Alaskan Albert Whitehead owns one named Star and he proudly parades her through the streets of Anchorage. Interestingly, he is the sixth “Star the Reindeer†from Anchorage. The town has had a reindeer serve as the unofficial mascot of the town for almost fifty years now, and like Seaworld and its many Shamus, Star seems to be a permanent character in the town.
Zebras
Plains zebras are the only species that are not endangered and as such, they are a popular exotic animal in states that permit ownership of such creatures. The $3,000-$4,000 pets are pretty awesome in that you can ride them (with a whole lot of training and dedication) and they also eat the same food as horses, so you don’t need to spend a fortune on food. If you get one, you’d better get it a friend because they are herd animals and get very stressed out without friends around.
