Quick news and notes.
* Today is the last day you can vote in the current Pretty Boy Poll Labels: /b/, anime, dragoncon, Elf, international news, internets, later skater, pixiesticks, Russia, sports news, trap, yaoi
* Related perhaps, please keep the *chan conversations off the tagboard. I don't want to gain notoriety with those folks. It would only end poorly for my sites, I'm sure.
* Boku No Sexual Harassment OAV 3 is now available over on shotalicious.org
* Any donations you'd like to make to help me get to DragonCon and/or Anime Weekend Atlanta this year would be much appreciated. Buying a book gets you a book and me 4 bucks so maybe it's time to finally get your copy?
* Stupid sexy Randy Orton got into a motorcycle accident just after he was cleared medically to return to the WWE and now is out -another- 3-6 months. Damn you Orton!
* I really thought the Opening Ceremony for Beijing's Olympics were the most beautiful thing ever televised.
* In Soviet Russia, Georgia will become part of you. (By force if necessary, apparently.)
* Happy (belated) Birthday Elf.
* Over on the secret Pico x Chico x Coco Hype site, the AMV for Boku No Pico has been fixed to where it now includes sound. Yeah, it kinda helps to have sound in an anime MUSIC video.
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In Soviet Russia, lasers rave YOU
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Dozens of party goers at an outdoor rave near Moscow last week have lost partial vision after a laser light show burned their retinas, Russian health officials said on Monday. Labels: health news, music news, Russia
Moscow city health department officials confirmed 12 cases of laser-blindness at the Central Ophthalmological Clinic, and daily newspaper Kommersant said another 17 were registered at City Hospital 32 in the centre of the capital.
Attendees at the July 5 Aquamarine Open Air Festival in Kirzhach, 80 km (50 miles) northeast of Moscow, began seeking medical help days after the show, complaining of eye and vision problems, health officials told Reuters.
"They all have retinal burns, scarring is visible on them. Loss of vision in individual cases is as high as 80 percent, and regaining it is already impossible," Kommersant quoted a treating ophthalmologist as saying.
Attendees said heavy rains forced organizers to erect massive tents for the all-night dance party, and lasers that normally illuminate upwards into the sky were instead partially refracted into the ravers' eyes.
"I immediately had a spot like when you stare into the sun," rave-attendee Dmitry told Kommersant.
"After three days I decided to go to the hospital. They examined me, asked if I had been at Open Air, and then put me straight in the hospital. I didn't even get to go home and get my stuff," he said.
Cosmic Connection, promoters of the Aquamarine rave, were unreachable and did not list contact numbers on their Web site.
Industry Web site www.laserfx.com said focused laser light can cause eye damage almost instantly.
The owner of a Moscow laser rental company told Reuters the accidental blindings were due to "illiteracy on the part of technicians."
"It was partly the rain, but also partly the size of the laser. Somebody set up an extremely powerful laser for such a small space," said Valentin Vasiliev, who said his company did not provide the Aquamarine lasers.
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A shota with Mowgli Syndrome? DO WANT!
A BOY can reportedly only communicate by 'chirping' - after living his life in a virtual aviary. Labels: animal news, bizzare news, health news, Russia, shota
According to reports from Russia, the 7-year-old 'bird boy' has spent his life in a flat filled with bird cages with a mum who treated him like one of her pets.
Pravda said the boy's 31-year-old mum did not talk him and treated him like a bird, forcing him to learn avian language.
Social worker Galina Volskaya said shocked authorities discovered the boy in a two-bedroom apartment with bird mess littering the floor.
Volskaya said: “When you start talking to him, he chirps."
And she added that the boy becomes frustrated at not being able to communicate and flaps his arms.
Pravda reported that authorities believe the boy is suffering from Mowgli syndrome, after the Jungle Book character who is raised by wild animals.
The boy has reportedly been released by authorities and put in a medical facility.
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Rostov Ripper's top score may be beaten by The Chessboard Murderer.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian who says he murdered at least 60 people told a court on Wednesday that he collected the souls of his victims after falling in love with killing. Labels: crime drama, murder, Russia
Branded the "chessboard murderer" by Russian newspapers because he wanted to fill the 64 squares of a chessboard with a coin for each murder, Alexander Pichushkin said he preferred to select victims he knew.
"I tried to collect their spirits, their souls," he said. "I felt no emotion when I killed them."
Pichushkin is charged with 49 murders but says he killed at least 11 more.
He killed his first victim, a friend, in 1992, an experience he said was like first love: "You never forget it." He killed an average of one victim a month from 2002 onwards, once taking three lives in 10 days.
Listening just meters away from the cage holding Pichushkin was Vera Konobaltsayeva, the elderly mother of one of his victims.
She raised her hand to ask how and why her son, Andrei, had perished in December 2001. But Pichushkin, a 33-year-old former supermarket worker, could give no clear explanation.
"We went for a walk, we drank vodka, we chatted. Then when he was drunk ... I threw him in the well," he said. "Your son, he felt no trauma."
Konobaltsayeva wept quietly.
Prosecutors say he lured most of his victims to secluded parts of Moscow's Bitsevsky Park. Some had their skulls smashed with a hammer. Other victims were strangled, drowned in a sewage pit or thrown off balconies.
If convicted, Pichushkin could be Russia's most prolific serial killer. Andrei Chikatilo, the "Rostov Ripper", was convicted in 1992 and executed in 1994 for raping, butchering and in some cases eating as many as 52 people.
Pichushkin's trial is expected to be lengthy, with testimony scheduled from at least 41 relatives of the alleged victims and another 98 witnesses.
"I have lots of time to answer questions. But I'm very tired -- my bed is not very comfortable," Pichushkin said.
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In Soviet Russia, have sex, make babies, win faboo prizes!!
Moscow - A Russian region of Ulyanovsk has found a novel way to fight the nation's birth-rate crisis: It has declared Sept. 12 the Day of Conception and for the third year running is giving couples time off from work to procreate. Labels: breeder news, international news, Russia, sex
The hope is for a brood of babies exactly nine months later on Russia's national day. Couples who "give birth to a patriot" during the June 12 festivities win money, cars, refrigerators and other prizes.
Ulyanovsk, about 550 miles east of Moscow, has held similar contests since 2005. Since then, the number of competitors, and the number of babies born to them, has been on the rise.
Russia, with one-seventh of Earth's land surface, has just 141.4 million citizens, making it one of the most sparsely settled countries in the world. With a low birth rate and a high death rate, the population has been shrinking since the early 1990s.
In his state-of-the-nation address last year, President Vladimir Putin called the demographic crisis the most acute problem facing Russia and announced a broad effort to boost Russia's birth rate, including cash incentives to families that have more than one child.
Ulyanovsk Gov. Sergei Morozov has added an element of fun to the national campaign.
The 2007 grand prize went to Irina and Andrei Kartuzov, who received a UAZ-Patriot, a sport utility vehicle. Other contestants won video cameras, TVs, refrigerators and washing machines.
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Not Too Sexy for a Protest
>> MOSCOW (AP) -- Right Said Fred singer Richard Fairbrass and gay rights activist Peter Tatchell have been attacked during a march in Moscow.
Trouble broke out when demonstrators tried to appeal against a ban on a gay rights march through the Russian capital.
Police arrested about a dozen demonstrators and forced them into a bus.
The banned march was aimed at marking the 14th anniversary of Russia decriminalising homosexuality.
Mr Tatchell was one of several demonstrators punched and kicked by nationalists shouting "death to homosexuals".
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