It's a spectacular (and by now quite famous) photo. Two elks stand in a river as an inferno rages behind them. But is the picture real?

Recently a company called Infinium Labs announced that it would soon be coming out with a high-powered game console called 'Phantom' that it promises will revolutionize the gaming industry. You can check out their very slick website to find out more about the console. But rumors have began to spread suggesting that there is no Phantom Game Console, that the whole thing is a hoax. The rumors started when someone paid a visit to the company's headquarters and discovered that the headquarters consisted of nothing more than a "100ft x 100ft room with a desk and two phones." Why would anyone perpetrate a hoax like this? One theory is that it's all a publicity stunt put together by Advanced Studios, LLC, the graphic design company that put together Infinium's really slick website. Of course, Infinium is loudly insisting that the Phantom Game Console is real, and a few journalists claim to have seen working prototypes of the console. So we'll have to stay tuned to see how this plays out.

Here's a guy that should be running for Governor of California. He's wasted on Crouch Hill ward.

When I first saw this picture I thought, 'that can't be a real animal, it's got to be a hoax.' But apparently it's real. It's an angora rabbit. What an odd-looking creature. More pictures can be found here. (link via Geisha asobi blog)

A reader named Chelsea has shared a fascinating site. It's ThingInTheSolarLight.com. The story here is that a couple just bought a solar-powered light for their yard. They set it up, and then they noticed a strange shape appearing to move inside the light. They captured this strange movement on video, and dubbed the moving spectre the 'Wasist.' I think that should be pronounced Vas-Ist. It's german for 'What is it?' The whole thing is quite loony, of course, but oddly entertaining.

Britain's Channel 4 was flooded with applicants hoping to get a spot on the new Reality Show called Lapdance Island. In this show ten men would be on an island with forty lapdancers. The winner would be the one who could keep his hands off the dancers for the longest. But the show was a hoax. Details here.

A photo of last week's blackout showing a startling dark patch in the northeast is going around. It looks like a fake to me.

You may have thought that last week's massive blackout was caused by something like an aging national grid, bad transmission lines, or even human error. But guess what? It actually happened because it was the 60th anniversary of the Philadelphia Experiment. At least, so claims Al Bielek. I'm not clear on why the anniversary caused the lights to go out, but maybe all the power got sucked backwards through time or something. Even more sensationally, Bielek claims that he predicted the blackout a few weeks ago. In case you don't know about him, Bielek claims to be a time traveler stuck in the present era. He says that he was originally Ed Cameron, a participant in the 1940s Philadelphia Experiment, but that Ed somehow travelled through time and ended up being born in 1927 as Al Bielek. So Al is really Ed, if that makes sense. Not having listened to the radio show on which Al is claiming to have made his prediction about the blackout, I can't positively confirm or deny whether the prediction was really made. But my hunch is that he's somehow pulling a Tamara Rand.

If you feel like adopting a baby, but can't for some reason, just give the folks at Black Market Babies $50,000 and they'll steal someone's baby and give it to you. They also offer black market pandas and black market tigers for sale. Unfortunately their online form for submitting orders is 'temporarily' out of order. (Link via Entensity.net, who linked to me. Warning: their site is not safe for work).

Sometimes plastic display food, like you often find in Japanese restaurants, can look awfully real. This website has a shockwave test that challenges you to separate photos of real food from the plastic stuff. The pictures are too small to really make a good decision, but it's a neat idea. (why they felt the need to design the test in shockwave, I can't figure out. HTML would have worked perfectly well for something this simple, and when viewing it with Safari it crashed my browser).

I got an email from the girl (not guy) selling the Air Guitar and Ring of Saturn on eBay. Turns out she has a few other items for sale, such as a Ticket to Heaven (in case you're worried about going to Hell), and the Answer to Life and the Universe. I guess she's mastering the art of the Strange eBay Auction. WhatTheHeck.com has a great collection of such eBay Oddities. Included are hot-sellers such as Ghost Poop and A Lie.

Here's a silly email that's going around. Not a hoax. Just a joke:

Inner Peace

I'm passing this along to you as I consider you a valued friend. This worked for me and I think it may work for you. I have found Inner Peace.
Recently I read an article that stated:
The best way to achieve inner peace is to Finish Things You Have Started. So today I finished two large bags of potato chips, the last half of a lemon cream pie, a nearly full bottle of Jose Cuervo, a small box of Godiva Chocolates and I slapped the living shit out of someone I have never liked. I feel better than I have felt for a long time!

Please pass this along to a friend who is in need of Inner Peace

The small town of Excelsior, Minnesota recently launched an ad campaign declaring that big retailers such as Starbucks and Home Depot were not welcome in its community. A bold position to take, especially considering that those retailers had never expressed any interest in opening up stores there.

Some new crop circles in Devon may be inspired by a potent new beer.

A visitor points out that the same guy who's selling an on eBay, is also selling [url=http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1467&item=2946033745]a ring of the planet Saturn.