Blog Guy, you see so much stuff while combing the Earth for the bizarre, I bet nothing even shocks you anymore.

You’d lose that bet. Take a look at this tradition, where people drop babies from a tall building so they will grow up healthy and strong.

You’re making that up!

Check out the video report.

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We’re starting to get more and more photos of events like this, where you eat lunch at a table that is suspended by a crane, four miles up in the air.

Okay, maybe not exactly four whole miles, but still pretty high up. I believe a 1960s rock group said it most eloquently: “Kicks just keep getting harder to find.”

I’ll be candid about this. It isn’t natural. If I’m going to eat at this altitude, I expect to be surrounded on all sides by a commercial airliner. And if I’m ever drugged and kidnapped and I wake up dangling like this, well, they’d better be feeding me something like pea soup, that looks about the same no matter how many times it ends up on my plate, if you catch my meaning.

Suspension slideshow, and more thoughts on heights

Hungarian journalists have lunch at a new event venue which offers dinners “in the sky”, for guests seated around a table lifted by a crane above Heroes Square in Budapest, April 23, 2008. REUTERS/ Karoly Arvai

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Blog Guy, I’ve read that America’s big cities are running out of parking places. I know you travel the world. Are other cities trying anything new?

You bet. Berlin is looking at so-called “momentum parking.” You leave your car, and a huge crane hoists it up 500 feet, then lets it go. The impact buries it several feet down, thus taking up far less room than an ordinary space.

I don’t believe that. You’re just making up stuff to go with stupid pictures again.

I’m serious! It’s happening in ‘Potsdamer Platz,’ which is German for “My car went platz!!” You can look it up.

Related post: Flying cars not a total success…

An unidentified artwork, showing a crashed car in the pavement, is pictured on display at Berlin’s ‘Potsdamer Platz’ square, April 14, 2008.

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About 400 people were trapped for more than an hour yesterday by a “mechanical fault” on that huge Ferris wheel, The London Eye. Our story says staffers were in touch with the victims, who were stuck as high as 450 feet in the air, via intercoms.

The stalled passengers were offered water, blankets and glucose tablets.

That’s good to know. Given my attitude toward heights, if that ever happens to me they can cover me with the blanket and pound me with water bottles until I stop screaming. Some fully charged tasers, a portable toilet and a parachute might also come in handy.

Here’s the thing. When these poor people finally got back to Earth they were given refunds. Refunds! No thanks, pal, you just hang on to that refund and add it to my generous settlement, okay?

Related post: Your whole stomach came out your mouth?

Woman’s hair is blown back by winds as she passes the London Eye in a 2007 file photo. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor

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These folks are on a WOODEN South Korean roller coaster boasting the world’s largest drop.

That means if you ride it, at some point your cheeks will be flapping like Dumbo’s ears, and your eyes will be so far back in your skull you can scan your own brain.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. Speaking of WOODEN rides and Korea, did you see the recent BBC story saying termites are destroying many of that country’s WOODEN heritage sites? They were training dogs to sniff out the insects.

I’m just saying, if you’re riding this thing at the speed of sound and you pass a nice dog with a concerned look, hit the brake. Oh, there isn’t one?

Related post: Your whole stomach came out your mouth?

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“Dagnabbit! Looks like the engine’s stalled! We’re stuck here awhile.” Quick quiz: the place you least want to hear that sentence is…

• a commuter train
• an elevator
• a roller coaster, just as you’re at the top of a huge loop

Yeah, roller coaster has to be the answer. Some poor folks got stuck like that with their legs in the air for 30 minutes on New Year’s Eve. They were treated at a hospital for “dizziness,” which I think is a euphemism meaning plastic surgeons had to sandblast a look of pure horror off their insanely frozen faces.

“We’re sorry about that, people. Let us make it up to you with free tickets to the Skywalk or the gyrocopter.” Here’s the story and here’s a photo:

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Not the one that stalled… Chinese soldiers ride on a roller coaster at a Beijing amusement park in a 2005 file photo. REUTERS/China Newsphoto

As the song says, kicks just keep getting harder to find. The amusement park industry is having its big convention, and the hot new thrill seems to be dining 165 feet above the ground, at a table suspended by a crane.

Yeah, that’s pretty much what I wondered, too. Who cares? It’s not like you can’t go to the Rainbow Room if  you want to dine high up. Heck, you could even sneak a sausage pizza aboard a gyrocopter. It doesn’t take Isaac Newton to guess what’s going to happen when you eat raw oysters and some linguini,  washed down by a few beers, and then sit there swinging back and forth, back and forth…

The promoters of this suspended table thing say it’s available for business meetings, too. We’ve seen those “meetings” in James Bond movies. “Uh, sorry Mr. Blofeld, I don’t want to join your evil scheme, so I guess I’ll just be goin’ home now…”

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The attraction ‘Dinner in the Sky’ is demonstrated at the amusement industry’s international convention in Orlando, Florida November 13, 2007.  REUTERS/Nicholas Wolaver/Handout

Okay, these folks are playing EXTREME poker, hanging over a cliff, which means their regular poker face is tinged with green and you don’t know if they’re going to bluff or barf.

Boring. I’m waiting for EXTREMELY Extreme Poker. People, next week’s game will dangle over a shark pool, and the cable will be cut halfway through. Some of the cards will be glazed with anthrax, and hungry wolverines will leap at you from the cliff.

Oh, and did we mention the snipers? Sonia Legg has a video report:

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Poker players suspended over a cliff at the entrance to Sydney Harbor, October 4, 2007. REUTERS/Tim Wimborne

If you like heights as much as I do, this photo is already making you queasy. Suddenly, riding in a gyrocopter and getting married on a high ledge don’t look quite so bad.

Welcome to a remote Russian village where “public transportation” means stepping onto a tightrope at one end and getting off at the other. Unscheduled stops aren’t recommended.

By an odd quirk of history, nearly everybody here can walk the high wire. Learning is a family affair, and don’t expect to hear parents saying “You kids come down from that tightrope, it’s dangerous.”

In the words of one boy, My mother was a tightrope walker, and I will be too. James Kilner tells the story, and Helen Long has a video report, and here is a photo slideshow:

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A man walks the tightrope in the remote mountain village of Tsovkra-1, some 3,000 meters above sea level in Russia’s Caucasus region of Dagestan, August 20, 2007. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

Well, here’s one of my recurring nightmares. Not getting married - that was great - but standing out on the ledge of a tall building. I’d rather ride in a gyrocopter, or visit that new Grand Canyon skywalk.

Anyway, these two people both work as exterior cleaners of tall buildings, so they decided to incorporate rappelling into their ceremony, because like they don’t get enough of that on regular days. You’ll note in the caption below we’re careful to mention that the groom is the one on the right, just in case you’re confused about which is which.

Anyway, I’ve avoided using most of the tempting references - marriage is a big step, they don’t rappel each other, and so on, so feel free to use those in your comments.

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Jiang Dezhang (R), 27, kisses his bride Tie Guangju, 26, while rappelling from a building during their wedding ceremony in Kunming, China, August 28, 2007. REUTERS