Avast Ye! Today, it be Talk Like a Pirate Day an’ we’ve got a barrel-load of piratey-themed sights fer ye landlubbers!

Las Vegas’ Treasure Island be havin’ a daily pirate battle, ‘ere the swashbucklers by defeated by th’ booty-shaking o’ “the sirens o’ ti”. Not yer usual kind o’ booty neither!

Them “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie-films wi’ buccaneer Johnny Depp, they be based on a children’s ride! Those children orta be workin’ the sail and swabbin’ the decks! Arrr!

There be a swashbuckling ship maze on the Isle of Wight! Shiver Me Timbers!

This even be a plane in middle o’ Santa Cruz, ‘ere they be callin’ it ‘Th’ Pirate Plane’! Flyin’ Pirates? Whaterenext!

Be seein’ you also The Pirate Skull of Vegas.

Thanks to these scurvy dogs: Juan Manuel Gil, bruv, Virtual Globetrotting and Munden.

12.5 metres (41 feet) in length, hyperspace capable, and with a top speed of 5,025 mph in atmosphere, the X-wing is of course the iconic starfighter first seen in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, all the way back in ‘77.

Although why the Rebel Alliance have left this one smack bang in the middle of Disneyland Paris is a complete mystery…

More on the X-wing at Wikipedia. Thanks to virtualglobetrotting.

This is South Korea’s infamous Jeju Loveland, an outdoor sculpture park on Cheju Island, which is based entirely around the theme of sex.

The park’s website describes it as “a place where sexually-oriented art and eroticism meet”. Which means that what you can see in our thumbnail is exactly what you think it is.

There’s 140 sculptures here mostly representing couples in various sexual encounters, although only one or two of the bigger ones are visible here due to the fairly low resolution of the satellite shots. Therefore, I feel it is my duty to provide you with links to the official Jeju Loveland website, a gallery of photos from ground level, and another gallery with shots of some different sculptures.

Although it should probably go without saying, please bear in mind that all three of those links are quite probably Not Safe For Work!

Read more at Wikipedia if you dare

Thanks to Anon!

Update: As correctly pointed out by Matthijs in the comments, it turns out this is actually Gauntlet, which is beside X-Coaster. Unfortunately X-Coaster is brand new, and doesn’t yet appear in the Google images.

This is the X-Coaster at Magic Spring and Crystal Falls theme park in Arkansas, where a dozen riders spent half an hour hanging upside down on Sunday — 150 feet above the ground.

Apparently a power cut shut down the attraction, and once the city Fire Department had rescued the stranded thrill-seekers, one person was treated for, rather unsurprisingly, a sore neck.

Thanks to the Metro.

The state of Oregon has not just one, but two of the smallest municipal parks in the whole world.

The first, Waldo Park in Salem, is only 3.6 by 6 metres and only contains a plaque, and a giant sequoia. Yes, one of the world’s smallest parks contains an example of the largest type of tree on the face of the planet.

Mill Ends Park in nearby Portland is contained within a circle 61cm across, which sadly makes it almost completely invisible on the Google satellite shot (Look closely however, it’s situated right inbetween the two roads, and appears as a dark spot exactly in the centre of our thumbnail).

The park was created on St. Patrick’s Day 1948 (apparently to serve as “a colony for leprechauns and a location for snail races”), and despite the odds, in 1971 Mill Ends Park was officially recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s smallest park.

Further reading: The history of Waldo Park and Mill Ends Park at Wikipedia, and our post featuring The World’s Shortest River.

Thanks to John Riggs.