The Top 15 Skylines In The World Filed under ( Amazing, Beautiful, Best, Chicago, China, Event, Hong Kong, Interesting, New York City, Shanghai, USA ) by AAA

1. Hong Kong, China

Hong Kong is number one on my list for many reasons: Hong Kong has
whopping 39 buildings over 200 meters tall. It also boasts four of the 15
tallest buildings in the world... that's all in one city! Hong Kong's skyline
shows a large selection of distinct sky-reaching towers, with beautiful
night lighting and reflection. This city exemplifies the post-modern
skyscraper and skyline. Finally, the mountain backdrop makes this
skyline (as you can clearly see) the greatest on the planet!
Metro/Urban Population: 6.8 million

Hong Kong

2. Chicago, USA

Chicago is the birthplace of the modern skyscraper. When Chicago built
its first steel high-rise in 1885, it was not the tallest structure in the world
but the first example of a new form of engineering that would change
nearly every city on earth. Chicago has 17 buildings over 200 meters tall
(three of which are among the top 20 tallest buildings in the world,
including the tallest in North America). Chicago has some of the finest
mid-century architecture and examples of modern skyscrapers.
Metro/Urban Population: 8.5 million

chicago

3. Shanghai, China

Not to be mistaken for a space station, Shanghai is a real city! China's
biggest and most advanced city, Shanghai was said to be the most
cosmopolitan city in the beginning of the 20th century, but lost its glory
during the "Mao era". It is now quickly regaining its position as one of the
biggest economic powerhouses in the world as well as a showcase of
modern architecture. In Shanghai you'll find 18 structures that are over
200 meters tall, one of which is the insanely tall, the 468m downtown
Oriental Pearl TV Tower.
Metro/Urban Population: 13.1 million

Shanghai

4. New York City, USA

New York City has one of the densest and most diverse skylines, with a
huge collection of buildings and building styles. Thanks to Hollywood's
obsession with the city, it is also the most easily recognizable skyline in
the world. New York City has an amazing 44 buildings over 200 meters -
the most in the world! Home of the famous, now destroyed World Trade
Center Towers, the Empire State building, the Statue of Liberty and the
United Nations, New York City is the financial capital of the western world. Upon the completion of the new "Freedom Tower" (built on the old site of
the World Trade Centers), it may rank higher in this list (depending on
how good it looks of course).
Metro/Urban Population: 21.0 million

New York City

5. Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo is the world's most populated city. Its skyline has a number of
unique characteristics that set it apart from other big city skylines, among
them 15 structures at over 200 meters tall (including the Tokyo Tower
which changes colors every night). But because of the density and vast
size of the city, every corner appears to have its own skyline. With the
height restrictions and the required red lights that flash atop all mid to
tall-sized buildings make the city look spectacular at night. Tokyo is filled
with neon lighting and unique, contemporary architecture, and like New
York City is also often portrayed in movies for its aesthetic and
eye-catching cityscapes. Interesting fact: Tokyo houses the world's
largest fleet of helicopters to get around town if traffic gets too crazy.
Metro/Urban Population: 32.0 million

Tokyo, Japan

6. Singapore

One of the best (urban) planned and cleanliest metropolitan cities in the
world, Singapore looks like an architectural model city come to life. The
buildings cannot be higher than 280 meters due to air traffic control
restrictions, but that has added a tall (but not too tall) and consistent
building height and space pattern that makes this skyline unique: Three
buildings are exactly 280 meters tall and 5 others (8 total) stand at just
over 200 metres. The buildings are mostly light-coloured and there is a
large expanse of greenery dotted around the city core. This South-Eastern
city is definitely in a league of its own.
Metro/Urban Population: 3.8 million

Singapore

7. Toronto, Canada

Toronto is a meeting place, a crossroads of many cultures and ethnicities.
Toronto is downtown Canada, the biggest city in the country with a skyline
to match. Toronto has 7 structures in its skyline that stand at over 200
metres, including the astonishingly tall 553 metres, CN Tower, which is
often referred to as the tallest freestanding structure in the world. While
mostly untrue (because there are taller TV masts in the world), the CN
Tower possesses the world's highest observation deck, making this city's
skyline one of the most immediately identifiable.
Metro/Urban Population: 5.1 million

Toronto, Canada

8. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

This is probably the most impressive city worldwide that has less than 2
million residents. Marvelous modern buildings reach the sky here, and
while the skyline is not too dense, it does allow buildings to soar and stand
out. Kuala Lumpur has three of the 25 tallest buildings worldwide,
including the tallest twin buildings, the Pretonos Towers (which are
arguably the second and third tallest overall in the world) as well as the
420 meters Menara Kuala Lumpur Tower.
Metro/Urban Population: 1.5 million

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

9. Shenzhen, China

What was a tiny fishing village on the border of Hong Kong in 1970 is now
a buzzing metropolis of over four million people. With 13 buildings at over
200 meters tall, including the Shun Hing Square (the 8th tallest building in
the world), Shenzen is a marvel of lights after sunset. You can't help but
ask yourself if you are in a video game or in a real city.
Metro/Urban Population: 4.2 million

Shenzhen, China

10. Seoul, South Korea

This city's skyscrapers are divided into many clusters, spread amongst
the main businesses and residential districts. Most of the recent growth in
Seoul's skyline, however, has been of residential towers over 60 storeys
high that are shooting up like blades of grass! There are 10 buildings in
Seoul over 200 meters tall and much of the mid-rise to high-rise
structures are lined up in a linear fashion, creating a "wall" of buildings
like no other. Seoul is where the ancient Eastern world meets the modern
West.
Metro/Urban Population: 20.8 million

Seoul, South Korea

11. Sao Paolo, Brazil

"What building did you say they lived in?" Finding it in the largest mass of
condensed apartment buildings anywhere would be like finding a needle in
a haystack. Sao Paolo has a population of over 18 million people! While
the buildings are not super tall (with only a single structure at over 200
meters tall) this skyline is nevertheless stacked. Sao Paolo has a fleet of
over 500 helicopters, the second largest helicopter fleet in the world.
Metro/Urban Population: 18.3 million

Sao Paolo, Brazil

12. Sydney, Australia

Australia's showcase city, Sydney has one of the most recognizable
skylines due to its world-famous harbour, often referred to as the most
beautiful natural harbour in the world. The Sydney Harbour has many
bays, inlets and secondary harbours. It is spanned by the monumental
Harbour Bridge, and the Opera House decorates the shoreline like a white
flower. The Sydney skyline is world-class with hundreds of skyscrapers in
the central business district and many more high-rise buildings in the
outlying neighbourhoods. Sydney has 8 buildings over 200 meters tall.

Metro/Urban Population: 4.2 million

Sydney, Australia

13. Frankfurt, Germany

Certainly one of Europe's most interesting cities in terms of skylines,
Frankfurt is home to five structures that are over 200 meters tall. These
modern skyscrapers are marvels compared to those other, mostly
non-existent ones scattered across European cities. The contrast here is
interesting: The city combines low-rise, high-density traditional European
architecture (some of which is over 1,000 years old), with modern towers
that stick out like sore thumbs, but are impressive nonetheless.
Metro/Urban Population: 4.1 million

Frankfurt, Germany

14. Dubai, United Arab, Emirates

Is this a mirage in the Middle East? Seemingly out of nowhere emerges a
city in the middle of a desert. This is Dubai, a city that produces only the
best modern architecture in the world. Already home of the world's tallest
all-hotel building and the tallest all-residential building in the world, AND
currently proposed to build the world's tallest building, this skyline might
just leap to the number 1 spot in the near future. While the skyline is not
so dense, each building is a marvel all on its own. As a skyline it probably
can't compete with the larger cities, however the individual buildings in
this city are by far the greatest examples of modern architectural
accomplishments. All seven structures in this city at over 200 meters tall
were built in 1999 or later ! - that's how new this city is.
Metro/Urban Population: 1.6 million

Dubai, United Arab, Emirates

15. Guangzhou, China

Metro/Urban Population: 4.1 million

Guangzhou, China

20 Must-Have Holiday Gifts Of Years Past Filed under ( Art, Charming, Cool, Crazy, Creations, Cute Girls, Event, Fair, Funny, Heart, holiday, Holiday Gifts, Information, Pleasent, Wonderful, Years Past ) by AAA

Hordes of shoppers brutally competing for overpriced junk - this is the stuff a holiday massacre is made of. Here's 20 gifts that inspired crowd madness.

1 Cabbage Patch Kids

Xavier Roberts created the Cabbage Patch dolls in 1978, but it wasn't until toy giant Coleco began mass-producing them in 1982 that they became one of the most hideous holiday fads America has ever seen. The melon-headed dolls, each one with a birth certificate and its own precious identity, were the must-have toy of 1983, with massive shortages nationwide and parents literally physically harming one another to get hold of one for their precious kids. Department store riots were common, with employees defending themselves with baseball bats against the onslaught of shoppers.

2 Big Mouth Billy Bass

Why, oh why was this the most popular gift in America in 2000? I guess we can argue that it was before we had our national innocence shattered by the spectre of terrorism, but really? A plastic fish that sings "Don't Worry, Be Happy" sells millions of units? For Gemmy Industries, it was a tidal wave of success that spawned dozens of imitators and died soon after. By 2002, the singing largemouth bass had been consigned to the dustbin of gag gift history.

3 Beanie Babies

The absolutely worst thing that can happen to a toy is for somebody to declare it "collectible." That usually sparks a massive feeding frenzy where desperate fools looking to make a quick buck spend too much cash and end up disappointed. Such was the case with Beanie Babies, simply-made beanbag toys produced by Ty Warner in the 1990s. By 1995, there was a thriving collectible market for the toys, but by 2000 the fad had ended and old ladies nationwide were stuck with worthless scraps of fabric that they'd spent their kids college funds on.

4 Rubik's Cube

When Hungarian sculptor Erno Rubik created his cube puzzle in 1974, he had no idea that it would become one of the defining symbols of the 80s. Such is life, I guess, but after the Cube hit American shores in 1980 it found a spot in pretty much every kid's stocking for the next few years. Parents liked it because it had a vaguely European name and maybe could teach your kid some math. Kids liked it because... hell, I'm not sure why kids liked it. The fad was over by 1982 but by then it was too late. With over 350 million cubes sold, it's one of the most popular toys ever invented.

5 Tickle Me Elmo

You can really tell a lot about a person by their opinion on Elmo. Old farts like myself believe that his introduction in 1981 (as Elmo, he'd been in the background previously) marked the beginning of the end for Sesame Street. His annoying falsetto quickly came to dominate the show, and the geniuses at CTW cashed in with a slew of toys and tie-ins. 1996's Tickle Me Elmo was one of the biggest holiday fads of all time. The demand for the toy was so intense that people were selling it for over $1500 - this is a toy that retailed at $28.99! Wal-Mart employees were trampled, shoppers were hurt, and it was a horrible Christmas.

6 Furby

In 1996, Tiger Electronics released the first massively popular robotic toy. And it looked like an owl and a hamster had sex, possibly in a threesome with Yoda. Furbys were bizarre artificial pets that spoke their own gibberish language but would "learn" English the more you played and interacted with them. For some unknown reason, they became the hot toy of the holiday season, with stores barely able to keep them in stock and scalpers selling them for over $100. Over 27 million of them were sold in 12 months, but just as quickly as the fad started it ended, with millions of abandoned Furbys jabbering at each other in dumpsters worldwide.

7 Glow Worm

Capitalizing on kids' native fears is always a good way to rake in some cash, and in 1982 the Playskool company made bazillions with a stupid little toy with a light bulk in its head. Glow Worm was a stuffed insect larvae in a nightcap that, when squeezed, would light up to chase away all of those nasty night terrors (or at least the ones scared of worms). For some reason, this became a smash hit and stores struggled to keep them in stock that holiday season.

8 Hula Hoop

This was maybe the first real toy fad of the modern era. In 1957, the geniuses at Wham-O, high off of the success of the Frisbee, test marketed these hollow plastic hoops in California and discovered that kids loved to spin them around their hips. After only four months, they'd sold 25 million of the damned things at a tidy profit. It was the toy to have in '57, and the fad basically died after a year - sure, Hula Hoops were still sold, but never in such insane quantities.

9 Hypercolor

Fashion fads usually don't make the crossover to Christmas must-haves, but Hypercolor was the notable exception. Starting in 1991, the Generra Sportswear Company started producing shirts with a special color-changing chemical that would shift hue when exposed to heat. For some damn reason, everybody on Earth had to have some. The early 1990s were not a fine time for fashion, and sweatshirts that drew attention to your armpit stains were no exception. After millions of dollars of sales, where Generra couldn't even keep up with demand, the company went bankrupt in 1992.

10 Magic Eye

Man, we must have been seriously bored in 1993. How else to explain the overwhelming success of the Magic Eye books? These eye-straining optical illusions, created by Tom Baccei and Cheri Smith, use a patented process to "hide" images in repeating patterns. Combined, they spent a total of 73 weeks on the New York Times' bestseller list. And for what?

11 Nintendo 64

Nintendo was the last company to launch a console in the 5th generation of video games, and while the jury's out on whether it was worth waiting for, there's no denying that Christmas of 1996 was all about the Nintendo 64. I could use words to talk about how every kid in America wanted one, but just watch this video instead.

12 Pet Rock

Let's be frank: keeping a real animal alive is sometimes beyond our humble abilities. That explains the enormous popularity of the Pet Rock in the 1970s. Created by ad-man Gary Dahl, what was at first just a prank quickly bloomed into a massive cultural pehnomenon, with over five million being sold at $3.95 each. Since these were just rocks, Dahl quickly became a multi-millionaire.

13 Simon

Early electronic games were primitive and annoying, but in 1978 Milton Bradley changed all that with Simon. The game of memory and reflexes developed by Ralph Baer and Howard Morrison was a massive smash hit, with just four buttons and some blinking lights. Milton Bradley launched the game at a glitz event at New York's disco den Studio 54, and that holiday season it was the must-buy toy for American kids. Parents were frantic to get ahold of one, and fistfights broke out in stores.

14 Speak & Spell

Electronic breakthroughs often make for fad toys, and such was the case with the Speak & Spell, the first kid's toy to use digitally created speech (as opposed to recordings). Developed by Paul Breedlove at Texas Instruments, the Speak & Spell was sort of like the first laptop for kids - it had a full keyboard and a one-line VFD display, and sold like hotcakes during the 1978 holiday season. Is it any wonder that those of us who were kids back then all want to have sex with robots now?

15 Tamagotchi

So the Pet Rock was the '70s version of a fake pet, but leave it to the neurotic '90s to create an even more annoying one. The Tamagotchi was invented by Japanese monsters Akihiro Yokoi and Aki Maita and released in the West in 1997. In a cheap plastic shell resided a pixelated cartoon animal. Pressing buttons on the side let you feed, pet and "play with" this critter, which would react accordingly. Take care of it and it would thrive, neglect it and it would starve. You even had to clean up its little digital poop. For some reason, every kid in the world wanted to show some responsibility for once, and over 70 million of the damn things were sold. All of them are dead now.

16 Troll Dolls

I know that most of the fads on this list have been '80s, '90s stuff - that is, after all, when I was alive - but fads didn't start with my birth. In 1963, one of the biggest toy crazes to sweep America hit on Christmas and didn't let up for two years. Troll dolls, also known as Wishniks, were created by a Danish woodcarver and introduced to the United States, where the hideous critters with the giant puff of hair became a gigantic fad. Girls stockpiled the ugly little buggers by the dozen until, as swiftyl as they came, they were gone.

17 Webkinz

Let's face it: by the time today's kids are adults, they'll probably be plugged into the Matrix 24/7. Blame crap like Webkinz, which swept the holiday season by storm in 2006. Cheapy-made stuffed animals, the real reason people bought them was because they came with an "access code," which got the owner access to an online site called Webkinz World. There they play games to earn virtual cash and bla bla bla, but the real hook was this: you had to buy a new stuffed animal and input a new code every two weeks to stay online. This awesome scam made the company $100 million in 2006.

18 Nintendo Wii

Remember in 2006 when the Wii hit? Everybody freaked the F out that Nintendo was dropping a console with a totally new control mechanism. It was the biggest news in gaming in years. Yes, in retrospect ninety percent of the games kind of sucked and the Wiimote needed an extra part to work how they promised, but whatevs. The Wii sold over 600,000 copies in its first eight days, causing massive shortages during the holiday season. Resellers immediately started to gouge the poor suckers who didn't get theirs.

19 Zhu Zhu Pets

What the hell was up with these things last year? Zhu Zhu Pets, for those who didn't hear, are a line of fairly cheaply-made robotic hamsters that are made in China and have little wheels on the bottom for exploring. They wander around, bump into stuff, make noise - nothing special. And yet, through some kind of bizarre chicanery, they were 2009's epic holiday fad. Resellers were marking them up 400% from their retail price and Wal-Mart couldn't keep them in stock. The lesson here? Kids are stupid and crazy.

20 Pogs

Here's a great example of how unpredictable fads can be: the game of Pogs had been played in Hawaii since the 1930s, but when a math teacher taught a new generation of kids the game in 1991, it swept the islands like a tidal wave. Played with cardboard bottle caps, within months the company who made them was shipping millions to Hawaii, and by 1993 it was a worldwide fad. Simply printed circles of cardboard, the popularity of the game was totally inexplicable, and there was even a World Pog Federation to set rules and monitor championships. And then America came to its collective senses and nobody ever played Pogs again.

Major Events & Happening In 2010 Filed under ( Amazing, Art, Event, Information, Water, Wonderful ) by AAA