alternate theory: gas powered shoes (Score 1)

An alternate theory that seems plausible is that Ginger is related to the 'gas powered shoes' developed by Roman Kunikov, an aeronautical engineer working at a Russian research institute.

They received a fair bit of press in the middle of last year, following an AP report that they would propel the wearer to speeds of up to 25 mph using a mechanism similar to footwear-mounted pogo sticks with internal combustion engines (!).

Some selected articles on this invention can be found at: http://popularmechanics.com/perl/tw_display.pl?id= 306 http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/rus sia_boots000707.html