On the third Thursday of every month, some of the world’s greatest crime specialists meet up in Philadelphia to try and solve some of the toughest murder cases in history, over a delicious lunch. This is the Vidocq Society.

Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Kojack, those guys from CSI, they are all brilliant minds on their own, but what if they all got together to solve the toughest criminal cases in history? They’d have a much better chance of success, at least in theory. That’s what the Vidocq Society is all about, bringing together the most brilliant minds in criminology and trying to get to the bottom of hundreds of thousands of unsolved cases. Once a month, the members of this 20-year-old exclusive club assemble in an old Victorian dining room, to enjoy fine cuisine and talk about unsolved murders. As their motto (Cuisine & Crime Solving ) suggests, crime is always on the menu at Vidocq Society meetings.

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Malaysian-born artist Cheeming Boey uses a simple sharpie pen to turn simple Styrofoam cups into unique works of art that sell for hundreds, even thousands of dollars.

Styrofoam cups don’t usually attract a lot of attention, unless they’re mentioned in discussions about environment pollution. They’re cheap and disposable, so  no one really cares about them. Neither did Cheeming Boey, until six years ago, when he discovered they could be used as an original canvas for his sharpie doodles. He was in little coffee shop, in Irvine, California, when he got the urge to draw, but found himself without a piece of paper. So he just grabbed a Styrofoam cup from the trash can and unleashed his artistic talent. The result surprised Boey himself, and the artist immediately realized he was up to something.

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London Gallery Hosts Invisible Art Exhibition (NEWS)

The Man Who Ate His Own Brain (Yahoo)

Weird Concepts: Camel-Powered Desert Ambulance (Environmental Graffiti)

Off the Grid – Americans Living Outside Mainstream Society (Laughing Squid)

73-Year-Old Woman Climbs Mount Everest (HuffPost)

Man Runs Half-Marathon Inside Hot Air Balloon (Digital Journal)

Concept Artist’s Photos Spark Interpol Murder Hunt (Orange)

Star Trek Fan to Build Real-Life Version of the Enterprise (MNN)

The Giant Salt City 1200ft Beneath Detroit (Environmental Graffiti)

Guy Drinks 42 Cups of Coffee, Live to Tell the Story (Buzzfeed)

Why eat stuff when you can drink it? That seems to be the philosophy behind Lester’s Fixins bizarre soda flavors that include bacon, buffalo wings or sweet corn.

I always though Japan had the strangest flavors when it came to sodas, but after seeing what Lester, “a good ol’ boy from Texas” puts in his bottles, I think the US can compete with the Land of the Rising Sun, any day. Produced by Rocket Fizz Soda Pop & Candy Shop, Lester’s Fixins is definitely not your usual beverage, but it’s definitely a must-try if you want to find out what your favorite treat tastes like if you drink it. So far, Lester has six flavors: bacon, buffalo wings, sweet corn, peanut butter and jelly, pumpkin pie and coffee

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Hong Yi, aka “Red”, has already achieved Internet fame for her amazing works, a portrait of Yao Ming created with a basketball, and one of singer Jay Chou made by spilling coffee, but she keeps producing mind-blowing masterpieces. Her latest project is a detailed portrait made with 750 pairs of socks.

The beautiful Shanghai-based artist decided to pay tribute to Chinese film director Yimou Zhang by creating a large-scale monochromatic portrait of him with socks. She first got the idea for her unique work of art while strolling on a tiny alleyway in Shanghai. It was filled with clotheslines made of bamboo sticks with various clothing items hanging above her, and she remembers being surprised to find such a traditional side of life in a modern, bustling city like Shanghai. The unusual art medium is also a connection to Yimou Zhang who uses bamboo sticks in his period films, as well as in the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony he directed.

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Now you can sin all you like in Las Vegas because not only can you go to heaven, but redemption will cost you just $130 and salvation, only $200. No, you won’t be released from the bonds of worldly life, but you sure will be cured of that nasty headache after a night of binge-drinking. Yes, the place we’re talking of is Hangover Heaven, the bus that exists “to resolve your post-partying ills, no matter what you were doing last night.” The unique service started by board-certified anesthesiologist, Dr. Jason Burke, specializes mainly in the treatment of alcohol induced hangovers. But they do have solutions for other problems too, so it doesn’t really matter what kind of mess you got into the previous night.

The Hangover Heaven is a blue bus with pickup points at major Las Vegas hotels. With a front lounge, a mid-section with bunks, a rear lounge, bathroom and relaxing interiors, the bus promises an ultra-smooth ride that will see the end of your hangover in just 45 minutes. Now I’ve only just had a bad hangover once in my life, but the experience was enough for me to know that 45 minutes to get rid of the horrible feeling is simply awesome. I do wish I could have had the option of taking this bus back then.

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Who needs chairs when you can just relax and have a cup of coffee or tea in a comfortable hammock, right? That was probably the idea behind Mahika Mano, a popular Tokyo venue, better known as the Hammock Cafe.

Located in the Kichijoji district of Tokyo, a place renowned for its chill-out atmosphere, Mahika Mano fits in just perfectly, with its hammocks hanging from the ceiling inviting passers-by to just sit back and enjoy a tasty drink. As soon as you walk in, the first thing that hits you is the absence of chairs, but as soon as you lay down in one of the hanging nets you start to wonder who ever got the crazy idea of using chairs, when hammocks are so much more comfy. As you can imagine, this unique cafe is pretty busy (sometimes you have to wait in a queue to grab a seat hammock) so the place has implemented a time limit of 90 to 120 minutes, so that everyone can have a chance to literally hang out. Whether this policy is enforced or not depends on the occupancy of the cafe.

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Ever looked at a baby and wondered if it was a boy or a girl? I’ve been there. It’s a dicey situation because most parents take offence if you blurt out the wrong gender. Beck Laxton and Keiran Cooper are exceptions, though. They raised their kid for five years without revealing the gender to anyone, until recently. Only when things were getting difficult at school did they tell the world that their baby is actually a boy.

This might sound real crazy to a lot of people out there, and Laxton is quite aware of that too. The 46-year-old mom does admit that several people had branded the couple as “loony” and they had to suffer some amount of ostracisation due to their choices. “I discovered that I’d been described as ‘that loony woman who doesn’t know whether her baby is a boy or a girl’. And I could never persuade anyone in the group to come around for coffee. They just thought I was mental,” she says.

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Here’s something I never thought I’d hear, let alone write an article about – faecal transplants. Yes, it’s exactly what you think  it is. Taking the poop out of one person and putting it into another. It’s a lot, more disgusting that it sounds, but this medical procedure actually has the potential to save lives. And would you believe, it’s been around since the late 1990s?

Dr. Alisdair MacConnachie is perhaps the only doctor in the UK to have ever performed the transplant. Calling it a proven treatment, this is how he says it’s done. A patient is put on antibiotics up until the night before, after which pills are given to control the stomach acids. The next morning a donor will come in and provide a stool sample. The donor is usually a close relative who tends to eat the same kind of food and lives in the same environment as the patient. Next, 1oz of the sample is taken and churned with salt water in a blender. Eww, right? No wait, it gets worse. The fluid is then poured through a coffee filter to produce a very watery liquid. And now, for the worst part – a tube is inserted up the patient’s nose that goes all the way down to the stomach. 1fl oz of the liquid is poured right in. I will now give you a moment to recover.

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Qu Zhibo, a chef from Zigong City, China’s Sichuan Province, spent three years and just 4,000 yuan ($628) building his own knockoff Jeep. His efforts have made him somewhat of an Internet celebrity, in China.

I was convinced Chinese car enthusiasts can be very resourceful when it comes to building their own dream cars after seeing photos of a young man working on his home-made Lamborghini, so Qu Zhibo’s achievement just comes as a confirmation. Because he was busy running his own restaurant, Qu Zhibo took three years to complete work on his 2-meters-long, 1.5-meters-high Jeep, but he did use just 600 bucks to do it. The car, which many Chinese netizens called a “knockoff Hummer” was actually inspired by an American military vehicle, and even though right now it pretty much looks like a pile of junk on wheels, a bit of camouflage paint could go a long way.

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Crashed Ferrari Coffee Table (Laughing Squid)

Nigeria’s Breakdancing Traffic Warden (YouTube)

10 Incredible Tales of Interspecies Nursing (Environmental Graffiti)

Farmer Couple Marry in Cow-Themed Wedding (Metro)

105-Pound Petite Woman Wins Turkey Eating Contest (Third Age)

Super-Cold Ice Finger Kills Everything in Its Path (BBC)

Cutely Named Classic Chinese Torture Methods (Asia Obscura)

Chinese Couple Caught Getting It On in a Coffin (Weird Asia News)

Reebok Sets New Record for World’s Larges 3D Street Art (Asylum)

15 Incredible Examples of Early Spirit Photography (Environmental Graffiti)

The mother of all DIY projects has arrived. And this one involves making something you, and only you will ever use. Your coffin.

A class that teaches people to build their own caskets is indeed available in Grand Marais, northern Minnesota. It is run by a forty-five year-old professional wood worker, Randy Schnobrich. The three-day course costs around $750, $470 of which is spent on materials alone. Participants are taught and supervised while they construct a coffin from cabinet grade pine, an inch in thickness.

The USP of this class, apart from building coffins of course, is the fact that very few power tools are used. Most of the construction work is done using hand tools such as planes and saws, as opposed to heavy machinery. Schnobrich feels that the use of hand tools is, in some ways, the very essence of the school.

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Mavericks, a popular strip club in Cape Town, South Africa, has recently launched a series of men’s fragrances called “Alibis“. As the name suggests, they provide husbands with an excuse for when they get home late.

Because most clients get a bit carried away when visiting Mavericks, and choose to have one more dance “to see what happens”, the joint’s owners were inspired to create a series of perfumes that could give married men an alibi for when they arrive home late.  ‘The fragrance market is a natural extension for the sexy, sophisticated and upmarket Mavericks brand, and the idea of a range of ‘Alibis’ is one that will appeal to many of our customers”, said Mavericks owner Shane Harrison. He expects buyers will find uses for the Alibis fragrances in a variety of day-to-day situations, and thinks the products will prove a hit during the upcoming Christmas season. Read More »

Artist Karen Eland paints all kinds of portraits and paintings using nothing but beer.

The first time we featured Karen Eland on Oddity Central was when she took the art world by storm with her beautiful coffee paintings. She started her artistic career doing portraits with water color and colored pencils, but quickly moved on to painting with coffee, which really helped her make a name for herself. Now, after 14 years of creating art with the world’s favorite breakfast drink, Karen realized there are a lot of other drinks and foods she could experiment with, so she tried tea, beer, liquor, and lots of other stuff, but beer eventually proved the most successful.

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Ian Baron, a nuclear plant mechanic from Bowmanville, Canada, has spent the last five years building life-size replicas of old fighter planes from various kinds of junk.

Ian started making his planes five years ago, after visiting the Ford Automotive Museum in Michigan where he saw what can be accomplished by bending metal. He had experience building dune buggies and restoring Model A Fords, and he truly believed he could create a fighter replica with stuff he already had around the house. The few things he didn’t have, like sheet metal from above-ground pools he scavenged from scrapyards and neighbors. He also became a regular at stores like Princess Auto and Home Depot, but all his hard work and expenditures paid off nine months after starting the project, when he finally completed his  1916 Sopwith Carnel, a replica of Snoopy’s plane, the one that shot down the infamous Red Baron. It had bar stools as bulkheads, farm gates as wings and metal pool walls as the skin.

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