Chim Pom, an art collective from japan, have found an ingenious way of dealing with Tokyo’s rat problem while attracting the attention of Pokemon fans; they caught some street rats and turned them into real-life taxidermied Pikachus.

But how does anyone come up with such a crazy idea? Well, it was all about the concept of “super rat”. The rats of Center-gai street, in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward got the nickname “super rats”because of their alleged immunity to human-made poison. They’re a real nuisance and aren’t afraid to come out of their hiding places even when people are walking by. Apparently there are thousands of giant rats lurking around the place, and this got the six members of Chim Pom about the famous anime character Pikachu, from the hit series Pokemon. they decided to catch some of these super street rats and turn them into real-life versions of the yellow, electrically-charged cartoon rat.

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Life-size zombies crawling out of a 1,800-pound giant pumpkin? You have to face it, Halloween carved pumpkins don’t get a lot cooler than that.

A crowd of Halloween fans gathered at the New York Botanical Garden, the other day, to see pumpkin-carving master Ray Villafane work his magic on the world’s biggest pumpkin. Ray, an established artist known also for his incredible toy and sand sculptor, had something special in mind for this year’s event, and it’s safe to say zombie fans were pleased with his idea. He used two of the largest pumpkins from this year’s harvest, one of them a record-holder, to create a creepy scene featuring zombies covered in pumpkin guts crawling out of a giant squash. Ray spent hours painstakingly carving his undead work of art, but his efforts were generously rewarded with cheering and clapping.

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Alex Wer is an awesome artist who can take just about any image and turn it into a piece of everlasting art, by carving it into a craft pumpkin. His Halloween creations look so almost to good to be real.

Alex Wer, also known as “The Pumpkin Geek” first started exercising his awesome talent as a pumpkin carver two years ago, by accident. His wife asked him to carve a pumpkin for her office Open House, and since he had always enjoyed carving pumpkins, he thought it would be fun. He only has a few weeks until Halloween, so he had to decide between carving a real pumpkin that would spoil within a week, or go for a craft pumpkin that could theoretically last forever. He went for the second option, and although he only created a logo and some script, Alex’s pumpkin was a hit at his wife’s event. Before he knew it he had 35 orders for custom logos and children pictures, and his “Orange Empire” was born.

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Richard Garriot, the owner of a Austin, Texas-based video-game development company, has found the perfect way to keep an eye on his employees when he’s out of office – a $15,000 robot called QB60.

Garriott, who founded Origin Systems back in the 1980s, a company best known for creating the Ultima franchise (which led to the popular MMO “Ultima Online”), first discovered his robot stand-in last year, when he and the woman of his dreams got married in a 500-year-old chateau in France. He wanted his mother to be by his side one one of the most important days in his life, but the wasn’t in the best shape for such a long flight, so he had to figure out a way to have her there, without having her fly. The solution came from a California company called Anybots Inc., which specializes in making avatar-like robots that can be controlled via computer. The futuristic gizmo looks a lot like a balancing segway, but it’s actually a lot more: an ever-present telepresence equipped with two cameras, a microphone and a speaker that can be operated from anywhere using a broadband Internet connection.

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Japanese company Neurowear has invented an innovative and wacky set of furry cat ears that help you express a state of mind without having to say a word. It’s called Necomimi and it’s bound to become one of the world’s coolest gadgets/fashion accessories.

Just in case you were wondering what Japan will come up with next after a seemingly endless number of wacky and funny inventions (Botaoshi, Reptile Cafe, Yokai Monster Train, etc.), I’m here to provide an answer – Necomimi, a revolutionary headband that uses sensors to read your brainwaves. That’s doesn’t sound weird at all, on the contrary, it sounds groundbreaking, but the offbeat-loving Japanese designed the gadget to look like a wearable set of cat ears, probably hoping to capitalize on people’s fascination with cuteness and cutting-edge technology.

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Superhero Wages War on Dog Poo (Orange News)

Biggest.Crocodile.Ever (Twisted Sifter)

Light Paintings by Brian Hart (Wooster)

The Ancient Tradition of Fishing with Cormorants (Environmental Graffiti)

Real-Life Spider Woman Climbs 70ft Wall to Avoid Admission Fee (Daily Mail)

Japanese Anti-Aging Goggles Look Pretty Darn Uncomfortable (Book of Joe)

Dude Conquers Super Mario 64 with His Feet (Nerd Approved)

The Mother of All Hotwheels Tracks (Autoblog)

2-Year-Old Girl Brutally Run-Over Twice; 18 People Pass without Helping (Weird Asia News)

Storm Chaser Stares into the Eye of a Tornado (Environmental Graffiti)

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When his ex-wife, who left him after 12 years of marriage, told him he could do whatever he wished with her wedding dress, 38-year-old Kevin Cotter set out to prove a wedding dress isn’t as useless as you think, and became an Internet sensation in the process.

With the help of his brother Colin, box salesman Kevin Cotter managed to get over a painful divorce using what many would call an unorthodox therapy. Following his breakup and a family brainstorming session, the 38-year-old decided to try and find various uses for his ex’s wedding dress. Not the easiest of challenges, but the two brothers came up with 101 ways to reuse a wedding dress, started a successful site documenting their experiences and are now preparing to launch a book. MyExWifesWeddingDress.com became an Internet hit just three weeks after he started posing photos of ridiculous ways to repurpose a wedding dress, and letters of support started coming from all over the world. This inspired the Cotter brothers to come up with even more ridiculous dress uses. They discovered it made a great punching bag, yoga mat, shower curtain, snow camouflage, grill cover and even a Darth Vader scarecrow.

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Jeremy Kirsch has creates what is probably the world’s first photographic sequin mosaic, comprised of 50,625 independently-mounted sequins, which move and sparkle when they catch the light.

The artist from Glendale, California created this unique work of art for the ArtPrize 2011 competition, where although it didn’t win the big prize, it caught the eye of Ripley’s Believe It or Not! “How this piece didn’t win the big money at the contest I will never know, said Edward Meyer, VP Exhibits and Archives for Ripley’s. “Everyone was talking about it as the “must see” piece. I fell in love with it instantly, and considered it the number one “must have” piece for Ripley’s from this year’s Artprize.”

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Young C Park, a retired dentist from Honolulu, Hawaii, spends thousands of hours painstakingly working on fully functional models of famous fighter planes.

Every little part of Mr. Park’s planes is a miniature replica of the original. He spends hours on end manipulating aluminum into chains, cable and hinges for his creations and doesn’t leave his workstation until every part is up to his high standards. It might seem a little extreme considering we’re talking about models, but the 77-year-old retired dentist is very passionate about his planes and always aims to execute perfect replicas of the machines that have fascinated him throughout his life. His 1/16 scale models have retracting landing gear and working controls, but the levers are so tiny you need fine tweezers to operate them.

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Lindner, Poland’s biggest coffin manufacturer, certainly thinks so, since they’ve been using scantly clad models to market their products for the last three years. For the 2012 edition of their controversial sexy-morbid calendar they’ve used body-painted models.

The first edition of the Lindner Calendar appeared in 2010 and featured artistic photos of female models dressed in sexy outfits posing with coffins. It sparked quite a controversy, with members of the church calling it tasteless and shocking, but Lindner sold 3,000 copies and decided to release a second edition, the following year. the 2011 Lindner Calendar featured drop-dead gorgeous ladies wearing lingerie performing famous scenes from movies like James Bond, Reservoir Dogs or The Godfather alongside more of the company’s high-end coffins. Read More »

Lee Wei Chen, an MA student from the Kingston University, London, has designed an “amusement washing machine” that combines arcade gaming with doing laundry.

Lee Wei, who is originally feom Taiwan, came up with the idea for his wacky invention while thinking of a productive use for the “wasted but enjoyable time” he spent playing video games. The 27-year-old says he realized the skills he had in the virtual world were completely useless in the real world and he decided to find a way to make them useful. That’s how he came up with the amusement washing machine, a contraption that looks like an arcade gaming station with an incorporated washing machine in the lower half. Chen linked the circuitry of the two devices, making the washing cycle dependent on the user’s gaming skills. If the gamer sucks at video games he or she will have to insert more coins in order to complete the cycle.

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15 Bizarrely Precarious Planking Positions (Environmental Graffiti)

Meet the Real Spice Girl (Daily Mail)

Thorntons Breaks Biggest Chocolate Bar World Record (Metro)

P Diddy Publishes Book That Celebrates the Female Behind (Dailymotion)

Mum Teaches 2-Year-Old to Smoke (Orange)

The World’s Richest Beggar (New York Times)

Seven Churches Devoured by Lava (Environmental Graffiti)

Housewives Set-up Adoption Business for Pickled Onions (Adopt a Pickled Onion)

The Weirdest Looking Donation Request of the Week (Asia Obscura)

Men in Classic Pin-up Poses (Bit Rebels)

Nguyen Thi Phuong is only 26, but judging by her wrinkled and saggy skin, you could easily mistake her for a 70-year-old.

The young woman from Vietnam suffered an allergic reaction in 2008, and after taking some prescribed medication  the skin her face, hands and body started to wrinkle and become saggy, giving her the appearance of an old lady. It all started after Thi Phuong ate some seafood. It gave her such a bad rash that she used to scratch even in her sleep, so to alleviate the symptoms, her husband, Nguyen Thanh Tuyen, bought her some medication. It didn’t work, so she visited a local doctor who prescribed pills for dermatitis, which only made things worse, causing her face to swell up and hives to erupt all over her skin. She stopped taking them after a week and put her hopes in some Chinese practitioners in her town, in the Giong Trom district of Vietnam’s Ben Tre province. They cured her itching and hives, but her skin was becoming saggy.

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Bian Lian, or Face Changing, as it’s known in the western world, in an old dramatic art associated with Chinese opera from the Sichuan Province. It is considered a part of China’s cultural heritage and is the only art form to be ranked as a level two national secret.

The skill and speed with which Chinese artists change their beautifully-painted masks has captured audiences’ imagination for centuries. Performers gracefully raise their hands, turn their heads and swing their arms, each time boasting a new mask. The secret of how they manage to change from three to twenty masks during a single performance without anyone realizing the trick has fascinated people since it started being practiced, during the Qing dynasty, around 300 years ago. It is said Bian Lian actually started out as a survival technique. People painted all kinds of designs on their faces to frighten wild animals, but as time went by it became a dramatic art performed on stage. Another legend tells of a people’s hero, a Chinese version of Robin Hood who stole from the rich and gave to the poor, who whenever cornered by guards would change his appearance to confuse them and escape.

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Kate Askegaard of Dixon, Illinois has spent 1,500 hours of her life recreating a classic masterpiece using only dots the size of a pin tip, for the annual ArtPrize Contest. This what is called a labor of love.

Looking at Kate’s masterpiece from afar, you’d think it’s just another well-done recreation of Michelangelo’s “Pieta”, but after a close inspection you realize it’s actually made of millions of tiny dots. Entitled “True Love” this unique piece was created for the 2011 ArtPrize competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It started out with Askegaard’s wish to prove to herself that she was a good artist, and she got it into her head that if she could capture what Michelangelo did with his Pieta, and the public would respond, than she could call herself a good artist. Kate referenced a 12in x 12in photo of the classic artwork, which she gridded out into over 10,000 squares. She used 9 sheets of paper, each 19in x 24in, glued them on a 5ft x 5ft canvas and finally painted black around the image.

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