With thousands of E.T. collectibles, some dating back to 1982, Nick Gjoka can proudly call himself the world’s biggest E.T. fan.

In 1982, when he was just 4 years old, Nick’s mother took him to see E.T. He doesn’t even remember that, but he does know that’s when he unboxed his first E.T. doll, at his grandfather’s house. He kept receiving all kinds of E.T. toys, and he would ask his parent’s to buy them whenever he saw them in stores, but it wasn’t until his teen years that he began putting together an actual collection.

Nick’s parents are both collectors, so he has always been familiar with garage and yard sales. At the age of 22 he was already looking on eBay, going to various sales and buying everything related to his favorite extraterrestrial. His friends and family realized his passion and started helping him in his quest of creating the world’s largest E.T. memorabilia collection.

In 2002, the re-release of the movie brought with it new E.T. collectibles that got Nick Gjoka interested in collecting. Later that year he visited Universal Studious, from where he returned with $300 worth of E.T. memorabilia. His collection grew two, maybe three times in only a few months time.

Nick Gjoka and his amazing collection were featured on VH1’s hit show Totally Obsessed, and he became known all around the US. Nowadays, Nick isn’t hunting for E.T. collectibles as he once did, because he hasn’t got the time or space anymore, but he says he’s always interested in new additions to his sizable collection.

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One of the most difficult games I’ve ever heard of, Ear Pull is an old Inuit tradition that has competitors test the strength of their ears.

The Ear Pull is as simple as it is painful. Two contestants sit down in front of each other with their legs straddled and interlocked, place a loop of twine around one of their ears, and at the referee’s signal, start pulling back until one of them either yields or the loop of twine comes off from one of the ears.

It may sound like a horrific display, to some of you, but the Ear Pull is a registered sport practiced at the World Eskimo-Indian Olympics. Competitors’ faces contort, their ears turn bright red and crumple as the string cuts deeper into the cartilage, and some of them even require stitches. And for what, some of you may ask. Most ear pull competitors say they do it to endure pain, but the old Inuits used to practice this bizarre game as training for enduring ear frostbites.

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Without using any patterns or sewing stitches, Kay Petal manipulates a difficult art medium like wool into amazing needle felted dolls.

Kay Petal discovered needle felting back in 2007, while she was recovering from a rare form of cancer. She had realized life was too short and that she needed to focus less on the mundane things in life, and more on finding the thing she is most passionate about. As soon as she found needle felting online, something happened and she just started researching on it. She had discovered a unique way of bringing wool to life, and she never looked back since.

Kay can create any kind of needle felted dolls, but lately, she has been focusing on making doll caricatures of real life celebrities. Her artistic efforts have been rewarded by various design and craft sites which published some of her works and introduced her amazing talent to the world.

Check out more of Kay’s work on her official site, Flickr and Youtube

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A true case modding master managed to transform a street legal mini motorcycle into a cool, fast computer.

Saibot took a fully functional mini motorcycle able to reach speeds of up to 70 mph and transformed into a super cool computer, also able to run at high speeds, thanks to its premium hardware. The Pocketbike i7 is obviously powered by a speedy Core i7 920 CPU, on an ASUS P6T motherboard, and features an EVGA 9800+ graphics card, a 1 TB of storage and 3 gb of DDR3 – 1333 RAM. He finished off his masterpiece with 5 CCFLs, 1 LED spot light, and two neon under-car lights.

Although he first started working on the project 5 months ago, Saibot said he actually worked on it for 12 days and spent the rest of the time making money and being lazy. Great work!

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Created for the Football World Cup 2010, the wacky football car owned by James Baggott is one of only two created by Hyundai.

Designed by car artist Andy Saunders, the Hyunday i10 football car is covered in astro turf and comes complete with its own goal, boot shaped side mirrors, football wheel rims, and a giant football on top. On the inside, this unique i10 has grass effect upholstery, football shaped headrests and little boot-shaped air freshners.

The history of these crazy football cars adds to their charm, Apparently both cars were sent for testing on BBC’s hit show Top Gear, and when they were returned a little damaged, Hyundai decided to give them a unique look, instead of fixing the dents. The company kept one of its astro-turf-covered creations and sold the other.

26-year-old James Baggott bought the Football Hyundai i10 for the specific purpose of selling it on eBay and raising some serious funds for a charity foundation. He figured many football fans would love to drive to away games in such a vehicle, and now invites all of them to place a bid for it. The opening bid for the Hyunday football car is at 1,995 British pounds.

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That’s right fans of the Dark Knight, your favorite superhero is finally settling down with the love of his life, none other than Wonder Woman. Surrounded by their superhero friends, the lovely couple said “I do” in front of Joker, who played master of ceremonies.

46-year-old Neil Vaughan, and 40-year-old Sharon are not the most traditional people in England, so they decided to get married as their favorite superheroes, and asked their attending friends to follow their example. Neil wanted to be Batman ever since he was a child, and his wife said she always dreamed of being Wonder Woman. They spent under 300 pounds on costumes, to finally fulfill their dreams.

Robin, Batman’s faithful sidekick, was his best man on the big day, while the adorable Powerpuff Girls were bridesmaids. The cast of superheroes at this incredible wedding included The Hulk, Spiderman, Superman, Ironman, Captain America, Wolverine and many others.

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If you’re as big a fan of the Warhammer 40000 video-games as I am, you know can understand why I find this particular case mod simply awesome.

Combining wood, metal and acrylic, modding master pinchillo has managed to bring the dreaded Dreadnought to life. He started working on this project about 4 years ago, but took a long break, and only recently decided to complete it. He first created the main body, which housed the computer hardware, then moved on to the accessories and details of the computer case. The rotating miniguns are a nice touch.

It may not be one of the oddities you’re used to, but this piece of modding genius was just to cool not to share it with you guys. For more pics of the building process, check out Modding.ru

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PETA (People for the Ethic Treatment of Animals) staged some pretty original protests in the past, but its most recent, “Meat Is Murder” was a bit on the shocking size. The event took place July 27th, in Times Square, New York.

PETA demonstrators  acted like packed pieces of meat, the kind you see in most every supermarket, only a lot bloodier. The human meat packs were branded with stickers that read ‘Billions of Animals Are Abused and Violently Killed Because You Eat Meat’. Now doesn’t that make you feel guilty?

I’ll confess I was moved by a few of these protests, but this particular one just managed to gross me out. I think PETA would be much wiser to stop condemning everyone who eats meat, and just militate for the ethical treatment of animals raised for slaughter, before they are sacrificed. To hope everyone will just stop eating meat is just unrealistic, and quite frankly their zero-policy attitude is doing more harm than good.

Let me know if these trays of packed human meat convinced you to stop eating meat. They just made me hungry. Read More »

With the Luxury Cat Hotel now open in Hertfordshire, you can rest assured your cat will have a nicer holiday than you, the next time you go on vacation.

Abi and Matt Purser, the owners of this five-star pet hotel, have always believed cats deserve the same attention and care as their owners, and that’s how the idea for their business was born. Now, while their human owners are getting pampered on some exotic island, their cat enjoys the same star treatment at the Luxury Cat Hotel.

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Robert Thierren is an acclaimed American artist who transforms ordinary household items into extraordinary works of art by increasing their scale several times.

Thierren was born in Chicago, grew up in San Francisco and later moved to Los Angeles. He first entered the attention of the media during the 1980s, when he began creating common items like doors, coffins or pitchers out of various mediums like copper, wood and bronze. But it wasn’t until he started creating his overgrown furniture series that he became truly famous.

His larger than life artworks are inspired by childhood games and fairy tales, and it does seem to suggest they were taken out of the story of Jack and the Bean Stock. Robert Thierren’s creations aim to provoke an interaction between the viewer, the object and the surrounding environment.

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Silvas Capitalis, which translates as “forest head”, is an unusual art installation built by the American art group SIMPARCH.

Located on the grounds of Kielder Forest, near the Scottish border, Silvas Capitalis is not exactly the kind of shelter you’d expect to stumble upon while walking through the trees. It’s purpose is to provide visitors and cyclists of Kielder Forest with a refuge, and at the same time, add to the mystery of this place. Inspired by the “watchers” of Celtic folklore – spiritual beings who keep watch over the forest and its inhabitants – who were usually depicted as human heads, the forest head was considered too scary for young children. Visits to local schools were required to test the reaction of the kids, before the actual building began.

Silvas Capitalis is made from hundreds of individual timber blocks, individually cut, sanded and glued into the shape of a head. Visitors can climb up the stairs of Silvas Capitalis and actually look through the eyes of the watcher. The initial plan included carving out its ears so people could hear through them, but due to time limitations, this step was skipped.

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A 36-foot-tall meerkat statue made of straw has appeared on a field, in Chester, England, drawing the attention of drivers on the A51 motorway.

I don’t know if you remember, but last year I wrote a post about a straw replica of the Big Ben, built by the owner of an ice-cream company. His straw creations have become sort of a tradition in Chester, and this year he raised the bar even higher with an incredible meerkat straw statue.

Chris Sadler and his wife Cheryl have been coming up with ideas for straw statues since 1998, when their first creation, the straw Millennium Dome, was created, and have continued delivering wacky ideas that ended up being built by Mike Harper, who creates metal structures and fills them with hay.

The idea of a meerkat statue was inspired by a popular commercial in the UK, and since everyone loves these creatures, it seemed like a good idea. The public certainly loves the overgrown meerkat, and most people say they feel cheered up just looking at it.

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Missmonster, a talented freelance artist with a taste for the bizarre, has created a series of fetal chimeras that you can buy as presents for your quirky friends.

Melita Curphy, better known as Missmonster, creates the most amazing things, from weird dolls, to cool pendants, masks and even awesome clothing accessories. Her latest creation will probably shock some of you, but bare in mind they are only sculptures, despite their very realistic veiny look.

You’r e probably wondering why anyone would want to buy a chimera fetus, but I’m sure there are plenty of oddballs like me out there who find this pretty damn cool. Missmonster’s fetuses are 4’5″ in size and come with beautiful wooden boxes, bearing the wax seal of Ada Rotsbeest, a fictional character created by the artist. Read More »

13-year-old Xiao Xin puts on a show for his family, as he clips everyday items with his tongue.

The young boy from Daqing, northeast China, was born with a snake-like tongue that branches out close to its tip, allowing him to use it as a tool for clipping various things. So far he hasn’t found a proper use for it, apart from using it to entertain family and friends, but who knows when his snake tongue will come in handy. If you’ve always dreamed of having a tongue like that of Xiao Xin, all you have to do is go to a body-mod shop and they’ll fix you right up.

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Using domestic and industrial junk, Brazilian artist Vik Muniz is able to recreate anything, from photographs to famous paintings.

Just because the artworks of Vik Muniz is made of junk, doesn’t mean it stinks. he’s actually been living in New York for the last 27 years, and is now recognized as one of the most original artists in the Big Apple. Over the years he has worked with various mediums, from chocolate syrup to caviar and even diamonds, but it seems garbage has become his favorite.

The “Junk Portraits” series of Vik Muniz features reproductions of classic paintings like Saturn devouring one of his children, by Goya, Mars, God of War, by Velasquez, or Sisyphus, by Titian. They have all been recreated from various junk items, on a giant warehouse floor and photographed from an elevated position, to make individual objects hard to distinguish.

Although the actual recreation of his junk portraits from garbage, might seem like the most important part of his job, his work isn’t completed until he takes photos of them.

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