Wang Guanyi, a 46-year-old cigarette pack collector from Longnan, China, has recently built a fort model using 600,000 empty cigarette packs.

Wang is a famous person in his home city because he usually greets everyone with “hello, do you smoke? do you have cigarette packs?” He says he has been fascinated with cigarette packs ever since he was a little boy, and collected his first one off the street, when he was just seven years old. He was first attracted by the bright colors and nice images on the packs, and kept collecting them until he reached an impressive 600,000. As you can imagine, every corner of his house was filled with them, but just when he was running out of space, he saw a TV show about a man who had built a house out of wine bottles, and was inspired to do the same thing with his cigarette pack collection.

It took him about a month to finish his 30-foot fort-like building made with 600,000 colorful cigarette packs. It was 6.06m long, 4.68m wide and 1.68m wide, and won Wang Guanyi a certificate from the China Record Office for the world’s largest cigarette pack structure. Unfortunately, he had built his unique fort on rented space, and since the costs were apparently too high for him to handle, he was forced to tear it down as soon as his record was acknowledged.

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A craftsman from Kaiyuan, northeast China, has created a rideable bicycle using more than 10,000 wooden popsicle sticks.

It took him four long months to finish it, but 35-year-old Sun Chao doesn’t regret one second of the time he put into the world’s first popsicle stick bicycle. At 1.5m long, 0.55m wide, 0.95m high and 25 kg heavy, it’s smaller than the average bicycle, but works just as well. Sure, those wooden wheels don’t provide the comfort of air-inflated ones, but Sun Chao rode it for 20 minutes, when he unveiled it in the city square, on June 1, and he didn’t complain. It’s worth noting he is 90 kg heavy, but the popsicle stick bike easily handled the weight. The only metal parts used on this unusual bicycle were the chain and bearings.

Sun Chao says he first became interested in working with wooden popsicle sticks 12 years ago, after seeing a guy make a ship model from them and giving it to his girlfriend, on TV. He was so inspired he started making a small desk lamp from popsicle sticks. Since then he’s made all kinds of stuff from them, including photo frames, building models, tissue boxes, but nothing nearly as impressive as this working bicycle. Just in case you were wondering, he didn’t actually buy 10,000 ice-creams, only the sticks.

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A 21-year-old Finish modder, who goes by the name Metalfusion, has developed an ingenious method of creating CNC routed halftone images on pieces of plywood.

Similar to printing newspaper images using dots of ink, the process thought up by Metalfusion consists of using a v-bit router bit to drill different size holes by plunging it at different depths. He has also created a special software that allows him to convert normal images into files that are ready to be cut on a CNC machine. Although the end result id definitely impressive, the drilling process takes over an hour, since each image requires thousands of individual dots.

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Alexander Pylyshenko, 40, owner of his own private zoo, in the Ukrainian city of Vasylivka, will be spending 35 days caged with two lions, in a stunt he hopes will raise awareness to the poor treatment of lions held in captivity.

The brave zoo owner says he will live like a lion from the moment he enters the cage. That means he will sleep on hay on the floor and eat from the meat that will be given to the lions through the cage bars. As for personal hygiene, Pylyshenko has built a toilet and shower inside the enclosure, but he’ll have to restrain from using shampoo, shower gel or deodorant, as big cats hate sharp odours. While lioness Katya and her mate Samson seem to get along just fine with their caretaker, things might not be as peaceful when they share a living space 24/7, especially since the female is expected to give birth during the five week period, and lionesses are known to be quite over-protective of their cubs.

But Alexander Pylyshenko, who has studied lions his entire life, is confident he will survive this dangerous test, and draw attention to the problems of big cats in captivity. He also plans to paint portraits of the lions while living with them, and sell them to raise money for charity. His 35-day experience living with two lions will be recorded via four webcams, which will broadcast it on the Internet, here.

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The French town of Roubaix, has recently opened a series of portable hotel rooms in a local park. They can be rented by people who want to feel close to nature in the middle of the urban jungle.

The bubble concept thought up by French designer Pierre Stephane Dumas aims to redefine the term temporary leisure accommodation, and is based on the following principles: minimum energy, minimum material, maximum comfort and maximum interaction with the environment. The unusual bubble rooms were launched in 2010 and have since then been made available to people who want to enjoy a unique experience in the middle of nature, for around $700 a night.

In the French city of Roubaix, a series of bubble hotel rooms have been installed in one of the local parks. They come with a clear view of the sky and offer nature lovers to be close to their environment without having to travel to far away. The bubbles are made of recycled plastic and, once inflated retain their shape thanks to an airlock at the entrance and a silent pump which creates constant pressure. Outside noises are reduced to a minimum while inside noises are maximized, so the visitors are encouraged to whisper to each other, in order to create a peaceful atmosphere.

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Paris-based artist Jonathan Brechignac has created an awe-inspiring Muslim prayer carpet made of paper and drawn only with black Bic pens.

”I never really knew what I wanted from the beginning. Finding inspiration and learning through trials was key to the project,” Jonathan says about his amazing project. Made to fit the size of an actual Muslim prayer carpet, his intricate masterpiece draws inspiration from different types of art, including French roman, traditional Japanese, native American and Mexican, as well as camouflage elements and animal patterns. It’s a truly wonderful artistic achievement, but creator Jonathan Brechignac describes is as a fight with himself, inch by inch. Before even starting on it he spent long periods of time thinking and planning, followed by trials to find the perfect patterns.

Work on this detailed paper rug was done only in Jonathan’s spare time and took a total of 15 months, which really isn’t very much, considering the Muslim carpet masters of old spent a decade, even a lifetime working on a single piece. What is most remarkable about Brechignac’s carpet is the fact that all the intricate details have been done only with black Bic pencils. Looking at the patterns you probably think he went through dozens of pencils, but so far he really only needed two of them.

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Keith Medley has been a master guitar builder for most of his adult life, and while he has created custom instruments for many famous musicians, his most impressive guitar is the one he made for himself.

If you’re missing a guitarist or two for your band, stop worrying, because the 27-string guitar Keith Medley invented has the power to make them obsolete. The only trick is learning how to play it. That’s in fact the biggest problem, White House-based Medley had to overcome, as well. “Building this guitar turned out to be the easy part,” Keith explains on his site. “The hard part has been learning to play it. Through two years of bittersweet struggle between myself and these 27 strings, I determined it would not defeat me but would play the music I heard in my heart.”

But why would anyone need a 27-string guitar, when most guitarist seem to do very well with just 12, or even 6? Keith says the music he hears in his head is more than can be played on six strings, so after many sketches and nights of contemplation, he came up with this unique 27-string instrument. He claims it’s like playing three instruments at the same time, but that apparently isn’t good enough since he’s now working on a guitar with 34 strings.

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It all started with a small private exhibition, but now the Video Card Museum in Kharkov is open to the public, and growing larger every day, thanks to donations made by video card enthusiasts.

I stumbled across some photos of this museum while searching for writing material on an obscure Russian site, and after doing some research with the help of Google Translate, I found out this is a relatively new attraction in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov. Alexander, or SArd, as he’s known online, tells the story of how he came up with the idea for a video card museum, on Habrabar.ru. It all started in 1998, when his uncle gave him his first computer powered by a an Intel Celeron 266 processor and an S3 ViRGE DX c video card with 2 MB of memory. At the time, he thought 2 extra megabytes would solve all his problems and he would be able to play the coolest video games, forever.

As the years went by he went through many generations of graphic cards, learning new things about them and yearning for the models he could never afford. His passion for them passed the test of time, and at the end of 2010 he already had a collection of 35 video cards, which, with the support of PCShop Group, he was able to display in a private exhibition. It wasn’t much but it was enough for the organizers to understand the potential of a video card museum. People flocked to the PCShop Group store asking questions about the exhibits and donating their own outdated models. When the exhibition was over, the collection had grown to 56 items.

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Terry LeBleu of Granite Shoals, Texas, is one of the few people who can honestly say he’s not worried about water restrictions in these times of drought, and that’s because he has the Drought Master, a machine that makes water out of air.

The concept of LeBleu’s water-making machine is pretty simple – the Drought Master’s generator sucks in moisture-laden air, condenses it, then exhausts the purified air and captures the water, which is filtered and ready for drinking. “These make pure water,” LeBleu says.  “The water never touches the ground.  It is strictly straight out of the air.  We have oceans of water in the air, in the sky.  All you have to do is pull it out and condense it down.” The clever invention is now on the market, and locals are already using it to beat the severe drought.

All you have to do is plug the Drought Master into an electric outlet and it will take care of the rest. According to its inventor, the machine can produce between 5 to 7 gallons of drinkable water a day, at just 4 cents of electricity cost per gallon. It beats buying bottled water from the supermarket, and LeFleur says his water samples met the standards set up by the Environmental Protection Agency, Association of Analytical Chemists, American Public Health Association, American Water Works Association and the Water Pollution Control Federation. It contains no metals like zinc and copper, nor any coliform bacteria, and Terry says the company that analyzed the water likened it to sterilized distilled water.

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The PAS House, a skateboarding living environment concept thought up by French pro skater Pierre Andre Senizergues and designer Gil Le Bon Delapointe, has finally been brought to life at the La Gaite Museum, in Paris.

Pierre Andre Senizergues has been in love with his skateboard ever since he first discovered it, as a teenager, and has pretty much built his life around the board. He’s ridden it to five world skateboarding championships and built a successful skateboarding shoe line called etnies, so you can see why he felt a little reluctant to part with it every time he went inside his house. But then one day, he had this crazy idea: “I began imagining a city of the future where skateboards are used as the primary form of transportation and recreation — in and out of your home.” the skater told the Toronto Star. “A utopia city for skateboarders would mean that a skateable path, like a ribbon connecting everything together, links each building in an unending ability to keep in motion on your board.”

So, in the early 2000’s, Senizergues partnered with etnies designer and fellow skateboarding fanatic Gil Le Bon Delapointe to create a perfectly skateable house on Senizergues’ Malibu property. They came up with a few great ideas, and even managed to build a miniature model of this skateboarder’s dream house, but after 10 years and some run-ins with the Coastal Commission, it was still in the project phase. But, La Gaite Museum, in Paris, somehow learned about their original housing idea and presented them with the opportunity of building a prototype for their skate-culture exhibition, running this summer.

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Miami-based artist Agustina Woodgate has used clumps of human hair to create 3,000 bricks, which were then used to build two fantasy castles for her I Want to Be a Princess series.

Human hair seems to be a very popular art medium these days, considering a number of artists are using it to make all kinds of things, from hair necklaces, to high-heel shoes and even hair dresses. The last artist to use human air in her art is Agustina Woodgate, who recently used it to built two castles. The first one, called Tower, stands around four feet tall and is made from small tightly-bound hair bricks. Blonde hair was used for the castle’s window frame, and she made use of white hair from senior citizens, for the narrow ledge above the window. Most of the castle bricks were created using a mix of different-color hair that actually looks like clay. Her second hair structure, called Sandcastle, actually looks like it’s been molded from sand, using a children’s bucket.

Agustina Woodgate is known for her choice of unusual materials, like discarded materials and stuffed animals.

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This piece of quilled eye candy was created by Susan Myers, of Suzy’s Artsy-Craftsy Sitcom, and it’s not only one of the coolest reproductions of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, but one of the most awesome artworks I have ever seen.

I wrote a post about the art of quilling some time ago, and it became one of the most popular posts on Oddity Central, so I expect many of you are going to find this particular artwork fascinating. Quilling basically means cutting colorful strips of paper and rolling them with a special tool, but it’s a lot harder than it sounds. Creating advanced shapes out of paper strips and placing them in the right position requires genuine skill.

Susan Myers is an artist with a mission – to complete one of her UFOs (Unfinished Objects) every month. In the month of June she worked on a quilled replica of Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night, one of the most famous paintings in the world, and finally managed to finish it in late July. But noticing the attention to detail in her work it’s easy to understand why it took her a little longer than planned. She started her masterpiece by drawing the basic outline with a white-color pencil on a large sheet of thick blue cardstock. Then she grabbed her quilling tool, a paper cutter and colored cardstock and the rest is history.

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A couple who found each other through an online social network called “Sweet on Geeks”, decided to geek out their wedding by having a computer program called Reverend Bit perform the ceremony.

Miguel Hanson and Diana Wesley had one of the most unusual yet appropriate weddings in human history. Hanson, a Houston web developer and IT consultant, got the crazy idea after they couldn’t find a friend to serve as minister at their wedding. He decided he was going to write his own minister, and while she acknowledged it would make them the target of nerd jokes, Diana agreed because it just fit who they are – geeks. They met on Sweet on Geeks, they both love science fiction and fantasy, and since the maid of honor was going to make the bride’s cake with Nerds candy as icing, they agreed to geek out their wedding completely.

The unique wedding ceremony took place on Saturday, in Hanson’s house, where the 30 or so guests were greeted by a mechanical, robotic voice. It was Reverend Bit, a program created by Miguel Hanson himself, who treated the audience to a short story about how the couple met, before beginning the actual ceremony. His square animated face appeared on one side of the 30 inch monitor, while the other side showed the text of what he was saying. His voice came over a sound system.

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Melbourne-based artist Thomas Pavitt has set an unofficial record for the world’s most complex dot-to-dot drawing, after completing a 6,239 dots replica of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

One of the most popular themes in Thomas Pavitt’s art is the use of basic techniques to create very complex masterpieces. And since connect-the-dots is one of the most basic artistic techniques, requiring only the ability to count and draw lines, he decided to give it a shot. After searching the web for the standing record for the most complex dot-to-dot drawing without finding anything, the Australian artist and designer decided to set one himself.

Pavitt used 6,239 different-color dots to recreate the famous Mona Lisa, and spent over nine hours connecting them. After each 400 dots he changed the color to keep track of what number he was looking for next, and even used dots for his signature. The artwork took 9 hours and 15 minutes to complete, and while it doesn’t come close to the years it took Da Vinci to paint the original, it’s still an impressive achievement.

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After noticing the positive effects pole-dancing has on the bodies of female practitioners, a growing number of Chinese men decided to get past their inhibitions and started practicing pole dancing as a way to strengthen their muscles.

China is the home country of popular martial arts like Kung Fu and Tai Chi, and engaging sports like dragon boat racing, but young Chinese men seem to prefer more modern activities that, until recently, have been considered a feminine activity. According to Yan Shaoxuan, a young instructor at a pole-dancing school in Beijing, pole-dancing is a really effective workout that strengthens the muscles and helps define men’s chest and abdomen.

Until recently, pole-dancing was a taboo topic in Chinese society, associated with sex and nightclubs, but as more and more men take up these classes, general perception is starting to change. Some gyms have even started offering pole-dancing classes to attract clients. All around the world, pole-dancing experts are trying to change people’s minds and get them to see their passion for what it really is – a sporting activity that requires great skill and years of practice to master.

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