Braunlage isn’t one of Germany’s busiest towns, but last Saturday, authorities had to cope with serious logistics problems, caused by the annual Naked Sled Race held on the local slope.

Over 14,000 people traveled to Braunlage to see 30 participants take off their clothes before venturing down the snowy slopes, on red and black sleds. A national radio station sponsored the offbeat competition, won by 26-year-old Christian Schimdt.

As you can see in the photos, some of Germany’s hottest girls took part in the nude race, most of them tanned and ready to hit the beach. But the crowd was more impressed with a 70-year-old man who stripped down and raced down the 100-meter course, along with his younger competitors.

Photos via CCTV

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Apparently, one of the globe’s biggest polluters has found an environment friendly alternative to plastic keyboards and mice.

Bamboo keyboards and mice are not exactly new on the market, and I’m sure you’ve come across all sorts of wooden peripheral concepts online. Jiangxi Bamboo Technology Development Co. Ltd., the only bamboo peripherals manufacturer in China, says their products have become increasingly popular at a national level, after they’ve been successfully exported to markets in Europe and America.

Production of bamboo keyboards and mice began in 2008, but until early 2009, they’ve only been shipped to foreign countries. But ever since franchised stores opened in Shanghai and Ningbo, China can’t get enough of its environment-friendly peripherals.

Judging from the photos, the Chinese aren’t stopping at just bamboo keyboards and mice, they’re taking it a step further, with bamboo encased LCD displays.

via Gadgetonian (photos by ImagineChina)

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You’ve probably seen cool cakes before, but as far as cakes-shaped-like-other-foods go, these are by far the most awesome I’ve ever seen.

Debbie Goard has almost 20 years of decorating behind her, and it’s this vast experience that helps her design the most incredible cakes most of us have ever seen. She does all kinds of designs, but I was particularly impressed by her food cakes that look just like the dishes they’re trying to mimic.

The perfect steak you see below is just one of the sweet wonders Debbie has created over the years, but there are other jaw-dropping masterpieces, including that awesome slab of bacon. That thing should be framed and posted on a wall of fame, or something.

Check out more of Debbie’s cakes on her Flickr profile and feel free to read more about her work, and even order cakes and cupcakes from on delicious-looking website.

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After a publicity campaign started by his owner and a bunch of fans, George, a Great Dane from Tucson, Arizon received the rightful title of World’s Tallest Dog.

After Gibson, a Great Dane from California and the previous holder of the Guinness World Record for tallest dog past away from bone cancer, George’s owner David Nasser tried to get his dog to be named successor. However, due to errors in paperwork and measurements, the title went to Titan, another Great Dane, from California.

But David Nasser wouldn’t let his beloved pet be deprived of what was rightfully his, and together with Giant George’s fans started a publicity campaign. Their efforts paid off, and after careful measurements it was decided 43-inch-tall George was indeed the world’s tallest dog, and not 42.25-inch Titan.

Giant George weighs 250 lbs, sleeps in his very own king-size bed and can barely fit in the back of his owner’s SUV. He even has his very own website and has become a certified celebrity.

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Things don’t get much boring than plastic cutlery items, but put them together like Sayaka Ganz, and you can call yourself a very talented artist. And for good reason, too.

33-year-old Sayaka Ganz, from Indiana, USA, collects most of her working material from dustbins and charity shops, and the rest is donated by friends and family. The young artist uses all sorts of plastic junk, from cutlery to sunglasses and baskets, and sorts them into 20 different color groups.

Then she meticulously ties every useless piece of plastic to a wire frame, until she achieves the shape she first envisioned. Sayaka Ganz’s works range from 18 inches to 8 feet long and the most complicated ones take up to a month to finish and contain 500 pieces. Still her efforts pay off, considering some of her plastic artworks have sold for as much as $12,000.

Photos via SayakaGanz.com

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The Wolfgang Keyboard Bench is designer Nolan Herbut’s of making you engage with a “piece of furniture in a very up close and intimate manner while pressing in the keys.”

This unusual bench is covered with 2,000 keys, all embedded into a layered Baltic birch wood. It might not look like the most comfortable bench, but hearing each key make a clicking sound every time you sit on it, is compensation enough.

coroflot via NerdApproved

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To welcome the Lantern Festival that marks the end of the Chinese Lunar Year festivities, authorities have covered an entire building in brightly colored paper lanterns. Around 2,000 traditional lanterns were used to cover the facade.

The Lantern Festival is one of China’s most important celebrations, and this year it will be celebrated on February 28.

via ImagineChina

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Hello Clarice…Actually it’s ‘Good evening, Clarice’, but heck, most people are familiar with just the first one. Anyway, here’s a very cool Silence of the Lambs themed cake.

Created by Celebration Generaton Cakes, for the Czar of Cakes Challenge at the Minnesota Monthly Food & Wine Experience, the Victim of Hannibal Lecter Cake is one of the most original I’ve seen. And as you may know, I’ve recently posted quite a number of cool cakes, lately.

Made with fondant, sugarpaste, gumpaste, cocoa and other sweet ingredients, the Silence of the Lambs theme was chosen because there was no way someone else ‘would think of, much less actually use it’.

via SuperPunch

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I don’t know what it is about Formula 1 cars that makes people want to replicate them using the most unusual materials.

This time it’s Puma’s turn to make a life-size Formula 1 car out of cut-out shoe boxes.  The cardboard model was created in collaboration with UK-based Ben Wilson Design, and is meant to represent Puma’s ongoing relationship with motorsports.

The cardboard car was obviously very difficult to make. According to Ben Wilson himself, many Puma shoe boxes were used, especially in the development stage. First a real Formula 1 vehicle was scanned, then ‘ripped’ to pieces on the computer, and put together out of shoe box pieces, cut with an oscillating cutter.

The shoe box Formula 1 car is now on display at a Puma store in Chicago.

via PSFK

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Looks like a real nice late 19th century painting, doesn’t it? But in reality, it’s a real girl wearing body-paint, and standing against a painted background.

‘Makeup Girl‘ is a very clever advertisement spotted, and photographed by Peter Kun Frary,  in front of a MAC cosmetics shop, in Hawaii. The girl is a really well painted model, posing against a painted background. Now, you might think she’s naked, but she is wearing strips of cloth in all the right places.

I must say the artist did a banged-up job on this one, and credit goes to the real-life ‘Makeup Girl‘ who kept a still pose and hardly ever blinked.

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What started out as a steampunk dreadnought/battleship evolved into a self-sustainable crawler town that roams the wastes in search of valuable resources.

It sounds like the rough plot of a post-apocalyptic flick, but it’s actually the result of Dave DeGobbi’s rich imagination. He pictured his LEGO Crawler Town as a mobile settlement roaming the barren wastelands, in a steampunk universe devastated by excessive coal use.

The Crawler Town is the best of several moving cities, a place where people can enjoy luxuries like pizza and beer. Thanks to its powerful crawlers, the town constantly searches for invaluable minerals and aquifers, and stay away from powerful sandstorms.

Dave DeGobbi’s Crawler Town got the name ‘Eco-punk’, due to its steampunk influences, and features functional powered treads, working suspension, front and rear steering, and lift from lower to upper levels.

Check Dave DeGobbi’s Flickr set for more photos of the Crawler Town

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Apparently, this video has been on the internet since late last year, but for some reason I’ve never heard about it. Better late than never, I guess.

Colorado Springs-based artist Jaon Baalman used over 50 bags of Cheetos to create an ultra-realistic portrait of popular TV-show host Conan O’Brien. Young Jason used Regular, Flamin’ Hot and Natural Cheetos to complete his work, and in some places used two, three layers, to give it the needed depth.

The edible portrait, made out of over 2000 individual Cheetos was supposed to be presented to Conan O’Brien himself, in December of last year, but the artist and his work fell victim to the whole Late Night Show circus, at NBC.

Well, I know it’s not the same, but Jason Baalman gets two thumbs up from me. Make sure you watch the making-of video, at the bottom.

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Finally a chocolate bar big enough not to make you crave more. This is definitely what the standard chocolate bar size would be, if I ruled the world.

I’m sure you’ve seen bigger-than-usual chocolate bars before, but this is truly gigantic. A dude named Brian created the giant Kit Kat bar for Christmas. He started by going to the local hardware store and buying one of those big flower boxes. Then he filled it with molten chocolate and six packs of Loacker Quadratini cookies (for the crunchy interior).

When it was finished, the giant Kit Kat chocolate bar was 28 inches long and weighed over 13.5 kilograms. Named Mega Giganta Kat, by its creator, this calorie bomb has over 72,000 calories. Considering a person’s daily calorie intake is around 1,800-2,200, that’s pretty scary.

One thing I wasn’t able to find out is how he made the Kit Kat logo, but I think it was carved or something.

via Supersized Meals

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Hidden deep in an Australian rainforest, the clay sculptures of William Ricketts express the Aborigines’ deep connection with Mother Nature.

Born in 1898, William Ricketts was an Australian sculptor and potter who developed a spiritual bond with the Aboriginal people of Central Australia. The time he spent with them, between 1949 and 1960 inspired his works in Potter’s Sanctuary (now known as William Ricketts Sanctuary).

The 92 intricate ceramic sculptures placed along the passageways seem as they are merging with the surrounding plant-life, thus expressing the strong bond Aborigines have always had with nature. Designed as a place where man’s spirit becomes one with nature, William Ricketts Sanctuary inspires us all to protect Mother Nature instead of constantly exploiting her.

William Ricketts spent most of his life in this sanctuary, located on Mount Dandenong, near Olinda, and died here, in 1993, at the age of 94.

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Produced by Japanese company Megahouse, the GUMMIX kit allows kids and grown-ups to make their own jelly insects, as pranks or food decorations.

GUMMIX is part of the Megahouse 2010 Shokking lineup, and consists of special gelatin powder and insect molds. It’s as simple as it is fun. Just mix the gelatin with fruit syrup, ketchup or soy sauce, depending on what you’re trying to achieve, and pour the mixture into the molds.  When the jelly starts to harden, attach the limbs with the included tweezers, and there you have it, an edible bug.

The GUMMIX insect kit comes with a mixing cup, recipe cards, and 4 moulds of a beetle, a crawfish, a stag beetle and a sow bug. It costs 3675 yen ($40) and you can purchase 3 extra moulds, for 1570 yen each ($17).

via Gigazine

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