The Buffalo-Riding Ceremony is held every year, in the Cambodian village of Virhear Sour, Kandal province. The tradition of this even goes back 70 years and it marks the end of the Festival of the Dead. It is also a way to honor the Neakta Preah Srok pagoda spirit.
After the race is over, the buffaloes are auctioned off to the highest bidders.
Photos by Reuters
via People.com.cn
The Holiday Inn Key Card Hotel was built by card-stacking master Bryan Berg, from 200,000 discarded hotel key cards.
To mark the relaunch of their hotel chain, numbering 1,200 establishments, Holiday Inn inaugurated the world’s first key card hotel, in Manhattan, New York. It’s made up of a guestroom, bathroom and lobby, featuring life size furniture made-out of key cards.
Bryan Berg, who built his first record-breaking house of cards when he was only 17, back in 1992, said this was his toughest challenge yet, because he has never created human scale structures before. The Key Card Hotel was opened on September 17 and will be in business until September 21. During the five day event, Bryan Berg will build a replica of the Empire State Building, inside the lobby of the strange hotel.
via Daily Mail and Xinhua
Apart from the breathtaking Iguazu Falls, one of the most important tourist attractions in the Iguazu area is the House of Plastic Bottles, built out of plastic bottles and other recyclable materials.
Alfredo Alberto Santa Cruz got the idea of building a house from plastic bottles while he was creating a playhouse for his little daughter. After he finished it, he noticed the plastic the structure was pretty sturdy and realized he was on to something. That’s when he decided to build a one-bedroom cottage out of plastic bottles, for him and his family.
Mr. Santa Cruz’s bottle house features a bed, chairs, shelves and even a fake hanging plant, all made out of PET bottles. Practically everything inside the house is recyclable, apart from the wood framing and a few metal bolts. The walls are made from 2-liter plastic bottles, while the roof consists of hundreds of tetrapak cartons (the boxes you drink juice from). Alfredo has flattened them into shingles and turn them aluminum side up, to reflect the sun and keep the place cool. They would only last for 4-5 years, due to rains, but he covered them up with a layer of plastic, cut from bottles and says this combo could last even 20 years.
I’ve seen glass bottle houses before, even a temple built out of glass bottles, but this is my first plastic bottle house.
The world’s largest flag was unfurled over Teddy Football Stadium, Jerusalem, during an event attended by officials from the Guinness Book of Records.
The creation of the flag was initiated by Grace Galindez Gupana, a 48-year-old Filipino business woman and founder of Halleluyah Kingdom of Jerusalem Foundation. Mrs Gupana holds nine other Guinness records, including the largest stone tablets with the ten commandments and says her projects are ways of emphasizing her love for the God of Israel.
The flag presented on September 17, in the capital of Israel, features the largest emblem of lion, ever soon and measures 44,404 square meters (that’s over 4.3 hectares) and weighs 9.5 tons. A team of six people produced the world’s largest flag over a period of 120 days. It cost $120,000 to make.
Photos by Xinhua/Yin Bogu
via Xinhua
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is a theme park based on JK Rowling’s best selling series, Harry Potter, due to open in the spring of 2010, at Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure resort, in Orlando.
Artists have drawn artworks to show the world a small preview of the magical theme park. Let’s have a look at what we’ll be able to experience in the world of Harry Potter:
Sultan Kosen, a former basketball player from Turkey, has been acknowledged as the world’s tallest man, by the Guinness Book of Records.
26-year-old Kosen is 2 meters 46.5 cm tall and he also holds the record for the world’s biggest hands (27.5 cm) and the world’s biggest feet (36.5 cm). He grew as a normal child until he turned 10, then, due to a dysfunctional pituitary gland, his body developed at an accelerated rate.
During the presentation of the 2010 Guinness Book of Records, in London, Sultan Kosen declared he hopes this new found fame will make him more successful with the ladies. Because of his unusual stature, women have always been afraid of him, but now he hopes he will finally find his soul-mate and get married.
The former world’s tallest man, Ukrainian Leonid Stadnyk, allegedly measures 2.57 meters, but refused to have his height officially measured, saying fame brought him nothing but problems and he needs peace and quiet.
via Zimbio
Adam Morrigan, a British artist from Gloucestershire, Britain, creates works of art from roadkill and actually sells some of them
Adam is one of the most unusual artists on the planet. He makes a living creating and selling artworks made from the carcasses of dead animals he finds around his house. He often cooks and eats the roadkill he finds, but what he can’t eat, he turns into fashion accessories or pieces of dead art.
So far he has created over 30 roadkill art pieces, including bags made out of the body of a fox or a deer, calf-skin rugs, feather hats and even framed carcasses. It’s not something I’d buy for my art collection (if I had one), but apparently people are crazy about this roadkill art. Adam Morrigan’s pieces start at a few thousand pounds, but he’s sold a few with as much as 50,000 pounds.
Talented modder creates an awesome looking PC case, inspired by the pyramid ship featured in the movie Stargate.
I’m a big fan of case mods and we’ve had a few great custom PC cases featured on Oddity Central, but I think this is the coolest one yet. Modder Gup has created a PC case replica of the pyramid starship seen in Stargate, completely from scratch.
Apart from the incredible design of the case and the cool built in lights, the Pyramid Case features a moving side panel as well as a Stargate Active Desktop. All you have to do is input the chevrons and you’re on your way to a another planet.
The Pyramid PC features a T7200 Core 2 Duo processor, Mini-Itx Crommel LV-677 motherboard, 2GB of DDR2 Ram, a 160GB hard drive, and a Gforce 9400GT graphics card. Not the most impressive specs, but with a design like that, what’s inside doesn’t even matter that much.
For more photos and details on the building process of the Pyramid PC, check out this thread on the bit-tech forums.
Believe it or not, there are people out there who still live in caves and the weirdest part of it is, they actually enjoy it.
Curt Sleeper and his entire family have been living inside the cave they’ve appropriately named Caveland, for the last five years. Their unusual story begins back in December 2003, when Curt was searching for a commercial property on eBay and he stumbled across a cave, in the Fetus/Crystal City area, Missouri. I guess it’s true what they say, you can find anything on eBay.
Curt visited the property and fell in love with it on the spot. Where most others may see just an inhospitable environment, he saw a perfect home for his family, so he started working on it right away. The Sleepers used all their savings and inheritance money to build a comfortable house and the result is simply mind-blowing, as you can see in the pics below.
There have been some rough bumps for the sleepers, but the toughest time was at the beginning of 2009, when, due to the economic crisis, they couldn’t refinance their mortgage. Since banks weren’t interested in appraising an odd cave house, Caveland had to be put on sale on eBay, for $300,000. Fortunately, the Sleepers managed to find some long-term financing and they are still living in their unusual home.
via Caveland
The way mummies were created in ancient Egypt has puzzled scientists for years, but they were able to figure out the process that made human bodies last for thousands of years. And, thanks to a set of photos published by China Daily, I’m able to present you the making of a mummy: Read More »
Eier Shampoo has got to be one of the most bizarre body-hygiene products on the market right now. It’s used to clean men’s testicles.
If there’s one thing Germans do well (except making great cars and tasty beer) is clean their balls. They’re so preoccupied with keeping them as clean as possible that they’ve actually come up with a testicle-cleaning shampoo. It’s called Eier and you can actually buy it from a German online store, for only 5 euros. Come guys, your balls have to be worth at least that, right?
Squidolin is a state of the art electric violin that not only looks amazing, but teaches you how to play it like a professional.
Created by designer Carlos R. Mendez, Squidolin is an electric violin with a very futuristic design that can save you thousands of dollars in violin lessons. Instead of paying a master to teach how to play the violin, you just connect Squidolin to a TV set and it will take you through a series of lessons that will have you playing the violin like a professional, in no time.
Connected to an amplifier, Squidolin sounds just like any other quality electric violin.
via Carlos Mendez
The strange formation known as the Colored Earths is located near the village of Chamarel, in southwest Mauritius. The exposed hills form seven different color patterns: red brown, violet, green, blue, purple and yellow.
Promoted as the most beautiful attraction of Mauritius, during the 1960s, the Colored Earths are still one of the most popular destinations on the island. This unusual geological wonder was formed when volcanic rock cooled at different temperatures, in multicolored layers. Rains have shaped the rock into small hills that look like dunes of sand and, the first time you look at them, it will seem like the colors are actually just shadows. But after taking a closer look you’ll realize the seven colors are very real.
But this unusual coloring of the hills at Chamarel isn’t their only bizarre trait. Geologists have been fascinated with the Colored Earths ever since they were first discovered, but haven’t yet been able to explain why they never erode in spite of being exposed to harsh elements and torrential rains.
The Colored Earths of Chamarel also have the unique property of settling into layers. If you take a handful of each of the seven-colored sands and mix them together, they will eventually separate into seven different colored layers.
Most cemeteries around the world are quiet, solemn places where colors, jokes or smiles aren’t seen very often. But the Merry Cemetery of Sapanta, in Romania is probably the most bizarre cemetery on Earth, where many people come to enjoy themselves.
Located in the small village of Sapanta, in northern Romania, the Merry Cemetery is one of the country’s most popular destinations. Tourists from all over the world come to this place to see over 800 colorful oak crosses, covered with paintings that depict scenes from the life of each person buried there. Some even have funny lyrics about the way they lived their lives.
In most cultures death is serious business, but at Sapanta it’s reason for laughter and celebration. The origin of this belief can be traced back to the ancient Dacians, who believed they were immortal and death was nothing more than a passing stage to a better life.
The first cross in the Merry Cemetery of Sapanta was painted in 1935, by its founder, Stan Ioan Patras. Since 1960, over 800 wooden masterpieces were added, transforming the cemetery into an outdoor art museum.
Dominic Epistolo had the idea of recreating some of the states in the USA out of pieces of meat and I for one thinks his works look good enough to eat.
Dominic Epistolo, a very talented photographer from Philadelphia has shot many photos in his career, from fashion to still-life, but his most popular set, “The United Steaks of America” has been featured all over the internet. He had the original idea of carving the United States out of pieces of meat.
His photographs look amazing, but I wonder if he cooked his work after shooting it. I’d sure like to sink my teeth into juicy Pennsylvania.
via Toxel
