The Heidelberg Project began in 1986 when Tyree Guyton and his grandfather Sam Mackey started painting houses in Detroit’s McDougall-Hunt neighborhood, which began to fall apart after the riots of 1967.

Guyton and Mackey painted the abandoned houses in bright colors and decorated them with salvaged items, similar to those used by Bogdan Litniansky for his trash house and garden, transforming it from one of the city’s most dangerous places, into a regular local attraction. The Heidelberg Project attracts over 270,000 tourists every year, making it one of Detroit’s most popular tourist destination.

The Heidelberg outdoor art environment project faced demolition twice since it was started, but Tyree Guyton and his supporters filed a civil lawsuit against the city of Detroit and managed to protect it. This year The Heidelberg Project celebrates its 23rd anniversary.

Tim Burke’s studio gallery – Detroit Industrial Gallery

The Heidelberg Project official site

The world’s most popular doll just turned 50 and celebrated her birthday by getting a few trendy tattoos.

Little by little Barbie is turning into Trash Talkin’ Turleen, one of the trashiest dolls ever. Mattel launched the newest Barbie with a tattoo gun and a collection of about 40 temporary tattoos, for girls to apply on their doll. Soon, we’re bound to see piercing Barbie, or pot-smoking Barbie sitting on retailer shelves.

via Daily Mail

I always say true artists can make something beautiful out of anything, and these slipper-sandwiches are a perfect example. Food-art is one of my personal favorites, since I like art and love to eat, so you can imagine how happy I was when I stumbled over these pics.

Take a look, but be careful, they cause mouth-wattering!

via mimibazar.cz

Sure, rabbits hop all the time, but not many do it over miniature fences, like showjumping horses.

15-year-old Matthew and Thomas Haslam are the proud owners and trainers of some of the smartest pets in Britain. Bubbles and Lilac are two of the twenty rabbits that like to jump over small fences, in the boys’ backyard. These two have shown particular skill and have participated in the Ultimate Pet Show, between the 2nd-4th May.

The two boys suffer from Asperger’s Syndrome, a sort of Autism and spending up to seven hours a day, for the last nine years, playing with rabbits has really helped them a greatr deal.

via Daily Mail

Yes, you read right, some bats really are adorable. The tiny White Bats of Honduras are among the cutest rodents on Earth.

Also known as Ectophylla Alba, the Honduran White Bats are only 37-47mm long and can be found in Central America and The Caribbean. They cut the side veins of the Heliconia plant leaves causing them to fold into a protective tent. The small bats live in colonies of up to six individuals, one mail and a harem of females.

The natural tent protects the White Bats from rain and predators and they only take flight when their home is no longer safe.

On April 21 2009 Rome celebrated 2762 years of existence, and its modern-day Romans organized all sorts of events in honor of this occasion.

As most of you know, old Rome loved competitions. Gladiator fights and chariot races were social events that everyone loved. As a tribute to the old times, the current inhabitants of Rome organized an old fashioned chariot race. Well, sort of…

The modern chariots were pulled by bicycles instead of horses and the riders were actually cyclists. The competitors had to race three laps around the old Circus Maximus.

via Etoday

First of all, no they are not pornstars, so if that’s what you were looking for, there’s nothing to see here. But if you’re into design and bicycles, you’re gonna love this.

Young Canadian designer Jason Battersby definitely doesn’t like conventional bicycles, so he decided to build two of them by his own taste. That’s how the incredibly cool-looking Tequila Sunrise and Eye Candy were born.

Battersby‘s creations were showcased for the first time on May 2. If you want to know more about these orange and green wonders, check out Jason Batersby’s website.

Everybody knows the popular animation movie Shrek has a large fan-base, but some of those fans go as far as to get married dressed as their favorite characters.

British nurse Christine England and her fiance Keith got married last month, wearing the costumes of Fiona and Shrek. They spent over three hours putting on the costumes and green make-up, but it was worth it, since it was a wedding neither of them will forget.

Christine tried to get her 18 years old son to dress-up like Donkey, but “he wasn’t having any of it”. The 100 guests attending the wedding were also dressed in funky, fairytale costumes.

via Daily Mail

The Citroen Karin is one of those “what might have been” old concepts, that never went into production.

Looking back at the car industry of the 1980s, the Citroen Karin, was one of the most revolutionary concepts. Because it didn’t have any new models to present at the 1980 Paris Auto Show, Citroen gave car designer Trevor Fiore the go-ahead to create an original model. The Karin never made it onto the production line, mostly because it was an unpractical vehicle, but the futuristic design inspired other designers to get passed their traditional way of thinking, and opened the way for the beautiful vehicles we see on the streets today.

via Detointernational

Following our Whole Chicken in a Can post, we searched I Hate My Message Board blog for more weird “delicacies” and came across what the Consumerist called “the worst food product ever may have been found”.

If you thought the giant canned chicken looked disgusting, the pork brains in milk gravy will have you puking your guts out. According to Tracy, over at I Hate My Message Board, this food product is very common in American grocery stores, but that doesn’t mean it tastes or smells good. Apparently, the pork brains in milk gravy smell like ground up vienna sausages mixed with cheap, smelly dog-food. For me, that’s enough of a warning to never, ever try this stuff.

If any of you had the guts to eat pork brains in milk gravy, let us know if you liked it.

via I Hate My Message Board

The Germans have done it again. I really thought they were a really serious people, focused only on their work, but it turns out they know how to have fun as well.

After they organized the Ice Swimming Festival in Neuburg, early this year, the Germans strike again with the 2009 Office-Chair Racing Championship. The rather unusual racing competition was held on April 25, in Bad Koening Zell, in western Germany. Competitors raced on a 200-meter-long course, in basic or modded office-chairs.

The Office-Chair Racing Championship was first held in 2008, but it’s already growing in popularity and, who knows, it could become an Olympic sport pretty soon.

Photos by Reuters

Who new toy-trains could be so useful.

These photos were taken in a bar somewhere in Brno, the Czech Republic. It might look like a nice decorative addition, but that train has a very specific purpose. Its rail passes through the bar, stops at customer tables, taking their orders. Then it goes back to the bartender, who sends the drinks in the train carts.

It’s a very ingenious system that spares the customers the trouble of having to tip the waitress. I wonder how quick it is though, do the customers have to wait a long time for the toy-train to bring them their drinks?

Would you drink your blood and urine? You sure would if they tasted like sour candy.

Imagine the looks on your friends faces as you throw, what looks like urine, down your throat, directly from a urine sample container, or blood from a blood vial. Well, believe it or not, you can pull a prank like this, by using the Sour Candy Body Fluids, from Think Geek. The “urine” tastes like concentrated lemonade, only very sour, and the”blood” is actually sour cherry syrup.

Have fun, tricking your grossed-out friends.

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Amazing mostly through its original look, because in terms of effectiveness, Apache was more of a toy-gun.

Popular as a self-defense weapon, at the end of the 19th century, the Apache was a small weapon, measuring only 4 cm across, when folded. The blade, if we can even call it that, was only a little over 3 cm long, and very thin. If you were to stab someone with that thing, you would get yourself in even more trouble as that would only piss him off.

In terms of firepower, the Apache isn’t much stronger than it is in close quarter combat, the short nozzle and the fact that the hammer doesn’t hit the back of the cartridge, like it does in modern weapons, made it pretty week.

The knuckle-duster-like handle had such tiny finger holes that only the skinniest could fit in, so it’s no surprise the Apache didn’t make a big impact as a weapon. It did have in interesting design though, so it became a collectible. Most of the ones left today are plated with gold and sell for no less than $4,000

via Hell in a Handbasket

Just like the bottle computer and the organic pc, the bulldozer computer is an amazing example of craftsmanship and ingenuity.

The bulldozer computer uses a toy bulldozer as the case, and has a custom made mouse that fits perfectly.  It’s incredible how they got an entire working computer inside that little toy. All I can say is BRAVO!

via  techPowerUp