I for one had no idea a place like Stonehenge was such an inspiration for amateur or professional bakers, but Stonehenge cakes are apparently pretty popular.
I found a cool looking Stonehenge-inspired cake, the other day,and a small in-depth search led me to an entire collection of mysterious treats. Oh, the last one isn’t exactly sweet, but it’s bacon, so it definitely qualifies. Take a look:
Self-proclaimed King of Jelly Bean Art, Peter Rocha and his talented nephew Roger create impressive mosaics using thousands of colored jelly-beans.
The two Rochas spend up to six months creating the sweet masterpieces, understandable since thy use around 10,000 different types of jelly beans. Throughout their artistic careers, the artistic duo have created over 75 jelly-bean mosaics, commissioned by the Jelly Belly Candy Company.
Recently, Roger Rocha showcased a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II at the time of her coronation, in 1952, made from 10,000 jellybeans. The 4-foot-high artwork is now on display at Fizziwig’s Sweet Emporium in Brighton, UK.
Check out a selection of the finest jelly-bean mosaics, by Peter and Roger Rocha, after the jump.
In order to warn drivers of the dangers of reckless driving, a British insurance company wrapped the most accident-prone street in Britain in 1,500 square meters of bubble wrap.
According to Confused.com, a popular insurance comparison site, the residents of Somerville Road, Worchester, are responsible for the highest number of accident claims in the entire united Kingdom. For the last 10 years, around 10 claims per years have been registered on “Accident Avenue”.
The original idea of wrapping the whole street in protective bubble wrap belongs to the people at Confused.com, who thought to themselves: “we bubble wrap all our little breakables to keep them safe and sound – so why not a whole street?”. It took eight people 12 hours to completely bubble wrap the entire Somerville Road, from houses to cars and even garden gnomes.
This was a very inspired stunt, considering bubble wrap is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week.
Photos by GETTY IMAGES via Daily Mail
Hercules is a 900-pound-heavy, 6-feet-tall and 12-feet-long liger who holds the Guinness World Record for the largest cat.
Born from a lion father and tiger mother, Hercules grew into an impressive creature, able to run at speeds of up to 50 mph and eat 100 pounds of food in one sitting. Ligers have been known to be fat and unhealthy cats, but Hercules is an exceptional specimen that got the best from both feline races.
During a recent photo-shoot, Hercules’ caretakers wanted to show his enormous size by placing him against popular English symbols, like an old double-decker bus or a black cab. He was actually able to climb the bus to receive a tasty treat. It might look like the world’s biggest cat is actually in London, but he’s really quite close to home, at Freestyle Music Park in Myrtle Beach, Southern California.
Despite his gigantic size, Hercules is very tame and Dr. Bhagavan, one of the liger’s caretakers, says looking into his eyes is “like looking into God’s own eyes”.
There must be something about Britain’s capital because after the invasion of the blue rubber duckies, it’s time for fierce dinosaurs to take over a part of the city.
Dinosaurs Unleashed is an animatronic dinosaur display that today opens its gates to the public. It is located on Oxford Street, a well-known shopping area of London turned dinosaur playground. 24 life-like dinosaur models (including stegosaurus, iguanadon, diplodocus or tyrannosaurus rex) will entertain visitors with their realistic movements and sounds. The largest dinosaur model on display is the 30-meters-tall Diplodocus, 3 times the length of an English double-decker bus
Just as impressive as the robotic dinosaurs is the incredible setting. Featuring marshland, forest and prehistoric plants that existed during the reign of the dinosaurs, it will take people 65 million years into the past.
Dinosaurs Unleashed will stay open starting from January 28 until April 30.
The famous Communist leader Vladimir Ilic Lenin is still praised by some, but his doctrine is hated by most. That didn’t stop a Romanian artist from making a sweet replica of him and placing it on a pedestal.
Artist Ioana Ciocan hoped her countrymen would be able to get past their prejudices and horrible memories and accept Communism as part of Romanian history. On January 26, the birthday of former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, she mounted a 3-meter-tall statue of Lenin on a pedestal, in the Free Press Square, a place closely linked to the Romanian anti-communist revolution.
The giant replica was made of chocolate, rice and candy, and was on display for a single day. Unfortunately, her artistic effort was considered an insult to the martyrs of the Romanian revolution of 1989.
As a Romanian, I can’t say I’m that insulted by Ioana Ciocan’s gesture, but then again, I was only 5 years old when people fought and died for freedom. I am however insulted by the ugliness of the sweet statue.
Doubling as a pet and fancy brooch, the jewel-studded beetle is a common accessory in countries like Mexico. They’re not too popular in America, though.
An American woman found this out the hard way, when her living piece of jewelry was confiscated, upon her entry back into the States, from Mexico. The dazzling bug was freely crawling on the woman’s sweater, but the gold chain attached to a safety pin kept it from venturing too far.
Covered in gold and pricey gemstones, the blinged-out insect was confiscated by pest-control, because its owner didn’t have the proper documents. She received no fine, but she’ll definitely regret spending money on live jewelry.
Jewel-studded beetles and other bugs are considered common in Mexico and have been for centuries.
I know what you’re thinking, that’s a nicely drawn tiger. Only…Well, just check out the pics, this is one of those “a photo is worth a thousand words” post. Also check the video at the bottom to get an idea of how it came to be.
One of the many Ourense festivals, the Spanish village of Xinzo de Limia host one of the most unique food fights in the world, the “flour battle”.
Every year, Galicians from Xinzo de Limia celebrate their very own Ourense festival. The entire festivities are centered around a number of mythical characters (peliqueiros) whose significance and stories have been forgotten in time. Still the are part of local tradition, so the people dress in colorful clothes, put-on intricate masks and run through the streets of the city, making as much noise as possible.
People all over Galicia come to see the “peliqueiros”, but also to take part in the Flour Battle, where people through tons of flour at each other. Glasses are recommended as the fine ingredient can get pretty much anywhere.
Take a look at some photos taken at this year’s edition of the Flour Battle, Xinzo de Limia.
You must be thinking I’m either crazy about brain, cupcakes, or both. Actually is the brain-cupcake combination that intrigues me. I can’t help it, I love brain cupcakes!
This time I found some crazy looking cupcakes made by Alicia Traveria, inspired by the popular TV show Futurama. The vanilla cupcakes are made from scratch, the green slugs from gum paste with royal icing eyes and the pink brains are buttercream icing with a slight grenadine flavor.
Alicia baked the Brain Slug Cupcakes for a friend’s birthday, but I’m sure any Futurama fan would pay serious cash for a chance to feast on these babies.
Talk about Transformers going downhill. Leader of the mighty Autobots has gone from battling Decepticons and saving the world, to drying some guy’s laundry, in Taiwan.
Wanting to do something nice for his son, a huge fan of Transformers’ Optimus Prime, that would also be useful around the house, a Taiwanese man built a 14-foot-tall replica of the famous Autobot and used it as support for his laundry drier.
The DIY replica of Optimus Prime cost $1,600 worth of scrap metal to make. It’s nice the dad put so much effort into building something this awesome for his son, but using it to dry laundry? It doesn’t get more degrading for a Transformer.
Photos via Mobile01
Yup, leave it to the Japanese to invent something completely useless, yet totally cool. This time it’s a grabbing device for potato chips.
Potato chips may be delicious, but you can’t really enjoy them without getting grease all over your fingers and then the keyboard. Well the Japanese have finally come up with a solution to this pressing problem. Potechi ( a Japanese neologism derived from the English “potato chip”) is an ingenious device manufactured by Takara Tomi, that grabs potato chips, so you don’t have to.
Featuring groundbreaking technologies like NBCS (No Broken Clutch System), NTTS (No Touch Table System) and FECS (Finger Easy Cleaning System) allows you to gently pick up potato chips without breaking them. Simply press the button and let Potechi do the rest of the job for you.
The ingenious Potechi chip grabbing tool is available in japan, for just $7. Come on, a clean keyboard is worth at least that much.
11-year-old Dayton Webber lost all his limbs when he was just a baby, but that didn’t stop him from performing in wrestling matches and riding his skateboard.
Young Dayton is a true inspiration. he lost his hands and legs when he was just 11-months-old, due to a life-threatening infection in his body. But for him, the absence of limbs didn’t mean he couldn’t live a perfectly normal life. Armed with ambition and will to succeed, Dayton took on sports other perfectly healthy people can’t do.
Both Dayton’s parents say they never pushed him to do anything, it was always his idea to try new things. These days he competes for the The Rampage Westling Team, in Waldorf, rides a skateboard, ice-skates, drives go-karts and even plays video-games like Madden NFL.
Other boys are surprised when they first meet him, especially in wrestling matches, but they soon find out he’s a worthy adversary. What Dayton can do physically he compensates in willpower. When asked what happened to his hands and feed, he simply answers “it’s no big deal”.
For over 25 years, California-based candy company HOTLIX has been creating weird sweets like chocolate-dipped-scorpions and bug lollipops. Think of it as a real-life Willy Wonka nightmare.
The first insect candy created by HOTLIX was a tequila-flavored lollipop with a worm inside it. This was back in 1982, but fast-forward to present day and HOTLIX insect sweets have spread worldwide and are more popular than ever. 70-year-old Larry Peterman was the man with the original idea of bug candy,and now he supervises the farm producing the insects needed to make these outrageous sweets.
Larry and his empolyees work hard at keeping the secret of his insect delicacies and so far they’ve stayed one step in front of the competition, despite several copying attempts. One thing they do reveal is the worms are fed things like apple and banana peal, as well as oatmeal.
If you’re wondering about the safety of eating chocolate-covered scorpions, you should know there’s no danger at all. Once dead, scorpions are no longer poisonous and their stinger is cut-off just in case. Bon appetit!
Photos by BARCROFT MEDIA
via Telegraph.co.uk
In an attempt to highlight celebrities’ problems with drugs, talented American artist Jason Mecier has created a series of portraits made of differently colored prescription pills.
Artists like Courtney Love and Kelly Osbourne fought with their drug addictions for a long time, while Michael Jackson and Heath Ledger lost their lives because of them. By creating their portraits out of pills, Mecier tries to emphasize the dangers of drug abuse.
Jason Mecier’s pill-portraits will be a part of his Celebrity Junk Drawer show, held at the Ghettogloss Gallery, in Los Angeles, on March 17.
Photos via Entertainmentwise
