Barnaby Barford is a British artist who takes both mass-produced and antique porcelain statuettes and reshapes them into sinister figurines representing the world of today.

Mister Barford says his most recent collection is called ‘The Good, The Bad and The Belle‘, and represents how the today’s youth is perceived by older generations. The pieces depict scenes of teen violence, our fascination with junk food, graffiti artists, and each has a witty name.

via Telegraph.co.uk

Photos by NOAH COSTA/STOLENTNEWS.BIZ

‘Do It Again, I Didn’t Press Record’

‘Happy Meal’

‘Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses’

‘Always The Best Way To Earn Your Wings’

‘Wonderland?! What F*****g Postcode’s That?…’

‘Family Feast’

‘Cry Havoc And Let Slip The Dogs Of War’

Invented during the 1930s as a cheap form of recession entertainment, donkey basketball remains a popular sport in midwest America.

Basically, the tow four-player teams have to shoot hoops while riding on the donkeys. The animals often just lay down, crushed by the players’ weight and, in these situations, competitors are allowed to dismount and drag the donkey to the hoop. Donkeys can carry up to 68kg, but many of the donkey basketball players weigh considerably more.

This unusual sport is played mostly in school gyms, by school staff and local celebrities. PETA has denounced donkey basketball as animal cruelty, but the folks in Iowa, where these pics were taken, say they don’t pay much attention to that. ‘We’re just a bunch of good ol’ boys and farmers down here in rural Iowa, so we’re not worried about PETA.’ said Angela Stufflebeam, event organizer.

Before the beginning of a donkey basketball match, an announcement is made, saying the animals are treated humanely. But protesters say the donkeys are starved so they don’t defecate during the match, they are often kicked, pulled by their tails and ears, and get stressed by the chaotic atmosphere.

Donkey basketball has been banned in Portland, Oregon, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania, but it’s still thriving in Iowa.

I say this is just as bad as riding ponies on thin ice.

via Daily Mail

Photos by The Associated Press

Daniel Eindhoven is the talented designer who created this cool-looking coil gun that cost only 100 euros and 40 hours to make.

This bad boy weighs 5 kilograms and fires 14 42-gram projectiles, at a speed of 110km/h. Featuring incredible laser effects, a laser pointer and a digital voltage display, the home-made coil gun needs 8 seconds to charge the 300V it needs to fire a projectile, when connected to a power source, and 90 seconds when using its internal batteries.

via Hacked Gadgets

Tony Alleyne is a British hardcore Star-Trek fan who decided to transform his home into the ultimate home-made Star-Trek set.

Tony began his project in 1999, after his wife left him, he aimed to give his flat the ultimate make-over and turn it into a Star-Trek bachelor pad. He finished his masterpiece in 2004, but then decided to turn it into the Voyager starship.

Now his 500 square feet apartment features voice-activated lighting, air conditioning, LED lights, but is missing a bed. A few years ago doctors advised Alleyne to sleep on the floor to cure his sciatica, so he took this opportunity to transform his bedroom into a transporter room.

After hand-crafting the decor elements himself, Tony Alleyne opened his very own design company. Unfortunately this over-the-top project also got him broke. His ex-wife, who owns the apartment, put it up for sale, but so far no one is interested. Tony says he’s happy the deal didn’t go through, as he loves living in his very own Voyager ship.

If you are interested in acquiring the Star-Trek apartment or if you just want to take a virtual tour, visit 24thcid.com.

via Telegraph.co.uk

Thrill-seekers have a new reason to be happy. Volcano-surfing, a new kind of extreme sport, is growing more and more popular.

Phillip Southan is the young owner of Green Pathways Tour, the company that organizes volcano surfing sessions on Cerro Negro, one of Nicaragua’s most active and dangerous volcanoes.

Dressed in protective gear, adrenalin-junkies climb 726 meters up Cerro Negro and slide down on specially-built plywood boards. Southan admits there is a chance the young volcano could erupt, but says the biggest danger is the volcano surfers might fall off the board and injure themselves.

The volcano surfing tour has only been around for 4 years, but 10, 000 people have already participated.

via Telegraph.co.uk

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

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

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.

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

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