In a fairy-tale world, you could kiss a frog and turn it into Prince Charming. No such luck in the real world. If it’s any consolation though, a Polish designer is converting thousands of toads into highly desirable fashion accessories. I mean, who wants men when you can have designer purses, right?

The highly poisonous cane toads live in the South Sea Islands in Australia. They are considered an invasive species, which means they are a serious threat to the native biodiversity of the continent. Introduced to Australia from Hawaii in 1935, their main purpose was to control the native cattle beetle. The mission failed and cane toads began to multiply at an alarming rate – there are now over 200 million of them. The Australian army was deployed to get rid of them by the thousands.

Putting the two stories (of Prince Charming and the Unwanted Toads) together is Polish designer Monika Jarosz. It all started when a friend gifted Monika a stuffed frog from New Zealand. “It disgusted me, but ended up fascinating me,” she says. The more she stroked it, the more she liked the idea of creating something from similar material. Soon the concept was born – leather purses and bags with the toad skin intact, head included.

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One of the most memorable events of the year takes place around Halloween at the Van Cortland Manor in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. Here, literally thousands of incredible jack o’lantern carvings are lit up in a spooky exhibition of giant spiders, flying pumpkin ghosts, skulls, skeletons, bats and other hair-raising entities, all handmade from pumpkins. This year’s main attraction are some awesome life-sized dinosaurs which give the place a very spooky prehistoric feel.

According to HudsonValley.org, The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze takes place throughout October and early November lasting for a whopping 25 days. 5,000 hand-carved, illuminated jack o’lanters are displayed along a pathway open to anyone lucky enough to get one of the fast-selling tickets. For only $16 (or $20 in the weekends), you can “stroll through the Tunnel O’ Pumpkin Love and witness the incredible sight of gourd-filled Jack-in-the-Boxes springing up and bouncing around. See slithering ground snakes, a giant spider web, and go gaga over a collection of shrunken Little Monsters. Gaze in amazement at a towering pumpkin bonfire and a working doomsday grandfather clock.”

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Halloween is more than just a candy quest for children dressed in spooky costumes. Over the years, it has become a competition for adults who want to attract attention with their scaring techniques and frightening house decorations. However, a discount store from Norway, pushed the envelope when they stocked their meat freezers with fake severed human limbs and other body parts, scaring children to death and making their parents’ blood boil.

The Europris discount shop thought putting realistic plastic human body parts in their freezers would help their customers get into the Halloween spirit. However, they were rather surprised to discover that parents who came in with their kids were furious after, among witches and monster costumes, they found severed human body parts wrapped in plastic and packed just like ordinary meat products. The bloody limbs, which came from a made-up butcher called “Chop Shop”, not only looked incredibly realistic, they also came with nutritional information stickers, which only added to the gruesomeness of the whole thing. Safe to say, most shoppers were not amused. Read More »

Newsflash! Carl McCoid– the guy who transformed his body into a shrine for Miley Cyrus, has added 6 more tattoos of the controversial singer to his collection, totaling an impressive 21 inked inscriptions and portraits. Last time we saw him, he “only” had 15.

Back in august, after the VMAs, Miley was harshly criticized for her borderline-obscene performance and revealing outfit, but super-fan Carl was very supportive and understanding, saying that “I don’t like the criticism she is getting. She doesn’t deserve it. It is all part of her comeback,” and adding that Miley is all grown up and that she is just “being true to herself now.” Carl, whose obsession with Miley tattoos started after his divorce, was also very flattered to hear that the singer mentioned him in an interview, stating that “She gave me a couple of seconds of her mind.” In the interview, she said that she didn’t like his tattoos and that he should “start another sleeve with my new look.” As the obedient, obsessed fan that he is, Carl went on and got himself inked with portraits illustrating her new rebellious look and lewd attitude as well as with lyrics from her songs, adding a total of 6 tattoos to his collection.

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What if you never had to waste precious time every day covering your face with layer upon layer of makeup, or even consider plastic surgery enhancements in a never-ending quest to adhere to society-set beauty standards? These are some of the ideas Chinese designer Zhuoying Li is tackling in her new project – the Uniface Mask.

Giant anime eyes, long eyelashes, a high nose bridge, narrow chin and cheeks, these are coveted facial features and they are all available in one simple package, the Uniface mask. The science team behind this unique beauty product has developed “bionic-skin” technology to produce a human-skin-like mask, which is extremely thin and breathable through its pores. With the included “Cell-Blending” glue, which seamlessly binds the mask to human skin, users can put on Uniface and not even feel they’re using it. And if you’re worried about its expressionless doll-like look, don’t be. Made only with FDA G.R.A.S.(generally recognized as safe) materials, Uniface provides the highest level of comfort, allowing you to talk, make facial expressions and even sleep with it on without feeling any difference in your life. If anything, you will have attained ideal beauty without losing countless hours in front of the mirror and wasting hard-earned money on makeup or plastic surgery.

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Joni Bakaradze died 18 years ago, at the age of 22, but instead of burying him in a cemetery, his family decided to keep his body preserved so that his son, who was just two at the time of his death, could see his father’s face.

For the first four years after Joni died, his mother, Tsiuri Kvaratskhelia, used embalming fluid to preserve his body, but after having a dream on night in which someone told her to use vodka instead, the woman from Bashi village, Georgia, switched to spirit liquid poultices. She has to use them every night, or the corpse will turn black. During the first ten years, Tsiuri changed her dead son’s clothes on his birthdays, but as she got older her illnesses prevented her from taking care of Joni the way she used too. She says the lack of care quickly becomes visible on his body, but as soon as she uses her alcohol-based embalming formula, his face turns white again. Read More »

English designers spent 200 hours weaving over one million strands of male chest hair to create this fashionable fur coat. The aptly named Man-Fur Coat is 100% real and it can be yours for the modest price of £2,499 ($3900).

We’ve featured some pretty strange clothing accessories in the past, but a coat made from men’s chest hair? That’s a first, even for us. Stranger still is the fact that it was commissioned by an English dairy company called Arla, to promote their new chocolate milk, Wing-Co, which is aimed at men. The drink, which contains 40 per cent more protein that other chocolate milks, is marketed as “the manly chocolate milk for men with added man.” Apparently, Arla believes British men have been “manning down” over the years, and the coat is meant to make them feel proud of their manliness, instead of repressing it. “We commissioned the Man-Fur Coat as a wake-up call for the nation’s gents. A way to encourage them to readopt the values of assured ‘men’s men’ from yesteryear who would laugh nonchalantly in the face of adversity and be proud of their abundant manliness,” a company spokesman said.

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David Gracer is an entomophagist, which means he consumes insects for sustenance and flavor. During the last 11 years, he claims he has munched on countless creepy crawlies from 5,000 different species.

Eating bugs may seem disgusting to a lot of people, but mankind has been doing it for most of its existence. The Greeks and the Romans loved them, and many cultures throughout Asia, Africa and the Americas actually raise insects for food or gather them through foraging. It is estimated over half the world’s population regularly feasts on a variety of flying and crawling bugs, and entomophagy experts advocate that they are almost as nutritious as beef, contain considerably less fat and have a low impact on the environment. 47-year-old David Gracer, from Providence, Rhode island has been living on bugs since 2001, while trying to convince others that it’s the sustainable way to go. His basement freezer is constantly packed with over 12,000 insects from 20 different species, but the convinced enthomophagist claims he has eaten over 5,000 kinds of bugs during the last 11 years. He consumes them sautéed, filleted and roasted, and says he is working hard on making insects taste more appealing.

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Studies have shown  that hugs can truly make lonely people feel better, so a group of Japanese students from Tsukuba University have invented a coat designed to imitate the feeling of a girlfriend hugging you from behind.

Hugging is all the rage right now. London has its own cuddling workshop for people in need of a hug and a professional cuddler in New York City will wrap her arms around you for a fee. But these solutions don’t work very well if you suddenly find yourself in need of a hug and there’s no one around to give it to you. Luckily, a team of Japanese geeks students have come up with a more practical, if weird, solution – a special hugging coat that emulates the sensation of a girlfriend putting her arms around you from behind. Called the Raiju Coat (Fulfillment Coat), this offbeat invention features motors attached to its back to operate the artificial “arms”, which are controlled through a computer using a USB connection. So whenever its owner feels lonely and in need of a fake girlfriend hug, all he has to do is put it on, close his eyes and imagine a cute anime girl putting her arms around him, as the coat takes hold of his waist. To make the experience even more realistic, the Raiju Coat comes with a pair of headphones that plays the sound of footsteps running from behind and pre-recorded sentences like “I’m sorry, were you waiting?”; “Watch your back!”; “Guess who?”; and “Blind side!” With such advanced hugging technology, who needs a real girlfriend?

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Nothing says “I love you” like your detailed mug rendered in delicious chocolate. At least that’s what the Japanese at 3D-printing firm KS Design Lab and FabCafe, in Tokyo, are hoping you’ll think, as they offer patrons the chance to “chocolatize” their faces as gifts for Valentine’s Day.

Valenntine’s is big business in Japan. As we previously reported, a lot of Japanese chocolate companies record half their annual sales in the days before the romantic holiday. In the Land of the Rising Sun, only women offer gifts to men, usually in the form of chocolate sweets. Trying to stand out from the competition, 3D-printing firm KS Design Lab and Tokyo’s FabCafe, in the Shibuya district, have teamed up to offer a very original service to a group of women attending their workshop – 3D printed models of their faces in chocolate, to be given as presents on Valentine’s Day. Some of you may find them oishii (delicious), but I think they qualify more as kimoi (creepy). “We were brainstorming together about how the 3D-printing technology could appeal to consumers, when we hit on the idea of Valentine’s Day chocolates,” PR rep. Kazue Nakata explained.

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We’ve heard of fanatical lovers writing letters to their beloved in blood. But Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein took this practice to a new level. In the late 1990s, he commissioned a calligrapher to make a copy of the Qur’an, using his own blood as ink. For the project, Saddam donated 7 gallons (27 liters) of blood over the course of two years – the time it took for the book to be completed. The book still exists, and no one knows what to do with it.

For now, Saddam’s blood-inscribed Qur’an is being kept behind locked doors in Baghdad. The unusual book is both sacred and profane, so officials are quite unsure as to how to deal with it. Islamic clerics are confused over the decision to either destroy the book or preserve it as a reminder of the dictator’s brutality. It is most likely that Saddam was quite aware of the controversy his project would spew, given the taboos in Islamic culture over human bodily fluids, but he went ahead with it anyway. His intentions were clear – he had said that the book was his tribute to God because his son had survived an assassination attempt. In the words of one Iraqi citizen, “On one flank had been the government, doing all it could to prevent access. The Shia-led regime is highly sensitive to the re-emergence of any symbols that might lionize the remnants of the Ba’athist rank and file, which still orchestrates bombings and assassinations every few days. And then there are the Sunnis themselves, who are fearful of government retribution if they open the doors and of divine disapproval if they treat this particularly gruesome volume of the Qur’an with the reverence of a holy book.”

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Enterprising coffin maker Stepan Piryanyk, from the Ukraine, is offering living people the chance to lay down in one of his comfortable coffins in order to get used to the afterlife. After all, death is always so sudden, so why not take some time to get used to it…

Lying down in a coffin as therapy is not unheard of. Just a week a go we posted an article about a special Chinese psychotherapy clinic where patients lay down in a coffin and have the lid shut over them, in order to experience death and rebirth. A Taiwanese professor also buries his students alive in a coffin in the floor of his classroom, to make them appreciate every second of their lives. But Stepan Piryanyk, from the Ukrainian town of Truskavets, has found a new way to use his spooky wooden boxes as a form of therapy. The owner of a large coffin-making business, Stepan decided it would be a good idea to set up a special room where people could just lay down in one of his comfortable coffins, and experience being dead. Ironically enough, some people actually took him up on his creepy offer and said it was a very relaxing experience. Read More »

An anonymous person known only as “Surveillance Camera Man” is sparking controversy by filming people in public and private spaces without asking for their permission. Clever way of highlighting privacy issues or just intentionally provoking people?

Why is it that hardly anyone minds being on camera wherever they go, but whenever there’s a face attached to the camera, everyone becomes agitated. Whether we’re walking on the street, going into a bank or at school, there are all these cameras watching our every move, and yet we choose to ignore them. But if an actual person is holding the camera, we feel like they’re violating our privacy. This is what Surveillance Camera Man, an anonymous man from Seattle has been proving with his series of videos posted on YouTube. Granted, sometimes he’s actually doing his filming on private property, but even when he’s filming people in parking lots or on the street without saying a word to them, you can see it’s making them very uncomfortable. Most claim he’s violating their privacy, forgetting they’re in public places, and some even lash out at the camera or call the police. However you feel about Surveillance Camera Man and his approach, you have to admit it’s darn interesting project.

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Would you be brave enough to spend a night in an old mortuary chapel surrounded by dozens of graves? One English family is more than happy to sleep in such a house every night, and say it’s actually their dream home.

Jayne Stead and partner Mike Blatchford didn’t seem to mind the creepy graves and spooky statues when they decided to move into an old cemetery keeper’s lodge, in Southampton, England. The cemetery didn’t put us off. We don’t spook easily, in fact I love watching scary films and television shows,” 52-year-old Jayne told reporters. When we first had a look around it was really run down, there were graves everywhere but it never really felt scary, there was very nice feeling about the place.” Self-employed builder Mike Bletchford spend a whole year and about £100,000 ($160,000) turning the chapel into a home for his family, and today you couldn’t tell the living room was once a mortuary… But, while they’ve never seen a ghost in their unusual home, the couple admit they have witnessed some bizarre occurrences:  “I’ve been sitting on my own in the living room and I’ve felt like there was someone standing behind me a few times,” Ms Stead said. “I’ve also found the dog barking at nothing in the corner of the room, but it’s not scary.”

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Maid cafes are a dime a dozen in Tokyo’s geeky Akihabara district, but Kigurumi Cafe t.t.t. one-ups them all by introducing waitresses wearing full-body suits and creepy plush heads to reallybring anime characters to life.

Wikipedia defines cosplay as a performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. You’ve probably seen cosplayers dressed as popular video game or anime characters at geeky events, or at least photos of them posted online. But few people know there’s an extreme type of cosplay known in Japan as Animegao or Kigurumi. It implies not only wearing a character’s costume, but also an oversize fake head complete with giant anime-style eyes to bring popular 2D drawn girls into our 3D world. If you’ve seen my post on Anna Amemiya, the half-human half-anime model, you already know what I’m talking about, if not, get ready to be freaked-out.

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