Oddity Central

Oddity Central

Jinichi Kawakami – Japan’s Last Real Ninja

Posted: 24 Apr 2013 05:20 AM PDT

As the 21st head of the Ban clan, a line of ninja that can be traced back 500 years and the only living person who learned all the skills that were directly handed down from ninja masters, Jinichi Kawakami is considered by many the last real ninja in all of Japan.

63-year-old Kawakami, a retired engineer, says he started practicing the art of Ninjutsu at the age of six. He was just a young boy when he began training under master Masazo Ishida, a man who dressed as a Buddhist monk, and didn’t even realize what he was learning until years later. He was required to endure extreme heat and cold, as well as pain and hunger. To improve his concentration, he would have to look at the wick of a candle until he got the feeling he was inside it, and practice hearing the sound of a needle falling on a wooden floor. He climbed walls, jumped from great heights, learned chemicals and making explosives and even studied weather and psychology. “The training was all tough and painful. It wasn’t fun but I didn’t think much why I was doing it. Training was made to be part of my life,” Jinichi told AFP. Just before turning 19, he inherited his master’s title, along with his old scrolls and tools. Although he doesn’t claim the title of “last ninja” for himself in order to avoid disputes with other claimants and doubters, he is recognized as Japan’s last real ninja master.

Jinichi-Kawakami

An Old Story Revisited – Whatever Happened to the Star Trek Apartment?

Posted: 24 Apr 2013 04:07 AM PDT

I first wrote about Tony Alleyne’s amazing Star Trek apartment back in 2009, but after seeing some photos of his ultimate Trekkie crib I decided it was worth another look. It’s yet unclear if the dedicated fan still owns the place, or if it even exists anymore.

It was 1994 when Tony Alleyne started redecorating the apartment he was living in with cream and metallic colors inspired by the interior of the USS Enterprise from 1979′s Star Trek: The Motion Picture. His friend had just given him a Star Trek magazine and he became obsessed with having his own ship. But soon he realized the old Enterprise was a bit boring so he decided to start over and this time recreate the set of the starship Voyager from the 1990s series. Soon his conventional apartment featured a computerized flight deck, a voice-activated computer system, bleeping panels and fluorescent lights inspired by his beloved TV show. Even the windows had been replaced with layers of wood and perspex so they would appear to look out on outer space, and the doorbell played a sample of Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard. It was a dream home for any real Trekkie  and Tony had spent just £4,000 ($6,000) sourcing the materials and building it himself. His only mistake was doing it in an apartment he didn’t own. And that apparently cost him everything…

Star-Trek-apartment

14-Year-Old McDonald’s Burger Looks Good Enough to Eat

Posted: 24 Apr 2013 02:24 AM PDT

In 1999 a man from Utah bought a McDonald’s hamburger and kept it around for a month just to show his friends how it would look exactly the same because it was full of preservatives. Fast forward 14 years, the burger is almost unchanged .

David Whipple originally intended to hang on to his burger for 30 days, but somehow forgot it in the pocket of one of his coats and only found it two years later. Seeing the fast food looked almost the same as the day it was first flipped, he decided to continue his experiment just to see how long it would take until the burger disintegrated. It’s been 14 years now and the burger simply refuses to age. “It wasn’t on purpose,” Whipple said about his decision to keep the hamburger for so long. “I was showing some people how enzymes work and I thought a hamburger would be a good idea. And I used it for a month and then I forgot about it. “My wife didn’t discover it until at least a year or two after that. And we pulled it out and said ‘oh my gosh. I can’t believe it looks the same way.’” His “edible” keepsake has been recently showcased on the popular TV show “The Doctors”, and while the pickle had disintegrated, you could clearly see there was no sign of mold on the buns or the meat.

oldest-burger

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