Oddity Central

Self-Proclaimed Vampire Who Drinks Blood and Sleeps in a Coffin Just Wants to Be Treated as Everyone Else
This App Lets You Order Leftover Dishes Restaurants Would Otherwise Throw Away
Fair Beauty – Vietnam’s Obsession with White Skin

Self-Proclaimed Vampire Who Drinks Blood and Sleeps in a Coffin Just Wants to Be Treated as Everyone Else

Posted: 10 Aug 2016 01:27 PM PDT

Darkness Vlad Tepes, a young Englishman who has been living as a vampire for the last 13 years, says he is regularly bullied for his different lifestyle and just wants to be treated as a normal person.

He might not be affected by garlic and sunlight, but the 25-year-old who changed his name by deed poll a few years ago calls himself a vampire. He sleeps in a custom made-to-measure wooden coffin, wears eyeliner for a darker look and regularly consumes cow and and pig blood, as well as a human blood substitute. “To be a vampire is to believe that I have a living body but a dead soul,” Darkness says. “But I think there's a lot of preconceptions about being a vampire from films and books like Twilight or Dracula.”

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Posted: 10 Aug 2016 11:53 AM PDT

Too Good to Go is a smartphone app that allows users to order leftover food that restaurants would otherwise throw away at discount prices. Originally launched in Denmark, the service has recently been introduced in the United Kingdom by a couple of young entrepreneurs, after returning from the Nordic country.

The main purpose of this newly launched service is to cut food waste. Millions of tonnes of food are thrown in the trash every year in the UK alone, with restaurants accounting for fairly large chunk, so eco-entrepreneurs Chris Wilson and Jamie Crummie came up with a more profitable alternative. “It costs restaurants on average 97p for every meal they throw away so we are saving them that expense and giving them extra,” Wilson said. “And we provide them with all packaging so they have recyclable and eco-friendly boxes.” As for Too Good to Go users, they get the chance to order fancy dishes at low prices ranging between £2 to £3.80 per meal.

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Posted: 10 Aug 2016 07:18 AM PDT

For most Vietnamese women, white skin is synonymous with feminine beauty, sophistication and high social status, and many of them cover themselves completely even in the middle of summer in order to protect their fair complexion from the sun’s rays.

In Vietnam, as in the majority of South East Asian countries, dark skin has always been associated with poverty and peasants working in paddy fields exposed to the mercy of the elements. So while in the Western world tanned skin is seen as healthy and beautiful, in countries like Vietnam, Japan or Indonesia, it is so frowned upon that it can sometimes be enough to drive away potential suitors in arranged marriages among middle-class families.

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