Oddity Central |
- Dutch Artist Turns Dead Cat into Remote-Controlled Helicopter
- Meet Trisha Paytas, a Self-Proclaimed Tanorexic
- Poor Carpenter Builds Awesome Tree House with Materials Found on Craiglist
| Dutch Artist Turns Dead Cat into Remote-Controlled Helicopter Posted: 04 Jun 2012 06:51 AM PDT
Like many other animal lovers, Dutch artist Bart Jansen found it hard to part with his pet cat, Orville, after he was hit by a car. So he decided to turn the dead feline into a unique piece of artwork called the Orvillecopter. Jansen named his beloved pet after the famous aviator Orville Wright, so I guess it makes perfect sense that he decided to turn the cat into a remote-controlled helicopter. After having the Orville stuffed by a taxidermist, the artist teamed up with radio-controlled helicopter expert Arjen Beltman to make the cat fly for the first time. Beltman designed a custom mechanism and attached it to the stuffed cat to create a truly bizarre flying machine called the Orvillecopter. Bart Jansen unveiled his unique creation on Saturday, at the Kunstrai art festival in Amsterdam, and described it as half cat, half machine. Photo: Cris Toala Olivares/REUTERS “After a period of mourning he received his propellers posthumously,” Jansen said about his purring pet, adding that he will soon be flying with the birds he loved chasing so much. Right now, the Orvillcopter isn’t flying as well as its creators would like, but Jansen assured viewers that “he will receive more powerful engines and larger props for his birthday. So this hopping will soon change into steady flight.” Photo: Cris Toala Olivares/REUTERS
via Yahoo OMG Dutch Artist Turns Dead Cat into Remote-Controlled Helicopter was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Meet Trisha Paytas, a Self-Proclaimed Tanorexic Posted: 04 Jun 2012 06:08 AM PDT
Trisha Paytas is a blonde lingerie model from Los Angeles who has recently made headlines after being featured on TLC’s show My Strange Addiction for her unhealthy obsession with tanning. Lots of girls out there put their health on the line every time they lay on a tanning bed, but Trisha Paytas takes artificial tanning to a whole other level. She’s been visiting tanning salons almost every day, sometimes twice a day, ever since she was 14 years old. The bubbly blonde, 24, says she has so far spent over $52,000 on keeping her skin tone dark, and doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon. She is fully aware of the risks she takes every time she goes into a tanning salon, but says she’d rather look good dead and tanned than pale and alive. Way to think positive… Photo: Trisha Paytas/Grindhouse Barbie Trisha’s obsession with tanning started early on, when kids at school started bullying her because she was overweight and had a light complexion. Everyone called her Pillsbury Doughboy, and that made her feel terrible, so she vowed to lose weight and get a nice healthy tan. For her 14th birthday, Trisha’s mother got her 40 sunbed sessions, and they went to the tanning salon almost every day after that. Her mom has been using tanning beds since her early 20′s, and has never had a cancer scare, according to the young model, so she doesn’t see any reason why she should give up on something that makes her feel good about herself. Photo: Trisha Paytas/Facebook Trisha Payta’s passion for tanning translates to 66 days of her life spent on a tanning bed, 34 of were accumulated before she turned 17. According to research that’s when a person is most vulnerable to skin cancer and other conditions associated with exposure to UV light. To make matters worse, Trisha admits to never putting on sunscreen, only tanning oil, and admits she had been going on 30-minute tanning sessions for a long time, until the law changed and she was only allowed 12 minutes of sunbed time. The self-proclaimed tanorexic says she has a lot of friends who use tanning beds, none of which have gotten skin cancer, and the fact that she doesn’t have any moles makes her feel safer. For the last 10 years, Trisha has been visiting tanning salons up to 14 times a week. Usually, during the first half of the week, she uses sunbeds once a day, and during the second half she goes twice per day, to make sure she maintains the dark skin tone she likes so much. Photo: Trisha Paytas/Facebook But Trisha Payta didn’t spend over $50,000 on sunbed sessions alone. To keep her skin looking “healthy”. the LA lingerie model bought herself a spray-tanning machine worth $700, and spent a total of $12,960 on spray. Another $2,100 went on fake tan she applies with her hands, which she used in various emergency situations. She also sunbathes without protection whenever she gets the chance and says she doesn’t have any regrets about spending a small fortune on her tanning habit.
Although she admits to using sunbeds a lot more than other people, Trisha Paytas doesn’t consider herself a tanning addict, and says she can quit whenever she likes. She just feels better and more confident when she’s tanned. Meet Trisha Paytas, a Self-Proclaimed Tanorexic was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Poor Carpenter Builds Awesome Tree House with Materials Found on Craiglist Posted: 04 Jun 2012 03:36 AM PDT
Joel Allen completed his amazing tree house on Whistler Mountain, in Western Canada, two years ago, but chose to keep it a secret for fear it would be torn down. Now, his secret’s out and the Hemloft has become one of the most talked-about architectural wonders on the Internet. Hemloft, named after the hemlock tree supporting it, is definitely one of the most charming tree houses I have ever seen, but it’s actually the story behind it that’s most fascinating. Its creator, Joel Allen, was 26 when he decided to quit his job as a software developer and pursue a get-rich quick scheme. That didn’t exactly work out the way he planned, and he soon found himself strapped for cash. Joel found his calling as a carpenter, and one day got the brilliant idea of using his new-found talent to build a wooden tree house on Whistler Mountain, right in the middle of one of the world’s most expensive housing markets. He didn’t have the money for it, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t be done. Photo: Joel Allen The egg-shaped house he envisioned would have cost him tens of thousands of dollars in materials, but it was the land he was going to build it on that he was worried about. He couldn’t afford to buy a strip of land on Whistler Mountain, right on top of some of the most luxurious homes on Earth, so young Joel decided to just build his lovely Hemloft on Crown land he didn’t own and just hope the wrong people didn’t find out about it. When he began work on his round cabin, in 2009, he spent $6,500 on the roof and frame alone, and quickly realized the rest of the materials he needed would be much more expensive. He couldn’t afford to work on it any longer, so for two years, the Hemloft remained a work in progress. Photo: Joel Allen It was searching for a couch in Craiglist’s free section that got Joel Allen questioning what else he might find in there to help him finish his wooden dream house. Soon, he was using his carpenter skills to turn ash hardwood floor into a cabinet, or a double sliding glass door into windows for the Hemloft, and he just kept pressing the refresh button on Craiglist to make sure he didn’t miss out on great materials people were getting rid of. It wasn’t long before his apartment became full of stuff for the Hemloft, and Joel and his girlfriend, Heidi, barely found a place to sleep anymore. He ended up saving over $10,000 on materials, and in August 2010 completed the now famous Hemloft. Photo: Joel Allen Because it was built without a permit, on government land, Joel chose to keep it a secret from the rest of the world. He knew there was a small risk of him actually getting arrested for building the Hemloft, but he didn’t want to risk it. Still, at the urging of a friend, he sent some photos of the tree house to Dwell Magazine, who published them in their April edition . Since then, the Hemloft has become a subject of fascination for many Internet users. ”Coming out of the bush about the Hemloft is fun,” Allen wrote on his website. “However it poses a few problems; if people know about it, they might try to find it. And if the wrong people find it, they may make me take it down.”
Allen believes building a tree house on Whistler Mountain, among the other expensive houses would not be looked favorably upon, so he’s now looking for safe ways of revealing the location of the Hemloft, to keep it from being destroyed. The young carpenter is currently taking into consideration opening it to the public, making it a geocaching location or turning it into a campsite. Whatever he decides to do with it, we’d like to congratulate him on his hard work and resourcefulness building such an extraordinary tree house. via Business Insider Poor Carpenter Builds Awesome Tree House with Materials Found on Craiglist was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
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