Oddity Central

Oddity Central

Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse in England’s Scarily Realistic Street Game

Posted: 24 May 2013 04:24 AM PDT

If you’re a horror flick fan, you probably remember 28 Days Later, one of the best, most realistic zombie movies ever made. It told the story of a small group of survivors fighting for their lives in zombie-infested England. Now, a game company is giving people the chance to experience their fear in an adrenaline-packed street game called 2.8 Hours Later.

Ever since it launched in 2010, 2.8 Hours Later has been played by over 20,000 people from all around the globe. It’s advertised as the world’s largest touring street game, held in various cities across Great Britain. Based on the hit movie 28 Days Later, and its less-successful sequel, 28 Weeks Later, the game puts participants in the shoes of survivors during a zombie virus outbreak looking for shelter while trying to avoid getting infected. That’s really just the most simplistic way to describe 2.8 Hours Later, because the game is actually a lot more complex. For example, Asylum, the newly released version of the urban running game features a rich story of the events which led to the catastrophic pandemic. UK cities are locked-down by the Government to protect their inhabitants from the zombie-infected badlands surrounding them, but the measure fails, and when authorities decide to abandon survivors, the city becomes a hell-hole overrun by the infected, vigilantes and bounty-hunters. Players are thrown in this chaotic world of disease, quarantine and murder, and confronted with deeply emotional choices to save themselves and their loved-ones.

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Would You Believe These Realistic Sculptures Are Made Exclusively from Wood?

Posted: 24 May 2013 02:50 AM PDT

Arizona-based Tom Eckert would be better off calling himself an illusionist rather than a sculptor. The talented artist somehow manages to turn hard wood into realistic looking objects, from flowing fabrics, to books and fruits.

It’s almost impossible to believe Tom Eckert uses traditional techniques to carve his amazing artworks from wood, but that’s just what makes him so special. Since childhood, I have been curious about and amused by mistaken impressions of reality presented as part of my visual experiences,” Tom says. “One of my earliest recollections, on a car trip, was my perception of the wet, slick highway ahead that turned out to be an illusion, a mirage.  The revelation that I was fooled, visually and intellectually tricked, stuck with me.  This visual deception is now the basis for my creative direction.  "Cloth" carved of wood has much different structural qualities than real cloth. When this idea is applied to my compositions (floating book, floating cards, floating rock) a sense of the impossible happens – for me, magic.” Not just for him, I’m sure.

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Hard Currency – Italy’s Unique Cheese Banks

Posted: 24 May 2013 01:56 AM PDT

Cash-for-cheese sounds more like a joke that a serious financial agreement, but in some regions of Italy it’s a reality. The famous Parmesan is so precious that some banks are willing to keep the cheese as collateral against loans to local producers.

The Credito Emiliano bank has hundreds of branches and thousands of employees around central and northern Italy. Its central offices look like those of any other banking institution, with cameras watching every angle, security doors to lock down the place and even a big vault in the back. Only you’re not going to find too many diamonds or hard cash stored in there. Instead, there are hundreds of thousands of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese wheels, neatly placed on giant shelves. The bank takes the Parmesan from local producers in exchange for a cheap loan, and charges a 3% interest as well as a fee for looking after the cheese and making sure it matures properly in the air-conditioned, humidified vault. It might seem strange, but Credito Emiliano treats Parmigiano-Reggiano like other banks do gold. And for good reason, as the mountains of cheese locked away in its secured vault are worth around $200 million.

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