Oddity Central

Oddity Central

Offensive Osama Bin Laden-Themed Businesses Are Becoming Strangely Popular in Brazil

Posted: 29 Apr 2014 04:43 AM PDT

Downtown São Paulo isn't the most likely place to find Osama Bin Laden lookalikes. So when bartender Francisco Elder Braga Fernandes was spotted several years ago, he became an instant celebrity. His resemblance to the infamous terrorist was so uncanny that people couldn't stop taking pictures of him. But this Brazilian Bin Laden is quite the opposite – he's totally against violence.

"I am a man of goodwill. I can't stand violence," said Fernandes. But that hasn't stopped him from using his appearance to his benefit. The 54-year-old decided to market his controversial image by dressing up as Bin Laden and even changing the name of his bar from 'Barbas' to 'Bar do Bin Laden'. "This was great for business," he said. "No one calls me Francisco anymore, it's Osama or Bin Laden."

Over the years, Fernandes has become a local celebrity and a tourist attraction. Al Jazeera has covered the story of his bar twice so far. Tons of visitors line up to take selfie shots with him, and when Bin Laden was killed in 2011, a Brazilian television producer actually wrapped Fernandes in a white cloth and put him on a downtown overpass, just to scare passersby. Another producer had him wear battle gear and walk on the sets of a variety TV show with a fake bomb in his hand. "I don't usually do this stuff, but it's what they want so I do it," he said.

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This Guy Is on a Pointless Quest to Collect Every VHS Copy of the Movie “Speed” Ever Made

Posted: 29 Apr 2014 03:30 AM PDT

Ryan Beitz, from Moscow, Idaho, is a huge fan of the movie 'Speed'. So huge, that he's actually on a quest to collect every single VHS copy of the movie ever made. So far, he has over 500 VHS tapes and 26 laser discs. But it's the tapes that he's really after, the discs are just there to trade off for more VHS cassettes. Ryan also owns a 15-passenger that he plans to transform into the passenger bus featured in the 1994 film.

Ryan's weird obsession started way back when he used to live in Seattle. He was super-broke and had to get Christmas presents for his family. At a pawn shop, he found six copies of Speed, so he thought it would be really funny to give them all the same gift. "I wanted to watch them open them one at a time and go, 'Oh, Speed. Don't we already have this?' Somebody else would go, 'Oh, Speed. Really funny, Ryan'. Then by the time you went around, everybody would have gotten the same gift from me. Then I could tell them that I love them all equally, you know? Just some bullshit," he said.

But when he ended up buying all six tapes, he realized that it was 'way too good'. "I realized it was really fascinating to have that many, like, copies of a thing," said Ryan. "What really cemented it was when I went down to another pawn shop, and they had, like, 30 copies. I said, 'I'll take them all'. They sold them to me for 11 cents a copy." Ryan hasn't looked back since. He said that he has about 550 now, but he hasn't really counted them because, 'who really cares'?

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Japanese Dress Rental Business Helps Men Feel Like Princesses

Posted: 29 Apr 2014 02:09 AM PDT

Mary Mariee is a Japanese company that rents out women's formal wear. But they've recently tapped into a rather new market – men who want to be princesses for a day. For only about $600, the company offers men a chance to dress up and be photographed in elegant wedding attire or ball gowns of their choice. The special package is in so much demand that the shop has dressed over 100 men so far.

The shop, located in Chubu, central Japan, boasts of an extensive collection of women's outfits – ranging from kimonos to white wedding gowns. At first, they ran a special package for women who wanted fancy photographs of themselves. But soon, they started to receive several enquiries from men as well. The response was so overwhelming that they decided to create an exclusive package for men. "We concluded that men want to feel like princesses too," said store manager Hitomi Iseki.

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