Hasta La Gadget!

Music is a great medium for self-expression. But if you can’t be bothered to play traditional instruments, what then?

Diego Stocco has made a name for himself with his multi-track music videos where the audio was provided by ‘playing’ common objects and modified instruments. Now he’s gone one step further and actually built his own orchestra of modified instruments.

See the Experibass and Arcophonica? There’s also the Harpiano and Glockenstrange, and I’m just getting started.

Now how’s that for musical self-expression?

[via Colossal]

There are a lot of trends nowadays that are beyond strange. I’m sure you’ve seen fashion bloggers posing in oftentimes ridiculous-looking ‘heelless’ shoes, right? One step further than that are shoes with backwards heels.

I kid you not. They actually exist.

Aside from the fact that they look extremely uncomfortable, the shoes are humongous. I don’t know how the model managed to stand, let alone pose, in them because they honestly just look painful to wear. She was probably tiptoeing the whole time. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the model wasn’t able to walk in them  – no, rather, they only allowed her to kind of waddle.

These shoes, aptly called ‘Scary Beautiful’, weren’t made for public consumption though. Rather, they were designed and meant to be perceived as a work of art by Leanie van der Vyver and René van den Berg.

In their own words, the duo explain: “Beauty is currently at an all time climax, allowing this project to explore what lies beyond perfection. Scary Beautiful challenges current beauty ideals by inflicting an unexpected new beauty standard.”

[via Cargo Collective via Oh Gizmo!]

It’s that crazy time of the year once again. Spooky costumes, haunted houses, bags full of candy, a pumpkin burger from Burger King. Wait, what? That’s right. The Burger King Pumpkin Burger is only available in Japan, and only for a limited time – unless it’s a big hit – then they will just serve it year round and start counting their stacks of money.

I never thought of combining a hamburger with pumpkin before, myself. I’m not sure how that would taste. Guess folks in Japan will soon find out. Starting next Friday, for a limited time only, Burger King Japan customers can buy a seasonal BK Pumpkin Burger.

It consists of two slices of fried kabocha squash (Japanese pumpkin) with bacon, lettuce, a beef patty, and special sauce made from sesame seeds, peanuts, almonds, cashews, and hazelnuts. Wanna give it a try? It’s just 310 to 590 yen (~$4 to $7 USD), plus the cost of a round trip ticket to Japan.

[via Eater via Gawker]

Stories about people having to eat other people in times of crises are pretty common. A mountain climber eating his fallen companion so he wouldn’t starve to death. Trapped miners eating a dead friend while they waited for help. Gory, but unfortunately true in some cases.

So how would you feel about eating fresh ‘human’ meat, not because you’re starving or anything, but just for the heck of it?

Fake ‘human’ meat, that is. To promote Resident Evil 6, Capcom set up a temporary butcher shop in the Smithfield meat market East London. While the meat was actual meat, it’s not really from humans (obviously.)

They served up a selection of parts, from human hands and entire arms to offal which included fingertips and weiner tips (and when I say weiner, I don’t mean sausages.) Check out the gallery and you’ll see what I mean.

The campaign obviously relied a lot on shock value. To be honest, though, the whole thing just kind of grossed me out. But I’m thinking that was their point.

[via BuzzFeed]

That’s right folks, after conquering social networks and mobile devices, Zynga has wrenched open a portal to the physical realm. Midgard. Middle Earth. Or just plain Earth. The company partnered with Hasbro to release board game versions of their video games that were based on board games in the first place.

Yes, that is a thing that exists: Words with Friends, the board game. In fact it comes in three editions, all of which have 104 tiles and a 15 x 15 board. Clearly a massive difference from Scrabble, which only has 100 tiles. The scoring and bonuses are the same as the one in the online game, except this time it has an offline single player mode.

Then there’s the Draw Something board game, which to its credit is slightly distinguishable from Pictionary. The Draw Something board game has players guessing each other drawings to get coins; first to 15 get coins wins. Note that Hasbro also holds the rights to Pictionary and to Scrabble (at least in U.S. and Canada, Mattel has it trademarked for the rest of the world). So call them weird – which they are! – but they’re not stepping on anyone’s toes here.

You can order these games either from Amazon or from Hasbro’s online shop for $15-$40 (USD) depending on the game. There’s also a FarmVille board game, but it’s a clone of Hungry Hungry Hippos. That’s just lazy. The Words with Friends board games on the other hand? I don’t care what the world’s craziest indie developer can come up with. These are hands-down 2012′s weirdest board games for me.

[via Happy Place]