The weekly weird

Published May 17, 2014

He’s nuts!

How far can you go in idealising your favourite celebrities? Here is an incredible example of an artist who has taken things to a whole new level by turning peanuts into his favourite well-known faces.

Toy inventor Steve Casino, 48, has had the unusual hobby for two years and has made almost 100 of the statues all carved in peanuts. The figures, measuring no more than four inches, include a huge range of famous faces such as Elton John, Freddie Mercury, Elvis Presley, David Bowie, Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, Pablo Picasso and many more.

According to the artist, these amazing designs can take up to 20 hours each to complete. He has even created a business out of his passion, selling privately commissioned peanut statuettes as gifts and wedding cake toppers. He said: “I love to eat peanuts, I eat them daily and they are always around.”


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No worries dog owners!

Do you feel guilty leaving your four legged friend at home, alone and as it sits by the window waiting for you to come from school and play with him? No worries friends! Here is a solution.

It’s is a game console for dogs only — the CleverPet, an educational toy. This ingenious gadget — which consists of three touch pads and a feeding pod — it entertains, educates and feeds your pet all at the same time!

According to the CleverPet kickstarter page: “CleverPet … uses scientifically proven techniques to offer interactions that adapt to individual dogs’ needs. These interactions grow more challenging as your dog learns, and can take place even when you can’t be home.”


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Honest janitor awarded over $76k

You may have heard that honesty pays! Well in this news it proves to be literally true. In August 2011, former janitor and current fast food worker/student, Chamindu Amarsinghe, found huge sum of money in a sanitary bin in an office bathroom he was cleaning. Bewildered with his find, he didn’t keep it and instead handed it over to the state.

According to him, “I just thought, ‘That’s not my money, so I can’t take it away.’” Three years after the good deed done by Amarsinghe, a ruling by an Australian magistrate has awarded A$81,597 (over US$76,000) to him. While the remainder of the more than A$100,000 (over US$93,500) discovered will go to the state. Amarsinghe said that he was speechless when he received the news. Unsure what he will do with all of the money, Amarsinghe says he would like a portion of it to go to help the disabled and he will donate portion to a Buddhist temple in Melbourne.

Magistrate Michael Smith, who decided where the cash would go, said, “There’s no reason why such honesty should go unrewarded.”


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Proud to be bald!

The Otasuke restaurant in Tokyo is now offering a ‘balding discount’ to customers who are having follicle issues, and a sign outside restaurant says it supports “hard-working fathers losing their hair” due to job stress.

Anyone who enters the restaurant — which features a “Be bald, be proud” sign — can get the discount by ‘showing their baldness’ to a server. The more bald customers that are in a group, the greater the discount the party receives.

“Baldness is a very delicate issue in Japan, but in Hollywood there are a number of stars who completely ignore their hairless state and proudly carry out their work,” owner Yoshiko Toyoda told.

“I was thinking of some way to help support salaried men, but without a theme the idea was lame,” Toyoda said. “Then one day I was walking downtown and kept seeing bald guys. That was it.”

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