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Focara of Novoli – A Bonfire Of Epic Proportions

Jan 262012

Every year between the 7th and 18th of January, the people of Novoli, in south-eastern Italy, embark on a festival of fire, known as the Focara. The Focara is held in memory of St. Anthony, who was the Patron Saint and protector of Novoli.

Preparations for the festival starts almost a month in advance. The locals build a massive bonfire structure, consisting of almost 100 000 bundles of vines, send in by local farmers.

The entire structure is set alight on the 16th, and it burns throughout the night.

Photo © DanPer

Photo © masozzo

Photo via Quotidiano di Puglia

Photo via Vini e Sapori

The Wall Of Death at Maut Ka Kuan, India

Events, People, Places No Responses »

Dec 012011

The Wall Of Death, also known as the Well Of Death, must be one of the scariest circus acts to be part of. Motorcyclists and car drivers drive their vehicles inside a cylindrical, near vertical wall, seemingly ignoring the basic laws of gravity.

The first circus act involving these near vertical walls took place in the early 1900′s at the Coney Island amusement park in New York. From there it spread to different countries around the world.

Over the years, this attraction died a slow death, and nowadays it can only be seen in India, where stuntmen ride inside the so called Well Of Death at breakneck speeds, without any safety gear. The well is build out of salvaged wood and does not appear to be safe at all.

Even though this is obviously a very dangerous stunt, I can only imagine the adrenalin rush these guys must be getting!

Zombie Boot Camp – learn how to survive the Zombie Apocalypse

Events, Humour & Funny No Responses »

Nov 222011

You can never be too prepared. Our soldiers, marines and SWAT get trained to survive and cope in almost any situation. Hostages being held in a building? There’s training for that. Rivalling gangs endangering civilian life? Training for that too. Zombies Apocalypse? We now have that covered as well!

Ramtraining provides a one day course with hands on training on how to survive the Zombie Apocalypse. This $90 training event held in Droitwich, Worchestershire (UK), and lead by specialized military instructors will provide you with the necessary equipment and weapons training to fight of those rows of brain eating dead.

Photo from Ramtraining

Instructors demonstrates how to use specially adapted pistols and rifles, grenades and chainsaws. After the initial training session everybody goes for a quick lunch, before heading back to the training venue. The trainees are given some Kevlar body armour and taken to a warehouse infested with groups of killer zombies, where they get the chance to showcase their newly acquired zombie killing skills.

Visit Ramtraining for more information and to book your training. But don’t delay, you never know when you might need to fend off a couple of dead men walking!

Photo from Ramtraining

Boy Creates Real Life Angry Birds Game Using A Pumpkin Cannon

Events, Humour & Funny, People No Responses »

Oct 312011

A young boy from England took his gaming obsession to a whole new level when he created his own real-life “Angry Birds” game. In the game of Angry Birds, the player shoots birds at pigs using a slingshot.

Sam Beards, a 12 year old from England, used to spend countless hours each day playing the infamous computer/cell phone game. After Sam discovered an old pumpkin cannon his father built for a previous Halloween, he asked his father, Dorian Beards, to help him build an Angry Birds game, utilizing the pumpkin cannon.

Together they painted various pumpkins to look like the birds and pigs from Angry Birds. They used old barrels and straw bales to build the playing field.

This real life version of Angry Birds is already attracting tons of visitors. Sam’s siblings, Jessica, Ben and Davy, are in charge of painting the pumpkins, while Sam fires the compressed air cannon which can shoot the pumpkins up to 1500feet.

Sam’s mother, Fiona, reckons that they might resurrect this game on a yearly basis around Halloween.

Photo by CATERS

Photo from www.telegraph.co.uk

Photo by CATERS

Footdoubleball – Extreme football with two balls

Events No Responses »

Oct 172011

Ever felt that football is boring, with the players just constantly kicking a ball from one side to the other, and maybe once every 20 minutes someone will score a goal? The same boredness forced Ukrainian students to start their own version of football, called Footdoubleball.

Footdoubleball has mostly the same rules as normal football, with the added twist that there is always two different coloured balls in play at the same time. At the start of each game, each team’s goalkeeper gets a ball and has to kick off from the goal keeper’s area. Teams have to defend the one ball, and attack with the other, creating a new, highly dynamic game where players have to constantly focus on two balls. If a team manages to steal its opponents ball, it can attack with both balls. A lot of times goalkeepers are forced to defend two balls simultaneously. This results in more scoring, generally in the region of +-15 goals scored per team.

The chaos in Footdoubleball is managed by one referee, one assistant referee, two linesman and a reserve referee. The main referee and assistant referee each gets assigned his own ball to manage, and they use different whistles as to not confuse the players.

The referees say that a game of Footdoubleball is actually easier to manage, seeing that players never waste time trying to fake an injury because there is always a second ball in play somewhere on the field.

Photo from www.banjalukalive.com