I always thought Popeye was adorable, but I find this Brazilian real-life version to be kind of grotesque. Arlindo de Souza, a.k.a. Arlindo Anomalia, has bulked up his arms by following a dangerous trend among body builders in Brazil – injecting themselves with a potentially lethal combination of oil and alcohol. He has 29-inch biceps, which are currently the biggest in the country. The most odd thing about his muscles is that they are bulged even when he isn’t flexing them, like great, big lumps of flesh hanging off his arms and shoulders.

Arlindo says that he’s stopped using the injections, now that a friend’s death made him realize how dangerous they are. “My friend Paulinho, he passed away from doing these things,” he said. “I felt his death a lot. He took it, I took it, but he went beyond the limit. I advise no-one to take this oil. I’ve stopped taking it, and other things as well, but there is always that will to start again. But I’m managing to control myself, to this day.”

Older pictures reveal that 43-year-old Arlindo was once a handsome man with his ‘natural’ muscles. But the Arnold Schwarzenegger fan became so obsessed with body building that he took steroids, hormones and horse vitamins to bulk up. And then, two years ago, a gym buddy offered him a ‘site enhancement oil’ to help things along. “The guy gave it to me,” said Arlindo. “He said, ‘Take this, it will make you grow in days.’ I loaded the syringe, put it in my arm, injected it and it swelled me up right there and then.”

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It’s the perfect irony: an upstate New York church is giving new meaning to the biblical passage ‘My peace I give unto you’, by giving away a piece. The Grace Baptist Church in Troy, a few hours north of Manhattan, will be gifting an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle later this month during an event honoring hunters and gun owners. ‘Win a Free AR-15’ is the actual slogan being displayed on the church website, followed by the line from the New Testament.

A raffle will be conducted on the church premises on March 23, and the winning ticket will receive the AR-15 modified for sale in New York State. The special service on that day will be dedicated to ‘hunters and gun owners who have been so viciously attacked by the antichristian socialist media and antichristian socialist politicians the last few years’. New York Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin is scheduled to speak at the service. He confirmed to the media that the event did comply with the state’s gun laws. He even said that many New York pastors upstate carry guns, but they are law-abiding, church-going citizens.

The church pastor, John Koletas, defended the event in a letter to his congregation: “Our country was built with the King James Bible and the gun,” he wrote. “Does the Bible need to defend my right to keep and bear arms?” Pastor Michael Collins of Brunswick Baptist Church in Troy also defended the event. “It is not something that we would do, but we have plenty of gun owners in the church, and it is our constitutional right to do so,” he said. “It is not uncommon for churches to host outdoorsman events and give away guns.”

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Sometimes, all you need is a message from an angel to turn your life around. And it doesn’t really matter if that angel actually happens to be a human being; it’s the timing that really counts. Perhaps no one realizes this fact better than a group of 15 to 22-year-olds in Mexico, who are risking their lives by going out into the streets as angels, in an attempt to change their society. The ‘Messenger Angels’, as they call themselves, are young evangelical Christians who take a message of peace to public places in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s most violent city.

The messenger angels are all dressed the same – hair combed back, white make up, white robes and white wings. They stand at busy intersections and places where crimes usually take place, holding up signs that display messages of peace – like ‘Looking for God’s Forgiveness’. “We get people’s attention because instead of doing bad things, like other young people, we are doing this because we want Juarez to change,” said Cynthia Gutierrez, one of the angels. The city has a population of 1.3 million and over 9,000 murders in the past three and a half years. One of the boy angels said: “In society, they’ve separated us a lot. As well as in our families. That’s why we try to share a message to drug dealers, hitmen, raiders.”

“Well, some people think we are right, others think we are wrong. I think this is right, to create more consciousness in every person that’s going down the wrong path,” added another angel. He was holding up a sign that read: ‘Chapo Guzman, Time is Short, Repent’. Some of the other signs say: ‘Police-killer: Stop it! From: Jesus Christ’, ‘Corrupt Police Officer: Seek God’ and ‘Authorities: nothing can be done without Christ’. I suppose messages from God don’t really get more direct than this.

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Australian-born Anna and Lucy DeCinque might just be the most ‘identical’ identical twins in the world. The sisters, who were born just one minute apart, share everything – a Facebook account, a job, a house, a car, and even a boyfriend. They have always been inseparable, going to the same nursery, primary and secondary schools. They also enrolled in the same beauty course in college. And as if being naturally identical wasn’t enough, they’ve actually spent over $200,000 on plastic surgery just to look even more like each other.

Anna and Lucy live with their mother in Perth, Western Australia. The two sisters look so similar that even their dad had trouble telling them apart, even though Lucy has a small mole on her cheek and Anna has a scar on her forehead. Our mum has always been able to tell us apart,” said Lucy. “But, our dad, not so much. He would say, ‘Which one are you?’” Their ex-boyfriends struggled to identify them as well, a fact that that the sisters had a lot of fun with. “We’ve had fun, especially when we were younger. We would swap boyfriends if we were bored,” said Lucy.

“Like, even on the telephone, if I didn’t want to talk to my boyfriend, Anna would take the phone and pretend to be me. We would play games like that, and the other person never realized. We’ve settled down a bit now.”

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It’s a little sad to see that in this day and age, people are still trying to change their skin color. The transformation of Nigerian and Cameroonian pop star Dencia is particularly disturbing. If the photographs are to be believed, she has gone from a healthy brown to a sickly pale white by using her own brand of skin whitening cream called Whitenicious. The controversial cosmetic product has brought her much criticism because of what it stands for, but Dencia has just one reply to silence her critics: “I don’t even care because they are bringing me business.”

Whitenicious is said to remove dark spots and effectively lighten skin in just seven days. The cream has become quite popular in West Africa, where some women are believed to be obsessed with the color of their skin. And according to Dencia, she doesn’t think she’s encouraging people to change, she’s just giving the girls what they want. “These girls are not trying to bleach their skin. They’re just trying to get rid of these little things that is making them feel uncomfortable, you know?” she said, referring to dark spots.

Dencia also tried to justify herself by explaining that many of her customers were African-American, not African. “Because the white man doesn’t even like light Africans. They like Black Africans,” she said. “Look at all the Africans that are successful in the world. They are as black as Alek Wek. And if I was as Black as Alek Wek, I would never use anything on my skin.” I’m not sure what she’s saying makes much sense.

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Now this is what you call a modern-day fairy tale. The internet can do wonderful things for you, if you can wield the magic of  making content go viral. Like university graduate Joseph Garrett, who has earned a small fortune by simply filming himself playing video games and uploading the clips on YouTube. His clips have become an internet sensation and Joseph is well on his way to becoming a millionaire.

Joseph’s YouTube channel ‘Stampylonghead’ has received more hits than One Direction and Justin Bieber. It is one of the top 10 most viewed channels in the world, raking in a whopping 10,000 subscribers and 170 million views a month. “I’m essentially just playing and commentating while I play,” he said. “It ended up snowballing and that’s how I got to where I am now.” Joseph has a degree in TV and video production, and used to work as a barman. He quit his job last year to play games like Minecraft and share tips with fellow players, full time. “I decided to leave when I was earning the same amount as I was there.”

Joseph currently lives with his parents near Portsmouth, Hampshire, in the UK. “My parents were happy to let me stay rent free so I could develop this into a full-time living,” he said. “My family and friends think it’s great,” said Joseph. “They don’t fully understand what I do but my parents and sister are over the moon for me.” I must say, his parents sound incredibly supportive. At 23 if I’d have told my parents I was quitting my job to play games all day, they certainly would not have taken it very well. Of course, I don’t think I could have made any money out of gaming back then. At least, not the kind of money that Joseph’s making.

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Performance artists Ward Shelley and Alex Schweder are currently roommates – not in an apartment, but in a large hamster wheel. Alex, who is afraid of heights, lives on the inside of the wheel, at the bottom. Ward, who has no such reservations, stays put at the very top, on the outside (180 degrees from Alex). They came into this unique living arrangement last Friday and plan to continue until March 9th.

Ward and Alex are actually in the middle of an art project that they like to call ‘In Orbit’. They are on display at The Boiler, a performance space at a New York’s Pierogi gallery. It took them four weeks to construct the 30-foot tall, 60-foot in circumference hamster wheel themselves, with a little help from engineer friends. The gigantic structure is suspended from the ceiling and has furniture fastened to it on the inside and the outside. Ward and Alex each have a bed, a desk, a kitchen-bathroom combo, a chair, lamps and a dresser to use.

Every piece of furniture is aligned to its counterpart, so both inhabitants of the wheel have to use the bathroom at the same time, work at the same time and go to sleep at the same time. To change the furniture setting, they simply walk on the wheel in opposite directions, moving it until the next station arrives. For safety reasons, they walk very, very slowly.

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In another bizarre case of super parenting, some toddlers are being put through classes at the Baby DJ School in Brooklyn. The program was designed by composer and performance artist Natalie Weiss. She started off last September with six students aged between 9 and 20 months.

31-year-old Weiss said she got the idea when she took her DJ equipment to a friend’s house. “I was babysitting a little boy named Rider. He’s one-and-a-half. And I had my laptop and my midi trigger with me because I had a gig after. I asked him, ‘Do you want to see how it works?’ And he loved it! Seeing him have that enthusiasm and innocence and joy talking about pieces of electrical equipment, that’s when I said like, it’s time to educate kids about this stuff.”

So Weiss began to write songs that teach kids about disc jockeying and electronic music. One of the songs goes: ‘The midi-trigger’s connected to the laptop, the laptop’s connected to the PA’ set to the tune of ‘Dem Bones’ – a baby song about dancing skeletons. There’s one like a little baby rap: “I always, always pre cue, before I play in front of you!”

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Greg Novak, a farmer from Gilman, Minnesota, spent hundreds of hours building a gigantic snowman. He calls the towering 50-foot structure ‘Granddaddy’. While some neighbors have seriously questioned Greg’s sanity, he hopes that the snowman will shake onlookers out of their winter blues. “If you can’t beat the winter, embrace it,” is his motto.

Novak came up with the idea for Granddaddy in late January, when he had to move great mounds of snow to prevent the roofs of his greenhouses from collapsing. “As long as you’re moving it, might as well do something practical with it,” he thought. So he set to work with all his farming equipment. Novak began by piling the snow on to skid loaders. He then used a silage blower to direct the snow into stacked cylinders – Granddaddy’s body and head. The base cylinder is 45 foot wide, while the others are smaller but still impressive in size.

“Granddaddy’s arms are a 61-foot grain elevator. An augur they used to be. The eyes are plywood – 4 foot wide by 6 foot high. The nose is a 55-gallon barrel, the smile is like, 10 foot wide. The scarf is about 80 foot long, the broom is about 35 foot high, the buttons are garbage can covers,” Novak describes his creation.  Snow storms, frigid temperatures and other weather-related setbacks often hampered Novak’s progress. “The weather wasn’t cooperating. The higher I got, it seemed like the more weather-related issues I got. Like too warm, you couldn’t blow the snow. Too cold or too windy, you couldn’t blow the snow because it wouldn’t stay up there. But we got it up.”

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In one of the most sensational courtroom dramas in recent American history, a teenage cheerleader tried to sue her parents for refusing to pay her college tuition. Unfortunately for her, a New Jersey family court judge ruled on Tuesday that the parents are not obligated to do anything of the sort. In fact, all of 18-year-old Rachel Canning’s requests were denied – weekly allowance, high school and college tuition, living expenses and her attorney’s fee.

It isn’t for lack of money – Rachel’s parents, Sean and Elizabeth, have put aside a college fund for her. But they’ve taken the extreme step of withholding those funds because of her bad behavior. “We’re heartbroken, but what do you do when a child says, ‘I don’t want your rules but I want everything under the sun and you to pay for it?’” said Sean Canning.

According to the parents, Rachel has always been a troublesome child. She routinely gets into trouble and refuses to follow simple rules like doing chores and keeping a curfew. She also bullies her sister and has been suspended from school twice so far. But when she refused to stop seeing her boyfriend, who they think is a bad influence on her, it was the last straw. They gave her only two options – either dump him or get out. Rachel chose the latter.

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14 years ago, Steve Fugate took it upon himself to walk across America, as therapy after losing his son. Since then, he has achieved his goal 6 times, and is currently on his seventh attempt. Through his extraordinary journey, he hopes to spread just one simple message – ‘Love Life’. He started his latest walk on March 23, last year and is still going strong. He has already passed through 21 states and has 27 more to go. “My feet swell, my knees hurt, my legs hurt. I do not like walking. But I do it specifically for a reason,” he said. It’s estimated 67-year-old Steve has walked over 34,000 kilometers since he first set out on his legendary treks.

Fugate, a native of Florida, had never really been a fan of walking, but he found it to be a great way to spread love after he lost his children. 1999 was a particularly tough year for him. He was going through a failed marriage and his business had taken a hit. To make matters worse, his son Stevie, 26, was convicted of drunk driving. It was all getting a bit too much to handle, so Fugate decided to go trekking on the 2,167 mile Appalachian Trail, leaving his son in charge of the business.

Unfortunately, young Stevie was also dealing with several serious issues at the time and committed suicide. Fugate received the tragic news as he was trekking through Pennsylvania. “When he put a gun to his mouth and pulled the trigger, he ended my life too,” said the heartbroken father. After a brief period of grieving, he made up his mind to finish the trek. This turned out to be a life-altering decision. “When I was out there, something happened to me. I couldn’t imagine any other human being going through what I did. It’ll change your whole life.”

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For the likes of Mohammed Khurshid Hussain, from Hyderabad, India, having just one Guinness World Record isn’t good enough. The 23-year-old already held the title of fastest typist of the English alphabet on a keyboard – just 3.43 seconds –  but that was set using his fingers. Now he’s gone and done it with his nose.

Mr. Hussain set out to break the world record for nose-typing last Thursday. His mission: to type the sentence ‘Guinness World Records have challenged me to type this sentence using my nose in the fastest time’. The previous record holder was another Indian, Neeta, who finished the task way back in 2008, in 1 minute and 33 seconds.

That seems like a tough record to beat, but Mr. Hussain did it with a lot of time to spare. He typed the sentence in just 48.62 seconds, way ahead of Neeta. “If you want to set a record, every millisecond counts,” he said. “This time I typed with one eye closed, as it is difficult otherwise to locate the keys. This is my second attempt to break the record. Earlier last month, I typed the sentence with my nose in 53.44 seconds, for which I am yet to receive the certificate.”

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Being paralyzed from the neck down doesn’t stop 53-year-old Victor Morris from doing what he loves – firing his rifle. He had a special rig designed that allows him to fire using one of the only parts of his body that still move on command – his tongue! A native of Aberaeron, in West Wales, the quadriplegic had a rugby accident 24 years ago that left him in his current state. In spite of this, he hasn’t lost his spirit. In fact, he has even managed to beat other able-bodied shooters in international competitions.

“I was desperate to shoot again but never thought I would. After the accident, the thought (that) I’d never be able to use the rifle again was always in the back of my mind,” he said. “It was a difficult thing to come to terms with. I’m so happy to be back doing something I love.” Victor’s love for shooting began when he was only 12 years old. He was competing by the age of 15, and represented Wales for 10 years in clay pigeon shooting contests. He was 29 when the tragic event occurred – while playing rugby for Lampeter against Llandarcy.

“I went into the scrum and the next thing I knew I heard a horrible sound – three cracks – then I blanked out for a second,” recalled Victor. “I came around and I remember being stretchered off. That was it. I was paralyzed from the neck down. It wasn’t painful, I just felt numb. I couldn’t feel a thing.”

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In a bid to keep up with the hipster beard trend, New York men are opting for a bizarre form of plastic surgery – facial hair transplants. I didn’t even know this was possible, but apparently, the procedure results in a real-looking beard. You can crop it, shave it, or let it grow out, just like you would a natural beard.

Doctors in New York City who specialize in the surgery say that the number of male patients is growing by the day. These men are willing to shell out up to $7,000 for a full, pumped up beard. Dr. Jeffery Epstein, who has performed the procedure for over a decade, said that earlier he would see just a handful of patients a year, but now he’s doing three to four per week. “Whether you’re talking about the Brooklyn hipster or the advertising executive, the look is definitely to have a bit of facial hair.”

It’s not just beardless hipsters doing the rounds at plastic surgery clinics, according to Dr. Yael Halaas. Most of her patients are young, hip and fashionable, but she also gets men who have struggled to grow beards all their lives. Some of them are undergoing a gender transformation, a few have facial scarring, and others are Hasidic Jews who want denser side locks. “I get a lot of detail oriented people – artists, architects,” said the doctor. She also notes that the most beard-centric areas in the city are Williamsburg, Bushwick and Park Slope.

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I’ve heard of laughter therapy for relieving stress, but I didn’t know the reverse existed as well. In Japan, people gather in groups to let the boo-hoos out. These ‘crying seminars’ are conducted by Takashi Saga, who calls himself a ‘tears sommelier’. “Selecting wines that matches food is similar to my job,” he said. “I introduce books, movies and videos that touch the people’s emotion.”

“Crying doesn’t have a good image in Japan,” Saga added. “People believe you should not cry in front of people, that it’s weak.” So twice a month, Saga organizes a ‘ruikatsu’ – a crying for joy seminar. When people get emotional and cry, he believes that life’s burdens, tensions and frustrations melt away. “Laughing can only release stress at that moment. But studies show the stress release from crying lasts for a week. Crying is better for your physical and mental health.”

It turns out that Saga might actually be right. Some scientific studies have proven that when we cry for emotional reasons, our tears contain the same kind of hormones released by the body during physical stress. Most people start his sessions with a poker face and a ‘try and make me’ kind of attitude. But the activities that Saga plans for his class always ensure that no one leaves dry-eyed.

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