In Brielen, a small Belgian village of only 700 inhabitants, it was customary for church goers to meet up for a beer after every Sunday mass. That became a problem after the last bar in the village closed down, but the local priest was more than happy to keep the tradition going by turning the church into a bar after Sunday mass.

Some say alcohol is the devil’s drink, but a Protestant church in Brielen, Belgium, is using it to keep parishioners happy and bring more people closer to God. After the last  bar in town closed, church goers who used to get together every Sunday after mass for a cold glass of beer were forced to either abandon their tradition or travel to neighboring villages. It was a sad end to a very popular custom, but the local priest saw it as an opportunity to do something good for his flock and attract more people to church.

Read More »

For most people discovering the secret to eternal life, or reaching heaven and living forever in a blissful afterlife is the ultimate goal, but for some, concepts like life without end and infinity are apparently terrifying to the point where they cannot lead a normal life. These people suffer from a little-known and even less talked-about condition called “apeirophobia”.

You won’t find many scientific or medical information about apeirophobia online. It doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia entry, and popular medical information websites like Mayo Clinic or WebMD have no mention of it either. But when it comes to anecdotal evidence of its existence, the hundreds of forum threads, social media posts and blog entries by people sharing stories of their struggle with the fear of eternal life or infinite space, and asking for help in coping with anxiety, sleeplessness and depression, are enough to convince anyone that apeirophobia is more than a made-up medical condition.

Unlike other phobias, aperirophobia is a lot harder to explain, which is why most people tend to keep it a secret. It’s one thing to tell that you’re afraid of snakes, or heights, and another that you’re afraid of living forever or of the infinity of the universe. While most people find the fear of death perfectly understandable and even relatable, the fear of infinity and eternity is apparently much harder to grasp.

Read More »

Proposing with a diamond ring is nice, but it’s been done millions of times, so, in a n effort to be more original, a Chinese man decided to pop the big question to his sweetheart with a different kind of rock – a 33-tonne “meteorite”.

Liu Fei, a young man from Urumqi, China, recently made national headlines after proposing to his girlfriend with a large boulder that he claimed was a “33-tonne meteorite”. On March 14, Liu took his beloved to a public square, where he got down on one knee in a heart made of rose petals and asked her to marry him. As soon as she answered “yes”, a couple of the man’s friends unveiled a strange boulder strategically placed in the middle of the square. Apparently, this wasn’t just any rock, but a meteorite that Liu had bought for 1 million yuan ($145,000), money he had originally saved for a new apartment.

Read More »

Many people have one or two really old mobile phones from before the smartphone revolution happened, but 26-year old Stefan Polgari has a collection of over 3,500 of them, made up of 1,231 different models.

Polgari, from the small Slovakian town of Dobsina, has always been kind of a tech-head, and at 15-years-old, he started doing online reviews of new mobile phones. Before long, he had already amassed a small collection of Nokia, Alcatel, Sagem, Ericsson and other brands that were available in Slovakia at the time. But it was 2 years ago that Stefan’s collection really took off, after he bought someone’s collection of 1,000 old phones for a few thousands of euros. He has been hunting for missing models to add to his already impressive collection ever since, and today he is the proud owner of 3,500 “ancient” mobile phones, about half of which still work.

Read More »

A luxury flower company in London is selling “one hundred percent natural” ‘Beauty and the Beast’ roses that it claims last forever if kept in their original glass domes, or up to three years if exposed to air, without requiring sunlight and water.

Like the magical flower that became synonymous with the 1991 Disney animation movie ‘Beauty and the Beast’, the roses sold by London-based Forever Rose seem to defy all logic. As long as they are kept under their protective glass covers, they never whither, regardless of the conditions they are kept in. They don’t require any water or sunlight.

Read More »

A reinterpreted article in Colombia’s Labor Code was recently approved by the country’s Constitutional Court, thus allowing people to show up for work drunk or under the influence of narcotics as long as their productivity is not affected.

As in most countries around the world, going to work under the influence of alcohol or narcotics was prohibited in Colombia, but the modified article now protects workers from contract termination or disciplinary action, as long as these substances don’t affect their performance on the job. The recent ruling on the Constitutional Court puts alcohol consumption and narcotic addiction at the same level as occupational illness and argues that “these substances don’t always hinder how one performs at work”.

It all started last year, when two students at the University of Uniciencia in Bucaramanga challenged the country’s labor law at the Constitutional Court, arguing that it was in violation of two articles of the constitution: one which states that “all people are equal before the law and asserts that the state has an obligation to provide special protections for people who, owing to their economic circumstances or physical or mental condition, find themselves in a manifestly weak position,” and another that guarantees “equality of opportunity for all workers”.

Read More »

Want to brag about your active social life on Facebook, when you really have no friends? Trying to make your ex jealous by posing with an attractive new partner, but can’t find a date? No need to worry, this Japanese company will happily send you some fake friends or lovers for a fun photo shoot that will make your online friends green with envy. You’ll have to pay for it, though.

Keeping up appearances on social media is apparently very important to a lot of people, and Japanese company Family Romance is committed to helping its clients do just that. Whether they are looking to show co-workers that they are much more fun to be around than they appear to be at the office, or trying to impress a special someone with their active social life, the company’s Real Appeal service aims to help them succeed, by providing some fake friends for impressive photo shoots. Clients can then post these pics on their Facebook or Instagram pages to show everyone how fun their life is, without anyone knowing it’s all a paid-for illusion.

Read More »

On January 22, 1977, 24-year-old P.K. Mahanandia set out on a four-month bicycle ride from Delhi, India, to Boras, Sweden, to be with the woman he knew was his soulmate. Their amazing love story became the subject of a best-selling book by Swedish author Per J. Andersson.

Mahanandia met Charlotte Von Schedvin in 1975, completely by chance. He was working as a sketch artist in Connaught Place, a shopping and business hub in Delhi, and Ms. Von Schedvin, from Sweden, was visiting India as a tourist. One day, as she was walking around the city, she noticed a curly young man with a sign that read “a portrait in 10 minutes for 10 rupees” and decided to test the claim. She sat down for a portrait, but something made the man nervous, as his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Disappointed with the result of his drawing but intrigued by the man, she decided to return the next day for a new one, but the result was no better.

The Swedish tourist would later learn that P.K. Mahanandia had very good reason for being nervous. The moment he had laid eyes on her, the artist remembered a prophecy his mother had made when he was only a boy. Mahanandia was a Dalit, the lowest caste in Indian society, and faced discrimination from upper-caste students growing up, so whenever he was said, his mother would tell him that he would someday marry a woman “whose zodiac sign would be Taurus, she would come from a far away land, she would be musical and would own a jungle”. As soon as he saw her, he knew she was the one.

Read More »

A Buddhist nun has melted the hearts of millions of Chinese after it was revealed that she has adopted and raised over 30 girls abandoned at the gate of her temple over the last 37 years.

Master nun Changmiao, who joined the Buddhist Hailian Temple, in Ningdu, when she was 15 years old, adopted her first daughter in 1980, when she found her abandoned on the side of the road outside her temple. The infant had ants crawling all over her body, and while curious onlookers gathered to see her, none of them were willing to do anything to help. So Changmiao decided to take her in and raise the girl as her own. Little did she know that this was only the first of many daughters, all of them rescued.

Read More »

Game2:Winter is an upcoming reality TV show where 30 participants will compete against themselves and the dangers of the Siberian wilderness – including brown bears and extreme temperatures – for a prize of $1.7 million. But the most shocking thing about this show is that, just like in the Hunger Games, “everything is allowed, fighting, alcohol, murder, rape, smoking, anything.”

News about this seemingly brutal reality show first broke out about a month ago, but reports were coming mostly from obscure news outlets and the whole idea seemed so extreme that I was pretty sure it was nothing more than a prank. Then I read that contestants had to survive until April 1st, 2018 – April Fools’ Day – and I was convinced it was fake. But the news never really went away, and now the Siberian Times newspaper announced that this Russian real-life version of the Hunger Games is actually happening, and it promises to be just as ruthless.

Ever since watching the hit TV series ‘Lost’, 35-year-old Yevgeny Pyatkovsky, a millionaire from Novosibirsk, Russia, had been wanting to create a reality show about surviving in the Siberian taiga, with little, to no help from the outside world. Now, thanks to technological advancements in surveillance equipment and online streaming, he is ready to make his idea a reality.

Read More »

A few years ago, most of the 2,000 or so villagers in Donggaozhuang, northern China, were struggling to put food on the table by growing wheat and corn. Now, dozens of them are millionaires and more on well on their way of making six-figure fortunes after switching to selling yarn online.

Donggaozhuang’s success story started with the idea of one villager, who set up an e-shop on Taobao, China’s largest online commerce platform, to sell yarn. Things went way better than he had anticipated, and in just three months, he made a profit of $2,900, a small fortune, considering that the highest minimum wage in China is currently around $330 per month. Word of his booming business spread like wildfire around Donggaozhuang, and the village elders soon approached the man, asking him to teach other members of the community how to set up their own online businesses.

Since yarn had worked so well for Donggaozhuang’s first online entrepreneur, everyone followed in his footsteps and they all started making money. Realizing the potential of their businesses, many sold their lands and put their farming days behind them to focus solely on their e-shops. They started buying wool, turning it into yarn and selling that on Taobao.

Read More »

Two Muslim women in India have recently filed complaints against their husbands – who happen to be brothers – for divorcing them via WhatsApp.

The “triple talaq” is a controversial clause in Sharia Law that allows husbands to instantly divorce their wives by uttering the word “talaq” three times. This allows men to throw their wives out of the house for literally any reason, without fearing any legal repercussions. The practice is frowned upon by the vast majority of Muslims and banned in most of the Islamic world, but not in India. Here, triple talaq is still frequently used, keeping women in a perpetual state of fear that their husbands could “give them talaq” if they say or do anything that displeases them.

Ironically, more an more Indian Muslims are using modern technology to make the archaic triple talaq divorce even more effective. Data shows that a growing number of men are now sending the words to their wives via email or messaging apps, which is perfectly legit. ‘How can that be legal?’ you ask, well, according to the law, the woman doesn’t even have to be present when the words are spoken, she need not even be aware. If the guy says them, it’s done!

Read More »

Tong Junhai, a 44-year-old man from China, recently achieved international fame, after a video showing him inflating a tyre tube using only one of his nostrils has gone viral online.

On February 25, Tong Junhai stunned a crowd at Huancheng Park, in the city of Xi’an, northwestern China, with a very unusual stunt. Dressed as a Kung Fu master, the man started boasting that he could inflate a medium-size tyre tube using only his nose. And to show people just how difficult the task is for a regular person, he invited a naysayer to try it himself, using his mouth. The man tried blowing into the rubber house, but to no avail.

When it was time for Junhai to show off his bizarre skill, he got into a half-squat position, put the hose to one of his nostrils, blocked the other with his thumb, and started pumping air into the tube. You can see the blood veins on his forehead popping out as he struggles to push the air out of his lungs and into the tyre tube, but eventually, he pulls it off.

Read More »

Finding a place to park your car in Park Slope, Brooklyn on a daily basis is apparently an almost impossible task, which is why some people are willing to pay a whopping $300,000 for a simple parking space.

$300,000 is enough to buy an apartment in some parts of New York, but on Union Street, in Park Slope it will only buy you a parking space in a garage condominium. The last spot at 845 Union Street sold for $280,000, but the most recent one available is already $20,000 more expensive, and experts predict that prices will keep going up.

Howard Pronsky, the owner of the 300-space parking garage at 845 Union Street, said that three decades ago he bought the place for $29,000 per space, and while the price has steadily gone up since then, it only started growing exponentially when other garage owners in the area sold their properties to residential developers. Park Slope is running out of parking spaces, and people are willing to spend a fortune for peace of mind.

Read More »

Every weekend for the past 14 years, Li Yinglai, an elderly gentleman from Kunming, China, has been entertaining visitors at the city’s Green Lake Park by dressing up in traditional women’s clothes, dancing and posing with tourists. But while he loves the attention, he claims that he’s not your usual busker, he’s just doing this to make his dear mother happy.

74-year Li Yinglai says that his 96-year-old mother always wanted a daughter, but only had two sons. When he was 60, he decided to do his best to make his mother’s wish come true by putting on colorful women’s clothes and accessories and going out into the streets to show off his girly dance moves. He apparently made quite an impression, as he’s been doing it every weekend since.

Read More »