People are generally paid to endorse a brand or display its logo, but one Irishwoman has done the opposite – she’s actually spent several thousands of dollars converting her home into a Coca Cola shrine. Every single room in Lillian’s Glanmire home is done up in the brand’s iconic red and white colors. The Coke logo is splashed across walls and pillow cases, and vintage Coke bottles and cans add to the decor.

Lillian explained that her obsession with Coca Cola began over 30 years ago, when she was traveling from Germany to Austria. When she crossed the border between the two countries, she realized that she had been drinking from the same can in two different countries. So she decided to start collecting Coke cans from all over the world.

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Long eyelashes are generally considered beautiful, but this Ukrainian man’s extra-long lashes are just plain creepy. 58-year-old Valery Smagliy, from Kiev, believes that he has the world’s bushiest eyelashes, a trait that he attributes to a secret ingredient in his diet.

Valery said that he started eating something, and noticed that it made his eyelashes grow really long and thick. And when he realized that it made women jealous, he decided to keep the ingredient a secret in order to market it later. “Women would stop me in the street and ask me what the secret was, they can see that they are real and not fake,” he said. “And whether it’s man or woman, most people don’t seem to pay much attention when I’m talking to them because they’re always looking at my eyelashes.”

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‘AIBOs’ robotic dogs were the world’s first home-use entertainment robots, sold in Japan by Sony Corp. between 1999 and 2006. Equipped with Artificial Intelligence (AI), these dogs were capable of developing their own personality, making them all the more endearing to their owners. So much so, in fact, that when they break down, the owners bury them with a proper funeral service, just like they would a real pet!

To understand the strange practice of burying a robot, you’ve got to understand exactly how popular Aibos are in Japan. When Sony rolled out the first generation Aibo in 1999, the initial batch of 3000 units were sold out in 20 minutes flat, in spite of the $2,000 price tag. In the following years, over 150,000 units of various Aibos models were sold.

But Sony was in trouble in 2006, so Aibo, the expensive luxury pet, was discontinued. The company did keep their ‘Aibo Clinic’ open until March last year. But then they decided to further cut costs by shutting down the maintenance unit, and owners had to look elsewhere for help with spare parts. Unfortunately, they are hard to come by, which means that when Aibos dogs break down, most of them leave their owners forever.  So the only option for the owners to deal with the loss is by organizing a real funeral.

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Lianne Moseley is not your average makeup artist. While she has a full-time job doing bridal makeup, her real passion lies in painting faces to resemble three-dimensional cartoon characters!

The 25-year-old said that her passion for comics began as a child – she would spend hours sketching Sailor Moon after school and pour over her brother’s graphic novels. She also picked up all her makeup skills growing up. “My mom sold catalogue cosmetics and right from the start, I just got right into it,” she said. “In high school instead of studying I spent a lot of time practicing and doing friend’s makeup.”

Although Moseley has been painting faces for over two years, she recently started doing the comic-style makeup that has made her so popular. “When I first did Archer, I posted it on my Facebook page and my friends liked it but I didn’t have a big following but my brother really liked it and he posted it on Reddit,” she said. “Just last night Ashton Kutcher shared an article on my work on his Facebook page.”

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In true entrepreneurial spirit, Boston-based Kyle Waring is trying to make the best of a difficult situation. Boston has experienced one of the worst winters this year, receiving a record-breaking 8.3 feet of snow. Instead of complaining about it like most people, Kyle is actually attempting to make a profit by selling the excess snow.

The Massachusetts native created a start-up called ‘Ship Snow’, through which he’s delivering chunks of snow to people living in warmer areas of the US where snow rarely falls. “This snow is wicked,” the official website reads. “This is historic snow. Boston Snow. This is your chance to not only own a piece of history, but also help save Boston from #Snowmageddon 2015! Every order counts!” The packaging options include a 16.9 oz snow bottle for $19.99, a 6 lbs. box of packed snow for $89, and a 10-pound package for $119. The website promises to deliver snow to any destination in the U.S. in 20 hours flat. But there’s an exception: “We will not ship snow to any states in the northeast! We’re in the business of expunging snow!”

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At 43 inches, Pedro, an adorable pint-sized Shetland pony, is so small that he can’t even see over his own stable door. Fortunately, a group of schoolchildren recently found a solution to his problem – they designed a special equine periscope just for him. The cardboard contraption, aptly named the ‘Pedroscope’, is fixed to the 60-inch gate and uses carefully placed mirrors in order to give 14-year-old Pedro a view of the world outside his stall.

Owing to his small stature, Pedro was given a home at Ebony Horse Club, a struggling charity in London that gives disadvantaged children a chance to engage with horses. But builders estimated that it would cost thousands of pounds to create a custom-made miniature stable for the cute pony. So the charity turned to local school children for help, and they rose to the occasion quite beautifully. They came up with the design for the cardboard periscope, which was later built by printing firm Print & Cut.

“We got an email from the Ebony Horse Club who were asking for our help, it was so nice, and a little bit funny, that we decided to give it a go,” said Andy Morris, owner of Print & Cut. “The sketch was sent to us and then I turned it into a 3D sketch with some software, and then it was sent to be made. It was all quite easy, and we did it for free to help Pedro. As soon as I saw it, I thought it was funny and knew it would be relatively easy for us to do, and we’d make the pony and children pretty happy.”

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Developed by a Cambridge University affiliated laboratory, Esthechoc is being touted as the world’s first ‘beauty chocolate’. It’s a dark chocolate with 70 percent cocoa containing high levels of two powerful anti-oxidants which help reverse the skin’s natural ageing process.

A 7.5g piece of Esthechoc has as many cocoa flavanols as a 100g piece of regular chocolate, and the same amount of astaxanthin as 300g of wild salmon. These substances are believed to help improve blood circulation and increase blood supply to the skin, making it look healthier and younger. Cambridge-based bio-medical company Lycotec tested the chocolate on volunteers aged between 50 and 60, and recorded visible benefits in just three weeks.

“After 3-4 weeks of daily intake by 50-60 year old volunteers, the Beauty Chocolate was able to not only suppress markers of sub-clinical inflammatory damage in their blood, but also reverse their age-related depression of microcirculation and blood supply to such peripheral tissues as subcutaneous fat and skin,” Lycotec claims in a post on its website. “This consequently resulted in a significant boost of oxygen delivery to these tissues and restoration of their respiration – the essential physiological need in controlling and supporting skin health.”

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A Colombian woman recently changed her name to include all 26 letters in alphabetical order. So her first name is Abcdefg Hijklmn and her last name is Opqrst Uvwxyz. We’re not sure what she’s having people call her, but it’s probably something short, like Abc.

Before she turned to the alphabet, the 36-year-old Bogota resident used to go by ‘Ladyzunga Cyborg’, also a name that she fashioned for herself. In fact, the woman is known to have habitually changed her name several times in the past, but the alphabet name is probably her weirdest one yet.

Miss Abc revealed the reason behind her bizarre new name in a recent interview with a Colombian TV station. “I started looking for a name that nobody had in Colombia, or the world, so I thought ABCDEFG HIJKLMN OPQRST UVWXYZ,” she said. “I’ve changed my name so people wouldn’t know it’s me. It’s not because I was disturbed by it, but because I always wanted to bring an element of surprise.”

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Cicada 3301 is often referred to as the internet’s most elaborate and mysterious puzzle, one that often leaves cryptoanalysts and hackers scratching their heads. A sort of cross between a contest, job interview and highly complex puzzle, Cicada 3301 recurs each year, but no one knows who is behind it or what prize awaits the person who solves it.

The first internet puzzle appeared online on January 5, 2012, and two subsequent rounds were released on the same day of the following years. During the first year, Cicada 3301 started with a picture on 4Chan, along with the message: “Hello. We are looking for highly intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a test. There is a message hidden in this image. Find it, and it will lead you on the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few that will make it all the way through.” The message was simply signed 3301.

The ensuing puzzle provided focused heavily on data security, cryptography and steganography. The clues were scattered in locations all over the world – from the US to France and Poland, within various forms of communication including the internet, telephone, bootable Linux CDs, digital images, and physical paper signs. The clues have also referenced several books, poetry, artwork and music. Clues are always signed by the same cryptic private key to confirm authenticity.

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When 29-year-old Didier Jacquemin set out to get the tattoo of his dreams, little did he know that it would turn out to be a huge disaster. While the image he desired was a beautiful forest scenery complete with birds in flight, the tattoo he ultimately got was the stuff of nightmares!

Didier, a resident of Liege, Belgium, said that he found the original pattern on the internet and immediately fell in love with it. So he printed the image and took it to a local tattoo parlor on January 15, asking for a replica. The artist agreed to do the artistic tattoo, but ultimately delivered something that seems drawn by a 4-year-old.

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In an attempt to make long-term inmates more comfortable with modern technology, a Chinese prison has built a fake mini city within its walls. Located in Beijing, the prison campus features a small supermarket, internet café, and even a fake subway station!

These structures are meant for inmates who have spent the last 20 years locked up and have no idea of the developments that have taken place outside during this time. “The project aims to give a micro view of the new society that now exists,” said guard Liang Chiu. “Prisoners were very often finding it difficult to adjust to life outside and now they are being taught how bank cards work, mobile phones and even computers, which most of them would have had no experience with before they ended up being jailed.”

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A special type of caviar, made from rare albino fish eggs and laced with 22-carat gold, is thought to be the most expensive food on the planet. Priced at a staggering $300,000 per kilo (that’s about $40,000 per teaspoon), ‘White Gold’ caviar will be served to the super rich at some of the best restaurants in the world.

The powdery caviar, also called Strottarga Bianco, is the creation of Austrian fish farmer Walter Gruell, 51, and his son Patrick, 25. According to Patrick, the Strottarga Bianco comes from the white roe of the extremely rare albino sturgeon. To make just one kilo White Gold, the father-son duo use five kilos of caviar, which is then dehydrated. Older sturgeon are used because the eggs are apparently more elegant, smooth, spongier, aromatic, and they simply taste better.

The albino beluga that produces the special caviar originally lived in the Caspian Sea, but it is now almost extinct in its native environment, making it a rare delicacy. Another reason for the prohibitive price of White Gold is the age of albino belugas. While sturgeons usually live over 100 years, few belugas reach that age due to a genetic flaw that shortens their life.

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The traditional bouquet toss at a wedding is mostly a symbolic gesture, but to 37-year-old Utah resident Jamie Jackson, it’s a sport.  She has caught 46 bouquets since 1996, earning herself the nickname ‘The Bouquet Slayer’. Ironically, she’s still single, but that doesn’t seem to bother her.

It all started out when Jamie attended her cousin’s wedding in Layton, Utah, in 1996. “I’m kind of competitive by nature, so when his new bride tossed her bouquet, I went for it,” she said. “Some single girls might shy away from it, but not me. After that wedding, I just knew that I could do it again.”

“I’ve pretty much crushed that ‘next-to-be-married’ myth,” Jamie told People magazine. “I’ve had boyfriends, sure. But I’m liking the single life. Besides, if I were married, I’d have to give up my favorite sport.”

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In a bid to curb violence among football fans, a Brazilian club employed the hooligans’ own mothers as stewards for a match held last Sunday. Sport Club do Recife hired and trained around 30 mothers for the derby against known rivals Nautico. The moms were put to work patrolling the pitch and were dressed in orange vests with the words ‘Segurança Mae’ on the back, Portuguese for ‘Security Mom’.

In recent years, the city of Recife has become one of Brazil’s footballing hotbeds, with hooligans causing problems at almost every match of their home team. “The idea was to make the most fanatical supporters aware and help in some way to bring peace to stadiums,” said Aricio Fortes, vice-president of Ogilvy, the PR company that came up with the idea. “At the end of the day, no one wants to fight in front of a mother, especially his own.”

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Lots of single people complain about how Valentine’s Day and other holidays are somehow designed to make them feel excluded, but this particular group of Japanese men have taken things even further – every year, they take to the streets to protest against the injustice of it all.

They are called ‘Kakumei-teki himote doumei’, which literally translates to ‘Revolutionary Alliance of Men That Women are Not Attracted To’. Popularly known as ‘Kakuhidou’, the group was founded in 2006, by Katsuhiro Furusawa, after being dumped by his girlfriend. He returned home dejected, and began reading the Communist Manifesto. That’s when he came to realize that being unpopular with girls is an issue of class and a form of discrimination. So on Christmas Eve that year, he stood outside JR Akihabara Station and handed out flyers with the slogan ‘Kurisumasu funsai!’ (‘Crush Christmas!’).

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