Designer brand Balenciaga recently unveiled a new limited-edition line of footwear so damaged and dirty that most people wouldn’t be caught wearing it in public.

There’s such a thing as “distressed clothing” and it can actually look pretty nice, but sometimes designers go too far and we end up with some really weird products. Now, when it comes to pushing the envelope, Balenciaga is right up there with some of the most daring fashion brands, but being cutting edge comes with a high risk of looking ridiculous. Remember that Balenciaga skirt designed to look like a car mat? Not the fashion house’s best garment, but even that pales in comparison with its line of $1,450 destroyed sweaters. But if you happen to have bought one such extremely distressed sweater, at least you now have some banged-up sneakers to pair them with.

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Japanese beverage maker Kirin Holdings teamed up with researchers at Meiji University in Tokyo to create smart chopsticks that reportedly make food taste more savory.

Meiji University professor Homei Miyashita has been researching electrical stimulation as a way to alter the way people experience food and flavor for years. In 2016, along with fellow researcher Hiromi Nakamura, he made international news headlines for developing a revolutionary electric fork that could make any food taste saltier than it actually was. And last year, he got even more attention for his Taste the TV (TTTV) project, a lickable TV screen that could imitate the taste of various foods. Now, he’s once again the talk of the interwebs thanks to his latest invention, a pair of smart chopsticks that can allegedly make food more savory.

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Julio, a 30-year-old Swiss educator has an impressive collection of four, five, six and even seven-leafed clovers, which just might make him the world’s luckiest man.

Clovers with more than three leaves are considered lucky charms in many cultures, and if a person’s luck would be measured in the sheer number of such clovers in their possession, a Swiss collector of rare clovers would almost undoubtedly be the world’s luckiest man. 30-year-old Julio has been collecting lucky clovers since he was only nine, and has since amassed an enviable collection of 3,467 four, five, six and even seven-leafed clovers laminated to protect them from the elements.

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Playboy model and Instagram star Carolina Lekker allegedly charges women up to $2,000 to approach their boyfriends on social media and test how faithful they really are.

Carolina, who recently appeared on the cover of Playboy Africa, recently revealed that she supplements her income by putting her looks and flirting abilities in the service of women wanting to test their partners’ loyalty. For a fee that can reach up to $2,000 per client, she will approach unsuspecting men on Instagram and other social media platforms and get them to meet with her. If they end up falling into her honey trap, Lekker will keep the money and expose them to their partner, and if they refuse and prove their faithfulness, she will return the fee to the client.

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A Chinese art student recently conducted an intriguing experiment in which she spent three weeks living the good life in Beijing without spending a dime, by pretending to be a well-off socialite.

Zou Yaqi, a 23-year-old art student at the University of Beijing has been getting a lot of attention for her unique graduation project which saw her disguising herself as a socialite in order to enjoy special treatment and help her survive for three weeks without spending any money. For most of May of this year, the young student slept on plush sofas in the lobbies of five-star hotels in the Chinese capital, sipping wine at various events and stuffing her face at free buffets. And she did it all just by pretending to be a rich socialite.

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A German man who survived a terrible car crash six years ago was left unable to transfer short-term memories to his long-term memory, which means he forgets everything when he goes to sleep unless he writes them down.

Daniel Schmidt is lucky to be alive. In 2015, he was involved in a motorway accident that left him with severe physical and brain injuries. He underwent intensive phisyo and speech therapy to regain his ability to speak, but the one thing he couldn’t get back was his memory. After sustaining level three traumatic brain injuries, Schmidt was rendered unable to transfer short-term memories into long-term, which means that whenever he goes to sleep at night, he forgets everything that happened that day, the people he met, the places he visited, the things he did, everything.

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Les Grands Buffet à Narbonne is a unique all-you-can-eat buffet in Narbonne, France, where you can stuff your face with the most decadent dishes of French cuisine, in a luxurious environment, and without breaking the bank.

While the above paragraph may sound like the beginning of a sponsored post, that is most certainly not the case. I only discovered Les Grands Buffet yesterday, while on my daily session of internet surfing for interesting topics to write about, when some photos of what looked like a lobster fountain caught my eye. It turned out to be just one of the many eye-catching arrangements at the Les Grands Buffet in Narbonne, France, a unique all-you-can-eat-buffet that only serves the best dishes of French cuisine, from lobsters to foie gras and cassoulet. It’s the kind of place that, as a gourmand, you simply have to visit at least once in your life.

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Daisuke Hori, a 36-year-old man from Japan, has spent the last few years training his mind and body to function on as little sleep as possible. He claims to get just 30 minutes of sleep a day and not get tired at all.

Do you ever feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day, and that you’d rather shun sleep so you can do the things you like? Well, that’s probably most people, but few of us actually go through with that idea. Daisuke Hori is one such man. He claims to have lowered his daily sleep time from about 8 hours a day to just 30 minutes, without suffering any of the severe side-effects associated with sleep deprivation. He is the chairman of the “Japan Short-sleeper Association” and now teaches others how to lower their daily sleeping time so they can enjoy life more.

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Funky Matas, a social media entertainer based in Florida, holds the world record for most signatures tattooed on the back, including those of celebrities like Will Smith or Gerard Butler.

Funky, real name Juan Matas, used to work as a tattoo artist himself and came up with the project that would end up defining his career as an online entertainer while thinking of a unique project with his body as the canvas. In the end, he narrowed the quest down to two options – turning his back into a MySpace-like form for his family and friends to fill out, or having his friends sign his back with a tattoo machine. The latter was more down his alley, considering his profession, only it didn’t stop with his friends. His family signed his back as well, then famous tattoo artists, and before he knew it, Funky Matas was chasing celebrities and asking them to sign his back so he could then permanently ink it onto his body. His back now has over 225 tattooed signatures, a world record.

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South Korean media recently reported the bizarre and sad story of an elderly couple who spent the last decade of their lives hoarding tons of trash for their 40-something son who refused to leave the house and find a job.

SBS, a South Korean national television network presented the shocking story of Choi, a 75-year-old man from Gwangju, who over the last decade turned his two-storey house into a dump full of garbage gathered from the city streets and from trash cans. Convinced that one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure, the pensioner literally filled up his entire house with junk, before doing the same with the balconies and even the yard. As you can see from the photos below, the house was quite literally buried in trash.

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If you feel like you’ve run out of body parts to accessorize, you may want to check out “Mundstück” a line of chin jewelry designed by German company MYL Berlin.

As you can see in the photos, Mundstück (Mouthpiece) is a piece of metal designed to be worn on the chin. Only it doesn’t require any piercing, instead it attaches to the inside of the wearer’s lower lip via two blunt hooks. It’s apparently quite comfortable to wear, doesn’t impede the wearer’s speech at all, and can even be worn when eating. And best of all, it helps you stand out, which is why anyone would wear something like this in the first place, isn’t it?

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A website that maps Japan’s noisiest and most annoying neighborhoods to help people avoid public nuisances when looking for a place to live has sparked controversy, with many accusing it of criticizing normal behavior, like children crying or speaking loudly.

While Japan is still sometimes portrayed as this serene, and calm land, in reality it is one of the nosiest countries on the planet. With over 90% of its 126 million-strong population living in urban areas, noise pollution is a part of daily life, and it’s no wonder that many are valuing peace and quiet more than ever. Japan has even coined a special term that describes the kind of person who talks loudly and generally acts as a public nuisance, completely disregarding the people around them. They are called “dorozoku” or “street tribe”, and they are the focus of a controversial online platform that maps Japanese neighborhoods likely to be plagued by them.

DQN Today is the brainchild of a 40-something freelance web developer from Yokohama, who has allegedly been working from home for the last 12 years. Back in 2016, after finding himself unable to work on some days due to the constant ruckus made by noisy children hanging around his home, the man, who preferred to remain anonymous, decided to create an online crowdsourcing website where people could map and share their experience with dorozoku.

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Gesine Marwedel is a talented body-painting artist who has the power to transform the naked bodies of her models into mind-bending optical illusions.

From swans, to owls, to dolphins, there doesn’t seem to be anything that German artist Gesine Marwedel can’t morph her models into, using body paint. But while most of her works are illusory in nature, obscuring parts of the human body, while transforming others into something new entirely, some are simply abstract works of art, with a deeper meaning.

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A 34-year-old Hong Kong man has been getting a lot of attention because of his unusual amorous relationship with a silicone doll, who he says he prefers to a real woman, for various reasons.

Xie Tianrong has been in a relationship with his girlfriend, Mochi, for almost two years, and despite the fact that she is a realistic silicone doll, and not a real person, Xie couldn’t be happier. He regularly posts photos of himself and Mochi in all kinds of instances on social media, and basks in the attention he receives from the media, even if the coverage isn’t all positive. The 34-year-old claims that despite what people may think of him, this is the happiest he has ever been in a relationship. His human ex-girlfriends all asked for things and preferred to look at their smartphones then pay attention to him. Mochi, on the other hand, never asks for anything and gives him all her attention.

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Touching your girlfriend isn’t generally considered a punishable offence, but things change considerably when your date for the day is a rental.

A Taiwanese university student learned that the hard way, after getting a bit too close to a girlfriends he had rented by the hour, and getting sentenced to jail for it. In July of 2019, the boy, identified only as ‘Chen’, paid 7,200 Taiwanese dollars ($260) to rent a girlfriend for three hours, from a company called “Love Acting-Extra”. The service had very specific rules detailing what the client was allowed to to with his rented girlfriend, but also what was forbidden. Unfortunately for Chen, he got carried away, and paid a steep price for it…

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