29-year-old Kenichi Ito, from Tokyo, says he has loved monkeys ever since he was a child. He has always been able to identify with animals, and harbored an ambition to adopt one of their traits. His deep desire has been fulfilled, now that he is actually able to move around quite comfortably on all fours, just like a monkey. It all started one day when he witnessed a monkey running quickly. From that point on, he claims he practiced running like the animal every day, until he became the fastest man on all fours.

“You know, my face and body kind of look like a monkey, so from a young age everybody used to tease me, saying ‘monkey, monkey,'” Ito said in his neat apartment, sitting in front of a large poster of a chimpanzee. But I wasn’t really bothered because I really liked them, and somewhere inside of me I had this ambition to adopt one of their traits. When I saw a monkey that could run fast, I knew I’d found it – and from that point on I practiced running like a monkey every day,” Keinichi Ito says about how it all started.

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I don’t think there are any rules against men becoming cheerleaders. But even if there was one, it wouldn’t stop Sacha Heppel, from Colorado, whose dream is to join the ranks of professional NFL cheerleaders. His current mission, to become the first male cheerleader for the Denver Broncos, however, fizzled out when he was rejected by the judges. Heppel competed with 200 other women at the first round of the 2012 Denver Broncos Cheerleader tryouts last Sunday, dressed in a turquoise shirt and tight fitting black pants.

Heppel’s love for dance is what compelled him to try cheerleading. He is not a professional dancer, although he enjoys it very much. “When I dance, I lose myself,” he says. His previous job involved standing at a street corner with a sign where would do several dance routines to keep people entertained. He was disappointed when he didn’t make the cut, but he says he will try hard again next year.

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Jo and Dominique Pillet’s home ‘Utopix’ is like something right out of a fairy tale. They started work on it about 30 years ago, and although it was completed as of 2010, it continues to evolve. The beauty of the house is not just in the construction, but the patience and perseverance put in by its builders, given that the land it stands on was considered to be barren. Utopix is located on an 11 hectare (27 acre) plot in Causse de Sauveterre, Lozere, France. Causses are sparsely populated plateaus of limestone. The limestone soil does not hold water and so the terrain is very much like a desert, but that didn’t stop this French family from fulfilling their dream.

The Pillets got married in the 70s and purchased their plot of land with the intention of building a beautiful home. Being artists themselves, they wanted to create something that was both functional and aesthetically pleasing. It’s been a long journey with several hurdles, but the couple has managed to complete the task and quite beautifully in fact. The construction project was started in 1979, and Jo Pillet mostly worked on it alone, or with the help of a few friends. He mostly made use of the abundant limestone in the region, structuring it in the form of igloos. The domed structures were then reinforced with concrete and wood, and later covered with stones to give them a cave-like feel. After two whole decades, the building finally began to take shape in 1992. Utopix has been quite popular since then, with local newspapers carrying stories, and several visitors coming to see it regularly.

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According to French scenographer Yann Falquerho, sometimes people really do want to live like their caged pets. I’m not sure I do, but Falquerho must be right, because his creation – the Villa Hamster – is immensely popular. The hotel allows you to experience exactly what the life of a caged hamster is like.

42-year-old Falquerho had always felt that the hotel industry did not pay any attention to the animal transformation niche. So he decided to open his own hotel designed with a hamster theme. Villa Hamster opened in 2009 and has been very popular ever since then. Located in Nantes, western France, the hotel opened with a room tariff of $150 per night, but this was soon increased in accordance with the demand. “We have a lot of success with this little house. It is because of the concept to transform into an animal,” Falquerho told the press just a couple of weeks after the hotel was inaugurated.

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With the extensive use of Photoshop and other editing software, it’s extremely difficult to tell the difference between real and fake these days. But if the photographs of this Japanese model are to be believed, then she couldn’t be a day over 20. Believe it or not, Masako Mizutani’s real age is 43, and she’s a mother of two. Her age-defying looks have become a sensation in Japan, especially on TV. She’s being called ‘Japan’s Lady of Eternal Youth’.

Now, I’ve always felt that Asians, especially the Japanese, have beautiful skin that doesn’t seem to age very much. Even so, Masako clearly stands out from the rest of her countrymen. In the pictures, her skin looks unbelievably soft, supple and practically flawless. During her TV appearances last month, Masako revealed a few of her beauty secrets to the world. She supposedly spends five hours a day just taking care of her skin. Her tips include: drinking plenty of water to flush out toxins, eating a fresh, healthy and balanced diet, using vitamin E based creams, sunscreen, cleansing, toning, moisturizing, plenty of sleep and no smoking. Well, to tell you the truth, these tips are generic beauty advice that’s being dished out ever since I can remember. Unless she has some other secrets, they seem to be doing wonders in her case.

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‘Fake’ just keeps growing to epic proportions in China. The latest to join the bandwagon is a fake police academy that was allegedly duping students into believing they would receive a real degree. The Jiamusi People’s Police Academy in the Shandong Province offered three-year courses on law enforcement studies, at the end of which students would receive a degree and also employment with crime-fighting police teams. The £2,000 ($3,200) course was supposed to be taught by veteran officers. It was all the doing of Wei Zhenhai, the president of the fake academy.

Everything was going according to plan for Mr. Zhenhai and the Jiamusi Academy, until a suspicious parent tipped off the real police in September of last year. A couple of police constables then paid a visit to the academy undercover, dressed as students. During the interview, Mr. Zhenhai couldn’t help himself and ended up boasting about his contacts in high places that would help him secure employment for his students. The constables saw through his flimsy lies and immediately pounced on the ‘president’ and his staff. They were arrested and the academy closed down.

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It all started when Lawrence Cobbold was 9 years old, after he purchased a picture of a bird . Today, at age 38, his home is so filled to the brim with bird ornaments. His place is so full of bird memorabilia that he has to wash up, do his laundry and have his meals at his parents’ house. In the past 25 years or so, Lawrence has managed to collect over 20,000 ornaments related to birds. His treasures could all be worth about £40,000 ($63,000) according to his own estimation.

Lawrence’s amazing bird collection consists of 15,000 ornaments, 4,800 thimbles, 1,000 fridge magnets and 300 plates. Apart from these, he has about 300 pictures, 150 mugs and 100 jigsaw puzzles that are in some way, related to birds. Each and every room in his house, every cupboard, loft and shelf is completely covered with bird-related items. Each room, in fact, has a theme of its own. The three-bedroom property belongs to his father Tony. Lawrence moved there after his previous residence, a two-bedroom house, was no longer sufficient for his ever-growing collection. Four hours of Lawrence’s day are spent rearranging and cleaning his collection– two hours before work and two hours after. When he’s not busy with his collectibles, he works full time as a warehouse attendant at the Co-op Retail Distribution Center in Plympton, England. He usually buys the ornaments at Plympton, Plymstock, Mutley Plain and Elburton, where he is constantly on the prowl for new items to add to the collection.

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GirlfriendHire.com is a new website where you can hire a girl to do ‘girlfriend-type’ things for you at a cost of just $5. Now before you get your hopes up, there are no ‘dirty’ services available. The website targets tweens and teens, so typical girlfriend activities would include doing your homework, flirting on Facebook, sending naughty texts and making your friends jealous. According to the website, it is “the first place on the internet dedicated to connecting guys and girls, to help guys breakup with their girlfriends, prank their friends, get their ex-gfs back, create a fake breakup message and even hire a girl to do your homework.”

Hiring girls to do fake relationship stuff does sound kind of sad, but there’s no dearth of boys willing to shell out the 5 bucks. Plus, girls get to make some quick money and no one’s really hurt in the process. I checked out the website and there’s a list of girls offering various services, called ‘flings’, ranging from, “I will text you anything for $5” to “I will give relationship advice for $5”. The most popular of them all is, “I will be your Facebook friend for $5”. Isn’t that cool, to be able to make money out of your Facebook friends list? Boys can put up ‘fling’ requests too and these tend to be creative like, “Make a video summarizing Battlestar Gallactica in a skirt or bikini” and “Put 15 tootsie roll pops in your mouth singing the alphabet backward in a bikini”. And there are the more desperate ones with “Send me a fake message on Facebook telling how much fun you had last night”.

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Addictions are a life-long struggle for most people. There are very few who manage to successfully kick self-destructive habits for good. 39-year-old Chinese millionaire, Qijang Zhang Yongqiang, is one such person. He was able to get rid of his gambling addiction by taking up a unique hobby – mining.

Zhang is the owner of a couple of supermarkets and a few other properties in China. As a rich person, he had taken to gambling and soon got addicted to it, losing up to 80,000 Yuan ($12,700) on some nights. On one such night, after losing a huge amount of money, he realized that he needed to do something to save himself from destruction. So in 2008, the millionaire decided to put gambling behind him, and took up a job as a miner. Initially, he did it just to keep away from the nasty habit, but soon he fell so much in love with the work that it became his full-time job. His wife and parents are quite supportive and help by operating the supermarkets while he is at work.

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The people of Madagascar have a unique ritual to celebrate family ties called Famadihana, also known as ‘turning of the bones’. It is a festival celebrated every 7 years or so, during which family crypts are opened up and the remains of dead ancestors are brought out to be wrapped in a new cloth. The Malagasy then dance with the corpses in great joy. Live music is played, animals are sacrificed and the meat is distributed to various guests and members of the family. The elders explain to their children the importance of the dead who are lying before them. Famadihana is viewed as a day to show your family just how much you love them. Extended families get together and celebrate kinship.

According to Malagasy belief, people are not made from mud, but from the bodies of the ancestors. Hence they hold their forefathers in high regard. They also believe that unless the bodies decompose completely, the dead do not leave permanently and are able to communicate with the living. So until they are gone forever, love and affection is showered on them through the Famadihana festival. It is interesting to note that the festival is not an ancient practice of Madagascar. Its origins cannot be traced beyond the seventeenth century. Read More »

36-year-old Nadine Schweigert from Fargo, North Dakota, got married last month. She had a beautiful wedding. Nadine was dressed in a peacock blue satin dress and carried a bouquet of white roses. There was also a lovely white wedding cake covered in peacock blue fondant. So far, there seems to be nothing unusual about this affair; it’s not different from any other run-of-the-mill wedding in the US. But if you paid attention, you probably noticed there was no mention of a groom. It’s not that he didn’t show up, it’s just that there wasn’t a groom to begin with. Nadine just happened to marry herself.

Self-marriage can be a confusing concept to those who don’t know what it’s all about. Nadine isn’t alone, however, many others have done it before. It was even portrayed on the popular TV show Glee, where ‘Sue Sylvester’ ties the knot with herself. These ceremonies are considered secular and purely symbolic. New Age websites such as Encouraging Priestess even share ideas on how to perform self-marriage ceremonies. The idea behind these marriages is to help a person realize that they do not need anybody else to feel complete.

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The Eco-Otome is a Japanese gizmo that’s intended to make using restrooms other than your own less awkward. Basically it emits a soothing sound meant to cover any embarrassing toilet noises you might be making.

Ok, so this isn’t a very new invention, in fact it’s been around for around three years, but I thought it was worth a mention for its unique purpose. I mean leave it to the Japanese to come up with a technological solution to the problem of bathroom noises. Anyway, whether they’re sharing a bathroom with a roommate, or need to use the restroom at a party or at work, some people are always worried about a variety of bathroom noises that could put them in an embarrassing position if they’re heard by others. Sure, flushing helps, but you need to wait until the  water bowl is full until using it again, so it’s not full-proof. Luckily, the resourceful Japanese have come up with the perfect solution – introducing the Eco-Otome.

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People will eat the weirdest things. In the past we’ve featured strange eating habits like munching on bars of soap, gobbling handfuls of sand and eating sponges, but Ambuli Abu, from Coimbatore, India, is the only man I know of who can actually eat red-hot coal.

I’ve seen people consume some of the hottest foods on Earth, but none can even hold a candle to Ambuli Abu, an Indian man who likes his food right out of the fire. The school drop-out has been making a name for himself by eating hot coal and light bulbs. It’s not the career everyone dreams of, but for Abu, this was apparently the best way to achieve his goal of setting a world record. In a video interview, the fire eater says he is aware that his mouth and stomach must be suffering as a result of his eating hot embers, and admits that it does cause him pain, but he tries to keep his heart strong in order to fulfill his dream of becoming a record setter. He adds that just the fact that he can do thins other cannot, keeps him going. Read More »

Renting out body parts seems to be a trend that’s catching on fast. We first heard of it when it was used by this New Zealand woman on her backside, and then there was a German man who tried to rent out his face for tattooed ads.  The latest to join the bandwagon are a couple of British 22-year-olds, Ross Harper and Ed Moyse. Unlike the others however, they aren’t using tattoos. Their concept, called Buy My Face, is to sell their faces to a different ad campaign every day, which are painted on using face paint. The boys are trying to raise enough money to pay off their student debts, which amount to £50,000 ($80,000).  So far, they’ve managed to make £30,000 ($47,000).

The goal of Buy My Face isn’t only to get people to look at the advertisements that are printed on their faces. The advertising extends onto their website, which works by directing online traffic to the advertiser’s web page. Harper and Moyse paint ads on their faces and then photograph or film themselves doing funny things. Advertisers can pay for them to do several stunts, such as skydiving or plunging into cold waters. All this is put up on the website, along with the name of the day’s advertiser. When the duo started off on October 1^st, their first ad went for exactly £1. But they’ve managed to sell their faces every single day since then, and today the rates have moved up to £400 a day.

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It might look like the set of a new low-budget Transformers movie, but Mr. Iron Robot is actually a newly-inaugurated Transformers-themed park in Jiaxing City, China’s Zhejiang Province.

49-year-old artist Zhu Kefeng and his team have spent the last 10 years building giant metal robots from recycled iron and steel parts. He started out by making a realistic model of a car, then opened his own studio and began creating more intricate sculptures. He soon started doing commission work for people who liked his art, and for large orders he even set up a recycle bin where people could donate discarded metal parts. Zhu started working on Mr. Iron Robot theme park in 2010, with the money he had raised for selling his metal sculptures and his apartment in Shanghai. He and his team of collaborators worked hard and managed to turn an old abandoned factory into a modern attraction featuring over 600 Transformers-inspired sculptures.

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