The Tagada – Probably the World’s Craziest Amusement Park Ride

Ever wonder what it would feel like to be thrown around in a giant metal bowl with only a few metal bars keeping you from literally flying out of the bowl or bumping face first into other people? If so, all you have to do is take a ride on a Tagada, one of the most dangerous amusement park rides ever invented.

The Tagada may not be as fast or as steep as a roller-coaster, but it is certainly more dangerous. You may scream in terror when riding on a roller-coaster, but deep in your mind you know that you are safely harnessed to your seat and the chances of something going wrong are very small. With the Tagada, on the other hand, the total lack of restraints makes the danger of physical injury very real, but that’s exactly what makes it so popular with thrill seekers.

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The Tragic Story of a Taiwanese Vet Who Euthanized Herself After Having to Put Down Too Many Dogs

Taiwan recently banned euthanizing abandoned animals in shelters, a law believed to have been prompted by the shocking suicide of a young veterinarian, in May 2016. 31-year-old Chien Chih-cheng injected herself with euthanasia drugs, after becoming extremely disturbed by the large number of animals she had to put down.

Chien Chih-cheng was the director of of an animal shelter in Taoyuan’s Sinwu District. She had chosen to work at the shelter because of her love for animals, and her colleagues remember that she “often worked overtime, rarely took a proper lunch break, and sacrificed her holidays to give the dogs more attention and make their lives better.” After graduating from one of Taiwan’s top university with the highest score in a civil service examination, Chien could have opted for a number of desk jobs, but she chose to dedicate her life to helping abandoned animals and getting them adopted by new families. But her job also required her to euthanize the animals that didn’t get adopted after a certain period of time, and this took a heavy toll on the young animal lover, especially after animal rights activists accused her of killing hundreds of abandoned dogs.

“Some animal welfare activists have unleashed relentless attacks on the Sinwu shelter and Chien was a target of those attacks,” Taoyuan City Councilor Wang Hao-yu wrote on Facebook last year. “She was even described as a ‘butcher.’ For a young woman who chose to work at the shelter because of her love for animals and whose duties involved euthanizing stray animals every day, those abuses were like stabs to the heart.”

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Win a $450,000 Organic Farm by Writing a 200-Word Essay

Award-winning architect-turned-farmer Norma Burns has been running her organic farm in Bennet, North Carolina, for the last 18 years, but she’s now looking to turn over a new leaf, so she’s giving the farm away to whoever wins her essay contest.

Norma says that the Bluebird Hill Farm has been “everything” to her during the last 18 years, but she’s come to realize that she just can’t put in the work required to keep everything in order anymore. She has decided to go back to the city, but wants to make sure that she leaves her beloved farm in good hands. Although it’s been appraised at around $450,000, the dedicated farmer doesn’t want to sell her property, but give it away to a couple who can best explain why they would be her best choice, in a 200-word essay. Applicants must turn in their literary work by June 1st, 2017, and pay a $300 contest entry fee.

“To me, there’s no better calling in life than raising organic food,” Norma Burns said. “I’m looking for a like-minded couple who have experience and training in organic farming and are willing and able to put in the long days and hard work that farming requires. The only thing they don’t have is an actual farm. I want to make it possible for these new farmers to get started.”

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Single Cheeto Puff That Looks Like Harambe the Gorilla Allegedly Sold on eBay for $100,000

Harambe the gorilla was slain at the Cincinnati Zoo last year, during a controversial incident, but his spirit lives on in a seemingly endless number of Internet memes and jokes. A recent eBay auction of a single Flamin’ Hot Cheeto shaped like the famous silverback gorilla proves that Harambe is still as popular as ever.

On January 28, eBay user valuestampsinc listed a Flamin’ Hot Cheeto that resembled an orange, puffy version of Harambe, setting the minimum bid at a decent $11.99. The listing included a photo of the unique Cheeto alongside a photo of the real Harambe climbing a tree, and the resemblance was clearly close enough to justify the asking price. However, after the listing went viral on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, the bidding got out of control, and by February 7, at 3:45 am, when the bidding was scheduled to end, the Harambe-shaped Cheeto had been acquired for a whopping $99,900. eBay has confirmed that the item was valid and available for purchase, but has not commented on whether payment has been made.

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Virginia Brewery Creates Oreo-Flavored Beer

Virginia-based  brewery the Veil Brewing Company has taken the dessert beer category to a whole new level with its innovative “Hornswoggler” brew, a a chocolate milk stout aged on hundreds of pounds of Oreo cookies that even has icing chunks in it.

They say Oreos go best with milk, but the guys at the Veil Brewing Company apparently decided prove that beer works too. And they hit it out of the park. After launching the Oreo-flavored brew on January 24, the 64 cases available sold out almost instantly. The company then sold what little they had left as on-draft at the brewery, in Scott’s Addition, Richmond. That didn’t last very long either, and now the brewery is getting bombarded with questions about the next batch.

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Indonesian Mayor Shuts Down Luxury Cinema Because Bed Seats Promoted Adultery

Indonesian cinema chain CGV has been forced to shut down their Velvet Class venue in the city of Palembang because the ultra-comfortable seats made local authorities uncomfortable.

CGV Velvet Class cinemas are awesome! Instead of regular seats, or even reclining ones, they feature leather beds complete with pillows and blankets, for a ridiculously comfortable movie experience. They have been operating in Jakarta and around Indonesia for years now, with no problems, but recently a deputy mayor South Sumatran capital of Palembang decided that switching regular movie theater seats with comfortable beds was a very a bad idea.

Deputy mayor Fitrianti Agustinda visited the CGV Velvet Class cinema in Palembang, last week, after reportedly receiving complaints about it from the public. The local official was apparently scandalized upon seeing the beds, arguing that they could promote adultery and sexual misconduct.

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Man Spent over $80,000 on Plastic Surgery to Look Like Britney Spears

Bryan Ray, a 31-year-old man from Los Angeles, California, is so obsessed with pop superstar Britney Spears that he has spent $80,000 over the last 14 years to look like her.

Ray says he knew there’s was something special about Britney the first time he saw her. The look, her voice and her choreography were “the perfect package” for him and he knew he wanted to be like her. So at age 17, when the dentist designing his veneers asked him which celebrity smile he wanted to base his on, he answered almost instantly. But that was only the beginning of Ray’s transformation, as over the last 14 years, he has had over 90 cosmetic surgeries to make himself look more like his idol.

“So many people refer to me as ‘Britney’ and for a very long time friends have greeted me with the infamous quote ‘It’s Britney, bitch!’ from her song ‘Gimme More’, which I absolutely love,” Bryan proudly says. “Britney will always be one of my biggest inspirations. I love that she was the biggest star in the world, went through an incredibly hard time and came out on top.”

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Hater – A Dating App That Matches People by The Things They Hate

Most dating services match their users by the things they like, but a new dating app called Hater completely turns this idea on its head, using common disinterests to help people find love.

Hater founder Brendan Alper, who left his job at Goldman Sachs to become a comedian, first came up with the idea for the app as a joke. But the more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that it would actually be an interesting real-life dating app, and after finding some scientific studies that confirmed his intuition, he decided to turn it into a reality. Hater has been in testing since December 2016, and will be officially available for iOS and Android devices on February 8th. So get ready to let the things you hate guide you to true love.

“What we hate is an important part of who we are, but it’s often swept under the rug in our public persona,” Alper says. “We want people to express themselves more honestly. Plus, it’s easy to start a conversation with someone if you know you both hate pickles.” The app utilizes the same swiping function as Tinder or Bumble, but instead of swiping on people, you swap on topics ranging from butt selfies and bad tipping, to sidewalk etiquette and Donald Trump. You simply swipe down to hate, up to love, left to dislike or right to like. Hater than finds potential matches based on the things you hate and your location.

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18-Year-Old Math Prodigy Lands UCLA Teaching Gig

While most 18-year-olds are getting ready to go to college or get a job, March Tian Boedihardjo, a Hong Kong-born Indonesian Chinese math prodigy has already accomplished both. He has recently completed his doctorate program and is now an associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Although he never liked being called a prodigy, saying that it implies that he didn’t have to work very hard for his achievements, March Tian Boedihardjo is definitely very special. he first made international headlines in 2007, when at the tender age of nine, he managed to get an A in both Mathematics and Further Mathematics and a B in Statistics in the General Certificate of Education (GCE) A-levels in the United Kingdom. I should mention that these entrance exams are usually taken by students aged 17 or older.

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Russian Tattoo Artists Sparks Controversy After Tattooing His Hairless Cat

A young tattoo artist in Yekaterinburg, Russia, has been getting a lot of criticism on social media after a video of him inking his pet Sphynx cat recently went viral. To make matters worse, the owner admitted that this was not the animal’s first tattoo, and probably not the last.

The owner of the hairless cat admits that he is basically forcing the animal to share his passion for tattoos. “Of course, I feel sorry for tattooing her, because it’s not something she wants,” he says in the video. But apparently the temptation to turn the Sphynx into a walking, meowing work of art is too great. Bes already sports a large tattoo on her back, featuring a woman, a deck of cards, a prison tower and a cigarette, and in this video her owner adds a star as well.

The Yekaterinburg artist said that tattoos are a bit harder to do because the cat’s skin is a bit different than a human’s, but added that he doesn’t believe the procedure is harmful for the cat. “This isn’t her first tattoo,” he says. “She just goes under and doesn’t feel a thing. She always wakes up fine from the anesthesia and behave normally after that.”

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25-Year-Old Fake Dentist Ran His Own Dental Clinic After Picking Up Skills on YouTube

It turns out that dentistry is so easy that anyone can do it. Case in point, 25-year-old Mohamad Irwan Mohd Sudi from Kuantan, Malaysia, who used YouTube videos and dentistry magazines to hone his skills to the point where he was able to open his own dental clinic and perform various procedures.

Instead of spending six years in dental schools to pick up the necessary skills to become a licensed dentist, Irwan decided to take a different route – he learned all he needed to perform procedures like tooth extraction, teeth scaling and placing braces by watching all kinds of video tutorials on YouTube and reading dentistry magazines. It’s not clear exactly how much time he put into honing his skills, but he apparently became so confident in his abilities that at one point he opened his own unauthorized dental clinic in Perkampungan Indera Sempurna.

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Nature Turns Human Pollution into Stunning Glass Beach

For years, Ussuri Bay, on Russia’s Pacific shoreline, was a dumping ground for glass bottles and waste from a nearby porcelain factory. But nature found a way to turn lemons into lemonade, and today, all those unwanted materials have been shaped into a colorful glass beach.

The story goes that many years ago, truckloads of glass and porcelain were dumped in Ussuri Bay, but instead of what should have been a landfill for unwanted waste, Steklyashka beach is actually one of the most stunning tourist attractions in the world. Years of erosion have rounded and polished the pieces of glass and porcelain into beautiful pebbles of various colors and have turned this place into a wonderland reminiscent of California’s Glass Beach.

 

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German Man Insists His Spanish Water Dog Is Actually a Sheep to Avoid Paying Tax

The following story actually happened!I wouldn’t have believed it myself if it hadn’t been reported by the German police, following a first-hand experience the likes of which you don’t hear about every day.

A man in Rostock, North-Eastern Germany, had to pay a fine and will likely face a tax evasion lawsuit after he claimed that his Spanish Water Dog was actually a sheep, to avoid paying a mandatory tax. In Germany, dog owners must pay a “dog tax” – ranging 24 to 100 euros ($25 to $107) – and equip their pets with a special tag confirming that they paid the license. This does not apply to pet sheep (remember that, it’s important).

Last Wednesday, the man in question was spotted walking his dog in the Rostock harbor area, by a harbor security officer. Paying your taxes is apparently a big deal in Germany, because after noticing that the animal did not have the tag confirming that the dog tax had been paid, he confronted the owner about it. To his surprise, the man appeared shocked by the question and replied that his pet was not a dog, but a sheep. At first, the harbor employee thought it was a joke, but the man stuck to his original answer, so he had mo choice but to ask for the man’s ID and notify the police about him.

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The Human Bed Warmer – Russian Woman Offers Bed Warming Services for Single Men

A young woman from Moscow, Russia, has come up with an innovative way to supplement her income – charging single men a hefty fee for laying in their bed for an hour to warm it and fill it with her positive energy, thus guaranteeing a good night’s sleep.

21-year-old Viktoria Ivachyova is a human be warmer for hire, charging a whopping 4,900 Russian rubles ($82) per night, or 102 700 ($1700) per month to lay down on strangers’ beds and make sure it’s nice and warm when they turn in for the night. Believe it or not, she has already had 10 customers, and with the amount of free publicity she’s getting these days in national media, the unusual service is bound to become more popular. In fact, Viktoria is already planning on putting together a team of female bed warmers to keep up with demand.

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Belgian Cafe Boycotts Donald Trump by Banning All American Products

The popular Zeezicht Cafe, in Antwerp, Belgium, has recently stopped serving Coca Cola, Lay’s potato chips and every other American brand previously on its menu, in protest of President Donald Trump and and his controversial executive orders.

“No, it’s not a joke. All American drinks will disappear from the menu as long as Donald Trump’s policy does not change,” one of the owners of Zeezicht told Belgian reporters. “A few days ago, we gathered all the staff and found that something had to be done against the policy of Donald Trump, so someone launched the idea of ​​no longer selling American beverages or food. An economic boycott is probably the only measure Trump can understand.”

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