Brazilian body builder Romario Dos Santos Alves was so desperate to emulate the Incredible Hulk that he actually injected his arms with a potentially lethal combination of oil and alcohol. The 25-year-old risked his life in the process, and almost had both arms amputated. His grotesquely swollen muscles have earned him cruel nicknames like ‘beast’ and ‘monster’.

Romario, a former bodyguard and father-of-one, said that he became obsessed with the drug when he first moved away from his hometown to Goiania city. “I saw some really big guys in the gym with huge arms and I started to make friends with them,” he told reporters. “They introduced me to synthol and I got excited about the results – I lost control.”

“If you take it once, there will definitely be a second time – it’s addictive,” he added. And that’s exactly what happened to Romario. Impressed with the initial results, he soon began using the substance frequently. He even tricked his wife Marisangela Marinho into injecting the drug in places that he couldn’t reach. “I told her there was no problem with it – that it left the body after a short time.” Read More »

Entrepreneurs in Japan really do manage to come up with the most eccentric ideas for their customers, right from cat cafés to Godzilla hotels. Continuing the tradition is the Mitsui Garden Yotsuya hotel in Shinjuku, with specially allocated ‘crying rooms’ for female guests!

The hotel offers women looking to release tension or overcome emotional issues special accommodations designed for crying. They are stocked with luxury tissues that can be used to ‘gently wipe away tears’, as well as a steam eye mask to ‘avoid swollen eyes’ the following morning. A selection of sentimental manga comic books and films are also provided, including tear-jerkers such as Forrest Gump and South Korean film A Moment to Remember.

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When this young Canadian couple got the chance to make a few extra dollars by renting out their three-bedroom home on Airbnb, they took it immediately. Little did they know that two days later, they would find their beautiful home wrecked beyond imagination.

Mark and Star King bought their house in 2010, in Calgary’s fashionable Sage Hill, for a little over US $300,000 and lived in it with their two sons – five-year-old Vincent and one-year-old Oliver. When a local man offered them about $650 to have the house for a weekend, the Kings, being mortgage-payers, couldn’t refuse. The man told the Kings that he needed the house to accommodate four of his relatives who were in town for a wedding. He was well-dressed, well-mannered, and told them, “You have a beautiful home. God bless you.”

“We use Airbnb when we travel, we love it, it’s a great website, vacation rental by owner type website and my parents are out of town so we were going to go and stay at their house and we get an offer to rent out our house for three days for a family coming for a wedding, it’s going to be four older adults, go through the house rules, they shook my hand,” Mark said.

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A California therapist is helping couples resolve their relationship issues in the most unusual way – by having them assemble IKEA furniture. The experience, she believes, is so frustrating that it might actually bring couples closer to each other!

“The store literally becomes a map of a relationship nightmare,” licensed psychologist Ramani Durvasula explained. “Walking through the kitchens brings up touchy subjects, like who does most of the cooking. Then you get to the children’s section, which opens up another set of issues. And that’s before you’ve even tried to assemble anything.”

“I would laugh with my ex-husband about it,” she added. “I saw what a pressure cooker it was. In the end, we hired someone to put the furniture together.”

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In a sheer stroke of advertising genius, Salta Beer has given three rugby players who lost teeth in action ‘Beer Tooth Implants’ – metal implants that double as bottle openers! And yeah, they actually work.

“We decided to give rugby players back the teeth they had lost in battle,” Salta Beer explained. “But we weren’t going to give them a simple tooth back, we developed a unique dental implant; a specially designed tooth to open beer.” Three rugby players were selected for the unique procedure and were featured in a commercial created in collaboration with Ogilvy Argentina.

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Thoroughly exasperated by her son’s misbehavior, a mother from Columbus, Georgia, came up with an innovative method to teach him a lesson. She teamed up with the local police force to stage an arrest of her fifth-grade son, hoping to scare him into behaving well at school.

33-year-old Chiquita Hill said that her son Sean’s teacher complained about him being “rude and disrespectful, not listening, talking back, and not doing his school work,” for the umpteenth time. She was running out of options and desperately looking for a solution, because she was scared that Sean’s behavior could escalate into serious disrespect for authority as an adult. That’s when she got the idea for a fake arrest.

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Meet James Wannerton, an Englishman with an incredibly rare ability to taste sound. That might seem absurd, but it is very much a reality for people with a condition called synaesthesia, which causes senses that are usually separate to intermingle.

Even as a young boy, James always experienced an involuntary taste on his tongue every time he heard a sound. Hearing the name Anne Boleyn in History class, for example, gave him a strong flavor of pear drops. He associated most of the British monarchs with a specific taste, making it easy for him to remember facts and events. His word-taste associations always helped him do better in school.

As he grew older, James found that his unique ability helped him in other aspects of life too. His relationships were all too delicious – he chose his companions not because of their looks or personality, but based on how their names felt on his taste buds. His schoolmates often had a strong essence of sliced potatoes and strawberry jam, while his dates’ names tasted like slices of rhubarb and melted wine gums.

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A Chinese man made the news last week for building an incredible model of his hometown, using nothing but coins! He spent an entire month painstakingly stacking up ancient and modern coins from 11 different countries to create the model, complete with roads, bridges and skyscrapers. Believe it or not, he didn’t use any glue!

He Peiqi revealed that he used his contacts in the coin trading industry to collect tens of thousands of coins for his masterpiece. Once the coins were ready, he got to work on the floor of his apartment, kneeling for two long hours each day. He carefully stacked the coins to resemble the general layout of Chongqing City.

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In movies, the mere sight of Godzilla has people running for the hills, but a new Godzilla-themed hotel in Shinjuku, Japan, is hoping the iconic monster will actually draw in new business.

Set at the very top of the Toho Cinema, in Tokyo’s Shinjuku ward, Hotel Gracery not only features Godzilla-themed rooms but also a 12-meter-high model of the monster’s head on its roof that can be admired from one of the six Godzilla View rooms. Interior decorations include a man-sized statue of Godzilla, a menacing claw hanging on the wall above the beds, classic movie posters and even custom Godzilla-themed toilets.

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Meet Kalyanasundaram, an Indian librarian with a heart of gold. During his 35 years of service, he donated almost all the money he earned to orphanages and children’s welfare funds. Now that he is retired, Kalyanasundaram donates his entire pension to those who need it more than he. Although he has no material possessions to his name, he considers himself one of the richest people in the world.

The 73-year-old retiree, from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, started to think about helping the poor and underprivileged at a very young age. He lost his father at the age of one, and his mother struggled to raise him all by herself. As he grew older, his shrill, high-pitched voice troubled him to such an extent that he became depressed and suicidal. But his life turned around when he met a local motivational writer, who told him, “Don’t bother about how you speak. Strive to make others speak well about you.”

Kalyanasundaram took the advice seriously, and decided to dedicate his life to the service of others. The humble man insists that the reason he started helping people was to make himself happy.

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While Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) matches generally incorporate striking and grappling techniques from a variety of other combat sports and martial arts, the use of medieval fighting techniques is unheard of. Until now, that is. St. Petersburg based MMA promotion M-1 Global plans to introduce a new kind of MMA events featuring sword-wielding knights in armor, called M-1 Medieval.

It all started when M-1 had the brilliant idea of staging medieval sword fights as filler during MMA events last year. The response was so phenomenal that they decided to make this unique form of mixed martial arts a permanent fixture. The first official M-1 Medieval division fight took place on April 10 in Moscow. “I liked the fans’ reaction when we did it for the first time in St. Petersburg at M-1 Challenge 50,” said M-1 president Vadim Finkelchtein. “They seemed to really like it. They were impressed and supported the knights. So, I thought it was worth continuing.”

“At the time, the knight-fight was to fill the pause between the undercard and main card fights,” he added. “If we find enough fighters to make enough fights, we will have a separate medieval show with its own weight categories, title fights and champions.”

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While it is common for restaurant owners to connect with their patrons, a restaurateur from Albuquerque is taking customer care to a whole new level. Tim Harris gives out free hugs to every single customer at the end of each meal. The atmosphere at his restaurant ‘Tim’s Place’ is so positive that patrons often call it the ‘world’s friendliest restaurant’.

The establishment has been around since 2010, and Tim has given out over 19,000 hugs in the past five years – he keeps count using a special Hug Counter. “I love giving all the customers a hug because I want them to feel comfortable and connected and being around friends,” said Tim explained.

‘Tim’s Hug’ is actually an item on the menu, described as a “calorie-free”, “guilt-free” treat that guarantees to “improve your lease on life.” Which is true – Tim’s hugs are doubly special because of everything he has achieved in life. The 26-year-old is probably the only Down syndrome sufferer in the U.S. to own a restaurant, but he has several other things to be proud about: he’s an accomplished Special Olympian, an excellent sailor, and an experienced offshore fisherman. And, he was also elected homecoming king and Student of the Year in high school! So when a man like Tim hugs you, it is sure to be a special and unforgettable experience.

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We’ve seen lots of stories of kind people who adopt children, but this is a first – a Chilean woman who adopts dead babies! Fueled by the strong belief that every baby deserves a proper goodbye, she officially adopts abandoned babies that are found dead so she can organize funerals for them.

It all started 12 years ago when Bernarda Gallardo read a story in a local newspaper about an abandoned baby in Puerto Montt. “They killed and dumped a newborn baby on the rubbish heap,” the article read. Bernarda, who was in the process of adopting a child at the time, was horrified by the report. She realised if the baby had lived it might have come to her for adoption. So she decided to do something about it.

“If you get a baby that is alive, you clothe it and feed it and put it in a cot,” she explained. “If your baby arrives dead you have to get a coffin and give it a decent burial.”

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A bizarre new dog grooming trend in Taiwan has dog owners giving their pet pooches square or round haircuts. Canine hairdressers all over Taipei are up to date on the special technique required for these eccentric makeovers.

“It came about because people were always looking for more impressive haircuts, and somebody came up with the idea of shaping the dog like a hedge,” parlour owner Tain Yeh says. It started with a few people opting for these haircuts and sharing their pets’ photographs online, after which the trend caught on. Thousands of pet owners are now approaching salons, asking for their dogs’ hair to be cut in geometric patterns. Some are actually doing it simply to gain more likes and shares!

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Believe it or not, the kindergarten scene in Hong Kong is so fiercely competitive that tiny toddlers are expected to take special classes to get prepped for nursery interviews!

You might wonder what the big deal is about nursery school – kids just play and take naps, right? But parents in Hong Kong actually view it as an important phase that could determine their child’s future. They strongly believe in the cascading effect – admission to the best kindergartens will lead to the best primary schools, best secondary schools, and eventually, the best universities.

“It’s the only topic that comes up when you go out for lunch, which school your kid got into, which school are you applying for and how are you preparing your child for it?” one mother revealed. “My friends have sent me spreadsheets with a detailed timetable of when schools are available for applications and how to apply.”

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