It seems that all it takes to make the news these days is a social media account and a bizarre quest of some sort. Like this Australian man, who is making headlines with his quest to have coffee with all 1,088 of his Facebook friends. His project is called ‘1000+ Coffees’ and he describes it as “an exercise in remembering to socialize with and get to know people”.

“I plan to have a one-on-one coffee with every single one of my 1000+ Facebook friends over the space of the next three years, or as long as it takes to complete,” 28-year-old Matt Kulesza wrote on his Tumblr page. “I obviously don’t have 1,000 real-life friends. The point of the project is to see who these people actually are and get to know them.”

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Garfi the cat is all set to dethrone Grumpy Cat from his position as the internet’s most sour-faced feline. One look at Garfi’s picture and you’ll know that he really means business. The orange Persian male from Turkey has such a menacing expression that he actually makes Grumpy Cat look happy.

Garfi was introduced to the online world through a Flickr album created by his owner Hulya Ozkok, with her son’s encouragement. The album, with over 50,000 views, contains pictures of Garfi wearing all sorts of cute accessories – bunny ears, Santa hats, oversized reading glasses, and flowery headbands. But none of the props quite manage to hide that glint of anger in his eyes – this is one furious cat!

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Woodkopf is a crazy new sport invented in the Czech Republic that’s been gaining quite a lot of national media attention lately. The popular sport involves a pair of opponents wearing two-meter wooden boards on their heads and trying to knock the other’s board down without dropping their own. As strange as it sounds, a rousing match of Woodkopf can be quite exciting to watch.

The wacky sport can be traced back to July of 1992, when it was practiced during a cultural festival of art school graduates in Prague. Woodkopf (which literally translates to ‘wooden head’) is popular partly due to the fact that the game is simple, inexpensive and requires no complex equipment, but also because it never fails to supply a good dose of humor.

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The Teatreneu comedy club in Barcelona has come up with an innovative way of charging customers; they’re calling it ‘Pay-Per-Laugh’. The concept is as simple as it sounds – the club has reduced its entry fee to zero, and instead, users are charged every time they laugh. A special facial-recognition software helps track the exact number of laughs per customer.

The bizarre idea is actually an experiment in partnership with advertising agency The Cyranos McCann – it was set up in response to increased government taxes on theatrical performances from 8% to 21%, which led to a 30% drop in audience members in just one year. So Teatreneu decided to look at the situation with humor, and that’s how pay-per-laugh was born. Each seat is fitted with a facial recognition system that detects the smiles of the person seated behind. Entrance is free, and if the show produces no laughs, customers don’t pay anything. But if they do, each smile is charged 0.30 euros with an upper cap of 24 euros.

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Artist Jordan Mang-osan is a master of pyrography – an incredibly rare and beautiful artform that involves decorating slabs of wood with burn marks. While most other pyrography artists prefer to use specialized tools, Jordan prefers to harness the power of the sun with the help of a magnifying glass. Jordan uses the special technique to create beautiful landscapes and portraits on wood.

To create a piece, he starts off by sketching a design on to a piece of wood. He then uses a magnifying glass to concentrate solar heat on selected areas of the artwork. The heat etches permanent darkened lines into the wood, so intricate that it’s hard to imagine the artist’s hands never really touch the wooden canvas. The work is tedious, however – it takes several months of dedicated effort to manipulate the sun’s rays and etch each detail of the complex pieces.

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The world’s longest staircase is located on the face of Mt. Niesen in Switzerland, nicknamed the ‘Swiss Pyramid’ for its triangular shape. The 3.4 km staircase goes up the side of the mountain with 11,674 steps, ranging from an altitude of 700 m at the bottom (from the side of the Kander river in Mülenen) to 2363 m at the top (the terminus near the summit of the mountain). Its average gradient is a monumental 55%, with a maximum of 65%.

For safety reasons, the staircase is normally closed to the general public. But one day a year, in June, it is opened up for the world’s longest single-staircase race – the ‘Niesen Treppenlauf’, otherwise known as the ‘Niesenlauf’. During the course of this race, up to 500 participants get to climb the monster staircase at record-breaking speeds. The record for the event is 1 hour and 2 minutes for men, and 1 hour and 9 minutes for women – which is really quite remarkable, considering that reaching the top is the equivalent of climbing the Empire State Building more than 7 times.

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StopXam is a vigilante group that is actively involved in fighting against the rude and entitled driving culture in Eastern Europe. Their goal is to stop bad driving with politeness, which forms the basis of the name StopXam (meaning ‘stop rudeness’). While the non-profit organisation originated in Moscow in 2010, several branches have emerged in neighboring countries such as Moldova.

With their unique approach towards eliminating illegal parking and dangerous driving, StopXam has managed to become an internet sensation. Their technique is simple: they first approach offending drivers and try explaining things politely. For instance, they might say: “Hello, your car is standing too close and does not allow this car to move. Please park somewhere else.”

Some drivers get the message quickly and correct themselves. But those who don’t get a giant sticker that covers up almost half their windshield. “We will give you a sticker on your front window, and it will be very uncomfortable for you to drive with it,” they warn. If the driver still doesn’t budge, they go ahead and paste the sticker, which reads: ‘I don’t care about other people, I park where I want’.

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31-year-old actor and TV host Paolo Ballesteros specialises in transforming himself into female celebrities from around the world – including Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Katy Perry, Jennifer Lawrence, Julia Roberts and more. Believe it or not, there’s no Photoshop involved; Paolo uses only wigs, makeup, and colored contact lenses to complete the stunning transformations.

Paolo is the host of a popular TV show in the Philippines called Eat Bulaga. His transformations actually started as a segment on the show Super Sereyna, where he would surprise audiences with his mind blowing makeup skills. Paolo revealed that he is self-taught – he learned to apply makeup by watching YouTube tutorials, and he does it all by himself.

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Winter, a 42-year-old coffee fanatic from Houston, Texas, is on a mission to have coffee at every Starbucks coffee-shop in the world. Given that Starbucks operates on almost every corner of every street of every city in America, not to mention thousands of shops around the world, Winter seems to have set himself an impossible goal. Yet, he’s already been to 11,676 Starbucks branches, and he won’t rest until he’s been to each and every one in the world – that’s at least 10,000 more to go.

Born Rafael Lozano, he legally changed his name to ‘Winter’ because he didn’t want his credit history confused with his father’s. Over the years, Winter, a computer programmer, has spent over $160,000 on Starbucks coffee and on traveling to cafes across 38 different countries – including shops in London, New York, Paris, Egypt, Kuwait, Turkey, Japan, and Lebanon. That’s about 25 percent of his earnings and three months of travel a year on coffee runs.

He’s a self-proclaimed caffeine addict, who at one point, used to guzzle 29 cups of coffee a day. Interestingly, he actually prefers artisanal coffee from independent stores, but he appreciates that Starbucks tastes the same everywhere. His first visit was in 1997, and he almost immediately decided that he had to go see all the branches in the world. “It was a completely random idea that came to me when I was in Plano, Texas while discussing the growth of Starbucks in the greater Dallas area,” he said.

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This heartwarming rags-to-riches story is guaranteed to restore your faith in humanity. A Chinese businessman who was once helped off the streets by a passerby, is now repaying the kindness by offering his benefactor a whopping one million yuan (over $160,000).

This story began in 1993, when 17-year-old He Rongfeng was forced to beg on the streets of Taizhou city in China’s Zhejiang province, to support his poor family. “Two friends and I had gone to Taizhou looking for work, but we were unsuccessful and ended up roaming the streets, penniless, starving, and without even shoes,” Rongfeng recalled. “We were in the pits and couldn’t see a way out, and then this young woman turned up.”

The woman was Dai Xingfen, who ran a local noodle shop with her husband. She took Rongfeng and his friends back to her modest one-room apartment and offered them food and a place to sleep. She gave them hot water to soothe their blistered feet, and then called a few acquaintances to find work for the boys in another city. Before they parted, she even gave them money for the train fare.

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Ban Hun Lek is a Thai scrap metal art company that makes amazing pop culture sculptures from discarded auto parts. One of their best works is this Incredible Hulk statue made almost entirely out of rusty old nuts and bolts.

According to the brand’s website, Ban Hun Lek is a family-run business, specializing in hand-made scrap metal art that’s created piece-by-piece from used auto parts that have no value. “Bolts, nuts, screws, spark plugs, and other used auto parts have been re-created by our skillful welders with just a normal electric welding technique,” they wrote. “These art would make great gifts, and are great for collection and decoration.”

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A homeowner in Detroit, Michigan, recently put his property up on the market – and when he failed to make a sale, he decided settle for a trade. He is now after Apple’s latest product offering – the iPhone 6. And if he can’t have that, he’s willing to settle for a 32-gigabyte iPad or an Android in exchange for the house.

Understandably, the three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bathroom brick house isn’t exactly in the best condition. It does have a finished basement and a plush garden, but neighbors strongly believe that it needs to be torn down. The bungalow was initially listed for $5,000, but there weren’t any takers. So the current price is down to $3,000 or an iPhone 6.

“It’s a real listing,” insisted realtor Larry Else. “My client is overseas and he told me he would be willing to trade the property for an iPhone 6. It sounds to me like he wants the Plus version, but I think he’s willing to negotiate.”

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Damian Aspinall is a casino-owning millionaire, environmentalist and animal lover who has made it his life’s mission to raise gorillas and release them into the wild. And in order to make that happen, the self-made businessman set up the Aspinall Foundation, through which he has raised over 60 gorillas in England and released them to secure locations in Africa.

Aspinall, who was once known for his party lifestyle and for dating supermodels like Naomi Campbell has now devoted his life to deepening the connection he has always shared with the animal kingdom. Apart from the Aspinall Foundation, he also runs Howletts and Port Lympne wildlife parks in Kent. It is his belief that animals should have as much right to happiness as humans do.

His deep-rooted connection with animals goes all the way back to his childhood – his father John, Aspinall, was a gambler and maverick zoo keeper. So he grew up around his father’s exotic pets, developing an all-consuming passion for wildlife as he got older. “It’s magic crossing the species boundaries, and the greatest thing about being alive,” said the 54-year-old. “You can’t explain it to people who don’t have it.”

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The Kokoro Scanner (Heart Scanner) is a high-tech Japanese invention that can spice up classic party games such as ‘Truth or Dare’. It is a lie detecting device that is worn on the forehead and changes color to indicate the truthfulness of a person’s responses.

Created by Tokyo-based toy company ‘Takara Tomy’, the scanner works a lot like a polygraph machine – it monitors the pulse using infrared rays. So when you make a person wear it, it first monitors their heart rate to establish a baseline. Then, you ask them a question, the wearer responds, and the device monitors the heart rate once more to compare it with the baseline.

It then flashes green if the person’s pulse is normal indicating that they’re telling the truth, yellow if they might be lying, and red if they are lying for sure. Because the light is attached to the person’s forehead, they won’t be able to tell what color is flashing while they’re being interrogated with all sorts of embarrassing questions.

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Chinese businessman Qian Fenglei is the kind of friend everyone would want. This real-life Richie Rich has recently gifted specially embossed gold iPhone 6 smartphones to all his former high school classmates, at a reunion dinner. The inscription on the phones reads: ‘Class of 1992, Maoshan Middle School’.

Qian is the chairman of Universal International Holdings (Hong Kong) Limited, and is quite well known for his generosity. He was previously in the news for donating two million yuan towards relief work after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. And he also gave all his former classmates an iPhone 5 during a previous reunion. Guess they know what they’ll be getting when Apple launches their new generation of phones.

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