It’s not the kind of job students dream of during university years, but for 22-year-old Jamie Fox being a human scarecrow in a rape field really is a great gig. It gives him the chance to sit down, read a book and even improve his ukelele-playing skills.

Jamie graduated from Bangor University this summer, with a degree in music and English, but until he finds a job he likes in the music business, he’s more than happy to put on a bright orange suit and play a scarecrow in a rape field, in Norfolk, England. “The farmer said to me, ‘Bring a deckchair and a good book’,” Mr. Fox says, and that’s exactly what he did. Now he just enjoys the peace and quiet, and the fresh air while catching up on some reading, listening to podcasts and playing the ukelele during his daily 8-hour shifts. “I get to sit and read for a lot of the time but whenever I see the partridges, I have to get up and scare them off,” the young man said. “A couple of my friends in busier, more generously-paid jobs, are slightly envious.” And for good reason, who wouldn’t want to earn £250 ($400) a week just sitting around in the great outdoors?

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During the last year, 47-year-old Dan Toombs, better known by his online alias, The Curry Guy, has cooked 365 different kinds of Indian curry dishes for him and his family.

After spending a fortune on takeaway Indian food, North-Yorkshire-based businessman Dan Toombs decided it would be cheaper and healthier if he did the cooking himself. So he set himself the challenge of making a curry dish for his family every day for an entire year. He even set up a blog documenting the experiment,posting photos and recipes of everything he prepared in the kitchen. “The children took a while to get used to Indian food every day but grew to love it. On Christmas Day I put Indian spices under the skin of the turkey and cooked it with Bombay potatoes and a broccoli curry. It was a great success and the turkey leftovers lasted for days,”. Toombs said. In the beginning, he used curry cookbooks to get the dishes just right, but he was disappointed with the results, and noticed traditional Indian food was very different than takeaway versions. So The Curry Guy started cooking takeaway food in the comfort of his own home.

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Created by MIT student Melissa Chow, the “like-a-hug” jacket makes virtual experiences a bit more realistic, by inflating and giving you a hug whenever someone likes you on Facebook. Soon, real friends will probably be obsolete.

Having people like you on Facebook is nice, but don’t you wish you could feel the love whenever they hit that “Like” button? Well, thanks to the innovative “like-a-hug” jacket, now you can. Inventor Melissa Chow, from the  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), says it “allows us to feel the warmth, encouragement, support, or love that we feel when we receive hugs”. The concept behind this Facebook jacket is fairly simple – air pockets inside the jacket inflate every time your smartphone sends a signal that a new “like”has been received. Better still, you can send hugs back to your friend by simply squeezing the jacket and deflating it.

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Weird as it may seem, there are people out there who would rather wear an uncomfortable diaper all day long than go to the bathroom. Japanese media reports adult diapers are increasingly popular among Japanese women who say wearing them saves them a lot of time.

In an article titled “The Ultimate Form of Slob“, Japanese magazine SPA describes the hottest trend in the Land of the Rising Sun. No, it’s not the brainwave-operated tail for humans, that’s still just a prototype, but something way more disturbing. The masculinization of women has become a very popular topic in Japan, as statistics say more and more females don’t clean their rooms as often as they used to, leave their underwear all over the place and don’t even bother to remove unwanted bodily hair, but one magazine seems to have identified the ultimate slobs – women who wear diapers to avoid using the toilet. They even interviewed one such girl, 25-year-old Kaori Adachi (pseudonym), who works in a Tokyo real-estate agency. For the last six months she has been wearing diapers to work almost every day, instead of using sanitary tissues after using the restroom. And she doesn’t mean panty liners to prevent leakage, but actual diapers that absorb all the urine, and save her the trouble of going to the bathroom.

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Looking at his nightmarish dioramas, you’d think Melbourne-based artist Mark Powell has been to hell and back. Bizarre, sinister and disgusting are just some of the words usually used to describe his art, but that’s most likely the reactions he was going for when he created these scenes.

Powell’s creepy dioramas are populated with monstrous characters going about their business, eating, dissecting things and even playing music in dark and disturbing basements. They remind me a little of scenes from Pan’s Labyrinth, only they’re way more troubling. The Australian artist models every one of his gory dioramas from silicone, which gives all the veiny monsters and pieces of flesh a disturbing organic look. Even though they might kill your appetite, you have to admit the level of detail in these bizarre artworks is pretty impressive. If you’ve ever imagined what hell might look like, I think Mark Powell’s masterpieces will give you a pretty good idea. Read More »

With the Halloween season fast approaching, there’s probably no better way to get into the holiday spirit than hunting a werewolf in the a pitch black forest of Droitwitch, near Birmingham, along with seven terrified friends.

In the last year or so, zombies have dominated the monster charts, but for this year’s Halloween, the folks at Chillisauce.co.uk have decided to give the all but forgotten werewolf a chance to strike fear into the hearts of men, in their Overnight Werewolf Hunting Experience. If you were watching movies like Underworld, and wondered what it would be like to hunt one of these furry creatures on their on turf, wonder no more, because now you ca experience it first hand, just by heading over to Droitwitch, England, for a real-life overnight event. Here’s the background story for the big night: “Deep in the heart of the countryside, near Birmingham, Farmers have reported unusual losses of livestock, and missing person reports are flooding the local papers. Rumors surfaced of a Special Ops team disappearing 24 months ago – the only clues left were a garbled radio message, and a mangled corpse.” It’s up to you and your teammates to succeed where other have failed – take on the cunning and fierce werewolf and try to outwit him.

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Brian Brushwood and Justin Young, hosts of the NSFW Podcast, managed to push their $0.99 e-book to the #4 position on iTunes, without having to write a single word. How did they do it? Easy, they included lots and lots of sex.

You’ve probably heard of Fifty Shades of Grey, the erotic novel that took the world by storm a few months back. At one point it was all everyone was talking about, although not all critics were impressed with the quality of writing. Still, it became a bestseller and managed to drag other erotic literature to the top with it, whether it was good or bad. Brian Brushwood, one of the hosts of the NSFW Podcast noticed this trend while he was trying to push his book on magic tricks, Scam School Book 2: Fire. Looking at the iTunes chart he discovered the top 10 was all erotic fiction. Even established contemporary writers couldn’t break into the top 10 because of all the erotic books that were capitalizing on the success of Fifty Shades of Grey. He thought “hey, we could do that”, and that’s how their clever experiment began.

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Kay, a woman from New York who’s going to be featured on TLC’s upcoming series Extreme Cheapskates, uses a combination of soap and water to rinse her private parts after using the restroom, instead of spending money on toilet paper, like the rest of us.

In the first episode of TLC’s new series, Kay explains how she uses a simple bar of soap and a bottle of water to clean herself up after using the bathroom. After she urinates, the woman says she just dries herself up with some paper towels, but”If I took a dump then I also grab soap, wipe myself down with the soap, then I take the water and rinse off the soap”, she explains in the recently-released trailer, making us all count the days until October 16 when the show airs. “I don’t believe in spending money on something that you’re just going to throw away such as toilet paper or paper towels,” she says, trying to explain her bizarre behavior. Read More »

While other mothers use their baby’s nap time to catch up on house chores or get some shuteye themselves, 41-year-old Mami Koide likes to turn her sleeping daughter Nuno into a living, breathing work of art.

When the sun sets over Tokyo, and it’s time for baby Nuno to go to bed, her mother, cartoonist Mami Koide, gets ready for work. After making sure the toddler is sound asleep she sets her on a canvas improvised from two mattresses covered with a fluffy blanket and makes her the protagonist in various artistic installations. The creative mother uses everyday items like clothes, socks and even vegetables to create fantastic sceneries around Nuno, who is always the center star. Once everything is in place, she climbs onto a chair and takes a bird’s eye photo of the artwork. Koide created he first art piece to send to her husband, who works as a bartender and is away from home during the night, but as the ritual continued, she put together a collection of around 200 images, which eventually became an illustrated book, and a best seller on Amazon Japan just a week after it was released.

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A creepy meat shop recently opened in London’s famous Smithfield meat market, offering all kinds of stomach-turning treats, like human hands, ears and even full torsos. Luckily, it was just a publicity stunt for the launch of Capcom’s Resident Evil 6 video game.

It looked like a scene from a sick horror film – human limbs packaged and put on display, human ribs hanging from meat hooks and full bodies placed on stainless steel morgue tables. Human hands were on sale for £5.99 while the feet were a bit pricier at £6.00, but that didn’t stop Resident Evil fans and zombie enthusiasts from indulging in what might be perceived as gross cannibalism. In fact, all the meat products on display at the Wesker & Son pop-up meat shop were made from animal meats, but made to look like authentic human parts. It was only open for two days, to promote the latest video game in the Resident Evil series, but it still managed to get a lot of attention. Read More »

25-year-old Nick Kleckner gave up his comfortable lifestyle and embarked on a 178-day journey from Florida to California, in which he relied solely on the goodness of strangers for food and a place to sleep.

Although a lot of people compare his amazing experience to that of Forrest Gump, our real-life protagonist actually got the nickname “Hobo Nick”. He left Atlantic Beach, on April 5 this year, with no food, no water and no money, but he somehow managed to make it all the way to Huntington Beach, California after an epic 2,500-mile walk across the North American continent  during which he went through 5 pairs of shoes. Kleckner says he grew up in an “awesome family” never having to worry about money, and that’s apparently what prompted him to go on this journey of discovery. “I had an urge to do this about a year ago when life was repetitive and I felt like I didn’t appreciate it,” Kleckner wrote on his blog. “Since I have been homeless I have lived more in the moment and have really learned to be thankful.” Throughout the 178 days of walking, the self-made hobo documented his experience by sending his mother updates via his iPod. She in turn posted them on his blog.

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German Liquor company G-Spirits has recently released a limited edition line of vodka, rum and whiskey that are poured down the chests of some incredibly hot women before being bottled. And no, this is not just a clever marketing gag, these are real premium products.

Until just a few minutes ago I thought the Naga Chilli Vodka was the hottest alcoholic drink in the world, but after seeing G-Spirits’ lineup, I’m just not sure anymore. I mean, I don’t care what you mix in your alcohol, it can’t possibly be as hot as whiskey that’s been poured on the chest of Alexa Varga, Hungary’s Playmate of the Year for 2012. And she’s just one of the three gorgeous models used to make the unique drinks. It’s not yet clear how they manage to bottle the drinks after they’ve been completed their journey down south, but after watching the making-of trailer released by G-Spirits, I don’t think many guys will care. After all, this is probably the easiest way to get to second base with a beautiful girl, and it will only set you back $150 – $180, depending on the spirit.

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Ok, so they don’t look nearly as cool as Klingons, but Japanese bagelheads really do look like they came from a galaxy far far away. For some reason, injecting saline into the forehead is becoming an increasingly popular trend in the land of the rising sun.

Bagelheads have been around for years, but they recently caused international controversy after the body modification technique was featured on National Geographic’s Taboo program. Three people underwent the bagelhead procedure in Tokyo, under the supervision of an expert and the watchful eyes of several body modification enthusiasts. They had large needles inserted into their foreheads through which saline slowly dripped forming a kind of reservoir. When enough saline built up under the skin creating a nice bulge, the body mod master simply pressed his thumb on it to give it that coveted bagel shape. For some reason, every one of the three subjects seemed pretty happy to have a deformed head. Read More »

Alex Harrison Parker, an American PHD astronomy student, used computer mosaic-making software to re-produce Van Gogh’s famous Starry Night painting from the most beautiful images captured by the Hubble telescope in the last 20 years.

“The idea came up around the time of Hubble’s 22nd birthday, when I thought it would be neat to assemble a collage of a bunch of Hubble images from over its history,” Alex told Discovery News. So he went online, downloaded Hubble’s top 100 pictures and used a mosaic software to create this new take on Van Gogh’s work of art. The passionate astronomer who likes to study the asteroids and proto-planets of the early solar system decided to go ahead with his unique project after cloudy weather prevented him from exploring the real starry night at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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Something strange is going on at the Rogue Ales Brewery in Newport, Oregon. Brewers there are developing an ale made from wild yeast harvested from the beard of Rogue’s award-winning brewmaster, John Maier.

He hasn’t shaved since 1978, and that apparently makes his beard the perfect place to harvest yeast. I’m just kidding, it’s far from perfect, but Rogue Ales’ president, Brett Joyce said he was looking for a “different place that might have some magic yeast in it” and decided to try out Maier’s facial hair. The guys at Rogue had tried developing some new yeast strains from some of their own hopyard, but came up empty-handed, so as a joke they had their lab guy take a couple of Q-tip swabs from John Maier’s fluffy beard. Amazingly enough, he found a yeast cell, did some fermentation tests and the unique “beard beer” was born. What started out as a joke turned into something really special, since they never expected to find the new yeast they were looking for right in their brewmaster’s beard. “This really is the needle in the haystack” John Couchot, Rogue Ales’ self-described mad scientist said.

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