Daniel Suelo, 51, is a very special person. in 2001, standing on the edge of a highway, he left his life savings, $30, in a phone booth and walked into the desert to start a new life, one that wasn’t based on the rules of modern capitalism. He gave up using money and began living in caves, foraging for wild berries and scavenging for roadkill raccoons and squirrels.

Suelo became an inspiration for thousands of Americans affected by the economic crash and activists like members of the Occupy movement, after his friend, Mark Sundeen, started documenting his way of life. A friend of Daniel, Sundeen admits he though he had gone crazy or suffered a mental break down the first time he heard he had given up money and moved to the desert, in Moab, Utah. They had been out of touch for a few years, but after the economic crash of 2008, he started thinking about his old friend’s ideas. Suelo had once said money was just an illusion, it wasn’t real, and when the money everyone thought they had just started disappearing, Sundeen began to realize Daniel had a point. Because if your house was worth $500,000 today, and just $300,000 the next, what happened to that $200,000, what was that money in the first place? That was when the author got in touch with Suelo and started studying his life.

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Brendon Grimshaw is the world’s real-life Robinson Crusoe, and Rene Lafortune, his man Friday. The only difference is that Grimshaw actually purchased the island instead of being stranded there. The Yorkshireman purchased Moyenne, a half-mile-wide island in the Seychelles for £8,000 ($13,000) in the early 1960s. As a successful newspaper editor in those times, he was restless and seeking adventure, itching to start a new life of his own. Nine years after the purchase, he moved in to the island full-time, making it his permanent home. The 86-year-old is now credited for bringing out and restoring the beauty of the exotic island, encouraging birds and tortoises to make it their home too. He did have a lot of time to do it, as he has been living there for 40 years.

When Grimshaw first arrived at Moyenne, it had been abandoned for 50 years. The scrub was so dense and overgrown that even coconuts couldn’t fall to the ground. It was then that he was joined by an assistant, a Seychellois named Rene Lafortune, and together they worked tirelessly towards restoring the island to its former glory. The duo ended up planting over 16,000 trees by hand. 700 of these are mahogany trees that are about 60-70 ft tall. The other trees include palms, mango and paw-paw. They also built 4.8 km of nature paths. The giant tortoise, which was almost driven to extinction due to excessive hunting, has found a new home at Moyenne, thanks to the work of Grimshaw. He is now the caretaker of 120 giant tortoises. He also managed to attract about 2,000 birds to the island, starting with a meager 10 that he purchased from a neighboring island. At first they promptly flew back, but then they started to stay longer. Lafortune died in 2007, and since then Grimshaw has been the only permanent resident of Moyenne. He lives there in a small one-story wooden house that clings to the hillside and is furnished with African souvenirs. Outside his house is a sign that says, “Please respect the tortoises. They are probably older than you.”

 
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Yoshihiro Okada has become a popular country in his native country of Japan, after he developed an ingenious way of peeling tangerines, six years ago. It might sound like an arid subject, but the Japanese author has already published two books on peeling tangerines, and even launched a DVD version.

If you’ve been throwing away orange and tangerine peels all this time, then you’ve been missing out on a very fun way to make figurines for your little ones. Using a lot of imagination and a sharp blade, Yoshihiro Okada has been creating detailed figurines out of citrus fruits. It all started six years ago, when he noticed the peel he had removed from a tangerine looked a little like a scorpion. Most everyone else would have probably smiled and moved on with their lives, but not Yoshihiro. He spent the next two weeks buying loads of tangerines and practicing his peeling technique until he got his scorpion just right.

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Can you imagine a beach where the water is actually hot? Seems unnatural, but there really is such a thing in New Zealand. Located on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula (about 175 km from Auckland),  Hot Water Beach got its name from the underground hot springs which filter up through the sand in between the low and high water tidal reaches. The beach attracts a huge number of tourists every year (approx. 130,000) and is one of the most popular geothermal attractions of the region.

What’s even more interesting than Hot Water Beach itself is the ingenious way people create their own spas at the beach. This generally happens in the two-hour time frame before or after a low tide. During this period, you can actually dig large holes into the sand at the beach, allowing hot water to escape to the surface. A hot water pool is created in the hole – a natural spa of sorts. The water gets as hot as 64C (147F). Several tourists bring buckets and spades with them, and later relax in the large hole of thermal water they dug out.

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Adults have always been talking about great parenting skills, but hardly anyone’s ever stopped to ask the kids what they have to say about the matter. 17-year-olds Megan Lovegrove and Louise Bedwell decided not to wait until they were asked. They just went right ahead and wrote a book about how to raise teenagers. The two girls have written the 200 plus-page guidebook based on their own experiences and interviews with 100 other teens. “Teenagers Explained: A Manual for Parents by Teenagers” provides advice for parents on handling teenagers and tackles issues ranging from cleaning up a bedroom to drugs and sex.

I personally would love to get my hand on this book, although I do not have the responsibility of raising teenagers. I’m quite curious to find out just what the book has to say on the subject, given that the authors are so young. It’s surely bound to be an interesting read. It is available for purchase on Amazon, in case you’re interested too. The back cover of the book supposedly has this to say: “The authors of other parenting books are practically ANCIENT. If you really want to know what your teenager is thinking and doing, who better to turn to than teenagers themselves?” And as proof of what they’re talking about, Louise is quoted, “Recently, I told my mum how someone had ‘parred’ me at a party; my mum thought I was swearing at her.”

Through their book, Megan and Louise offer help to clueless parents on things like ‘How to lure your teen from their room and actually get them out with the family’. There are also some useful tips in there. According to the girls, parents need to give their kids at least 3 hours to clean their room, and not check on them until the time is up. Also, house party gatecrashers can be avoided, they say, by making sure that Facebook-organized party events are visible only to friends, and the address is not disclosed. And to reduce phone bills, the advice is simple – encourage your teenager to use more smartphone apps. I’m sure a lot of teenagers won’t be complaining about that, if it means they would get new smartphones.

Megan and Louise attend Nonsuch High School for Girls in Cheam, South London. They were chosen to write the book after they took part in a creative writing contest organized by a publisher for 50 schools in the area. Louise says, “We wanted it to be a real ‘tell it like it is’ manual from the teenagers’ perspective.” Megan adds, “But we’ve also learnt a lot more about how adults think, so we also know how to keep the upper hand.” The book certainly does seem to offer a lot of practical advice. I especially like this one: ‘Do not fuss too much about your own appearance as this can rub off on your teenager and make them sensitive about their looks’. Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?

via The Telegraph

If I had to eat the same meal for as long as 3 – 4 days in a row, I wouldn’t want to be touching it again for a long time . That’s why I cannot understand how 19-year-old Sophie Ray, from Wales, has been eating only Margherita Pizza for the past 8 years. The teenager hasn’t had a nutritious meal since she was two, and has survived on nothing but the cheese-and-tomato pizza since she was eleven.

Blame it on Selective Eating Disorder (SED), because Sophie cannot eat anything else without gagging instantly. Even a slice of pepperoni can cause her delicate stomach to turn. She has a phobia of new foods, so she’s pretty much scared to try out anything new. As with several other people suffering from SED, Sophie’s problem began with a bout of Gastroenteritis when she was 2 years old. After recovery, she was able to only consume cheesy pasta, lemon curd sandwiches and chips. As she got older, Margherita pizza became her staple food. “I love pizza,” she says. “Each brand offers a new flavor, but it’s all the same food so I don’t have to try new foods.” But she’s very particular, “It has to be cheese and tomato and it has to be cooked, I can’t eat it cold and I can’t have any toppings on it.”

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“The Tough Mudder is not a race, it’s a challenge,” say the organizers. And it most certainly is, given the grueling nature of what is perhaps the toughest event in the world. Consisting of 10 to 12 mile ‘hardcore’ obstacle courses, the event designed by British Special Forces is meant to test stamina, strength, grit, and camaraderie. Tough Mudder is the brainchild of former counter-terrorism agent Will Dean. During his MBA course at Harvard, he was frustrated with the monotony of marathons, triathlons and mud runs. Wanting to participate in an event that truly challenged the core of his personality, he came up with the idea of Tough Mudder.

According to their official website, Tough Mudder is much more than just a race because it gives participants the opportunity to a personal challenge. Simply completing the course is an achievement in itself. The participants are not timed, and there are no winners as this is no contest. In fact, one of the rules of the event is to help your fellow mudders whenever they seem to be struggling with themselves. Men and women are strongly encouraged to participate, but the event is open only to those above 18 years of age. So far, over half a million people have participated worldwide. And 25% of them have been women. The events are currently being held in USA, Canada, Europe, Japan, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

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Dolls hold a strange power of attraction over little girls. I suppose it is normal, but is it really if the attraction turns into an unhealthy obsession as they grow older? Some grown-up girls seem to be so infatuated with dolls that they want to look exactly like their plastic playmates. And a handful of them actually manage to achieve these looks.

Here we have a story of five girls who have achieved huge fame on the internet by looking exactly like dolls. We’re not sure if it is because of makeup, Photoshop, plastic surgery, natural beauty, or a combination of all four. All we know is that looks don’t get a lot more doll-like than this. I don’t know if you could categorize these looks as innocent or plain creepy. But I’ll let you be the judge of that.

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India is a land of ancient culture, with practices that date back thousands of years. It is hard to trace the origins of any particular ritual, let alone remember the significance behind them. With no logical explanation available, several Indian practices seem superstitious and sometimes even a tad foolish. However, this does not deter the people of India from participating in religious and cultural celebrations with gusto.

One such example is the festival of the nine evenings, Navaratri (Nava=9, Ratri=Evening), celebrated every year in the month of October. Dedicated to different versions of the Goddess, all 9 days are filled with festivities, good food, music, dance and religious ceremonies across the country. Living in India, watching the Navaratri for me is a part of normal life. But then I heard about this man who is certainly unusual, even for Indian standards. Every year, during Navaratri, he bathes with pots of boiling milk. And he comes out of the experience, unscathed.

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Flynn Michael calls his students a “bunch of Star Wars dorks.” But that doesn’t mean he’s any less passionate about the sci-fi series himself. Especially since he’s created a whole club on the concept of Jedi, and teaches his trainees how to use the Force to navigate the pressures of living in New York City – be it a stressful workplace, a rowdy bar or a crowded subway. His project is called the New York Jedi Club.

Born Michael Brown, the sound engineer from Brooklyn calls himself a “sci-fi, heavy metal, over-the-top geek.” During his growing-up years in Rhode Island, he watched the first Star Wars film 32 times, and when he saw Luke Skywalker learning the way of the Force, like millions of other fans he wanted to be able to do that himself. Michael’s childhood was not unlike other geeky kids’, he was bullied and beat up a lot. He says that the lightsaber helped bring out the hero inside him, and helped him stand up for himself.

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Just yesterday, we wrote about Dr. Life, the man with a 70-year-old’s face and a 20-year-old bodybuilder’s physique. Well, now in the news is another 70-year-old who seems to have found the secret to eternal youth, only hers doesn’t imply using growth hormones and testosterone. Annette Larkins doesn’t look a day over 40, thanks to the diet and lifestyle she maintains. She looks so young that people mistake her to be the daughter, when she’s out with her husband of 54 years, but I suppose he isn’t complaining.

Mrs. Larkins says the secret to her beauty lies in the raw vegan diet, consisting of organic vegetables, fruits, seeds and nuts grown in her own garden, she calls the ‘fountain of youth’. The woman doesn’t touch anything that has been cooked. And another strange thing she does is collect rainwater, to keep her garden blossoming, but also to drink. But the resident of Miami-Dade County, Florida, didn’t always have such a healthy lifestyle. In fact, she consumed meat regularly, as her husband used to own a meat factory way back in the 1960s. It was then that she decided to change her eating habits forever. And what a great decision that was. I mean, just  look at her!

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Neck-up, a 70-year-old man. Neck-down, a 20-year-old bodybuilder. This is what a photograph of Dr. Jeffrey Life looks like. When I first looked at it I thought it was actually a young person whose face is ageing due to an illness, but it’s actually the other way round. The photo is that of a real 70-year-old, and we can safely vouch for the fact that his head hasn’t been photoshopped onto a model’s body. Although, Dr. Life’s methods to achieve the body of his dreams can’t exactly be termed as natural. The man is heavily dependent upon hormonal modifications to look like this.

Dr. Life’s life (that’s weird) changed at the age of 60, when he started to take fitness pretty seriously. Until then, he was overweight, a borderline diabetic and stressed-out. It was when he came across a 12-week fitness challenge on Muscle Media Magazine that he decided to make a few changes in his life. So he sent in his before picture as required by the challenge and started to work out big-time. After the 3 months were up, he had lost over 25 pounds and considerably cut-back on body fat. This, however, was not long-lived and at age 64, his body could no longer hold muscle mass and began to shrink. The culprit – a condition known as andropause – involving a steady decline of testosterone levels.

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Everyone meet Dakota (at least I think that’s her real name),  she’s a 16-year-old girl who goes by KotaKoti and looks a lot like a Barbie doll. Recently, photos of her have gone viral on several Asia and Arabic social sites because of her incredible resemblance to Barbie.

I stumbled upon some photos of KotaKoti while browsing a popular Vietnamese site for weird stories (yes, I do actually visit a lot Vietnamese sites, where else do you think I find all this crazy stuff) and was stunned by the resemblance between this girl and the popular Barbie doll. I mean, in some photos Iwas having trouble figuring out if she is actually a real person or just a life-size toy. I wasn’t able to find a lot of info on her, as she doesn’t seem to be as popular on western websites, and although she has her very own blog, it doesn’t have an “About” page or anything like that.

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Drew Barrymore’s character has a weird memory condition that makes her relieve the same day every time she wakes up. This pretty much the basis of the romantic comedy 50 First Dates. It’s a pretty interesting concept for a film, but in real life it would be considered a nightmare. Unfortunately, 19-year-old Jess Lydon has to go through something similar to this every day.

Instead of returning to the past, Jess is actually trapped in the present. She has been affected by a rare condition known as Susac Syndrome that only allows her to remember what happened in the past 24 hours. Needless to say, this is highly upsetting to Jess and her family. It gets so bad sometimes that she cannot remember what she had for dinner the previous night, or what she did on Christmas and for her birthday. Looking at family pictures confuses her, as she can’t recollect any of the events that took place. The worst part is that although she split up with her boyfriend almost 2 years ago, she wakes up thinking they’re together every morning. Imagine having to relive a heartbreak every single day of your life.

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If you’ve ever dreamed of living in New York, here’s one more reason for you to move there – Jordana Serebrenik. The name of her business explains it all. She is the founder, owner and sole worker of Catch Your Cat, which pretty much sums up what she does. This 45-year-old resident of Murray Hill will come to your home, catch your cat and will do with it anything you want her to.

Let’s face it. Although cats are very adorable creatures, they are fierce when it comes to personal space. Even a hint of threat to their independence and some of them they will even snarl at their own masters. So imagine trying to get a pet cat into a carrier to go to the vet. It could be quite a daunting task. More so, for the elderly or the physically impaired. That’s where Jordana and Catch Your Cat step in. For about $80, she will make sure the cat is in the box in no time at all.

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