A convenience store owner in Osaka, japan, sparked a lot of controversy recently when he decided to close his business for a day on New Year’s. Appaerntly that was a pretty big deal in a country where convenience stores a traditionally open 24/7, all year long.

While convenience stores are still pretty popular in the United States, they are nothing compared to the so-called “konbini” stores found on every corner of every street in urban Japan. They are beacons of hope that make life easier for the average person, offering a wide range of services (ATMs, Wi-Fi, printing, delivery services, etc.), as well as groceries, all in one place, day and night. In fact, the thing that makes Japanese convenience stores so convenient is that they are open all 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, making it possible for anyone to pick up some groceries, pay the bills or get a quick bite to eat,whenever they need to. So when one convenience store owner decided to close his business for a day on New Year’s, it made national news.

Read More »

The Thammasat Khlongluang Wittayakom School, in Pathum Thani, Thailand was forced to stop using decibel meters to measure students’ loudness while singing the national anthem, after getting some serious backlash online.

Singing the national anthem as loudly as possible in front of the flagpole every morning is apparently a big deal at Thai schools, so one learning institution got the bright idea to track the loudness of the students using a decibel measuring mobile app. If the students’ singing registered at over 85 decibels, they would be given the green light and be dismissed to head to their classrooms. However, if their singing was only between 80 and 84 decibels, they would have to sing the anthem again two more times, as punishment. If the loudness was under 80 decibels, they would have to sing the anthem three more times. The measure was supposed to instil discipline in students, but it only sparked outrage in everyone who learned about it.

Read More »

Videos of a Chinese groom humiliating his bride by playing an X-rated video of her cheating with another man to their wedding guests have been circulating on Chinese social media, sparking a heated debate.

The unverified footage, believed to have been recorded by guests at a wedding in Fujian province, comprises three videos – one of the two newlyweds walking down the aisle, and two explicit clips showing the bride and her brother-in-law. In the first video, as the newlyweds walk down the aisle, an MC can be heard saying “now we are going to show you the videos of how the newlyweds grew up”, but instead a sex video featuring his bride and another man is projected onto the screen behind them… “You thought I didn’t know?” the man asks his bride, who throws her bouquet at her, as both their families try to separate them. The other two clips show the young woman sleeping with her sister’s husband.

Read More »

While most 11-year-olds are mostly concerned with school, video games, and surfing the web, Timofey Klevakin, a boy from rural Russia, is busy training in the gym and breaking weightlifting records.

Ever since he was five years old, Timofey was interested in weightlifting, watching his father train at a makeshift gym in their home village of Shalya, in the Ural mountains. Noticing his boy’s interest, Arseny Klevakin started training him, despite his wife’s protests over concerns that he was too young. At the age of six, during a regional weightlifting competition, Timofey managed to amaze attendants and judges by deadlifting a 55-kilogram barbell. He’s been working hard ever since, and the now 11-year-old is getting ready to break the national deadlift record for his weight class by lifting a 105-kilogram barbell.

Read More »

Long, relaxing bathroom breaks that allow people to read the news or get up to date with their social media feed may be coming to an end due to a new and controversial toilet seat design that is supposed to make sitting on the toilet for more than seven minutes becomes uncomfortable.

Called the Standard Toilet, the new design thought up by English consulting engineer Mahabir Gill slopes at a downwards angle of 13 degrees forcing the person who is sitting on it to use their leg muscles in order to keep from sliding off. According to its creator, the longest someone can comfortably sit on such a toilet seat is 5 to 7 minutes. Gill  said that the 13 angle slant is ideal, as it’s enough to cause some feelings of strain in the users legs, making them want to get up faster than they would from a horizontal toilet seat, but not enough to cause serious health problems. While the designer said that the Standard Toilet was inspired by his personal experience, he also added that it would be a great asset for businesses wanting to maximize employee work hours.

Read More »

The unexpected death of 30-year-old Gerald Cotten, CEO of Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX, sent shock waves through the whole crypto currency last year, especially as he took the password to about $163 million USD in bitcoin to the grave with him. But now investors want his body exhumed to confirm Cotten’s identity and cause of death.

In January of 2019, QuadrigaCX announced that its 30-year-old founder and CEO had died about a month earlier, due to “complications with Crohn’s disease” and that he had taken the password to at least 180 million Canadian dollars ($137 million) in cryptocurrency with him. Following the shocking revelation, QuadrigaCX was forced to close and applied for creditor protection with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, while roughly 76,000 people were struggling to come to terms with the loss of their cryptocurrency. Some still haven’t been able to do that, as evidenced by their recent request to have Cotten’s body exhumed and his cause of death confirmed.

Read More »

Following the tragic death of their young daughter, a California family has asked members of their church, the Bethel Church in Redding, California, to help them attempt a miraculous resurrection through prayer, singing and praise.

Early on Friday, 2-year-old Olive Alayne Heiligenthal stopped breathing in her sleep, and despite the best efforts of paramedics, who arrived on the scene after the girl’s parents called 911, she could not be resuscitated. Her body was taken to the Shasta County Coroner’s Office, but her parents refuse to believe that their daughters time on this Earth has truly come to an end, and have appealed to their church to attempt a resurrection through prayer. Andrew and Kalley Heiligenthal, both of whom are members of the Bethel Church in Redding, hope that through mass prayer, music and praise, Olive can be revived.

Read More »

A Chinese father sparked outrage on social media after it was reported that he made his son beg at a Shanghai train station as punishment for not doing his homework.

Lat Thursday morning, Shanghai police responded to an emergency call about a young boy with a schoolbag on his knees begging for food in a local train station. When officers found the 10-year-old, he was holding a small bowl and asking people for food. Asked how he had gotten there, the child told them that his father had left him at the station about 45 minutes earlier, put the bowl in his hands and told him to beg from strangers as punishment for not doing his homework.

Read More »

Inserting long, plastic tubes through their oesophagus to induce vomiting has been an unhealthy trend among Chinese girls for a while now, but a 22-year-old woman recently became the first to accidentally swallow her vomiting tube.

Xiao Lu, a 22-year-old girl from Guangzhou, reportedly went to a local hospital on December 3 and told doctors there that she had accidentally swallowed a drinking straw. The object was too deep to reach, so doctors ordered an upper gastrointestinal tract radiography, which revealed a long thick tube in the the woman’s oesophagus. The foreign object measured about 1.9cm-wide and 30cm-long, which made it too thick and too long for a drinking straw, so the doctor pressed the woman for answers.

Read More »

An upcoming video game has been raising eyebrows due to its unusual premise – putting players in the shoes of Jesus Christ and having them perform biblical feats like multiplying fish, healing others and calming stormy seas.

Aptly named “I Am Jesus Christ” the upcoming video game from developer PlayWay is a realistic simulator game inspired by stories from the New Testament, from His baptizing in the Jordan River, to His resurrection after being nailed to the cross. In a recently revealed trailer we see Jesus healing a blind woman (Matthew 21:14), producing fish out of thin air for a hungry fisherman (John 6:35), and walking on water to save a ship caught in a storm (Mark 4:41). All these feats apparently deplete a bar that apparently correlates to Jesus’ holy abilities.

Read More »

Our online data is already monetized by several technology giants, but one Japanese IT company thinks real-life data could be monetized as well, and it’s willing to pay people to have their everyday life video-recorded and sold to various businesses.

Last month, Tokyo-based Plasma.inc made national news headlines for inviting people to take part in a controversial social experiment called “Project Exograph”. Participants must agree to have their living rooms, bathrooms, changing areas, kitchens and other parts of their homes wired with cameras that would film them continuously for roughly one month. At the end of the experiment, the footage will be edited in a way that would make it impossible to identify protagonists, and then sent to various companies to see if it can be monetized. Believe it or not, hundreds of people have already signed up for a chance to take part in Project Exograph.

Read More »

Seoul chef Eo Yun-gwon has shocked the restaurant world after announcing that he is suing Michelin Guide for including his restaurant in their 2019 edition, despite him asking them not to.

Most chefs would kill to have their restaurant included in the famous Michelin Guide, and in fact some waste years of their lives and big money in pursuit of a Michelin star and never get it, so Eo Yun-gwon’s announcement that he not only explicitly asked the authors of the guide to remove his restaurant from this year’s edition, but that he also sued them for not honoring his request, came as a huge shock. Eo described the Michelin Guide as cruel and unfair, and vowed to continue his crusade against the publication.

Read More »

Remember that story we ran a few months ago about a man who claimed he cured his terminal cancer with a cheap dog deworming medicine? Well, apparently it recently went viral in South Korea and stocks of the antiparasitic medicine have been depleted.

Back in May, the story of Joe Tippens, an Oklahoma man who allegedly cured his terminal with the help of a $5 dog deworming drug called fenbendazole, went viral. Doctors said the cancer had spread everywhere in his body and he only had about three months to live, but today he is cured and he credits the veterinary medicine for the miracle. The news made headlines all around the world, but it really made a big impact in South Korea, where stocks of fenbendazole have evaporated due to people buying it as a way to prevent or cure cancer.

Read More »

Retail giant Amazon recently found itself at the center of controversy in India, after it was reported that it is selling virginity pills that help women fake their virginity on wedding night.

Called “i-virgin”, the controversial product consists of small capsules containing a mysterious “blood-powder” that allegedly imitates human blood. All the user has to do is insert one of these pills in the vagina a couple of hours before the planned intercourse to fake virginity. The producer adds that the “high quality blood” completely dissolves, posing no health danger to the user. Amazon India has been accused that by selling a product which helps fake virginity on the first day of marriage it is supporting a centuries-old taboo.

Read More »

66-year-old Benjamin Schreiber is very much alive, but hasn’t stopped him from using his death as a way of explaining that he actually served his life sentence for murder.

When Shreiber collapsed in his prison cell in 2015, doctors had to resuscitate him five times, which technically means that he died for a brief period of time before being brought to life. Three years later, the convicted murderer filed for post-conviction relief, claiming that he was being held in prison illegally. He figured that because he had briefly died in 2015, he had technically served his life sentence and should be a free man. His sentence was supposed to end when he died, right? the fact that he had been resurrected didn’t matter.

Read More »