34-year-old Zhang Yiyi wasn’t happy with simply being called a great writer, he wanted to look the part as well. So he spent his entire life savings of 1.4 million yuan ($225,800) on plastic surgery, in order to resemble his childhood hero and role model – William Shakespeare!

The devoted superfan had a total of 10 operations – including eye reconstruction, eyelid surgery, nose surgery and a face tuck – over the span of several months. He is yet to emulate Shakespeare’s famously bald head, but he has settled for growing his hair longer, just to improve the likeness.

Interestingly, Yiyi is an accomplished writer himself, and actually used his book royalties to pay for the cosmetic procedures. But, like the English playwright, he started off poor; he was born in humble surroundings and grew up in a debt-ridden family due to his father’s failing business. Growing up, Yiyi was able to draw parallels between his own childhood and that of Shakespeare, whose father also was declared bankrupt when the playwright was a young boy.

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Last weekend, New Zealand’s capital hosted its first ever teapot racing event at CubaDupa – Wellington’s vibrant new street festival modeled on the lines of Cuba Street. The sport, a new favorite among Steampunk enthusiasts, involves navigating radio-controlled teapots through an obstacle course with tunnels, ramps and jumps.

Organised by Capital! Steampunk, a Steampunk events community in New Zealand, Splendid Teapot Racing saw radio-controlled cars carry teapots through the indoor obstacle course in under two minutes. Steampunk enthusiasts interested in participating had to register in advance, and according to festival co-ordinator Helen Jansen, the level of interest and curiosity in the race was quite high. “This event has pre-sold more tickets than any other so far,” she said. “This is a first in the steampunk world and a great addition to the Southern hemisphere’s premier steampunk event.”

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If the claims of a group of Siberian entrepreneurs are to be believed, their new product might just give Viagra a run for its money. They aren’t selling another expensive pill, just a can of fresh air!

According to Vladimir Makuta, head of the local Tashtagol district, air from Azasskaya Cave and its surrounding area, which is where the fabled Yeti (a.k.a Bigfoot) was supposedly sighted on more than one occasion, is crystal-clear, full of goodness, and has a healing effect. It can apparently help strengthen immunity and positively impact mental state. But most importantly, it is said to works wonders for people who want to perform better in bed.

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When 29-year-old Didier Jacquemin set out to get the tattoo of his dreams, little did he know that it would turn out to be a huge disaster. While the image he desired was a beautiful forest scenery complete with birds in flight, the tattoo he ultimately got was the stuff of nightmares!

Didier, a resident of Liege, Belgium, said that he found the original pattern on the internet and immediately fell in love with it. So he printed the image and took it to a local tattoo parlor on January 15, asking for a replica. The artist agreed to do the artistic tattoo, but ultimately delivered something that seems drawn by a 4-year-old.

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Lots of single people complain about how Valentine’s Day and other holidays are somehow designed to make them feel excluded, but this particular group of Japanese men have taken things even further – every year, they take to the streets to protest against the injustice of it all.

They are called ‘Kakumei-teki himote doumei’, which literally translates to ‘Revolutionary Alliance of Men That Women are Not Attracted To’. Popularly known as ‘Kakuhidou’, the group was founded in 2006, by Katsuhiro Furusawa, after being dumped by his girlfriend. He returned home dejected, and began reading the Communist Manifesto. That’s when he came to realize that being unpopular with girls is an issue of class and a form of discrimination. So on Christmas Eve that year, he stood outside JR Akihabara Station and handed out flyers with the slogan ‘Kurisumasu funsai!’ (‘Crush Christmas!’).

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It’s hard to find an original, one-of-a-kind name for a baby in this day and age – a fact that a Swiss company is cashing in on. For a hefty fee of $32,000, they promise to have their team of experts come up with a name that your baby wouldn’t share with anyone else in the world.

The company, called Erflogswelle, is actually in the business of creating names for brands and products, but director Marc Hauser came up with the idea for this new service after he helped a friend name her child. “The choice was causing tension between the couple, so I thought I could help,” he explained.

His friend loved the name that he picked out and that’s when he realized the potential of extending the service to parents all over the world. So he put together a special team of his best people, who employ their tried and tested techniques to find unique names for babies.

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With over 150,000 followers, Skellie the skeleton is a true Instagram celebrity. Her account, aptly titled ‘@omgliterallydead’, chronicles her daily activities like hanging out at Starbucks, brunches with her BFFs, makeup-free selfies, visits to the dentist, chilling in the bath, or just staying home to enjoy a Netflix binge.

The whole concept apparently started as a joke between a few co-workers at a Toronto-based social media marketing company. “In early October, a pose-able, plastic skeleton arrived at our office,” said social media manager Dana Herlihy. “My coworkers took to it; someone taped a Starbucks cup to the skeleton’s hand and I took a photo for my personal Instagram.” When that photograph went viral, Dana decided to take a few more, and before she knew it Skellie had her own account.

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You would think McDonald’s and heavy metal don’t really mix very well, but a new band is actually ‘rocking’ the combination. L.A. based ‘Mac Sabbath’ is a heavy metal group made up of four rockers who dress up as McDonald’s characters – Ronald Osborne, Grimace, the Hamburglar, and Mayor McCheese – and perform Black Sabbath songs with burger-themed lyrics.

According to the band’s Facebook page, they are ‘not a joke page to sell T-shirts’. Instead, they describe themselves as “Ronald Osbourne and the whole gang in full regalia playing all their hits like ‘Sweet Beef’ and ‘Chicken for the Slaves’ in a multi-media show with video, theatrics, audience participation and sing alongs.”

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Believe it or not, someone has actually invented a pill that makes your farts smell like roses or chocolate. It sounds like a joke, but according to their inventor, they work wonderfully.

The pill is the brainchild of 65-year-old French inventor Christian Poincheval.  Christian says that he began developing the pills six years ago, after a rather copious dinner with some friends. “We had just come back from Switzerland and we were eating a lot with our friends and the smell from the flatulence was really terrible,” he revealed.

“When we were vegetarian, we noticed that our gas smelled like vegetables, like the odor from a cow pat, but when we started eating meat the smell of the flatulence became much disagreeable,” he added. “We couldn’t breathe so me and my friends decided something had to be done. We needed to invent something that made them smell nicer.”

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In an attempt to understand what women go through every day, a couple of German radio DJs recently had their chests injected with a saline solution to emulate female breasts. John and Rasheed, who are actually well-know in Berlin for their strange experiments, underwent a one-hour procedure with cosmetic surgeon Mark Wolter to get temporary boobs for 24 hours.

“Mom, I’m sorry,” said Rasheed, just before he and his colleague were strapped down for the procedure. John had brought along his wife and her bikini for support.

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Denmark’s economy might not be in tip-top shape right now, but that hasn’t deterred northern country’s government from awarding 2.5 million Danish kroner ($430,000) in grant money to a study that investigates the existence of underground trolls (mythical creatures, not internet haters).

The money will be received by Lars Christian Kofoed Rømer, a PhD student and part-time anthropology lecturer at the University of Copenhagen, who has spent two years studying ghost activity. With the new funds, he now plans to research ‘actual relationships’ between humans and trolls on the Danish island of Bornholm.

Bornholm is well-known for its flourishing tourism industry, which is mostly centered around the belief that the island is inhabited by trolls who live underground and come out at night. They even have a ‘national troll’ named Krølle Brølle, who is ‘small and cute’ and lives with his troll family on Langebjerg, and comes out at night to have ‘many exciting adventures’.

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On the advice of her shrink, 22-year-old Londoner Georgia Horrocks is trying to declutter her mind by selling her imaginary friend on eBay!

“I have recently come to the decision that it is time to sell my imaginary friend Bernard who was created during a time of emotional instability,” Georgia wrote in the eBay listing.

“My psychiatrist recommended that I say goodbye to Bernard, and although I would like some financial compensation, it is more important that he finds a good home.” She added that he has an ‘active’ and ‘mischievous personality’.

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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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A Russian biker has taken it upon herself to teach people not to litter while driving. And her methods are quite extreme – she follows the offenders on her motorcycle, picks up their trash, and throws it right back into their cars!

The mysterious crusader recently uploaded a video of herself in action, which she recorded using a GoPro camera attached to her helmet. The video is so hilarious that I’m not surprised it hit 10 million views in just three days.

The two-minute clip starts off with the woman’s motorcycle parked on the sidewalk, behind a bright red car. The car driver is seen flinging a cigarette butt out of his window. The woman promptly starts up her bike and moves forward, picks up ash from a nearby ashtray and flings it on the driver through the car’s open window. The man was flabbergasted, and the woman was off before he could react.

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If you’re secretly worried about your smartphone addiction, then the new NoPhone might be just the thing you need. It’s the perfect smartphone placebo – it looks and feels exactly like a smartphone, but it does nothing. It’s just a piece of plastic that you can carry around in your hand to fool yourself.

NoPhone is currently a prototype that will cost a measly $12 once it hits the market. Its makers are trying to raise $30,000 on Kickstarter in order to cover production and marketing costs. They describe the device as a ‘technology-free alternative to constant hand-to-phone contact that allows you to stay connected with the real world’.

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