The story of Robin Hood and his merry men is centuries old, but even in this modern age their example is as popular as ever. In the Andalucia region of Spain the roles of outlaws are nowadays played by a village mayor and a group of Socialist extremists, who instead of rich royalty rob local supermarkets and give the loot to the poor.

Andalucia was hit particularly hard by the international economic crisis and the collapse of the construction industry. The whole of Spain is struggling, but in this region the unemployment rate has reached 34% and some people have difficulties even putting food on the table. The dire situation inspired a group of members from the Andalucia Workers Union, led by Juan Manuel Sanchez Gordillo, a member of the regional parliament for the United Left party in Andalucia and mayor of the village of Marinaleda in southern Spain, to stage Robin Hood-style attacks on local supermarkets to get food for the needy. Although authorities see this kind of acts as crimes, Sanchez Gordillo and his modern merry men are heroes to the Spanish poor, who welcome the food products with open arms.

Read More »

Ye Tongxin, a 48-year old man from Nanjing, China, has a very unique talent. He can slice various fruits and vegetables by throwing plastic cards at them from meters away. I guess you can say he’s a real life fruit ninja.

You probably thought Oddjob was cool for slicing stuff with his hat, but Ye Tongxin’s skill is much more impressive – he’s able to slice fruit and veggies with common plastic playing cards. We’ve all tried doing at some point, but it’s a much harder trick to pull off than most people think. Mr. Ye has been practicing his ability for the last ten years, and although he spends two hours every day throwing cards at hanging plastic bags shaped as cucumbers, he says training to become the world’s best fruit slicer is much more complex. Apart from just throwing cards, he also runs between 8 and 10 laps up high ground, in order to improve his strength, because unlike other card throwing ninjas he needs to cut through tougher fruits like watermelons and apples, instead of just soft cucumbers.

Read More »

Who says you need good grapes to make a fine wine? Pascal Miche, a wine maker from Quebec, Canada, uses tomatoes to create an unusual yet increasingly popular vintage. His secret lies in a four-generations-old Belgian family recipe .

A former pork butcher, Pascal Miche moved from Belgium to Canada’s Quebec province, seven years ago and decided to go through with his idea of commercializing his grandfather’s  precious wine, made according to an old recipe. He finally kickstarted his business in 2009, planted his “vinyard” and began making tomato wine. If you search online, you’ll find quite a few enthusiasts who have experimented with making wine from tomatoes, but Mich hopes his will be the first successfully commercialized. Considering sales of his “Omerto“wine have reached 34,000 bottles annually, I’d say his plan is right on track.

Read More »

A lot of people can’t imagine going through a day without taking at least one shower, but 66-year-old  Kailash Singh, from India, hasn’t taken a bath in over 38 years, and says he’s happier than a lot of people who wash their bodies every day.

But what can possibly make a man give up the daily ritual of bathing? Kailash says he told the decision in 1974, shortly after he got married, hoping this would help him have a son. He claims it was priest who guaranteed him a prized son if he followed his advice not to wash or cut his hair. Now, over 38 years later, Kailash Singh is probably the world’s smelliest man, has 6-foot-long dirty dreadlocks and is father to seven daughters and not a single son. despite having been failed by his religious guidance, the old man still doesn’t want to wash his body, and says only a son could change his mind. Although stranger things have happened, fathering a son at 66, with a 60-year-old wife is very unlikely.

Read More »

You’ve probably never heard of her, but Taiwanese vegetable seller Chen Shu-chu has done more for the needy than many of the world’s rich and famous. Earning a modest living selling vegetables at the market, the Asian hero has so far managed to donate over $322,000 to various charities.

“Money serves its purpose only when it is used for those who need it,” Chen Shu-chu once told a newspaper, and throughout the years, the dedicated philanthropist made sure her hard earned cash was indeed used for the right causes. Inspired by her own difficult and impoverished childhood, Chen decided to dedicate her life to helping those less fortunate than her. Even though she earned a modest income selling vegetables in Taitung County’s central market, in eastern Taiwan, the 61-year-old led a frugal life and donated almost all of her money to charities. You’d think there wouldn’t be much to give away, but Chen Shu-chu has so far made substantial donations, including  $32,000 for a children’s fund, $144,000 to build a library at a school she attended and $32,000 to a local orphanage where she also offers financial support to three children. In total, the world’s most generous vegatable seller has so far donated over $300,000, and she’s not planning on stopping.

Read More »

Mike Senna, a computer programmer from Orange County, California, has spent the last two and a half years building a real-life Wall-E robot, from scratch. It moves around, rolls and talks, but he doesn’t collect trash.

In 2009, shortly after the movie Wall-E was launched, we featured some photos of cool Wall-E computer case mod, but that feat simply pales in comparison to Mike Senna’s awesome achievement. The robot aficionado spend between 3,200 and 3,800 man hours building his very own version of the adorable Pixar trash-collecting hero. His computer programming skills definitely came in handy, but seeing as there were no Wall-E parts available anywhere on this planet, he had to construct the whole thing from scratch. He worked on it about 25 hours a week, after his day job, but all the hard work certainly paid off.

Read More »

Fund-raising school competitions usually involve cake baking and sporting events, but at one particular school in New Zealand it’s all about dressing dead possums in funny outfits for a bizarre best dressed furry animal contest.

Looking at the photos taken at the Uruti School, on New Zealand’s North Island, you’d think this was a taxidermy competition, but in reality, the furry corpses were part of a weird display of dead possums, for a charity event. Basically, small children let their imagination run wild and tried to dress the furry critters as best they could. One was actually skinned to look like a posing boxer, while others sported bikini costumes and princess dresses. As you can imagine, the event enraged animal welfare groups who accused the school of encouraging cruelty to animals, but the teachers defended it saying it was “lots of fun”and that it helped raise $6,000 for the school.”There was an amazing crowd and it was lots of fun. Animals aren’t the only species who are dressed up after they die. We do it to humans too,” Principal Pauline Sutton told the Taranaki Daily News.

Read More »

Forget about painful diets and grueling exercise, from now on all you have to do to lose weight is spray on a little perfume. The magic fragrance is called Prends-Moi and is said to contain beta-endorphins that reduce the urge to overeat.

Developed by the French perfume house Robertet, the Veld’s Prends-Moi slimming fragrance was launched last year, but only recently made its debut on the English market, where women welcomed it with open arms. On July 30, the Daily Mail reported around 6,000 women had subscribed to the product’s waiting list, hoping this could actually be the miraculous weight-loss solutions they had been waiting for. It’s easy to understand why people would gladly fork out some cash on such an easy-to-use slimming product, but can shedding the pounds be as easy as putting on perfume? According to the makers of Prends-Moi, it sure can.

Read More »

We live in such a busy world that some people don’t even have the time to go to church anymore. Luckily, there’s the Pray-O-Mat, a converted old photo booth that features 300 pre-recorded prayers and incantations in 65 different languages, and lets you get your blessing on the go.

Waiting for the service at the local church or temple takes time, and in this day and age that’s a valuable commodity. But thanks to German artist Oliver Sturm, you don’t have to skip out on getting closer to the supreme being you happen to be worshiping. Known as the “Gebetomat” in Germany, the ingenious device has been branded as a “Pray-O-Mat” for its transition to England, where it’s gotten quite a lot of attention since being installed at the University of Manchester, as part of a study into “multi faith spaces”.

Read More »

It’s never easy telling someone they smell, but a new service called Deodorgrams plans to make it a little easier by anonimously sending friends and acquaintances a scented deodorant.

I remember back in high-school we would get stinkers deodorants for their birthday, which was kind of cruel, and didn’t really work on clueless colleagues. Man, how I wish a service like Deodorgrams was available back then, it would have probably saved me from days of smelly torture. The first deodorant messaging system of its kind, Deodorgrams was created by an Arizona-based natural body products company and will probably become a big hit, because let’s face it, sending an anonymous deodorant beats looking your friends in the eye and telling them they smell bad. The unique service will let your friends know exactly how you feel, without telling them who you are.

Read More »

Who needs photos of a departed loved-one when you can have a detailed urn shaped just like their severed head to keep their ashes in?

People are always coming up with offbeat ways of immortalizing their dearly-departed, but this has to be the creepiest yet. In the past, we’ve seen people’s ashes used to make decorative beads, or as material for detailed portraits, and even to make playable vinyl records, but this latest option from Cremation Solutions is definitely the most shocking. The Arlington Vermont company creates unique urns shaped exactly like the head of the deceased, using using state of the art 3D imaging techniques. All they need is one or two photos of the subject and they’ll send you a detailed polymer compound urn mounted on a marble base.

Read More »

You know those movies where an author with writer’s block keeps throwing drafts over his shoulder trying to hit the trash can, but never seems to land one in? Well, that might just be a problem of the past, because someone seems to have invented a smart trash can that targets and catches flying pieces of trash.

It’s amazing what some people can create if they put their minds to it. Take this Japanese guy who goes by “FRP”, who, inspired by a commercial, decided to create his own trash can of the future, able to anticipate where flying trash is going to land and catch it before it hits the ground. It sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, but according to the clever inventor, all you need is a wheeled base integrated with a circuit board and attached to the bottom of a common trashcan, a Kinect camera to monitor the room, and a specially-written program that allows the camera to track incoming garbage and guide the trashcan to catch it before it lands.

Read More »

Molecule, a newly-opened cafe in New York’s East Village, has sparked a lot of controversy when it started selling tap water for the price of $2.50 per bottle. It might sound like a scam, and many think it is just that, but the owners say the price is right for a taste of “pure H2O”.

Experts say New York’s tap water is among the safest and tastiest in the world, coming from “a watershed that is relatively pristine,” according to chemical engineer Lorraine Huchler, but some people believe it can get a lot better. Two of them, Alexander Venet and Adam Ruhf decided to actually do something about it, and opened the Molecule Cafe, in East Village, where people can buy tap water purified through a complex seven-step process. They have this $25,000 machine that uses UV light, ozone treatments, and reverse osmosis to make superior-grade water that its creators believe is worth $2.50 a bottle.

Read More »

After moving to the big city, Melinda Schmidt looked for a way to connect with people like she did with her friends and family back home, and found hugging helped. So she hugged total strangers every day, for a whole year.

It’s tough moving to the city after you’ve spent all your life in a small community where everyone was close, and young Melinda Schmidt found that out the hard way. She was feeling homesick, so she vowed to hug a new person every day, for an entire year, to help her get over her feelings. Only hugging quickly became a way of life, and although her pledged 365 days are up, she continues hugging total strangers. ‘I won’t ever stop doing this. I won’t ever stop hugging strangers and people who I’ve just met because it’s a complete lifestyle change,” she says in a video shot to showcase her bizarre habit.

Read More »

In a time when man has so many communication tools at his disposal, it seems odd that someone would use a horse to get their message across to the world. But that’s exactly what Vincent Gabriel Kirouac did to promote chivalry and polite manners in Canada.

It’s not every day that you get to see a man in full knight regalia, riding a horse through the busy streets of Canadian cities like Ottawa, but that’s just what Vincent Kirouac has been doing during the last few months. “I’m crossing Canada on horseback dressed as a knight, to remind people of the values of long ago, such as devotion,” he told the National Post. And believe it or not, his unique strategy seems to be working as he manages to steal smiles from people everywhere he goes and even some friendly invitations from total strangers. “You ask for the hospitality and they say ‘yes’ all the time,” he told CBC.

Read More »