A young tuhao (Chinese nouveau riche) from Shaoxing city, China, is making the news for his uncharacteristic behavior. A few nights ago, he was spotted getting out of his swanky new Porsche, only to set up a makeshift roadside stall on the pavement to sell scarves to passers-by. He was accompanied by a lady friend, who assisted him with sales.

Onlookers were so bewildered by this that they couldn’t help asking him what on earth he was doing. That’s when he explained: “I sell scarves here just to earn money to buy gas for my car.” He told reporters that while his parents had gifted him an expensive car, he didn’t think it was right to ask for gas money as well. The girl added that they were also interested in gaining experience in entrepreneurship and business, along with making some pocket money.

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While the rest of us roll around in bed all night trying to find that elusive ‘sweet spot’, 51-year-old Liang Yanguo can make himself quite comfortable on a single-rope hammock. That’s right, his favorite resting spot is actually a sling made of a single nylon rope tied between two trees.

Nicknamed the ‘Kungfu Man’, Liang has been spotted lying on a rope at a park in Huangyan, China’s Zhejiang Province. Sometimes he hangs on with one hand while the other rests on his chest. He is also able to kick up his legs and open his arms, or even bring his palms together to salute passersby. Irrespective of the position he assumes, he always appears calm and Zen-like.

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31-year-old actor and TV host Paolo Ballesteros specialises in transforming himself into female celebrities from around the world – including Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Katy Perry, Jennifer Lawrence, Julia Roberts and more. Believe it or not, there’s no Photoshop involved; Paolo uses only wigs, makeup, and colored contact lenses to complete the stunning transformations.

Paolo is the host of a popular TV show in the Philippines called Eat Bulaga. His transformations actually started as a segment on the show Super Sereyna, where he would surprise audiences with his mind blowing makeup skills. Paolo revealed that he is self-taught – he learned to apply makeup by watching YouTube tutorials, and he does it all by himself.

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Winter, a 42-year-old coffee fanatic from Houston, Texas, is on a mission to have coffee at every Starbucks coffee-shop in the world. Given that Starbucks operates on almost every corner of every street of every city in America, not to mention thousands of shops around the world, Winter seems to have set himself an impossible goal. Yet, he’s already been to 11,676 Starbucks branches, and he won’t rest until he’s been to each and every one in the world – that’s at least 10,000 more to go.

Born Rafael Lozano, he legally changed his name to ‘Winter’ because he didn’t want his credit history confused with his father’s. Over the years, Winter, a computer programmer, has spent over $160,000 on Starbucks coffee and on traveling to cafes across 38 different countries – including shops in London, New York, Paris, Egypt, Kuwait, Turkey, Japan, and Lebanon. That’s about 25 percent of his earnings and three months of travel a year on coffee runs.

He’s a self-proclaimed caffeine addict, who at one point, used to guzzle 29 cups of coffee a day. Interestingly, he actually prefers artisanal coffee from independent stores, but he appreciates that Starbucks tastes the same everywhere. His first visit was in 1997, and he almost immediately decided that he had to go see all the branches in the world. “It was a completely random idea that came to me when I was in Plano, Texas while discussing the growth of Starbucks in the greater Dallas area,” he said.

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Damian Aspinall is a casino-owning millionaire, environmentalist and animal lover who has made it his life’s mission to raise gorillas and release them into the wild. And in order to make that happen, the self-made businessman set up the Aspinall Foundation, through which he has raised over 60 gorillas in England and released them to secure locations in Africa.

Aspinall, who was once known for his party lifestyle and for dating supermodels like Naomi Campbell has now devoted his life to deepening the connection he has always shared with the animal kingdom. Apart from the Aspinall Foundation, he also runs Howletts and Port Lympne wildlife parks in Kent. It is his belief that animals should have as much right to happiness as humans do.

His deep-rooted connection with animals goes all the way back to his childhood – his father John, Aspinall, was a gambler and maverick zoo keeper. So he grew up around his father’s exotic pets, developing an all-consuming passion for wildlife as he got older. “It’s magic crossing the species boundaries, and the greatest thing about being alive,” said the 54-year-old. “You can’t explain it to people who don’t have it.”

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38-year-old Abe Calimag is so hooked on the Broadway musical Rock of Ages that he’s seen it 500 times in the past five years. His obsession has taken him to six different countries, just to watch various productions of the same show. And he’s spent a whopping $25,000 along the way.

Abe, a business consultant from Virginia, bought his first Rock of Ages ticket in 2009 because his favorite actress Amy Spanger was supposed to be in it. He later realised that she wasn’t in the cast anymore, but he decided to go see the show anyway. It turned out to be the experience of a lifetime, and thus began Abe’s love affair. During the last five years, he has traveled to London, Toronto, Australia, Manila and to several states in the US, and even taken a few cruises just to watch the production over and over again.

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Thomas Cantley isn’t your average cancer survivor – he’s so passionate about raising awareness that he’s actually pushing a giant inflatable ball across America. The ball, nicknamed ‘Lefty’, serves as a metaphor for testicular cancer – the disease that Cantley managed to survive. He started the ‘ballsy’ quest at Santa Monica, California, and plans to make it all the way to the southern coast before heading towards New York, stopping at 11 cities on the way.

Cantley’s cancer journey started in 2009, when he suffered abdominal and lower back pain. He didn’t realise right away what the symptoms meant, and he says that he never received preventive information. In fact, he wasn’t even aware of the disease’s existence.

“I had this ‘Superman Complex’ all these men create,” he admitted. “I was a fashion photographer in New York and I was so self-centered.” So he didn’t see a doctor until things got really bad and he had to go to the emergency room. That’s when he was diagnosed with Stage III testicular cancer – the illness had spread to other parts of his body besides the lymph nodes.

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We’ve seen lots of bizarre plastic surgery stories in the past, but this one surpasses them all – a 21-year-old woman went and got herself a third breast! It’s so ridiculous that I won’t blame you for thinking it’s a prank, but she says it’s not. She got a fake breast implanted in between her two natural ones, and even started going by the name ‘Jasmine Tridevil’ to reflect the change.

Why would anyone in their right mind do this to themselves, you ask? It turns out that Jasmine, a massage therapist by profession, wants to earn a bit of fame and money and if getting a third boob is what it takes to accomplish her goals, then so be it. She’s created a little reality show around her life called ‘Jasmine’s Jugs’ and she’s hoping that MTV will pick up the idea.

In the meantime, Jasmine has turned to YouTube, hoping to gain an army of followers. She’s put up a few videos in the past couple of months flaunting her new look and answering her viewer’s incredulous questions. Going by her responses, it looks like she actually wants hate comments and extreme reactions. Read More »

Like many girls her age, 25-year-old Lauren Adkins has a huge crush on vampire Edward Cullen from the Twilight movies, played by Hollywood heartthrob Robert Pattinson. But Lauren has taken her infatuation to a whole new level – she actually got married to a life-size cardboard cut-out of her perfect man. She lives with the cut-out, goes on dates with it, and pretty much considers it her partner for life.

Lauren, from Las Vegas, said that she’s been obsessed with romantic fairytale endings ever since she was a little girl. “When I was a child, I watched the Disney versions of Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella until the tapes wore out,” she recalled. As she grew older, her interests shifted towards romantic teen movies, like Twilight.

After every guy she met and dated at college failed to meet her ideal of Prince Charming, she finally found what she was looking for in Edward Cullen. “It was different from any love story I’d ever seen before – after all, the leading character was as likely to suck your blood as open the door for you. I was obsessed.”

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Joe is a crafty young homeless man in New York who hooks up with a different woman each night just to avoid sleeping out in the cold. The 26-year-old serial charmer has managed to lure hundreds of women into inviting him to spend the night with them. Originally from Boston, Joe says that he loves New York because it has 8 million people, and he can be with a different girl whenever he wants.

“Dude I’ll go up to any random girl and tell them I love them, I wanna marry ‘em – just for recreational purposes,” he bragged. Joe isn’t exactly the definition of handsome, but his confidence and arrogance seem to be serving him quite well. And his homeless status doesn’t really stop him from trying to look good.

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29-year-old Koichi Kuwabara has made it his mission to distribute ‘Free Hugs for Peace’ to as many people as he can – he’s been traveling across Asia for the past three years, hugging random people on the streets. His videos have gone viral on YouTube, garnering over 1.5 million views. He also has over 5,300 followers on Facebook and about 3,000 on Twitter.

Koichi, an aspiring school teacher, said: “I don’t want to just regurgitate theories written on textbooks. I want to tell the kids what I saw and learned first-hand from giving free hugs worldwide.”

He began his extraordinary adventure in August, 2011, just after he graduated from university. Since then, he has taken his Free Hugs initiative to several cities in China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan. At each location he visiyed, Koichi held up a sign that displayed the flags of Japan and the country he was visiting, along with the caption ‘Free Hugs for Peace’.

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Dr. Jeff Wilson, a professor of environmental science at a university in Austin, Texas, is living in a 33-square-foot dumpster for a year. He kickstarted the unique project in February, and his efforts have earned him the nickname ‘Professor Dumpster’ among his students. Harvard-educated Wilson says that his goal is to show people that it is possible to have a pretty good life even in austere conditions.

The dark green dumpster is currently parked behind the women’s residence halls in a corner of Huston-Tillotson University’s campus. Wilson describes it as ‘the most thoughtfully designed, tiniest home ever constructed’. Before he moved in, Wilson’s students cleaned and fixed the dumpster for him, making sure that it wasn’t smelly or unfit for living. And to make the dwelling as energy efficient as possible, they plan to set up solar panels and an energy producing toilet.

Having previously lived in a sprawling 2,500 square foot house, Wilson started downsizing his life after going through a divorce. He moved into a 500 square foot apartment, and sold all his spare clothes and furniture for $1 per item. He soon realized how little he needed to survive, and dumpster-living sounded like a great idea.

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Martin Tatta, from Argentina, is a self-trained ‘horse whisperer’. The 33-year-old ‘gaucho’ – the Argentinian version of the cowboy -has a remarkable gift for understanding horses – he can get the four-legged beauties to do his bidding with a delicate touch, friendly coaxing, cuddles, and kisses.

“It is something that comes natural to me,” he said. “Nobody taught me, it just came out. There is no struggle with the animal. This is a very soft job, very, very soft.” In fact, Martin is so tender with horses that many people have been reduced to tears while watching him.

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When 22-year-old Australian car-crash victim Ben McMahon woke up from a week-long coma, the only language he could speak was fluent Mandarin. So fluent, in fact, that he is now a popular TV star in China!

The incident took place in early 2012 – Ben was in a terrible car crash in Melbourne that left him battling for his life. While his survival seemed like a miracle, nobody was prepared for the bizarre twist that occurred when he finally regained consciousness a week later – his brain simply decided to switch from English to Mandarin.

“Most of it’s hazy, but when I woke up seeing a Chinese nurse, I thought I was in China,” recalled Ben. “It was like a dream. It was surreal. It was like my brain was in one place but my body was in another. I just started speaking Chinese – they were the first words that left my mouth.”

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The city of Chiba, in Japan, is home to a real-life superhero who looks almost exactly like the famous Dark Knight of Gotham city. He even wears Batman’s iconic suit and travels on a custom-made Batpod, but his mission is rather different – to bring happiness to the people of Japan.

‘Chibatman’, as our superhero has come to be known, prefers to keep his identity a secret. But we do know that he’s a 41-year-old local welder who likes to fight crime – or in this case, unhappiness – in his spare time. While his costume is store-bought, he built the three-wheeled ‘Chibatpod’ himself, with imported parts worth around $5,700.

Photographs of the caped crusader have been doing the rounds on Twitter for the past three years now. Everytime the citizens of Chiba catch a glimpse of their very own Chibatman, they immediately post a photograph or video of him on various social networks.

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