Jason Barber, a farmer from Dorset, England, has spent three years creating the world’s first milk vodka. Now, his Black Cow label is the poison of choice for celebrities like Elizabeth Hurley and James Bond star Daniel Craig.

47-year-old Jason Barber, a sixth generation farmer, got the idea for his pure cow milk vodka after watching a TV documentary on Tuva, a small Siberian republic where people make vodka from yak milk. Intrigued by the idea, he set out to make his own, from the milk of the 250 cows on his farm in Beaminster, Dorset. It took him three long years to perfect the process, but the final result is nothing short of impressive, according to food and drink experts. Barber starts out by separating the milk into curds and whey. He uses the former to make cheese, while the latter is fermented into beer, using special yeast, to convert the sugar into alcohol. After being distilled, the milk beer goes through a special blending process. The resulting vodka is triple-filtered and hand-bottled. Made from fresh whole milk Black Cow vodka is apparently an exceptionally smooth drink with a distinct creamy character.

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Nobody does dangerous driving stunts quite like the youth of Saudi Arabia. Sure, drifting is pretty cool, and Ken Block’s Gymkhana is awesome, but they’re nothing compared to the latest driving craze in the Middle East. It’s called “sidewall skiing” and it basically means driving a car on its side wheels at high speed.

A few years back, footage of Saudi daredevils skating on the country’s dessert highways while clinging to speeding cars went viral on video sharing sites like YouTube. But that got old really fast, and the bored youth had to come up with something even more dangerous exciting. These days they get their kicks by driving around on two wheels, while passengers perform all kinds of tricks, like standing on top of the car, or even changing tires at high speed. The life-threatening stunt was apparently popularized by action films like “The Dukes of Hazzard” or “Diamonds Are Forever”, and was recently featured in rapper M.I.A.’s “Bad Girls” video. Sidewall skiing has also become a spectator sport, with crowds of young men and women sitting on the side of the road cheering on the adrenaline junkies. Some even take part in their death defying routines by laying down on the asphalt and allowing the vehicle to pass over them at breakneck speeds. Drivers use a ramp to tilt their cars on two wheels, then rely on their maneuvering skills to keep it from flipping over and potentially killing their balancing passengers. Somehow, saying this sport is extremely dangerous seems like a huge understatement.

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Who says booze and religion don’t mix? That’s certainly not the case at Vowz, a unique Tokyo bar run by two Buddhist monks who serve customers delicious cocktails, religious chants and sermons.

There are over 10,000 bars in Tokyo, but none like the Vowz, in the city’s Yotsuya neighborhood. Opened by Japanese Buddhist monk Yoshinobu Fujioka, this offbeat watering hole has been bringing members of his congregation together for 13 years. “They become totally different believers here, the distance between them and myself diminishing,”the shaved-head bartender says. “They are more connected with each other.” In the old days, people would go to Buddhist temples to socialize and have a drink, but times have changed, and Fujioka decided to adapt in order to remain close to the people. So he opened the Vowz Bar, a place where people could come in and listen to Buddhist sermons and homilies without feeling constrained in any way. “At the temple, folks are always well-behaved and attentive, no matter how long or boring the sermon is,” head monk Gugan Taguchi says. “Here at the bar, they don’t like my sermons — they walk out.” But thanks to the friendly atmosphere and the tasty cocktails prepared by the monks themselves, that hardly ever happens.

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32-year-old Brian Manowitz, better known as the Vegan Black Metal Chef, has one of the most unusual cooking shows on the internet. Dressed in his vinyl Armor of Death and boasting a KISS-inspired face paint mask, he cooks all kinds of delicious vegan meals to the sound of black metal.

Manowitz, a freelance sound engineer from Orlando, has been a vegan for the last 13 years. He’s also a big fan of black metal music, so he decided to combine both of his passions into a unique and entertaining project known as Vegan Black Metal Chef. He set up a site where he posts recipes and photos of his delicious cooking, but it was his YouTube channel that brought him worldwide fame a couple of years ago. Brian’s videos always open to the sound thunderous drums and distorted guitar riffs, and show him in his dark dungeon-like kitchen decorated with leather-bound cabinets, medieval chopping tools and spooky candles, as he explains how to prepare vegan dishes with a crackly voice. All vegetables are “butchered” with his collection of awesome knives, or smashed with a mace, and cooked on a pentagram stove altar. “You can’t summon the essence of Satan into your food without the pentagrams,” Manowitz says.

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China’s growing problem with internet and video game addiction is probably best described by the case of Li Meng, a young man who has virtually been living in an Internet cafe for the last six years, leaving only to buy food and take the occasional shower.

According to Chinese media, Li Meng graduated from university six years ago, but unlike most of his peers, who went on to look for jobs, make a name for themselves and start a family, he opted for a life in the fantasy world of online gaming. Ever since he finished school, Li has spent most of his time in one of the many internet cafes in China’s Northeast city of Changchun. The owner of the place says he’s been there for such a long time that he’s basically part of the furniture, and doesn’t even notice his presence anymore. He spends every day and night tucked away in a corner, with an open bag of food by his side, staring at the monitor and mashing the keyboard and mouse buttons, leaving for brief periods of time to catch a bite to eat and take a bath. Reporters who visited the young Chinese gamer at his “workplace” described him as a pale “bespectacled youth that clearly hadn’t been to a hairdresser for a long time”.

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They work seven days a week regardless of weather condition, never go on breaks, don’t take bribes and best of all, they require no pay. They are – wait for it – Bangalore’s new lifelike cardboard traffic policemen, and they’re watching you!

India’s tech-city of Bangalore has been facing serious difficulties dealing with traffic violations. Despite low car ownership, the rate of row fatalities has risen sharply in this city of 8.5 million people to at least two road-related deaths per day, in 2012. Some sources say Bangalore needs at least 6,000 traffic policemen to keep things under control, but it currently has a personnel of 3,000. Instead of supplementing their ranks, local authorities have come up with an ingenious idea to make drivers behave at the wheel that doesn’t require significant expenditures – life-size cardboard cutouts of traffic policemen strategically placed on the city’s busiest roads. Only three of them have been deployed so far, but results have been so encouraging that 10 more khaki-wearing fake cops will soon be rolled out to improve Bangalore’s chaotic traffic.

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Ravi Fernando, a student at Stanford University and a member of the World Cube Association has mad Rubik’s cube solving skills. In a recent video, he solves three cubes while juggling them, in less than six minutes.

This is probably the coolest thing you’ll see today. I’ve watched Ravi’s YouTube video a few times now and I still can’t believe it can be done. He is somehow able to juggle three Rubik’s Cubes and solve them at the same time. The only way I can solve one Rubik’s cube in less than an hour is by taking off all the colored stickers and gluing them back in the right order. Pathetic, I know, but this isn’t about me, it’s about this skilled math undergrad who has a cube solving record of just 7.65 seconds ( no juggling, obviously). That puts him in the 48th position on the list of the world’s fastest Rubik’s Cube solvers. Pretty cool, but it’s not just about speed with this guy, as he can also solve the tricky puzzle blindfolded, with just one hand, and with his feet. And you thought you were special just being able to solve one of these darn things, huh?

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If you’re looking to buy the world’s toughest watch, you might want to take a look at the Kaventsmann Triggerfish Bronze A2. This little timepiece has been pressure tested to 300 bar (that’s 3000 meters of water pressure), blown up with 10 pounds of C4, and survived to tick another day.

Kaventsmann Uhren is a one-man business run by Michael Barahona Fernandez, who creates all of the watch case parts by hand, in his Berlin workshop. It’s a time consuming process, so only a few of these solid watches go on sale each month. For his Triggerfish Bronze A2 model, the watchmaker used shock-resistant CuSn8 phosphor-bronze, the same material bridge load bearing plates are made of, stainless steel for the detachable back cap, and a 10 mm domed polycarbonate crystal. The finished watch measures 45 mm wide and 20 mm tall, and is a bit heavier than conventional wristwatches, but that’s to be expected, considering its extreme durability. After confirming the timepiece can resist water pressure of up to 300 bar, Fernandez enlisted the help of U.S. Special Forces for the ultimate test – his KAVENTSMANN Triggerfish Bronze A2 against the blast generated by 10 pounds of C4 plastic explosive.

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Tucked away in the small European country of Malta is a place you’d probably never expect to find in the real world– Popeye’s Village. Also known as Sweethaven Village, it is an ideal family-vacation spot and one of Malta’s major tourist attractions. The fun park is modeled on the theme of the favorite children’s cartoon character, Popeye the Sailor Man. Interestingly, this village was the actual set used by Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Productions to shoot the 1980 film Popeye, based on the comic strips by E. C. Segar.

At Sweethaven, you can expect to see models of all the main characters of the popular children’s cartoon – Popeye the Sailor, Olive Oyl, Bluto, Swee’Pea and Wimpy. You can also go on joy rides and visit play houses, puppet shows, museums, and cinema sessions featuring the film Popeye and the construction of the set. You can even star in your own film, record it and take it home. But that’s not all, there are a host of other things to see and experience, like face painting, balloon modelling, storytelling, open-air barbeques, crafts and Wii games. There’s also a mini golf course and a free wine tasting for adults. The season-specific activities are a huge hit as well, these include water trampolines, play pools and boat rides during the summer, and a Christmas Parade along with Santa’s toy town in December.

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One of the world’s strangest and rarest mental disorders is Cotard’s Syndrome. Also known as the Cotard Delusion, the Nihilistic Delusion, and the Walking Corpse Syndrome, CS causes sufferers to believe that they are dead (figuratively or literally) and do not exist.

I always thought the walking dead only existed in movies and video games. Until I read about Cotard’s Syndrome (CS), that is. Apparently, people who suffer from this rare but very real mental disorder actually believe that they have died and are not of this world anymore. The condition is named after a 19^th century French neurologist, Jules Cotard. In 1880, he presented the first patient to be diagnosed with the condition at a lecture, calling her Mademoiselle X. She is said to have suffered from significant self-loathing, a denial of the existence of God, the Devil, and several parts of her own body. She also believed she was damned for eternity and incapable of dying a natural death, so she had no reason to eat anymore. Mademoiselle X eventually starved to death.

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20-year old Djordje Balac spends weeks, sometimes months at a time working from sunrise to midnight creating realistic models of industrial vehicles like trucks, excavators and cranes exclusively from matchsticks and glue.

Djordje’s passion for making wooden models dates back to general school. At first he cut all the necessary parts from pieces of wood, but soon he discovered matchsticks were a much better building material and, as he puts it. “the rest is history”. He started using hundreds of boxes of matches to create small-size models of his favorite trucks and industrial equipment, and spent weeks trying to get all the details just right. As his skills improved, the young man from Gospic, Croatia, decided to take his matchstick art to the next level by making the wooden replicas operational. So in 2006, he started building larger matchstick models, concentrating not only on replicating every design feature, but also on functionality. Despite working with a rigid material like matchsticks, he managed to make the arms of his excavator and crane models extend and turn like they do on real ones, and the cabins of his trucks detachable. After posting photos of his creations on forums and social media sites, Djordje Balac got the recognition he deserved, and was even invited to display his models at fairs and exhibitions around his home country.

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The largest pain management center in the world, and a popular health tourism destination, the Healing Caves of Gastein welcome over 75,000 people every year. They all flock to this miraculous place to undergo a controversial form of therapy with radioactive radon gas used to cure a variety of medical conditions, from arthritis to psoriasis.

When the people of Gastein started exploring the nearby Radhausberg Mountain in search of gold, they had no idea they would discover something infinitely more valuable –  naturally occurring low levels of radon gas. In time, they realized that the radioactive gas combined with the mountain caves’ high humidity and temperatures of up to 41.5° Celsius helped strengthen their immune system and cured some very serious illnesses. Word about the Gastein Healing Caves spread like wild fire throughout all of Austria, Germany and other Central European countries, and today Gastein is known not only as a world-class skiing destination, but also as a miraculous place of healing with a mind-blowing success rate of 90%. Most of the people who come here for radon treatment say a few sessions in the caves keep them pain-free for a whole year. Apparently, the radioactive gas is absorbed through the skin and lungs, activating the body at a cellular level and stimulating the self-healing process.

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The Tree Spirits of Saint Simmons Island are one of the most fascinating roadside attractions in North America. Carved into dozens of live oaks and hardwoods, the mysterious wise faces that seem to reveal the trees’ inner spirits are the work of local sculptor Keith Jennings.

Jennings started his Tree Spirits project in 1982, as a hobby. Looking for a way to kill time around the house, the artist armed himself with a few hand tools and began exercising his artistic talents on a tree in his backyard. “I had too much time and too little money,” Keith remembers about the beginnings as a tree carver, but his works impressed the community to such a degree that he was later commissioned to release the inner spirits of 20 other trees around Saint Simmons Island, off the Georgia coast. Although it has long been said that the faces he sculpts into the trees are meant to represent the sailors who drowned on ships made from trees from the island, Keith Jennings dismisses the rumor. “The trees do it all,” he says. “I don’t have that much to do with it. The wood speaks to you, ya know?” Each of his intriguing artworks are created entirely according to the tree they’re carved into. “I like the way they age as they. The bark starts rolling over the edges and gives each one a spooky, eerie appearance,” the artist says.

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Bojana Danilovic, a young woman from Serbia, suffers from a strange condition that has left both doctors and scientists baffled. The 28-year economics graduate sees everything upside down.

Experts from Harvard University and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who examined Bojana Danilovic say she suffers from a rare brain condition called ‘spatial orientation phenomenon’. In layman’s terms that means her eyes see things the right way, but for some reason her brain changes them. Although there have been some similar cases recorded in history, Bojana’s case is truly unique. Everything in her life has been backwards, even the way she came into this world – feet first. Her parents remember that when she first started crawling, she would always move backwards, and when she began to walk, she did it in reverse. The remarkable young woman says her mother had to take a leave from her job in order to teach her to walk like all the other children. It took a lot of practice, but she finally managed to walk forward. Only this was only the beginning of a very unusual life.

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If you’re looking to take a break from your everyday life and retreat in a fairytale world, there’s probably no better place than La Balade des Gnomes, near the picturesque town of Dubuy, Belgium. Featuring ten amazingly-decorated bedrooms and a special suite designed as a Trojan cow, this place is certainly unique.

Formerly an ordinary Belgian farmhouse, La Balade des Gnomes was transformed into a magical tourist resort by architect owner Dominic Noel. Inspired by fantasy settings, ancient Greek history, science fiction and medieval castles, the resourceful Mr. Noel managed to create his incredible hotel exclusively out of natural materials like wood, stone and cob (mud mixed with lime and straw). “The hotel was created by people who have a strong interest in nature,” the owner says, but anyone with a rich imagination would certainly appreciate the unworldly design and decorations of this place. The names of the rooms do a good job of describing what you can expect to see when you walk through the door: The Legend of Trolls seems taken straight out of the Lord of the Rings, In a Moon Neighborhood takes you to a distant future where humans can spend their vacation in a hotel on the Moon, while Macquarie Island boasts a marine decor complete with a boat-shaped bed.

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