StopXam is a vigilante group that is actively involved in fighting against the rude and entitled driving culture in Eastern Europe. Their goal is to stop bad driving with politeness, which forms the basis of the name StopXam (meaning ‘stop rudeness’). While the non-profit organisation originated in Moscow in 2010, several branches have emerged in neighboring countries such as Moldova.

With their unique approach towards eliminating illegal parking and dangerous driving, StopXam has managed to become an internet sensation. Their technique is simple: they first approach offending drivers and try explaining things politely. For instance, they might say: “Hello, your car is standing too close and does not allow this car to move. Please park somewhere else.”

Some drivers get the message quickly and correct themselves. But those who don’t get a giant sticker that covers up almost half their windshield. “We will give you a sticker on your front window, and it will be very uncomfortable for you to drive with it,” they warn. If the driver still doesn’t budge, they go ahead and paste the sticker, which reads: ‘I don’t care about other people, I park where I want’.

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Children make all kinds of ridiculous requests, and sometimes parents agree to them, even if they don’t plan on keeping their promises. But not Nicholas L., a French father-of-three who in order not to let his kids down actually sent a couple of their toys into outer space.

Last December, Nicholas’ three children asked him to send their favorite toys into space. Without giving much thought to what he was getting himself into, the young father agreed. Later he realized he didn’t want to be the kind of parent who disappoints his kids by not keeping his word, so he embarked on an incredible project to fulfill their wish. In the beginning, the Frenchman had no idea how he was going to pull it off, but after spending four months researching online he had a list of necessary equipment to fly the toys into outer space and retrieve them, as per his kids request. He ordered a weather balloon from a US army surplus store, and had the parachute and GPS tracker shipped all he way from Hong Kong. He was ready for the big test, but he needed proof to show his kids he had actually sent their toys into outer space, so he installed two GoPro waterproof cameras on his DIY flying device to record the entire journey.

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Percival Lugue, a graphic artist from the Philippines, has been collecting toys from various fast food chains since he was just 5-year-old. Now, at age 50, he holds the Guinness Record for the most fast food toys in the world, over 20,000 of them.

Lugue has held the record for the largest collection of fast food toys since 2014, when his tally stood at around 10,000 unique items, but he has been busy consolidating his record ever since, and now he has more than 20,000 toys. Like any child, he always liked playing with the toys he got with his fast food meals, but he always took care of them, so he was able to start his epic collection pretty early. Over the years, he has collected new items from various fast food chains, like McDonald’s, Burger King and even the Philippines’ favorite brand, Jollibee, and compares the excitement of adding a new toy to his collection to experiencing Christmas morning as a kid.

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A Japanese mother-of-two has been getting a lot of attention on social media sites like Instagram and Pinterest for her incredibly detailed and colorful anime-themed bento boxes.

If you’re even a little familiar with Japanese culture, you probably know about “kawaii”, the people’s affinity for all things cute, and the attention to detail present in almost every aspect of daily life. Food is no exception, not even the school lunch Japanese mothers prepare for their children every day. While some just patiently arrange rice balls, sliced rolls or pickled veggies nicely in a box, others spend extra time creating an entire ensemble, complete with rice balls shaped like panda bears or sausages carved to look like octopuses. And then you have mothers like @ryiuyuda, who take the process of arranging a bento box and turn it into an art form.

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Catholic priests from an evangelical group in northern Poland recently sparked a heated online debate after staging a controversial protest against occultism, idolatry and sorcery by burning various “sacrilegious” items, including Harry Potter and Twilight books, traditional masks and idols, and even a Hello Kitty umbrella.

In photos posted on Facebook, several priests from the SMS from Heaven Foundation, in Koszalin, Poland, can be seen carrying baskets full of items they consider sacrilegious from their church to a stone fire area outside and setting them ablaze. Footage shows an African wooden mask, a small Buddhist figure, figurines of elephants and popular fantasy books like Harry Potter and Twilight being consumed by flames as the priests and a few altar boys watch. The objects were reportedly brought in by parishioners, who were encouraged by the priests to clean their homes of such evil items.

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Japanese botanical artist Makoto Azuma’s flower arrangements are, quite literally, out of this world. His beautiful plants were recently launched into outer space as a part of his latest project, ‘Exobiotonica’. The launch took place on July 15 at the Nevada Black Rock Desert, with the help of Sacramento-based independent space program, JP Aerospace.

“I wanted to see the movement and beauty of plants and flowers suspended in space,” said Azuma, who is well known in Japan for his extravagant performances involving flowers. There was this one time when he stomped on hundreds of flowers during a musical performance. Once, he stuffed flowers into glass jars and filled them with water-like sardines. He has also created office chairs and Hello Kitty dolls entirely covered in green grass.

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Zeng Jia, a 22-year-old student from Wuhan, China, shocked family and friends when she invited them to a rehearsal of her own funeral so she could take part in the festivities while she is still alive.

The young student told members of the press that she got the idea for the morbid event after realizing that people spend a lot of time and effort on someone when they’re gone, and they never get the chance to appreciate and enjoy it. Determined not to let that happen to her, Zeng Jia used up all her saving to arrange an elaborate funeral service complete with a coffin, flowers and origami birds, as well as photographers and a crowd of mourners. She then invited her family and friends to take part in the unusual festivities. Believe it or not, some of them actually attended, and got the chance to look at the young girl as she lay in her coffin, with a Hello Kitty doll on her chest. To make the whole thing look and feel realistic, Zeng even hired makeup artists who specialize in working on dead bodies to give her that coveted past-away look. She spent an hour playing dead, as all her relatives and friends passed by her coffin to say their final goodbyes, after which she jumped out to attend the wake and even delivered a eulogy in her honor. Read More »

If you’ve always dreamed of smelling like a walking corpse, you’re in luck, because weird-perfume maker Demeter has recently launched Zombie for Him/Her, a new line of putrid fragrances for both men and women.

Say the Zombie Apocalypse happens tomorrow and you find yourself all alone in a world full of brain eating undead. What’s your best bet of staying alive when all odds are stacked against you? A Zombie Emergency Defense Station might work for a little while, but what if you didn’t have to hide in fear and wait for that inevitable moment when you run out of bullets and supplies? What if you could just blend among the walking dead without them even noticing the presence of your warm body? That’s where the Zombie for Him and Her perfumes can come in handy. Apparently the men’s fragrance is formulated with the scent of dried leaves, mushrooms, mildew, moss, and earth and will have you smelling like a decomposing body as soon as you spray it on. The ladies’ zombie perfume is a lighter version of the above “with a touch of Dregs from the bottom of the wine barrel for that feminine touch.” Since they’re only going to be available through April 30, you might want to stock up on zombie perfumes for the impending doom.

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We’ve seen our share of bizarre theme parks here on OC. Ranging from Hello Kitty to Atomic Reactors, we thought we’d seen it all. Until we heard of this extremely strange and slightly disturbing theme park in South Korea, based on the last place in the world you’d want to be stuck in – the toilet.

The Restroom Cultural Park,  in the city of Suwon, South Korea, is a massive complex dedicated to the humble toilet. The main exhibition hall itself is shaped like a large toilet bowl and the pathway leading up to it is adorned with bronze figures of humans in mid-squat. The facility was opened to public earlier this year and is the only one of its kind in the world. Other indoor exhibits include WC signs from around the world and toilet-themed art. What’s even more interesting than the toilet theme park is the story of its origin. Apparently, the place was initially home to the former Mayor of Suwon, Sim Jae-duck. He died in 2009, but that has not stopped the South Koreans from still regarding him as their very own ‘Mr. Toilet’. This was partly due to the fact that he ran a successful campaign in the 1980s to dramatically improve South Korea’s old toilet system, and also because Mr. Sim was born in his grandmother’s loo. So inspired was he by his place of birth that he built his own house in the shape of a toilet. He, in turn, is said to be the main inspiration behind the theme park.

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It’s at times like this that I simply don’t understand fashion trends. I mean, what would prompt otherwise normal teenagers to consider something as horrendous as braces to be a fashionable accessories? Don’t get me wrong, I think braces are an extremely useful dental tool and I used to wear them as well, but I always dreamt of the day I would be done with them forever. Kids in countries like Thailand, Indonesia and China, however, think very differently. For them, braces have become a huge teenage fashion statement.

As unfathomable as the trend sounds, there’s actually a reason behind it. Just as ‘plump’ people were thought to be attractive at one point – as a sign of prosperity – braces to the Asian kids are a sign of wealth, status and style. The reason: genuine orthodontic braces are quite expensive. A set of braces in Bangkok would set you back about $1,200. So all the kids want to wear what the rich kids are wearing. Braces are also popular among young celebrities and youth icons like Indonesian heartthrob Andika Kangen and Thai pop singer Earn the Star. Many Thai and Indonesian websites display pictures of Gwen Stefani sporting braces back in the 90s. Apparently, she had recently confessed that her braces were a ‘fashion choice’, and she’s since become an instant hit with Asian kids. The internet is littered with countless blogs and websites on fashion braces. I tried googling them and found that braces are available in an explosion of colors and varieties.

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If you’ve always wanted to be like Barbie and live in her pink dream-house, you’re about to get your wish. A hotel in the Italian Alps has opened a series of rooms decorated just like Barbie’s miniature pads.

The owners of the Grand Hotel Savoia, at the Cortina ski resort, thought they’d celebrate Barbie’s 50th anniversary by decorating some of their rooms with real-life furniture and decoration you’d normally only find in Matel’s play sets. That’s right girls, you’ll get the chance to live it up like Barbie for as long as you or your parents can afford it, surrounded by the popular dolls favorite clothes and accessories, including skirts, lace-up dresses, corsets, toy-like chairs and even a sunburst mirror made from Barbie dolls…

Italian interior designer described the recently inaugurated Barbie rooms as “the ultimate girls’ pad with details celebrating Barbie’s love of pink.” Barbie fans can book their stay in one of these life-size Barbie homes until the end of next March.

Yesterday the news about a Hello Kitty theme park in Japan, now this…This just hasn’t been my week!

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Gundam fans all over the world, rejoice! The life-sized RX78 Gundam robot has been completed and is expecting visitors.

Just like the Hello Kitty Castle in Shanghai, China, might become a pilgrimage site for pink-loving girls, Tokyo’s RX78 could turn into the same thing for robot-anime enthusiasts. Announced back in March, as a way of celebrating 30 years since the debut of the Mobile Suit Gundam anime series, the 1:1 sale Gundam has just been completed.

The RX78 Gundam towers 18 meters, features a movable head, 50 light-radiating points on his body, and shoots smoke from various fiberglass-reinforced plastic parts. The popular mech will be watching over Odaiba’s Shiokaze Park until August 31st. Hopefully they’ll just move it somewhere else after that, because depriving Gundam fans of such a symbol would be a regular crime.

Some might think the RX78 Gundam looks a bit too retro for 2009, but it’s a regular icon in Japanese culture, so choosing what model to build was never in question.

See even more photos at pyunari part 1 and pyunari part 2

A French man traveling through Switzerland was stunned to receive a bill for 9,241 Swiss francs ($10,000) from the firefighters who rescued his pet dog after she became stuck in an underground pipe while chasing a fox.

A couple of months ago, Alian Chichignoud, a 25-year-old Frenchman traveling through Europe with his three pet dogs, went through a stressful ordeal after one of his pet dogs disappeared in Switzerland. Gaia, a 12-year-old Jack Russell Terrier, ran after a fox near the town of Vaulruz and didn’t come back. Gaia went missing on a Friday, and Alian and his other two pets canines, Bocka and Zuni, spent almost two days looking for her. It was only on Sunday morning that Boycka heard Gaia’s muffled cries coming from a grate on the side of the road and alerted his master. The dog had become stuck with the fox it had been chasing in a very narrow pipe, and Alian realized very quickly that he would need help to get her out.

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Fed up with tourists who only come in to check out the scenery, the owners of Queviures Múrria, a centennial grocery store in Barcelona, have put up a sign announcing a 5 euro fee ($5.6) for coming in just to look.

Queviures Múrria has been in business since 1898 and is one of the most eye-catching locations in all of Barcelona. The vintage look of the store and the traditional design of the interior draw in hundreds of tourists every day, but the problem is that many of them aren’t actually interested in the products sold inside – all kinds of traditional Spanish cured sausages, cold cuts, cured cheeses, oils, wines, etc. According to one of the managers, many tourists enter the store without even muttering a simple ‘hello’, wander around taking pictures, and then simply leave without buying anything. So he decided to charge people for ‘just looking’ just to discourage them.

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The marriage between a 22-year-old Malaysian man and his 48-year-old former teacher has been making news headlines in South-East Asia.

Muhammad Danial Ahmad Ali first met his future wife, Jamilah Mohd, in 2016, in the classroom, as she was his Malay teacher in junior high school. There was nothing romantic about their relationship last the time, although the 22-year-old claims that he still remembers Jamilah’s caring attitude and closeness to students. The two lost contact during Muhammad’s Form 4 class, but they met again by chance when he had to go to the headmaster’s office and noticed his former teacher. He said hello, but that was about it until Form 5, when Muhammad started noticing Jamilah more and more. She texted him a birthday message that year and they started chatting. Eventually, Muhammad confessed his feelings for Jamilah, but she rejected him, because of his age and the 26-year age gap between them. But he didn’t let a simple number stand in the way of love.

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