Last Friday (August 13, 2010) wasn’t just a day for superstition, as it was also celebrated as the International Left-Handers Day. According to statistics, only 10 percent of the population is use their left as the dominant hand, though there are a lot of left-handed people who have carved names for themselves in their chosen fields. The list includes three United States presidents (Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Barack Obama), celebrated physicist Albert Einstein, and baseball hall of famer Babe Ruth. The list also includes Larry Bird, Oscar de la Hoya and Sir Paul McCartney.
The list goes on and on, but one has to admit, that’s a cool list of people.
There are no real ghosts in these towns or cities – or, at least, that’s what I’d like to believe. They give off that eerie feel, but that’s only because the structures in these places are starting to crumble and they’ve been devoid of people for a good couple of years. Several factors can cause people to desert a well-built city: natural decline of the town’s economy, destruction of the town due to natural disasters, destruction from war, freak accidents involving part of or the entire town, and even contagious diseases, among many others. Abandoned structures will normally deteriorate if they remain neglected; over time these structures appear like ruins, giving off an almost ghostly impression.
Kadychan, located in the Susumansky Disttrict of Magadan Oblast, Russia, was once an active mining town teeming with 12,000 residents. However, when Soviet Russia collapsed, residents fled the town in a hurry to places that had better access to medical care, schools and running water. The state moved them out over a period of two weeks, and as the residents left in a hurry, many of their belongings such as books, clothing, toys and other personal items were left throughout the city. It’s especially eerie to see these objects aging with the rest of the ruins.
Hashima Island, or more commonly called Gunkanjima, is one of the uninhabited islands in the Nagasaki Prefecture in Japan. In 1890, Mitsubishi bought the island and began retrieving coal from the bottom of the sea. This attracted business and a lot of people, so in 1916, the company built Japan’s first largest concrete building on Hashima Island. A block of concrete apartments were also constructed to house all the workers. At its most populated point in 1959, the island had 835 people per square hectare. In 1960, coal mines all over the country started shutting down, and Gankujima was not spared from this fate. In 1974, Mitsubishi officially announced the closure of the mine; all the workers had to move out of the island eventually. Currently, the island still has the abandoned apartment blocks and buildings.
San Zhi in Taiwan was meant to become a resort in the northern coast of Taiwan with its futuristic pod-like buildings. Construction started in the 1980s; however, the project was halted because of a series of fatal accidents that had occurred on-site and due to the lack of funds. Currently, San Zhi can still be toured despite not being opened as a resort. It is more popular for being a ghost town with its strange pod-like buildings and the stories surrounding the deaths of workers.
What do you get when you take Rambo, Wong Fei-hung, the Terminator, He-Man, John McClane, the Crimson Dynamo, and the Transporter and place them in one movie? Yep, you get The Expendables. This weekend’s box office kings shouldered past the competition to take the number one spot.
Sly Stallone’s manly offering raked in an estimated US$ 35 million, breezing past chick-flick Eat Pray Love and action-comedy Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Despite less than favorable reviews from critics, an unsurprising number of men and a surprising number of women turned up to support the ensemble cast of 80s and fairly recent action superstars. The cast includes Sylvester Stallone (who also wrote and directed), Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Jason Statham, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Steve Austin, Eric Roberts, and Gary Daniels, with Bruce Willis and Arnold Scharzenegger dropping in for cameos.
With testosterone levels at an all time high and with names that can arguably launch blockbusters on their own, what’s to be surprised about?
A law is defined as a system of rules created by people to maintain public order and policy and to guide all people in their everyday lives. Laws are enforced though institutions or by some authority in a community. Without these laws in existence, many believe communities and the society can lead to chaos, immorality and injustice, among other things. Each country’s set of laws differ from each other as the rules are based mainly on each country’s customs and culture. Despite differing customs and laws, we still usually understand the basic logic for every country’s laws – “usually” being the operative word. There are some laws that are just completely beyond our mortal understanding. That, or we aren’t humorous enough for own sakes.
As early as the 14th century, a British law ordered all male subjects more than 14 years old to practice two hours of archery every day. This decree issued by King Edward III was removed in 1863, under Queen Victoria’s reign. It is believed though that the males during the Victorian era had already stopped practicing this law. (Not that anyone had really noticed.)
In Islamic Bahrain, a male doctor is allowed to legally examine a woman’s genitals but only through their reflection in a mirror. He is forbidden to look at them directly during the examination.
It is illegal to carry a concealed weapon more than six-feet long in Kentucky. Makes me wonder: Besides the death scythe, what other weapon could be more than six-feet long?
In Chicago, people under 17 years old and have legal permits are allowed to protest naked in front of city hall. I guess, so long as you acquire a legal permit, you can do almost anything.
In the UK, a man who feels obliged to take a piss in public is allowed to do so if he keeps his right hand on the vehicle and aim for his car’s rear wheel. I’m just not sure what will happen to him if his aim’s bad and if he only has one arm.
For some 12 years, it was illegal in Singapore to sell chewing gum in a radical measure to prevent hooligans from sticking gum almost everywhere. This law was revoked in 2004.
In France, it is illegal to name a pig Napoleon. (I guess this means that Orwell’s the Animal Farm where the main antagonist named Napoleon also happens to be a pig is banned in France.)
If you’ve been trolling the Internet for any period of time, you’ve probably seen a couple of weird competitions: Dwarf Tossing, Beard and Moustache Championships, Black Pudding Throwing, and World’s Ugliest Dog Championships, among others. Joining the ranks of these bizarre competitions is Clovermead Bees & Honey, Bee Beard Competition at Ontario, Canada.
In case you haven’t seen a bee beard before and in case you have no idea what the competition is all about, here’s a picture of contestant Tibor Szabo:
Yes, in this competition, you have to get several hundred of the stingy critters to crawl all over you. This practice is said to have started in the 1700s when one English beekeeper tied the queen bee to thread around his neck and made a beard of bees. Nowadays, the queen is kept in a small plastic cage and tied around the person’s neck. The honey bees smell their queen and they huddle around her, thus creating the weirdest fashion statement ever.
We’re not talking about mothers who would walk over hot coals barefoot to save their babies; nor are we going to discuss what organs mothers would give up for their children to live. They don’t have to go out of their way to be called amazing because they’re already considered extraordinary just by giving birth to us. We’re here to talk about extraordinary mothers involved in the oddest births – which, in these mothers’ opinions, might be absolutely normal. Triplets each born a week apart, 22 single births by one mother, youngest child-mother at five years old, 69 kids from one mother – the list could go on but we only have space to discuss a few of them.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, a Russian woman only known as “the wife of Feodor Vassilyev” had 27 pregnancies in the 18th century that resulted to 69 children.
In November 2008, a baby girl was born in Alewa, a village in north India to a first-time mother who already 70 years old. According to the mother, Rajo Devi Lohan, she and her husband waited for some 40 years for the child to arrive. Either she had been pregnant for the last 40 years and the baby wanted to make a splash by coming out when her mother 70, or Rajo and her husband are just lucky to have a kid after so many years of waiting.
Boyd Braxton gave birth to triplets in 1954, but what made this birth extraordinary was that each child was born a week apart.
Effie Dickey had some 22 single births, resulting to 22 children, all full-blooded siblings. To make this story even more extraordinary: all 22 children lived well into adulthood.
The youngest girl who became pregnant and successfully gave birth lived in Ticrapo, Peru. Her name was Lina Medina, and she was just five years old, seven months, and 21 days old when she gave birth. Her ballooning abdomen was initially believed to have been a tumor, but upon closer inspection, it was found out that she was already seven months pregnant. She gave birth to her son Gerardo in May 1939. Her son lived up to age 40 before succumbing to a bone marrow disease.
You probably looked up at your calendar and realized that today is Friday the 13th. Aside from spawning a movie franchise, the thirteenth of any given month that fell on a Friday is considered an unlucky day in superstition. This superstition even has a bet-you-can’t-spell-it name for people who fear it: Friggatriskaidekaphobes. The word is a mash-up of frigga meaning Friday, dekatreis meaning thirteen, and phobia meaning fear.
For an unlucky day though, statistics in the Netherlands indicate that there are less traffic accidents and less incidents of theft during Friday the 13ths. The likely explanation? Superstitious drivers mean more careful drivers. Also, people might think twice before entering dark alleys during the supposed unlucky day.
I’m sure not many office pranks involve stripping your vacationing officemate’s cubicle and turning it into a level from a video game. Apparently, this is not common unless you work at Sega. Enter Aaron. He just got back from vacation and was warmly welcomed by his co-workers who had thoughtfully converted his cube into the Green Hill Zone of Sega’s popular game series, Sonic the Hedgehog.
Your cube? Oh sorry man, we totally needed somewhere to place this very detailed game level replica and your cube practically offered.
I’m torn, really. This type of pranking looks like a lot of fun, but would you really like co-workers who a. obviously have a lot of time on their hands, b. are willing to make use of that time to plan and pull a very elaborate prank on you, and c. completely stripped your cube and gave your stuff away?
So let’s look at plastic surgery from a (my) very shallow and narrow perspective.
The Good: People who have facial deformities and other kinds of physical defect that can be fixed by plastic surgery have the chance to live like any other “normal” person by going under the knife. In this relative reality, people do give a lot of attention to one’s appearance, causing people with deformities to have low self-esteem. Plastic surgery can give to that person a semblance of normalcy and the chance to gain his or her confidence again.
Actors, models and other celebrities also resort to plastic surgery because they believe it’s necessary in their profession to stay attractive. Some actors have also advanced their careers after changing several aspects of their physical appearance through plastic surgery.
The Bad: Several surgeries don’t end up as well as some people imagined they would. People with no facial deformity who undergo plastic surgery for purely aesthetic reasons sometimes end up getting, erm, butchered and end up “uglier” than what they used to look like. Or worse, something bad goes wrong and they end up horribly scarred.
Plastic surgery has also become so common and ordinary in some cultures such as South Korea that parents often give their children the option to undergo cosmetic surgery as a graduation gift. We are talking about 15-year olds here, folks. They’re still kids, and yet because cosmetic surgery has become the fad (or should we say the norm?), they end up wanting to change their appearance. The most common modification is done on the eyelids to add a crease and to make the eyes appear larger. Nose lifts, cheek implants and whiter skin are just some of the common procedures done on patients.
Some people also end up becoming obsessed with cosmetic surgery even when they don’t really need it. What’s the worst that could happen that’s related to plastic surgery obsession, you ask?
Yes, they are, to the point that “crazy” has almost become synonymous with Japan. The Japanese are equally obsessed with subcultures like other countries, and have a penchant for creating the most bizarre items. Let’s not stereotype the Japanese though, because like any other culture, only a fraction of their total population is engaged in strange behaviors and products. Media just exaggerates these unique behaviors and we happen to catch them on the news and just think, “WTF, Japan?” (There is an actual website named WTF Japan Seriously that highlights many WTF moments where the Japanese are usually involved.) The following is a collection of uniquely Japanese behavior and products.
Harajuku Fashion. This refers to the unique fashion style of the teenagers who are in Japan’s Harajuku area. To create the Harajuku look, these teens infuse a variety of fashion styles and other influences. This style is very apparent in the extremely vibrant colors of their hair and make-up, and in the style of their outfits. Harajuku fashion has become more than just a fashion statement; it has also become a means for teenagers to express their individuality.
Crazy Products. Japan has a lot of bizarre yet partly useful products you wouldn’t normally want to get caught using. There’s the hardhat with suction that lets you sleep comfortably upright on the metro, the girlfriend’s lap pillow for when guys feel they want to sleep on a woman’s lap, and the peeing dog which mimics the behavior of a dog when peeing.
Oh, and let’s not forget the vending machine that dispenses – wait for it – used schoolgirl panties.
