Strange Trike/Car

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Scooter-Mounted Cannon

After World War II, the French could not afford the most sophisticated military equipment, and so improvised with what they had on hand. Hence their production of scooter-mounted 75mm recoilless rifles. Blogger James R. Rummel offers more information and photographs of this vehicle.

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Beer Soap, anyone?

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The Hotelicopter

"Experience the adrenaline rush of taking off and flying high in the largest helicopter ever produced. The Hotelicopter features 18 luxuriously-appointed rooms for adrenaline junkies seeking a truly unique and memorable travel experience.Each soundproofed room is equipped with a queen-sized bed, fine linens, a mini-bar, coffee machine, wireless internet access, and all the luxurious appointments you’d expect from a flying five star hotel. Room service is available one hour after liftoff and prior to landing."

Counting Fingers and Toes

A baby born in Leizhou, Guangdong province, China has eight toes -on each foot! The unidentified newborn also has ten fingers, but no thumbs. Doctors say the odd arrangement could be genetic, or could have been caused by environmental pollution. Link

Spam gets 1 response per 12,500,000 emails

A new study details how spammers – the bane of our email inboxes – still make pots of money, despite only receiving a response to one in every 12,500,000 emails they spam out.

The study, by a team of seven computer scientists from University of California, Berkeley and UC, San Diego (UCSD) infiltrated the Storm network, which uses hijacked home PCs to relay much of the junk email you spend your days wading through while wondering 'who the hell responds to this stuff?'

Well. Now you know. One gullible idiot in 12,500,000 recipients. Or thereabouts.

The Strangest Places To Put a Toilet

Docstoc user PowerfulPointer uploaded a funny set of clips of The Strangest Places To Put a Toilet (And Someone Did): Link

Liquid Smoking Drink?!??

“It’s the sort of news that will make a smoker’s eyes light up. A company has created a fruit-flavoured herbal drink that claims to deliver the same fix as cigarettes. Called Liquid Smoking, it promises an instant high followed by a ‘euphoric calming feeling’. It is targeted at those who can no longer light up inside public premises under the smoking ban but want to feed their cravings.”

10 People With Unbelievable Talents

Tu Jin-Sheng: Pulls a Truck with his Penis As Kung Fu magazine puts it: "When a man can tow a truck with his genitals, that’s all anyone ever really remembers about him." Tu Jin-Sheng, a 50-year-old man from Taiwan, is a martial arts grandmaster of Iron Crotch, a branch of Qigong said to have 60,000 followers worldwide. On 2005, he attached his penis to a truck for a demonstration, and pulled it several yards across a car park in Fremont.

About 20 people, most of whom study Qigong, the ancient Chinese art of movement and breathing to increase energy, gathered for the truck pull. Its practitioners are known to lift hundreds of pounds with their genitals to increase energy and sexual performance.

The truck demonstration was made for a British crew filming the documentary "Penis Envy" shown below, it's a must-see!

Miroslaw Magola: Moves objects with his Mind

"Remember, there is no spoon". Just like that kid from "The Matrix" movie, Miroslaw Magola --The "Magnetic Man"-- defies laws of gravity with an extraordinary ability — applying the power of psycho kinesis he can raise anything from metal pans to marble statues, transport them through the air to affix to his body, then creates a force to keep them there — simply using mind control.

An avid enthusiast of the phenomenon of psychic energy, Miroslaw has developed his skill to manipulate lifeless objects in mid-air to obey his will, even forcing them spin around or shake. His mental powers are so keen that he can jump around while an object is stuck to his head without losing his mental grasp of the item. Miroslaw explains how he employs psycho kinetics to perform these uncanny feats, “It works because I load myself with energy (I connect myself to it) and at the same time I wish for the object to raise.”



Miroslaw has undergone numerous tests for his perplexing skill which remains unexplained by conventional science to date. Although Miroslaw Magola is gifted with some of the strangest abilities in the world which are generally regarded as paranormal, his book is filled with protests against exactly this form of categorization. He deals with and discusses things ‘beyond our world,’ yet describes himself as a radical rationalist and insists on his normality.

NOTE: Although writer James Randi has discredited Magola, the "magnetic man" has responded as well

Manjit Singh: Pulls a Jet with his Ears

57 year-old Manjit Singh, called the "Ironman", holds more than 30 world records including pulling a double decker bus with his hair, lifting 85 kg with his ears, and of course, pulling a Jet also with his ears! On April 2007, Ironman pulled the aircraft -weighting approximately 7.4 tonnes- 12ft along the apron at East Midlands Airport, UK.

Speaking after the record attempt, he said: "I don't feel too bad, I have a little bit of pain around the ears but I'm ok." The attempt raised money for his charity Manjit Fitness, which aims to get children living in his native Mahilpur, India involved in sport.

Ru Anting: Writes with his Tears

56 year-old Ru Anting, Luoyang in China, has a very special talent: he can write calligraphy with water he shoots from his eyes. After sucking up some water with his nose, he then sprays it through his tear ducts, ending up on the paper.

Ru discovered his unusual talent as a child while swimming in the river. "Sometimes I would swallow water while swimming, and once I accidentally discovered the water I swallowed could be shot out through my eyes. My friends were all shocked to see it," he said.

But it wasn't until the 1990s, when Ru lost his job in a local fertilizer factory after more than 20 years, that he began to develop his unusual talent. After three years of intensive training, he found he could shoot water accurately up to 10ft from his eyes at will.

Michel Lotito: Eats Everything

French entertainer Michel Lotito is known as Monsieur Mangetout (Mister Eat-it-all). As a famous consumer of undigestables, Lotito's performances are the consumption of metal, glass, rubber and so on in items such as bicycles, televisions, a Cessna 150, and smaller items which are disassembled, cut-up and swallowed. The aircraft took roughly two years to be 'eaten' from 1978 to 1980. He began eating unusual material while a child and has been performing publicly since 1966.

Lotito does not often suffer from ill-effects due to his diet, even after the consumption of materials usually considered poisonous. When performing he consumes around a kilogram of material daily, preceding it with mineral oil and drinking considerable quantities of water during the 'meal'. He apparently possesses a stomach and intestine with walls of twice the expected thickness, and his digestive acids are, allegedly, unusually powerful, allowing him to digest a certain portion of his metallic meals.

Thai Ngoc: Needs no Sleep

Sixty-four-year-old Thai Ngoc, a vietnamese farmer, is known around the world for a unique talent: he needs no sleep. After getting a fever in 1973, we hasn't been able to sleep and has counted infinite numbers of sheep during more than 11,700 consecutive sleepless nights. "I don't know whether the insomnia has impacted my health or not. But I'm still healthy and can farm normally like others," Ngoc said. Proving his health, the elderly resident of Que Trung commune, Que Son district said he can carry two 50kg bags of fertilizer down 4km of road to return home every day.

Ngoc currently lives on his 5ha farm at the foot of a mountain busy with farming and taking care of pigs and chickens all day. His six children live at their house in Que Trung. Ngoc often does extra farm work or guards his farm at night to prevent theft, saying he used three months of sleepless nights to dig two large ponds to raise fish.

Zhang Quan: Claps as Loud as a Helicopter

70 year-old Zhang Quan is hoping to get into the record books - by clapping his hands. His claps measured 107 decibels, just three decibels lower than whirling helicopter blades. The bad news? local environmental protection officials say Zhang is so loud, he could face arrest for noise pollution if he claps too often.

Wei Mingtang: Blows up Balloons with his Ears

Wei Mingtang, 55, is a factory worker from Guilin city, in Guangxi province, China. About 30 years ago he discovered his ears leaked air, so he came up with the idea of using his ears and a pipe for his -now famous- act: inflate balloons with his ears!

On a recent city Spring Festival Party, Wei also blew out 20 candles in a line within 20 seconds using a hose leading out from his ears.

Claudio Pinto: Pops both of his Eyes

48-year-old brazilian man Claudio Pinto hopes for a place in the record books for an amazing talent: he can pop both eyes 95% out of their sockets. Pinto has undergone various tests and doctors say they have never seen or heard of a person who can pop the eyes as much as him.

The man from Belo Horizonte, said: "It is a pretty easy way to make money. I can pop my eyes out four centimetres each, it is a gift from God, I feel blessed."

Paul Oldfield: World's Only Flatulist

Mr Methane, alias former train driver Paul Oldfield, claims to be the only performing professional flatulist in the world, or more precisely, a "professional farter". His 'talent' came to light when he accompanied his sister in yoga practice. There, he discovered - to his surprise and delight - that he was able to take in air through the rear, retain it, and then expel it as and when he chose. At first, it was nothing more than a party trick to entertain fellow railwaymen, but eventually Mr Methane found that by careful control, he could pick out a simple tune.



He gradually expanded his repertoire, which now ranges from Strauss's Blue Danube waltz through to Kylie Minogue's I Should Be So Lucky. Then, on 1991, he left his job at British Rail and devoted himself to his new entertainment career. On stage, he wears a bright green-and-purple skin-tight costume with cape and mask, looking like a superhero, and travels around the world with his act.

Crazy Banyan Treehouse Cafe in Japan

The Naha Harbor Diner in Okinawa, Japan is a life-size rendition of a banyan tree, also known as gajumaru. The aptly-named Banyan Town shopping center near the entrance of Onoyama Park features a twenty foot tall tree with a pan-Asian restaurant nestled amid its branches. Accessible by a spiral staircase around back and an in-trunk elevator, the restaurant specializes in locally grown and organic harvested foods fresh from the farm.

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Extraordinary Art -- James Kuhn, Face Painter!

Photos: Thank you very MUNCH!, Wish Bone, I Know I Forgot Something, and American Gothic, all by James Kuhn (hawhawjames)

I am in awe with James Kuhn. The Michigan artist (and self-described drag queen, former nudist, born again Christian, and average 46-year-old guy … well, maybe not so average) has an unusual choice for art medium: his own face!

Check out the rest of his face paintings at his Flickr photosets (don’t miss the Moving Pictures video set, particularly the Flintstones one)

Clever Elevator/Staircase Ad

I love this trompe-l’œil staircase inside the elevator ad for Becel margarine in Istanbul, Turkey!

Found at directdaily

Chinese Workers Pushed an Airplane Off the Runway!

Come on, we’ve all joked about having to go out and push a broken airplane, but the Chinese actually did it: when a faulty plane was stuck in a Zhengzhou airport, they sent 30 people to push it off the runway!

It took them nearly two hours to push the CRJ7 plane, with 69 passengers and seven-strong crew on board, less than half a mile to a side lane.

"Thank God, it was only a 20 tonne medium-sized airplane. If it had been a big plane, it would have knocked us out," said one man, who said he had never experience anything like it in ten years working at the airport.

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Fined for Drinking Juice in Public

A Russian woman and a Lebanese man were put on trial in Dubai for … drinking orange juice!

In accordance with the Federal Penal Code of the United Arab Emirates, a public intake of food and beverages during daytime hours of the month of Ramadan is forbidden by Article 313. The article stipulates the punishment in the form of either a monetary penalty – up to 2,000 dirhems ($555) – or even a term of up to one month in prison.

The young people told the court that they were not Muslims and were thus unaware of the fact that their actions could be punishable.

The court took the mitigating circumstances into consideration, but found the defendants guilty, since ignorance did not exclude responsibility. The court ruled that the young people must pay the fine of 1,000 dirhams ($278) each.

10 Seriously Unusual & Outlandishly Weird Asian Hotels

As a whole, Asia is one of the most innovative continents in the world. From the latest in technology to the most unbelievable hotel designs in the world, the Asian continent is, to say the least, one-of-a-kind.

Japan, China, India, and other emerging Asian nations are home to some of the weirdest hotels anywhere in the world. Maybe it’s their imaginative thinking or maybe they just have a more innovative culture? Either way you slice it, Asia has some of the most off-the-wall hotels on the planet. Here are 10 of the most strange and offbeat hotels across the massive continent of Asia.

Safariland Treehouse Resort, India

Safariland Treehouse Resort: Deep in a mountainous jungle region of India, you’ll stumble upon one of weirdest hotels on the planet. This hotel actually consists of 4 treehouses which stand approximately 15 feet off the ground, and each is built out of locally sourced materials such as bamboo. These gigantic treehouses provide awesome views of the mountains and jungle streams below.

Each of the 14 rooms here cost between $150 and $250 per night depending upon the room, and there’s plenty to do for eco-tourists including wildlife treks, mountain hikes, bonfires, elephant rides, and you can even get some good food at the on-site restaurant.

Imperial Boat House, Thailand

Imperial Boat House: Located on the unspoiled Cheong Mon Beach in Thailand, the Imperial Boat House Hotel consists of 34 authentic teakwood rice barges that have been converted into luxurious beachfront suites. The pool here is even in the shape of a large ship. Each one of these converted barges features 91 square meters of living space, a beautiful sundeck, sky-lit bathroom and separate living rooms.

There aren’t many places on earth where you can ride an elephant on the beach as you can do at Imperial Boat House Hotel. These recycled barges are surprisingly comfortable in their design, and they are definitely a unique way to holiday.

Helga’s Folly, Sri Lanka

Helga’s Folly: The 40 room boutique Helga’s Folly hotel, located on a hillside in dense foliage near the town of Kandy, is more of an experience than just a stay at a hotel. This 1930’s-style hotel features a flamboyant colour scheme and eclectic furnishings. The sound of soft jazz music can be heard throughout this unique hotel, which combined with the interior design and unique setting make for a sensory explosion.

The hotel walls are littered with antique paintings, unique photographs and newspaper clippings from the local area; even the bathrooms are decorated with magazine covers as wallpaper. People who stay here claim that the experience at Helga’s Folly is unlike any other hotel in the world, and they get a feeling of sadness when their stay is over. Rooms start at about $100 per night.

Three Camel Lodge, Mongolia

Three Camel Lodge: A traditionally designed nomadic retreat in the middle of the Gobi desert, the Three Camel Lodge somehow manages to mix weird design, eco-friendly construction, and Mongolian Buddhist architecture. This hotel consists of 30 gers (nomadic tents) which are made from felt and wood without using a single nail to hold it together. This luxurious wilderness camp is also eco-friendly and takes advantage of both wind and solar power.

While these plush tents are small and expensive to stay at (doubles start at $300 per night), how many people can say that they’ve actually stayed in an authentic Mongolian ger in the middle of the desert?

First World Hotel, Malaysia

First World Hotel: This is the second largest hotel in the world behind the MGM Grand in Las Vegas with a total of over 6,000 rooms, and is located in Genting Highlands, Pahang, Malaysia. It’s not so much the interior of this hotel that makes it weird, but rather the exuberant colour scheme of the hotel’s facade which puts it on this list of weird hotels.

The brightly coloured facade is a perfect fit for this entertainment hotspot with a fully-equipped theme park, casinos, lounges and enough shopping to satisfy anyone’s taste. Any trip to the Genting Highlands area is not complete without a visit to the First World Hotel, and believe me, you can’t miss it!

Crazy House Hotel, Vietnam

Crazy House Hotel: It may be officially called Hang Nga Guesthouse, but locals have dubbed this off-the-wall hotel the Crazy House Hotel, and for good reason. This hotel was built in 1990 in Dalat, and has since been added onto numerous times over the years. This treehouse of sorts more resembles a fairytale castle than a hotel with its curvy interior and exterior. There’s also plenty of friendly stone animals surrounding this unique place including a huge giraffe, bear, and spider.

If you don’t wish to fork out $60 to stay the night here, you also have the option of taking a tour of this offbeat hotel for a very small fee.

Love Hotels, Throughout East Asia

Love Hotels: These so-called ‘love hotels’ are scattered throughout Japan, South Korea and parts of China, but they’re not the type of place to go for your honeymoon. These hotels are basically a cheap way for couples to ‘rest’ for a short period of time from 1-3 hours in most cases. There’s also overnight rates, but you can’t reserve your room for the night until after 10:00pm.

Often these odd love hotels take the form of castles, UFOs, and boats to name a few. The interiors can get even weirder with leather-laced rooms, dungeons, plenty of neon, ceiling mirrors, and even rotating beds.

Dotonbori Hotel, Japan

Dotonbori Hotel: One of the weirdest entrances to a hotel in Asia has to be the Dontonbori Hotel in Osaka, Japan. The front of this luxurious hotel right in the heart of the shopping and entertainment area of Shinsaibashi features 4 gigantic pillars that are shaped liked heads. This type of grand, and weird, entrance to a hotel is not something you see everyday!

Flush Hotel, South Korea

Flush Hotel: Maybe the weirdest hotel on the planet, the so-called Flush Hotel is a fitting name for a building shaped like a toilet. The owner, Sim Jae-Duck, built the $1.6 million toilet bowl in order to raise awareness about cleaner sanitation around the world. This live-in restroom is over 400 square meters in size, and is located just south of Seoul, South Korea.

The most amazing part about this giant toilet is not the design (surprisingly), but rather how much it costs to stay here for one night: $50,000! It must be said, though, that the proceeds go to provide poor countries with proper sanitation, so at least you know your hard-earned money won’t be going down the crapper!

Capsule Inn Osaka, Japan

Capsule Inn Osaka: This was the first hotel of its kind where each ‘room’ of the hotel was actually a small capsule with cramped 2m x 1m x 1.25m dimensions. The capsules are stacked on top of each other to maximise space, each one consisting of a TV, bed, and a wireless Internet connection which almost seems like a 5-star luxury all things considered. The Capsule Inn Osaka is extremely popular amongst local businessmen who need a place to sleep on long business trips, and it’s also popular to those who need a place to stay after drinking a bit too much sake the night before.

The notion of having a capsule for your hotel room was introduced in 1979 and its popularity has sparked interest by other hotel chains around the world to duplicate its design, including hotels in New York City and London. Nightly rates here are rather inexpensive starting at the equivalent of £15-20.