The tree, which is purportedly located at a police station in Thailand's northern province of Phayao, was said to not only resemble a woman's sex organ, but also has the numbers "008" printed mysteriously on the trunk.

Terry Richardson – Photographer

You can read all about Terry’s accomplishments and accolades while checking out the Pirelloi 2010 Calendar, but you would gladly sacrifice yourself to be him. As a final parting thought about his job, when was the last time you got to suck on the digits of the Gossip Girls? Just sayin’.

Jonathan Cutler – Brewmaster

Jonathan Cutler (middle) is the Brewmaster for Piece Brewery and Pizzeria in Chicago. Saying that Jonathan is good at his job is like saying Usain Bolt is good at running. Cutler (for his work at Piece) has earned eighteen medals (compared to Bolt’s 16) and also received the World Beer Cup Champion Small Brewery and Brewmaster Award. Jonathan is the grown-up equivalent of the Candy Man – he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good. Not only that, he drinks for free… all the time.

Quentin Tarantino – Director, Actor, Writer, Producer, et al.

Tarantino may be responsible for award winning films like Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill(s), and Inglourious Basterds, but he used to be a lowly clerk in a video store. He managed to turn his passion for film into one of the most successful Hollywood “bootstraps” story – without ever setting foot in a film school. If any of us were to blatantly display our foot fetish in the modern media like he does we would be excommunicated and disowned. With Tarantino it just becomes another part of his genius. Love him or hate him, he gets to do what he loves for a living… and get paid exorbitant sums of money for it.

Derek Spors – Ice Cream Scientologist

You know who Ben & Jerry are, but they didn’t make their boutique ice cream shop the global powerhouse it is all by their lonesome – they had help. Derek Spors was an “ice cream scientologist” whose sole job was the creation of new flavors for Ben & Jerry’s. He was often tasked with going to restaurants and ordering every dessert on the menu, taking trips to trendy new restaurants, and tasting ice cream all day. Sounds like a very horrid existence. Somehow he managed to get his creations into approximately 67% of the homes in America (Ok. The statistic is made-up, but everyone loves Ben & Jerry’s so it HAS to be a big number.) and maintain relative anonymity. Granted, he’s not going to be mauled on the street for autographs, or chased by the pap – but he manages to stay socially connected with LinkedIn and a website without having a picture of himself on the Internet. That, in and of itself, may be more impressive than eating ice cream all day. On second thought, eating ice cream all day sounds pretty damn delicious.

Bill Graham – Concert Promoter

There are only a few jobs that afford you rock star luxuries (fame, fortune, drugs) without the obvious risks (disease, selling out, one-hit-wondering) and being a concert promoter is one of them. Bill Graham just happens to be one of the most famous. He ran both Fillmores and Winterland and rubbed elbows with the likes of the Stones and the Dead. Instead of buying tickets to see a concert at an overcrowded, expensive, dilapidated venue, just call the band up and have them rock YOUR venue – V.I.P. style. Sounds like a pretty sweet gig.

Jeremy Clarkson – Motoring Journalist / Car God

When you’re Jeremy Clarkson every day is casual Friday. You can wear jeans to the office every day because the office is a decommissioned airfield and hangar. Regular journalists may get special access to events or even cool new products to test. Enjoy your new wallet because Bugatti just delivered a Veyron to Clarkson so he could race it against a jet – or a Cessna – or a McLaren F1 – or drive to 253mph. Some say he refuses to drive cars that won’t spontaneously catch on fire, and he hates the smell of hair care products because it overpowers the gasoline smell. All we know is he’s called Jezzer.

Eran Egozy & Alex Rigopulos – Video Game Developers

Eran was a geek interested in music; Alex was a musician interested in geek. They met at MIT in the Media Lab and then founded Harmonix. That is how your Friday night was born and countless millions discovered the music their parents were listening to decades before. Do they have to tell people what to do and rock out with plastic instruments on the conference room table? Yeah, they do, but they also get to play video games all day. Is there anyone that doesn’t want to play video games all day? Now that’s “star power.”

Frank Miller – Artist

Madness? MADNESS?!?!?! This. Is. A. Dream. Joooobbbbbbbbbbb. You’ve seen 300, The Dark Knight, Sin City, and probably seen something inspired by Miller’s film-noir style comics, writing, and graphic novels. He gets to set his own hours, turn down calls from Stan Lee and New Line Cinema, and leverage his words by the thousands when he turns them into pictures and movies. When asked about his inspiration, Miller had this to say – “I like to draw hot chicks, fast cars and cool guys in trench coats. So that’s what I write about.” The autobiographical graphic novel turned screenplay turned film is sure to be epic.

R. Lee Ermey – Sergeant / Gun Nut

Think Jeremy Clarkson except with guns. He transitioned from his role as a Marine Drill Instructor into starring roles in films like Full Metal Jacket and Toy Story. Now he has Lock N’ Load on the History Channel, which is basically an exploration of weapons – both primitive and modern. One week he might be shooting traditional Chinese dynasty rockets; the following he could be testing the M134D 3,000 rounds per minute Mini-Gun. Big guns, big voice, big balls – he’s not a celebrity, he’s a role model. When you fire guns and yell all day you can get away with murder…even if it involved unscrewing someone’s head and shitting down their neck. OOHRAH!

1. Make friends
Researchers at Brigham Young University and the University of North Carolina found that people with poor social networks (aka few friends) are 50 percent more likely to die sooner than those with "robust social ties." Having a large social circle, says the study, can make as much difference to your life expectancy as a life without smoking cigarettes.

2. Win a Nobel prize
Researchers found that Nobel prize winners lived 1.4 years longer than nominees who didn't win. "Walking across that platform in Stockholm apparently adds about two years to a scientist's life-span," economist Andrew Oswald tells New Scientist. If you're unlikely to attract recognition from the Nobel community, then don't worry — the study suggests that social status can influence longevity, so just make sure people think highly of you.

3. Take the pill
Women who take the pill for an average of four years reduce their risk of dying from illnesses such as cancer and heart disease, according to a group of British researchers. But the study looked at women who started taking the pill in the 1960s, meaning the results may not be applicable for women taking today's drugs.

4. Move to a Greek island
Specifically, the Greek island of Icaria, where almost one in three people lives into their 90s. Researchers studying the islanders concluded that the Icarians' active lifestyle and healthy Mediterranean diets (lots of fruits, vegetables, and olive oil) helped the island maintain the highest percentage of nonagenarians on the planet. More good news? There are plenty of properties available on the island.

5. Live through a recession
It may give scant relief to those struggling to find work during the current downturn, but a University of Washington study suggests that recessions in the 20th century led to declines in mortality. Unemployed people were more likely to give up expensive vices like smoking and drinking, says the study, and less likely to die from work-related injuries or car accidents.

6. Put on a bit of weight...
Researchers at Kaiser Permanente in Portland followed over 11,000 adults over 12 years and found that those who were slightly overweight were 17 percent less likely to die during the 12-year study. "It may be that a few extra pounds actually protect older people as their health declines," David Feeny, a coauthor of the study tells CNN.

7. ...in one place in particular
Women with large rear ends are less likely to suffer heart and metabolic diseases than non-curvy ladies, says a study by Oxford University. That's apparently because fat stored in this area absorbs harmful fatty acids. "Women who have large thighs shouldn't be anxious about it," the report's author tells the New York Post.

8. Learn a foreign language
Learning a foreign tongue can help stave off Alzheimer's and other common age-related diseases, according to author Dr Andrew Weil. "You don't have to master it," he tells ABC News. But just the act of learning something new is like "running different software through the brain."

9. Work near ornamental plants
Waxy-leaved plants like English ivy and ferns soak up harmful indoor air pollutants, reducing stress levels and increasing overall health, says a study by the University of Georgia. The healthiest ornamental plant to have in your cubicle is the purple heart plant, says the study, which can be bought online for as little as $4.

In addition, male supporters of the cause will show their support by wearing bras and bikinis.

About half of women say they would rather go without sex for the summer than gain 10 pounds. A fourth of men feel the same way.

OBESITY: Can weight down your sex life


More people say they would rather shed 10 to 20 pounds during the summer than get promoted at work.

SafeGuard Guaranty Corp., an insurance start-up based in North Carolina, recently released what it’s billing as the first world’s first divorce insurance product.

Then, if you get divorced and your policy has matured (see below for the maturation rules), you would send WedLock proof of your divorce. In return, you’d receive a lump sum of cash equivalent to the amount of coverage you had purchased.

So how does the company prevent people who know they are going to get a divorce from signing up? To prevent that kind of adverse selection, the policies don’t mature until 48 months after their effective date (though people can purchase additional riders to reduce that maturity period to 36 months and to get their premiums back if they happen to divorce before the policy matures).

And what about other possible selection problems related to people with volatile relationships or a family history of divorce purchasing policies in large numbers?John A. Logan, chief executive officer of SafeGuard Guaranty, said the company has performed risk assessment and actuarial studies with this in mind. He notes that even in the worst case scenario, not all of those divorces would happen at once.

Read the entire article here.

When it comes to luxury hotels, Great Hotels of the World knows best. Recently, they asked their members for the strangest items left behind in their luxury hotel properties and this list below represents their responses. Chalk it up to eccentric millionaires?

1. False Teeth: In one case of forgotten teeth, a guest at the Eurostars Grand Marina GL in Barcelona requested the hotel send the dentures back to the UK. Knowing how reliable Royal Mail can sometimes be, we wonder if they got lost along the way.

2. Wigs: The next most common items left behind after false teeth are wigs. Not necessarily strange, though it does make you wonder how someone can forget something so crucial, especially if he or she checked in the mirror before leaving.

3. Money: Hotel Milano in Bergamo takes the crown with a couple who once forgot 20,000 euros in cash in their dresser. The hotel contacted them at the airport as they were about to board their flight. They returned to the hotel and chose to stay an extra night, which, considering the amount of money they’d left behind, probably was small change to them.

4. Dogs: Grand Hotel Principe di Piemonte near Pisa once found a dog in one of their rooms, with little additional explanation or requests to return it to their owners.

5. Birds: The Gran Hotel Bahía del Duque hotel in Tenerife once found a caged cockatoo in a room. The owners subsequently asked for the hotel to fly it back to them in a private jet. Which makes you wonder: if they cared that much for it, why forget it in the first place?

6. Adult Toys: The Quay Hotel in Wales once found a tribal-style doll with a wooden pop-up appendage in one of the rooms. We leave it to you to make up your own mind as to what that could be used for.

7. Fish: The Tivoli Marina Vilamoura in the Algarve has the strangest animal-related story. One of their guests went fishing at the hotel and came back with a shark, which he kept in the bathtub at the hotel—not realizing that sharks need saltwater, not tap water. When the poor creature began to weaken, the guest apparently decided to leave it behind, giving the cleaner the fright of her life when she came in to tidy the room. The shark was promptly returned to its natural habitat, and lived what we can only hope to be a long and fulfilled life.

8. Wedding Rings: At Hotel Ranga in Iceland, one married couple checked out of the room and left a wedding ring behind. It was never claimed, which maybe means the holiday didn’t go as planned.

9. Car Keys: Leaving car keys behind seems to be another common occurrence, but when you drive a Ferrari, it’s inexcusable. At the Hesperia Tower hotel in Barcelona a guest left behind the keys to their Ferrari Testarossa. Upon finding them, the staff ran to the parking lot to check if the car was still there—it wasn’t. It’s anyone’s guess how the guest got away without his car keys.

10. Unidentified Objects: The Londa hotel in Cyprus stumbled upon a proper Da Vinci Code-style riddle when they found a book with an odd cover and no title in one of their rooms. Upon opening it they found it to be written in a strange language. With it was a locked box, which had no apparent keyhole on it.