Friday, March 04, 2005

Drive-through brothels, cow dung toothpaste, piggy porn music, Britain's dumbest criminal, and Bubba shows us how small we really are

When I was a kid, I would regularly wake up, stumble out of bed, get dressed, have a shower… then wake up, and wonder what the hell I was just doing. And it actually felt doubly bad to get because I felt like I'd already done it. But I was just dreaming, and I never did this:

Boy Sets Off for School at Dead of Night

(Reuters)

Astonished German police picked up an 8-year-old boy at 3 a.m. who had accidentally set off to school thinking he was late, authorities said Thursday.

"He seemed to have got into a panic he was late and went off to school by himself with his rucksack," said a spokesman for police in the western city of Aachen. "You'd think the parents weren't looking after him, but that wasn't the case here."

Police found the boy as he was heading home after he discovered the school was still closed. (/)

London's still shivering under the snow -- but it does look beautiful, doesn't it? However, we haven't had quite enough snow for this:

Snowmen take to streets in protest over carrot, pipe shortage

(Photo: Nicholas Danilov, MosNews.com)




Creepy. But nice. But creepy.

Cat Survives 10-Mile Trip Atop Car

(Idaho State Journal/AP)

Torri Hutchinson's cat might just have one less life to live.

Hutchison was driving along Interstate 15 one day recently when a motorist kept trying to get her attention and pointing to the roof of her car. She said she was wary of the man, but wondered if perhaps her ski rack might have come loose.

She pulled over to the side, but kept her doors locked and the motor running.

The man pulled up behind her. Hutchinson rolled down her window to hear the man frantically shouting, "Your cat! Your cat!"

He reached for the roof of her car and handed the shocked Hutchinson her orange tabby.

She had driven about 10 miles with the cat on top of the car, and didn't even notice the feline when she stopped for gas.

Hutchinson said Cuddle Bug, or C.B. for short, had climbed into the back of her car as she was getting ready to leave. She put him out, but he must have jumped on the roof while she wasn't looking, she said. (/)

Cuddle. Bug. That cat has sharp claws. It has the wrong name.

Thieves target people on the loo

(Ananova)

German police are warning that pickpockets are stooping to new lows by robbing people while they are on the loo.

In the latest case the thief struck as a man, aged 32, from Aachen in North Rhine-Westphalia, was using a public toilet.

The thief, in this case believed to be a woman, slipped her hand under the wall of the cubicle and removed the wallet from the man's trousers, which were around his ankles.

The man, who lost about 70 pounds in the robbery, said he was unable to race after the pickpocket immediately "given the situation" and the fact his trousers were around his ankles. (/)

The funkiest grandparents in the world

(AP)

A 78-year-old woman faces drug charges and authorities are searching for her 72-year-old boyfriend after police found about a half-kilogram of marijuana stashed in a freezer on her property.

State police arrested Mollie Williams last week after responding to a dispute between her granddaughter and the granddaughter's husband, who were arguing over drugs.

Armed with a search warrant and a drug-sniffing dog, troopers went to Williams' residence near Danville. The dog led troopers to a freezer in an outbuilding where the marijuana, worth an estimated $4,000 US, was hidden under frozen meat and other food, O'Bryan said.

Williams was jailed and later released on $15,000 bond. Her live-in boyfriend, Jack White, who was recovering from heart bypass surgery, was given the opportunity to turn himself in but failed to do so, authorities said. He remained at large Monday.

"They appear to be the typical grandma and grandpa individuals. However, they sell marijuana," O'Bryan said. (/)

Imagine your granddad, skipping town, refusing to hand himself in, just after heart bypass. What a man.

Sending me good vibrations
(oh come on I had to)

(Indo-Asian News Service)

A mobile phone is being launched that can send playful tickles down the line - or even a smack across the face.

The Samsung handset can vibrate in a way that enables one to add sensations to the text message - including making the person on the other end feel as if they have been slapped, Scottish daily Scotsman reported.

The technology is called "haptics" - the creation of touch and texture through artificial stimuli.

Its use is already widespread in video games, in the vibrating controllers and force-feedback steering wheels that accompany the likes of Sony's PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox.

But the new phone, to be launched at March-end, will be the first mass-market use of haptics.

The sender of a text message can add one of a number of sensations from a menu. When the receptor reads the message "vibrotactile" motors in the recipient's phone are activated.

The mechanism is a more complex version of the motors that currently allow many mobile phones to vibrate when ringing. The frequency and amplitude of the vibrations generated by the motors simulate the desired sensation.

Ed Colgate, a mechanical engineer who works on haptics at the Northwestern University, Chicago, said: "I have been waiting for this for a few years. It's a challenge to develop systems that are low-cost and lightweight." (/)

I'll let your imaginations run wild on that one.

Turkish prisoners made hole in cell wall to produce third inmate

(AFP)

Two Turkish prison inmates who drilled a nine-centimetre (3.6-inch) aperture between their cells enabling them to have sexual relations in prison that produced a child, received four-month sentences for damaging public property.

Convicted murderer Seylan Corduk, 40, and Kadriye Fikret Oget, 27, serving time for planting a bomb in a market, managed to drive the hole through their concrete communal cell wall, according to court records quoted by the newspapers Vatan et Hurriyet.

The guilty pair each originally received one-year sentences plus a 218-million-Turkish-lira fine (128 euros, 169 dollars).

But the court reduced the penalty to four months and 72 million lira "in view of the neglible nature of the damage caused." (/)

Yes but what I want to know is: was the hole 3.6 inches wide, or 3.6 inches deep…

Kraft Draws Ire for Road Kill Candy

(AP)




Animal rights activists are disgusted by a new candy from Kraft Foods Inc. that's shaped like critters run over by cars — complete with tire treads.

The fruity-flavored Trolli Road Kill Gummi Candy — in shapes of partly flattened snakes, chickens and squirrels — fosters cruelty toward animals, according to the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

"It sends the wrong message to children, that it's OK to harm animals. And that's the wrong message, especially from a so-called wholesome corporation like Kraft," said society spokesman Matthew Stanton. (/)

Simpsons fans out there will have found that doubly amusing.

Cow urine offered as cure all

(Reuters)

Alongside life-size posters of Hindu nationalist leaders, Indian political activists can now buy lotions, potions and pills to cure anything from cancer to hysteria to piles -- all made from cow urine or dung.

A new goratna (cow products) stall at the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) souvenir shop is rapidly outselling dry political tracts, badges, flags and saffron-and-green plastic wall clocks with the face of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

"You won't believe how quickly some of the products sold out," says Manoj Kumar, who runs the souvenir shop along with his brother, Sanjeev, at the BJP headquarters in a plush central New Delhi neighbourhood. "The constipation medicine is a hot seller."

But the biggest seller is a "multi-utility pill" that claims to cure anything from diabetes to piles to "ladies' diseases".

"It's a miraculous cure" the container declares. A month's supply costs a little over $1 (52 pence).

Another cure-all is Sanjivani Ark, a liquid medicine that battles cancer, hysteria, and irregular periods, among other things.

In addition to medicines, the goratna products range from cow dung toothpaste, to detergents, a skin-whitening cream, baldness and obesity cures, soap and a cow urine "antiseptic aftershave".

The use of cow products in India is centuries old. The five key products -- butter, milk, curd, urine and dung -- are collectively known as panchgavya and are an important part of ayurvedic medicine.

The goratna products, made by a cooperative in the northern "cow-belt" state of Uttar Pradesh, are rapidly gaining in popularity.

"Once they use it, they are coming back and they are bringing their friends and their family and their neighbours back with them," says Kumar. (/)

Cow dung toothpaste. Mind you, it could be worse…

Iranian woman in smelly husband divorce bid

(AFP)

An Iranian woman is attempting to set a legal precedent by divorcing her husband because he has not showered for more than a year, a press report said.

The 36-year-old woman, only identified as Mina, reportedly told a Tehran court her husband Reza smells so bad that even his children will not go near him.

"Everybody is making fun of us. We cannot go to any parties. I feel so ashamed," the woman told the divorce court, according to the governmental Iran newspaper.

Iranian women wishing to divorce can only demand one if they can prove their husband has met strict critieria -- including being impotent, abusive, a drug addict, in jail, unable to provide for the family or living away from home for more than six months.

Being smelly is not included in the list of marriage infractions, although a legal expert contacted by AFP explained that Mina could argue that the stink had caused her to hate her husband so much she can no longer live with him -- something that is recognised as a valid justification.

According to the report, Mina complained that before developing an aversion to water Reza used to have an obsessive compulsion to take "at least three showers a day and wash his hands every few minutes."

"I have put up with him for eight years. I have had enough." she said. (/)

And right up there with Man Bites Dog:

Snake eats tail

(Ananova)

A snake has eaten its own tail. The king snake, originating in America, was on display at the National Taidong Aquarium in Taiwan when the incident occurred.

The snake, which had not eaten in 24 hours, mistook his reflection for another snake, and swallowed it.

After an hour's emergency treatment, the reptile recovered.

King Snake are mostly found in deserts in North America, and can grow to as long as 1.5 meters long. (/)

Drive-in brothels a success

(Ananova)

Drive-in brothels are set to appear across Germany after the country's first one proved a huge success.

The brothel was set up in 2001 in Cologne and includes eight garages or "performance boxes", which clients can drive their cars into to do business with the women. There are also containers for customers who do not own a car.

The project provides showers and toilets for the prostitutes and the garages are equipped with emergency sirens that the women can push if they feel threatened.

The project faced massive opposition from locals when, just over three years ago, the German city moved the street scene to the controlled compound.

Marlis Bredehorst, head of social affairs in the city, said: "The results show that it was the right move." She said that attacks on prostitutes had dropped and that certain health issues had been addressed.

Other German cities, like Essen, Bonn, Dusseldorf and Hanover have sent experts to study the project and are planning to copy it. (/)

A Big Mac suddenly sounds like something else, doesn't it? Would you like fries with that?

Vet produces cd to make pigs horny

(Ananova)

A Belgian vet has produced a cd containing the noise of a grumbling boar to make pigs horny.

The music is meant to make the sows excited in order to insert the sperm more easily by artificial insemination.

According to the Belgian vet Frank Vermeiren the cd has proved already to be a big success in Holland.

"I've already sold 400 of them and the results are terrific," he told Het Laatste Nieuws.

Vermeiren is going to introduce the cd now in Belgium.

"And the harder the music sounds, the more horny they become. A pig farmer I know, has placed sound boxes under the raster in the stable of the sows. It makes the music sound as if an excited boar is living in a stable under their feet. It makes them go wild," he added. (/)

You know, I thought Barry White was good enough. If anyone knows how to download this CD, let me know…

Bitten by snake, suicidal man surrenders

San Francisco Chronicle

A suicidal man with a shotgun who kept more than a dozen sheriff's deputies at bay for three hours Monday in a remote area south of Los Gatos finally surrendered after being bitten by a snake, the Santa Clara sheriff's office said.

The incident began at about 2 p.m. when the suspect's mother called authorities and said her son was threatening to kill himself.

Arriving deputies saw the man dash into the woods near the family's home in Chemeketa Park, holding the shotgun, said deputy Terrance Helm.

Deputies and crisis negotiators talked to the man on and off for more than three hours by cell phone but were unable to persuade him to give up.

At about 5:30 p.m., the suspect told deputies he had been bitten by a snake and was willing to surrender. He was taken into custody, treated at Valley Medical Center and booked for brandishing a firearm. He told deputies he had buried the shotgun. (/)

You are feeling randy, verrry randy…

(AP)

A British hypnotist charged with having sex with patients under his spell and secretly videotaping the encounters was sentenced Monday to 90 days in prison and faces possible deportation to England.

Michael Johnstone, 64, had pleaded no contest to reckless endangerment and breach of peace. As part of a plea deal, he received three years in prison with all but 90 days suspended. He will not have to register as a sex offender or attend sex therapy.

"We're content with it," defense attorney Hugh Keefe said.

Authorities said Johnstone confessed to having sex and videotaping the trysts with a half-dozen patients who came to him for anxiety treatment. The incidents allegedly occurred between 2000 and 2003.

Prosecutor Kevin Lawlor said the deal avoids a trial and a drawn-out appeal on an uncertain legal issue. Johnstone was charged under a statute applying to psychotherapists; the charge has never been used on a hypnotist. (/)

Deportation to England??!! Is that worse than jail time for Yanks? Or are they just saying that the worst punishment they can think of is a lifetime denial of decent dentistry?

Car without wheels moves

(Ananova)

A car that had been without wheels or batteries for 6 months has moved 15 inches overnight.

The old car used to belong to a funeral company and was being repaired by Herminio Anselmo da Silva in his shop in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Mr da Silva told Hoje em Dia newspaper: "The car was parked on a flat surface and no one got near it. I cannot explain what happened and it is freaking me out."

Mr da Silva said he is the only one who has the keys of the shop and that the car moved on its own overnight.

He added: "I left the shop at night and on the next morning it had moved. Only this one. I think it must be some energy from the dead inside it."

The man was so terrified with the car that the police brought in a physics teacher to study the case.

Beatriz Alvarenga said: "There is no physical explanation to what happened." (/)

Wooooooo-ooohhh!!

Stripper selling infamous breast implant on eBay

(Reuters)

A former topless dancer who was famously cleared of battering a Florida nightclub patron with her "crazy big" breasts has shed her oversized silicone implants and put one of them up for auction on eBay.

The woman known professionally as Tawny Peaks said on Wednesday she recently came across the implants in a box in her closet after watching a television discussion about crazy things sold on eBay and decided, "Why not ... I don't need it any more."

"Somebody might bid on it. It's like the first boob to be sued over in a lawsuit," she said.

Peaks said she would autograph the auctioned implant for the winner but would keep its mate "for good measure."

She explained that she had her size 69-HH implants removed and underwent breast reduction surgery in 1999 after retiring from the business to start a new life.

"They were like really big, crazy big," said Peaks, who described herself as a happily married homemaker and mother of three now living in the Detroit area.

Peaks won notoriety in 1998 when a man sued her and her employer, the Diamond Dolls nightclub in Clearwater, Florida, saying he suffered a whiplash injury when she swung her breasts into his face at a bachelor party. He said they were "like two cement blocks."

The parties accepted binding arbitration on "The People's Court" television show and the judge, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, ordered a female bailiff to examine Peaks in private.

The bailiff found the breasts to be "soft" and to weigh about 2 pounds (0.9 kg) each. Koch ruled they were not dangerous and refused to award damages.

The implant auction ends on Saturday. So far Peaks has received 10 bids, topping out at $71 (37 pounds), according to the eBay Web site. (/)

Ahh, Tawny Peaks. Oh come ON!

Sculptor cancels ice-instrument concert in Stockholm

(CNEWS/AP)

A sculptor who created an entire orchestra of instruments from ice cancelled his show at the last minute because he didn't like the sound of the musicians warming up.

The concert was set for Sunday with instruments including clarinets, trumpets, guitars, cellos all carved from ice by Taos, N.M.-based artist Tim Linhart.

But organizers said Linhart spontaneously cancelled the show, part of the city of Piteaa's annual winter festival, because he didn't think the musicians were good enough at playing his creations.


That caused heated tempers among some guests in the 100-seat igloo concert hall.

"Linhart's behaviour was completely unacceptable," said Christer Wiklund, head of the music school in the city, some 885 kilometres north of the capital, Stockholm.

"It was an insult to our city, who employed him, and an offence against the student musicians who have only had a few days to train on the instruments," Wiklund added.

Linhart could not be immediately be reached for comment. (/)

This next is just… priceless, really.

British judge loses patience with thief he labelled too stupid to jail

(AFP)

A British judge issued an arrest warrant for a car thief he had effectively labelled too stupid to jail after finally losing patience with the man.

In January, Judge Paul Dodgson admitted that he was unlikely to imprison Mohammed Zaman because his crime -- stealing a car and then driving it directly to a police station to confess -- was too unusual and idiotic.

"You have committed an offence for which, even with your record, you stand a reasonable chance of staying out of prison, because it is an odd offence," Dodgson told the 22-year-old, calling the crime "a little bizarre".

Adjourning the case for four weeks for sentencing, and allowing Zaman bail in the meantime, the judge added: "Frankly you are an idiot and I hope you realise that."

"I do," mumbled the hapless thief in response.

However, Zaman failed to show up for Wednesday's sentencing at London's Southwark Crown Court and after waiting for an hour and a half, Dodgson issued an arrest warrant permitting no bail.

The defendant lived so close that he "could have walked here by now", the judge noted. (/)

Superb. Now, you all know that an edition of TAR can't be complete without at least one "aren't Germans crazy?" story, because I genuinely love 'em, and I think they're crazy. But it turns out that they may now finally have something they can tell us all to go to hell with.

Germans discover a cabbage-loving gene

(Ananova)

Germans love for cabbage may be down to their genes.

Cabbage, which is the main ingredient in saurkraut, is eaten in Germany in vast quantities.

Scientists at the German Institute for Food Research in Potsdam near Berlin have found a genetic reason to love cabbage in the form of taste gene hTAS2R38.

They say the gene - which they believe most Germans have - makes some people extraordinarily sensitive to the bitter substances phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) and propylthiouracil (PROP) present in large quantities in cabbage.

"The variations of a single gene therefore affect a person's eating habits," said Wolfgang Meyerhof, who led the research team. (/)

You really are what you eat. I'm looking into launching a study to see if I have a gene that means I'm specifically drawn to tequila, and if there's another one that is activated by the tequila gene to make me talk even more sh*t than usual. Then I can just do anything I goddamn like.

Sport



Soccer to Test Ball With Microchip Beep

(AP)

A soccer ball containing a microchip that beeps when it crosses the goal line will be tested at this year's under-17 world championship.

The microchip ball, which was produced in part by Adidas, was used in a game between Nuremberg and Nuremberg reserves on Wednesday in Germany.

When the ball crosses the line, the microchip transmits a signal to a watchlike device on the referee's wrist, making either a beep or vibration.

"Not a day goes by without technology making progress," FIFA president Sepp Blatter said. "We therefore have a duty to at least examine whether new technology could be used in football.

The English Football Association also offered to experiment with the ball. However, the Premier League and Football League use balls made by rival manufacturers.

The technology most likely will not be ready for next year's World Cup in Germany.

Calls for new technology resurfaced in England after Tottenham was denied a clear goal at Manchester United on Jan. 4. Goalkeeper Roy Carroll dropped the ball behind the line, but the officials missed the call. (/)

I'm not saying anything here, but it just doesn't come as any surprise that this got trialled in Germany. Perhaps it's just me on that. And I just love seeing Sepp Blatter in print. Sepp Blatter. Teehee.

No, really, hell hath no fury

(The Informer - spotter A Charlesworth)

The Informer wishes to end this week's instalment with a tale of feminine cunning that was scuppered by a network operator [mobile phone company to non-IT hacks].

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and this particular British lady is no exception. Her choice of revenge was rather ingenious.

She took the SIM card from an old phone belonging to her estranged husband, put it into her phone and sent herself threatening text messages.

Even more impressive, she drove to his house and sent the texts sat outside in her car because she knew that the network could be asked to provide the whereabouts of the phone that sent the messages.

To stay aware of location-based services when in a state of such emotional turmoil is an impressive feat. Then, of course, she told the police that she had been receiving threatening text messages from her hubby.

But Orange engineers were able to prove that the SIM had not been in its original handset when the messages were sent, though, and the lady was collared.

It would have been better to chop all of his ties in half. (/)

Man. At least she didn't rip one of his testicles off, I suppose.

Obituary



One of the interesting things about doing TAR is that, as every day I flick through what feels like endless sites and papers looking for oddities, some things pop up and change over the week. And some of them have you really involved. Bubba's tale was one of those. Bubba was a 10-kilo monster of a lobster who was unlucky enough to finally get caught off the Massachusetts coast. Bubba's age was argued over and ranged in guesses from around 40 to as old as 100. No one thought to throw Bubba back, course, but at least, at first, Bubba was saved from the pot…

No butter for Bubba, 10-kilogram lobster bound for Ripley's museum

(AP byline Mike Crissey, photo Keith Srakocic for AP)




He could be older than Warner Bros. studio, General Motors, the Boy Scouts and the states of Arizona and New Mexico. He could have survived two world wars and Prohibition.

He could have been dinner. He's Bubba, a 10-kilogram leviathan of a lobster pulled from the waters off Nantucket, Mass., and shipped to a Pittsburgh fish market. The lobster has been kept in a tank near a fish counter in Wholey's Market since Thursday while owner Bob Wholey tried to figure out what to do with it.

"It is overwhelming," Wholey said. "If you see it, you will never forget it. Customers are just in awe."

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent Wholey a letter asking him to work with the group to release Bubba back in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Maine.

Another group calling itself People For Eating Tasty Animals reportedly offered Wholey a hefty price for the lobster. At Tuesday's price of about $35 US a kilogram, Bubba would retail for $350. A woman offered to buy him for $500 and then send him to an aquarium.

On Tuesday, Wholey gave the lobster to the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, which will send him to an aquarium at a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum.

Based on how long it typically takes a lobster to reach eating size - about five to seven years to grow to a half-kilo - some estimate Bubba is 100 years old.

That would make the crustacean older than Warner Bros. (1907), the Boy Scouts (1910) and the states of Arizona and New Mexico (1912), not to mention the first commercial radio station (1920), television (1927) and computers (1943).

Bob Bayer, executive director of the University of Maine's Lobster Institute, is skeptical and estimates that Bubba is likely 50 years old, but doesn't know for sure. Warm water and plenty of food may have more to do with a lobster's size than how long it's been alive.

"We have looked at all kinds of things to figure out if there is any way to age a lobster. I'm guessing 100 years is probably too high but I can't argue with it because you don't know," Bayer said.

Some large lobsters haven't fared well after they were caught. In 1985, a 11.5-kilogram lobster that the New England Aquarium planned to give to a Tokyo museum died when the water temperature rose and the salt dropped in its aquarium. In 1990, an eight-kilogram lobster named Mimi died just days after being flown to a restaurant in Detroit. Last year, a six-kilogram lobster named Hercules that was rescued by a Washington state middle school class died before it could be released in off the coast of Maine.

Bubba will be kept at the Pittsburgh Zoo's aquarium, where he will be checked out to make sure he is healthy enough to make the trip to his permanent home at Ripley's, said zoo spokeswoman Connie George. He will be kept under constant watch in a quarantine area and won't be on display, George said.

Although his business is to sell seafood, Wholey says Bubba was never bound to be boiled and buttered. And he's become a little philosophical after seeing the lobster, which could be twice his 54 years.

"I don't think you could eat something that big. . . . What range of emotions does a lobster have? Greed? Lust? Love? I'm just going to give him to the zoo and hope he lives another 100 years," Wholey said.

"If you sat down and ate this thing, wouldn't that be a bit shellfish?" (/)

I've left Crissey's byline on the story instead of just using the AP tag because I think he really deserves it. And he was prescient, in some sad way, because, only a couple of days later, Bubba met the same fate as happens to all greatness once it is contained. So, farewell Bubba, Ozymandias of the ocean.

Bubba the Leviathan Lobster Dies at Zoo

(AP)

He dodged lobster pots for decades, endured a trip from the coast of Massachusetts to Pittsburgh and survived about a week in a fish market. But a trip to the zoo proved to be too much for a 22-pound lobster named Bubba.

The leviathan of a lobster died Wednesday afternoon at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium about a day after he was moved from Wholey's Market, said zoo spokeswoman Rachel Capp and Bob Wholey, owner of the fish market.

"They're very finicky. It could have been a change in the water. You have no idea," said Wholey.

Bubba died in a quarantine area of the zoo's aquarium, where he was being checked out to see if he was healthy enough to make a trip to an aquarium at a Ripley's Believe It or Not museum, Capp said.

Bubba will be examined to try to figure out why he died, although Capp and Wholey guessed it may have been the stress of being moved. (/)

And finally



You really need an And finally after Bubba.


I was going to take a picture from Dave's Daily, but Dave's site is just too non-standard in coding. This, however, is Randy Cassingham's Get Out Of Hell Free card. (/)

Until next time…

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