Archive Category: Odd News
Invisible Lion Cages
It looks like a lioins has jumped up on the hood of an open vehicle! Look closely, though -it’s an illusion, as the front of the car and the passenger area are separated by a sheet of glass. Invisible lion cages are the mane attraction Werribee Open Range Zoo, in Melbourne, Australia. VERY strong glass is used in place of other enclosure types more familiar in zoos – the result is stunning shots of the lions and a unique visitor experience.
This incredible Lions on the Edge exhibit, which puts you just inches from a lion’s jaws, is one of the biggest attractions at the zoo.
Kings of the jungle Tombo and Tonyi are joined by two lionesses in the exhibit. Though it has been open since 2006, the male lions were added just last month – leading to some startling photo opportunities.
Link – via cakeheadlovesevil
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Bird Drops Bread, LHC Shuts Down
You can’t make stuff like this up. A piece of a baguette dropped by a passing bird caused a shutdown at the CERN Large Hadron Collider.
The bird dropped some bread on a section of outdoor machinery, eventually leading to significant over heating in parts of the accelerator. The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident, but the spike produced so much heat that had the beam been on, automatic failsafes would have shut down the machine.
The LHC is scheduled to be reactivated later this month. The bread incident won’t affect those plans. Link -via Boing Boing
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You Must Drive to the Recycling Center
David and Katie France of Dorset County, England thought they were being eco-friendly when they walked to dump to dispose of their recyclables. But they were met at the gate by an employee who told them they would have to bring their bags in by car! He cited safety concerns and warned the couple they may be hit by a vehicle. David France walked the 400 yards back to their home, got the car, and drove to the gate where they loaded their bags of scrap metal and took them into the center.
Mr France said: “It was farcical. I thought we were being doubly green by taking our recycling there on foot.
“But whatever good we did in recycling our waste was probably counteracted by the CO2 emissions we used up in our car.”
The council responsible for tip said that because there is no “dedicated pedestrian access point” it was unsafe for people to walk there.
Link -via Arbroath
(image credit: Flickr user hugovk)
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Man Shows Up at His Funeral
The family of 59-year-old Ademir Jorge Goncalves of Santo Antonio da Platina, Brazil identified his body after a fatal traffic accident. The funeral was held the next day, which is customary in Brazil. Imagine their shock when Goncalves himself appeared at the funeral service!
What family members didn’t know was that Goncalves had spent the night at a truck stop talking with friends over drinks of a sugarcane liquor known as cachaca, his niece Rosa Sampaio told the O Globo newspaper. He did not get word about his own funeral until it was already happening Monday morning.
A police spokesman in the town of Santo Antonio da Platina said Goncalves rushed to the funeral to let family members know he was not dead.
“The corpse was badly disfigured, but dressed in similar clothing,” said the police spokesman, who talked on condition of anonymity as he wasn’t authorized to discuss the case. “People are afraid to look for very long when they identify bodies, and I think that is what happened in this case.”
The victim has since been identified and the remains sent to the correct family. Link -via reddit
(image credit: Flickr user Hipolito Luiz)
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Woman Reports Herself Driving Drunk
Mary Strey called police in Clark County, Wisconsin to report a drunk driver. What made this call so unusual was that she was reporting on herself!
“Somebody’s really drunk driving down Granton Road,” she told the 911 dispatcher.
The dispatcher asked if the Strey was behind the drunk driver, to which she replied “No, I am them.”
The dispatcher asked, “Okay, so you’re calling to report you’re driving drunk?”
“Yes,” Strey said.
Strey pulled over and waited for the responding officer, who gave her a Breathalyzer test which showed her blood alcohol level was .19. Strey is due in court over the matter in December. Link -via Arbroath
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Lost Luggage
Remember Dave Carroll of the group Sons of Maxwell who wrote the song United Breaks Guitars after seeing his guitar abused? He flew United Airline again on Sunday on his way to speak to a group of customer service executives. Then he spent an hour at the baggage claim because United lost his luggage!
In an interview, Mr. Carroll said that for more than an hour on Sunday, he was told he could not leave the international baggage claim area at Denver International Airport, where he had flown from Saskatchewan. He said he had been told to stay because his bag was delayed, not lost, and he had to be there to claim it when it came down the conveyor belt.
“I’m the only person pacing around this room,” Mr. Carroll said, recalling how he was caught between an order from United staff members to stay and collect his bag, and a federal customs official telling him he had to leave the baggage claim area. The bag never showed.
Carroll got his bag back on Wednesday. Link -via YesButNoButYes
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Company Forgets Court Date, Loses $1.26 Billion in Default Judgment
A legal secretary at PepsiCo forgot to deal with a lawsuit notice that came across her desk. Consequently, PepsiCo’s lawyers did not show up to court when expected. The presiding judge summarily handed down a $1.26 billion judgment against the corporation. Lynne Marek writes in The National Law Journal:
In court papers, PepsiCo claims it first received a legal document related to the case from the North Carolina agent on Sept. 15 when a copy of a co-defendant’s letter was forwarded to Deputy General Counsel Tom Tamoney in PepsiCo’s law department. Tamoney’s secretary, Kathy Henry, put the letter aside and didn’t tell anyone about it because she was “so busy preparing for a board meeting,” PepsiCo said in its Oct. 13 motion to vacate.
Link | Image: FBI
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Man Recreates Pan Am Jetliner Cabin in His Garage
Since he was a young boy, Anthony Toth has seen the first class cabin of an old Pan Am 747 as the very quintessence of luxury. So he has spent the past twenty years building a simulation of that environment in his garage. In addition to spending $50,000 on the project, he’s traveled widely just to find vintage equipment. Candace Jackson writes in The Wall Street Journal:
To find artifacts from the airline, which ceased operation in 1991, Mr. Toth spends his vacations trekking out to an area in the Mojave Desert known as the airplane boneyard, where retired aircraft are stripped for parts. When he can’t buy an original Pan Am item in good condition, like seat covers, he recruits professionals to create suitable stand-ins.
Julie Fisher, a friend of Mr. Toth’s, says one time she got a call from Mr. Toth saying he’d heard about a source for headsets in Bangkok. A few days later, the two of them hopped a plane to Thailand for the weekend to track them down. (As an airline employee, Mr. Toth can usually fly himself and a friend for free if space is available.)
There’s a slideshow of Toth’s work at the link.
Link via Gizmodo | Photo: Brian L. Frank for the WSJ
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The Secret of a Successful Marriage: Trophy Wife!
Researchers have finally unlocked the secret of a happy marriage: trophy wife!
No, seriously. The study found that marrying smarter and younger women results in less fewer divorces and greater marriage bliss:
The researchers studied interviews of more than 1,500 couples who were married or in a serious relationship. Five years later, they followed up 1,000 of the couples to see which had lasted.
They found that if the wife was five or more years older than her husband, they were more than three times as likely to divorce than if they were the same age.
If the age gap is reversed, and the man is older than the woman, the odds of marital bliss are higher.
Link (Image: a Halloween costume from BuyCostumes)
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Chihuahua Smuggled in Luggage
Customs officials at the Dublin Airport at first thought the x-ray showed a toy dog in the suitcase, but they opened it up and out popped a live puppy! A Bulgarian man on a flight from Madrid was trying to smuggle the young chihuahua.
It is understood the dog was being smuggled in as a gift for someone.
Legally, dogs must have clearance and a health certificate before being brought into the country.
The animal, which Mr Broni said seemed tired but unharmed, was handed over to Department of Agriculture officials where it was placed in quarantine.
The man was not detained, but a file is being compiled on the case. Link -via Unique Daily
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Top Ten Weirdest Halloween Handouts
Candy is dandy, but some folks aren’t prepared for trick-or-treaters (or else they’re just mean). We all know the neighborhood dentist who gives out toothbrushes instead of candy. Here’s a selection of alternative “treats” people have been known to disappoint trick-or-treaters with on Halloween.
8. Condiments and Cutlery
Probably from bachelor types who forgot it was Halloween – answered the door because they thought it was the pizza guy – and then mined their condiment stash so as not to disappoint. Though little containers of peanut butter and jam are passable, plastic packs of soya sauce, ketchup, relish, mustard, and plastic fork and knife sets really don’t do the trick for a treat!
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Coyote Struck, Travels to California
Daniel East and his sister, Tevyn were traveling on Interstate 80 near the Utah-Nevada border when a coyote ran in front of the car. They hit the animal, but kept driving as they assumed it was dead. Eight to ten hours later, they stopped in California and noticed the coyote was stuck in the car’s grill! They called the Wildlife Rehabilitation and Release office in Penn Valley, which sent a volunteer.
Jan Crowell, a rehabilitation center volunteer, said she brought a catch pole, an animal carrier, gloves and blankets.
When she arrived, East and his sister were taking the screws out of the car’s grill in an effort to get the animal out. Once the grill was pulled forward, the coyote poked its head out.
“No broken bones, no internal injuries — nothing,” Daniel East said, adding that the animal only had a few scrapes on one of his paws.
The coyote was kept at the center until it escaped on its own. Link -via Arbroath
(image credit: David Lovere)
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Leech Convicts Australian Robber
Police found a leech at the scene of a robbery in Tasmania eight years ago. They took a sample of the blood the leech had consumed. In 2008, Peter Alec Cannon was arrested on an unrelated drug charge. The DNA from his blood matched the blood from the leech!
Cannon would probably have got away with the crime had he not been charged with drug offences late last year, and asked to give a DNA sample – which matched that from the crime scene.
Detective Inspector Mick Johnston, who was involved in the police investigation from the start, said Cannon’s conviction validated the use of DNA technology.
“It’s a testament to DNA evidence and the legislation that allows us to keep such evidence in relation to unsolved crimes – this is a fantastic result,” he said.
Link -via Boing Boing
(image credit: BBC)
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Brothel Offers Discounts to Eco-Friendly Customers
It seems like everyone is getting into the green lifestyle movement, even a (legal) bordello in Berlin. Mary MacPherson Lane writes for the Associated Press:
One bordello, hoping to stave off falling demand in the economic crisis, has begun offering discounts to customers who pedal bicycles to the door.
“It’s very difficult to find parking around here, and this option is better for our environment,” said Thomas Goetz, who owns the brothel Maison d’Envie, or House of Desire.[...]
To qualify, customers must show the receptionist either a bicycle padlock key or proof they used public transit to get to the neighborhood. That knocks the price for 45 minutes in a room, for example, to euro65 from euro70.
Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Image: flickr user keepwaddling1
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Cat in a Freezer for 19 Hours
A cat named Krillen survived 19 hours in a freezer in Te Kuiti, New Zealand. Sarah Crombie heard a faint meow when she approached the freezer, which hadn’t been used since her partner Sid Sisson shut it the night before. He didn’t realize that Krillem had jumped inside. The freezer was set to -18C, the coldest possible setting. She opened the lid and saw him on a bag of dog food.
“I raced inside to get Sid and as I came out, Krillen rolled off the bag in an attempt to get out, but he was that frozen he just rolled to the bottom of the freezer on his back,” she said.
“At first we thought his eyeballs were frozen. I’ve never seen a cat with such big eyes.”
Fortunately, Sid, 28, knew it was essential to raise the body temperature of hypothermia sufferers slowly. So he put the cat under his shirt and got into bed with him.
It took three hours under the covers for the cat to stop shaking. Krillen appears to have recovered without frostbite. Link -via Arbroath
(image credit: Bruce Mercer)
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Vanity Plate Proves Costly
That’s Scottie Roberson, whose nickname is “Racer X” and favorite number is seven. He combined the two for his vanity plate: XXXXXXX.
Turns out that decision flagged his car for over $19,000 in parking tickets.
When Birmingham parking patrols find cars without license plates parked illegally or at expired meters, they enter seven X’s in place of the plate number, city officials said. The parking citation form calls for a plate number, and the practice is to use X’s when no number is available.
City officials are working to change the entry system to keep Roberson from receiving any additional tickets, Odom said.
“Maybe we need to go with nine X’s, or maybe we just need to leave that part blank altogether,” Dawkins said.
Link via The Obscure Store & Reading Room.
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The Frugal Polygamist
Just because you’re a polygamist, it doesn’t mean that you can’t also be frugal. South African Milton Mbhele just got married to 4 brides the frugal way: he did it all at once!
The four brides, dressed in flowing white gowns, walked down the aisle together, before saying “We do” to the 44-year-old groom.
Mr Mbhele says he didn’t marry them purely for the spectacle but because it also made financial sense. “I don’t know how much four different weddings would have cost me but I know doing it all at once saved money,” he explains.
“For example I only needed one tent, I needed to hire one caterer and one photographer for the entire ceremony.”
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7 Fascinating Love Letters
Have you ever written a love letter? How did it turn out? Sappy or clever?
I betcha it’s not as awesome as this one sent about 100 years ago by William Weightman. He wrote the entire thing in rebus (for example, the word "dearest" is formed using a picture of a deer followed by the letters "est.")
That’s just one of 7 fascinating love letters in this post by Shaun Usher (the guy behind deputy dog and Letters of Note blogs)
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The History of the Barcode
Google’s doodle for today is a barcode, in honor of the 57th anniversary of its invention. Nick Collins writes in The Daily Telegraph about the history of this label:
Granted to American inventors Norman Joseph Woodland and Bernard Silver three years after it was filed, patent number 2,612,994 was for a pattern of concentric circles, rather than the set of straight lines used today.
Their research began in 1948 after Mr Silver, a graduate student at the Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia, overheard a local food chain boss asking one of the institute’s deans to design a system for reading product data automatically.
Mr Silver and Mr Woodland, a fellow graduate student and teacher at Drexel, first tried using patterns of ink that glowed under ultraviolet light, but it proved too expensive and unreliable.
Mr Woodland then came up with the linear bar code, and later replaced the lines with circles so that they could be scanned from any angle. The pair patented their “bull’s eye” design the next year.
The barcode became widely used in UPC (universal price product code) format, and the first UPC-labeled item scanned by a reader was a packet of Wrigley’s chewing gum at a grocery store in Troy, Ohio in 1974.
You can create your own personalized barcode with a tool in the links below.
Barcode Generator via Urlesque | History of the Barcode
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Thugs' Intended Victims Turned Out To Be ... Cross-Dressing Cage Fighters!
If you think the Somali pirate had a bad case of mistaken identity, check this one out: when two thugs decided to attack a pair of transvestites, they found out the hard way that their intended victims were cross-dressing cage fighters!
The Daily Mail has the story:
Dean Gardener, 19, and Jason Fender, 22, singled out the two men walking along a street in wigs, short skirts and high heels.
Bare-chested Gardener was caught on CCTV confronting one of the men in a pink wig, black skirt and boob tube – then seen swinging a punch, a court heard.
But the other cage fighter, wearing a sparkling black dress and matching long wig, sprang to his friend’s help, delivering two lightning-quick punches to the two stunned yobs.
The defense attorney for the two remarked:
Mark Davies, defending, said: ‘You know it cannot have been a good night when you get into a fight with two cross-dressing men.
No words on why the cage fighters were out wearing such lovely dresses in the first place: Link (CCTV still image: Wales News Service)
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Vampire Wedding
The Rockin’-R-Ranch in Columbia Township, Ohio hosts a haunted house and conducts haunted hayrides during October. This year, they also hosted a vampire wedding! Jack Holsinger was carried in a coffin to the alter where he met his bride Connie Spitznagel. Both were dressed as vampires. The best man appeared as pirate Jack Sparrow and the maid of honor was decked out as the Bride of Frankenstein.
Minister Greg Kopp got into the spirit of things as well. The couple vowed to love each other, haunt with each other and howl at the moon together till the end of time.
They promised to forsake all other ghouls and goblins and grow in love and “other body parts” until – you guessed – death parts them.
Instead of a first kiss, Holsinger was ordered to bite his new bride on the neck.
Many of the wedding guests were also dressed as vampires or other Halloween characters. Patrons of the haunted house were welcomed to the wedding as well. Link -via YesButNoButYes
(image credit: Alicia Castelli/The Chronicle-Telegram)
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Food Fight in Brussels
Angry farmers took to the streets to protest low food prices in Brussels, Belgium. They dumped milk into the streets and threw eggs. One pictures shows a farmer aiming streams of milk directly from a cow’s udder onto policemen.
The protest organizers, the European Milk Board, said that more than 1,000 tractors and 5,000 people took part on behalf of “more than 80,000 dairy farmers”.
The group said milk prices are below 75 percent of production costs. Another European farm union organization, Copa-Cogeca, says that milk prices have plummeted 30 percent in a year and that dairy producers will lose up to 14 billion euros before the end of the year if nothing is done.
See the awesome full version of this cropped picture at the New York Times. Link -via Buzzfeed
(image credit: Georges Gobet/Agence France-Presse)
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Bringing Back Polaroids
The Impossible Project is a worldwide effort to restart and reinvent and save instant photography – their aim to re-start production of analog instant film for vintage Polaroid cameras in 2010.
Personally I love the instant photography as it gives a really unique effect it’s impossible to gain from other photography effects.
This is a really clever campaign backed by the likes of Urban Outfitters and Wallpaper.
Polaroid is transforming itself from an analog Instant Film Production Company to a global Consumer Electronics and Digital Imaging company.
Production of analog Instant Film stopped in June 2008, closing the factories in Mexico (Instant Packfilm production) and the Netherlands (Instant Integral production).
Link – via cakeheadlovesevil
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Dead Prankster: 1 Treasure Hunter: 0
Patty Henken thought she’d found more than a bargain when she tore the seat off an old chair she’d recently bought. Taped to the back was a key, and a note titled “Finders Keepers.” The note, typed but signed by a Chauncey Wolcott, described a vacant lot in Springfield, IL where a chest containing $250 worth of gold coins could be found.
Henken’s story attracted the attention of another woman, Betty Atkison Ryan, who knew a practical joker (long deceased) named John Slaven, who often used the fake name, Chauncey Wolcott.
Atkinson Ryan told the newspaper that Slaven was her boss in the Journal-Register’s classified advertising department decades ago. She said Slaven often used a typewriter to compose some of his jokes and signed them “Chauncey Wolcott.”
Ms. Henken has admitted to being had, but still thinks there must be something buried there. She luckily still has use of a donated backhoe; unfortunately the property owners have pulled the plug on her efforts.
Link Photo: Associated Press
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World's Largest Paintbrush
Chinese artist He Wenjun created the largest paintbrush in the world out of the hair of 300 horse tails. It weighs 115 pounds when dry and is 12 feet long. His accomplishment has been added to the Guinness Book of World Records. The image to the left is of the artist painting with the brush at an exhibition in Nanchong, China.
Link via J-Walk Blog | More Pictures | Image: Europics
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5 Old Age Health Freaks
Old age in itself is no barrier to fitness. Many people in their 80s and 90s stay fit with regular exercise, and some put many younger folks to shame! Imagine competitive swimming in your 90s.
92yr old Ladislav Nicek has been competing in the annual Winter Swimming Championships in the Vlatva River for over half a century, and has until this point only missed a few events. Up to 70 ‘otuzilci’ (hardy fellows) brave the icy waters in an event which attracts a huge amount of media coverage, a large percentage due to the efforts of Mr. Nicek. He even organises the event every year before jumping in himself.
Nicek is one of five elderly athletes profiled at Vitabits. Link -Thanks, David!
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World's Tallest Horse?
Poe the Clydesdale is an impressive 6′ 8″ tall and his owner, Shereen Thomspon, is seeking to have him admitted into the Guinness Book of World Records. Poe weighs over 3,000 pounds and stands at 80.8 inches high. The current record holder is shorter by a mere .8 inches.
The giant horse eats 10 pounds of grain and drinks 75 gallons of water per day. “He is extremely popular, but his size always means people keep a cautious distance from him — although they shouldn’t, as he is a real puppy,” Thompson said.
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Wheelchair-Bound Man Tackles Suspected Child Molester
Cameron Aulner is not a man inclined to let his disability limit him. While working his first day at the Comcast table at a Westminster, Colorado Wal-Mart, he intercepted a suspected child molester, tackled him, and held him down until police arrvied:
The affidavit says one witness, Chris Bevin, saw the suspect, 34-year-old Kevin Salyers, run from the toy department. Bevin told investigating officers that he began to run after Salyers, and shouted “stop that man!” But no one was able to stop him.
That’s when a man working at the Comcast table at the front of the store went into action. Even more amazing, the Comcast employee, 22-year-old Cameron Aulner was in a wheel chair. Aulner pulled in front of the suspect, and grabbed his t-shirt. Aulner says he wound up out of his wheel chair, and on top of the suspect who was on the ground.
Link via Say Uncle | Image: Fox News
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Nothing Says It's Over Like Fried Goldfish
A woman in Texas was so angry at her former common-law husband that she decided to fry and eat his pet goldfish. The not-so-lucky 7 gold fish were bought by the couple during happier days. Police say it’s a civil not a criminal matter and left the couple to work out the issue. I guess revenge is a dish best served fried!
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Man Buried in SPARCstation Case
After he “left for the great data bank in the sky,” Alan was memorialized by his family in the most dignified manner possible: inside a 1990s-era SPARCstation CPU case inscribed with his name, the years of his life, and the phrase “Beam me up Scotty, I’m done here.” Those who attended the funeral said goodbye to Alan in a way fitting for the cubicle lifestyle:
His friends and family were able to leave their final good-byes on post-notes. Anyone who wanted to keep their words private could just slip their note into the case through the floppy slot. All notes will be sealed in plastic and placed within the case. There has been one complication. His daughters like the look of it so much they aren’t now sure if they want to bury him.
Link via Gizmodo | Image: flickr user sam 3.14
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