Date: 29 Mar 93 17:34:56 PST (Monday)
Subject: Life 9.I
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The following are selections from the New of the Weird
I've gotten them from
bostic@vangogh.cs.berkeley.edu (Keith Bostic)
wisner@privateidaho.EBay.Sun.COM (Bill Wisner)
(Bill posts this to the eniac mailing list)
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Wed, 21 Oct 92
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The most popular video in Sweden earlier this year was a 60-minute fireplace
fire, shown from the point of ignition until it burns into cinders, and
featuring a sound-track of fire-crackling wood. Price: about $35.
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The local board of health closed down the Wing Wah Chinese restaurant in
South Dennis, Mass., briefly in August for various violations. The most
serious, said officials, was the restaurant's practice of draining water
from cabbage by putting it in cloth laundry bags, placing them between two
pieces of plywood in the parking lot, and driving over them with a van.
Said Health Director Ted Dumas, "I've seen everything now."
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In Annandale, Va., two armed men rushed the front door of First American Bank
just after manager Dwight Smith opened up. Unknown to the men, the door had
locked automatically behind Smith. The first robber bounced off the door
hitting the second man. They escaped in their van and have not been captured.
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In July, Danny Fouts and his wife and her sister, in New York City to appear
on the "Sally Jessy Raphael" show to discuss their arrest for shoplifting their
wedding supplies on their wedding day in March, were arrested for stealing from
the New York Ramada Hotel the TV show had booked them in for their stay.
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Kenneth Jeffries, 24, was arrested in West Haven, Conn., in August for robbing
a convenience store. Police reported that he had first offered the clerk $1
for a pack of gum as a ruse and then taken $40 in the robbery. However, said
police, Jeffries returned a minute later and asked, uncertainly, "Did I pay for
the gum?" By that time the clerk had summoned police, and Jeffries was soon
apprehended.
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Clint Lenz, 10, took first place in the Invent America contest with a glow-in-
the-dark toilet seat for those middle-of-the-night forays. He won $1,000,
computers for his class and a spot in the Smithsonian Institution.
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A Japanese rancher told reporters in Tokyo in July that he herds cattle by
outfitting them with pocket pagers (beepers), which he calls from his portable
phone. After a week of training, the cows associate the beeping with eating
and hustle up for grub.
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Sun, 22 Nov 92
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Researchers at Cornell University recently patented an articifial dog that
would speed up the breeding of fleas for lab use. Previously, the lab
required 25 live, severely infected dogs to breed the 12,000 fleas per
day needed in studies of humans' and animals' allergic reactions to fleas.
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Sun, 29 Nov 92
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An investigation by the Dallas Morning News revealed the city's public schools
employ at least 185 people who have been convicted of felonies, including two
convicted murderers. In response, the school superintendent promised that the
city would begin periodic records checks.
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The Ontario Press Council dismissed a complaint filed by Allan Sorensen
against the Toronto Sun, which had reported that Sorenson had choked his
ex-girlfriend. Sorensen's complaint was that his reputation was damaged
because the Sun engaged in "speculation" that he had used only one hand
to choke her (the other being forced into her mouth). In fact, he said he
used both hands.
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The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) was ordered to pay
$333,000 in penalties to Inyo County because DWP's property tax payment
arrived late -- after having been sent back for $3.40 in additional postage.
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Robert A. Chase, 45, was charged with threatening an 11-year-old boy
with a knife in Madison, Wis. The boy was watching Chase play basketball
with another adult when the opponent accused Chase of "traveling" (taking
steps without dribbling the ball). To seek an impartial opinion, Chase
asked the boy, but the boy agreed that Chase had traveled. Chase then
allegedly grabbed the boy, held a knife to his throat, and asked, "Now.
Did I travel?"
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Mon, 07 Dec
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In September, the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation reported
the development of an odor that makes gamblers bet more. In a study in
Las Vegas, slot machines outfitted to emit the odor racked up 45 percent
more business. The neurologist who conducted the study predicted that the
scent will become widely used in Las Vegas.
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Joe Albert Ruiz, 19, was arrested in Santa Maria in September. Police said
he had broken into a car in the middle of the night and was in the trunk,
disconnecting the rear speakers, when the trunk closed and locked him in.
Neighbors reported strange noises, and a police officer called to the scene
heard Ruiz banging on the trunk and yelling, "Let me out!"
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In March, entomologists from Tel Aviv University hooked up six Oriental
hornets in series and obtained enough electricity to run a digital watch
for several seconds. The researchers believe that the Oriental hornet's
skin stores solar energy and acts as an organic semiconductor.
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In October, an envelope containing $15,000 in cash was left, anonymously,
on a chair at the Detroit IRS office with the instruction to apply it
"to reduce the national debt."
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Sun, 13 Dec 92
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After police pulled over Kevin Temple, 35, in a routine traffic stop in
Bronson, Fla., in October, a police dog sniffing the trunk became agitated.
In the trunk and back seat, officers found the following live animals:
48 rattlesnakes, a Gila monster, 45 non-poisonous snakes, 67 scorpions,
several tarantulas and small lizards, and a parrot. Temple said they were
just pets.
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In October, the Swallows Hotel in Gateshead, England, offered 11 chronic
snorers a free night's stay so they it could test how well soundproofed
the rooms are. The hotel staff tape-recorded the sounds coming from the
rooms and promised the loudest snorer a prize.
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The New York Post reported in June that Manhattan gang leaders were selling
drug dealers exclusive rights on certain street corners in Harlem for as much
as $1 million.
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18 Dec 92
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Three maintenance workers in Alexandria, Ind., fixed a massive street-
flooding problem in October when they pulled a 200-pound hairball from a
manhole. Said one of the men, "We thought we had a goat."
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Singer Jimmy Buffett's Save the Manatee Committee, formed to preserve Florida
sea cows from impending extinction, filed a lawsuit in May in its ongoing
financial squabble with the Florida Audobon Society over which organization
can do more for manatees.
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In October, a cleaning crew accidentally tossed out an exhibit at the Museum
of Discovery and Science in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The exhibit consisted of
14,000 cigarette butts -- the amount a smoker produces in a lifetime --
crammed into coffee cans. Said the artist, in defense of the cleaning crew,
"(The butts) didn't smell very good."
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Michael J. Schmidt, 29, set up a hidden video camera at his home near
Superior, Wis., because he had been burglarized several times and thought
he could catch the culprits in the act. The burglars came back and were
captured on tape, which Schmidt turned over to the sheriff. Among the items
the burglars took from Schmidt's house was a box containing eight marijuana
plants. Schmidt was charged with misdemeanor drug possession.
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12 Jan 93
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Richard Kyle won his Arizona House seat in November more easily than he
had won the Republican primary in September. He and his primary opponent,
John Gaylord, had tied and had agreed to settle things with one hand of
five-card stud dealt by the speaker of the Arizona House. Kyle's pair
of sevens put him into the general election.
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Rhett Jacobs, Democratic candidate for the South Carolina House and a man
who listed "education" as his top priority, submitted a required campaign
disclosure form in October, handwritten, on which he detailed expenses
for "filling fee," "campain work" and "litature."
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Long Beach police arrested two small, skinny men in October and charged them
with stealing six 45-pound barbells from the Buffum-Downtown YMCA. The men
were struggling to keep the barbells in a small cart that kept tipping over
because they were not strong enough to steer it.
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San Francisco police arrested Russell C. Sultan in July and charged him with
attempting to extort $23,000 from his mother and girlfriend by claiming to
have been kidnapped for ransom. After tracing telephone calls, police,
guns drawn, burst into a motel room to find Sultan casually eating fried
chicken and watching a 49ers football game. Sultan said the kidnappers had
merely left him alone for a while, and exclaimed to the officers, "What took
you so long?"
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Raleigh, N.C., judge Don Overby, in several recent cases involving juvenile
theft, has forced the convicted kid to go home, retrieve his own most prized
possession, bring it back to Overby's courtroom, and watch while the judge
smashes it up.
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16 Jan 93
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In 1989, a Union Bridge, Md., high school permitted a female student,
Tawana Hammond, 17, to try out for its football team under the pressure
of a federal statute that bars school discrimination on the basis of
gender. On her first scrimmage, Tawana, a running back, was tackled and
suffered massive internal injuries. In October 1992, she filed a $1.5
million lawsuit against the county board of education for its alleged
failure to tell her how dangerous football is.
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Escondido attorney Ben Echeverria filed a $2 million lawsuit in August
against Texaco Inc. and a local gas station manager because station
attendants were pumping gas for women at self-service prices, but not
for men.
The station almost immediately stopped its practice and forced women
to start pumping for themselves.
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1 Feb 93
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A survey of home burglars' work preferences published in Whittle
Communications' Special Report magazine revealed that 32 percent like to
browse through family photographs while on the job, 27 percent like to
raid the refrigerator, and 7 percent watch TV. Seventy percent of the 191
imprisoned burglars reported they like to limit their jobs to a 20-minute
maximum, 17 percent wondered what their victims were like, and 59 percent
said a dog in the home was the most effective burglary deterrent.
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The Associated Press reported that the village of Sodom, Conn., disappeared,
like its biblical namesake. Though it appears on maps, the AP writer
interviewed residents of Sodom Road and the Sodom Corner intersection, both
hallmarks of the village of Sodom, and discovered that everyone claims now
to live in North Canaan.
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Raleigh, N.C., police charged Vernon Edsel Brooks, 34, with robbing a Radio
Shack in July, despite his foresight in disabling a video surveillance camera
by taking the camera with him as he fled. Because he forgot to take the
recorder to which the camera was connected, police found a tape containing
a full facial shot of Brooks reaching for the camera.
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James Macdonals and William Shoesmith, both 26, were sentenced to five years
in prison for bank robbery. According to his lawyer, Macdonald hated his
robbery work and had to drink before each job. For what was to be the pair's
last job, he got fall-down drunk and had to be carried by Shoesmith into the
bank to pull off the heist. The two were soon captured.
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10 Feb 93
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FBI and Florida authorities arrested Paul E. Flasher, 45, who had been
sentenced to five years in prison in 1980 for grand theft but who had never
been jailed. Flasher said he had gone home from the sentencing hearing in
Tampa and "sat tight," just as his lawyer had instructed, waiting for
notification to report to prison. Authorities forgot him for 12 years.
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Dennis Payne, 30, was arrested as a pickpocket at a Jersey City, N.J., train
station, his 135th arrest in New Jersey and New York City since 1978. Police
said it took a computer more than a half-hour to print out Payne's arrest
record.
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17 Feb 93
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Fort Erie, Ontario, Constable Paul Fletcher told reporters in December
that a man armed with a club tried to force a woman to drive him home with
her to get money for him, but that when he waited for her to unlock the
passenger door from inside, she sped away.
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In July, a Jackson Center, Pa., woman reported that someone used a ladder
to climb into the second story of her home and that all that was missing
was $10 worth of diapers, despite the presence of jewelry and antiques in
the same room.
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Recent prices for the Kremlovka hospital in Moscow (formerly the main
facility for members of the Politburo and the Supreme Soviet): the equivalent
of $2 a day for a room, $100 for a gall bladder operation, 15 cents per
tooth for dental fillings.
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A speech pathologist at Nova University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., offers
classes on the proper way to yell. She told the Sun-Sentinel newspaper that
research indicates that 37 percent of women with vocal damage were at one
point high school cheerleaders, and a third of current cheerleaders have such
problems. Among her teachings: Use husky shouts, not high-pitched
screeches.
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