Chuck’s Hand-Picked Overnight Weird News for Friday

It had to happen: a fight club to make Chuck Palahniuk's seem for sissy boys

Electrically charged knives hum and crackle as two fighters circle each other on the gym floor, slashing and kicking out. Closing in, they throw punches and swing elbows before crashing to the mat to grapple as the crowd cheers them on. One slips a hand free and sends a several thousand volt jolt into his opponent's ribs to end the fight. Two more fighters quickly take their place, swinging hefty sticks, thwacking, punching, and head-butting each other in a brutal battle accompanied by the rhythmic thumping of drums.

This would be the Los Angeles-area Dog Brothers fight club. No referees, few rules. You can wear a fencing mask. Yee-oww. Reuters // DogBrothers.com
Comments 'dog_brothers'

If Larry Pollard weren't busy helping Michael Peterson, he'd be one of those 9-11 conspiracy guys
Michael Peterson was convicted of killing his wife in 2001 by whomping her with a fireplace poker, but his pal Larry Pollard had a theory that he's stuck with since then, that it was actually an owl gone bad that attacked her, and now he's found a investigator's report that a microscopic piece of feather was found at the crime scene so there ya go! And now that he's looked again at all the evidence against Michael, he sees some things that nobody else seemed to see during Peterson's 14-week trial in Durham with high-paid lawyers! News & Observer (Raleigh)
Comments 'larry_pollard'

Doctor's double-whammy: First, his indecent-exposure conviction was upheld, and second, everybody in Houston knows he's only got "2.8" inches
Fortunately, he has kids at home so the Houston Chronicle doesn't name him, to spare them schoolyard abuse. But, yeah, the Court of Appeals let stand his conviction for fooling around with an undercover officer in a men's room. He tried to say he's too small to have flashed anybody, but the really embarrassing part is his other defense (of innocent explanation), that within a minute or two of meeting a perfect stranger in a men's room, he'd offer to pull up his shirt and compare stomach muscles. Houston Chronicle
Comments '2point8_inches'

Update: That condemned man in Texas gets a 6-month reprieve
A federal judge stayed the execution mentioned here yesterday, ruling that there is an obvious issue of whether Jeffrey Wood is insane. The U.S. Supreme Court has barred the execution of insane people, but Texas law requires that such an insane person prove that he is insane in order to get a hearing on whether he is insane. Federal judge Orlando Garcia says that is "insane." New York Times
Comments 'texas_insane'

Your Daily Loser
William Nguyen, 24, arrested in New Orleans for armed robbery, wrote in a very emphatic confession that the only reason he did it was to bring himself to the attention of Det. Sgt. Roy Phillips of NOPD because, quote, "I WANT TO BE A C.I. ASAP" (meaning confidential assistant [CORRECTION: "informant," of course, not "assistant"], as soon as possible, with those six letters repeatedly underlined). Times-Picayune
Comments 'william_nguyen'

People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
Brandon Bagnes, 31, of suburban Salt Lake City, has a problem with kids and a problem with diapers. His mom says the latter is a medical problem, but the long arm of the law says the problems are one and the same. KCPX-TV (Salt Lake City)
Comments 'brandon_bagnes'

Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict must be based on mugshot only]
Mr. Igor Kenk has been charged in Toronto with having stolen bicycles in his shop . . as many as, er, 2,396. Police haven't figured out yet exactly what his angle was. But all that's irrelevant to us; we just need to see what the dude looks like. New York Times
Comments 'igor_kenk'

More Things to Worry About on Friday
In Ohio, some election officials are so concerned about keeping voting machines secure that they, er, take them home at night during election season (a "sleepover") to, uh, guard them . . . . . At the Muslim shrine of Khan Jahan Ali in Bangladesh, where pilgrims throw sacrifices (hens, usually) into a five-crocodile pond for blessings, one croc forcibly accepted pilgrim Rubel Sheikh as its blessed lunch . . . . . News That Sounds Like a Joke: Britain's Nat'l Health Service reduced fees paid to dentists, and now, two yrs later, a big drop in crowns and a corresponding rise in extractions! . . . . . The cameraman on that notorious Baltimore "Stop Snitching" video of a couple of yrs ago was sentenced to 30 yrs on drug and gun crimes (Bonus: Yep, somebody snitched on him). Today's Newsrangers: Bob Pert, Gary Goldberg, Christopher Nalty, Tim Farley, Stephen Taylor, Liana McGowan
Comments 'worry_080822'

Editor's Notes
(1) For those on the DailyWeird e-mail list: It appears that certain e-mail platforms do not support the clickable links that you get on this page (and in RSS feeds). I fiddled around with the settings yesterday, which is why you got several copies of yesterday's e-mail. The good thing about Google Groups is that it's free; the bad thing is that if you can't get it to plug 'n' play, you're SOL because there's no support, whatsoever. Please, if you subscribe to DailyWeird, and you do NOT receive clickable links, please send me a message (a) only from the e-mail address on your Google Account and (b) only to this address, for this mission only: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Please write me at that address only, and please do not store that address because I'm going to close the box soon. Thank you for your help. (2) In fact, here's a reward for reading this far. Last week, The Smoking Gun posted this police report from Broomfield, Colo., that you probably didn't see: the "massage parlor" arrest of the 48-yr-old Ms., er, Mi Sook Yoo. (3) Reminder: During August, no Saturday post of Chuck's Hand-Picked Overnights.
Comments 'editors_080822'

Third Eye Camera

Designed by Wayne Martin Belger:


But does it come with a tripod?

A Bicycle Built For Two

This is a classic (and quite famous) weird photo.

Charles Tripp, the "Armless Wonder," performed with Barnum's circus. He could do just about anything with his feet, including shaving and carving wood. Eli Bowen was known as the "Legless Acrobat." He also toured with the Barnum and Bailey Circus. It was when the two of them paired up together that they achieved the peak of their popularity. This photo apparently happened spontaneously. From thehumanmarvels.com:

Worst. Crackers. Ever!

Six Faces of FATE

Please enjoy this imagery from one of the spiritual ancestors of WEIRD UNIVERSE, FATE MAGAZINE.






More in extended >>

Chuck’s Hand-Picked Overnight Weird News for Thursday

The giant boy who had all of his teeth when he was 4 months old
ABC-TV's Medical Mysteries show Tuesday night was about Brenden Adams, 12, who is huge, and doctors couldn't figure out why he grew so fast. Four yrs ago, they discovered a chromosomal abnormality (perhaps the only one yet found in anyone) that allows unrestrained growth. They slowed Brenden down a bit with massive testosterone therapy, but he's still a medical handful. [Ed.: They really can't explain the chromosome screwup? Here's a clue: He lives in Ellensburg, Wash., about 30 miles from the massive Hanford nuclear dump. Duh-uh.] ABC News
Comments 'brenden_adams'

It's good to be a British prisoner (continuing series)
Ian Brady, perhaps the most famous British murderer of the 20th century, is 70 yrs old and getting cantankerous. He complained that the psychiatric inmates in his prison hospital still qualify for £100/week gov't benefits, while prisoner-type inmates there are limited to £25. [Ed.: Let's see, £25, $50, $2600/year; hey, Alex; hey, Paul, I'm afraid Ashworth Hospital's more lucrative than Weird Universe!]
Daily Mail (London) // Wikipedia (Ian Brady)
Comments 'ian_brady'

The District of Calamity (continuing series)
The latest from America's most dysfunctional municipal gov't is that four police detectives with an open case on a man possibly seriously beaten and in the hospital failed to match up a missing-relative report on him for more than a month. (Bonus: The "ombudsman" that finally contacted the man's family was, er, the office of Councilman Marion Barry.) It was the worst of three incidents this year in which the gov't failed to notify relatives when missing persons showed up. Washington Post
Comments 'calamity_missing'

When a pervert thinks big
Jeremy Noyes, 30, Erie, Pa., a student at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, was charged by the FBI with having child porn and planning to bring a New Zealand woman and her urchin to the U.S. to start a sex-slave society. He'd start impregnating the urchin when she was old enough, and she'd pump out the future slaves for him. Associated Press via MSNBC // TheSmokingGun.com
Comments 'jeremy_noyes'

Having that stroke was the best thing that ever happened to him
Britain's Ken Walters said that. He had been on a 20-yr downturn after a spinal injury, and then the stroke, and suddenly he acquired a great artist's hand and eye and now sells complex graphics to the EA computer game people. Doctors said the brain always scrambles around after a stroke to try to rewire itself and that Walters's wires somehow wound up in a better place than before (at least artistically, because Walters isn't revealing any other consequences of the stroke). Daily Mail (London)
Comments 'stroke_artist'

Update on Todd Bentley
It now turns out that preacher Todd Bentley (in NOTW M071 this week and noted in this space on Monday) is doing more than closing down his Lakeland, Fla., crusade. He needs to go heal, himself, after pulling a John Edwards with a staff member. No, check that: According to the ministry, it was just an "unhealthy relationship on an emotional level," with "no sexual immorality." National Post (Toronto)
Comments 'bentley_update'

Update on Bigfoot
Well, jeez, it's official now: The Bigfoot show last Friday in Palo Alto, Calif. (mentioned here) was just your run-of-the-mill scam job. Oh, Loren! You vouched for them! Say it ain't so! WeirdUniverse dot net is . . disappointed. Fox News
Comments 'bigfoot_update'

Your Daily Loser
A 12-yr-old boy in Tipton, England, clearly unskilled at life, was hospitalized with "18 percent burns" to the backs of his legs resulting from a fart-lighting contest with his cousin. (A gas can was close by.) Daily Telegraph
Comments 'fart_lighting'

People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
We acknowledge the unknown man who three times drove up to the window of an espresso stand in Parkland, Wash., recently, naked, or wearing a bra, or with panties on his head, fondling himself. The third time he came by, the by-now-annoyed barista tossed a cup of boiling water on him. And all he said was, "Ooooh, yeah." KIRO-TV (Seattle)
Comments 'barista_boiling'

Your Daily Jury Duty (I)
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict must be based on mugshot only]
Former Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Otis Hensley Jr., 52, might just be misunderstood, in that he may not be the kind of man who would try to entice 11- and 13-yr-old girls (but leave the facts out of this!) Lexington Herald-Leader
Comments 'otis_hensley'

Your Daily Jury Duty (II)
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict must be based on mugshot only]
Danny Dukinfield, 47, might be guilty of following a schoolgirl home (while he was wearing a woman's girdle and skirt). Or, maybe he didn't do that. Arizona Daily Star
Comments 'danny_dukinfield'

More Things to Worry About on Thursday
Another Texan will walk the last mile tonight for just being an accomplice (waiting in the car) whose partner killed the victim in a robbery, and the appeals court and pardon board have officially shrugged . . . . . In what could be Texas's sister prison system (Afghanistan's), more than half of all female inmates are there only because they "had sex" even though it was from rape (Bonus: Most are serving around 20 yrs!) . . . . . A self-described "anti-feminist" New York City man sued Columbia University for putting all that feminist claptrap into impressionable students' minds (Bonus: He declined to tell a reporter his age because revealing that might hinder his chances of picking up younger chicks around town) . . . . . A new dimension in "jury nullification": "Awwwww, we don't wanna be on this jury" (result: mistrial) . . . . . The town of Thetford Mines, Quebec, canceled its annual chicken massacre contest, which is like the ol' cow-chip bingo contests, but you chop a chicken's head off and take bets on which square of the grid it dies on . . . . . Upping the ante on the sloppiness of the gov't's "no-fly" list: "James Robinson"'s on it, even the James Robinson who's a commercial airline pilot authorized to pack heat in the cockpit. Today's Newsrangers: Jessica McRorie, Joe Littrell, Mark Neunder, Scott Langill, John Holsinger, Bob Pert, Jerry Whittle, Dan Bennett
Comments 'worry_080821'

Editor's Notes
(1) Where are all those global-warming scientists when you need them, y'know, the ones that say their computer models know exactly what will happen 50 yrs out? All I know is that as of about noon Eastern on Sunday, Tropical Storm Fay was preferred-modeled to directly hit Tampa Bay around 2 p.m. Tuesday. Not only did Fay do-sa-do around Tampa, but the first drop of rain of the entire week here fell at 6 p.m. Wednesday. (2) August malaise schedule, again: Chuck's Hand-Picked Overnights coming up tomorrow, and next Monday and Wednesday, and after that, we'll see.
Comments 'editors_080821'

Poo-Pourri

There are no words for this.

Sonic Boom Simulation Chamber

During the 1960s NASA sponsored research into the effect of sonic booms on human subjects. This was in response to growing concern about "the nature of the boom phenomena" as supersonic aircraft were flying with increasing frequency. Shown in the picture is one subject (unidentified) about to be locked inside the "Sonic Boom Simulation Chamber."

I like the juxtaposition of the prim-and-proper woman and the massive audio system. Unfortunately there aren't any pictures of what she looked like after being repeatedly blasted with simulated sonic booms.

The image comes from NASA Contractor Report CR-1192, "Relative Annoyance and Loudness Judgments of Various Simulated Sonic Boom Waveforms."

The Portland Acupuncture Project

Artist Adam Kuby wants to heal Portland -- by using acupuncture. He would literally stick giant needles into the ground at various sites around the city. He writes:


Kuby has a bunch of photoshopped pictures on his site showing what his project would look like, should it ever be completed.

Some of his other art proposals are interesting. For instance, I like his "Cliff Dwelling" idea, which would involve adding an artificial rock ledge to the side of a skyscraper as a nesting place for peregrine falcons. People could watch the birds from inside the building, but unlike a zoo the birds would be free while the humans would be confined. (Thanks to Cranky Media Guy)

The Weirdest Tattoos

This is surely a book that will appeal to the WU crowd. A compilation of the worst tats ever inked. If this sample is representative, we're in for a treat.