Chuck’s Hand-Picked Overnight Weird News for Saturday

Gandhi's beloved toilet re-created for museum
The peace icon Mahatma Gandhi was also known for his obsessive hygiene, including reverence for his personal toilet, where he was reported to have done his best thinking. "I learnt [long ago] that a [bathroom] must be as clean as a drawing room," he supposedly wrote. At the major Gandhi ashram-museum in Ahmedabad, they originally removed the toilet as unbecoming, but now, on reflection, they're re-installing it. Daily Telegraph (London)
Comments 'gandhi_toilet'

So, my wife's in a coma, but, hey, she's still my wife, and I have needs
A Wisconsin appeals court affirmed a lower court ruling that a surveillance video of David Johnson having sex with his wife in a nursing home could not be used against him in a rape trial (rape, because she's unable to give consent). A married couple has an expectation of privacy in a closed room, and hence the warrant permitting the camera to be set up was unconstitutional. Associated Press via Wisconsin State Journal
Comments 'coma_video'

District of Calamity: "Thousands" of write-in votes in the primary election last week were bogus
They think the problem was a defective memory cartridge in the Sequoia Voting Systems software, but several local races might have been affected. (However, there's no possible amount of screwing-up that will change where D.C.'s 3 electoral votes go in November.) Washington Post
Comments 'dc_writeins'

Mom, 33, pretends to be her daughter, 15, to fulfill her dream of being a high school cheerleader
Wendy Brown looked a little older, said one staff member at Ashwaubenon High in Green Bay, Wis., but she had the "demeanor" of a high school girl. While the daughter was out in Nevada living with Brown's mother, Brown (who had a history of identity theft) signed up for cheerleading practice and made the squad (although her check to pay for the uniform bounced). Associated Press via Capital Times (Madison)
Comments 'mom_cheerleader'

Update: After a lull, the Valentine, Neb., butt-cheek vandal is back
The still-unknown man apparently took the winter off, but he's back, dropping trou at night at storefronts in the tiny town (pop. 2,650), and pressing his oiled/Vaselined butt against the windows. "During one particularly brazen session, virtually all the windows at a local hotel were imprinted." Associated Press via Yahoo // NOTW M042 (1-27-2008)
Comments 'vaseline_vandal'

Your Daily Loser
Matthew Snell, 19, Ocala, Fla., has several things going against him: His crime was not exactly manly (graffiti), plus not in a high-traffic venue (on cemetery gravestones). Plus, he signed his work with his very distinctive nickname. Plus, his nickname is Roach. Plus, he looks like a bug. Star-Banner (Ocala)
Comments 'roach_snell'

People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
Walter Freeman, 72, let off the hook with probation for violating his child-sex-offender status by not providing a change-of-address, was grateful to the judge for giving him a break. In fact, he was so earnest in intent to follow the terms of the probation that he obeyed them for 35 whole minutes before he got caught violating the order by approaching two kids and offering to buy them ice cream. Poughkeepsie Journal
Comments 'walter_freeman'

Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict must be based on mugshot only]
Christopher Walker, 24, Bannockburn, Scotland, could well have completely accidentally sent that woman the obscene video by mobile phone (intended for his girlfriend but misdialed). But it's not for us to weigh the evidence; we have our orders. BBC News
Comments 'christopher_walker'

More Things to Worry About on Saturday
Gourmet alligator head (gator piccata?) in Jacksonville, Fla. (Yep, there's a photo) . . . . . A 16-yr-old girl in India reportedly took The Only Way Out because she was worried about the end of the world from the Large Hadron Collider (but . . but . . maybe that was a cover story for why she's really dead; they're investigating) . . . . . Three photos from "Britain's Dirtiest Flat" (nicotine stains dripping from the walls and a big mound of cigarette butts on the bathroom sink) . . . . . Greenpeace vandals who hit a new coal-fired power plant in Britain were acquitted in a version of "jury nullification," in that jurors thought global warming so serious and imminent that it justifies trashing coal plants . . . . . In Durban, South Africa, three died and two were wounded in a gunfight that started when a man "of Indian descent" taunted a white man at a urinal for having a smaller dick (Seriously) . . . . . In Khandbari, Nepal, Mr. Ramchandra Katuwal, a 24-time loser in the marriage game, said he's quite happy with number 25. Today's Newsrangers: Matt Mirapaul, Sandy Pearlman, Bruce Leiserowitz, Kathryn Wood
Comments 'worry_080913'

Posted By: Chuck - Sat Sep 13, 2008 - Comments (0)
Category:

Swedish Bat Detectors

I'd call this weird in the sense of out-of-the-ordinary and interesting. I certainly wasn't aware that there were gadgets specifically for listening to bats. From the site:


And if you'd like some music to relax to, try The Inaudible World, a collection of bat sounds put together by Michel Barataud. I'm wondering if you need the bat detector to hear the "inaudible" CD.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Sep 12, 2008 - Comments (2)
Category: Animals, Technology

Contortionists

I started thinking about contortionists again when I happened upon a feature on them in an old issue of Life. In my novel Spondulix I had a character who was an "enter-ologist," a great term I found in Ricky Jay's wonderful history of sideshows and freaks, Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women. Enter-ologists get into impossible places, rather than escape from impossible places.

In any case, a short search of the web turned up lots of online contortionist info, including the Contortion Home Page, which is where I found this pic of April Tatro. That's her in the video below as well.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Sep 12, 2008 - Comments (7)
Category: Body Modifications, Entertainment, Human Marvels, Literature, Books, Science Fiction, Performance Art

Follies of the Mad Men #26

[From Ladies' Home Journal for June 1957.]

You just know that the contents of those plates are the raw remnants of their fellow castaways.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Sep 12, 2008 - Comments (4)
Category: Boats, Business, Advertising, Products, Food, 1950s

Chuck’s Hand-Picked Overnight Weird News for Friday

will not appear today. Saturday's looking more hopeful, though. Please continue to patronize Weird Universe. Thankya, thankyaverrmuch.

Posted By: Chuck - Fri Sep 12, 2008 - Comments (0)
Category:

The Natural History of the Chicken

Reader Big Gary recommends this documentary as pretty bizarre. It's in six parts on YouTube, the first of which we present here:

Posted By: Paul - Thu Sep 11, 2008 - Comments (4)
Category: Animals, Eccentrics, Movies, Documentaries, Pets, Surrealism, Reader Recommendation

World D

Here's another strange book I purchased but have not yet read. The real author is Joseph K. Heydon, using the pen-name of Hal Trevarthen. Time has swallowed up all details related to Heydon and his book, leaving us only with the text itself.


Here's the description from the amazingly ugly dustjacket.


Here's the title page, followed by a sample of the actual bafflegab inside.


Posted By: Paul - Thu Sep 11, 2008 - Comments (11)
Category: Aliens, Eccentrics, Government, Inventions, Literature, Books, Science Fiction, Writers, Nature, New Age, Paranormal, Pop Culture, Science, Psychology, Self-help Schemes, Foreign Customs, 1930s, Yesterday’s Tomorrows

The Haunted House Test

This is a good accompaniment to the Have You Been Abducted By Aliens test that I posted two months ago. It's a Haunted House Test, from hauntedhousebuster.com (via J-Walk):

IF YOU CAN SAY YES TO JUST ONE THEN YOUR PLACE IS HAUNTED!

1. Flies appear from nowhere when doors and windows are closed, especially in the winter when they are not supposed to be there.
2. Hearing voices, someone calling your name. Children complain of hearing a man's, woman's or children's voices.
3. You can see something pass you at the corner of your eye.
4. A smell of roses, perfume, or any smell that doesn't belong in your home.
5. Apports or Exports - objects appearing or your belongings disappear.
6. Cold spots or winds in certain areas of the haunted places
7. Things fall when you leave a room, especially when you go to bed.
8. Television, radio, coffeemakers, lights turn on by themsleves and lights flicker making you think that you need to replace light bulps
9. You can feel someone watching you or feel someone follow you around the house.
10. Static on the phone especially when you talk about the spirits that are haunting your home, hotel or haunted place.
11. The room is rearranged.
12. Toliets flush by themselves.
13. The water is running when you arrive home and you know that you made sure it was off when you left the house.
14. Objects drift in the air by themselves.
15. You receive visions of what might have happened on the property.
16. You receive visions of people that have died.
17. You receive visions of future events.
18. Family members get hot and cold flashes, have pain, headaches, or bruises on their body.
19. Family members are in many accidents.
20. Family members change their attitude. (Don't blame them for this.)
21. Fighting and divorce.
22. You receive a very uncomfortable feeling when you start reading the King James Bible out loud and putting olive oil around the house.
23. Depression, cancer or death in the family where the haunting is taking place or has taken place with past residents.
24. When pictures are taken you can see orbs or streams of light.
25. Fog is in only one of the rooms.
26. You receive information in your head about something when nobody is there. You might think that you thought of the idea. You didn't. It's the demons.
27. You hear scratching noises. (If this happens, IMMEDIATELY say, "I bind you and command you to leave in the Name of Jesus Christ!")

Haunting doesn't seem like the most logical explanation for many of these phenomena. For instance, if you notice fog in one of your rooms, could it be that you're standing in the bathroom and someone's taking a shower? And if you get divorced it means your house is haunted? Give me a break. However, if you notice objects drifting in the air by themselves, I'd say, yeah, your house might be haunted.

Posted By: Alex - Thu Sep 11, 2008 - Comments (7)
Category: Paranormal

Baby High Heels

I've always thought it kind of disturbing when people dress up toddlers in makeup or faux earrings. I get the same creepy vibe from these Baby High Heels now being marketed by a company called Heelarious. The heels are made of foam, so there's no risk of them impaling the kid. Still, they don't exactly look comfortable.

This must appeal to the same set of people who enter their six-year-old daughters in child beauty pageants. Yahoo! News has a video of a kid wearing these things. What about Baby Foot Binding next?

Posted By: Alex - Thu Sep 11, 2008 - Comments (4)
Category: Babies, Fashion

Chuck’s Hand-Picked Overnight Weird News for Thursday

Heroic? How about "nuts"?
What were you doing on December 12, 2003? Quebec border services officer Yves Julien was working an overtime 11-hour shift, plus 3 extra hours, for which he received, respectively, time-and-a-half and double-time. During the three-hour stint, he spent $9 on a meal, and he put in for reimbursement. Gov't said no, no meal money on the job, and as to the fact that it's an extra shift, Julien was already getting generous pay. Following almost five years of meetings, paperwork, lawyers, rulings and counter-rulings, Julien finally won. Here's your damn $9. The Globe & Mail
Comments 'yves_julien'

"Giant penis man needs re-chalking"
Well, that should be self-explanatory, so we'll move on to the next story.
. . .
OK, OK. It's a huge, centuries-old carved-green-growth plot in Dorset (England), on a hillside and featuring a very large man with a very large endowment (the "Cerne Abbas giant"), and the summer rains have caused vegetation to grow over some of the chalk lines so that ya can't make out everything from a distance (which is the whole point). So, this weekend and next, volunteers will clear away the brush and re-chalk the carving. Metro.co.uk // Cerne Abbas giant
Comments 'giant_penisman'

Your Daily Jury Duty
[no fair examining the evidence; verdict must be based on mugshot only]
Marc Allen Sauter, 26, seen here from the front and side, might have been the precipitator of a street brawl (along with his dad, Kevin Allen Sauter) that started when a neighbor dog allegedly menaced a kid. Billings Gazette
Comments 'marc_sauter'

More Things to Worry About on Thursday
A female soldier is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed in combat, said a House subcommittee chair, and a retired colonel would like to see warnings to that effect on recruiting office doors . . . . . The federal appeals court has granted Roy Pearson his one free appeal (of the dismissal of his famous $54m dry-cleaned-pants lawsuit) . . . . . The F State is finally, finally, cracking down on elderly drivers by, um, allowing 80-and-older drivers to renew their licenses for just six years instead of eight! . . . . . "A culture of ethical failure" at the U.S. Dept. of the Interior is all over the news this morning, featuring direct kickbacks, contracts by favoritism, cocaine sales in one office, and several episodes of contractor-contractee sex (which is always bad, or, as the inspector general put it, "Sexual relationships with prohibited sources cannot by definition be arms-length [relationships]" . . . . . The people in rural Pennsylvania around the Flight 93 crash site are trying, with discretion and dignity this September 11th, to set up a sorta "disaster memorial loop" tourist strip, so that visitors can knock off the crash site, the nearby 2002 mine rescue site, and the nearby 1889 Johnstown flood site, all in one holiday trip! Today's Newsrangers: Karl Olson, Perry Levin, Larry Ellis Reed, Candy Clouston, Bob Pert
Comments 'worry_080911'

Posted By: Chuck - Thu Sep 11, 2008 - Comments (0)
Category: