Weird Universe Archive
January 2009
January 8, 2009
The Headline, As If Written By Blogger With Writer’s Block
21 lottery wins in 13 monthsTaduesz Krupa has grossed $186,000 on the Colorado Lottery Cash Five game in 13 months, but Lottery officials say he's clean (and lucky). "I have a system," said Krupa. "It is up here," he added, tapping his forehead. Actually, he did give the rest of us some insight on the system: He searches for "winning numbers" on the Internet! KUSA-TV (Denver)
Comments '21lottery_wins'
Authorities say deathbed confessor was just BS'ing 'em
He said he was a child-killer. There was newly-poured cement in his basement. There was fresh, elevated dirt in his yard. There were bondage devices in his home. There was child porn on his bed. There were newspaper clippings about missing children. Clarice Starling says, Whoa! But Milwaukee Police say nothing to see here. Associated Press via Fox News
Comments 'deathbed_confessor'
Indonesia set to make primitive Papuan men wear underpants
The men now wear the koteka (a phallic sheath made of dried gourd), but that's embarrassing back in Jakarta, whose Muslims are trying to pass anti-pornography laws. [First Link possibly not safe for work.]. Bild (Berlin) [Ed.: If you're not down with Bild as a source, here's more on the koteka from Australian Broadcasting Corporation]
Comments 'papuan_koteka'
Recurring Themes
(1) A new twist on the garbage hoarder: He died amidst the enormous, putrid rubble in his house, but the cause of death was dehydration after he got trapped inside the tunnel system he had created amid the piles of junk. (2) Some of the abstract art at the Brunswick Street Gallery in Melbourne, Australia, is priced from A$350 to $2,000 (US$250 to $1,420), but, Shhhh! It was by a 22-month-old girl. (Said the gallery owner: "[A] free-form approach [one form of abstract art] comes off a more intuitive base. And if you're thinking about [the free-form approach], perhaps a two-year-old can do it as well as a 30-year old") Daily Mail (London) /// The Age
Comments 'hoarder_kiddieart'
More Things to Worry About
A Utah state senator thinks the state's strictest-in-the-nation alcohol laws are too lenient and now wants to spare children in restaurants the traumatic sight of drinks being poured by bartenders. Associated Press via Daily Herald (Provo)
A truck driver in Fort Worth, Tex., has just been murdered by a gunshot . . in another state . . 35 yrs ago (Seriously). Associated Press via Fox News
"Ya Can't Fight City Hall" is how the old saying goes, but if municipal officials in Polk City, Iowa, give ya trouble, ya can put up signs calling 'em "turds" and "assholes." Des Moines Register
He gave up a kidney to save the love of his life, and she rewarded him by having an affair, and now hubby wants his kidney back. WCBS-TV (New York City)
Probably-bogus story [Ed.: but it's got an x-ray with it (but on the other hand, the x-ray looks bogus, too)]: Romanian woman [Ed.: Never trust a news story emanating from Romania] said she fell, naked, butt-first, on a hairspray can and . . .. Metro (London)
Comments on Things to Worry About?
Comments 'worry_090108'
Your Daily Loser
How to tell AWI (whether Alcohol Was Involved) in a story: The perp (Scott Russell, 47) was charged with gnawing the hood of a police car. WPTZ-TV (Burlington, Vt.)
Comments 'gnawed_copcar'
Your Daily Jury Duty
["In America, a person is presumed innocent until the mug shot is released"]
Alton Smith might be a man just trying to raise a family and engaging in the hobby of photography, or he could be a really bad man. CFNews13 (Orlando)
Comments 'alton_smith'
Correction
In yesterday's top story, Raed Jarrar did not miss his flight on JetBlue; he was, however, forced to cover his t-shirt and was exiled to the back of the plane. If he had refused, he would have been barred from the flight.
Today's Newsrangers: Paul Music, Mark Neunder, Cindy Hildebrand, Steve Miller, Sandy Pearlman
Posted By: Chuck - Thu Jan 08, 2009 -
Comments (0)
Category:
A Dog’s Life
Crying Dog - Funny blooper videos are here
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 08, 2009 -
Comments (5)
Category: Animals, Business, Advertising, Products, Sexuality, Cars
Kenner 1973 Toy Catalog, #11
Recent comments here at WU have speculated on why males like to blow things up. Here's a toy, designed to be destroyed, that helps teach such behavior--or maybe just caters to pre-existing tendencies.Not sure about any subtext to a VW named "Bugg-em."
Posted By: Paul - Thu Jan 08, 2009 -
Comments (7)
Category: Toys, Advertising, 1970s
Weird Theory: The Scottish Origin of Rap
The theory, argued by Prof. Ferenc Szasz of the University of New Mexico, is that modern rap music derives from the ancient Caledonian art of "flyting", in which rival poets hurled obscene rhyming insults at each other. From the Telegraph:Scottish slave owners took the tradition with them to the United States, where it was adopted and developed by slaves, emerging many years later as rap. Professor Szasz is convinced there is a clear link between this tradition for settling scores in Scotland and rap battles, which were famously portrayed in Eminem's 2002 movie 8 Mile.
The more conventional theory is that the roots of rap music trace back to ancient West African poets called "griots". From Wikipedia:
the griots of West Africa were delivering stories rhythmically, over drums and sparse instrumentation. Because of the time that has passed since the griots of old, the connections between rap and the African griots are widely established, but not clear-cut. However, such connections have been acknowledged by rappers, modern day "griots", spoken word artists, mainstream news sources, and academics.
Actually, given the big gap in time between these two possible origins and the emergence of rap in the 1970s, both theories sound a little iffy to me.
Posted By: Alex - Thu Jan 08, 2009 -
Comments (16)
Category: Weird Theory
Decomposition of a Pig
A time-lapse movie of a decomposing pig, taken by Dr. Jerry Payne in the 1960s as part of his graduate studies. It's four days compressed into six minutes. Not much happens at first, but around the 3 minute mark things get pretty interesting. There's a nasty little surprise at the end as well. (Note: the pig died of natural causes.)The purple dots that appear around 2:40 are beads to show the movement of soil by insects.
You may not want to watch this while you're eating a meal.
Posted By: Alex - Thu Jan 08, 2009 -
Comments (13)
Category: Death, Science, Experiments
January 7, 2009
Follies of the Mad Men #51
Not even the super-science of Captain Video can make your breath tolerable!
Posted By: Paul - Wed Jan 07, 2009 -
Comments (5)
Category: Business, Advertising, Products, Hygiene, Science Fiction, 1950s
Kenner 1973 Toy Catalog, #10
WARNING: Constant smart-ass utterances of "That's nothin!" may lead to beat-downs.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Jan 07, 2009 -
Comments (1)
Category: Toys, Advertising, 1970s
Profitable Litigation, Pumpkin Helmets, and the Woman Who Sleeps with Her Shotgun
News of the Weird DailyWednesday, January 7, 2009
Iraqi-American earns an easy $240,000
Raed Jarrar's ingenious plan in 2006: wear an inoffensive t-shirt with Arabic lettering to the gate for your JetBlue flight, thus scaring one or more passengers, then refuse on principle to change shirts, thus miss your flight [CORRECTION: He didn't miss the flight; he was forced to cover his shirt and was exiled to the back of the plane.] and sue JetBlue and two TSA people for profiling you. Finally, settle the case for $240k. (Bonus: The Arabic lettering, reading "We Will Not Be Silent," was also printed in English [but if the other passengers don't read Arabic, they don't know that the Arabic phrase is no worse than the English phrase].) Washington Post
Comments 'jarrar_jetblue'
New York appeals court makes it harder to sue for sidewalk injuries
The decision was based on the integrity of the evidence used to show that a certain sidewalk was in disrepair, upping the amount of work the plaintiff has to do before joining the roster of clumsy pedestrians who have looted New York City of $600 million in awards and settlements over the last 10 yrs. Buried Lede: For the last 25 yrs, trial lawyers have been contracting with mapping services to survey every sidewalk in the city (13,000 miles' worth), noting cracks, holes, and the like, just to make it easier to win lawsuits. New York Times
Comments 'newyork_sidewalks'
The higher up the intellectual ladder you go, the more articulate the weaseling
Neale Donald Walsch is way high-up, the author of a series of best-selling books, Conversations With God. He admits that he cribbed a cute little essay that came to him 10 yrs ago and began using it as his own, but when he put it online in December, the real author found it. It's so startling a story that if it had actually happened to you, you'd remember it vividly forever. But it never happened to Walsch; it happened to the original writer. Busted. "I am truly mystified and taken aback by this," he said. "I have told the story verbally so many times over the years that I had it memorized–and then, somewhere along the way, internalized it as my own experience." Yeah, that's the ticket . . internalized it. New York Times
Comments 'neale_walsch'
Roy Pearson lives on!
America's most optimistic litigator, D.C.'s Roy Pearson, filed yet another challenge to his continuing defeats to get the $54 million he thinks he deserves because a dry cleaner lost a pair of his pants. He was turned down by a panel of the District's highest court in December and is now asking for the entire court to reconsider the case. (Most lawyers know they won't get a better deal from the entire court than from the panel; of course, most lawyers know they won't get $54 million for a pair of pants.) Associated Press via MSNBC
Comments 'roy_pearson2'
More Things to Worry About
A Chinese speed-skater was banned from competition for a year for middle-fingering the audience, but this is actually a sign of the country's liberalism: The last athletes disciplined for poor sportsmanship (in 2006) were sent to military boot camp. Agence France-Presse via Yahoo
Must Be a Fargo Thing: A Fargo, N.D., woman accidentally fired her shotgun through her wall into her neighbor's apartment . . from her bed . . because she sleeps with her shotgun. Fargo Forum
Recurring Theme: 6-year-old sneaks the keys and tries to drive the family car (but only because he had just missed the school bus and didn't want to be late to class). Richmond Times-Dispatch
A 37-yr-old man was fatally beaten in Steamboat Springs, Colo., because he insisted on playing Margaritaville on the jukebox (so it's his own damn fault). Denver Post
In Nigeria, cyclists who can't afford helmets are "obeying" the new mandatory helmet law by slapping dried pumpkins over their heads. BBC News
OK, things slow down over the holidays, but still, it took officials in Paw Paw, Mich., three weeks to rule that the heart found in a car wash wasn't that of a human. Kalamazoo Gazette
It takes a big man to set up one of the biggest Christmas-lights displays in the neighborhood . . after he's had his electricity shut off and has illegally re-wired his house to steal power. WFTV (Orlando)
Comments on Things to Worry About?
Comments 'worry_090107'
Your Daily Loser
Samuel Randall, 27, was arrested in Chicago because he was driving the wrong way on a one-way street, at 3 p.m. That's when cops found $18,000 worth of illegal weed on him. Chicago Sun-Times via WBBM Radio
Comments 'samuel_randall'
People Whose Sex Lives Are Worse Than Yours
Take this guy, for instance (though they haven't caught him yet): He's broken into the Laneway Adult Shop in Cairns, Australia, twice now, and taken some money, but both times he also consummated relationships with blow-up dolls (and, as with all love-em-and-leave-em relationships, left'em a mess) (but the mess included his DNA). Cairns Post [with photo of one of the jilted lovers]
Comments 'cairns_sexdoll'
Your Daily Jury Duty
["In America, a person is presumed innocent until the mug shot is released"]
The great character actor Mr. Rip Torn was accused of possibly being under the influence of alcohol while driving. You can either use that-there piece of equipment to measure his blood-alcohol level scientifically, or you can look right here. Register Citizen (Torrington, Conn.)
Comments 'rip_torn'
Today's Newsrangers: Gerald Sacks, Tony Punko, Paul Vogt, Tom Barker, Peter Wardley
Posted By: Chuck - Wed Jan 07, 2009 -
Comments (0)
Category:
Interactive Autopsy
Learn how to perform an autopsy at the Interactive Autopsy site. First, make the Y-incision. Saw off the ribs to expose the internal organs. You may remove all the organs at once (which is known as the Rokitansky method). etc., etc.My favorite part was weighing the organs.
Posted By: Alex - Wed Jan 07, 2009 -
Comments (3)
Category: Death, Medicine
Hair Rings
I wonder how many hair rings Pixie Market sells. At $286 a pair, they can't be flying off the shelves.(It took me a while to figure out that these were actually ear rings with long pieces of human hair attached... not hair attachments.)
Posted By: Alex - Wed Jan 07, 2009 -
Comments (6)
Category: Fashion, Hair Styling
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Chuck Shepherd Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre. Our banner was drawn by the legendary underground cartoonist Rick Altergott. Contact Us |
