Weird Universe Archive

February 2013

February 6, 2013

News of the Weird (February 6, 2013)

The News of the Weird Blog
Angst, Confusion, Cynicism, Ridicule

Hand-Picked and Seasoned by Chuck Shepherd
Wednesday, February 6, 2013

© 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

Kila Raipur, India: The annual, four-day “Rural Olympics” is a big deal in northern Punjab state--similar to the “redneck olympics” held in a couple of places in America. Events include holding bicycles with or pulling heavy equipment with your teeth or your hair or your earlobes; speed turban-tying; and letting tractors drive over you. Wall Street Journal (photos!) /// World’s Greatest Newspaper (photos!)

Albuquerque: Mortician Lester Salazar apparently kinda lost it (again) last week, first sighted running down a road naked and later playing bumper cars and trying to ram two sheriff’s deputies. A neighbor told KOB-TV that last year Salazar was caught naked with a phone cord wrapped around his package, which the police report helpfully tells us was to make him feel in control and powerful. KOB-TV

Belo Horizonte, Brazil: In this exciting city [NOTW M283, where entrepreneurs set up a “love hotel” for horny dogs], three people arrested last month in separate incidents were John Lennon Ribeiro Siqueira, John Lennon Fonseca Ferreira, and John Lennon Camargos Gomes. Plus, a drug dealer was found dead, a Mr. John Lennon Sebastiao da Silva. World’s Greatest Newspaper

Saudi Arabia: Another crazy-uncle Muslim cleric has spoken, on al-Majd TV: Saying that he’s heard of sexual assaults on very young girls, he says the Quran actually requires (though no one knew this) face-veil burqas even for babies. Al-Arabiya consulted other religious authorities, who all want Sheikh Abdullah Daoud to shut up. AlArabiya.net (Dubai)

Jury Duty
[In America, you're presumed innocent . . until the mug shot is released]:

New Port Richey, Fla.: Mr. Bienvenido Cintron, 34, was charged with attempted kidnaping. (Would anyone out there have any particular grooming tip for Mr. Cintron that might make a jury less hostile to him?) BayNews9 (St. Petersburg-Tampa)

Posted By: Chuck - Wed Feb 06, 2013 - Comments (3)
Category:

Borden Ice Cream Ads













I watch only one half-hour of TV per week--THE SIMPSONS--so I am not really qualified to assert this. Maybe a reader can clarify. Are there such things nowadays as TV ads for ice cream? I think not. In the 1950s, Americans had to be trained to consume luxuries like ice cream. Now we eat it automatically, three times a day! So why waste money on ads?

Posted By: Paul - Wed Feb 06, 2013 - Comments (6)
Category: Addictions, Eating, Business, Advertising, Television, Junk Food, 1950s

Dr. Chase’s Nerve Food




Alvin Chase was a successful 19th-century peddler of dubious medical remedies, but his name kept being used to sell medicine throughout the 20th century. His "nerve food" contained arsenic and strychnine (and other good stuff). The Lake Country Museum has a short bio of him:

Born in New York State in 1817, Alvin Chase came to Ann Arbor in 1856 to pursue a medical degree after a career as a traveling peddler of groceries and household drugs. While taking classes at the University of Michigan, he supported his family by selling home medical remedies and household recipes that he had picked up in his travels, starting with a single page of hints and cures.
Chase only audited classes at the U-M, since Latin was required to complete the program and had not been taught at the "log school" he'd attended in New York. He earned the title "doctor" in 1857 after spending sixteen weeks in Cincinnati at the Eclectic Medical Institute.
After returning to Ann Arbor, Chase practiced medicine and continued to expand his book of recipes. To the modern reader, many of his remedies seem very quaint. Besides cures for five kinds of "apparent death," they included tinctures, teas, and ointments made from plants, tree bark, and–in one case–cooked toads. But at a time when doctors were still bleeding patients or poisoning them with mercury, his cures may have been as much help as anything the local doctor prescribed.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Feb 06, 2013 - Comments (4)
Category: Medicine

February 5, 2013

New Gold

Scientists have discovered a bacteria that ingests toxic mine runoff and excretes gold. You can't teach a trick like that!

Posted By: Alex - Tue Feb 05, 2013 - Comments (2)
Category: Science

Smoke Smoke Smoke



The first musical anti-smoking propaganda?

Posted By: Paul - Tue Feb 05, 2013 - Comments (4)
Category: Music, Smoking and Tobacco, 1940s

Horse Odometer


From Munsey's Magazine, 1895. (via Paul Collins)

Posted By: Alex - Tue Feb 05, 2013 - Comments (9)
Category: Inventions, Travel, Nineteenth Century

February 4, 2013

Nigerian Pen Pals

image

Wait a minute--my spam filters are all set up to protect against "Nigerian pen pals!" Not to vilify a whole country just on account of a few million citizens who are scammers, but I don't think Nigeria would be my first choice when seeking global camaraderie.

But if you're interested, here you go.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Feb 04, 2013 - Comments (11)
Category: Crime, Foreign Customs, Africa

Deer thinks it’s a sheep


The UK's National Trust Charity explains:
National Trust shepherd Andrew Capell discovered the deer while counting his flock at Dunwich Heath in Suffolk recently. The little deer appears to have become separated from his herd before attaching himself to the first group of animals he came across. He has been living, eating and sleeping with his 100 new friends for about two weeks now and shows no sign of leaving. The sheep do not seem to mind their new guest and have adopted him into the flock.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Feb 04, 2013 - Comments (4)
Category: Animals

February 3, 2013

News of the Weird (February 3, 2013)

The News of the Weird Blog
Angst, Confusion, Cynicism, Ridicule

Hand-Picked and Seasoned by Chuck Shepherd
Sunday, February 3, 2013

© 2013 by Chuck Shepherd. All rights reserved.

Berlin: The upper Parliament passed Germany’s first anti-bestiality law, and it wasn’t easy, in that the “zoophiles” are organized (“Zoophilic Engagement for Tolerance and Enlightenment”) and busy educating Germans that human-animal sex is entirely consensual and that their own “partners” always get moist/erect. Major point: How can Germans allow the slaughterhouse but denounce “romance”? New York Times

Soweto, South Africa: Bands of middle-class-and-below teenagers prance around town in designer clothes, dropping wads of cash (ripped from their parents), then sometimes trashing the duds for fun. They are izikhotanes, and they gross out many people who are apartheid-survivors. “This isn’t what we struggled for.” BBC News

Bettendorf, Iowa: Sherwin Shayegan [NOTW M258] has apparently relapsed. He’s hanging around college and high school locker rooms again, either asking for, or tricking boys into giving him, piggyback rides. Deadspin.com /// Grantland.com (Sherwin Shayegan profile)

Seoul: Defectors report that North Korean women genuinely (not jealously) dislike large chests. One said she added chives to her diet because she heard it prevents gazongas from developing. Global Post via Fox News

Kensington, Australia: Prison researchers re-discovered the phenomenon of jerry-built inmate penile implants. Not every inmate goes for it, of course, but the incidence is high enough to be study material. Conclusion, according to TheAtlantic.com, after synthesizing the research: The prisoners are risk-takers, anyway, and they get bored in prison, and this seems like an exciting thing to do. (Implant materials: silicone, sutures, buttons, dice, deodorant roller balls, melted toothpaste caps, "sticky tape") TheAtlantic.com

Burbank, Calif.: Jorge Sanchez, 35, shoplifted 24 quarts of motor oil by strapping them to his body and dashing out of the Costco. (Bonus: Security guards couldn’t catch him, even though, when spotted, he still had 15 quarts strapped in. Dude’s in shape!) Turns out he’s in the auto-servicing business, and oil is just too expensive to even buy wholesale. KCBS-TV (Los Angeles)

Memphis: Evidence is coming out in the massive cheating scandal by schoolteachers, paying people to take standardized qualifications tests for ‘em. The major ring was busted when the same impersonator showed up for the morning test and the afternoon test at the same site and both times was wearing the same pink baseball cap. New York Times

Jury Duty
[In America, you're presumed innocent . . until the mug shot is released]:

Chattanooga: Laura Morgan was charged with the fatal beating of her 73-yr-old live-in guy, using the butt of a shotgun. But our dainty Laura actually loves men (for a price, anyway), plus she uses a wheelchair, plus she has no legs. Couldn’t be Laura. WBIR-TV (Nashville)

Posted By: Chuck - Sun Feb 03, 2013 - Comments (7)
Category:

Page 7 of 8 pages ‹ First  < 5 6 7 8 > 




Get WU Posts by Email

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner


weird universe thumbnail
Who We Are
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
Monthly Archives
October 2024 •  September 2024 •  August 2024 •  July 2024 •  June 2024 •  May 2024 •  April 2024 •  March 2024 •  February 2024 •  January 2024

December 2023 •  November 2023 •  October 2023 •  September 2023 •  August 2023 •  July 2023 •  June 2023 •  May 2023 •  April 2023 •  March 2023 •  February 2023 •  January 2023

December 2022 •  November 2022 •  October 2022 •  September 2022 •  August 2022 •  July 2022 •  June 2022 •  May 2022 •  April 2022 •  March 2022 •  February 2022 •  January 2022

December 2021 •  November 2021 •  October 2021 •  September 2021 •  August 2021 •  July 2021 •  June 2021 •  May 2021 •  April 2021 •  March 2021 •  February 2021 •  January 2021

December 2020 •  November 2020 •  October 2020 •  September 2020 •  August 2020 •  July 2020 •  June 2020 •  May 2020 •  April 2020 •  March 2020 •  February 2020 •  January 2020

December 2019 •  November 2019 •  October 2019 •  September 2019 •  August 2019 •  July 2019 •  June 2019 •  May 2019 •  April 2019 •  March 2019 •  February 2019 •  January 2019

December 2018 •  November 2018 •  October 2018 •  September 2018 •  August 2018 •  July 2018 •  June 2018 •  May 2018 •  April 2018 •  March 2018 •  February 2018 •  January 2018

December 2017 •  November 2017 •  October 2017 •  September 2017 •  August 2017 •  July 2017 •  June 2017 •  May 2017 •  April 2017 •  March 2017 •  February 2017 •  January 2017

December 2016 •  November 2016 •  October 2016 •  September 2016 •  August 2016 •  July 2016 •  June 2016 •  May 2016 •  April 2016 •  March 2016 •  February 2016 •  January 2016

December 2015 •  November 2015 •  October 2015 •  September 2015 •  August 2015 •  July 2015 •  June 2015 •  May 2015 •  April 2015 •  March 2015 •  February 2015 •  January 2015

December 2014 •  November 2014 •  October 2014 •  September 2014 •  August 2014 •  July 2014 •  June 2014 •  May 2014 •  April 2014 •  March 2014 •  February 2014 •  January 2014

December 2013 •  November 2013 •  October 2013 •  September 2013 •  August 2013 •  July 2013 •  June 2013 •  May 2013 •  April 2013 •  March 2013 •  February 2013 •  January 2013

December 2012 •  November 2012 •  October 2012 •  September 2012 •  August 2012 •  July 2012 •  June 2012 •  May 2012 •  April 2012 •  March 2012 •  February 2012 •  January 2012

December 2011 •  November 2011 •  October 2011 •  September 2011 •  August 2011 •  July 2011 •  June 2011 •  May 2011 •  April 2011 •  March 2011 •  February 2011 •  January 2011

December 2010 •  November 2010 •  October 2010 •  September 2010 •  August 2010 •  July 2010 •  June 2010 •  May 2010 •  April 2010 •  March 2010 •  February 2010 •  January 2010

December 2009 •  November 2009 •  October 2009 •  September 2009 •  August 2009 •  July 2009 •  June 2009 •  May 2009 •  April 2009 •  March 2009 •  February 2009 •  January 2009

December 2008 •  November 2008 •  October 2008 •  September 2008 •  August 2008 •  July 2008 •