Subject: Daily Dose - 070512 - New Age freakazoids, BIZARRE NEWS, WORKING
IN A CUBICLE, DDL, Rotten News
A good friend of mine recently got
back from a trip to Sedona, Arizona. Sedona is the place where New Age
freakazoids are flocking because they believe the place has mystical and
healing powers.
Anyway, my buddy said he was walking
down the street when he came across an American Indian in full regalia with a
long feather headress raising his right hand and saying "some" to all
the women walking by.
My buddy went up to him and said,
"Don't you mean 'how'"?
The Indian looked at him and said,
"Me know how. Me want some."
______________________________
BIZARRE NEWS...
Bizarre Inventions
The Tonya Tapper - A personal
security steel club named after the notorious skater; suitable for all knee
whacking purposes.
Sweet Jesus Chocolate - Tasty milk
chocolate crucifix candies that ooze red jelly when bitten.
Insecticide Pantyhose - Bug
resistant pantyhose sure to repel spiders, cockroaches, [and probably dates.]
Artificial Spray-On Dirt - For the
yuppie whose tired of looking wuss in his luxury S.U.V. This is sure to provide
that rugged four-wheeling look.
Drive-Through Window at Funeral
Homes - For the more somber drive-by.
.45 Semiautomatic Telephone - A
novelty phone sure to please the darkest sense of humor. The caller must hold the
gun against their head to make a call; let the fun begin.
Bird Diaper - For Polly when potty
training is not an option.
Snif-T-Panties - Women's underwear
with built in fragrance to capture the right mood; scents include rose, banana,
pickles, pizza and, of course, whiskey.
***
Dog Has A Sweet Tooth... and Sticky
Paws
OSLO, Norway - The owner of a dog
that was caught on tape sneaking into a Norwegian gas station to steal candy
says his pooch is a repeat offender.
The 7-year-old bull terrier named
Conan spent some time behind bars last week before his owner, Liss-Hege
Jeremiassen, bailed him out, Aftenposten reported Monday, quoting a story in
the Norwegian-language newspaper Adressavisen.
"He is incredibly fond of food
in general and sweets in particular. He has run off a few times before and he
always heads for food stores," Jeremiassen said.
The dog apparently snuck out
Wednesday night and headed to the nearby Statoil station where cameras caught
him picking out his apparent favorite treat, a chocolate-covered rice crisp.
"When he was finished he let
out this enormous burp," store employee Elisabeth Roel said. She said she
tried to chase Conan out but the dog growled at her and so she called the
police, who turned the job over to security.
***
They Took Everything... Including
the Sink
LONDON - An Englishman returned from
a whirlwind vacation to find that thieves had stolen everything in his new
kitchen, including the sink.
The burglars broke into James
Elstub's home in Dewsbury, England, while he was on an extended trip to
Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and the United States, Sky News reported. His
insurance company said the break-in occurred through a side window in the back
of his property.
The burglars had plenty of time to
steal all the new appliances and cabinets in the kitchen along with the sink.
Elstub filed a $6,000 claim for the stolen kitchen.
"My replacement kitchen arrived
very shortly so I only had to put up with two weeks of microwave meals,"
he told Sky News.
***
Scientists study 40,000-year-old
skeleton
BEIJING - Scientists have determined
a skeleton found in China is that of a 40,000-year-old early modern human and
one of the oldest ever found in eastern Eurasia. Researchers from Washington
University in St. Louis and the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and
Paleoanthropology in Beijing said the discovery suggests the "out of
Africa" dispersal of modern humans might not have been as simple as once
thought.
Eastern Eurasia is the Asian part of
the connected landmass extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Erik
Trinkaus, a professor of anthropology at Washington University, and Hong Shang
and colleagues at the institute examined the skeleton, recovered in 2003 from a
cave near Beijing.
The scientists said the skeleton is
basically a modern human, but with a few archaic characteristics --
particularly in its teeth and hand bone. That morphological pattern implies a
simple spread of modern humans from Africa is unlikely, the scientists said,
especially since younger specimens have been found in Eastern Eurasia with
similar features.
Trinkaus and Shang said the
discovery promises to provide relevant paleontological data of the emergence of
modern humans in eastern Asia. The research appears in the current issue of the
proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
***
Hit Man Joke Not Funny
CUYAHOGA FALLS, Ohio - An Ohio man
convicted of trying to hire a hit man to kill his wife claimed the deal was a
joke to impress a motorcycle gang he was trying to join.
Brian Ciraco, who previously spent
more than seven years in jail when he cut a girlfriend's hand with a sword, was
convicted Monday of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder and complicity to
attempted aggravated murder, The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Tuesday.
The jury also found Ciraco guilty of
carrying a concealed weapon after police found a switchblade in his possession
during the arrest. A spokeswoman for prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh said Ciraco
had been shopping around for hit men and comparing prices when he approached an
undercover Cuyahoga Falls detective and made a $60 down payment on his wife's
death. He testified in court that he never intended to go through with the act;
instead he just wanted to hire the hit man so he would be allowed to join a
motorcycle gang.
Ciraco is scheduled for sentencing
April 30. He could be sentenced to 20 years in prison.
______________________________
DRAWBACKS OF WORKING IN A CUBICLE
[Or, "Welcome to my life in Chevron."]
* Not being able to check E-mail
attachments without first seeing who's behind you.
* Fabric walls offer little
protection from gunfire.
* The walls are too close together
for the hammock to work right.
* Prison cells are not only bigger,
they have beds.
* When you quit and walk out,
there's no door to slam.
* Being told to "think outside
the box" when you're in a freakin' box all day long.
* 23 power cords - 1 outlet.
* The carpet has been there since
1976 (or older) and shows more signs of life than your coworkers.
* If you talk to yourself it causes
all the surrounding cubicle inhabitants to pop their heads over the wall and
say "What? I didn't hear you."
* You always have the feeling that
someone is watching you, but by the time you turn to look they're gone.
______________________________
DDL
To die in my sleep I'd revere
Like dear Granny, so sweet and sincere,
Which is better, by far,
than the friends in her car,
Who went with her while screaming in fear.
______________________________
Did you hear the new California
quarter's reverse side features a bear, a miner, a condor, a redwood, and
poppies? The engraving depicts the bear observing the miner as he cooks the
condor over a redwood fire he made after smoking a distillate of the poppies.
***
"According to USA Today, Tom
Cruise's wedding was in an Italian castle. Well that inspired Elizabeth Hurley
to marry in a British castle, and inspired Eva Longoria to book her wedding in
French castle. Meanwhile Kirstie Allie is getting married at White
Castle."
-Conan O'Brien
***
"Tomorrow, for the first day of
spring, Dunkin Donuts is giving away free iced coffee. So if you're going to
commit a crime, tomorrow would probably be the day."
-Craig Ferguson
***
"It's chilly here. But it's
terrible weather back East. Another massive snowstorm has hit the Northeast...
Or, as environmentalists call it, a 'temporary global warming hiatus.'"
-Jay Leno
***
Why do blondes get confused in the
bathroom?
They have to pull their own pants down.
***
What do you call a blonde with a map,
compass, and set of directions?
Lost.
______________________________
Rotten News.... (true)
Superstition sparks toilet cleaning
craze in Japan
Thu Mar 1, 2:06 AM ET
TOKYO (Reuters) - Cleanliness has
long been next to godliness for the hygiene-conscious Japanese, but
fortune-tellers are now advising those who want to succeed in life to start by
scrubbing the smallest room.
"Cleaning the toilet to attract luck" published this month is the
latest in a series of books advising readers on how to attract good fortune
using a brush and an array of cleaning fluids.
"Don't just wipe the floor,
polish it," the book instructs. "It's important to maintain a
positive mood while cleaning."
The books are inspired by Buddhist
teachings and feng shui, a traditional Chinese belief that people's fortunes
are determined by their surroundings.
The idea that Lady Luck may be
hiding in the lavatory has been taken up by magazines and television programmes.
"I won the lottery! I married
my ideal person! I got pregnant!" read some of the claims on the cover of
another book on the topic, published last year.
The idea that a clean toilet can
bring good fortune, or even make you more beautiful, has existed in Japan for
many years, according to Yuka Soma of Makino Publishing in Tokyo, editor of one
of the toilet books.
But she is still waiting for a big
stroke of luck.
"I've always cleaned my toilet
every day, so it never really gets dirty," she said. "At least it's
easy that way and it probably helps keep my family healthy," she said.
**********
German rules force man to urinate in
bottle in exam
Wed Feb 28, 3:08 PM ET
BERLIN (Reuters) - Exam supervisors
at a German university stuck to rules so rigidly that a man with a bladder
dysfunction had to urinate in a bottle in front of 120 fellow students because
they would not let him go to the toilet.
Overseers at the University of Freiburg in southwestern Germany told the
27-year-old, whose bladder control was impaired in an accident that left him on
crutches, that he would be failed if he left the room during the exam.
None of the three supervisors would
accompany the man to the toilet despite other students' protests.
Eventually one female student
emptied her water bottle so the man could go to a corner of the room and
relieve himself.
In a letter written on Wednesday and
seen by Reuters, university deputy head Karl-Reinhard Volz apologised to the
student, saying the supervisors' behaviour was completely unjustified and
"lacking in any normal human sensitivity."
**********
Beijinger buying flies to help clean
up city
Wed Apr 4, 1:18 AM ET
BEIJING (Reuters) - Retired
restaurateur Guo Zhanqi is buying flies for two yuan (13 pence) apiece to help
clean up Beijing for next year's Olympics, local media reported on Wednesday.
Echoing Mao Zedong's campaign against the "Four Harms" in the 1950s,
Guo can be found outside the city's Chaoyang Park doling out his savings to
anybody who hands over a dead fly.
"There were always a mass of
flies around the entrance to my restaurant, and no fewer inside," the
60-year-old told Beijing Youth Daily. "It was extremely disgusting."
Beijing city authorities have
instituted campaigns against spitting, littering and queue-jumping in order to
improve the environment in the Chinese capital before the Olympics. Guo wants
to add his campaign to the list.
"Buying flies is not my
ultimate purpose," he told the paper. "I want everybody to start
killing flies."
Mao launched the "Four
Harms" campaign to get rid of pests during the Great Leap Forward with
citizens instructed to kill flies, mosquitoes, rats and sparrows.
Guo has reworked Beijing's Olympic
bid slogan to advertise his free market twist on Mao's campaign.
"No flies, new Beijing. No
flies, great Olympics."
****************
April 13, 2007
'Stray Shopping Carts' wins oddest
book title
By JILL LAWLESS
"The Stray Shopping Carts of
Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification" was named winner
of the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for oddest book title. (CP handout photo)
LONDON (AP) - Rogue shopping carts
beat green Nazis Friday in the battle for one of Britain's most unusual book
prizes.
"The Stray Shopping Carts of
Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification" was named winner
of the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for oddest book title. The book, written by
Buffalo, N.Y.-based artist Julian Montague and published by Harry N. Abrams,
beat the hotly tipped "How Green Were the Nazis?" a study of the
environmental policies of the Third Reich.
"Stray Shopping Carts" received
a third of the more than 5,500 votes cast by members of the public on the
website of trade magazine The Bookseller.
"It's a sort of strange honour
to have," Montague said. "But I welcome the publicity and it's nice
that people are finding out my book exists."
Montague's work - documented on his
Stray Shopping Cart Project website - offers a mock-scientific taxonomy of the
varieties of lost shopping carts, from the simply discarded to the elaborately
vandalized.
"Then there's plow crush - where
a cart gets crushed by a snow plow - and train crush," Montague
said. "It's really a project about the power of language and
scientific classification to shape the way we see the world."
Runner-up for the prize was
"Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan," by Robert
Chenciner, Gabib Ismailov, Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov and Alex Binnie (Bennett
& Bloom).
The other finalists were "Di
Mascio's Delicious Ice Cream: Di Mascio of Coventry: an Ice Cream Company of
Repute, with an Interesting and Varied Fleet of Ice Cream Vans," by Roger
De Boer, Harvey Francis Pitcher and Alan Wilkinson (Past Masters);
"Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Seaweed Symposium"
(Kluwer); and "Better Never To Have Been: the Harm of Coming Into
Existence," by David Benatar (Clarendon Press).
Past winners of the 29-year-old
prize include "People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach
Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It" and
"How To Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost
Art."