Tuesday, June 29, 2010

in honor of FIFA World Cup games... painful goal celebration

thieves steal EVERYTHING from police station... including the kitchen sink


A gang of thieves has stolen everything, including the kitchen sink, from a police station near the World Cup city of Johannesburg.

They took plugs, tiles and even the fridges from the mortuary in the newly renovated Carletonville police station.

Politicians said it was 'terrible' that the site had not been properly secured.

Police have launched an inquiry.

http://snipr.com/yd3az
[www_metro_co_uk]

stupid cake disasters (part 3)










for parts 1 and 2, click the "cakes" label below or in the label cloud

revolutionary ice cream cakes

Monday, June 28, 2010

a new approach to washing a car

bad idea: moon Hell's angels, throw a puppy, escape on a bulldozer

A German student created a major traffic jam in Bavaria when he 'mooned' a group of Hell's Angels, hurled a puppy at them and then escaped on a bulldozer.

The 26-year-old drove into the grounds of the motorcycle gang members' clubhouse north of Munich, according to reports in local media.

The young man, who was not identified, then dropped his pants, threw the puppy, and then fled.

After making his getaway, he stole the bulldozer from a nearby construction site, and attempted to drive it to Munich.

However, it was not fast enough, and his snail-like pace caused a three-mile traffic jam near the southern town of Allershausen.

He then fled to his home nearby where he was apprehended by the police.

"What motivated him to throw a puppy at the Hell's Angels is currently unclear," said a spokesman for local police.

He added that the student had been suffering from depression. The puppy was now in safe hands at a local animal shelter.

16 June 2010, 9:12

http://snipr.com/y5o4p [web_orange_co_uk]

after 2 years and 2,000 miles, a cat finds his owner


A cat reportedly trekked 2,000 miles to find his owners after they moved house without him.

Ravila Hairova, 52, thought her grey cat Karim would find the change too upsetting so she asked neighbours to take him in.

She even left his favourite chair, cushion and food bowls behind in Gulistan, Uzbekistan, so he would feel at home.

But two years later she found her bedraggled, starving pet waiting on her doorstep at her new home in Liska, Russia.

"I knew he had disappeared from my neighbours' home a few days after we left which was very sad but we never heard another word about him," she said.

"Then I was walking along the road and I saw this cat which seemed to be waiting for me. When I go closer I saw it was Karim - thin, and in very poor condition but it was him.

"He is very happy now and so are we. I've no idea how he found us but I'm very glad he did."

Ravila's husband Lev Kondratyev, 46, said: "He looks like he used up all of his nine lives to get to us - but it's definitely him.

"There are certain marks on his body including a scar on his tail when it was caught in the door that show us he is 100 per cent our Karim - and he obviously recognised us as well."

http://snipr.com/y5lxj [web_orange_co_uk]

adventures in boat-towing









Saturday, June 26, 2010

Michael Jackson Pepsi Ad from the 80s

a fun commercial to see again...

along with Michael, Alfonso Ribeiro (in his pre-Fresh Prince days) does a great job as the leader of the kids.

Friday, June 25, 2010

An elephant never forgets

Every now and then someone sends me a story that just must be passed on... I am not terribly sappy, but I love great stories about animals...

In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University. On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Mbembe approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot, and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments.

Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned and walked away.

Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Mbembe was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Mbembe and his son were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder.

The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Mbembe's legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn't the same elephant

(Thanks Sean, for sending this. I found it 3 years later...)

health warning: using butter or margarine may become a cause of injury

WATERVILLE — A culinary argument between a brother and sister about whether to use butter or margarine turned violent, resulting in an attack with a knife-edged barbecue spatula, police say.

A 21-year-old man called East Wenatchee police on June 6 to say his 17-year-old sister had just attacked him and tried to cut his neck with the serrated edge of the spatula, wrote Officer Carrie Knouf in a police report filed in Douglas County Superior Court.

The sister told Knouf she was making macaroni and cheese when her brother asked if she was using butter.

“They began to argue over the difference of real butter to margarine,” wrote Knouf in the report.

The verbal argument escalated into a shoving match, and then the sister is accused of trying to cut her brother, Knouf wrote.

The girl was charged with fourth-degree assault June 10. She did not show up for a Wednesday hearing, so Douglas County Superior Court Judge John Hotchkiss issued a warrant for her arrest.

http://snipr.com/xtypi [www_wenatcheeworld_com]

story found via Obscure Store and Reading Room

Thursday, June 24, 2010

in honor of the FIFA World Cup games... (don't look if you are squeemish)






for more painful pictures and stories, click the "ouch" label below or in the label cloud

on the edge of weirdness: activist mourns trees

Monday, June 21, 2010

_he pain_er missed some_hing




his 190-foo waer ower in Wisconsin was recenly pained and labeled wih six-foo all leers...

Unforunaely, he painers missed he second T in STOUGHTON.

Maybe no one will noice.




Staughton Water tower paint

protecting the kids: plastic toy soldier on hat banned from school

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Christan Morales said her son just wanted to honor American troops when he wore a hat to school decorated with an American flag and small plastic Army figures.

But the school banned the hat because it ran afoul of the district's zero-tolerance weapons policy. Why? The toy soldiers were carrying tiny guns.

"His teacher called and said it wasn't appropriate," Morales said.

Morales' 8-year-old son, David, had been assigned to make a hat for the day when his second-grade class would meet their pen pals from another school. She and her son came up with an idea to add patriotic decorations to a camouflage hat.

Earlier this week, after the hat was banned, the principal at the Tiogue School in Coventry told the family that the hat would be fine if David replaced the Army men holding weapons with ones that didn't have any, according to Superintendent Kenneth R. Di Pietro.

http://snipr.com/xlrgi [www_google_com]

It is important for our children to be unaware that soldiers might carry guns...

for similar stories of over-protective rules, click the overprotection label below...

more unfortunate product names







close call cutting down tree

Friday, June 18, 2010

Steve Nash is glad to be back in South Africa... sort of

Watching the FIFA World Cup, I have wondered what in the world is making that infernal honking sound all through the matches.... (I appreciate Nash's humor in this vid).


2010 World Cup - CBSSports.com | News | News Detail Local | Nash glad to be home ... sort of

why soccer never caught-on in some areas

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

x-ray shows doggie diet of kitty toys


Little Snowy, a one-year-old white West Highland terrier, weighs just 3.6kg (8lb) but still found room for the five ornaments.

The vet initially thought it was a joke when X-rays clearly revealed a cat peering out of the dog’s belly.

"We were all stunned. I have been a vet for ten years and never seen an X-ray like this," said Nigel Belgrove, a partner at Cromwell Vets. "We’ve had dogs that have swallowed golf balls and batteries before but Snowy beats them all, hands down,’ he added.

The terrier began to worry her owner Samantha Reed, 42, when she suddenly lost her appetite and started vomiting several times a day.

Initially, it was thought Snowy had reacted badly to dog food and the vet recommended a diet of rice and chicken. She remained ill so they took urine samples to test for a kidney problem and tried a course of antibiotics.

It was only when they took the X-ray that the feline face emerged. The cats were removed last week in a one-hour operation and Snowy is now recovering well.

She was lucky not to suffer permanent internal damage and vets said she could have died if the toys had reached her small intestine.

‘The big cat is hardly chewed up at all – she must have swallowed it down whole,’ said Mrs Reed, from Wyton on the Hill, Cambridgeshire. ‘We’ve never seen the toys before but the grass in the garden is quite long so we think she must have dug them up out there.’


Amazing X-rays of dog who ate five toy cats | Metro.co.uk

Obamazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (look at the kid in the background)


Tuesday, June 15, 2010

'Snoopy' tried to break into wrong prison

Police have arrested a man who was trying to break into prison to spring an inmate while dressed as Snoopy.

Jail workers were stunned when confronted by the Peanuts character waving a gun, reports The Sun.

When the comic-strip beagle and an accomplice failed to break down a staff door, they pelted prison officers' cars with concrete missiles.

A prison service source said: 'It's not every day you see a giant cartoon dog going on the rampage after trying to break into a prison.

'They weren't exactly inconspicuous - but it was taken seriously because they appeared to have a gun. They caused a real commotion and it was only later they were found to be armed with a water pistol.'

The duo were arrested and it then emerged they had targeted the wrong jail - the family member they wanted to free was imprisoned elsewhere.

link 'Snoopy' tried to break into prison | Quirky News | Orange UK

Monday, June 14, 2010

new freeze-dry burial method: giving new meaning to "dead cold"

HONG KONG (Reuters Life!) - Amid the potato starch coffins and bio-degradable urns at a recent Asian funeral expo, a freeze dry burial technique similar to cremation, but without the pyres, stood out as the ultimate green alternative.

The brainchild of a Swedish biologist, the "promession" technique, due to launch in Sweden and South Korea next year, takes some getting used to: liquid nitrogen is used to super-freeze a corpse, which is then shaken until it disintegrates into a pile of dust.

"The body really falls apart when it's really cold and that was something that I felt was appealing and clean," said Susanne Wiigh-Masak, who pioneered the sci-fiesque cryogenic method.

The crystallized body particles are then filtered of heavy metals like mercury and buried in a bio-degradable container to nourish the growth of a plant or tree in a memorial park.

Whereas buried bodies can take many decades to decompose fully, the atomized particles from promession break down after 6-18 months, shrinking and completing a certain cycle of life.

After nearly a decade of trials and development and having to overcome major ethical and legal challenges to her controversial method, Wiigh-Masak said the first "promatorium" will finally open in Sweden next April, and process up to 1,500 bodies a year.

This will be closely followed by South Korea, which is building at least thirteen sprawling memorial parks across the country to accommodate freeze-dry burials on a far larger scale.

"This is going to be the future solution for Korea," said Wiigh-Masak who said her technique had the tacit support of the Korean government and at least 18 million members of the Korean Christian Church who say they're willing to be frozen at death.

Freeze-dry, eco-friendly burials set for global launch | Reuters

five is the new six

very cool transformer owl

Watch the video. The coolest part is nearer the end. The explanation for those of us who speak English is below...:)


How cool was that? While I'm not certain what the exact species of owl this is (while it looks kind of like a North American screech owl, I think it's a scops owls based on pictures on the Owl Pages) I know exactly what this little "Transformer owl" is doing.

You might not know that small owl species are sometimes on the menu for larger owl species. When faced with the barn owl, which is only slightly larger than itself, the Transformer owl puffs itself up to look as big as possible in an effort to scare the barn owl away. When faced with the second, much larger owl, however, it does the exact opposite. By elongating its body, flattening its feathers and squinting its eyes, this little owl mimics a dead branch in the hopes of camouflaging itself from the larger bird.
http://blogs.discovery.com/animal_oddities/2010/05/transformer-owl.html

two faced kitten

Sunday, June 13, 2010