Weird News.... July 08

[VulcanRider]

Man clutches chest -- and wallet WAUKESHA, Wisconsin (AP) -- A 52-year-old Milwaukee-area man has been accused of faking heart attacks to avoid paying restaurant bills and cab fares. Police say the Waukesha man took a cab to a mall Monday and pretended to have a heart attack. The cabdriver left unpaid. Authorities say the man then ran up a $23 bill when he had a steak dinner at Applebee's. He again pretended to have a heart attack. This time the fire department took him to a hospital. A doctor there recognized the man as having pulled the same stunt in the past few weeks. He was charged Thursday with defrauding a restaurant as a habitual criminal. He could get up to nine months in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Sounds like he's going to get free food & board for months...

[Arvon]

Dozens of spas operate in Russia's Caucasus Mountains region, exploiting the mineral springs in the area, and apparently colonic treatment is a specialty. In fact, in June, the Mashuk-Akva Term spa in Zheleznovodsk unveiled a large monument to the enema (an 800-pound brass syringe bulb held aloft by three angels). "Let's beat constipation," read one banner. Said the sculptor: "This device is eternal; it will never change. We could promote this brand, turn it into a franchise with souvenirs and awards for medical doctors." [CNN-AP, 6-19-08]

[VulcanRider]

After reading that story about the enema sculpture, I just had to look for a picture of it.

[Lavindathar]

I wish my nurse looked like the one on the right.

Instead I get 80 year olds who can hardly see!

[Bungleau]

From Yahoo Weird News

Irish woman seeks "husband" for 120 litres of beer SONKAJARVI, Finland (Reuters) - Julia Galvin came to Finland looking for a man that would carry her 120 kg over a 253-metres track -- the incentive being the chance to win the wife-carrying world title and beer worth her body weight. In the end the Irish woman was carried by an English man through a pool and across hurdles. She did not make the gold, but said she would keep trying until the title and the beer was hers. "I think I am worth carrying because I am a walking party," she said. Wife-carrying is one of a host of bizarre contests that Finns, who can tend to gloominess in the long winter dark, have devised for the scant months of summer when the sun hardly sets and people's mood turns frolicsome. Forty-eight couples from 13 countries, including Kenya, Australia and Canada, gathered in the remote Finnish village to complete the track. Estonia reigned supreme once again, as Alar Voogla sprinted home in just over one minute to win the Baltic country's 11th title, with Kirsti Viltrop clinging upside-down to his back. "Yesterday we have had a really bad luck, because we fell and we lost our first place in the sprint and today it's super," Viltrop said, after completing the main track. Germany took away the silver and England the bronze, while hosting Finns had to do with a win for the 100-metre sprint, organised as a side-competition to the world-known event. While some competitors are nearly professional athletes, others do it for fun or as a hobby. Third-place winners Ash Davies and Aila Bruce put extra thought in designing their costume, to get the extra edge. "We came with our costume designer all the way from England -- she has designed this especially, so we can compete, streamline you know, aerodynamic tuning," Davies said. Some 5,000 people came to view the event, set deep in forests and lakes a couple of hours' drive from the Arctic Circle. The contest is rooted in the legend of Ronkainen the Robber, said in the 19th century to have tested aspiring members of his gang by forcing them to lug sacks of grain or live swine over a similar course. It also purportedly stems from an even earlier tribal practice of wife-stealing, in honour of which many contestants now take up the challenge with someone else's wife. It has also inspired others to organise events such as sauna sitting, swamp football, cell phone throwing or karaoke singing. All are part of a summer bonanza of events that rake in visitors and cash for as long as the midnight sun shines. (Reporting by Attila Cser, Writing by Agnieszka Flak)

At first, I thought she was asking for a trade... but now I see she had nobler aspirations in mind

So... who's up for the first IW "Carry your spouse for beer" contest?

[Bungleau]

From Yahoo Weird News

Woman kills husband with folding couch By Denis Pinchuk ST PETERSBURG (Reuters) - A Russian woman in St Petersburg killed her drunk husband with a folding couch, Russian media reported on Wednesday. St Petersburg's Channel Five said the man's wife, upset with her husband for being drunk and refusing to get up, kicked a handle after an argument, activating a mechanism that folds the couch up against a wall. The couch, which doubles as a bed, folds up automatically in order to save space. The man fell between the mattress and the back of the couch, Channel Five quoted emergency workers as saying. The woman then walked out of the room and returned three hours later to check on what she thought was an unusually quiet sleeping husband. Police refused to comment. The St Petersburg Emergency Services Ministry said a private rescue service removed the man's body. Video on the television channel's website showed emergency workers sawing away the side panels of a couch to remove a man in his underwear lying headfirst between the cushions. Emergency workers said the man died instantly. (Additional reporting by Tatiana Ustinova, Writing by Chris Baldwin, editing by Alison Williams)

Jeez.... now in addition to remembering *not* to irritate her, you've got to remember to make sure you're not in the folding bed as well?

[Arvon]

His countrymen are too polite, wrote French doctor Frederic Saldmann in his new book (translated as "Spring Cleaning") and can improve their health by uninhibitedly embracing their bodily functions that he said too many Frenchmen suppress. According to a May dispatch from Paris in London's Daily Telegraph, Saldmann wrote that the intestines, stomach and esophagus benefit if gas is expelled promptly and pores freely excrete toxins. In fact, he wrote, doing away with antiperspirants also facilitates "a certain number of messages that are potentially very attractive to the opposite sex." [Daily Telegraph (London), 5-2-08]


I see two issues here. First is of course the fart/belch, but the second...the french are too polite?

[Bungleau]

From Yahoo Weird News

Man spent $1,000 a week on beer? SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man convicted of his seventh drink-driving charge was spending about A$1,000 ($972) a week on beer -- enough to buy more than 2,500 small bottles a month, a newspaper said Tuesday. The heartbroken construction worker began drowning his sorrows after breaking up with his partner five years ago, the Northern Territory News said, quoting his defense lawyer as telling a court in Australia's remote, tropical north. The magistrate declined to jail the father of four, Michael Leary, noting he had quit drinking since his latest arrest, but he banned Leary from buying or even holding a beer for 12 months. The magistrate also poked fun at Leary's favorite beer, Melbourne Bitter, in a part of the country where drinkers can be as loyal to beer brands as they are to football teams. "(That is) poor judgment on two counts there -- drinking that much and drinking Melbourne Bitter," magistrate Vince Luppino was quoted as saying. (Editing by David Fox)

A man with his priorities in place... hopefully someone else was taking care of the kids, though. I'm not sure I could safely drink that much beer...

[Bungleau]

From KTTS Need to Know News

Live ammo explodes, wounding Webster County sheriff's employee A Webster County sheriff's employee is in the hospital after some live ammunition exploded, hitting him in the butt. The sheriff's office says the man, whose name has not been released, was destroying some old evidence when some .22 bullets went off in the fire. updated 6:30 pm 7/15/08

Remember kids.... do as I say, not as I do...

[Bungleau]

From Yahoo Weird News

Afraid of laundry? You will be after reading this GORHAM, Maine - Mara Ranger will be a little paranoid doing laundry now. When she was removing clothes from the washing machine at her Maine farmhouse Wednesday, the clothes moved. She told WMTW-TV, "I jumped back" and saw a snake. She quickly shut the lid and called for help. Maine Animal Damage Control operator Richard Burton reached into the machine and pulled and pulled — all 8 feet of a reticulated python. Burton guesses the snake got into Ranger's washing machine through water pipes. The snake's future home will be York Animal Kingdom in York. Ranger is going to start looking into every corner of her washing machine. She says, "I'm going to be looking in the tub first — before and after, maybe even during, the rinse cycle."

I confess... if I opened the washer and a snake was staring back at me, especially one that big... I'd be screamin' like a girlie-man and running away.

Spiders? No problem. Scorpions? No biggie. Snakes? No way.