`She survived brutal Nazi and Communist regimes to ultimately be brought down by a banana.
Slovenian migrant Ivanka Perko died in hospital last week in bizarre circumstances – she suffered complications after she dropped a banana on her leg.
Comical to the end, the 73-year-old old quipped to friends and family while on her deathbed: “I can’t believe after all this time it was a bloody banana that killed me.”
A family friend told The Saturday Daily Telegraph yesterday that Ms Perko – who was treasured by her Blue Mountains community – had been ill for several months with a condition that made her skin delicate and fine.
“She had tried to open a banana and dropped it,” the friend said. “The pointy end scraped down her leg and she died from complications.”‘
`Amongst all the fossils ever found in the world, there might be nothing more bizarre than this specimen. One Protoceratops, a herbivorous (plant-eating) dinosaur, perished in the struggle with a carnivorous theropod, Velociraptor. After their death 80 million years ago, both skeletons were fossilized, then finally unearthed in 1971 in fully articulated forms without having been smashed.
The reason why they fought with each other is not known. Protoceratops might have been defending its nest from the predator, or the two creatures might have encountered accidentally, but all we can do is build speculations and guesses about them.’
`In February 1995, working in conjunction with nutritionists at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, I adopted a super fiber-rich diet which allowed me to successfully produce a single extruded excrement the exact length of my colon: 26 feet. I documented the extrusion at the Cranbrook-Kingswood High School Bowling Alley, Bloomfield Hills, MI, which offered a length of floor suitable for the process and measuring the results. The cathartic diet was supplemented by a high intake of Metamucil fiber substance. The weeklong endurance prior to the event was ensured by the employment of a plug specifically designed to curtail any premature excretions.’
Yeah, so.. I hate bloggers who whinge and rant about their personal lives. They’re a bunch of cunts. That said, I’m gonna whinge a bit. Because obviously I’m a cunt too.. I’ll keep it brief.
My girlfriend makes me very unhappy. So unhappy that I’ve decided I’m better off without a girlfriend at all and am currently in the process of moving all my stuff back to my parents house.
So, it maybe a couple of days before I can be fucked setting my computer back up again. I’m sure you understand.
In the meantime, there’s many other sources of distraction on the net. Go visit some of the sites on my links page.
`The warhead of a long-range missile test-fired by North Korea was found in the U.S. state of Alaska, a report to the National Assembly revealed yesterday.
“According to a U.S. document, the last piece of a missile warhead fired by North Korea was found in Alaska,” former Japanese foreign minister Taro Nakayama was quoted as saying in the report. “Washington, as well as Tokyo, has so far underrated Pyongyang’s missile capabilities.”‘
`After a burglar broke into caricaturist Bill “Weg” Green’s Heathmont home on Sunday, it took the 82-year-old just seconds to draw his attacker.
Fifteen minutes later, patrolling police caught a suspect — and Mr Green’s drawing proved they had the right man. [..]
Police soon arrived and were initially reluctant when Mr Green offered to draw the burglar.
“We were mainly concerned with catching the offender who was still in the area,” said Senior Constable Aaron Roche of Ringwood police.
“I thought (the drawing) might be a stick figure or something like that.”
Seconds later, Mr Green — who still works daily drawing private, AFL and other corporate caricatures, as well as running a gallery — provided a detailed drawing of the burglar’s face.’
`Two women have been raped then sodomised with umbrellas in separate incidents in Mpumalanga, police said.
A 27-year-old woman told police a man attacked her near the Delmas municipality buildings on Monday, said Inspector Graham Grimsdell.
“The man dragged her to an open veld and allegedly raped her. After that he took her umbrella and inserted it into her anus.”‘
‘Last September, the 23rd to be exact, I got a speeding ticket. 47 m.p.h. in a 30 m.p.h. zone, in an area well known for busting speeders. Yesterday, I went to court for it. I won, and by saying that I won, I mean I won. This isn’t plead down to a lesser charge, cited for equipment failure, or something else. This is winning, as in ‘dismissed without prejudice,’ which is what it says on the findings sheet given to me when it was all said and done. No fine, no points, just a little time spent and six bucks for parking at the courthouse.
Want to know how? Read on�’
`Police arrested a man accused of faking his death more than 25 years ago to avoid paying child support.
Johnny Sterling Martin, 58, had a relative call Family Court in 1979 and report that he died during a bar fight in Alabama, authorities said. That call came a few months after he escaped from a work detail while serving a one-year jail term for failing to pay $4,120 in support for two children.
He was captured Tuesday and jailed, and now owes more than $30,000 in child support and faces an escape charge, authorities said.’
`Take any good nuclear Armageddon movie, from Dr. Strangelove, to Fail Safe, to The Sum of All Fears, there’s always a scene in which the erstwhile lightly engaged president is either tendered an urgent note or handed a telephone by his top aide. Cut to a closeup on the president’s face. His expression changes immediately, the color drains from his face, followed by a sound-on-sound slash cut that takes the viewer to an underground bunker, deep under a Virginia mountain. There, a collection of grim faced, high-ranking military men work determinedly to avoid a global catastrophe. . .
What words are written on that note, what could it say that can make the President go white in an instant? What are the words that the president never wants to see on a note thrust into his hand while he is busy giving a speech? I believe the answer is “PINNACLE/NUCFLASH”.’
`Since the first rumors of an Apple switch to Intel, everyone has been wondering about the potential speed of Intel-based Macs. Last week’s announcement of the first shipping Intel-based Macs brought with it the promise of a major speed boost: Apple’s Web pages suggest that the new iMac, powered by the Intel Core Duo processor, is twice as fast as its G5 predecessor.
Macworld Lab’s tests do show that the new Intel-based iMac is faster than the iMac G5 when running native applications. However, we found that those improvements are generally much less than what Apple claims is a 2x improvement in speed.’
`The Washington State Patrol says it happened when a truck driver had to brake suddenly about 25 miles north of Seattle. The trailer had only a cloth top and much of the waste sloshed out. It spilled over the cab and onto the southbound lanes.
Not only did it stink, but it took about five hours to vacuum it up. Traffic was rerouted.
A spokesman for the state Ecology Department advises anyone who drove through the stuff to go to a commercial car wash.’
`Iceland has energy to spare, and the small country has found a cutting-edge way to reduce its oil dependency. Volcanoes formed the island nation out of ash and lava, and molten rock heats huge underground lakes to the boiling point.
The hot water — energy sizzling beneath the surface — is piped into cities and stored in giant tanks, providing heat for homes, businesses and even swimming pools.
The volcanoes melted ice, which formed rivers. The water runs through turbines, providing virtually all the country’s electricity.
Iceland wants to make a full conversion and plans to modify its cars, buses and trucks to run on renewable energy — with no dependence on oil.’
`BellSouth and Verizon have been trying to force big Web sites to pay extortion-type fees if the sites want adequate bandwidth, with Google a prime target. But Google has news for them: It won’t pay.
Google told Networking Pipeline’s Paul Kapustka in no uncertain terms that it won’t give in to the cyberextortion. And despite reports to the contrary, Google says, it isn’t talking with any carriers about the issue.
Google’s Barry Schnitt told Paul in an email: “Google is not discussing sharing of the costs of broadband networks with any carrier. We believe consumers are already paying to support broadband access to the Internet through subscription fees and, as a result, consumers should have the freedom to use this connection without limitations.”‘
‘An “incompetent” burglar who was tackled by elderly members of a petanque club would never again be able to hold his head up among his criminal peers, his lawyer told Christchurch District Court today.
Clinton Michael Dearman, 38, was in court for sentence after admitting charges of burglary and aggravated assault at Christchurch Petanque Club on December 11. [..]
At sentencing today, Dearman’s lawyer, Michael Knowles, urged Judge Michael Crosbie to regard the publicity and humiliation his client had suffered as a result of media attention as a mitigating factor.
Dearman had been pictured in media hog-tied and surrounded by elderly club members while they waited for police to arrive.’
follow-up to Pensioners ‘hog-tie’ burly intruder.
`1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
1 cup whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
2/3 cup Guinness stout
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons molasses
4 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract’
`Advocacy groups and parents are suing the Nickelodeon TV network and cereal maker Kellogg Co. in an effort to stop junk food marketing to kids.
The plaintiffs are citing a recent report documenting the influence of marketing on what children eat. Ads aimed at kids are mostly for high-calorie, low-nutrition food and drinks, according to the government-chartered Institute of Medicine.’
`An alumni group dedicated to “exposing the most radical professors” at the University of California at Los Angeles is offering to pay students $100 to record classroom lectures of suspect faculty. [..]
News of the campaign prompted former Republican congressman James Rogan, who helped lead impeachment proceedings against former President Bill Clinton in the U.S. House of Representatives, to resign from the group’s advisory board. [..]
At least two other members of the group’s advisory board, which consists of more than 20 individuals, also have quit over the group’s efforts to have students record their professors.’
‘Six former heads of the Environmental Protection Agency — five Republicans and one Democrat — accused the Bush administration Wednesday of neglecting global warming and other environmental problems. [..]
All of the former administrators and EPA’s current chief, Stephen Johnson, raised their hands when asked by the event moderator whether they believe global warming is a real problem, and again when he asked if humans bear significant blame.
But agency heads during five Republican administrations, including the current one, criticized the Bush White House for what they described as a failure of leadership.’
`An Ohio man has been sentenced to a year in prison for burying his 1997 BMW.
Prosecutors say he did it so he could report the car stolen and collect insurance money.
Matthew Mueller must repay $20,000 to Progressive Insurance and also reimburse more than $15,000 in costs to authorities who dug up the vehicle.’
Who knew it cost so much to dig a hole.
`It turns out the officers’ in-car computers interfere with Dunkin’ Donuts computer system. Police using the drive-through have to disconnect their computer modems to avoid clashing with the restaurants’ system.
That’s not the only problem with the city’s police computer system, says Sergeant Eliezer Rivera. Rivera says the network is spotty and only as fast as a dial-up connection.’
This is unacceptable. How can people expect police to diligently and efficiently protect the community without donuts? Crazy.
`I came across this recipe pretty well by accident when I was bored and wanted to see how high I could get using easily obtainable products from the local supermarket. I kind of wish I hadn’t…
It’s great for getting parties going or generally the amusment of getting lots of people high.
WARNING: The resulting jelly may be hazardous to your health! Do not eat more than a teaspoon at a time.’
‘Our mission is to provide the best possible search engine to you while at the same time, making sure the government is informed should you search for something obscure, illegal, or unpatriotic.
Instead of letting the government waste tax money by going through complicated procedures to get user and search data from Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves or Google, users of Patriot Search make sure their queries end up right where they belong — in the databases of the government and its various agencies.’
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
`A well-liked Chicago family dentist let pimps rent out his Marina Towers condos so hookers could turn tricks there and stayed after hours at his downtown dental office to fix the teeth of battered prostitutes for free, the feds charged Wednesday. [..]
The pimps Kimmel is charged with aiding allegedly used violence to draw in underage girls in some cases and in others to force girls to continue the work. On tape recordings, the pimps refer to Kimmel as “Doc.” Various wiretaps outlined in an FBI complaint indicate Kimmel knew who he was dealing with.
When a prostitute fails to return one of Kimmel’s cars, a pimp vows he’ll set her straight.
“When it comes to me and you, and take care of real business, I’ll cut all them legs off for you,” the pimp said.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Kimmel allegedly said on the wiretap.’
`A dog apparently fell from a highway overpass and crashed through a car windshield, fatally injuring the driver, police said today. [..]
Investigators do not believe the 27- to 32-kilogram Labrador retriever was thrown, but rather fell while trying to avoid a car, State Police Sgt. Michael A. Shaw said.
Police questioned the dog’s owner. [..]
“We’ve had rocks and other stuff like that fall off of overpasses,” Shaw said.
“This would be the first dog we’ve had.”‘
`Constant darkness throws a molecular switch in mammals that shifts the body’s fuel consumption from glucose to fat and induces a state of torpor in mice, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston reports in the Jan. 19 edition of Nature.
[..] A series of experiments pinpointed 5-prime adenosine monophosphate (5′-AMP) as the key molecular mediator of the constant darkness effect, switching mice from a glucose-burning, fat-storing state to a fat-burning, glucose-conserving lethargy.’
`Microsoft has issued a security Relevant Products/Services from Microsoft patch for it’s as-yet-unreleased operating system, Windows Vista. The patch, issued over the weekend, repairs the same graphics-rendering flaw discovered in Windows XP late last month. [..]
Microsoft issued the patch for the Vista beta with a warning that the new operating system is vulnerable to the same remote-code execution flaw found in XP.’
Broken before it’s even released. I wouldn’t have expected anything less from Microsoft. Good job, Bill. 🙂
`Today, 19 January is the 20th anniversary for the appearance of the first PC virus. Brain, a boot sector virus, was let loose in January 1986 and spread via infected floppy disks.
This virus is thought to have originated in Pakistan and at the time there were suspicions that it was created as a way to promote a company called Brain Computer Services, as its name and address would appear inside of the virus.’
`Osama bin Laden said al Qaeda was preparing attacks in the United States but the group was open to a conditional truce with Americans, according to an audio tape attributed to him on Thursday.
It was the first purported bin Laden tape since 2004. Al Jazeera television, which aired the tape, said it was dated to the Muslim lunar month corresponding to January.
“The operations are under preparation and you will see them in your houses as soon as they are complete, God willing,” said the speaker on the tape.’
