‘Paul Brant considers himself a penny pincher, but his savings in quarters and dollar coins really paid off.
Brant, 70, used more than $25,000 in change to help buy a new Dodge Ram half-ton pickup truck Friday – 13 years after buying another truck with spare change.
“(The old truck) didn’t have four-wheel drive, and living in the country, I figured I better get a new one to help get me through the snow,” he said.
Brant said he was raised to be thrifty. His father always paid in cash and saved up loose change to take vacations.
Brant has been storing his change for years, and estimated he had about $26,000 in coins for Friday’s purchase. In 1994, he bought a Dodge pickup and a Dodge Neon using about $36,000 in quarters.
“As long as you don’t put your hands back in the till, it really adds up,” he said.’
‘The woman who sat on Santa’s lap was naughty, not nice.
Police say a woman has been charged with sexual assault after a Santa at the Danbury Fair mall in Danbury, Connecticut, complained the woman groped him.
Police did not give the name of the disconcerted Santa, but they said he is 65 and felt badly because children were waiting to see him.
Police quickly found and identified the suspect, described as a woman on crutches.’
‘It’s not makeup or paint that makes Paul Karason’s skin a bluish color.
The 57-year-old started making the transition from fair skin and freckles to what he looks like today 14 years ago.
“The change was so gradual that I didn’t perceive it and for people around me, likewise,” Karason said. “It was just so gradual that no one really noticed. It wasn’t until a friend that I hadn’t seen in several months came by my parents’ place to see me and he asked me ‘what did you do?'” [..]
Karason moved to Madera, California about six months ago after living in Oregon. He said too many people in Oregon were unkind to him and he hopes Californians will be different. [..]
Karason said he has not sought medical attention for the condition and he is prepared to live with it for the rest of his life.’
‘You are bidding on a rare chance to traumatize a treasured friend or relative with baffling, mind-numbing, mystery correspondence from abroad.
Here is the arrangement:
I will be spending the Christmas holiday in Poland in a tiny village that has one church with no bell because angry Germans stole it. Aside from vodka, there is not a lot for me to do.
During the course of my holiday I will send three postcards to one person of your choosing.
These postcards will be rant-ravingly insane, yet they will be peppered with unmistakable personal details about the addressee. Details you will provide me.
The postcards will not be coherently signed, leaving your mark confused, guessing wildly, crying out in anguish.’
‘(+ware) I rear-ended a car this morning. So there we are alongside the road and
(+ware) slowly the driver gets out of the car . . . and you know how you just get sooo
(+ware) stressed and life seems to get funny?
(+ware) Well, I could NOT believe it . . he was a DWARF! He storms over to my car,
(+ware) looks up at me and says, “I AM NOT HAPPY!”
(+ware) So, I look down at him and say, “Well, which one are you then?”… and
(+ware) THAT’S when the fight started . .’
‘A middle-aged man was beaten up by his drinking buddies after being caught gratifying himself in front of school children camping at a popular Manawatu reserve.
The unemployed man, 48, from Palmerston North, suffered a “substantial” head injury and was admitted to Palmerston North Hospital.
Police have since arrested and charged him with committing an indecent act. [..]
The offender was seen sitting and watching a number of teenage girls camping at the site, along with children from Dannevirke Primary School, for nearly an hour.
He is then alleged to have stood up, exposed himself and performed an indecent act in plain view of all present.
“His associates, who he had been drinking with since before lunch time, obviously didn’t approve of his behaviour and they’ve dealt to him themselves, giving him a pretty nasty head injury,” Ms Ross said.’
‘On the slaughterhouse floor at Quality Pork Processors Inc. is an area known as the “head table,” but not because it is the place of honor. It is where workers cut up pigs’ heads and then shoot compressed air into the skulls until the brains come spilling out.
But now the grisly practice has come under suspicion from health authorities.
Over eight months from last December through July, 11 workers at the plant in Austin, Minn. — all of them employed at the head table — developed numbness, tingling or other neurological symptoms, and some scientists suspect inhaled airborne brain matter may have somehow triggered the illnesses.
The use of compressed air to remove pig brains was suspended at Quality Pork earlier this week while authorities try to get to the bottom of the mystery. [..]
Five of the workers — including Kruse, who has been told she may never work again — have been diagnosed with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, or CIDP, a rare immune disorder that attacks the nerves and produces tingling, numbness and weakness in the arms and legs, sometimes causing lasting damage.’
‘A Father Christmas has hung up his Santa suit after he claiming he’s been sacked for saying “ho, ho, ho!”
John Oakes, 70, says he was fired from a department store in Cairns, Australia, for using Santa’s famous greeting and singing carols.
He claims agency employer Westaff ordered their Santas to say “ha, ha, ha” instead of “ho, ho, ho” because “ho” is a derogatory US slang word for a woman.
Mr Oakes told the Cairns Post: “After my shift on Monday, I got a call from my manager telling me my services were no longer required.
“I hadn’t done anything wrong so I asked her why, and she said, “You said ho, ho, ho and that’s not appropriate”.’
‘After playing World of Warcraft, the 12 year old boy knew how to cope when he was attacked by a moose in the forest.
In the article he describes how he first yelled at the moose, distracting it so his sister got away, then when he got attacked and the animal stood over him he feigned death. “Just like you learn at level 30 in World of Warcraft.”‘
‘This was the incredible scene after a car cartwheeled more than 100ft through the air before embedding itself in a first-floor flat.
John Gordon’s Volvo took off after hitting a tree on a roundabout and flew until it crashed into the flats 15ft off the ground and facing backwards.
The car smashed into a lounge where 19-year-old Laura Stevens had been a few seconds earlier. [..]
Engineers had to spend three hours dismantling the wall of the flats in Werrington, Peterborough, before they could remove the car.
Mr Gordon, from Peterborough, hit the roundabout at around 9.10am on Saturday, clipped a tree and bounced before being catapulted into the air.
His car cartwheeled so it entered Miss Stevens’s flat backwards, sending debris flying on to the floor.’
‘Put your butt to use: Cigarette butts are a perfect fit for gun barrels and can help keep out dirt, sand or water. And they shoot out easily when the weapon is fired. For non-smokers, there are other options: in Vietnam, soldiers rubber-banded condoms around the tops of their guns.’
‘A Perth man has been charged with attempted murder after a 25-year-old man was shot in the buttocks and stomach during an argument over loud music.
Police alleged the younger man was at his Boddington home with friends when a 56-year-old man visiting neighbours began arguing with him about the loud music.
The older man allegedly threatened the residents with a piece of timber before he left and returned with a rifle.’
‘back in the 1920s george bennie designed and built the railplane, a propeller-driven monorail initially intended to travel between glasgow and edinburgh.
the design was way ahead of its time, the railplane capsule home to a 4-blade propeller at each end, each of these powered by its own electric motor – the result a cruising speed of 120mph.’
‘Got some leftover drugs — the kind that someone else might want to use, such as painkillers or stimulants? Wrap them up in used kitty litter or other pet droppings, the government advises.
A pilot program at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is looking at ways people can safely dispose of unused prescription drugs that are liable to be abused. [..]
Of course some people do not drink coffee. But maybe they have a pet ferret.
“Ferret waste, like nearly any other form of pet waste, can be effectively used to help prevent the abuse of unused prescription drugs,” SAMHSA spokesman Mark Weber said.
This news delighted the American Ferret Association.’
‘5/13/90
To Sybil,
Lamentably, I killed your cat while trying just to sting it. It was crouched, as usual, under one of our bird feeders & I fired from some distance with bird shot. It may ease your grief somewhat to know that the cat was buried properly with a prayer & that I’ll be glad to get you another of your choice.
I called & came by your house several times. We will be in the Dominican Republic until Thursday. I’ll see you then.
Love, Jimmy’
‘A woman was knocked out during a shopping centre appearance by Prime Minister John Howard in west Sydney today.
Mr Howard was walking through the food court of the Penrith Plaza shopping centre when the woman was knocked to the ground and hit her head in the crush of people.
A member of Mr Howard’s security team and local police stayed with the woman until she regained consciousness a few seconds later.
She was led, crying and rubbing her head, to a nearby store.
Earlier, a 29-year-old man was spoken to by police after he declined to shake the Prime Minister’s hand.
The man, identified only as Alex, put his hand out as Mr Howard approached him but then whipped his hand away.
“I’m not a fan,” he said later.’
‘A tourism student who twice had to walk barefoot in a Sri Lankan rainforest is suing a college, claiming his health was damaged by leeches.
James Sheridan, 50, said people on the field trip were made to remove their footwear because villagers considered the Unesco world heritage sites sacred. [..]
The court heard claims that Mr Sheridan, of Townhill, Swansea, was so weak after returning home that he could “only eat corned beef and lettuce for months”.
Mr Sheridan claimed he had suffered from malaria-like feverishness, sleeplessness, excessive sweating and lethargy in the six years since the trip, paid for with European funding as part of a tourism and leisure management MSc degree course.’
‘A Chelan County fire chief says a couple were lucky they weren’t killed by a cow that fell off a cliff and smashed their minivan.
District 5 Chief Arnold Baker says they missed being killed by a matter of inches Sunday as they drove on Highway 150 near Manson.
The 600-pound cow fell about 200 feet and landed on the hood of the minivan carrying Charles Everson Jr. and his wife Linda of Westland, Mich., who were in the area celebrating their one-year wedding anniversary. They were checked at Lake Chelan Community Hospital as a precaution.
The van was heavily damaged, including a broken windshield.’
‘Karl Marx, who complained of excruciating boils, actually suffered from a chronic skin disease with known psychological effects that may well have influenced his writings, a British expert said on Tuesday.
Sam Shuster, professor of dermatology at the University of East Anglia, believes the revolutionary thinker had hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) in which the apocrine sweat glands — found mainly in the armpits and groin — become blocked and inflamed.
“In addition to reducing his ability to work, which contributed to his depressing poverty, hidradenitis greatly reduced his self-esteem,” said Shuster, who published his findings in the British Journal of Dermatology.
“This explains his self-loathing and alienation, a response reflected by the alienation Marx developed in his writing.”‘
‘Doctors have long argued about the health effects of coffee, but its reputation seems likely to receive a boost thanks to a flavoured condom that aims to encourage safer sex in Ethiopia.
Around 300,000 of the coffee condoms were sold in a week when they were launched in September, according to the US charity DKT International.
It hopes to tap into Ethiopia’s coffee mania as a means to tackle high rates of HIV in the country, which is said to have invented the drink.
The charity said that with 2.1% of Ethiopians infected with Aids – and more than 7% in the capital, Addis Ababa – the flavoured prophylactic was more than a novelty. “Everybody likes the flavour of coffee,” said a spokeswoman.’
‘A 69-year old woman is facing charges for celebrating too loudly when her beloved Denver Broncos score on Sundays.
Jeri Priest honks a contraption she calls “The Broncos Horn” after each Denver score. Priest, along with her husband Larry and their neighbors let off one hearty honk for each point scored.
The horn is an odd-looking device Larry Priest built 30 years ago. It’s a two-wheel dolly carrying six car horns all hooked to a car battery. A relay switch allows Jeri Priest to sound the horn from the comfort of her home.
It’s the comfort of one neighbor that’s in question.’
‘Kerri and Jason Brown discovered a secret room behind a bookcase containing a homeowner’s worst nightmare — mold. Also in the room was a handwritten note: “You found it!” What the Browns found was a mold problem so serious the previous owner was forced to move, according to the note.
Fearing their young daughter’s health, the Browns hired an environmental engineer who detected high levels of several types of mold, including a black mold fungus called Stachybotrys.
“It terrified me,” Kerri Brown told WYFF-TV in Greenville. “I had heard reports of what it does for children, and I was terrified.”‘
‘An alleged speed ‘cook’ for a bikie gang had both his ears cut off at Currumbin at the weekend.
Police said picnickers and swimmers at the Currumbin Rock Pools found the man bleeding from head wounds about 2pm on Saturday.
The man, who had lost a large amount of blood, told medical staff he had been hurt in a fall.
The Elanora man, 38, refused to speak to police at The Tweed Hospital on Saturday afternoon.
He also refused to make an official complaint after police found the crime scene near the rock pools, but no sign of the severed ears. [..]
“Even though he’s not talking to us, you don’t need to be Einstein to work out what he did wrong to incur the wrath of the bikies,” said a police officer.’
‘A 24-year-old New York City man remains jailed after he was found allegedly having sex with a 92-year-old woman’s corpse inside the morgue of the hospital where he worked.
Anthony Merino, who works as a lab technician at Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, N.J., was arrested Sunday after police responded to a call from a security guard at the hospital. The guard reported witnessing the lab technician sexually desecrating the woman’s dead body, according to police.
“This is a first,” Lt. Dean Kazinci, spokesman for the Teaneck, N.J., police, told ABC News. “When you think you’ve heard and seen it all, something like this happens.”‘
‘An argument between several Indian men during a cricket match in Orlando led to an on-the-field shooting that seriously injured one of the players, according to police. [..]
Officers said Singh apparently became involved in a fight and threatened Devan Bascom, 37, with a cricket bat.
Police said Bascom then pulled a small semi-automatic gun and fired at Singh, hitting him at least once.
“The shooter was defending himself from an attack with a cricket bat which is simlar to a baseball bat but it’s flat,” Orange County sheriff’s Sgt. Spike Hopkins said. “For this man to bring a firearm to a sporting event is odd but then again, he has the right to do so. He has a concealed weapons permit and if, in fact, he was protecting himself, he was authorized by law to do so.”‘
‘A teenager carried out a sex act and then simulated sex on a pavement after drinking a half bottle of vodka while on medication, a court has heard.
Steven Marshall, 18, of Woodstock Avenue, Galashiels, admitted the offence in his home street on 17 June.
Selkirk Sheriff Court heard he got into a press-up position on the pavement and started simulating sexual intercourse.
Sentence was deferred on Marshall, who takes medication for arthritis. He was put on the sex offenders register.’
‘A toddler born with eight limbs and believed by some to be the reincarnation of the multi-limbed Hindu goddess Vishnu, is set to undergo a 40-hour operation to remove half of her limbs.
Lakshmi Tatma was born joined to a ‘parasitic twin’ and will go under the knife at the hands of 30 surgeons to remove two of her useless arms and legs.
The headless ‘twin’ is joined to Lakshmi at the pelvis and has its own spinal column and kidney. [..]
Her mother Poonam Tatma said she believed her daughter was “a miracle, a reincarnation” of Vishnu.’
There’s now more than 5,000 images on the image site. Hooray for arbitrary large, round numbers.
The image stats are now a little more advanced now and there’s a few new features on the image pages too. Nothing too exciting tho. 🙂
It’s still taking my time away from this site as I make some improvements to the code behind the scenes. I’m also working on a new site which hopefully should be by up the end of the year. More details to follow.
Fun stuff. 🙂
If you’re the worlds fastest speed walker and a group of samurai charges at you whilst you’re training, do you walk away or do you run?
(13.8meg Flash video)
see it here »
