Where's a good place to take the little ones to see the Easter Bunny? Who's holding a chili cook off? Devanny-Condron Funeral Home in Pittsfield, Massachusetts is the answer to both questions. Terry Probst, the new managing partner at the funeral home, wants to make it a community center of sorts. He says a Funeral Home is a 'living, breathing thing' in fact he and his family live upstairs there. Probst offers limo rides to couples celebrating 50 or more years of marriage and provides a birthday cake each month to the local senior center for all that months birthdays. He also hopes to hold a murder mystery dinner at the Funeral Home in May.
http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_14508911
Posted By: Alex - Thu Mar 04, 2010 -
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Police in North Vernon, Indiana say it is obvious this man had a death wish. That may not be so uncommon for men his age and perhaps in his profession, but he accomplished it in a very disturbing fashion. I've followed the events in The North Vernon Plain Dealer & Sun, but I do find it somewhat unnerving that the story is making the rounds through many newspapers in central and southern Indiana, as I fear widespread dissemination of the story may open the door to copycats. UPDATE: Meth, unsuprisingly, played a role. Greensburg Daily News
Unrelated bonus mugshot from the same paper of Nikkiah C. Weddle, a loving mother, that just appears slothful. I feel that her having smoked marijuana three weeks earlier will play a heavy role in her defense, since we've all smoked a joint that we took almost a full month to recover from.
There's a fetish for everyone, and we mock most of them here. So let's add one more to the list. The crisp, no-nonsense uniforms worn by the crewmembers of New Japan Airlines have been much desired for decades. Of course there are plenty of imitations to be bought, but the real thing, previously worn, is considered to be worth any price. Airlines have gone so far as to add serial numbers and computer chips into the garments. So why all the fuss now, when this has been a long standing issue? Because New Japan Airlines declared bankruptcy in January and they are very worried that their laid-off workers will start selling their uniforms for profit. You can read more about it on The Australian.
Talk about dedication to your job. Arizona Department of Public Safety spokesman Bart Graves summed it up pretty well, in fact, when he said "Yeah, that really does suck." He's referring to the recent drug bust the Arizona police made when they discovered more than seven hundred pounds of marijuana stuffed into the septic tank on a truck hauling human waste. Leonard Salcido of Tucson was arrested and charged with possession and transportation of marijuana. Read the article and see the pictures on CNN.
A New Jersey family was asked, by police, to cover the snow sculpture of the Venus de Milo they built last week. The request was made due to an anonymous complaint about 'a naked snow woman'. No worries now for the puritanical complainer, Venus was taken down Monday because she was melting. Wonder what they'll build next snow storm, my suggestion is in the title.
http://www.nj.com/news/local/index.ssf/2010/03/nude_snow_sculpture_in_rahway.html
Posted By: Alex - Wed Mar 03, 2010 -
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I have two news oddities to present from one of my local papers. The first from The Greensburg Daily News I didn't think was so odd, I would expect the electric company to do such things to avoid displacing wildlife, but I couldn't figure out if the 'secret technique' was really an extraordinary trade secret (I would actually expect them to want to share such info so other companies could put it to use), or just a case of a lazy reporter.
The second from the same paper details five new residents of the county jail. Alas, there is only one mugshot. These five actually had uniformed police knock on their door, and they didn't answer. So the police set up a perimeter around their apartment for two hours while waiting for the search warrant. With two hours to play with, none of the suspects noticed a cop banging on the door or the perimeter placed around their apartment? And they couldn't destroy a small amount of dope and paraphernalia in the meantime?
Alex Boese
Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid.
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.
Chuck Shepherd
Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre.
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