Safe Bedside Table

A bedside table that quickly transforms into a bat and shield to defend yourself against intruders.

Designed and available from James McAdam.

Posted By: Alex - Mon Mar 31, 2014 - Comments (14)
Category: Furniture

Kiss Me Necktie

[Click to re-size]

Did this ever work? And why did the tie turn the wearer into an African-American when activated, as shown at the bottom of the ad?

Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 31, 2014 - Comments (2)
Category: Fashion, Signage, 1940s, Women

News of the Weird (March 30, 2014)

News of the Weird
Weirdnuz.M364, March 30, 2014
Copyright 2014 by Chuck Shepherd

Lead Story

Kevin Walters, 21, staged an emotional though unsuccessful, one-man, chained-to-the-door protest in March to prevent the closing of a commercial rest stop along the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway near Des Plaines, Ill. Ultimately, the “Des Plaines Oasis,” housing shops and fast-food restaurants along with a gas station, will be demolished as part of a highway-widening project. Walters told WBBM Radio that his poignant attachment to the Oasis was because his parents had told him it was where he was conceived as they returned home from a 1992 Phil Collins concert. [WBBM, 3-14-2014]

Cultural Diversity

In tribe-controlled areas of India, children who disrespect their families by marrying outside their castes are still, occasionally, put to death despite strong national laws. However, enlightenment is advancing, and Mr. Sidhnath Sharma recently filed a lawsuit, instead, against his caste-straying son for “destroying the family tradition” and “lowering his father’s prestige.” Sharma, a lawyer in Patna, India, is demanding that the son pay a monthly royalty of the equivalent of $163 for the son’s now-unauthorized use of the father’s name. [The Hindu, 1-25-2014]

Fighter jets from France were forced in February to accompany the hijacked Ethiopian Airlines plane commandeered by the co-pilot, who had diverted the plane to Geneva in order to apply for asylum. The Swiss air force would normally have taken over the mission in its own air space, but the incident occurred at 4:30 a.m., and Swiss air force pilots were likely still asleep, as they work only “regular office hours,” beginning at 8 a.m. (French military officials said they are accustomed to covering for Switzerland.) [The Local (Paris), 2-18-2014]

Sweden’s foul-smelling canned herring (surstromming) inexplicably raises passions among some traditionalists--which is why it was big news in February when a man found a bulging tin whose contents had been fermenting for about 25 years and reckoned he needed help to “disarm” it, lest it “explode” and damage his cabin. Ruben Madsen of Sweden’s Surstromming Academy agreed to attend the can-opening and assured the man that spewing, not explosion, was the likely outcome. [The Local (Oslo), 2-10-2014]

In 2010, News of the Weird reported on the enthusiastically obese Donna Simpson, who ate meals in front of her web camera so that “chub chasers” could watch her (pay per view) growing larger before their eyes. Now comes a South Korean, Ms. Park Seo-yeon, 34, not at all overweight, also on pay-per-view, breaking bread with friend-challenged people desperate to avoid eating alone, however forced the circumstances. Reuters reported that Park’s “gastronomic voyeurism” earns her, some months, the equivalent of more than $9,000 for her series of two-to-three-hour meals, featuring real-time chatting. [Reuters via Yahoo News, 1-26-2014]

Latest Religious Messages

Pastor Allen Parker conducts services in the nude, for the nude, according to a February report on WWBT-TV (Richmond, Va.). Parker’s “White Tail Chapel” is located on a similarly named nudist resort in Ivor, Va., and even in winter when disrobing visitors are scarce, the chapel is open for the congregants. (In summertime, when naked people abound, the chapel’s services are often standing-room-only.) Baring the body to Christ is hardly unusual, Parker reminded, since that’s the way we all come into the world. [WWBT-TV, 2-20-2014]

Questionable Judgments

After a February 11th explosion at a natural gas well in Greene County, Pa., burned for four days and caused massive traffic jams and other inconveniences, the public-relations response of well-owner Chevron was merely to give away vouchers for pizza and soda at local hangout Bobtown Pizza. While environmentalists were outraged at Chevron’s “let them eat cake/pizza” attitude, CNN found that most local residents seemed satisfied with the Chevron decision. (Bobtown’s pizza is apparently highly regarded.) [CNN, 2-19-2014]

Injudicious: (1) James Degorski, 41, serving life in prison for a cold-blooded mass murder during a botched restaurant robbery in Palatine, Ill., in 1993, was awarded $450,000 by a jury recently after a prison guard punched him in the face, necessitating complex surgery. Said a parent of one of Degorski’s victims, “If broken bones are worth a half-million, how much are [the seven victims’] lives worth?” (2) Former star soccer goalie Bruno Fernandes de Souza, 28, serving 22 years in prison in Brazil for murdering his girlfriend and feeding part of her body to his dogs, was granted work-release in March by prison officials--with the “work” assignment being to play soccer for a Brazilian pro team that, upon learning of the rehabilitation law, signed him to a contract and urged his release. [ABC News via WHAS-TV (Louisville), 3-10-2014] [Daily Mail (London), 3-12-2014]

The Cutting Edge

(1) Among the filings published in November by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office was Google’s 2012 application covering a throat tattoo--actually a mobile skin “microphone” with lie-detecting capability, presumably to encourage truthfulness by people as they speak. The application explains how to couple an electronic skin tattoo to a mobile device, using “flexible substrate.” (2) Among the “secrets” revealed recently on a BBC television special on South America’s beauty-queen obsession was one by Ms. Wi May Nava, first-runner-up for Miss Venezuela 2013. Nava had a patch of plastic mesh sewn onto her tongue to create so much pain when she ate that she was forced to stick to liquids. [The Register, 11-8-2013] [Gawker, 2-6-14]

Fine Points of the Law

An Iowa administrative law judge ruled in February that it might be reasonable to accidentally damage a stubborn vending machine that ate your money--but not by commandeering a forklift, raising the vending machine two feet off the concrete floor, and slamming it to the ground to dislodge the reluctant candy bar (a Twix). Consequently, Robert McKevitt, fired recently over the incident by Polaris Industries in Milford, Iowa, was deemed not entitled to worker compensation. (McKevitt admitted picking up the machine with the forklift but said he just shook it and then set it down gently.) [Des Moines Register, 2-19-2014]

PREVIOUSLY ON WEIRD UNIVERSE: In November, a New York appeals court approved a Rockland County judge’s jury instructions, which had resulted in the jury’s absolving Brittany Lahm of fault when she flipped her car on the New York Thruway, killing one passenger and injuring others. Lahm was driving friends home from the beach when one passenger unexpectedly unfastened Lahm’s bikini top, leading her to stretch her arms to re-tie it, which caused her to lose control of the car. The judges ruled that the jury could (and ultimately did) consider that Lahm faced an “unforeseen emergency” and was not negligent. (The only fatality in the crash was the original unfastener.) [Associated Press via WABC-TV (New York City), 11-25-2013]

Life Is Too Long

Among the websites whose stunning visual sophistication lies in stark contrast to their marginal importance in the world is “Carpets for Airports,” apparently still the go-to site for viewing and judging air terminal floor coverings around the world. Singapore’s carpet consists of an indescribably erratic, “psychologically terrifying” design while Lima’s Jorge Chavez International Airport’s is “muted” and “calming”--appropriate for the nervous traveler about to experience an Andes mountains take-off. The least ambitious of all, so far, is Denver’s “featureless” non-pattern--settled on in 2001 after religious fundamentalists objected to the evolution-enabled images on its original carpeting. [BBC News, 2-25-2014; CarpetsForAirports.com]

The Aristocrats!

Florida Selfies: (1) Spencer Toner, 79, was arrested for indecent exposure in a McDonald’s parking lot in January in Bonita Springs, Fla., after a complainant said Toner was watching pornography on a laptop computer and masturbating (a downside of McDonald’s early-on, company-wide adoption of Wi-Fi). Toner had demanded earlier that the complainant give him privacy. (2) In December, Francis Bianco, 76, was arrested shortly after noon for indecent exposure in the parking lot of a Winn Dixie grocery store in Fort Myers Beach, Fla. Bianco protested, claiming he was merely urinating (apparently, thought to be not as offensive). PREVIOUSLY: (3) William Gibson, 50, was charged with “lewd and lascivious” behavior in front of a store in Jensen Beach, Fla., in November after he began (according to the police report) “fluffing” his genitals and performing other genital-related activities. [WBBH-TV (Fort Myers), News-Press, 1-24-2014] [WZVN-TV (Fort Myers), 12-16-2013] [TCPalm.com (Stuart, Fla.), 11-15-2013]

Thanks This Week to Cindy Hildebrand and Jessica Binns, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Posted By: Chuck - Sun Mar 30, 2014 - Comments (5)
Category:

The Aswang

Learn about the Filipino vampire known as the "aswang" here and here, then watch the documentary above.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Mar 30, 2014 - Comments (3)
Category: Cryptozoology, Superstition, Foreign Customs, South Pacific

Pregnant by Morning

It's not exactly the most romantic title ever. Available from Amazon

Posted By: Alex - Sun Mar 30, 2014 - Comments (3)
Category: Books, Romances

Zombie Beer

"Brewed with roasted goat brains and cranberries." Soon to be sold by Dock Street Brewery.

Posted By: Alex - Sat Mar 29, 2014 - Comments (5)
Category: Food, Inebriation and Intoxicants

Obsolete Vocations

Original ad here.

Posted By: Paul - Sat Mar 29, 2014 - Comments (15)
Category: Self-help Schemes, Work and Vocational Training, 1920s

New Use for Baboon Urine

According to NehandaRadio.com, baboon urine is "selling like hot cakes" in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. The place to go to get it is the Bulawayo City Council run toilets at Egodini commuter omnibus terminus.

The source of its appeal is the belief that "a baboon by its nature urinates only on one spot. Even if it travels from Matopo to Bulawayo, when it gets pressed, it will travel all the way to Matopo before it relieves itself."

Therefore, by extension (and because the ancient medical 'principle of similitude' dictates this must be so), if the stuff is applied to a man it will "start regulating his bedding tendencies." That is, it will make him faithful to one woman.

The article goes into details about how this is done. However, one husband found his wife's vial of baboon urine, got mad, and domestic violence ensued.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 28, 2014 - Comments (8)
Category: Medicine, Foreign Customs

Mario Manzini, Escapologist

Do we believe the video, or the newspaper report?

Source of news report.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Mar 28, 2014 - Comments (6)
Category: Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Magic and Illusions and Sleight of Hand, Homages, Pastiches, Tributes and Borrowings, 1970s

Yoko Ono Fashions For Men

Yoko Ono said that she originally designed these clothes in 1969 as a wedding gift for John Lennon. But it wasn't until 2012 that the English clothing store Opening Ceremony decided to make a line of clothes based on her sketches.

Posted By: Alex - Thu Mar 27, 2014 - Comments (14)
Category: Fashion