Great Wrapping Service... not

Amazingly, there are people out there who will pay someone else to do a terrible job of giftwrapping.

Read that again. They'll pay for a bad job. I mean, I know some people pay others to giftwrap, but badly? Yes indeed.

Personally I don't know why the good services even exist. If you hate wrapping that much that you'd spend extra on the wrapping, just go buy a pretty box. If it's too big, our families go for garbage bags with bows. Hey, it's the thought that counts, right? Um... or, it's the fact your useless boyfriend made an effort to wrap it. With his feet. Or blindfolded. Or while standing on his head. Or something.

CrapWrap Gift Wrapping Service
http://www.arcamax.com/weirdnews/s-461725-893269?source=1930

~ Elisa

Another Rescue

Yesterday I posted about an owl being rescued by firefighters. Today I have a story about a man being rescued. No, not a kitten up a tree. A man up a tree. Awesome.

http://www.arcamax.com/weirdnews/s-460280-645543?source=1930

How embarrassment!

~ Elisa

Fireys to the rescue!

An animal protection officer and the fire brigade called out to rescue an owl in Rayleigh, England, only to learn the owl was a fake.

http://www.arcamax.com/weirdnews/s-459593-172135?source=1930

And they were arranging the big aerial equipment, too.

Oops!

~ Elisa

Happy "Religion non-specific Day"

I'm five hours away from my keyboard for December 25th, so in my absence I'll leave you with some amusing reading from an early email that was forwarded through the entire world. Yes, yes, I know this has been busted as a rumour by umpteen websites. I like to think that the story itself is true, and someone just got silly and added a fake newspaper award to it. Anyway. Enjoy.

~ Elisa

PS. If you like the pic, click it to see some awesome images and desktop backgrounds.

PPS. Cross-posted to my other blog No Added Salt.



This is an article submitted to a 1999 Louisville Sentinel contest to find out who had the wildest Christmas dinner. It won first prize.

As a joke, my brother used to hang a pair of panty hose over his fireplace before Christmas. He said all he wanted was for Santa to fill them. What they say about Santa checking the list twice must be true because every Christmas morning, although Jay's kids' stockings were overflowed, his poor pantyhose hung sadly empty.

One year I decided to make his dream come true. I put on sunglasses and went in search of an inflatable love doll. They don't sell those things at Wal-Mart. I had to go to an adult bookstore downtown. If you've never been in a X-rated store, don't go. You'll only confuse yourself. I was there an hour saying things like, "What does this do?" "You're kidding me!" "Who would buy that?" Finally, I made it to the inflatable doll section. I wanted to buy a standard, uncomplicated doll that could also substitute as a passenger in my truck so I could use the car pool lane during rush hour.

Finding what I wanted was difficult. Love dolls come in many different models. The top of the line, according to the side of the box, could do things I'd only seen in a book on animal husbandry. I settled for "Lovable Louise." She was at the bottom of the price scale. To call Louise a "doll" took a huge leap of imagination.

On Christmas Eve, with the help of an old bicycle pump, Louise came to life. My sister-in-law was in on the plan and let me in during the wee morning hours. Long after Santa had come and gone, I filled the dangling pantyhose with Louise's pliant legs and bottom. I also ate some cookies and drank what remained of a glass of milk on a nearby tray. I went home, and giggled for a couple of hours.

The next morning my brother called to say that Santa had been to his house and left a present that had made him VERY happy but had left the dog confused. She would bark, start to walk away, then come back and bark some more. We all agreed that Louise should remain in her panty hose so the rest of the family could admire her when they came over for the traditional Christmas dinner.

My grandmother noticed Louise the moment she walked in the door. "What the hell is that?" she asked. My brother quickly explained, "It's a doll." "Who would play with something like that?" Granny snapped. I had several candidates in mind, but kept my mouth shut. "Where are her clothes?" Granny continued. "Boy, that turkey sure smells nice, Gran," Jay said, trying to steer her into the dining room. But Granny was relentless. "Why doesn't she have any teeth?" Again, I could have answered, but why would I? It was Christmas and no one wanted to ride in the back of the ambulance saying, "Hang on Granny Hang on!" My grandfather, a delightful old man with poor eyesight, sidled up to me and said, "Hey, who's the naked gal by the fireplace?" I told him she was Jay's friend. A few minutes later I noticed Grandpa by the mantel, talking to Louise. Not just talking, but actually flirting. It was then that we realized this might be Grandpa's last Christmas at home.

The dinner went well. We made the usual small talk about who had died, who was dying, and who should be killed, when suddenly Louise made a noise that sounded a lot like my father in the bathroom in the morning. Then she lurched from the panty hose, flew around the room twice, and fell in a heap in front of the sofa. The cat screamed. I passed cranberry sauce through my nose, and Grandpa ran across the room, fell to his knees, and began administering mouth to mouth resuscitation. My brother fell back over his chair and wet his pants and Granny threw down her napkin, stomped out of the room, and sat in the car.

It was indeed a Christmas to treasure and remember. Later in my brother's garage, we conducted a thorough examination to decide the cause of Louise's collapse. We discovered that Louise had suffered from a hot ember to the back of her right thigh. Fortunately, thanks to a wonder drug called duct tape, we restored her to perfect health. Louise went on to star in several bachelor party movies. I think Grandpa still calls her whenever he can get out of the house.

A Fantastic Christmas Present!

...or not!

With thanks to the BBC - Burger King has released a new men's fragrance that smells like meat.

Look, I honestly think they've got it wrong. It should be the WOMEN who walk around smelling like a piece of meat. After all, they say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach... so maybe burger perfume is the way to go?

~ Elisa

Quick Note

This blog is new and most of the posts are from my other blog, No Added Salt, at http://noaddedsalt.blogspot.com/ . So, you can see that the post frequency is a bit erratic (the posts from the old blog are in green). Hopefully I will be able to post here daily, now that I can concentrate on keeping the weird news seperate from my own life's strange news. Erm, yeah, or something.

~ Elisa

Drunken passengers sue airline for serving booze

A Florida couple aren't just blaming the airline for giving them free wine. No, apparently it's the airline's fault that he then beat up his wife.

What has happened to personal responsibility? Next we'll see overweight passengers sue an airline for providing food.

Drunken passengers sue airline for serving booze

http://www.news.com.au/travel/story/0,23483,24817396-5014090,00.html

~ Elisa

Nothing Else To Say Except "What the?"

I found this in a list of the top ten weird news stories for the year in the UK Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk .

I didn't agree with most of the rest of their list, but this news story was new to me. And really, there are only three comments to make on this.

1. What the???
2. That's Herbie!
3. You. Need. Help.

Man Admits Having Sex With 1,000 Cars

~ Elisa

Cheerleading Nuns

Cheerleading Nuns.

What else is there to say?



~ Elisa

Poetic Justice...

Ok, while I don't wish a car injury on anyone, this guy allegedly kinda deserved it.

Maybe it will prompt his friends to confiscate car keys next time someone gets a bit too merry to drive.

Thanks to the Telegraph (UK): Suspected Drink Driver Ran Himself Over

~ Elisa

Not Very Snuggly Polar Bears...

The other day I wrote about Failblog. And then I saw a news article that just struck me as an Epic Fail. You see, a zoo in Tokyo owned a girl polar bear, and got themselves a male polar bear cub to start a breeding program. Unfortunately, they waited and waited and he grew up to four years old and... there was still no snuggling going on.

(I have to pause here for a moment and laugh at myself, because I suddenly had a thought... "Do you think the zookeepers thought the cub was gay?")

So they investigated and... he was a she.

I mean, come on! Surely the cub had been examined! Hopefully more than once over the years! I mean... ok, I know that sometimes it can be hard to see on a newborn animal, but I get the gender of kittens correct 99% of the time even on day one... and hey I'm no veterinarian and I would have thought a zoo would know what it's doing!

FAIL.

(Thanks to Reuters' Oddly Enough News.)

~ Elisa

Action-Packed Stolen Vehicle Chase!

Nothin' says zoom-zoom like a golf buggy. And nothin' says car chase like two golf buggies. Some heroic boys in Darwin apparently took a liking to a very sophisticated set of wheels, and set about "liberating" the wheels.

And if you're the owner of said wheels, watching the brats making a getaway, what do you do? Why, you jump into a similar set of wheels and give chase.

Of course, just for a little variety, make the journey along, say, a major highway. It's just the place for a golf buggy or two. And let's add a bit of fun, and jam five kids onto the limousine golf buggy. How did that thing even reach walking pace, loaded down like that? And were the police tempted to jump from their cruiser and follow them on foot?

~ Elisa

Creativity Foiled Again

Some of you may remember the sad, but ultimately happy, story of a nine-year-old girl in New Zealand whose parents were, ahem, creative enough to name her Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii. Unfortunately, it was not a joke. Well, the parents obviously were a joke, but I digress. The article I've linked here doesn't quite tell the story how I remember reading about it. Apparently, the parents were in court for an unrelated custody issue (neglect? divorce? who knows?), and when the judge heard the little girl's name, he presumably said something like, "No, I mean, please tell me her name." That was probably followed by, "Please check your hearing aid battery, Martha. I want you to tell me the little girl's name." He was subsequently so incensed at the "uniqueness" of the name that he ordered it changed immediately. The happy ending was that the girl no longer had to hide her real name.

Well... a two-year-old boy from Italy might not be so lucky, despite the top Appeals Court ruling that the child may not be named "Friday" (in Italian, "Venerdi"), as his parents insist that they will continue to use "Friday" when addressing him. I hear you, I hear you, Friday's not nearly as bad as poor Talula-etc, but I suspect he'll grow to hate it just as much. You see, these parents spent two years fighting their way up through the layers of the Italian legal system on this one. It's taken three court rulings for his parents to complete their quest. I suspect he's well-enough known now that when he starts school all the kids are gunna know exactly who he is. I've no idea how to say "hey aren't you that kid with the wacko parents who tried to name you 'Friday'?" in Italian, but I bet it's always followed with giggles and running as Friday tries to thump them one.

Maybe I've just led a sheltered existence, growing up in a family where none of my relations had bizarre names. No Moon Unit, Heavenly Hiraani Tigerlily, Apple, no Scout, Satchel or Suri. On the other hand, my son, while attending a Finnish language class, discovered there was another kid with the same name as he - so he decided to adopt another J name just for that class. Daughter, not to be outdone, decided that SHE had to have a new name too. Long story short, he now never uses the Finnish name, while daughter loved hers so much that she told people it was her name - most people now do not know her real name at all. This causes much confusion if I choose to refer to her as the name I put on her birth certificate thirteen years ago.

I'm just glad that she didn't adopt something like, "Gherkin-Cement". If you knew her, you would understand that it's not at all a far-fetched possibility.

~ Elisa

Two Dorrah, Love You Long Time, Sucky Sucky!

Thanks to the Australian Daily Telegraph... now this is what I call a real sucker.

Actually, I guess the guy is the suckee!

Honestly, people amaze me. I mean, I get the whole "some people are just curious" thing (although, I've never wanted to get intimate with a vacuum hose) but do these people get so aroused that they forget they're in PUBLIC?

I guess they do!

Intimate moments at the car wash

~ Elisa

Attacked with a Sausage

Um, what can anyone say about this one? Imagine being woken by some guy smearing your body with spices, and as you turn to look at your friend you see him being hit in the head with a sausage.

No, really, just imagine it was you.

This is what happened to a couple of farm workers in California. Unfortunately, their dog ate the evidence.

~ Elisa

The Airport Challenge

As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald - an elderly lady thought she was required to lie down on the baggage belt, so she did, and surprisingly took a trip into the innards of the airport's baggage handling area.

Woman goes down baggage chute

Is this what the world has come to - are we now so perplexed about all the new rules on liquids, security and restrictions, that we just accept the most unusual rules and regulations and resign ourselves to something like this? Or did the poor old duck just forget her medication that day?

~ Elisa

I Mean... What Was He Thinking?

I've heard of prolific thieves before, but this is ridiculous. Police have recovered more than 3,000 stolen bikes from a guy in Canada. That's a lotta wheels.

~ Elisa

Fed Up Women Bash Bottom Pincher

With special thanks to The Brisbane Times and of course to the pinchee. Read the story

~ Elisa

While We're On The Subject Of Guitars

Well, we weren't, until I spotted this article from Helsingin Sanomat, a Finnish newspaper whose editors are kind enough to translate selected snippets into English for those of us who are linguistically-challenged. Um, me.

Yes Ladies and Gentlemen it's the 13th Air Guitar World Championships, held in Oulu. The article cheerfully comments that it's perhaps Finland's best-known event. But I'm not so sure. To grab that title it would have to beat the Wife-Carrying Championships in Sonkajärvi, and the Mobile Phone Throwing Championships, both of which demonstrate either the ingenuity of the Finns or the reaction to extreme snow-bound boredom which locks them indoors for an obscene number of months.

But fret not, I'm not about to partake in Finn-bashing. On the contrary, I've tried to learn the language, and a years' diligent study* has led me to the conclusion that I'll need another years' diligent study before I'll have the language skill to visit the supermarket. This has given me a whole new appreciation for the country as a whole. Any place that has a language that hard has to be full of smart people.

~ Elisa



* Diligent, as in, two days per week at a community college. Yes folks, it really is that hard to learn.

...as you do...

There are certain actions and behaviours that are somewhat taboo - and some that have an unwritten, but concrete, rule about how they are to be done. One of them, for example, is kissing in public. I remember reading about a study that polled people on how and how long was appropriate and where the boundary was. Supposedly, kissing in public is ok as long as (1) hands stay on top of clothing and away from the crotch and bust, and (2) kissing is limited to a few seconds or so. Anything longer and it's apparently obscene. Never mind if the kiss doesn't change much... the duration is what determines whether it's appropriate.

Along those lines, there are also "rules" about bedroom relations. They're not supposed to be, ahem, enjoyed by anyone outside the room. (We will disregard the occasions where someone watches by choice.) Enter our hero couple, who apparently had such unbridled lust for each other that they showed no respect for the families in adjoining apartments, who preferred not to appreciate the sound effects.

Just try and place yourselves in the shoes of the hapless parents trying to answer the innocent questions of a curious five-year-old. "Mum, why is the lady next door moaning? And what's that bang, bang, bang, bang noise next to my head when I'm asleep in bed? And why is there a man yelling, 'Ohhhhhhhh YES!!!!' all the time?"

Without further ado I present to you: Court Bans Man From Girlfriend's Home After Noisy Sex.

~ Elisa

Quite Possibly the World's Most Embarrassing Moment

This made me laugh for the poor unfortunate soul. But after I recovered from my mirth, I had to wonder: what on EARTH was this guy thinking? It's just one of those actions that makes you scratch your head. The guy was almost eligible for a Darwin Award. Behold, the man who got his wang stuck while wanking through a park bench. (Talk about your submissive sex partner.)

And here's an unusual method of payment... $8,000 worth of coins to pay for a truck. Quite a departure from the usual flash of the Amex card, don't you think?

~ Elisa

Travel Time

As promised, here's another beauty of a blog that chronicles the disasters perpetrated by some, ahem, "professional" cake decorators. I will admit that among the unfortunate cakes showcased on the internet are some truly spectacular creations, including Michelle's baby cake that looks like an actual human (video), a life-sized cow, several dogs and a bunch of cakes that just defy description. But the good cakes aren't the amusing ones. The amusing ones are the cakes that have gone very, very, wrong, and they are all here for your blog-viewing pleasure at Cake Wrecks.

Speaking of wrecks... this next linkage has nothing to do with it. It's a special story about a "special" Japanese Winnie The Pooh impersonator who erm... got into a special kind of mood. Check it out.

In other news, I'm bashing my head this evening. I own a legitimate, purchased, real-disk version of The Sims 2 Deluxe (DVD), and the serial number which supposedly exists on the instruction manual is AWOL. Not only that, but I had reasoned that since I paid for this, I was entitled to use some underground searches to locate a "borrowed" serial number. To my great disgust, dozens of them that I've tried do not work. Not Deluxe, Nightlife, or vanilla Sims 2. I think it's the gods' revenge on me*, teaching me a lesson for trying to cheat my way in.

Woe.

Paradoxically, this will probably force me to download and install an actual pirated version. How ridiculous. I shall probably install a cracked version and grip tightly to the installation CD, apologising profusely for my transgressions and begging forgiveness from Electronic Arts.

~ Elisa



* I'm not a god-follower in the Christian sense. We all know the true powers are Mother Earth and Father Time.

Germany Introduces New Police Bra

So much for the "bullet-proof bra" - the article is somewhat misleading, because there's actually nothing bullet-proof about the over-shoulder-boulder-holder at all. Still, they managed to grab my interest. You can take than any way you like, I may be female, but my interest in breasts is purely from a "hey, I've got boobs too" perspective.

In other topical news, experts are warning Olympic fans in the United Arab Emirates that watching their favourite event on TV might give them a heart attack. What I found most amusing about this (very serious) advice was that sitting in your living room was no safer than actually competing in an event. Next thing you know, we'll all be advised to watch 30 minutes of sport each day to keep ourselves healthy.

Anyway, cheerio, I've done my healthy 30 minutes of news-reading and blogging... and now I'm off to do 30 minutes of healthy video-game playing. I trust that my fitness levels will increase if I do this daily. I will report back to you if it also helps me lose weight.

~ Elisa

And Preservative-Free

So, welcome. Today seemed like a good day to start blogging. I am a complete beginner at this of course, so I fired up the trusty Google in all its glory and lo and behold landed at Blogger. I have to confess, I'm a big fan of non-commercial software, but there's a catch: my love only extends to something so easy that any idiot can drive it. (I'm the idiot.)

I think the fact you're able to read this blog is ample evidence it's simple to use.

Speaking of simple, someone simple (me again) tried another first today. After spending seemingly eons deathly afraid of the scary acronym RSS, I managed to finangle some news feeds into another one of Google's nifty little doovies - Google Reader. RSS (or, Really Simple Syndication) is a fancy way of saying "Hey, intarweb, bring me the updates on the stuffz I like reading, and shove it all together on one page for me, toot sweet!"

My victory link for today is one of the interesting stories I found in my travels. For your reading pleasure (thankyou, Reuters):

Unwitting Dutch pensioner tends marijuana plants

~ Elisa

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