Unlucky!

A man in Memphis, Tennessee, has lost three homes in a row to water and flames.

His first apartment was burned thanks to a gas leak. At his new apartment, organised by the landlord, a major electrical fault caused a fire which turned the entire building to ashes.

After bursting into tears, Davin Roberson was somehow able to appreciate that he was unharmed, and get on with life, while the Red Cross put him up in a hotel.

But within weeks the building lost its roof in a storm, so he found himself homeless yet again. He is now living with relatives and refusing to let it all get him down.

Time to buy a lottery ticket, Davin, your luck has to change sometime!

Worst Food Product Ever?

From ThisIsWhyYou'reFat (which despite the name, isn't a hate site, but a site filled to overflowing with weird and wonderful food combinations laden with enough kilojoules to give an elephant a heart attack).

Consumerist.com has helpfully pointed out that it also contains 1,170% of your daily allowance of cholesterol. Yum!

Cave Time!

The latest in a long list of financial tragedies...

A couple from Missouri, USA has announced they can no longer afford their sprawling cave mansion and is putting the unique home up for auction on eBay. Come again?

This building is enormous and has to be seen to be believed. It has even hosted rock concerts in the past, including one featuring Ike and Tina Turner. The place is stunning - pity it's neither in my area nor budget!

Read More here or watch the video below.

Club Evicts Underaged Guest

An uninvited guest snuck into Wests Leagues Club, south-west of Sydney, just before midnight recently, and managed to evade staff for more than 24 hours.

Security footage shows a possum sneaking into the reception area and inspecting the fountain, before leading staff on a chase all over the club. It then hid in a wall cavity before emerging a day later.

The Club's General Manager, Tony Mathew, said, "We aren’t sure if it lived within the 15km radius and were concerned it may have been underage. We have a legal obligation to call the police if we are unable to get a patron to move on."



The most amusing part, to me, was when the guy was supposedly trying to usher it out the doors but he is so busy filming it with his mobile phone that the possum just does its own thing!

Tantrums Get Results!

But in the case of a Romanian TV presenter, not always the results you're after.

When nobody called in with answers on her phone-in quiz show, she began to shout at the cameras, and when still nobody called, she smashed a phone on the ground, jumping on it and screaming maniacally.

It got her the attention she deserved - in the form of being fired. In addition, the country's TV watchdog fined the company for broadcasting violence, and the program is now restricted to the after-10pm adults timeslot.

See the video

Huge Insect Bite

A British teenager appeared to have an insect bite on her neck but doctors found the real problem -- a 2-inch sewing needle lodged in her throat.

"I couldn't believe my eyes when they showed me the x-ray," the teenager said. She had collapsed during a sewing class five days earlier, but had not felt the needle enter as she had hurt her back at the time.

Read more at redOrbit

Delicious.

Voters in Venezuela were arrested during their recent referendum - but not for failing to vote.

The referendum was to examine whether presidents should be allowed to continue serving for as long as they keep winning elections. The current president will not be allowed to remain in office beyond 2012 if the referendum is overturned.

Voters, unhappy with the current president, decided to protest - by eating their ballot papers. And according to General Jesus Gonzalez, in charge of voting security, "This is an electoral crime."

Hooley Dooley. Imagine what the crime might be if you made a paper aeroplane out of them?!

Wallet Travels

I always find it kind of cool when someone loses something, and the item overcomes a bunch of obstacles to get back to its owner. Like a camera where someone has to play detective with the images inside, for example.

Recently a wallet has made this kind of journey. I have returned wallets I've found in the past. I've also had one returned to me, and all that was missing was the postage. It makes you feel really good when someone repays your honesty like that.

New Yorker Allison Gubala left hers in a cab one afternoon, and along with cash and credit cards she lost some precious photos, including one of a friend who had recently passed away.

Enter Hero Number One - the cab driver. Rather than pocketing the contents, he found Allison's address, and delivered the wallet.

Unfortunately, Allison had moved. Enter Hero Number Two, the new resident of that building, Irene Cheng. She and the cabbie had hoped the building supervisor might have a forwarding address.

He didn't. But, undeterred, Irene went searching, and found Allison on Facebook.

Enter Happy Ending! :)

Labour of "Love"

Cambridge psychiatrist Dr Karen Norberg has knitted an anatomically correct replica of the human brain, a feat that took her an entire year.

No, really.

I'm... She... I'm... I've got nothin'.

TanTastic!

Over 30,000 people have signed up to a web site offering to let them pick up a tan from their computer monitor without realising that it was a marketing ploy to publicise a skin cancer charity.

On offer was a "free trial" of a program claiming to give the user a tan simply by using a screensaver with technical-looking bars that resembled a sun bed.

See the site - www.ComputerTan.com
Story - vnunet.com

Naughty, Naughty

A firefighter in New York City has been fined after parking in front of a fire hydrant.

No, that's not the weird news. The weird news is that he did it on purpose.

And left a note asking not to be fined.

AND used the fact he's a firefighter as the reason they shouldn't fine him.

"I'm really a fireman," the guy wrote. "I work in Engine 46."

...although generally I post crazy news stories to help us all have a laugh at the bizarre things in life, this one has me furious with anger. This guy needs to be permanently fired as a firey. You may quote me on this one. It's blatant disregard for someone's life. It's not understanding, as a FIREFIGHTER, that he knowingly put someone's life at risk for his own personal parking convenience. And it's using his occupation to freakily excuse it?

Huh. Sorry for the rant. It's just that this week we've had more than 135 Australians die in fires, and the death toll is still rising, and the fires are still burning out of control. People are desperately fleeing a 100km-wide wall of flames (60 miles wide) and they're dying in their cars as the fire is too fast for them to outrun. Doctors have described the horrific burns as worse than bomb blasts. Kids are in burns units, some people have lost their parents, some have lost their children. This is our worst peacetime disaster in history. It's a little hard to feel any sympathy for such a mindblowingly-idiotic and selfish piece of behaviour as intentionally obstructing a hydrant.

The Australian Red Cross - www.redcross.org.au is accepting donations online from anyone in Australia via cheque or credit card. The Australian Red Cross are not using a single cent for administration costs and the entire amount will go to people in need. You can also read information there on who are coordinating things like billeting / homestay and accommodation offers for the 6000+ survivors who are now homeless.

People in the USA can donate via the American Red Cross online, by selecting "International Response Fund" or by mail, to, American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20013 (include a note "Australian Bushfires" with your check) or in person to your local American Red Cross chapter. Donations can also be made by phone at 1-800-REDCROSS. The Red Cross honours your preference if you nominate which disaster relief program you would like the money spent on.

~ Elisa

cross-posted to No Added Salt

Time To Quit?

There's a great saying that goes like this: "If at first you don't succeed... destroy all evidence that you tried."

I love that. Apparently though, it seems like a 68-year-old South Korean woman has neglected to do so. She has now failed her written driving test SEVEN HUNDRED AND SEVENTY ONE TIMES.

I wrote that out in words, instead of 771, because it seems like way more. But really, I needn't have bothered. 771 times is still a huge number and it's still a freaky story.

Ever thought that some people just aren't meant to be on the roads? Yeah. Remind me never to drive in South Korea if lightning strikes and that woman ever succeeds.

The pass mark is 60%, and she averages 30-50% on each attempt. Holy cow. I'd have thought anyone who can't get close on three tries alone should stay off the road. And I'll bet most people score well over 80 on their first attempt!

~ Elisa

Be Careful Of Milk!

Maybe I shouldn't make jokes involving allergies. I have an allergy to a particular drug, so I do know what it's like to experience a life-threatening reaction.

Aw, stuff it. I'm going to do it anyway. But who we should be laughing at is the powers-that-be, when laws become as stupid as this one. So check out this stupid news.

Because of food laws in the United Kingdom, all manufacturers must declare the presence of known common food allergens in their product. You might have seen this before - in Australia, for example, packaging of most snack foods will state something like, "This product is manufactured in a facility that also manufactures peanut products. As a result, trace amounts of {nuts/egg/milk/seafood} may be present in this product." When an allergen is an actual ingredient, it's in bold. CONTAINS NUTS, SHELLFISH.

They do this for a very good reason. Someone with a severe peanut allergy can experience a life-and-death situation by eating even a crumb of a peanut, and if you're eating chicken-flavoured chips you're unlikely to suspect it contains peanuts.

However, I think it's a bit redundant, when the product's actual name contains the food in question. "Cadbury Dairy Milk" chocolate bars now have a warning on the back of the packaging, "Contains Milk."

In metric, Cadbury's TV, Media and Radio advertising campaign states: "A glass and a half of Full Cream Dairy Milk, in every 200 gram block." We aren't talking obscure food here; a bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk is sold around the world every 2 seconds. Anyone in the world who can identify Cadbury as the maker of Dairy Milk is likely to also recognise the Glass And A Half slogan, which dates back to 1928.

This is the actual packaging for Cadbury chocolate, which is the biggest selling chocolate in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.


Notice anything? Notice any, say, known allergen, mentioned on the package? Or how about splashed all over the package? Or pouring from a glass, in one of the best known marketing campaigns in chocolate history?

Got Milk?

Got Stupid?

~ Elisa (not stupid)

Your Tax Euros At Work

So recently, two crazed guys with a machete threatened workers at a German liquor shop, nabbing several thousand euros in booty before high-tailing it out of there.

Plain-clothed police officers arrived at the scene within minutes.

However, in circumstances that can only be described as comical, uniformed cops arrived soon after, got confused, and arrested the plain-clothed officers. Their protests were ignored and they were silenced.

It took them a while to realise the mistake. In fact, they only did realise when one of the cops recognised his colleague in the plain clothes.

Now that's what I call confidence in law enforcement. Perhaps Germany should include some extra police training in their economic stimulus package?

~ Elisa

Ultimate Stealth

Florida police are searching for an overweight man who has been attempting to steal from ATMs in the Palm Beach area - dressed as a ninja.

Surveillance cameras have caught him on more than one occasion, but he has so far not been successful.

Now I don't know about you, but I always thought the whole idea of ninjas is that they're elusive. I can't see a really large man succeeding, personally. But hey, if he gets arrested, it's one freaky story to be telling the grandkids.

~ Elisa