HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - An elderly Vietnamese man who was found
alive four months ago after spending seven hours inside a drawer at
a morgue has really died this time, state-controlled media reported
Saturday.
Nguyen Van Quan, 73, died Wednesday following a long illness at
Nguyen Tri Phuong hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, more than four
months after his daughter and son-in-law discovered him alive there
when they came to take him home for his funeral, the online
newspaper VnExpress.net said.
Quan was admitted to the hospital in August after complaining of
a tight chest. He then experienced heart failure, his blood
pressure dropped to zero and no pulse was detected. He was sent to
the hospital morgue after doctors tried for 30 minutes to
resuscitate him.
Quan was discovered alive seven hours later and was sent back to
the intensive care unit where he stayed until he finally passed
away, the report said.
He suffered from asthma and had been admitted numerous times to
the hospital with breathing difficulties, a doctor at the hospital
has said.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Hey Edith...call the groinocologist
 

ROME, Dec 26 (Reuters) - A man in Sicily asked a friend to
shoot him in the groin in the hope of making his ex-girlfriend
feel sorry for him, police said on Friday.
Police in the central Sicilian city of Piazza Armerina said
they became suspicious when the 27-year-old went to hospital
with wounds from a hunting rifle's pellets in the groin area.
At first he said the wounds had been caused in a hunting
accident, but later admitted he had asked a friend, 16, to shoot
him in an attempt to win back the affection of his girlfriend,
who had apparently left him because of his violent character.
The man's wounds are expected to heal, doctors said.
Police said the man, and the 16-year-old, had been charged
in connection with the shooting. Local reports said the man's
ex-girlfriend had made clear she never wanted to see him again.

Reut09:07 12-26-03

HOLY SMOKE..........?????
 

This is something you would not expect to find during a routine inspection.....

A church topped with pot and a sleeping judge among 2003 wackiness

JEN HORSEY Canadian Press Thursday, December 25, 2003

TORONTO (CP) - Churches are usually adorned with crosses, but parishioners of a southwestern Ontario congregation were shocked this year to find marijuana plants stretching for the heavens atop their house of worship.

Two members of the Gospel Hall congregation in St. Thomas, Ont., were on the roof for some routine maintenance when they found more than two dozen pot plants being cultivated there.

"It's a little bit of a surprise to find it on the rooftop of a church," said Staff Sgt. Chris Herridge of the town's police force.

Investigators weren't optimistic they would be able to collar the holy growers.

This was just one of several incidents of wacky wrongdoing encountered by Canadian authorities in 2003. This was, after all, the year when even the prime minister publicly contemplated breaking the law to puff on a joint.

Jean Chretien joked in October that he might be willing to try marijuana once it's decriminalized.

"Perhaps I will try it when it will no longer be criminal. I will have my money for my fine and a joint in the other hand," the 69-year-old Chretien said.

In legal circles in 2003, a recent Ontario case proved that man who is his own lawyer does indeed have a fool for a client.

After representing himself in court on drug convictions - and losing - Clayton Gordon hired a lawyer to take his case to Ontario's appeals court, claiming his convictions for selling cocaine should be overturned because he had bad counsel.

But the judge, no fool himself, ruled the convictions should stand. Gordon was ordered to serve seven months in jail.

Perhaps Gordon had been hoping he could bore the judge into releasing him, like the man convicted of mischief and criminal harassment in 2001 who got a new trial this year after the courts found his judge fell asleep during cross-examination.

The accused's trial lawyer, Kim Schofield, said she and other court officials in Toronto opted to drop a 2,136-page copy of the Criminal Code on the judge's desk to get his attention.

"I dropped the Code and His Honour was visibly stirred from his slumber," Schofield said in her affidavit.

Some lawbreakers may have wished they'd followed the judge's example and stayed in bed this year. Instead, some of them did what they could to make it easy for the cops to track them down.

An Edmonton thief was looking to unload a stolen SUV and picked the wrong buyer earlier this year when he offered it back to its original owner for $50. He was arrested before he sealed the deal.

"It certainly made our job easier. I wish they would all end that way," Wes Bellmore, an Edmonton police spokesman, said at the time.

Another Alberta crook put a stop to his own nine-day robbery spree when he gave police all the clues they needed to find him.

He dropped his wallet - containing identification - during a gas station heist, giving the investigators who'd been baffled to that point the lead they needed to make the arrest. Albert Bradridge, 38, was sentenced earlier this year to eight years in prison.

Two teenagers ran out of excuses this summer after they allegedly stole a boat and took a joyride down the LaHave River in New Brunswick.

The teens, aged 16 and 17, took the boat, got drunk on some liquor they found on board, beached themselves on an island and then torched the watercraft - stranding themselves with no way to get home. The boys, who weren't named because of their ages, were eventually flown ashore in an RCMP helicopter.

A wannabe cop got more than he bargained for when he pulled over a passing car on a country road in Ontario this June. He had equipped his car with flashing red lights and used it to pull over the vehicle.

The off-duty Ontario Provincial Police officer behind the wheel of the passing car spied several giveaway details - among them, the fact that the so-called cop was driving a white Plymouth Neon under the flashing lights instead of an actual police vehicle - and instead, arrested his would-be captor.

The 40-year-old alleged impersonator faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

Young adults often complain about living at home, but few go as far as a 21-year-old Kitchener, Ont., man who opted for prison over family life this July.

Under a term of bail, Michael McAllister was to live with his mother or his sister. But he was returned to jail while awaiting trial on his methadone trafficking charge at his request; his lawyer, John Lang, argued McAllister couldn't take the "house rules."

An elderly northern Ontario driver clearly had some problems with the road rules this year when she dramatically failed her drivers test.

On her fifth try at the test, with the examiner sitting in the passenger seat, the 81-year-old backed her car 25 metres too far out of a parking spot and plunged backwards over a steep embankment into a nearby river.

Both she and the drivers' examiner were unharmed but it took a tow truck about 15 minutes to recover the sodden car.

© Copyright 2003 The Canadian Press

PILOT MOUNTAIN, North Carolina (AP) - As soon as a group of
fellow bikers pulled the handlebars out of his abdomen after his
motorcycle crash, Brian Shipwash wanted to do one more thing in
case he died.
So he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box, broken
and blood-spattered, with a ring inside and asked Shandra Miller to
marry him.
She said yes.
"I said, 'Shandra, the reason we were going to Pilot Mountain
today was so I could propose,"' Shipwash said Monday while
recovering in his room at a hospital in Winston-Salem, North
Carolina.
"I said something like, 'I know this is not the best time in
the world, but will you marry me?"'
Shipwash, 32, was riding his Harley-Davidson up Pilot Mountain
on Sunday afternoon with Miller hugging his back.
As they came to a curve, Shipwash lost control, crossed the
center lane and slammed into the side of a pickup. The collision
sent the couple flying. The handlebars on Shipwash's motorcycle
stuck 6 inches (15 centimeters) into his abdomen.
"I was crying at the time because of the wreck," Miller said.
"But when I saw it (the ring), I just started crying even more."
Among those who stopped to help were about 10 bikers on
Harley-Davidsons who pulled the motorcycle off Shipwash.
Shipwash suffered no injuries to any major organs, breaking his
left hand and right leg. He was in good condition Tuesday.
Miller, 29, said she suffered only a sore knee.
Neither the pickup driver nor his four passengers were injured.
No tickets were issued.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

SHE'S AT IT AGAIN - BUT WHERE WAS DA REV?
 

Ms Thomas was reported in the hot dog eating contest a few months ago and now she still "eating".

Fruitcake-eating champ crowned in Buffalo: 105-lb woman eats 2 kg in 10 minutes

Canadian Press Tuesday, December 30, 2003

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - A 105-pound professional eater was crowned Fruitcake Champion Tuesday after downing more than two kilograms in 10 minutes and beating her nearest competitor by a single bite.

With paramedics on standby, Sonya Thomas swallowed 2.2 kilograms of the ubiquitous holiday fare. "My jaw is very tired right now," she said after outeating 405-pound Eric (Badlands) Booker of Long Island by about 3.5 grams.

The contest, believed to be a first, was sanctioned by the International Federation of Competitive Eating and kicked off Buffalo's New Year's festivities.

Despite her size, Thomas, 36, is no lightweight on the professional eating circuit. She's eaten 43 tacos in 11 minutes to claim victory in the World Champion Chicken Taco Eating Contest. She also holds the female world record for eating 24 hot dogs in 12 minutes and for eating 68 hard-boiled eggs in eight minutes.

Booker of Long Island, who holds title to pea-eating and corned beef hash-eating contests, said there were no hard feelings after his close second.

"There is no agony of defeat in this sport," he said, nevertheless blaming his loss on a miscalculation on the amount of hot coffee he'd need to wash down the cake. Booker swigged from plastic foam cups between frenetic bites shoved into his mouth with alternate hands.

Thomas' approach was more methodical: She chomped down on and shoved in larger slices with both hands, taking little time to chew.

"This is much tougher than it looks," said contestant Gary Pufpaff, a bulky Buffalo radio host in his first eating contest. He managed to consume only about 400 grams - washed down with eggnog - to finish last in the five-person field.

Jim Reeves of Buffalo and Matthew Daniels of Syracuse, finished third and fourth, eating one kilogram and 700 grams, respectively.

The contest capped a "fruitcake amnesty campaign," during which people were encouraged to send their unwanted fruitcakes to Buffalo to be eaten and distributed to the hungry. The campaign highlighted a holiday food drive for the Food Bank of Western New York.

© Copyright 2003 The Canadian Press

SANTA FE, N.M., Dec 31 (Reuters) - A New Mexico couple
returned home from a week-long vacation to find the legs of a
dead man dangling from their ceiling, police said on
Wednesday.
The man was identified as Carl Smith, 81, and he was the
former husband of the woman who lived in the home, said Trish
Ahrensfield, a spokeswoman for the Albuquerque police.
"He was stuck in an air conditioner duct," Ahrensfield
said, adding a cause of death has not yet been determined.
Police said it appears the man was trying to break into the
home from the roof and died while attempting to get in through
the air conditioner duct.
The couple, who were not identified, said their home was
cold when they returned on Tuesday and they went to the
bathroom to see if the heater had been shut off. When they
looked up, they saw the legs hanging from the ceiling.

Reut17:02 12-31-03

LONDON (AP) - A flight in the United States proved lucky for a
British woman who suffered a heart attack.
Fifteen heart specialists, all bound for a medical conference in
Florida, stood up to offer help when a cabin attendant asked, "Is
there a doctor on board?"
Dorothy Fletcher, 67, who had been on her way from Britain to
her daughter's wedding, said Wednesday that she owed her life to
the doctors.
"I was in a very bad way and they all rushed to help," said
Fletcher, who was stricken on a flight from Philadelphia to
Florida.
"I wish I could thank them but I have no idea who they were,
other than that they were going to a conference in Orlando."
Fletcher, who lives in Liverpool, northwestern England, spent
two days in intensive care in a hospital in Charlotte, North
Carolina following the heart attack on Nov. 7.
She spent three more days in the hospital, but still made it to
Florida for her daughter Caroline's wedding.
(jg-rb)

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

I was called for jury duty on an arsonist once. It seems him and his buddy decide to break into this house in a small town of about 500 people. Being criminal masterminds, they decide they will burn it afterwards to cover all clues. They buy a jerry can of gas at the only gas station in town, proceed to break in and steal a few things. The one rocket scientist goes upstairs to check for more goodies, while his buddy pours gas all over downstairs. Genius 1 comes down stairs with a fur coat and a camera, stops just before bottom and lights a bloody cigarette. Police and fire fighters found them both outside the house fairly badly burned. When the charged guy gave this statement in court, it was bedlam, even the Judge started laughing. Like someone posted
STUPID SHOULD HURT ! This guy seemed wquite insulted that we laughed at his stupidity.

Ray...did we miss any?
 

Weird and wacky reign supreme in 2003
By Paul Majendie
LONDON, Jan 1 (Reuters) - From the Polish undertaker caught
smuggling cigarettes in a hearse to a pair of one-legged
Brazilian prisoners skipping jail, the weird and wacky reigned
supreme around the world in 2003.
Oddball tales abounded with Canadian prisoners being offered
fruit-flavoured condoms, Cambodians being urged to eat more dogs
and China axing haemorrhoid TV ads during meal times.
Tales of love gone sour were plentiful. A Filipino housewife
wreaked revenge on her hapless spouse by cutting off his penis
while he slept, after she discovered text messages from another
woman on his mobile phone.
Not to be outdone, an Italian pensioner beat her husband to
death with a scrubbing brush because the couple had never had
children.
Vasectomies caused some truly weird headlines.
In London, a vasectomy brought train services grinding to a
halt. A trainee driver fell out of his cab after fainting over
fellow workers' graphic descriptions of the operation.
A Brazilian man who went to a clinic to have an aching ear
checked ended up having a vasectomy after mistakenly believing
that the doctor had called his name.
In Tanzania, a man cut off his genitals in an attempt to win
sympathy from friends and relatives after squandering the money
they lent him on prostitutes and alcohol.
POSSUMS ON A POWER TRIP
The animal kingdom invariably raises a smile and 2003 was no
exception.
Possums on a power trip in New Zealand sparked a blaze when
they climbed a pole and short-circuited the electricity line.
Queen bees now have to slum it under new European Union
rules which only allow a retinue of 20 bees to accompany the
queen on her voyage.
A French hunter was shot by his dog after he left a loaded
shotgun in the boot of his car with two dogs, and one
accidentally stepped on the trigger.
Cambodian canines had to run for cover after people in Phnom
Penh were urged to eat more dogs as part of a crackdown on stray
mutts wandering around the capital.
A German man who taught his dog Adolf to give a Hitler
salute by raising his right paw was charged with violating
Germany's anti-Nazi laws.
German humour was once thought to be as scarce as tasty
British food, charming French waiters and punctual Italian
trains, but a new generation of Germans have developed a taste
for the offbeat.
A priest in Duisburg used an old washing machine to brew
beer, a stumbling bank robber in Giessen forgot to cut open eye
slits in his mask and 937 Germans set a mass yodelling record.
But no corner of the earth was off-limits for the bizarre.
Fijians apologised to descendants of a British missionary
killed and eaten by their ancestors more than 130 years ago.
Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre sacked an ice-cream-loving prima
ballerina, saying she was too heavy and too tall for most of her
dance partners to lift.
Six British schoolboys were rushed to hospital after taking
the erection-enhancing drug Viagra at lunchtime for a dare.
But at least they were spared the constant embarrassment of
a British couple who were forced to move house because of the
shame caused by the name of their street -- Butt Hole Road.

Reut09:03 01-01-04

Oh my Gawd......
 

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Nine villagers have been arrested
for killing and eating a dog after it went on a biting rampage in
eastern Cambodia, a newspaper reported Friday.
Police arrested the men, in their late 20s and 30s, on Tuesday
following a complaint from the dog's owner, 46-year-old Sao Saman,
according to the Koh Santepheap daily.
He has accused the villagers of killing and eating his dog, it
said.
The villagers stalked and killed the dog after the animal bit
two people and a pig in their village in Svay Rieng province, 110
kilometers (68 miles) east of Phnom Penh, the newspaper said.
About 100 villagers staged a protest in front of a provincial
administration office Wednesday, seeking help in securing the
release of the nine arrested men.
Provincial court officials could not be immediately reached for
comment.

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - A Malaysian man earned almost
3,000 ringgit (US$790) and the title of best rat catcher by killing
1,175 of the rodents in three months with a slingshot.
The council in the northern city of Kota Bahru offered residents
1 ringgit (US$0.26) for each rat they killed as part of an campaign
to eradicate the vermin.
At the end of the three-month campaign, 43-year-old laborer
Ismail Hamzah had presented the council with 1,175 rat carcasses -
the vast majority of the 1,922 total handed in, the New Straits
Times newspaper reported Friday.
Ismail was paid the bounty for each rat and a first prize bonus
of 1,500 ringgit (US$395), the paper reported.
Ismail said he hunted rats and shot them with pebbles from a
slingshot made from a block of wood and rubber from a wheel tube
from his son's bicycle.

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

January 2, 2004 --The timing was a bit off, but the sentiment was real. Brian Shipwash was speared by his handlebars when his motorcycle crashed in Pilot Mountain, N.C. As he lay in the dirt with blood gushing from his gut, he stunned his biker girlfriend by popping the question. "I said something like, 'I know this is not the best time in the world, but will you marry me?' " Shipwash said. She said yes before Shipwash, 32, was rushed to the hospital to be sewed back up:cool:

There was a guy in our high school who had called the school to let a teacher who had been tormenting him that he couldn't take it anymore and had taken a bottle of pills. Of course the EMT's got there and rushed him to the hospital where he was unco-operative with the doctors who ended up pumping his stomache and administered charcoal. The stomache contents were analyzed immediately to see just what he had taken so the appropriate action couled be taken. It turns out he had swallowed 60 of his grand mothers multi vitamins thinking that they were her heart medication.

SANTA FE, N.M., Jan 2 (Reuters) - A New Mexico funeral home
owner received the surprise of his career when a man pronounced
dead at a hospital came back to life just before he was to be
embalmed.
Russell Muffley, the owner of Muffley Funeral Home in
Clovis, New Mexico, said he noticed Felipe Padilla breathing
when the man pronounced dead at a hospital was being
transferred to his facility on Wednesday. Padilla, 94, was
rushed back to the same hospital, but did not recover. He was
declared dead for a second time.
"When we were getting ready to move him from the stretcher
to the embalming table, we noticed signs of life," Muffley
said.
Padilla was breathing on his own but not speaking when
paramedics took him from the funeral home back to Plains
Regional Medical Center. He died a few hours later and was
taken back to the funeral home, where arrangements had already
been made.
Padilla will be buried next week.
"I have been doing this for 39 years and this has never
happened before," Muffley said.

Reut14:11 01-02-04

January 6, 2004 --Helium balloons set off at an Oregon football game finally came down 22 hours later - and 900 miles away, in Nebraska. Dean Wittstruck found the balloons, marked, "Go Ducks!" and "Go Team!" in a field by his home in Martell. The balloons were apparently carried by a jet stream six miles above the ground. :cool:

Now THAT would have anyone looking at the farm pond and wondering "What are those birds up to?"

MIAMI, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Three Florida fugitives scrambled
into an attic to elude police but surrendered when they found a
human skeleton in their hideaway, police said on Tuesday.
The two men and a woman were wanted on probation violation
charges and climbed into the attic to hide when police tracked
them to an apartment building in Daytona Beach on Monday,
police Sgt. Al Tolley said.
Police searched the apartment and noticed a hatch leading
to an attic above a second-story bedroom, and opened it. One of
the suspects called out, "Get me out of here. There's a dead
body up here," Tolley said.
The three were arrested and investigators were still trying
to identify the skeletal remains. The apartment's tenant told
police she had lived there about three months and had noted a
foul odor but could not locate the source.

Wild boar breaks into Berlin apartment
BERLIN - A wild boar searching for food broke into a Berlin
apartment and bit a man in the leg before fleeing back into the
woods, police said.
"The wild boar broke into the living room through a terrace
door and hid under a table," a police spokesman said. "When the
54-year-old resident tried to shoo the boar back out the door,
it went wild."
The man was treated in the hospital for his leg wound and
released on the same day. Police said the animal has not been
captured.
Environmentalists say several thousand wild boars, which
can weigh up to 330 pounds, live in the German capital and push
farther into the city when their food supplies run low.

Moroccan soldier keeps bride waiting for 24 years
RABAT, Morocco - After 24 years of engagement, a Moroccan
soldier named Abderrahim has married his bride. But he had an
excuse -- he was in jail deep in the Sahara desert.
"I was convinced she'd wait for me, I had blind confidence
in her since the first day we met," Abderrahim told 2M state
television, which did not disclose his last name.
Separatist guerrillas captured Abderrahim in 1979 during a
war for control of the Western Sahara territory and freed him
along with 300 of 900 remaining prisoners in November.
Abderrahim rushed home to wed his intended, Bahia, who knew
he had been captured but had had no news of him for six years.
"I never thought I had lost my husband," she said. "I knew
he'd come back one day. I never showed pain but hid it deep in
my heart."

$285,200 frog tunnel
BERLIN - Germany's cash-strapped government is paying
$285,200 to build a tunnel to help frogs avoid the perils of a
busy road, officials said.
Ruediger Zech, a local council spokesman in the Berlin
district of Reinickendorf, said the project would allow native
varieties of toads, frogs and other amphibians to reach a
nearby lake safely when they spawn in the spring.
Previously the creatures had been carried across the road
in buckets by volunteers from environmental groups.
The foreign ministry, headed by Green Party member Joschka
Fischer, is funding construction of the tunnel near a training
center for diplomats on the outskirts of Berlin.
A foreign ministry spokeswoman said the tunnel was part of
a package of environmental measures agreed when the ministry
took over the Villa Borsig, a country house located in a nature
preserve north of Berlin.