Weird But True

[E40FDNYL35]

June 3, 2005 -- In a Brooklyn scene straight out of Hollywood, a group of New York's Bravest hopped into their fire engine yesterday and sped after a bike-riding purse-snatcher for several blocks before collaring him, police said.
The drama unfolded just before noon when a teen took the purse from a woman in her 20s on 46th Street and Sixth Avenue in Sunset Park, sources said. Five firefighters from Engine 201 noticed three youths on bikes quickly splitting up. "I think they were shocked to turn around and see a firetruck on their tail," said firefighter Tom Innello. "They didn't know what to do." The firemen tailed Johnathan Gonzalez, 16, who had the bag, the sources said. He allegedly scooted across several streets, trying to lose the firefighters, but they made the collar two blocks away. Gonzalez was charged with robbery, grand larceny and possession of stolen property.

[RspctFrmCalgary]

right on! I'm sure some on here will vilify the Bravest and say they shouldn't have been doing "cop work", and someone for sure will bring up the "safe driving" issue, and someone will undoubtedly bitch about them being "unavailable for a call", but I say pllllllfffffffff to all that. And to the the FF from E201, good on 'ya for being concerned citizens! What were they supposed to do, sit there with their fingers up their butts watching this crime take place? What if it was an assault instead of a purse-snatching?

Now how bad is that, I've answered everyone's arguements before they've even had a chance to type them. LMFAO!

I thought for sure you would post the one about the chance to swim in a pool of beer in Austria

[E40FDNYL35]

June 4, 2005 -- A man siphoning gas from a dump truck at night in upstate Thurman really blew it. He stupidly flicked on his lighter to see how full his gas can was — and sparked a fire. He suffered minor burns and the humiliation of being arrested.

[E40FDNYL35]

June 5, 2005 -- Firefighters rushing to a call in Waterloo, Iowa, left behind a kitchen blaze in their firehouse. The crew was cooking chicken Wednesday when they were called to help paramedics on an ambulance run. A neighbor saw smoke coming from the firehouse and called a dispatcher. The forgetful firefighters got back just in time. They turned off the stove, turned on a ventilation fan and rescued what they could of their dinner, the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reported. OH we did this a couple of times too..

[E40FDNYL35]

June 6, 2005 -- From the Pressing Your Luck Department, a man who was ordered to court in Durham, N.C., for not complying with his drunken-driving sentence stumbled up to the judge — while stinking of alcohol, authorities said. Astonished court officials performed a blood-alcohol test on Johnnie Patt Ndogo, 55, who allegedly registered a concentration of 0.23 percent, nearly three times the state's legal limit.

[RspctFrmCalgary]

Taiwanese restaurant attracts diners with bizarre toilet bowl theme
03/06/2005 7:45:00 AM

KAOHSIUNG, Taiwan (AP) - Taiwanese restaurateur Eric Wang has given new meaning to the traditional revellers' cry of bottoms up.


WALLY SANTANA
His Marton eatery in the southern city of Kaohsiung delivers its food not on conventional plates and dishes, but in miniaturized Western and Asian style toilets, both the flush and non-flush variety.

For anyone missing the point, diners are encouraged to stir up mushy, earth-coloured offerings like curry chicken rice and chocolate ice cream to conjure up - well, the real thing.

Located in a downtown area with a variety of competing eateries, Marton - the name means toilet in Chinese - attracts its customers through its some dazzling bathroom decor.

Walking in through an arched door, diners are greeted with a giant toilet bowl sitting between two urinals. White ceramic toilet sets comfortably accommodate their bottoms, and urinals grace the walls.

Giggling helplessly, high school student Chen Yi-lin gulps down a chocolate ice-cream sundae served in a miniature Asian-style squat toilet, and admits that she is smitten.

"This is fun," she says.

Wang, 26, opened the Marton last year after a roadside prototype - a stand offering toilet-shaped ice cream cones - achieved runaway success.

Now, he says, he has moved decisively upmarket.

"Diners come and walk away with the special experience," he said. "Many try to create more fun, stirring up curry and rice so it looks exactly like when you forget to flush the toilet. Then they gulp it down."

For all its scatological excess, the Marton is following in the noblest tradition of Taiwanese novelty restaurants.

Other successful ventures have purposely confined scores of contented diners to coffins or jail cells, or exposed them to full-scale pictures of Chinese dictator Mao Zedong, Taiwan's political nemesis until his death in 1976.

[E40FDNYL35]

^Sheri that's down right DISGUSTING.

June 7, 2005 -- Urine big trouble now, kid. An Indian temple fined the parents of a baby who urinated on his mother while she was praying. But the government told the Thrissur Temple in Kerala to refund the $45 penalty, saying the baby couldn't be expected to control his bladder. Priests were so freaked out by the baby pee, they held a special ceremony to cleanse the temple.

[StayBack500FT]

"Priests were so freaked out"


You can tell they don't have kids.

[E40FDNYL35]

June 8, 2005 -- A college student is being very upfront about her need to earn tuition money — she's put her breasts up for sale on eBay as ad space. Cat Camp, 25, a Virginia native now living in London, says she'll paint her chest with a message of the highest bidder's choice and parade the message for a day at an upcoming music festival.

[E40FDNYL35]

June 9, 2005 – Matt Cooper, a fire fighter with Rock Hill, SC Local 2106, will be terminated from his job following his June 18 wedding because of an “anti-family” reading of a city policy that makes it illegal for Cooper to marry the daughter of a department captain.
How archaic is that rule


Let's try to help out a BROTHER.
Call the mayor or City Council of Rock Hill
Mayor Doug Echols can be reached at (803) 329-7011
Council members
Winston Searles(803) 327-7533
Kathy Pender (803) 980-5512
Kevin Sutton (803) 328-1428
John Gettys Jr. (803) 980-2256
Osbey Roddey (803) 328-6756
Jim Reno (803) 366-4318

see full story

[NJFFSA16]

Originally posted by E40FDNYL35
June 9, 2005 – Matt Cooper, a fire fighter with Rock Hill, SC Local 2106, will be terminated from his job following his June 18 wedding because of an “anti-family” reading of a city policy that makes it illegal for Cooper to marry the daughter of a department captain.
How archaic is that rule

I'm posting the article in another thread.....ridiculous!

[E40FDNYL35]

June 10, 2005 -- Led Zeppelin legend Robert Plant says he gets in the mood to rock — by ironing. "I've never really been one for diva demands. I find ironing helps get me in the mood before I perform. I always have an ironing board in my room," said Plant, 56.

[E40FDNYL35]

June 11, 2005 -- This could have been a reel disaster.
A man fishing at a lake in Lawrence, Kan., hooked a 20-pound pipe bomb. The gunpowder- packed pipe was 16 inches long and 2 inches in diameter and had three slender propane tanks attached with duct tape. And despite having been in the water, it was still "extremely dangerous" because it was designed to keep the gunpowder from getting wet, said the local bomb squad commander, who couldn't figure out how or why the deadly device ended up in the lake.

[E40FDNYL35]

June 12, 2005 -- Fire investigators in Kobe, Japan, have determined the cause of a blaze that tore through a home in January: Cat urine. The homeowner's two kittens relieved themselves on a fax machine — soaking the electric printing mechanism, causing a short circuit, and sparking a fire that damaged the kitchen and living room.

[E40FDNYL35]

June 13, 2005 -- Two eighth-graders, who spent seven months on a science project to prove how dangerous BB guns can be, were disqualified from the Massachusetts middle-school science fair. The reason: BB guns are too dangerous. Nathan Woodard and Nathaniel Crenshaw of Amherst even spent $200 on ballistics gelatin, which has the same density as human flesh, to make their point. But officials kicked them out, saying hazardous substances and devices are prohibited in the contest.

[E40FDNYL35]

June 14, 2005 -- A 100-pound grouper fish attacked a Florida diver, ripping off his mask, pulling the scuba regulator out of his mouth and trying to tear off his upper lip. "I guess I was in his territory and he just wanted me out," said Bob Charles, 64, of Cudjoe Key, whose face had to be stitched up. "I got off easy. He could've easily taken my lip off and peeled my face back. "If he was a 200- or 300-pounder, he could've easily killed me."

[E40FDNYL35]

June 15, 2005 -- A German lottery winner turned to a life of crime after he blew all his winnings because he decided it was too embarrassing to apply for welfare. Prosecutors said after the 49-year-old loser frittered away a jackpot of $921,000, he began robbing houses for sums as small as a dollar. "He's confessed to about 60 offenses. He would break in to see how much money they had. "I guess you could say it was a kind of lottery, too," a court spokesman said.

[NJFFSA16]

Indian forced to 'marry' her father-in-law rapist
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - An Indian rape victim is being forced
by village elders to "marry" her rapist -- her father-in-law, a
newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Community leaders in Charthawal village, backed by local
Muslim clerics, believe that by being raped, 28-year-old
Imrana's 10-year marriage has been nullified under Islamic law,
The Asian Age newspaper said.
Holding a special council on Sunday, village leaders
ordered the mother of five to leave her husband, Noor Mohammed,
and live with her parental family for seven months and 10 days
and make herself "pure" again, The Age said. It did not say how
she becomes pure.
After that, she must "marry" her father-in-law and live
with him, along with his legal wife.
"She... will then be like a mother to Noor Mohammed," the
paper quoted local cleric Shamim Ahmad saying.

[NJFFSA16]

German makes WW2 anti-aircraft tower a luxury flat
BERLIN, June 15 (Reuters) - An anti-aircraft tower ordered
by Adolf Hitler to guard Berlin during World War Two is being
transformed into an art gallery and luxury penthouse apartment
with James Bond-style decor.
German advertising executive Christian Boros, 40, told Bild
newspaper on Wednesday he fell in love with the seven-storey
building, with reinforced concrete walls up to 2.6 metres (8
feet 6 inch) thick, after visiting a former disco inside the
eyesore.
"That was three years ago and I went out and bought it right
away," he said.
The fortress was ordered and partially designed by Hitler to
defend Berlin from air attacks. Attempts to demolish the shelter
after the war failed because the walls were so thick.
Boros is having the concrete walls inside the shelter
trimmed to 1.8 metres thick to house his private art collection.
The 450-square metre penthouse on top will be the most
luxurious apartment in Berlin, Boros said.
"It'll be like James Bond -- very cool with exposed concrete
and glass," Boros said.

[NJFFSA16]

"Naked rambler" takes girlfriend on nude UK walk
LONDON, June 15 (Reuters) - A 46-year-old former Royal
Marine who braved 14 arrests and five months in jail to walk the
length of Britain wearing nothing but his boots sets out on
Thursday to repeat the naked journey -- and this time with his
girlfriend.
Stephen Gough and hairdresser Melanie Roberts, 33, will
strip off and set out from Land's End in Cornwall, at the
southeastern tip of England, on an 874-mile nude trek to John
O'Groats in Scotland.
"Why do it with no clothes on? To celebrate the fact that
I'm a human being and that there is nothing shameful in being a
human being. There's nothing wrong with a naked body," Gough,
dubbed the "naked rambler", told Reuters.
During Gough's first naked walk across Britain in 2003-4, he
was arrested 14 times for breach of the peace -- on one occasion
he was held for being a traffic hazard -- and spent five months
in jail in Inverness, Scotland.
"There are no laws in this country saying you can't walk
naked," Gough said. "All it says is that if you are naked and
you have an intent to harm, that's a crime."
"I have no intent to harm. I'm just going to walk from
Land's End to John O'Groats."