Swiss man is made millionaire by mistake

A Swiss man was made a millionaire overnight after public finance officials transferred more than Ā£2.5m to his account by mistake.

The 29-year-old from Zurich said he couldn't believe his eyes when he checked his account and saw what looked like "dozens of noughts" instead of the minus sign he was expecting.
But he didn't stay rich for long after reporting the transfer to the authorities.
"It was obviously a mistake and I didn't want to get in trouble with the revenue office so I reported it straight away. It was nice to be rich for a short time though," he said.
An investigation revealed that a computer glitch in the Zurich accounting office had directed millions in public payments to the man's account.
The payments included police officers' phone bills and social services fees.
Rudolf Meier, head of the Zurich financial office, called the incident a "data processing error and a chain of unfortunate circumstances" and said the problem in the canton's new system had since been fixed.

Oops wrong car ......sorry!

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German woman became so furious after a fight with her husband she stormed out of the house armed with a hammer and smashed up his car -- before realizing she had vandalized the wrong vehicle, police said Wednesday.

The 43-year-old from Essen, western Germany, told police she shattered the windshield, broke the headlights and wrenched off the wing mirrors, causing more than $1,200 in damage, because she was filled with rage after a telephone quarrel.
After going back indoors she realized she had battered the wrong car. Only noticing the color, she had attacked her neighbor's blue Opel Corsa and not the blue Ford Fiesta belonging to her spouse.

Police confused over expensive fake Yen

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese police have been scratching their heads in bewilderment over the country's latest counterfeiting trend -- fake bills that cost more to make than their face value.

Experts estimate that it cost 1,000 yen ($9.10) to make each of the more than 400 bogus 1,000 yen notes that have turned up in vending machines in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, suggesting profit was not the motive, the Asahi newspaper's English-language edition reported Tuesday.
"Police suspect a techno-maniac is involved," the Asahi said.
The fake bills are made by replacing the middle strip of genuine notes with a color photocopy, and securing them with tape. To the human eye they are obviously bogus, but they fool some older vending machines.

Mayor says don't air your pants in public

NICOSIA (Reuters) - Drying wet laundry in public will earn residents of Cyprus' capital Nicosia a fine later this year as authorities launch a drive to clean up the city's image, its mayor has said.
The unseemly sight of underwear flapping in the breeze along narrow streets of the medieval city will be punishable with a 50 Cyprus pound (52 pound) fine as of October 1.
"Imagine walking along a road and having wet washing drip all over you... from someone else's underwear," Nicosia Mayor Michalakis Zampelas told Cyprus radio on Tuesday.
In a country which has almost uninterrupted sunshine all year round, most Cypriots hang their washing outside to dry.
Washing wardens will also be responsible for ensuring householders don't beat their carpets or rugs over balconies or throw laundry water into the streets, Zampelas said.

Baby rhino in plaster after mum steps on foot

BERLIN (Reuters) - A new-born baby rhinoceros in a Berlin zoo is in plaster after his mother trod on his foot one day after his birth, zookeepers have said.
Patna, born last week to mother Betty and father Belur, will have to wear a plaster cast on his left lower leg for up to five weeks to heal a broken leg.
The incident is not the first in the zoo, which now houses seven rhinos.
"In 2002, mother Betty, also born in the zoo, killed her first child by treading on the baby shortly after birth," said zoo keeper Ingolf Kastierke.
Zoo keepers had waited in keen anticipation of Betty's second baby, the zoo's second this year.
But the morning after birth they noticed the baby was limping and called in the vet.
"We assume that the mother had trodden on her son in the middle of the night," said Kastierke. Luckily the injury was easily treated and keepers expect a full recovery.
The baby has already put on five kilos since birth.
The zoo said only four or five rhinoceros are born in zoos in Europe per year.

Boy takes joyride on airport conveyor belt

OSLO (Reuters) - A four-year-old boy caused chaos at a Norwegian airport this week when he hopped aboard a luggage conveyor belt as if it were a merry-go-round.
Ole Tobias crawled onto the belt next to an unmanned check-in desk on Monday, continued unnoticed through a trapdoor along with bags and suitcases about his size, then passed through an X-ray scanner and into the luggage hall.
"It was just a moment of inattention and Ole Tobias disappeared," his mother, Ingvild Aakervik, told NRK radio on Tuesday. "I panicked and made the entire airport search for him."
She said Ole Tobias was not hurt and seemed to have enjoyed the ride, which ended abruptly when staff at the Aalesund Vigra airport in central Norway noticed the boy in the X-ray machine and pressed the alarm button

Strippers need naked pics for visas

Women wishing to enter Canada to work as strippers must provide naked photos of themselves to qualify for a visa.
The Canadian Embassy in Mexico says "stage photos during performances are required'', says Ottawa's CFRA radio.
Immigration officers are having to pore over naked pictures of hundreds of exotic dancers to keep imposters out of Canada.
In a memo to fellow visa officers around the world, officials said if a dancer passes the no-clothes test, they may then require a police certificate or medical examination.

Brisk baguette on sale at drive-in bakery

PARIS (Reuters) - A croissant on the go? A brisk baguette? France may have found the answer in a drive-in bakery.
"People have become extremely busy, especially in the Paris region. We help them get to their food faster," said Michael Joly, who says his new "Drive-in Joly" boulangerie is the first in France and caters to about 200 customers per day.
The bakery is set in a former service station on a busy road west of Paris. Cars drive up to the window to buy items ranging from baguettes to tarts and pain au chocolat.
France long resisted U.S. fast-food trends, although companies such as McDonald's restaurants and coffee chain Starbucks are now common in Paris.
"It's simple -- people are in a rush, and we respond to that," Joly said.

Londoner is last in the world with his surname

An elderly Londoner has been told he's the only living person in the world with his surname.
Mike Pimbury, who lives in North London, has never married or had children so he now accepts his surname will accompany him to the grave.
After a worldwide search going back more than 300 years and taking in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, genealogists have told him that he is the only living Pimbury in the world.
The 73-year-old said: "I don't mind being the last Pimbury. But it does seem a shame that the name is going to die out."
But he has the consolation of knowing the name will live on in literature - Laurie Lee mentions a Mrs Pimbury in Cider with Rosie, his autobiographical novel about growing up in the Gloucestershire village of Slad in the Stroud Valley in the early 1900s.
Mr Pimbury and his sister Jo Wilkes started their research into the family name just over two years ago, says The Times. After months of poring over records and telephone books, they called in Karen Bali, a Southampton-based genealogist who specialises in tracing living relatives.
Ms Bali said: "I have worked on cases where the surname is quite rare but this is the first case that I have worked on where it is actually confirmed as the last."

Man wins lottery two days after divorce

An Indiana man has won a million dollars on a state lottery two days after divorcing his wife after he found her in bed with a neighbour.
The Hoosier Gazette says Randy Fletcher's sudden good luck came in a year which has so far seen him lose his wife, vintage car, and pet dog.
He found his wife Tara in bed with a neighbour when he came home from work feeling sick in January.
Then in March a deer ran into his 1956 Chevy, and in May his German Shepherd dog Molly was diagnosed with cancer and put down.
He thought he had lost his life savings when his divorce from Tara came through on July 15 after a four-year marriage.
But two days later he found he had won the million dollar jackpot in the lottery he had been taking part in twice a week for several years.
Fletcher, an electrician from Brownstown, said: "I was in complete shock for several hours.
"It took me several minutes to catch my breath. It was the most unbelievable and amazing feeling I have ever had, especially after all that had happened this year."
Although he will only take home 289,000 dollars, or 157,225 pounds, after going for the cash option and paying off taxes, he says he plans to use the money to buy a Harley Davidson, a new German Shepherd dog, and go on holiday to Cancun this winter.
Asked what advice he would give to others who were having a run of bad luck, he said: "Just keep plugging away. Sooner or later things will look up. I am a prime example of that."

Sleazy guests prompt call to ban hotel porn

OSLO (Reuters) - Angry hotel workers in Norway want to ban pay-TV pornography to stop naked porn-watching guests calling room service to lure female staff to their rooms.
A typical trick by guests, mostly businessmen, is to call the front desk for extras, such as fresh towels, to get female company, said the Norwegian Hotel and Restaurant Workers' Union, reporting a rising number of complaints.
"Most room service personnel work alone. It can be very unpleasant to get called to a room to be met by a naked man," union leader Eli Ljunggren told Reuters. She said the complaints ranged from sleazy remarks to physical assaults.
"Pornography does not belong in hotel rooms. Pay-TV should be limited to entertainment," she said. Most Norwegian hotels, like many hotels around the world, have easy access to pornography channels in hotel rooms for a fee.

Kerry's wife tells reporter to "shove it"

BOSTON (Reuters) - Minutes after telling her husband's supporters to restore a more dignified tone to politics, Teresa Heinz Kerry told a reporter to "shove it."
In a reception on Sunday in Massachusetts, the wife of Democratic candidate Senator John Kerry told Democratic Party delegates from her home state of Pennsylvania there needed to be a change in American politics.
"We have to turn back some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics," she said. Morning television shows broadcast the remarks on Monday morning.
When a reporter from a conservative Pennsylvania newspaper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, pressed Mrs. Heinz Kerry what she had meant by "un-American" she said repeatedly, "No, I didn't say that, I didn't say that."
She then turned away only to return moments later. "You said something I didn't say, now shove it," she said, pointing her finger at the reporter.

Sunday, July 25, 2004

Bush Kerry - this land

This is one of the funniest flash videos I've seen in ages click here , well done you 2 dudes at jibjab

quotes of the week

Blake? Blaine? pass - Malachi Davis , an american until a few days ago but who will now represent Britain at the Olympics, Struggling to name the Prime minister

I even pretended years ago to be an African , a half caste African , of course - Princess Michael of Kent defends herself against claims that she is racist

The first one's the hardest, then after that you know the routine - Liz taylor ,giving advice to recently divorced Lionel Ritchie

I think the greatest thing when you're a femal is to remember that your place is in the home - Hollywood actress Kate Hudson

Vikings had small "willy" fear

THE terrifying Vikings had a nagging worry ā€” about the size of their manhoods, scientists say.
Even as they raped and pillaged their way across Europe, they were troubled by the thought that size really DID matter.
The theory comes from studies of Viking writings by Cardiff University.
One researcher said: ā€?The sagas show a relationship between male genitals and a manā€™s identity that is both familiar and alien to us.ā€¯
In one, a serving wench laughs at a naked warrior, saying: ā€?It seems to me extraordinary how small he is below.ā€¯

Prisoners go on beer run

FOUR jail inmates who walked out of an unlocked cell to go and buy booze are now facing charges.
Ridgy Dean Coleman, Jimmy Joe Stapleton, David Wayne Blizzard and David Allen Hopkins realised their luck was in after dozy guards at a prison in Tennessee, US, forgot to lock the prisoners inside.
Two of the group slipped out through a fire exit and made a hole in the exercise yard fence.
They hot-footed it to the nearest shop, bought some beer and came back to prison.
After the four had swigged all the beer, the other two prisoners went to get more supplies from a different store.
Supermarket staff had no idea who their customers were because the escapees were wearing street clothes borrowed from other inmates, the Sun Sentinel reported.
The four have now been charged with escape and introduction of alcohol into a prison.
"I guess they thought if they came back they wouldn't be charged with escape but they were wrong," said Sheriff Warren Rimer.
He admitted it was an "unfortunate incident" but pointed out that all 36 inmates could have absconded.
"At least they came back," he added.

The Ā£2million Lotto liar

A CALLOUS hoaxer was facing the fury of his friends last night after he conned them into believing he had won a Ā£2.4million Lotto jackpot.
Dalip Singh, 21, told four best mates he was taking them to LAS VEGAS.
He promised to kit them out in Ā£900 Hugo Boss fitted SUITS, Ā£1,000 Raymond Weil WATCHES and bling-bling JEWELLERY.
The skint university student told his frail mother he would buy her a luxury HOUSE. And he vowed to set up a trust fund to send his niece and nephew to PRIVATE SCHOOLS.
Another of Singhā€™s friends in Maidenhead, Berks, said the four pals all believed they were jetting off to the US today.
He said: ā€?Theyā€™ve taken time off work. Theyā€™ll be gutted when they find out the truth.
ā€?He told them he had sorted out designer suits for each of them and they would also get designer watches. He said they were going to London to buy the bling to go with it and pick up the airline tickets.
ā€?Theyā€™ve been celebrating all week down the local pub. If he hasnā€™t won it there will be a lot of his friends seriously unhappy.
ā€?I canā€™t believe he took the joke this far. Heā€™s hurt his oldest friends. If he thinks itā€™s funny I think heā€™ll soon find out otherwise.ā€¯
Singh stayed up until 7am boozing with his mates after telling them he had won Ā£2,448,478 in last Saturdayā€™s draw.
The business student also duped his local newspaper, the Maidenhead Advertiser, which pictured him on the front page holding his bogus winning ticket ā€” despite being told by Camelot that Singh had NOT won.
A Camelot spokesman confirmed last night: ā€?Itā€™s ridiculous. He has not won any money. This was not a nice thing to do.ā€¯

Keys removed from patient's sore leg

An Iranian man who lost his keys 16 years ago was shocked to find they'd been embedded in his leg all along.
The 50-year-old man felt a strong pain in his leg and was taken to the hospital.
An X-ray showed the keys were lodged in his leg.
The man accidentally fired a rifle 16 years ago, injuring himself in the leg, says nbc10 news.
The bullet was removed but the keys that were lodged in his leg along with the bullet were left there

Mystery lottery winner donates winning ticket

TOKYO (Reuters) - Officials in western Japan are marvelling at the generosity of a mystery philanthropist who donated a $1.8 million (980,000 pound) lottery ticket to help victims of recent torrential rainstorms.
In an extremely rare display of charity, a winning lottery ticket good for a 200 million yen grand prize was mailed to the governor of Fukui prefecture on Friday with a note saying it was intended as a donation for rain victims.
"I am sending a lottery ticket that is blessed with luck hoping that it will be of some help to the people who had the misfortune of suffering damages," the letter said.
Hiroko Imatomi, a Fukui prefecture official who first spotted the mail, said the note convinced her the sender was sincere.
"It was a wonderful letter ... It was definitely not intended as a hoax or a joke," she said.
"It must be from a rare type of person who has a big heart and hopes it will help people who suffered a lot," Imatomi said.
The sender used a false name and local authorities have no way to find out who sent the winning ticket, which has been confirmed as being authentic, she said.
Torrential downpours pounded Fukui prefecture on July 17-18, killing three people, injuring 17 and destroying or damaging more than 200 homes.

Swindling great-granny busted

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Police raid summer camp for thieves

Police raid summer camp for thieves

Russian police have raised a summer camp over allegations it was bring run as a school for thieves.
Teenagers attending the summer day camp on the Far East island of Sakhalin have been sent home after it was found they were being trained as criminals.
In a real-life version of Oliver Twist, the youngsters were being given lessons including insights into the hierarchy of the robbery underworld and how to behave if arrested.
Police stormed the summer camp after an anonymous caller alerted them to the large number of teenagers who had gathered on the banks of the Kamenka River.
The camp was fully equipped with its own field kitchen and electricity generators.
At least 30 teenagers and two "trainers" were caught, and officers recovered a number of hand-written manuals with detailed instructions and methods for robbery.
According to Russian news agency Novosti, no arrests were made but police are now investigating the possibility of other such camps in the area.

Red wine - good for the breasts

Red wine is the latest craze in the beauty salons of Buenos Aires where it's said to tighten the stomach and firm the breasts.
Creams made with red wine or even a glass of pure wine are applied directly to the person's skin.
Wine therapy expert Diego Barberan told Las Ultimas Noticias: "After cleansing, the skin receives a special wine mask that is rich in vitamin E.
"It brings firmness and nutrition to the skin, making it healthy and elastic."
Beauty clinics all over Buenos Aires are reporting a huge increase in women asking for wine therapy.
Wine therapy fanatic Marcy Andres said: "It is fantastic. It does what it promises. I can say with no fear that I am addicted!"

Horse flavoured ice cream?

Japanese ice-cream lovers have swapped traditional flavours such as raspberry ripple for something a little more exotic - horse-flesh.
As Tokyo swelters in soaring temperatures, people are being invited to cool off by choosing from a variety of unusual flavours.
Garlic, potato and lettuce, and cactus and seaweed along with raw horse-flesh are now available in Japan's shops.
Adventurous ice cream lovers not tempted by those flavours could try soybean and kelp or strawberry and spinach.
The new flavours are being promoted by the Japan Ice-Cream Association which has set up a summer trade fair.
It hopes to boost the popularity of ice cream during the current heatwave as, although the Japanese spent more than Ā£1.5bn on ice-cream and sorbets last year, the country ranks only 19th in world consumption.

'Officer? My cannabis has been stolen'

An Australian man who called police after his marijuana plants were stolen is to escape charges.
Police said the man, from Adelaide, was not charged because there was no longer any evidence.
He reported the theft after the offenders stole two plants after smashing a window of the house.
Police believe the premises were targeted solely because of the presence of the plants.

posted by dom at 8:39 PM 0 weirdo's replied links to this post

No "big Willy style" for US

No "big Willy style" for US

US fans of Will Smith have been denied a chance to see the star at his most exposed.
The Hollywood actor bares all in a shower scene in the new sci-fi adventure film I, Robot - but the details are pixelated out for the U.S. market.
They will appear in European cinemas.
Says a disappointed Smith: 'America is the only place where it's really a big deal. It was the most expensive shot in the movie.'

Butlers in the Buff

A company that supplies naked butlers for parties and corporate functions says the business is proving very popular.
Butlers in the Buff was started by Pete Trainor and Jason Didcott after they saw a similar operation in Florida.
What began as a two-man business now has 20 guys on the books.
Pete says his butlers are not strippers and don't get involved in anything of a sexual nature.
He also says as well as hen nights and company events, Butlers in the Buff takes bookings from single women who just want someone with a twist to do their cleaning, washing and DIY.
"It's pure tongue-in-cheek fun," added Mr Trainor, who said his butlers are fully booked until the end of September.
The butlers can be hired from as little as Ā£45 an hour for the first two hours. After that it's Ā£40 an hour for every subsequent hour.
Butlers in the Buff can also supply a full waiting staff for larger events - and will even clean up afterwards.

Fire Brigade called out to free kinky sex slave

A couple playing a kinky sex game had to call out the fire service when a dominatrix lost the keys to her handcuffs.
The unidentified man and woman from Linz, Austria called emergency services to explain the embarrassing situation.
They had spent hours searching for the lost key when attempts to force the shackles failed.
The man, who had been chained to a bed by the dominatrix during a sex session, was set free by the firemen with the aid of a bolt cutter, local media reported.

In advertising, the Scots are hot

It's hard not to notice how many television commercials have Scottish characters in them these days. From the guy who gets perturbed at bar patrons who don't treat Keith's beer with respect to the impossibly small spokesman for Kellogg's to the tight-fisted uncle in the Money Mart spots, the Scots are currently the most overrepresented minority in TV advertising.

Don't mistreat this beer or a surly Scot will yell at you (Photo Robin Rowland) It's hard not to notice these characters for one simple reason: they yell a lot. In fact, they behave exactly as non-Scottish people expect the Scottish to behave: they're quick to anger and slow to spend money. They're stereotypes, in other words. so reports CBC News

posted by dom at 7:46 PM 0 weirdo's replied links to this post

South African loses rare coin in meter

South African loses rare coin in meter

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A South African woman has mistakenly plunked a 100-year-old gold coin worth more than $1,000 into a parking meter while shopping without her glasses, a newspaper has reported.

"I can't believe I could have done something like that," said the woman, who asked not to be identified.

The woman said she also believed she had spent an 1890 sovereign, worth a small fortune, as small change, the Cape Argus newspaper said on Wednesday.

The woman inherited the gold coins from her mother, but they became mixed up with loose coins she kept in a container and were transferred to her purse by mistake.

She told the newspaper she did not realise she had the coins with her and was not carrying her spectacles. She said she thought she put a Kruger sovereign, worth about 7,000 rand (624 pounds) in a parking meter in Paarl outside Cape Town.

She appealed to city authorities to keep a lookout for the Kruger sovereign when counting parking meter proceeds.

Internet extortionists arrested

MOSCOW. July 21 (Interfax) - Nine Russian Internet extortionists were detained in on July 20 and 21 in a joint operation carried out by the British high technology crime-fighting unit and the Russian Interior Ministry, Richard Turner, the press secretary at the British embassy in Russia, told Interfax on Wednesday. Law enforcement and government agencies of Australia, Canada, Estonia and the United States and companies in Britain and other countries aided the investigation, he said. The nine detainees are suspected of having blackmailed owners of online bookmaking companies into paying them hundred of thousands of pounds sterling, Turner said. The detainees first launched Distributed Denial of Service attacks on servers and company websites, Turner said. He said that in such attacks, servers are flooded with thousands of nonsensical queries, slowing down if not blocking normal incoming and outgoing traffic. Following this, they sent company owners a letter demanding money in exchange for ending the attacks, Turner said.

Drunken Flight Attendants Fight Passenger

Belligerently drunken passengers are the bane of flight attendants in Russia, but the tables were turned Monday night when drunken flight attendants attacked a passenger on an Aeroflot flight.

The "man-bites-dog" incident occurred on a flight from Moscow to the Siberian town of Nizhnevartovsk, when passengers say three flight attendants, all men, got stumbling drunk and beat up a passenger who complained about poor service.

The flight attendants were employees of the airline Aviaenergo, which is sometimes contracted by Aeroflot for domestic flights, Aeroflot spokeswoman Irina Dannenberg said.

They started to cater to the passengers only 90 minutes into the four-hour flight and, according to passengers, were "visibly drunk," she said.

Dannenberg said passengers' accounts of what happened were still being checked out, but it seemed that the problems started when one of the passengers, Artyom Chernopup, who was flying in economy class with his girlfriend, asked the flight attendants to bring her some more wine.

"The attendants refused, claiming that they had already run out," Dannenberg said.

Unsatisfied with the answer, the passenger went to the kitchen and tried to pour wine into a glass himself, which sparked a fight with the attendants, she said.

Denis Aminev, head of the Nizhnevartovsk airport police, told Izvestia that Chernopup, a "powerful businessman" in the Siberian oil town, arrived at the airport with a black eye and was quickly sent for medical treatment.

pub bans beer bird

pub bans beer bird

A magpie with a taste for beer has been banned from a pub in West Yorkshire.
The bird used to be a regular at the King's Arms in Heath Common, Wakefield.
But customers became fed up as the cheeky bird went after their pints, says the Daily Mail.
Now the magpie has had his supply of beer cut off by landlord Alan Tate who keeps his front door firmly shut.
Barman Alex Fletcher said: "He would hop around the pub and the regulars loved it. But the novelty has worn off. People got annoyed at his head constantly stuck in their beer."

Singing Japanese plants

TOKYO (Reuters) - People who like talking to their plants can now enjoy a musical accompaniment, thanks to a Japanese invention that turns petals and leaves into amplifiers.

Called the "Flower Speaker Amplifiers", the gadget made by Let's Corp is hidden in a vase or a potted plant and sends music at just the right frequency to vibrate up the stems and then be converted into audible sound by the plant as a whole.

A device such as a CD player or radio can be connected to it.

"Anywhere where you would want music naturally integrated with a natural surrounding," said Hirohiko Okugawa, a manager at Let's, referring to locations for the device, which he expects it to be popular for hotels and hospital lobbies.

The inventor of the gadget, Keiji Koga, said: "We are finally able to experience plants and flowers with all five of our natural senses."

The firm expects to begin selling the speakers by mid-August for 5,000 yen (24.8 pounds) to 50,000 yen depending on the plant's size.

And according to Koga, music is also good for the plants, which are invigorated by the constant musical vibes.

posted by dom at 12:51 PM 0 weirdo's replied links to this post

Naked man covered in nacho cheese arrested

Naked man covered in nacho cheese arrested

A man has been arrested in Tennessee after police caught him running naked from the scene of a robbery covered in nacho cheese.
Michael P. Monn's jeep was spotted by a routine police patrol in a car park in Maryville in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Minutes after officers found clothes and a bottle of alcohol in the vehicle, Monn ran towards the jeep carrying a box of snacks and nacho cheese.
The 23-year-old was charged with burglary, theft, vandalism, public intoxication and indecent exposure, says the Daily Times.
An officer said: "The male had nacho cheese in his hair, on his face and on his shoulders. The nude male had a strong odour of alcohol and was semi-incoherent.''

Miami's parking meter fairy

A Miami man has donned a wig, tutu and fake wings to become the city's parking meter fairy.
Xavier Cortes rollerskates around the trendy Coconut Grove area putting change into meters about to run out.
He wears a pink curly wig, a lavender tutu and diaphanous angel wings, reports the Sun-Sentinel.
Mr Cortes is employed by local retailers and restaurateurs who feared visitors were being discouraged by parking tickets.
Cynthia Bettner, publisher of Best Tourist Publications Inc, advertised in the Miami New Times for a "colourful one-of-a-kind extrovert who looks good in tulle".
She said: "Xavier was perfect. He's an artist, someone who likes to be dressed in this bizarre outfit to help educate people about the parking tickets."
Mr Cortes, an artist with a theatre background whose works have been featured in galleries and on music album covers, said he loved his new job.
"I've done Che Guevara, who is a communist, so this is just another performance," he said. "I'm out skating, and I'm getting paid for doing somebody a favour."

Check -out worker mugs herself !

Check -out worker mugs herself !

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German supermarket check-out worker stashed the day's takings into her shoes and hit herself over the head, pretending she had been held up and attacked by a robber, Bavarian police said on Thursday.
The 26 year-old woman told police she was alone in the south German store when a masked man forced her at gun-point to fill his pockets and several bags with money from the shop's cash box before knocking her unconscious with a blow to her head.
Police became suspicious after medical examinations revealed the woman's head injury didn't match up to her description of the attack. The woman then confessed she had hit herself on the head with a blunt object and stolen the money to pay off debts.

Halle's stunt double is a man

Halle Berry's stunt double in Catwoman is a man.
Nito Larioza wore red lipstick and a catsuit for the role, says the News of the World.
The Hawaiian-born martial arts expert is the same height and has has the same skin colour as Berry.
The 29-year-old said: "The scenes are shot so fast you can't tell.
"But a lot of boys feasting their eyes on Halle's sexy costume are gonna flip when they realise they got steamy about a bloke in a girl's costume."

Saturday, July 17, 2004

Man eats thousands of dollars

Some people put their money where their mouth is -- cops say Johnny Chilito put his money where his stomach is.
Chilito tried to board a flight from Colombia to Peru when officials noticed him acting nervously.
They X-rayed him and found $48,000 in US currency, sealed in 80 latex packets, in his stomach. They have charged him with money laundering

Clown proposal

A clown popped the question in a big top when he surprised his girlfriend in front of astonished circus-goers.
Nicol-the-clown swept into the circus with an engagement ring and was delighted when hula-hooping sweetheart Jana Roberts said "yes".
The 21-year-old Spanish funnyman dropped into the arena as world champion Miss Roberts, also 21, was half way through her hula-hooping routine at Roberts Brothers' Circus, in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.

Flaming mess

Saturday July 17,

Fire eater Beth Guzdek may want to change careers. Performing at a party in Royal Oak, Michigan, she had just put flammable liquid in her mouth, held a flame to it and began to breath fire when she burst into flames, badly burning her face and torso.
"Don't play with fire. That's the short of it." said paramedic Scott Gardner who took her to hospital.

Hair raising ??

A man with a hair fetish has been arrested for creeping up on little girls visiting cemeteries with their families and cutting off their ponytails.
When police searched the home of Michael Sterkins, 51, of Gray, Louisiana, they found one of the ponytails placed neatly under a Bible at the side of his bed.

"Dumb blondes" live up to stereotype

"Dumb blondes" live up to stereotype

BERLIN (Reuters) - Blondes perform intelligence tests more slowly after reading jokes playing on their supposed stupidity, say psychologists in a newly published German study.

Some 80 women of various hair colours were tested on their mental capacity to work quickly and precisely in a series of psychometric tests. Before sitting the tests, half the participants had to read "dumb blonde" jokes, such as:
"Why do blondes open yoghurt pots while still at the supermarket? -- Because it says 'Open Here' on the lid."

"No blonde woman believes she is stupid," said Jens Foerster a social psychologist from the International University Bremen in northern Germany on Wednesday.

"But after exposure to negative social-stereotypes about them, the fair-haired participants performed significantly more slowly in the tests."

Foerster explained the result by saying that when people are told they can't perform a task well, they work more slowly but more cautiously, to try to make fewer mistakes.

"The study shows that even unfounded prejudices generally dismissed as untrue can affect an individual's confidence in their own ability," said Foerster.

German burns down house trying to impress girlfriend

A lovestruck German has burned down his house after candles he lit for his girlfriend sparked a fire.

The unnamed man had laid out hundreds of candles in the shape of a heart carrying the words "You set my heart on fire."

The 18-year-old had hoped the gesture would have impressed his girlfriend. Instead the heat was so intense it melted the candle wax onto the floor where it ignited.

Ten firefighters tacked the resulting blaze for an hour before getting it under control. No one was hurt but emergency services said damage to the property came to about Ā£33,000.

The young man told police: "My girlfriend didn't even see the message, all I have left of it is a photograph - and she was not in the mood to look at that when she realised what had happened."

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Half eaten banana sells for £1,650

Half eaten banana sells for Ā£1,650

LONDON (AFP) - A banana half eaten by a British television presenter has been sold for 1,650 pounds (3,000 dollars, 2,485 euros) in an Internet auction.

Kate Garraway, a presenter for the British breakfast television show GMTV, thought of the "quirky" idea during a television discussion about eccentric objects sold on www.ebay.co.uk.

Some 30,000 people reportedly made bids to buy the banana between July 4 and 11.
Jaime Falarczyk, who bought the item on Sunday, said that he will put the banana, or whatever is left of it, on display in front of his office "to generate a bit more fun".
Falarczyk, who works for an online brokerage company, said the money he paid is going to charity.

Man Jailed after shooting off his testicles

LONDON (Reuters) - A British man who accidentally shot himself in the testicles after drinking 15 pints of beer was jailed for five years on Tuesday for possessing an illegal firearm, a court spokesman said.

David Walker, 28, was arguing with a friend at a pub in South Yorkshire, northern England, when he went home to get his sawed-off shotgun, which he jammed into his trousers.

But as he walked back to the pub, the gun went off, blasting pellets into his testicles. Doctors later removed what remained of his testicles during emergency surgery.

Walker admitted possessing a prohibited weapon at a hearing in June at the court in Sheffield.

Novel ' to come out in SMSs'

A Chinese author is bringing out a novel that will only be available as a sequence of text messages.

BBC Online, quoting China's official Xinhau news agency, says Qian Fuchang has reduced his novel Outside the Fortress Besieged into 60 chapters of 70 characters each.

And pundits insists the novel, described as a steamy tale of adulterous love, will not be a gimmick.

Xie Wangxin, vice chairman of the Guangdong Literary Academy in southern China, said it will be 'a real literary work'.

Xinhua claims China sent more than 220bn text message last year - over half the global total.

So you think Big Brother has become too explicit...

British television is to sink to new lows with a reality game show based upon the exploits of a group of porn stars living in a Big Brother-style house.

Private Stars, which has been inspired by Channel 4's hugely successful Big Brother series, centres on the experiences of five female porn models who are locked in a house with five male members of the public.

The programme, which will run on cable and satellite television for 10 episodes next month, promises to go further than other reality programmes by offering "the real thing" in terms of sexual behaviour.

The contestants will be screened 24 hours a day as they produce their own X-rated porn film. The five men in the show, including one Briton, will be judged on their abilities to perform sexually with the women. Those judged to have done most poorly will be voted out, one by one, until a winner emerges. He will be awarded a full-time contract with a porn film producer.

Commissioned by the Bravo television channel, which is part of the British-based Telewest television company, the show will be produced by the Private Media Group, one of the world's leading producers of pornography.

The plan for the explicit show yesterday enraged MPs and campaigners, who condemned it as "a step too far".

There has already been growing concern over the behaviour of contestants on Big Brother, which was last week criticised for its lewdness. Channel 4 is under pressure to drop the show after two female contestants streaked through the house naked and another allowed fellow housemates to lick jam off her breasts.

These sort of antics, however, are likely to be eclipsed by the housemates in Private Stars. The show has been designed to maximise the amount of sexual contact in the house, situated in the red light district of Amsterdam.

Success for the men will depend on their willingness to lose their inhibitions and interact with the five professional female porn stars, two of whom are British.

John Beyer, the director of Mediawatch UK, a national campaign group that monitors standards in the media, said that Private Stars would just encourage immoral behaviour.

"What do the producers of this programme think is going to happen with a house full of porn stars?" he said. "Programmes like this send a bad example to viewers and they impact on everyday life. They explain why we have such a problem with sexually transmitted diseases and such a high level of unwanted pregnancies

Monday, July 12, 2004

Vy haff I got zees name ?

The Muenchner Postbank has frozen accounts belonging to Slobodan Milosevic - a Munich city bus driver. Officials thought he was the infamous Serbian war crimes suspect of the same name. Mr Milosevic, who emigrated from Serbia, said: "I tried to explain that my name is as common in Serbia as the name Hans Schmidt is in Germany. But they told me Hans Schmidt was not a war criminal. The other Slobodan is locked up in the Hague, so why would he have a savings account in a German post office? I asked them, if my name were Adolf Hitler would my account also be frozen? But it didn't help." The bank told him all of his accounts would be locked "due to mandatory legal prescriptions". They have given him a week to prove he is not the ex-dictator of Yugoslavia before his savings are seized for war reparations.

Sunday, July 11, 2004

Blind flight record

An adventurer soared into the record book as he completed his bid to become the first blind person to fly around the UK.
Steve Cunningham, 41, completed a personal hat-trick which has seen him conquer land, sea and now air.
After being delayed by low cloud at Cardiff as he prepared to embark on the final stage of his round Britain journey, the father-of-two finally touched down at White Waltham Airfield in Berkshire to a champagne welcome.

Len's huge pool takes a walk

Johannesburg - How does one keep one's head above water when thieves walk off with your swimming pool?

This was the question posed by Len Mayer, a contractor from Johannesburg, after his trailer carrying a "massive" swimming pool disappeared.

Mayer's swimming pool disappeared from the corner of Beyers NaudƩ Avenue and John Vorster Street in Randpark Ridge on Friday while he was with a client in the area.

"The trailer brought in wonderful business," said Mayer who had had his business for less than a month.

"Every day I received about five calls from people who saw it," he said.

According to Mayer, a street vendor said someone with a green Nissan bakkie drove off with his trailer - and the pool.

The pool, which stands about 3.5m high, would be worthless to the thief, said Mayer. "There are two huge holes in the bottom, where it was attached to the trailer," he said.

Beeld heard of Mayer's problem through eBlockWatch, an electronic system that warns people of crimes committed, via e-mails and SMS messages.

AndrƩ Snyman, eBlockWatch head, said Mayer's situation amazed him. "Something like that can happen only in South Africa."
He said that after the message was sent out, he was inundated with calls from subscribers who wanted more information.

But, Mayer does not find the incident funny. "In my heart, I hope to trace my trailer, but I am sure it has already been chopped up into pieces," he said.

He says the theft has probably cost him about R15 000.

"It's a huge step backwards for someone who only recently started up a business."

He has promised a reward for information that can help him recover his trailer.

posted by dom at 9:11 AM 0 weirdo's replied links to this post