Light hearted news for a change.

[ABSTRUSE]

As Lou put in a thread sometimes things get hot and heavy in the world, and we need a reminder life does go on and the news shouldn't always be bad or sad...not saying these things will go away, but sometimes we need to take a walk away.
If anyone has noticed, the depression thread is up and running again, I am a sufferer who can't afford to backslide again and my need to be silly is my coping mechanism.
I like to read Odd news bits after I've read the "Real" news so if anyone wants to post an amusing story...this is the spot!
~A~
The first is for those silly Brits!



Naughty Gnomes Made to Cover Up



BARNSLEY, England (Reuters) - A Barnsley man has covered up his lewd garden gnomes with painted-on swimwear after police warned him he faced arrest for causing public offence.



While most garden gnomes fish or enact scenes of bucolic tranquillity, ex-army sergeant Tony Watson's models in this northern English town bared their breasts and buttocks, prompting complaints from the public.


"It is an offence to display something that is insulting or likely to cause distress," a police spokeswoman said on Wednesday.


"Although some people view the gnomes as a bit of harmless fun, we have to take complaints from members of the public seriously."


One of the gnomes now sports a polka-dot bikini, said local resident John Threlkeld, who passes the gnomes every day on his way to work.


"Tony used filler and paint to cover them up," he said.

 

[Guest]

That's funny, Abs, thanks for that!

Now I wanna know where I can find some LEWD gnomes.

Lou

 

[destinie21]

I don't know whether to be more concerned about the guy who has naked lawn gnomes or the people who found it offensive.

 

[shereads]

Thanks AB. I'm with you on the need to avoid backslipping into the big D. Even Celexa can only handle so much bad news. So here's a good note: Lucky-E-leven's dad had surgery yesterday and came through it fine, and squeezed her hand and recognized her last night.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Thanks AB. I'm with you on the need to avoid backslipping into the big D. Even Celexa can only handle so much bad news. So here's a good note: Lucky-E-leven's dad had surgery yesterday and came through it fine, and squeezed her hand and recognized her last night.

Yes, I know! How great is that???
Hooray for Lucky''s dad! and best wishes on his recovery.

 

[cloudy]

I'm in on this!

Coca-Cola (KO) will announce on Monday that it is powering up a summer promotion with James Bond-like gadgetry.

About 120 Coke cans are being covertly converted into a combination global positioning satellite receiver and cell phone. The lucky cola drinkers who find the high-tech cans can claim the grand prizes - but won't know when or where they'll arrive.

The "Unexpected Summer" sweepstakes aims to fuel sales for the Classic brand, which continues to struggle for sales growth. Volume for the world's largest soft-drink brand was down 3% in 2003, according to Beverage Digest.

"It's a big program," says Steven Schiller, group director, brand business unit, Coca-Cola North America. "It's one of the biggest we've run in years and a real cornerstone to this year's plan."

The cornerstone hinges on technology associated more with military forces - or spies - than soft drinks. Grand prize cans contain a GPS chip and antenna, a Subscriber Identity Module card that enables the can to act as a cell phone, a speaker, microphone and a panel with a keypad.

The cans, engineered by Airo Wireless, are disguised to look and feel like regular cans and are concealed inside multipacks of Coke and its caffeine-free, Cherry and Vanilla varieties. "The only real challenge we had was to take the technology we had and get it to fit into the size and weight of a Coca-Cola can," says Brian Troxell, an Airo engineer.

Consumers who find the winning cans activate the technology to call a pre-programmed hotline. They then must agree that Coke "search teams," using the GPS tracker, can surprise them anyplace, anytime up to three weeks to deliver the prizes, which include a 2005 Chevy Equinox SUV, a chance on $1 million through Harrah's Casino, Disney vacations and home entertainment systems.

The technology tracks cans to within about 50 feet anywhere in America, and winners must carry the cans at all times until one of five prize teams around the country shows up to exchange the prize for the can. "It's all about the surprise," Schiller says.

A voyeuristic bonus: At the sweepstakes' Web site (www.unexpectedsummer.com) consumers can watch the tracking of cans that have been called in.

There also is a much larger number of more mundane prize cans (one in six) with low-tech, peel-off labels that reveal lesser prizes, and Coke also partnered with 186 radio stations for additional giveaways.

A sweepstakes ad begins May 17. In it, two teens at a summer job are caught making out in a storeroom. A Coke team in helicopters and CIA looking vehicles delivers an Equinox to the guy, who had his Coke can at his side while nuzzling his co-worker.

 

[Guest]

Thanks AB. I'm with you on the need to avoid backslipping into the big D. Even Celexa can only handle so much bad news. So here's a good note: Lucky-E-leven's dad had surgery yesterday and came through it fine, and squeezed her hand and recognized her last night.

That is VERY good news.

Thinking of you and your Dad, Lucky.

Katie

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Then there is this jackass.........



Wis. Alderman Fights to Keep Mannequin




GREENFIELD, Wis. - An alderman in this Milwaukee suburb is going to court to defend his right to keep Madeline the handless mannequin in his City Hall office.



Alderman Thomas Pietrowski filed suit in Milwaukee County Circuit Court Wednesday in his campaign on behalf of the former department store mannequin.


The lawsuit contends the mannequin, clad in a baggy T-shirt and jeans, "serves as a social equalizer designed to facilitate communication with persons he invites into his office."


Pietrowski seeks to have a judge declare that Mayor Timothy Seider violated his privacy rights when he unlocked his office door and allowed a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel photographer to photograph Madeline April 30. Pietrowski also seeks compensatory damages.


"It is indeed unfortunate that Alderman Pietrowski has chosen to take the mannequin issue to this level," Seider said in a prepared statement.


The city has no choice but to defend the lawsuit, "an absolute waste of taxpayer dollars," he added.


Pietrowski put the mannequin in his office in August 2003.


Since March, complaints from some female city workers who call it offensive have led to the feud between Seider and Pietrowski.


The mayor requested that the alderman remove the mannequin in March. He later extended the deadline to May 7 before withdrawing the demand but directing Pietrowski to keep his door closed. The alderman derfends the mannequin as a form of free speech.


The lawsuit was assigned to Circuit Judge Kitty Brennan.


___

 

[SnoopDog]

I hope these are a bit funny.....

'There was this family who just had bought their new mini-van. They decided to go into one of those safari parks where you can drive through the wilderness and meet wildly living animals. When they reached the elephants one smaller elephant decided to stick his trunk into the open window. One of the kids got anxious and closed the window, trapping the elephants trunk. It's reaction was to give the car a sudden kick with his foot leaving a huge dent in the side of the van.
You can imagine the father was pissed.
A couple of weeks later, the damage still not fixed, the father was involved in a smaller incident with another car which caused to the police showing up. You can imagine that the father, who had to pay for this elephant-damage at his new mini-van, was even more pissed about new costly damage and when the policeman asked him how the huge dent got in the side of the car, he angrily told the policeman the truth
'How the dent got there? An goddamn elephant kicked the side of my car.'

The result was a bill for inappropriate behaviour towards an officer.'

Snoopy

 

[SnoopDog]

And another one....

'There was this family who had a neighbour that had a lot of rabbits. One day the family's dog brought a dead rabbit from the neighbour. All dirty and filthy.
Afraid of what he would say when he discovered that their dog had killed one of his beloved animals they decided to clean up the rabbit nicely and secretly lay it back into its cage so their neighbour would suppose it died naturally and they were out of trouble.
The next day an astonished neighbour came up to them and told them the strangest thing had happened.
One of his beloved rabbits had died and he decided to bury it in the garden. But the next day he found it clean and fresh in its cage.

So much for cunning plans.

Snoopy

 

[Guest]

 

[ABSTRUSE]

EBAY FUN
13-Year-Old Spends $2 Million On Ebay
ROGERS, Ohio - A 13-year-old boy spent about $2 million from a school computer buying a helicopter, a jet and other items over the Internet using a password belonging to a friend's mother, authorities said. The woman discovered the purchases the day the helicopter's owner called and asked how she intended to pay for the aircraft. She is having the purchases canceled. The $1.1 million helicopter is a used military model. The boy has not made it clear what he intended to do with his purchases.

 

[cloudy]

The death of a very important person almost went unnoticed last week.

Larry La Prise, the man who wrote "The Hokey Pokey," died peacefully at age 93.

The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin.

They put his left leg in. And then the trouble started.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

Funny stuff, Abs! As always.

Special thanks to Sher, Abs, Tatelou, Honey & Cloudy (elsewhere), for the well wishes and hugs. Heading out to see Dad later this afternoon and while I don't think I'll mention how we all met, I plan on taking your sentiments to him directly.

*hugs*

~lucky

 

[cloudy]

Lucky, I'm sure with you around, he'll continue to do well!

 

[cloudy]

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"A little lemon and seltzer will remove those pesky ink stains after you've been fingerprinted. "

-Martha Stewart

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Short Story Printed Only Through Tattoos

Fri May 14, 2:32 AM ET

By JEFF DOUGLAS, Associated Press Writer

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Rob Poulos is a walking fragment of literature. Tattooed on his left wrist is a single word, lowercase, followed by a comma and quotation marks — back," — as if it was lifted from the end of a line of dialogue.
Likely it was. Poulos, himself a student of creative writing, joined a worldwide effort to help author Shelley Jackson publish a short story solely on human hide.


Appropriately titled "Skin," the 2,095-word piece of fiction is the foundation for a project that's as exclusive as it is obscure. Each person bears one word only, and Jackson insists that the full text will be distributed only to participants.


"I can't write a normal book. I'm not interested in that," Jackson said in a telephone interview while roller-skating through New York City's borough of Brooklyn.


None of her books have been mainstream. Her 1995 "Patchwork Girl" was written in computer hypertext, full of endless mouse clickable links.


"It's not that everything I do has to be tricked out with gimmicks and games," she said. "I'm just interested in exploring the range of what a text can do."


Jackson, 40, launched the project she calls a "mortal work of art" in August.


Poulos, 22, heard about it in his literature class at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. His professor was given: "pen?"


"I thought it was an interesting mix of genres and I liked the permanence of the whole thing," Poulos said. "I always told myself if I get a tattoo, it better be something of importance."


Jackson said participants want to be connected to 2,094 other people and often don't care about the story's subject. Some have never read her earlier work.


Poulos did know of Jackson. After seeing the rules for the project, he e-mailed her.


"I told myself if I get a word I don't like, I'm not going to do it," Poulos said.


A letter came in the mail with Poulos' word — back," — a few months ago. Possibly a character's dialogue from the story, he thought.


Within days, Poulos got his first tattoo for $60 at Skin Illustrations, a parlor near his home in Overland Park, Kan.


Drawn in a black textbook font, back," is small enough that it could be concealed under a watch strap.


Jackson was the first to ink the story's title to the underside of her wrist. Its uncommon spot complements her wild hair, nose and lip piercings and the "&" tattooed to her bicep.


Initially, Jackson asked friends to become the story's opening lines. But when BBC and others reported on her project, e-mails and letters poured in from across the United States and dozens of countries, from Jordan to Japan.





She has more than enough volunteers and could have finished the project months ago if not for an arm injury, she said. All the words — about 400 remain — will be assigned after she finishes teaching creative writing at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn this summer.

The story has no obscene words, but some can be taken more than one way. One woman, for example, refused to tattoo "use" to her curvy body.

Jackson's "words" have replied with proof of their tattoos. A man in his 50s from Hawaii sent a photo in which he proudly flexes his first tattoo. Mother-daughter duos have consecutive words in "Skin" tattooed on their bodies. So do couples.

"I was always fascinated by the idea of alternative publications and not many authors have ever attempted alternative ways of publishing," Jackson said. "Publishers are not interested in conceptual art."

Author Neal Pollack has also mastered publicity stunts with his literature.

"One doesn't do something like Shelley did to get noticed," said Pollack, whose first book tour mocked literary conventions with readings at train stations and baseball stadiums. On his last tour, Pollack peddled his work through live punk rock shows.

He acknowledged that "Skin" could easily be seen as "pretentious."

"But anything that even moderately shakes literature out of its doldrums is great," Pollack said.

William Gibson was a pioneer in elevating the craft through artful self-expression with his "Agrippa (A Book of The Dead)."

In 1992, the author, famed for "Johnny Mnemonic," sold $2,000 copies of a "read-only-once" poem. Published on a computer disk and bound by art that vanished when exposed to light, a program would scroll the six-verse poem across the screen one time, then self-destruct (the idea was spoiled when someone passed the poem over the Internet).

Jackson is debating how to present her story to her "words," but she's optimistic that "Skin," in it's published entirety, will remain a secret among her loyal subjects. She gives no clues about the story's topic, only that it's in the "surreal tradition of literary fantasists."

Poulos promises he won't share the story when he gets his hands on it. He hopes to meet Jackson someday, and there's talk of an online discussion board for the new community.

____

 

[Guest]

 

[Lou Nuttick]

Blue Balls

Associated Press Thu Jan 15, 2:06 PM ET Spokane, Wash

Three men who went streaking through a Denny's restaurant were chilled and chagrined when they spotted a thief drive off in their getaway car, their clothes inside.

Naked in the 20-degree weather, the three young men huddled behind cars in a parking lot until police arrived.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

I have a life!!!!!!!! LOLOLOL



Strange News - AP


Professor Gets Job Counting Frogs

53 minutes ago Add Strange News - AP to My Yahoo!



MIDLAND, Mich. - Eldon Enger is all ears when he's looking for frogs. The retired biology professor is a volunteer frog counter for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.



Each spring the department does a frog and toad census.


The status of the tiny critters can be a good indicator of the environmental health of an area. Enger says you have to identify the frogs by the sounds of their distinctive croaking.


But the frogs don't take kindly to strangers. Enger says the frogs hush-up when they sense someone coming. But Enger adds if you're quiet for a while, the frogs will start singing again.

 

[Guest]

Whatever floats yer boat!

Bless him, I bet he has a name for each one.

 

[cloudy]

The song "Happy Birthday to You" is copyrighted.

Yes, the song the entire Western world sings at birthday parties is actually owned by a large corporation, and every time someone sings it in public without permission, it is an infringement of copyright. The song’s tune was published by schoolteachers Mildred and Patty Hill in 1893 as "Good Morning to All" in their book Song Stories for the Kindergarten. Children began singing it at birthday parties but with words they came up with themselves, which is how folk music typically develops. Nevertheless, the song–lyrics and all–is now owned by AOL Time Warner, the largest entertainment company on earth, and the corporation aggressively defends its property.

 

[cloudy]

This site cracked me up. Disturbing Auctions

Check this out (the description is theirs, I swear):

http://www.disturbingauctions.com/thumbnails/inflegs2.jpg

According to the seller -- "when these are uninflated they can be stuck into someone's mouth". I don't even want to KNOW how he knows this.

 

[lucky-E-leven]

This isn't news, but...

It is lighthearted.

Here is a cute article on the gender of the computer .

A French teacher was explaining to her class that in French, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine: "house" is feminine - la maison, while "pencil" is masculine - "le crayon".

A student asked, "What gender is 'computer'?" Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups - male and female - and asked them to decide for themselves whether "computer" should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give 4 reasons for their recommendation.

The men's group decided that "computer" should definitely be of the feminine gender (la computer) because: 1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic. 2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else. 3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later review. and 4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your salary on accessories for it.

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine (le computer) because: 1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on. 2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves. 3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem. and 4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.



~lucky

 

[cheerful_deviant]

Better living through science:

Mice Living the Good Life: University of Southern California researchers announced in February that they were able to breed mice with a certain skin gene "overexpressed," resulting in the mices' growing thicker hair, more whiskers and "significantly larger" "external genitalia." [Medical News Today, 2-23-04]

Can someone get me some of whatever they gave these mice???