Weird But True

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August 5, 2004 -- Michael Hanczyk appeared in a Pennsylvania court to fight a drunken driving charge — boozed out of his mind. A judge stopped the hearing and ordered Hanczyk, who reeked of alcohol to take a Breathalyzer. The test revealed that he had a blood-alcohol level of more than three times the legal limit.

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August 7, 2004 --This is shocking. An Iowa teen was struck by lightning while working on his computer at home. Mike Bergeron, 15, of Council Bluffs was shocked after a bolt of lightning struck the roof of the house and traveled through the electrical lines to the computer. "I never would have expected something like this to happen," said his mom, Linda. "It's a very weird thing."

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August 8, 2004 -- Talk about your pork-belly flops. Swine dives are making a big splash at the Labadie Pig Gig in Bay City, Mich. The pigs think it's a cool way to beat the summer heat, said Virgil Randall, who displays diving and racing pigs at county fairs and festivals. "Pigs are water animals," he said. "They're from the same family as elephants and hippopotamus." Woe to the nonperforming porkers — they might end up on Pig Gig barbecue grills.

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No Toe Licking

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch Labour party wants to pass
a law making unsolicited toe-licking an offence after police
were unable to prosecute a would-be Casanova with a taste for
female toes because he had committed no crime.
A police spokesman said on Friday a man had been detained
after women sunning themselves in Rotterdam's parks and beaches
claimed he would sneak up on them and begin to lick their toes.
"The officers had to let him go. Licking a stranger's toes
is rather unusual but there is really nothing criminal about
it," the spokesman said.
Dutch press reports said the man, who is about 35, had been
licking the toes of strangers for about three years but was
only recently caught by police.
Peter van Heemst, a Labour member of parliament, asked
Christian Democrat Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner on Friday
to explain why Dutch laws forbid littering but not uninvited
toe-licking. van Heemst demanded an amendment prohibiting it.

Reut00:59 08-09-04

*** kissing is not prohibited by law.

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COOL

Finn and Belarussian win sauna endurance contest
HEINOLA, Finland, Aug 8 (Reuters) - A Finnish man and a
Belarussian woman won a competition for sitting in a
blisteringly hot sauna on Sunday, with both nations keeping the
world titles in the bizarre endurance test.
Leo Pusa, 56, a three times former champion took back the
title won by a fellow Finn last year, spending almost 12 minutes
in the 110 degrees Celsius (230 degrees Fahrenheit) heat.
Natalya Tryfanava from Belarus held onto the title she won
last year in the women's contest, managing to stick it out for
just over eight minutes.
Ninety competitors from 12 countries took part in the
contest, held for the sixth time in the small Finnish town
Heinola, some 130 kilometres (80 miles) north of the capital
Helsinki.
Competitors sat in sauna cabins set up on a stage for as
long as they could take the heat before running out to cool
down.
Water was poured onto the sauna stove every 30 seconds to
keep the temperature up.
A crowd of several thousand followed their favourites on a
big video screen, cheering on every competitor as they rushed
out.
"In the sauna, my head was almost empty, no thoughts about
victory or anything," said 36-year-old Tryfanava, her face and
limbs red from the heat.
"I was just trying to relax as much as possible, keep my
breathing in check and not get burned, and still enjoy it."
Tryfanava said she and her team mates, who came third and
fourth, underwent a special training programme, but declined to
reveal details.
The men's contest has always been won by a Finn.
Pusa said it would be hard for foreigners to beat Finns as
saunas are the country's favourite pastime.
Finland has more than 2 million saunas for a population of 5
million.

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No Bologna

Will giant Italian sandwich capture world record?
BARI, Italy, Aug 8 (Reuters) - A southern Italian town is
hoping to set a world record with the creation of a 700
metre-long meat and salami sandwich.
Bakers and construction workers in the southern Puglia
hilltop town of Mottola baked, stuffed and then cut a 1,500
kilogram (3,307 lb) submarine sandwich into 19,000 pieces.
Some 50 construction workers with cranes were needed to pass
the lengthy loaf of bread on a conveyor through a massive oven,
which cooked it in sections, before it was stuffed with 300
kilograms of mortadella and 200 kilograms of salami and laid out
in the streets.
Seven workers from the local "Catucci" bakery worked
together for almost 24 hours to beat the previous Italian record
set in the northern city of Milan with a 347-metre sandwich that
was filled with Nutella chocolate spread.
"The mega-sandwich required up to 800 kilograms of flour,
400 litres of water and 200 kilograms of salt," said Pietro
Catucci, 40, the creator of the competition.
"It expanded thanks to our work and to natural warmth from
the summer sun. That was the additional challenge," he told
Reuters.
A notary documented the making of the sandwich in hopes the
effort will be recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records.
After the required measurements, portions of the giant sub
were sold and the proceeds given to charity.
REUTERS

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Oh...that's just bull

Bull takes refuge in Bangladesh hospital
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) - A bull escaped from a butcher's knife
and took refuge in a hospital emergency ward, interrupting medical
procedures for nearly 45 minutes, a news report said Sunday.
The big white bull tore away from a butcher as it was about to
be slaughtered on a busy city street, and charged up a ramp into
the emergency ward of nearby Dhaka Medical College Hospital, the
daily Ittefaq newspaper reported.
"The bull was running around like crazy, and we were all
scared," Shahin Mollah, a witness, was quoted as saying.
As patients, doctors and nurses screamed and ran in panic,
guards chased the animal out of the building and into the
hospital's morgue.
The frightened animal was then caught and returned to the
butcher.

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

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Ain't gonna help his sex life.........

Rejected by his wife, Moroccan cuts off his penis
RABAT, Aug 7 (Reuters) - A 70-year-old Moroccan cut off his
penis in protest at his wife's long refusal to have sex with
him, hospital sources said on Saturday.
The unidentified man severed his organ on Monday in the
southern town of Ait Ourir and was taken to a hospital in the
nearby city of Marrakesh for treatment.
"He didn't bring his penis with him. He has left the
hospital well, but without his penis," a doctor from the Ibn
Toufail hospital told Reuters.
REUTERS

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Stick with me....

Man Glues Hand to Girlfriend in Prison
MADRID (Reuters) - A German prisoner in Madrid and his
girlfriend glued their hands together during a jail visit in an
attempt to fight the man's possible extradition to Germany,
judicial sources said on Thursday.
The pair were taken to hospital, where doctors were
considering whether to operate or use a powerful solvent to
separate the man's left hand from the woman's right.
The glue is a type normally used in car repairs.
Spanish police arrested the 39-year-old man in the southern
city of Cadiz in April on request from Germany, where he faces
accusations of smuggling women from Eastern Europe to force
them into prostitution, the judicial sources said.
The Madrid court studying the extradition request will not
make a decision for several months, they added. The man has a
separate judicial case pending in Spain and authorities want it
resolved before any handover to Germany.

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QUIET!

Noisy Sex Session Awakens Entire Street
BERLIN (Reuters) - A pair of young lovers so annoyed their
neighbors with a noisy sex session that police had to go and
ask them to lower the volume, police said on Tuesday.
Officers in the western city of Essen interrupted the
couple shortly after midnight after neighbors, listening to the
sounds through an open window, called to complain.
"Gradually more and more neighbors gathered in front of the
house to investigate the noise," said a police spokesman.
The embarrassed couple were asked to close the window and
continue at a lower volume, he said.

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Extremes?

Curvy Shop Mannequins Must Cover Up
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's moral crackdown has widened its
focus from stylishly dressed women to curvaceous shop-window
mannequins, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Morals police have banned shopkeepers from showing unveiled
dummies and lingerie in their windows.
And men were now forbidden to sell women's underwear, Sharq
newspaper said.
"Using unveiled mannequins that reveal their bodies' curves
is banned," it quoted part of a new police manual as saying.
Shops breaking the rules risk closure and losing their
trading licenses.

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Police Catch 80 Revelers with Pants Down
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Around 80 men were caught with
their pants down at a men-only nightclub when detectives burst
in on a late-night drug raid.
Inspector Dennis Adriao told Reuters Monday four men at
"The Factory" nightclub in New Doornfontein were arrested in
the early hours of Sunday after drugs were discovered stashed
in their socks and shoes, which most patrons were still
wearing.
"Men had to pay at the entrance and leave their clothes at
the door. Police were tipped off there would be drugs but they
got a bit of a shock because they didn't know it was a nudist
night," he said.
The owner of the nightclub was also arrested for serving
alcohol without a license, and around $4,500 worth of liquor
was seized, Adriao said. Drugs were also found dumped on the
floor by people who managed to avoid arrest, he added.

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WhoDeeny

BUDAPEST, Aug 31 (Reuters) - David Merlini, the man dubbed
Hungary's Houdini, was encased in a four tonne concrete block
and lowered by crane into the Danube river from Budapest's chain
bridge on Tuesday. He promptly escaped.
"In less than 15 minutes he was out of the block," said one
eyewitness, reporting Merlini was last seen suspended from a
helicopter.
Earlier in the day Merlini was placed in a glass container
into which concrete was poured and allowed to set.
Hundreds of people watched images from underwater cameras
showing his escape but the murky pictures gave little away about
how he did it.
Merlini has sought to emulate the American stuntman Harry
Houdini, spending 33 hours frozen in a straight jacket on one
occasion and welded in a steel coffin at the bottom of the
Danube on another.
He has said Tuesday's stunt was aimed at promoting the image
of Hungary as a new member of the European Union after it joined
in May.

Reut16:38 08-31-04

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Monkey business

Sexually Frustrated Chimp Takes Up Smoking
BEIJING (Reuters) - Sexual frustration has turned a Chinese
chimpanzee from a mild-mannered simian into a problem primate
who smokes cigarettes and spits at visitors, the Xinhua news
agency says.
Feili, a female chimp in the city of Zhengzhou in the
central province of Henan, picked up her nasty habits by
imitating visitors who behaved "improperly" around her, Xinhua
quoted zoo director Liu Bing as saying on Sunday.
But, Liu said, the root cause of Feili's transformation
from a "gentle girl" into a "shrew" lay with the inability to
find her a satisfactory mate.
A male chimpanzee at the zoo has failed to live up to
Feili's sexual demands, and she has snubbed other potential
suitors.
Zoo officials said Feili was not addicted to nicotine, but
the chimp has also demonstrated clever -- if not desperate --
behavior to score a smoke.

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Scorpion Queen Stung But Eyes Record
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A Malaysian woman holed up in a
glass container with 6,000 scorpions has been stung twice, but
is still determined to reclaim a world record for living with
creatures, an aide said.
Nur Malena Hassan, who is attempting to set a new record by
spending 36 days with the scorpions, suffered a mild fever
after being stung on her face, Ali Khan Shamsuddin said Sunday.
"She's okay now and she's very determined to do it. God
willing, she will leave the cage on September 25," Ali Khan
told Reuters.
Nur Malena, nicknamed "Scorpion Queen," moved into the
glass room measuring 12 feet by 10 feet at a shopping mall in
Kuantan, about 160 miles east of Kuala Lumpur, on August 21.
She leaves the cage just once a day for a 15-minute bathroom
break.
The 27-year-old Malaysian woman, who set a world record by
spending 30 days with 2,700 scorpions in 2001, is trying to win
back the title from Thailand's Kanchana Ketkaew, who lived in a
glass room with more than 3,000 scorpions for 32 days in 2002.
Ali Khan said Nur Malena, who watches DVDs to pass the time,
lacks sleep because of the scorpions crawling over her body,
and that she is aware that she will pass out if stung three
times within a short span.