[78] in Humor
HUMOR: NoTW 1/13
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Mon Feb 14 12:02:00 1994
From: abennett@MIT.EDU
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 94 11:55:51 EST
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 1994 15:54:21 -0700
From: Espacionaute Spiff domaine! <matossian@aries.colorado.edu>
WEIRDNUZ.310 (News of the Weird, January 13, 1994)
by Chuck Shepherd
Lead Story
* The Toronto Globe & Mail reported in December the imminent publication
of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's first collection of short stories,
to be titled "The Village . . . The Village, The Land is [NOTE: lower-
case i] The Land and the Astronaut Commits Suicide." [Globe & Mail,
12-16-93]
Oops!
* In October, several rows of 25-foot-high shelves filled with tons of
business records toppled over like dominos at ProFile Systems in St.
Paul, Minn. ProFile stores records for 85 clients, including
corporations and hospitals. "It's the greatest disaster in the history
of the records business," said ProFile chairman Jack Barry, who said
the company "can't handle" the $2 million cleanup cost. [Minneapolis
Star Tribune, 10-6- 93]
* In October, a young couple had to be treated for hypothermia at a
Gernsheim, Germany, clinic after the parked car in which they were
having sex rolled down a boat ramp into the Rhine River. Another man,
who owned the car, was cited by authorities for the water pollution
caused by leaking gasoline. [Edmonton Journal, 10-23-93]
* In November, a man whose name was withheld by reporters was rescued
by firefighters after spending the night in the pit of an outhouse at
a boat landing near Eugene, Ore. The man claimed that he had been high
after sniffing glue, had heard someone calling for help from the pit,
had fallen in while looking for him, and could not get back out. [Eugene
Register-Guard, 11- 4-93]
* In October, gun expert Stephen Barlow, testifying for the prosecution
against a man charged with murder in Salt Lake City, held the murder
weapon in his hand and told the jury that it could not possibly have
discharged by accidental jarring, as the defendant had claimed. To
demonstrate, he placed a pencil in the barrel, pointed it at the
ceiling, and jarred the handle. The gun fired the pencil. In two
subsequent demonstrations, the gun again fired pencils. "Oh, I'm
sorry," Barlow told the prosecutor. The defendant was allowed to plead
guilty to manslaughter instead of murder. [Salt Lake Tribune, 10-7-93]
* In August, a Walnut Creek, Calif., woman unidentified by reporters,
caused a three-hour search involving police officers from two towns, a
search and rescue team (using hastily-printed photo posters), Explorer
Scouts, and several bloodhounds when she reported her 3-year-old
daughter missing from the family car during a round of errands. Upon
returning home, the woman found the girl and realized that she had not
taken her on the errands. [[Oceanside Blade-Citizen-AP, Aug93]]
* Dwain C. Johnson, 32, was arrested in Akron, Ohio, in December, and
a warrant was issued for his colleague Steven T. Carter, 31, for
trafficking in cocaine. The two men had given their car to attendants
to be washed and vacuumed, and the vacuum cleaner sucked up a small bag
on the front seat containing about 30 rocks of crack cocaine. Police
caught Johnson after the men returned to the carwash to force the
manager to open up the vacuum canister; Carter escaped. [Akron Beacon
Journal, 12-3-93]
* In December, Bowling Green, Ohio, firefighters, responding to a blaze
on Wintergarden Road, discovered that they could not connect to the
nearest hydrant because a 900-foot hose had fallen off their truck en
route to the scene. Fortunately, firefighters from nearby Weston had
arrived with the proper hose. Said Chief Joe Burns, "We're going to
have to take a look at maybe a better way to keep it up there [on the
truck]." [Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune, Dec93]
* In April, when Baltimore's old Vermont Federal bank building was being
renovated for the new Harbor Bank, construction workers accidentally
locked the safe, which had gathered dust for six years but which Harbor
planned to use, and discovered that no one knew the combination. Rather
than pay a locksmith an estimated $10,000, or ask an imprisoned
safecracker to try his hand, the building owner placed a classified ad
in the Baltimore Sun asking to hear from anyone "familiar with" the
combination. A former Vermont Federal employee came by and opened the
safe. [Baltimore Sun, 4-19-93]
* In December, the chairman of a new state agency, the Texas Natural
Resources Conservation Commission, admitted that the agency had
forgotten to include a request in its 1994 budget for rent for its
offices. To cover the $6 million expense, the chairman said some
pollution prevention programs would have to be delayed. [San Antonio
Express-News-AP, 12-10-93]
* Thomas Dywayne Plachy, 30, was charged with DUI after being pinned
under his own car in December in Bozeman, Mont., as he was trying to
push it with the engine running. And Robert H. Betts, 73, was seriously
injured in March in La Palma, Calif., after he was hit by his own truck
four times. He had accidentally knocked the transmission into reverse
as he was getting out of the truck; the door knocked him down, and he
could not get up as the truck kept backing in circles. And a
40-year-old woman was hit by her own car and killed in Vernon Hills,
Ill., in November when she jumped out of a tow truck that was towing
the car on an expressway. [Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Dec93; Los Angeles
Times, 4-2-93; Chicago Tribune, Nov93]
The Weirdo-American Community
* In November, campus police at California Polytechnic University at
San Luis Obispo ejected David Potter Lawler, 40, from campus after seven
episodes in which they say he stealthily approached women in the
library, dropped to his hands and knees, and sniffed their behinds.
Describing his confrontation with Lawler, a police investigator said,
"The sweat was running off his head. He looked like a rain forest."
[San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune, 11-20-93]
I Don't Think So
* Brazilian legislator Joao Alves, who is the subject of a corruption
investigation because he has amassed the equivalent of $51 million on
only a legislator's salary, told a congressional panel in October that
he accumulated his wealth by winning national bingo and local and
national lotteries a total of 24,000 times since 1988. [Pensacola News
Journal, 11-3-93]
Copyright 1994, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights
reserved. Released for the personal use of readers.
No commercial use may be made of the material or of the
name News of the Weird.
