We’ve got drunken animals, stupid parents and criminals in our weird news, how stress kills you info-graphic, and a little nod towards creative marketing.
First,
Brain Teasers from Braingle.com:
1. What makes more noise when it is dead than when it is alive?
2. A man is sitting in a pub feeling rather poor. He sees the man next to him pull a wad of $50 out of his wallet.
He turns to the rich man and says to him,
“I have an amazing talent; I know almost every song that has ever existed.”
The rich man laughs.
The poor man says, “I am willing to bet you all the money you have in your wallet that I can sing a genuine song with a lady’s name of your choice in it.”
The rich man laughs again and says, “OK, how about my daughter’s name, Joanna Armstrong-Miller?”
The rich man goes home poor. The poor man goes home rich.
What song did he sing?
3. A man in a restaurant asked a waiter for a juice glass, a dinner plate, water, a match, and a lemon wedge. The man poured enough water onto the plate to cover it.
“If you can get the water on the plate into this glass without touching or moving this plate, I will give you $100,” the man said. “You can use the match and lemon to do this.”
A few minutes later, the waiter walked away with $100 in his pocket. How did the waiter get the water into the glass?
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Drunken Elk Saved from Apple Tree in Sweden
By IBTimes Staff Reporter | September 7, 2011 5:14 PM EDT
A drunken elk became lodged in an apple tree during a desperate search for one more mouthful of fermenting apples, in Western Sweden.
Per Johansson of Saro, south of Gothenberg, returned home from work on Tuesday and reportedly heard a bellowing noise. He discovered the inebriated animal clambering in his neighbor’s yard.
“I thought it looked pretty bad, so I called the police who sent out an on-call hunter. But while we were waiting, the neighbors and I started to saw down some of the branches, and then the hunter arrived with a saw as well,” Johansson said.
The group’s attempts proved fruitless, and it was not until the fire brigade arrived on the scene that the elk was able to slide out of the branches to freedom.
“My neighbor recognized it as the animal that almost ran into her car earlier in the day. She was pretty sure the elk was already under the influence,” he said.
The elk reportedly passed out in the grass by the apple tree after the incident and toddled away the following morning.
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To that I say, “Yo, People of Sweden, that’s a MOOSE not an Elk.” I thought maybe this was one of those ‘lost in translation’ stories, so I checked around and found the original article from the local Swedish column here. They call it an Elk too and provided a similar photo as above.
OK, maybe it is one of those an “American Robin” isn’t the same as an “English Robin” scenarios. I checked around and as it turns out our version of a Moose is their version of Elk. I don’t know what our version of Elk to them is however.
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Moving along to; Man dressed as Gumby tries to rob store…
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – In the world of animated TV, it’s no stretch to say that good-natured Gumby is far down the list of characters that would commit armed robbery.
But a man clad in a full-figured Gumby costume has made a botched attempt to rob a 7-Eleven store in California, and authorities are looking for the suspect, police said on Wednesday.
It happened early on Monday when the man came into the San Diego store dressed as the green claymation figure, accompanied by an ordinarily dressed accomplice, San Diego Police spokesman Detective Gary Hassen said.
The costumed man announced he was robbing the store, but the clerk thought it was a joke, police said.
“Gumby said, ‘You don’t think it’s a robbery? Let me show you my gun,'” Hassen said.
The suspect then tried to reach into his Gumby outfit but experienced a “costume malfunction” and could not fit his hand in a pocket, he said.
Instead of a gun, the costumed suspect pulled out 26 cents in change which he dropped on the floor, police said.
The accomplice, who had left the store and gotten into a minivan, honked at the man dressed as Gumby. He, too, walked out of the store without managing to take any money, police said. Both men left in the minivan.
After their getaway, the store clerk was still not certain an attempted robbery had occurred and did not call police. The store manager, who arrived later that morning, reported the incident.
and here is where you can see the video.
Apparent carjacker gets one-way ride to jail…
KANSAS CITY, Mo (Reuters) – When a man with a gun jumped on the hood of her car in Kansas City and demanded she drive, Rayna Garrett obliged — all the way to the police station.
Prosecutors charged Dionette L. Price on Wednesday with unlawful use of a weapon and felonious restraint, saying he endangered Garrett’s life when he pointed a silver semi-automatic handgun at her, warning her to “drive … or I will blow your head off.”
Garrett said Price, 26, was standing in the middle of U.S. Highway 71 in Kansas City at about noon on Tuesday. When she tried to go around him he leaped onto the car hood.
She sped up to try to knock him off, to no avail, and then headed to the Kansas City police station, a more than 2-mile drive. Garrett pulled up to the police garage and honked several times, but the man still threatened to kill her.
Finally, she rammed into the garage door and he jumped off the hood and fled. Moments later, after she alerted police, Price was arrested at a bus stop without incident, according to a probable cause statement released by the Jackson County prosecutor.
Questioned by police, Price admitted jumping on the vehicle but not to having a .357 magnum semi-automatic handgun, documents said. No motive was given for the incident.
On the nerdier side of life we have a Nearby Supernova discovered by Astronomers in California…
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – California astronomers have found the closest, brightest supernova of its kind in 25 years, catching the glimmer of a tiny self-destructing star a mere 21 million light years from Earth and soon visible to amateur skywatchers.
The discovery, announced on Wednesday, was made in what was believed to be the first hours of the rare cosmic explosion using a special telescope at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego and powerful supercomputers at a government laboratory in Berkeley.
The detection so early of a supernova so near has created a worldwide stir among astronomers, who are clamouring to observe it with every telescope at their disposal, including the giant Hubble Space Telescope.
Scientists behind the discovery at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley say the extraordinary phenomenon — labelled by the rather obscure designation PTF 11kly — will likely become the most-studied supernova in history.
“It is an instant cosmic classic,” said Peter Nugent, the senior scientist at UC Berkeley who first spotted it.
PTF 11kly occurred in the Pinwheel Galaxy, located in the Ursa Major constellation, better known as the Big Dipper. At a distance of roughly 21 million light years, that puts it, on a cosmic scale, practically “in our backyard,” Nugent said.
Initially detected on August 24, the PTF 11kly has literally grown brighter by the minute and was already 20 times more luminous in just one day.
It is expected to reach its peak sometime between September 9 and 12, when it will become visible to stargazers using a good pair of binoculars or small telescope.
Pictured: Big Dipper lower left, Little Dipper upper right
It will appear, bluish-white, just above and to the left of the last two stars in the Big Dipper handle.
Sept. 2011 Sky Map; click to enlarge or go to Skymaps.com
Thanks to SKYMAPS.COM for providing this download for free!
I’ve also heard if you have a Smart Phone there’s an “App for That” that downloads a sky map to your phone for star gazers.
Now for Chuck Shepherd’s News of the Weird:
Suffrin’ Suckatash…
The heavy hand of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service landed on 11-year-old Skylar Capo and her mom in June, after an agent happened to spot Skylar holding a baby woodpecker in her hands at a Lowes home improvement store in Fredericksburg, Va. Actually, Skylar had minutes before saved the woodpecker from the primed teeth of a house cat and was providing temporary TLC, intending to release the bird when the trauma had passed. The agent, apparently, was unimpressed, reciting a provision of the Migratory Bird Act, and two weeks later, another Fish and Wildlife agent knocked on the Capos’ door (accompanied by a Virginia state trooper) and served Mrs. Capo a citation calling for a $535 fine. (In August, Fish and Wildlife officials relented, calling the agent’s action a mistake.) [WUSA-TV (Washington, D.C.)]
Well, if you say so…
Though a university study released in June linked birth defects to the controversial mining industry practice of mountaintop removal, lawyers for the National Mining Association offered a quick, industry-friendly rebuttal: Since the area covered by the study was in West Virginia, any birth defects could well be explained merely as inbreeding. (A week later, the lawyers thought better and edited out that insinuation.) [Charleston Gazette, 7-11-2011]
Michael Jones, 50, told a magistrate in Westminster, England, in May that he did not “assault” a police officer when he urinated on him at a railway station a month earlier. Jones claimed, instead, that he was “urinating in self-defense” in that the water supply had been “poisoned by the mafia.” The magistrate explained that Jones’ argument “is not realistically going to be a viable defense.” [CourtNews.uk, 5-31-2011]
Inmate Kyle Richards filed a federal lawsuit in July against Michigan’s prison system because of the no-pornography policy in effect for the Macomb County jail (a violation of Richards’ “constitutional rights”). Other states permit such possession, claimed Richards, who further supported his case by reference to his own condition of “chronic masturbation syndrome,” exacerbated by conditions behind bars. Additionally, Richards claimed to be indigent and therefore entitled to pornography at the government’s expense — to avoid a “poor standard of living” and “sexual and sensory deprivation.” [Detroit News, 7-3-2011].
Alanis would be proud…
When Laura Diprimo, 43, and Thomas Lee, 28, were arrested for child endangerment in Louisville, Ky., in June, it appeared to be yet another instance of a mother leaving an infant locked in a hot car (91-degree heat index outside) while frolicking elsewhere (drinking with Lee at the Deja Vu club). According to a report on WDRB-TV, while the two were in the police car en route to jail, Lee complained that the back seat of the cruiser was uncomfortably warm. [WDRB-TV (Louisville), 6-1-2011]
From TheOatmeal
A 55-year-old man participating in a protest of New York’s mandatory-helmet law was killed after losing control of his motorcycle and hitting his head on the pavement, even though doctors said he surely would have survived had he been wearing a regulation helmet (Lafayette, N.Y., July). [WSYR-TV (Syracuse), 7-2-2011]
An 18-year-old man, celebrating on the evening of May 21 after it had become clear that the world would not end as predicted by a radio evangelist, drowned after jumping playfully off a bridge into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River. [Kalamazoo Gazette, 5-21-2011]
Click here to read The Oatmeal’s full article on Irony.
Small details can be the most important…
Germany’s Green Party temporarily transcended mainstream environmental goals in June and specially demanded that the government begin regulating sex toys such as dildos and vibrators. Those devices, it said, contain “dangerously high levels of phthalates” and other plastics that can cause infertility and hormone imbalances. The party called for sex-toy regulation that is at least as strong as the regulation of children’s toys. [Spiegel Online, 7-1-2011]
“This is a clear case where making something environmentally friendly works for us,” said Lt. Col. Jeff Woods, the U.S. Army’s product manager for small-caliber ammunition. He told Military.com in May that new steel-core 5.56mm cartridges not only “penetrate” (kill) more effectively, but are less environmentally toxic than current lead-core ammo. [Military.com, 5-5-2011]
Judge Giuseppe Gargarella has scheduled trial for later this month in L’Aquila, Italy, for seven members of Italy’s national commission on disaster risks who (though supposedly experts) failed to warn of the severity of the April 2009 central-Italy earthquake that killed 300 people. Judge Gargarella said the seven had given “contradictory information” and must stand trial for manslaughter. (One commission member had even recommended a high-end red wine that citizens should sip as they ignore small tremors — which turned into a 6.3 magnitude quake.) [The Guardian (London), 5-26-2011]
I now pronounce you, “King of the Ass Clowns!”
The veterans’ support organization Home for Our Troops had recently started to build a 2,700-square-foot house in Augusta, Ga., to ease life for Army Sgt. 1st Class Sean Gittens, who had suffered concussive head injuries in Afghanistan and is partially paralyzed. However, in June, the Knob Hill Property Owners Association, which had provisionally approved the design, changed its mind. “The problem is,” one association member told the Augusta Chronicle, there are “5,000-square-foot homes all the way up and down the street” and that such a “small” house would bring down property values. “It just doesn’t fit.” [Augusta Chronicle, 6-22-2011]
We have enough perverts in America, get your ass back across the pond…
Alan Buckley, 44, on holiday from Cheshire, England, was arrested in Orlando in June and charged with taking upskirt photographs of a woman at a Target store. Buckley’s child had gotten sick and was admitted to Orlando’s Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children, and Buckley was apparently killing time at Target after visiting with the child (and was later identified by witnesses because he was still wearing his hospital visitor’s sticker, with his name on it). [Orlando Sentinel, 6-10-2011]
Even the Keystone Kops couldn’t miss these clues…
Steven Long, 23, was arrested in South Daytona, Fla., in May on suspicion of theft after a patrol officer spotted him pedaling his bike down a street with a 59-inch TV set on the handlebars. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 5-31-2011]
Matthew Davis, 32, pleaded guilty to theft in Cairns, Australia, in June; he had been arrested on suspicion because police had noticed a large office safe protruding “precariously” out the back of his vehicle as he drove by. [Cairns Post, 6-30-2011]
Stephen Kirkbride, 46, was convicted of theft in Kendal, England, in June after a clothing store clerk, on the witness stand, pointed out that Kirkbride had in fact worn to court that day the very coat he had stolen from the store. [Westmorland Gazette, 6-22-2011]
Bless their little Aryan-turned-Stoner hearts…
When News of the Weird wrote about the twin singers Lamb and Lynx Gaede (“Prussian Blue”), age 13, in 2005, they were singing Aryan-heritage songs at white-supremacist venues, under the guidance of their Hitler-admiring mother, April. Nowadays, the girls are off the road, according to a July report on The Daily, and have almost completely renounced their political fervor (to April’s disappointment). Said Lamb, “I was just spouting a lot of knowledge that I had no idea what I was saying. My sister and I are pretty liberal now.” Added Lynx, “Personally, I love diversity. I’m stoked that we have so many different cultures.” Both girls have struggled with illnesses since their fame and credit a new treatment that they praise for easing their conditions: medical marijuana. [The Daily, 7-17-2011]
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Here are some interesting logos with hidden symbols. You can read the full article here.
This logo appears to be very simple, but if you look at the white space between the “E” and “x” in “Ex,” you’ll find the arrow.
These popular party chips are a staple at many backyard BBQs, but chances are, you’ve never noticed the hidden celebration scene concealed within the letters. The second and third “t’s” are sharing a chip over an “i” that is dotted with a salsa bowl. Yum!
Named the world’s most famous and prestigious cycling race, bike-lovers and non-cyclists alike are familiar with the event’s emblem. However, you might be missing out on the logo’s most interesting aspect. After careful examination, you’ll notice an image of a person riding a bicycle; the yellow circle is the front wheel and the ‘R’ is the body.
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This awesome infographic about STRESS designed by John Larwood found on Cracked.com
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Brain Teaser Answers: 
1. a Leaf.
2. Happy Birthday
3. First, the waiter stuck the match into the lemon wedge, so that it would stand straight. Then he lit the match, and put it in the middle of the plate with the lemon. Then, he placed the glass upside-down over the match. As the flame used up the oxygen in the glass, it created a small vacuum, which sucked in the water through the space between the glass and the plate. Thus, the waiter got the water into the glass without touching or moving the plate.
Click here to see the trick done with three matches and a stack of coins instead of a lemon wedge.
What it is:
FridayFunnyLoL 