NEWS OF THE WEIRD: Stories of the strange, the sublime, the supernatural, the silly and the stupefying

Since we're all now suffering from post-holidays bloat and vigorously proclaiming our soon-to-be-broken New Year's Resolutions to diet, exercise and quit running up the planet's gravity bill, I bring you this very special, Boxing Day edition of NEWS OF THE WEIRD:
"F@$% flubber, I said...", from, of all places, Forbes online:

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/12/21/fat-fuel-biodiesel-tech-sciences-cz_pcb_1222fatfuel.html?feed=rss_technology

Personally, if The Biggest Loser involved this sort of process, I'd watch.

NEWS OF THE WEIRD, and yours truly, will return Monday, January 5, 2009. Happy New Year, all!


Captain Planet

The year's first NEWS OF THE WEIRD comes to us from The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune: IRS, Attempting to Collect Nickel Owed, Turns Around and Refunds Four Cents...

http://www.startribune.com/nation/37038639.html

...Actually, to be frank this isn't so much "weird," as "typical". But who cares? It's news. Why? Because I say it is.


The Official IRS Auditor Pencil Sharpener, now available for an unlimited time

Serving up an extra scoop of disturbingly odd, nougatey goodness today, as I present a SPECIAL DOUBLE FEATURE of NEWS OF THE WEIRD:

First up, Giving New Meaning to the Term, "Blue Balls"... From FOXNews.com: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,477385,00.html

Here's a link to the inevitable video, for the more masochistically minded, or just anybody who hates men:

http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=3418017&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/

Next... Harvard Docs Say, It's No Bunk: Keep Junk in the Trunk, Or Your Health May be Sunk. ...Who'da Thunk?

Be honest. You knew it was coming.

...from News.com.au: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24877840-36398,00.html?from=public_rss


"Guppy"

No one actually reads this thread any more, but, Hell, I'M still entertained, so here's today's installment irrelevance of NEWS OF THE WEIRD!

From The Sun of London: Brit Git In Shit Pit Can't Fit or Spit, Quits and Splits!

Read the (over)full story here: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2104946.ece

And you guys thought poor ol' Nico was a pack rat. Zounds.


Anyone seen WALL-E?

Why? Just WHY?

Something tells me that he lived off of rats and rain water or urine.

Horse Escapes From Farm, Enters UK Cinema:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1105342/Horse-star-film-attraction-bursting-cinema.html?ITO=1490

Nice one, Boussh, it's great to see others taking an interest in this thread, and wanting to contribute. You are hereby made an Honorary Contributing Editor to NEWS OF THE WEIRD. Now, let's talk salary: How much are you going to pay me? [Grin]

Today's OFFICIAL (I get to call it that 'cos I thought of it first, na na na na boo-boo!) installment of NEWS OF THE WEIRD comes to us from an online science blog named, esoterically enough, Science Blog, and, actually, appears to dovetail rather nicely with the thread about the just-released Transformers 2: Energistic Boogaloo teaser poster: Howl Howl Gargle Howl Gargle Howl Howl Howl Gargle Howl Gargle Howl Howl Gargle Gargle Howl Gargle Gargle Gargle Howl Slurrp Uuuurgh!!!, which may be read received at NASA Balloon Mission Tunes in to Mystery Roar. Hey, I think I'm finally getting the hang of these URL hypertext link thingees.


We heard ya

Well they need to post the actual sound. Surely they were recording... Come on NASA, youtube that bitch.

The older I get, the more convinced I am that people from New York, California and certain other states (Washington, Hawaii, Vermont, eastern Massachusetts) live on a completely different planet than I do. Case in point: Today's increasingly incredulous NEWS OF THE WEIRD, which comes to us from The New York Post: Come for the Chicken, Stay for the Pox!

Adding the ridiculous to, well, the only slightly less ridiculous, the article's authors seem to consider former MTV asset and Playboy fixture Jenny McCarthy as some sort of crusading pediatric health public ambassador, which is a little like quoting Pamela Anderson as a foreign policy expert.


And Paris Hilton's qualified to be Attorney General. Bet she's been admitted to many bars (and, vice versa)

Well since I hail from western Massachusetts, we are clearly from the same world

Haha, that's how I got my chicken pox. but we didn't go to srange peoples houses, just family.

That was a good South Park episode.

Swedge, the mind boggles at what some people do.

Swedgin! wrote: The New York Post: Come for the Chicken, Stay for the Pox!

This surely has to be another sign of the apocalypse. I mean, yes we did this when I was a kid, but that was in the 60's. I'd like to think we've progressed a little since then. (Image comes to mind of Dr. McCoy on one of the many time travelling episodes looking at our present day medical instruments and calling them barbaric) I have a friend who has a picture of her mom from her baby shower with a cigarette in one hand and resting a martini glass on her bulge. Imagine how that would play out today.


And yes, the South Park episode was hillarious because just like Cartman, I was led to believe there would be side dishes.

Am I the only one who doesn't see this as a big deal (prob cause I'm from Cali...where were eons ahead of all the rest of you...). From what I hear, the fact we use so many vaccines causes alot of problems, even beyond autism, with the bodies immune system. Let's face it, generally, it's a disease you get once and never again...why take a vaccine for that?? If schools are demanding one or the other, this is probably the safer route, honestly...

You do know the risks involved if you do not get them as a child and then get them as an adult, right?

Which is why they're making sure their child is getting it...as a child...so they don't get it as adults...

This surely has to be another sign of the apocalypse.

One hopes.

I mean, yes we did this when I was a kid, but that was in the 60's. I'd like to think we've progressed a little since then.

Well, I'm not PRECISELY a Darwinite, but, if I remember aright, the progress of evolutionary advancement isn't EXACTLY discernible on a forty-year timeline. Unless, of course, you're a rabbit, or a paramecium, or a potted plant, which frankly I believe many, many people really are.

(Image comes to mind of Dr. McCoy on one of the many time travelling episodes looking at our present day medical instruments and calling them barbaric)

Medievalism! ...And, er, that was The Voyage Home (1986, film). [Ducking Chien]

I have a friend who has a picture of her mom from her baby shower with a cigarette in one hand and resting a martini glass on her bulge. Imagine how that would play out today.

In certain parts of California, not to mention France or Russia, it would be so common as to escape remark. Unless, of course, she was actually inhaling in a "public place" (sorry, but aren't ALL places, y'know, public?), in which case the offending woman would be dragged off by her hair, beaten with hemp bags and Birkenstocks, and charged with a hate crime. (And, sorry, but aren't ALL crimes, y'know, hateful?)

And yes, the South Park episode was hillarious because just like Cartman, I was led to believe there would be side dishes.

ROTFL! ...Punch and pie.

Am I the only one who doesn't see this as a big deal (prob cause I'm from Cali...where were eons ahead of all the rest of you...)

[SNORT!] Yah, your state'll be bankrupt and sold off to the Chinese or the Mexicans much, MUCH quicker than mine...

mfrendo, I'm just waiting for the inevitable, parent-approved-and-chaperoned VD STD crotch rot parties (If they're gonna get gonorrhea anyway, why not make it fun?) to start popping up. Oh, wait, sorry. I forgot: AfterProm.


Sign o' the times. The end times

Hahahaha...you're comedy Swed! Yeah, our economy situation sucks (as it does everywhere), which is why I'm going to school.

As far as the chicken pox party, it seems far more civilized than the minutemen, lets-kill-all-who-come-over-the-border parties that are so common in Texas...or is it the white robed "ghost" parties that are big over there now. I actually feel sorry for you, I mean, it must be hard to keep track of all the different types of racism in one state!! And are the state sanctioned deaths of the mentally handicapped televised yet? And wait, speaking of the economy, didn't the biggest reason for the economy's failure (one George W...) actually hail from Texas?? So, really, it's your fault we're all having economy troubles...if the cross and lighter were put down by your fellow Texans (and no, I'm def not putting you yourself in this category, fyi...even my joking has certain limits) on occasion to actually read the ballots this country might not be where it is now!

Oh, jeez, not ANOTHER war between California and Texas!! I'm in Arizona, we'll probably perish in the crossfire!

Shryke,

A small price to pay for you not having to live in temps that are in the single digits right now.


view outside my window right now

Yikes, that's rough.

I'd send you a photo of Arizona in July, when the temperature reaches past 110 degrees, but "hot" doesn't really come across quite as dramatically on film, short of showing a bunch of searing, blackened corpses, which would probably be a (very slight) exaggeration.

Shrykespeare wrote:Yikes, that's rough.

I'd send you a photo of Arizona in July, when the temperature reaches past 110 degrees, but "hot" doesn't really come across quite as dramatically on film, short of showing a bunch of searing, blackened corpses, which would probably be a (very slight) exaggeration.

Yeah, but it's a dry heat

It's currently about 76 F here in NZ. Doesn't matter how many years I live here, it's hard getting used to the concept of Christmas and New Year in the summer....