Blimp eye in the sky

A Utah city (Ogden) hopes a new airborne crime fighting tool will be ready to fly by Christmas: a 54-foot-long, camera-studded blimp capable of monitoring crime scenes or joining a search…

The Ogden police department has already bought the aircraft with federal grants, and…hopes to begin training by Oct. 1, the Standard-Examiner reported.The 4-foot-diameter, helium-filled blimp will be operated by remote control and be outfitted with cameras, a radar transponder and other devices.

via Weird news – msnbc.com.

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Let sleeping bats lie.

The students at Csiky Gergely high school in the western Romanian city of Arad were about to take an exam Friday morning when they found bats flying around the room. Others appeared to be sleeping with their wings spread out on the floor.

The bats were thought to have flown in through open windows. Rather than disturb their slumber the test was moved to another class room. Well hey. It’s Transylvania after all.

via msnbc.com.

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Must still be working on a learner’s permit

The McCarthy family of Pleasanton, California, have an unusual explanation for how their 2002 Toyota Prius got totalled over the northern summer.

In short, a bear took the vehicle for a spin from the driveway of their west Lake Tahoe cabin, the Contra Costa Times said.

It seems the bear got into the car easily enough, but once inside became stuck, and got mad about it – ripping seats open, biting a chunk out of the steering wheel and damaged the gear box, which shifted the car into neutral.

Awakened by noise from the 3.30am raid, the family watched from the safety of the cabin as the Prius slowly started rolling out of the slightly sloped driveway. Picking up speed, it rolled across the street, hopped a small rock wall and finally came to stop on the porch steps of a neighbour’s house.

More via  News.com.au.

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You want bugs with that burger?

But now, the European Commission is putting money where all these foodie mouths are. It is offering a massive £2.65 million $4.32 million prize to the group that comes up with the best idea for developing insects as a popular food. The Commission is counting on cattle and other large animals being an increasingly untenable source of protein in decades to come, and hopes that some research group will be able to devise ways to convince people to eat insects despite the inherent “yuck” value.

via European Commission Offers $4.3 Million Prize To Encourage People To Eat Insects.

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Remind me not to eat at the Texas State Fair

The two top “food” winners at the Texas State Fair were Buffalo chicken flapjacks for Best Taste and fried bubble gum for Most Creative. Fried bubble gum? That’s creative alright. Or something.  Wonder if they take the wrappers off?

via  .pegasusnews.com | Dallas/Fort Worth.

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Going to the store? Leave your snake at home, please.

A man in Dundee was asked to leave his local supermarket when he showed up with his pet snake draped around his neck. Hard to understand why. After all the snake, a boa constrictor, was only six feet long.

via Man banned from his local Asda after taking pet snake on shopping trip – The Daily Record.

A bad haircut is not a police emergency, sir.

A man in Drammen, Norway, was so upset about what he thought was a bad haircut that he called the police after the salon manager said it was too late to do anything about it. The police, however. declined to mediate. Seems they thought they had more important things to do.

Apparently the salon couldn’t glue the hair back on.

 

via Bad hair day : Views and News from Norway.

Eat your heart out, Parkland Library ladies.

 

 

The man in this mugshot is serving 10 days in an Iowa jail for not returning 27 library items, valued at $770.67, when repeated attempts to contact him went ignored. Adding insult to injury the court ordered him to pay restitution plus a $625 fine.

via  The Smoking Gun.

Sign: “No Parking.” And they really meant NO parking

Ralf Scherrer from St Gallen, Switzerland, used the massive machine to move a classic Fiat X1/9 sports car that a selfish driver had parked in his way.

A construction worker in Switzerland took the law into his own hands and moved an illegally-parked car.

He explained that motorists park their vehicles in difficult spots ‘all the time’, but this time it really made him mad.

Mr Scherrer lifted the offending vehicle with the bulldozer’s digger arm and managed to squeeze the car into a tiny parking space away from the building site, without damaging it.

‘We all watched her trying to get out of the spot and she had to do a 30-point turn. It was very satisfying – and I bet she won’t do that again,’ he told the Austrian Times.

via Construction worker uses bulldozer to move car blocking site entrance | Metro.co.uk.

The history of fake barf??

Have you ever stopped to contemplate the existence of rubber barf? It opens up enough philosophical quandaries to make your head spin. Who would ever think of such a thing? Why would he feel the need to manufacture it?

Fortunately, Stan and Mardi Timm, the foremost experts on famed novelty company H. Fishlove & Co., have the answers to these vexing questions. The couple even got a personal tour of the factory where “Whoops,” the original fake vomit, is still churned out.

via The Inside Scoop on the Fake Barf Industry | Collectors Weekly.

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Atts’a some spicy pizza!

A Medford pizza shop owner is facing charges after police allegedly found about 250 pounds of marijuana, with a value of more than $750,000, in 11 cardboard boxes in his pickup truck last week, prosecutors said today.

via Prosecutors: Medford pizza shop owner had 250 pounds of marijuana from Metro Desk.

Cain’s Mutiny

You have to give Cain Motter some credit.

Like millions of Americans, this Los Angeles-based artist has his share of credit card debt that he’s working to pay off. However, unlike all those other folks, he’s raising the money to pay off his cards by melting his cards — and any that he can find — into elaborate artistic statements about the evils of credit cards. He then sells his artwork for $1,200 apiece.

via Cain Motter Makes Fine Art From Melted Credit Cards (PHOTOS, VIDEO).

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Imagine the cleanup…

Image via Wikipedia

Tens of thousands of people pelted each other with 120 tons of ripe tomatoes Wednesday in an annual battle that left the eastern Spanish town of Bunol awash in red pulp.

Bunol’s town hall estimated that around 40,000 people, including many tourists, took part in the hour-long street fight known as the “Tomatina,” an event that has its roots in a food fight between childhood friends back in 1945.

via  abc7chicago.com.

Banff Sasquatch?

Image via Wikipedia

If nothing else, the news is bound to make big strides with the Banff tourism industry.No longer will Alberta’s best-known mountain park depend solely on breathtaking scenery and abundant wildlife to impress visitors and lure overseas tourists.And no more envy towards other famous vacation spots like Loch Ness and Lake Okanagan, where legendary creatures are rumoured to lurk.

Banff now has Bigfoot. Lots and lots of Bigfoots, in fact.

via Bigfoot in Banff? – Banff Crag and Canyon – Alberta, CA.

It’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow some magic mushrooms

Image via Wikipedia

Everyone knows the potential destructive power of hurricanes, but few people are aware that storms like Hurricane Irene encourage growth of psychedelic mushrooms.Yes, it sounds trippy, but one of the strange aftermaths of a hurricane is an increased amount of mushrooms popping up — especially the psilocybin — or “magic” kind — the ones that cause hallucinations.

via Magic Mushrooms.

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You mean this isn’t a motel?

Police in Tennessee were called to a funeral home where workers found two intruders sleeping inside caskets.

One man escaped, but police caught and arrested Barrett Lance Hartsock, who was charged with burglary and vandalism over $1,000.

via 2 Intruders Found Sleeping In Funeral Home Caskets.

According to police the two did $9000 in damage to the two caskets. Maybe because the funeral home didn’t want to sell two slightly used caskets?

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Crime tip: Transporting weed on your bike? Be sure you have a bell.

A 17-year-old Sarnia, Ont., teen faces drug charges after police say they caught him with almost a kilogram of marijuana after stopping him because his bicycle had no bell.

via Canoe.ca.

It’s so important to start your marriage on the right foot

A newly wed Pennsylvania couple was arrested while stealing $1000 worth of food for their reception from a super market. Those strange looking tubes up in the corner? Those are security cameras, folks.

via TBOEXTRA.com

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Quick! Hide! It’s the cops! Except it wasn’t.

Okay, so you’ve broken into a disused building to steal metal and you suddenly hear what you think is the police searching for you. What do you do? Hide in the duct work, of course…for five hours. Turns out though that what you heard wasn’t the cops. It was another metal thief who thought you were the cops and hid on the roof.

When the real police got there, after a call to the emergency number alerted them to strange goings on, their dog quickly found the guy in the duct work and shortly afterward found the one on the roof.

“Book ‘em, Dano!”

via BBC News – Metal thief hides from second thief at Devon hospital.

This ain’t no eensy weensy spider

A five-inch Brazilian Wandering Spider—the most venomous spider in the world, stowed away in a box of bananas and leaped out in a German grocery store, running through the aisles and causing pandemonium on Friday.

After shutting down the store…for three days, a team of 30 wildlife experts failed to find the spider. They did, however, spray so many pesticides on the premises that they’re pretty sure it’s dead by now, unless it left the supermarket and is roaming the German countryside as we speak. No injuries have been reported.

via Spider Rampages in Supermarket.