Crime tip: Stay away from women with snow shovels

Link

When two purse snatchers tried to grab purses away from two Saint Louis women loading groceries into their car, they picked the wrong women. One of the women grabbed a snow shovel from the back of the snatcher’s pickup and hit him upside the head with it opening a gash that had to be closed with surgical staples. The other one jumped into the pickup and grabbed the keys so they couldn’t drive off. The cops arrived, took the gashed one to the hospital and arrested both.

Apple Sauce Van

Link

Update to “What the heck is this?” (Thanks, Willie.)

I have just received this and the accompanying pictures from a reader in South Dakota. It sure looks similar to the animal in the post. (The original post is here.)

“The wardens and local ranchers are calling them coydogs a cross between a coyote and a domestic canine. There have been other sightings in the central part of the state. They could be reservation dogs that are running wild however that is only speculation on my part. These animals are not locals.”

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Area 51 gets name change … That will fool people.

More at Area 51 name change

Homey Airport? Doesn’t sound like a very thrilling name for as place with lots of thrilling lore. But maybe that’s what the government had in mind when it quietly (what else?!!) changed the name of the base known as Area 51 in Nevada to the new Homey moniker.

Thinking of flying somewhere? Check the crew first.

Air Canada

The co-pilot of an Air Canada flight from Toronto to London has been admitted into psychiatric care at an Irish hospital after “falling ill” in the cockpit during the flight.

Air Canada has revealed little about what happened on board the plane, but did say the pilot of flight 848 made an emergency landing in Shannon, Ireland, at 8 a.m. local time yesterday after his co-pilot became unwell.

Paramedics and a doctor were at the airport to treat the co-pilot, who has been reported by the Irish press to have suffered a nervous breakdown on board the flight.

Go away. You’re dead.

You’re dead. Go away.

Red tape is preventing a Polish man from returning from the dead.

Piotr Kucy, 38 and from the city of Polkowice in southwest Poland, was wrongly identified by authorities last August as a drowned man, only to show up a few days after his own funeral. Despite pointing out the fact that he was alive to government officials, Kucy still remains dead in official records, stopping him from working and paying social insurance.

But on the bright side, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday, he no longer needs to pay taxes.

………………………

A government spokesperson said “This man doesn’t exist.”

Nobody ever thought to look in his ear?

Deafness was a cotton bud

A schoolboy was suddenly cured of his deafness after nine years when a cotton wool bud popped out of his ear.

Jerome Bartens, 11, had been unable to hear anything on his right side since he was a toddler, reports the Daily Mail.

“I was just playing pool in the church hall when my ear made a popping noise. It was very strange at first to be able to hear everything,” he said.

Only In California: Marijuana vending machines

Pot slots

Marijuana vending machines have been launched in California. The machines can only be used by people who have been prescribed the drug for health reasons, reports the BBC.

Patients will have to provide a prescription, and be fingerprinted and photographed before being allowed to use the facilities.

Skateboarding rooster

KING5.com

A controversy is brewing in this Cascade foothill town [Enumclaw], WA] involving a famous bird on four wheels. Hanna Dahlquist’s pet rooster is one bird that’s got game.

“He skateboards,” says Hanna. “He thinks he can go faster when he’s aerodynamic.” In fact, the rooster rides so well, Hanna named him Tony Chickenhawk. “I named him after Tony Hawk because he is like a really famous skateboarder and my chicken skateboards,” says Hanna.

Marshmallow Warfare

Lots more at Port St. Joe Star

Last Friday, Darlene Ake’s Wewahitchka Elementary School Pre-Kindergarteners discovered a loophole in the district’s Code of Conduct.

No guns, no knives, no weapons of mass destruction are allowed on Gulf County [Florida] school grounds, no exceptions. But nothing in the district’s Code of Conduct prohibits the possession of jumbo marshmallows or their use in waging attacks against fellow Pre-Kindergarteners, their parents and School Superintendent Tim Wilder.

File under: Unusual Hobbies

This man has an unusual hobby. He counts toilet paper squares and compares the count to the advertised number of squares per roll. He also counts toothpicks in his spare time. Here’s the link and it’s worth clicking on: Toilet paper man

Crime tip: Don’t hold the loot on your lap

cash register stop – NOLA.com

It all added up for authorities during a traffic stop. That’s when following a burglary in Livingston Parish, authorities stopped a vehicle carrying three men, including one holding a cash register from the business that was just hit, Slidell Police spokesman Capt. Kevin Foltz said.

“That’s kind of a dead giveaway,” he said.

You’ve heard of crop circles…how about sheep circles?

the Daily Mail

Photographer Russell Bird, who captured the amazing scene, said:”I was quite taken aback. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” he said.

“I did see a dog worrying sheep nearby beforehand and the dog ran off round the hedge in a different field, so I don’t know if they were discussing that.” Bizarrely, he then spotted another circle three fields away, but was unable to take a picture with both “formations” lasting around 10 minutes before dispersing…

Farm manager at Herefordshire College of Technology, Dan Seaborne, said: “I just think they’ve been fed with dry feed in that shape – you can get snacker feeders now and you tow behind a quad and it drops pellets on the ground.”I would imagine that’s what’s happened.”

Bog Horn?

Link

Attention Tarzan fans: Remember Cheeta? He’s 75.

the Daily Mail

It’s the latest and probably the last tell-all star autobiography from Hollywood’s golden age. But this memoir is a different species entirely from the normal rags-to-riches tale of a big-screen leading man or woman – it’s the life of Cheeta the chimpanzee.

Tarzan’s famous co-star, who embarked on his screen career in the 1930s alongside Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan, is the subject of Me Cheeta, to be published by Fourth Estate in October.

What part of “NO!” don’t you understand?

Wrexham UFO

More, and video, at the Wrexham – Evening Leader

A [Wrexham, North Wales, UK] couple were mesmerised as seven red lights flew silently and at great speed above their house in the early hours of the morning.

It was just after midnight when Leigh Williams, 31, went out to the back of his house on Townsend Avenue for a cigarette. He said he saw some strange lights in the sky and ran inside to get his wife, Lynn, 32.

She said: “I thought he was taking the mick and I told him I was tired and to leave me alone. He said ‘if you don’t believe me look out there’.

There were seven lights flying fast over the house. Two of them were flying round each other. They were flying very close together, closer than planes. They were going so fast I couldn’t focus on them.

“I ran inside and got my camcorder. I thought they could be helicopters but when I zoomed in I was scared to death. They were glowing red in the middle. I’m a very logical person. We are not into the paranormal at all. I thought people would think we were barmy if we said we saw UFOs.”

Bathroom naming rights…just $25K

naming rights

It’s an offer the University of Colorado couldn’t flush away: A Boulder venture capitalist paid $25,000 for the naming rights to a bathroom in the Boulder campus’ ATLAS building.

And so it is that the second-floor men’s bathroom in the high-tech hub now has Brad Feld’s name on it and a plaque with some words of wisdom from the donor: “The best ideas often come at inconvenient times. Don’t ever close your mind to them.”

It will take a whole barrel of crackers for these Pollys

Feathers fly

Border guards in Belarus are hunting a man who tried to smuggle almost three hundred parrots into the country on the back of a bicycle. The guards saw the man while out on a routine patrol along the border with the Ukraine. But when they called him to stop he jumped off the bike and fled into nearby forests.

The guards found the birds crammed into six boxes strapped to the back of the bike. Two of the birds died but the rest were checked by vets who gave them a clean bill of health and passed them on to an animal sanctuary.

…and speaking of UFO’s and Texas…

Link

The unidentified flying objects spotted by dozens of people in and around Stephenville [Texas] on Jan. 8 are now identified flying objects — at least according to Air Force officials.

Maj. Karl Lewis, a spokesman for the 301st Fighter Wing at Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base, said in a statement Wednesday that 10 F-16s were performing training operations Jan. 8 in the Brownwood Military Operating Area, which includes airspace above Erath County.

Lewis originally denied that any Air Force jets were flying in the area the night of the reported UFO sightings. He now blames that denial on internal communication errors.

“It was an error,” he said. “Word didn’t get to me soon enough about the jets in training. We realized later that an error had been made.”

Those closely involved with the sightings aren’t ready to believe the Air Force’s assertion that the UFOs were instead jets flying in formation.

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What Major Lewis really is saying is that his superiors called and asked what the dickens he was saying and to get out there and put a cover on this sighting. There’s lots more at the link.