random/odd news of the day

[angoraphobia]

ewwwww gross!!!! haha...i feel so sorry for those on the receiving end of that!

[trigonometry_vs_velvet]

Astro-noodles on Japan's space menu
April 15, 2002 Posted: 9:27 PM HKT (1327 GMT)



Instant noodles are big sellers in Japan



TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- Japan's Nissin Food Products Co is determined to develop the ultimate fast food for hungry astronauts -- space-safe instant noodles.

A team of 10 experts from Japan's biggest instant noodle manufacturer will develop a cup and other means of preventing noodles from flying in different directions when confronted with

zero gravity, the Osaka-based food company said.

Nissin hopes to have the noodles ready in time for the launch of Japan's work to connect a research structure to the International Space Station now being built by 15 countries.

"We will develop the ultimate instant noodle product," Kyodo news agency quoted a Nissin official as saying.

Instant noodles require the hungry consumer just to add boiling water to noodles and spices in a polystyrene cup.

First launched in Japan almost five decades ago instant noodles have become one of the most popular snack foods in the world with an estimated 35 billion packs consumed each year.

[stryfe]

<a href="http://www.ananova.com/yournews/story/sm_566545.html">Patient having op on backside breaks wind, causing fire</a href>

A Danish man having surgery on his backside broke wind and set his genitals alight.

A surgeon was removing a mole on his backside with an electric knife when the man broke wind, lighting a spark.

His genitals had been washed with surgical spirits and caught fire.

He's suing the hospital for pain and suffering and loss of income.

He says he had to take extra time off work and can't have sex with his wife. The hospital says it was an unfortunate accident.

"When I woke up, my penis and scrotum were burning like hell," the man told Danish Newspaper BT.

Surgeon Dr Jorn Kristensen said: "No-one considered the possibility the man would break wind during the operation, let alone that it would catch fire. It was an unfortunate accident."

The 30-year-old patient said: "I've had to be booked off work for longer than expected and, besides the pain, I can't have sex with my wife."

The operation which was being carried out at the Kjellerups hospital, was aborted immediately after the accident.

Reports says it's unlikely the doctor will face disciplinary action.

Story filed: 11:33 Sunday 14th April 2002

[stryfe]

<a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/29040210.htm">MIT Accidentally Invents Cellular Sex Toy</a>
Good vibrations

By Tony Dennis, 29/04/2002 10:56:55 BST

MIT'S MEDIA Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts appears to have combined an intelligent vibrator with a mobile phone, according to a recent report in The New Scientist.

By doing so it may have inadvertly invented a mobile sex toy. Prototypes, made from latex, boast five tiny speakers which vibrate against your skin around 250 times per second.

Underneath these speakers sit pressure sensors enabling the recipient to send vi[agra]brations back to the sender.

The vibraphones are the work of the Media Lab's Tangible Media Group, whose representative, Angela Chang, says that current vibrating phones that have a motor spinning an eccentric weight inside the device are too crude for subtle communication.

The MIT vibraphones were given to a number of students who quickly developed their own 'vibra language'. It's not the first time that a handset's vibrations have been put to a novel use.

Mobile games company, In-Fusio, already markets a racing car game that does so. When the player crashes, the handset shakes accordingly. Chang is quoted as saying, "Imagine actually being able to shake someone's hand when you close a business deal?" Gives a whole new meaning to a hand job doesn't it?

[Asharak]

Llamas' attacker pleads guilty

Robert Pettyjohn agrees to eight years in prison for a series of charges, and could face 40 more years if he violates probation.

By ED QUIOCO, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 27, 2002


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The lead defendant in Pinellas County's most notorious animal abuse case pleaded guilty Friday to the golf-club beating of two pet llamas and numerous other crimes.

Robert "Bobby" Pettyjohn agreed to serve a total of eight years in prison. First he will serve a three-year sentence he already received for killing a bull in Hillsborough County. Then he will serve a five-year sentence for the llama-beating and other Pinellas charges, followed by five years of probation.

If he violates his probation, the 19-year-old could return to prison for as long as 40 years, prosecutors said.

"He, in effect, has a life sentence hanging over his head," assistant state attorney Bill Burgess said.

The case against Pettyjohn and his co-defendant, Brandon Eldred, began Feb. 11, 2001. On a moonlit night, they stumbled over the fence to Keith and Susan Appenzeller's livestock pen on Ranch Road in rural East Lake. They had been drinking beer, smoking marijuana and taking the prescription drug Xanax. They carried golf clubs.

They dragged a 3-month-old llama named Willie Wonka under a fence. It struggled to get away but was clubbed, kicked and punched. Its left eye was gouged out. When an adult female llama named Monopoly approached, they turned their attack on it.

Monopoly died a few hours later on the way to a hospital. A necropsy found that the llama had been sodomized and suffered 50 to 100 blows, mostly around its reproductive organs.

"From day one, we kept coming up with leads that we couldn't believe," said Pinellas County sheriff's Detective Tom Hoddinott, who investigated the case with Detective Mike Weaver. "I don't believe Pinellas County has ever seen anything like this."

One of the keys to the state's case, Burgess said, was that the deputies who responded to Ranch Road quickly found and interviewed Eldred and Pettyjohn. Deputies originally were called to Ranch Road when a neighbor reported seeing someone suspicious on his property.

Before learning of the llama attack, deputies encountered Eldred walking down Ranch Road, swinging a broken golf club shaft in his hand. When Deputy Robert Loveland stopped Eldred, the 18-year-old came at him in a threatening manner, according to court reports.

Loveland drew his gun and ordered Eldred to drop the club. Loveland then took the club, which ended up being a crucial piece of evidence, questioned Eldred briefly and let him go. First, however, Eldred mentioned that he had been with his friend Bobby Pettyjohn and that he was looking for him.

That statement tied the two together.

Soon after, with morning fog still blanketing the street, Keith Appenzeller flagged down deputies. He had discovered Willie Wonka grunting and lying next to a blood-splattered clump of leaves. The animal was beaten so badly that Appenzeller first thought it had been hit by a car.

Appenzeller also found a shiny metal rod near the injured llama. He thought it was a car antenna. In fact, it was the broken shaft of a golf club.

Deputies immediately brought Eldred back for questioning. While he was being questioned, another deputy found Pettyjohn in the driveway of his parents' home on Ranch Road. He was passed out in a Jeep, one foot hanging out of the door. Deputies tried to nudge him awake but couldn't. Then his mother came out to the Jeep and roused him by slapping him. Talking to a deputy, Pettyjohn suddenly said, "We were just f------ around with the llamas, man."

In the weeks that followed, detectives delved into a "subculture" of Pettyjohn's friends, Hoddinott said.

"It just opened the floodgates," Weaver said.

In Hillsborough, the two were charged with shooting arrows at two bulls at a ranch in Odessa. In Pinellas, Eldred was charged with hacking a third llama in the face with a titanium meat cleaver. Pettyjohn was charged with mutilating a pet goat named Peter.

Investigators say the goat was stabbed and beaten to death, its head cracked into 29 pieces. It was buried in the back yard of Pettyjohn's former home on Ranch Road.

One witness decribed the goat as being used as a "living pinata." When Pettyjohn was asked for a motive, he replied, "Pure pleasure," deputies said.

At the time, detectives said to themselves, "this is completely unbelievable," Hoddinott said.

Court records also reveal the other tips that Pettyjohn's friends gave detectives and prosecutors. They described how he watched the movie Hannibal -- about a cannibalistic serial killer -- the weekend of the llama attacks. They also said he threw large parties where teens used drugs openly in the front yard of his parents' former home on Ranch Road. They told of Pettyjohn hunting squirrels with a BB gun, cutting off their tails and pinning them to a wall.

Another friend reported seeing Pettyjohn throw a dead hawk into a bonfire. Still another saw him place an opossum's head on a stick and hack armadillos with a machete.

In videotaped conversations with relatives and friends visiting him at Pinellas County Jail last year, Pettyjohn was, by turns, brash with friends, rude to deputies and emotional with relatives. He talked of suing "the news" for slandering him.

At one point, Pettyjohn talked of going on a cruise with his mother when he got out of jail and said he faced no real jail time. Other times, he sounded confused.

"I'd feel better if I knew what the h--- was going on," Pettyjohn said to his mother during one visit about a year ago. "I'd feel better if someone would actually do something. I can't do s--- in here. I've been in here forever. They don't care. They just want to keep me in here for as long as they can."

On Friday, Pettyjohn's guilty plea brought the owners of the two llamas both closure and sadness.

"My feelings go back and forth," Susan Appenzeller said, fighting back tears. "I'm really angry that it happened, but I feel really bad for him. We are just sorry that this is his life now."

Wearing thin-rimmed glasses, a green shirt and pants with a dark tie, a slender Pettyjohn seemed to be in a good mood during Friday's 30-minute hearing, blowing a kiss to his family and friends at the beginning of the proceedings.

In Pinellas, Pettyjohn faced nine felony charges -- three for cruelty to animals -- and a misdemeanor charge for trespassing. The felonies, which carried a maximum penalty of five years, ranged from distribution of a controlled substance to grand theft.

In return for his guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to drop a Pasco County escape charge for Pettyjohn's walking out the front door of jail in October.

The weight of what Pettyjohn was facing was the reason for the plea, said his attorney, Chip Purcell, who called it "risk management."

"Was it the right thing to do?" Purcell said. "I hope so. Do I know for sure? No. I just know that we couldn't run the risk."

Pettyjohn's family had little to say after the hearing.

"We have a couple of weeks before we talk to anybody," said Pettyjohn's mother, Janet. "Right now, our emotions are too high."

Pettyjohn's co-defendant, Eldred, has so far escaped a prison sentence. Eldred was sentenced to house arrest and probation for the attack on the bulls, while Pettyjohn got the three-year sentence.

Eldred's attorney has argued that his client is different from Pettyjohn because he has shown remorse and offered to help the state against Pettyjohn.

When asked whether he thought there was a difference between Eldred and Pettyjohn, Detective Hoddinott said, "they were both there."

Eldred is waiting to be sentenced for his part of the attack on the Appenzellers' llamas. Pinellas prosecutors intend to recommend that he go to prison, too.

On Friday, as the courtroom cleared, prosecutor Bill Burgess looked at the Appenzellers and said, "One down. One to go."

[Asharak]

Penis puppeteers told to zip it

11may02
THEY'VE toured the world and have more than 1000 performances under their belts, but Australian touring show Puppetry of the Penis have been told by the New Zealand city of Wanganui, on the north island, to zip up and shove off.

The town's council called an emergency meeting on Thursday and voted to ban the show from performing at the Royal Wanganui Opera House on May 28.
Ross Mollison Productions are now searching the city for an alternative venue to stage the show in which two men twist and turn their genitals into shapes ranging from the Eiffel Tower to a hamburger.

Executive producer Thomas Milazzo said if the people of Wanganui still wanted the show, they would do their best to find a suitable theatre.

He was annoyed the council did not speak to the company before the vote, which was split 7-5 in favour of banning the show.

Milazzo believes those against it had a misconception it was a "raunchy" show and the people should have been left to "vote" with their wallets.

"Our show has absolutely no sexual references, violence or coarse language," he said.

"It's about two blokes with no pants, doing very silly things and making us laugh.

"If people are offended by nudity they should not buy a ticket."

Wanganui mayor Chas Poynter said the community was "aghast and upset about this show".

Poynter said the council could not ban it from the city but did not want it at the opera house, which the city controls.

While callers to local radio station poll voted overwhelmingly for council to stay out of it, there is some support for the ban.

"It's corrupt and it doesn't give a good image to this town," one local told a TV station.

[stryfe]

<a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=579&e=2&cid=579&u=/nm/20020514/en_nm/media_penthouse_dc_1">Sunbather Mistaken for Kournikova Due to Nipples</a>
Tue May 14, 4:34 PM ET

By Gail Appleson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A St. Louis jewelry salesman who sold Penthouse Magazine a video of a topless sunbather misidentified as Anna Kournikova testified on Tuesday he mistook the woman for the tennis star because of the diameter of her nipples.

Frank Ramaesiri, the salesman, testified at a hearing to determine whether Penthouse will be forced to recall unsold issues of June magazine which carries about a dozen photos of the sunbather, who is actually Judith Soltesz- Benetton, the daughter-in-law of Italian fashion designer Luciano Benetton.

[nancyK]

not news.. just facts

1. It is impossible to lick your elbow
2. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit
3. Rats and horses can't vomit
4. Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes
5. The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache
6. Walt Disney was afraid of mice
7. Pirates thought that wearing earrings improved their eyesight
8. There are more plastic flamingos in the U.S. than real ones
9. Humans and Armadillos are the only animals that can get leprosy
10. Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head."

[cosmicgrrl]

<a href=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/06/05/state1856EDT0165.DTL target=new> Tonga court jester accused of bungling kingdom's investments </a>
06-05 AP


Tonga, the Pacific's only kingdom, says the king's court jester is laughing all the way to the bank in a scandal involving the loss of millions of dollars in investments, according to a lawsuit filed here.

Millions have been wiped from a fund the impoverished nation of 100,000 Polynesians built up by selling passports -- mainly to Chinese from Hong Kong worried about the return of the territory to Beijing, the suit alleges.

Exact details of the missing money remain unclear, but according to a suit filed by the Tongan government in U.S. District Court here Monday, as much as $24 million has vanished from the $26 million fund that an American businessman invested in the United States beginning in 1999.

The loss is staggering for a nation run on a budget of around $55 million a year and dependent mainly on revenue from exporting pumpkins and money sent home by Tongans living overseas. The suit said the fund was set up for "the benefit of the Tongan people."

Tonga is a small archipelago of 170 islands located about two-thirds of the way between Hawaii and New Zealand. The former British protectorate gained independence in 1970.

According to the suit, the money was withdrawn from a Bank of America account in San Francisco by the king's official court jester, Jesse Bogdonoff, a California-based investment adviser living in Sonoma County's Penngrove. The suit alleges that the funds were transferred to failed investments and pocketed by Bogdonoff and others.

The suit also said that Bogdonoff and associates paid themselves "millions of dollars in charges, commissions and fees" that were not disclosed to the trust.

Bogdonoff, who reportedly was appointed jester after impressing King Tupou Taufa'ahau with investment advice and because he was born April 1, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The nation's consulate here did not return messages.

The losses from the secretive Tongan account came to light last year when the nation's 10-year-old pro-democracy movement began probing it in parliament, which is dominated by lawmakers appointed by the royal family and Tonga's 33 noble families.

The disclosure of the missing money led to the resignation of one of the government's investment fund trustees, Deputy Prime Minister Tevita Tupou. Also resigning was Education Minister Tutotasi Fakafanua, who was finance minister in 1999 when the money was withdrawn.

The case is Tonga Trust Fund v. Bogdonoff, 02-2654.

[stryfe]

<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/06/06/crime.spitball.reut/index.html">Spitball felon, 13, avoids 8-year jail sentence</a>

June 6, 2002 Posted: 10:57 PM EDT (0257 GMT)

WALNUT CREEK, California (Reuters) -- A 13-year-old California boy who was facing a possible eight years in juvenile prison for a spitball attack on a fellow student was given a much lighter sentence Thursday -- although he will still log some time behind bars.

Jeffrey Figueroa, who made national headlines after he was convicted of two felonies for injuring a 14-year-old boy with the speedy spitball, was ordered to spend a spend a total of one week in juvenile detention -- logged on weekends -- in a case that his lawyer said showed prosecutors intent on "criminalizing childhood behavior."

"These kids aren't going to get into any trouble. We're going to keep them in the house," Jeffrey's father, Steve Figueroa, told reporters after the hearing, which also saw Jeffrey's 14-year-old brother given a slightly lesser sentence for egging Jeffrey on in the spitball incident.

In addition to their time in juvenile detention, both boys were ordered to attend anger management classes, told to obey a 7 p.m. curfew as part of home probation and instructed to undergo counseling.

They will both also be required to perform up to 150 hours of community service at a local eye bank.

Figueroa admitted that he shot the spitball -- a gum wrapper moistened with saliva -- on the first day of school last September at a middle school in the San Francisco suburb of Walnut Creek, California.

While Figueroa said he was not aiming at anybody in particular, the spitball hit a 14-year-old boy in the right eye, requiring a trip to the hospital and surgery.

Last month Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Araceli Ramirez found Jeffrey guilty of battery causing serious bodily injury and mayhem, both felonies. His brother was found guilty on a lesser charge.

Numerous neighbors testified at Thursday's sentencing hearing, saying the boys frequently ran wild in the neighborhood and at times appeared threatening.

Ramirez, while declining to throw the book at the boys, did have sharp words for both the young men and their parents, saying they had been "in denial" about their sons' behavior.

Figueroa's lawyer, Caren Johnson, criticized Contra Costa County District Attorney Robert Burke as overreacting to the case, saying prosecutors were intent on "criminalizing childhood behavior."

"I've got little boys. They've got swords, they whack each other with swords. What if they whack a neighbor kid with a sword. Is Burke going to charge my little 5-year-old with battery?" she said.

But the principal investigator for the district attorney's office testified that both boys were frequently out of control and needed to be taught a lesson.

"Normal boy activity is responsible and does responsible things," said investigator Mark Ernst.

"Occasionally they may do something that they shouldn't do, but they generally respect authority, respect adult figures and correct their behavior."

Burke, speaking after the sentencing, said he was fairly satisfied with the sentence but that Jeffrey Figueroa's spitball victim was still being treated for damage to his eye.

"I couldn't replace that young man's eye, and that's what we'd all like to have happen. So I guess you never feel like you've done everything you could do," Burke said.

[stryfe]

<a href="http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_605668.html?menu=news.latestheadlines">Police investigate after man cuts off testicles of man he met on the internet</a>

Police are considering charges against a US man who cut off the testicles of a man he met on the internet.

Officers found the apparently willing victim sitting on a kerb in blood-stained jeans in Oak Park, Michigan.

They later found his testicles in a Tupperware container in a refrigerator at the home of the suspect.

Police say the victim met the Oak Park man through the internet. The pair chatted online before meeting in person.

The Oak Park man allegedly removed the testicles with a scalpel while the other man was on the kitchen table.

The suspect first stitched the wound, and the two sat around eating pie. Soon afterward, the victim started bleeding uncontrollably.

Detective Lieutenant Bruce Smith told The Daily Tribune: "The victim said this is something he wanted to do. I don't know why. It's unbelievable."

He said the 48-year-old victim, from Birmingham, later underwent three hours of surgery in hospital. The suspect, who was 29, was released while authorities determine whether a crime was committed.

[stryfe]

<a href="http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_603977.html?menu=news.weirdworld.sexlife">Impotent man chops off penis in public</a>

A Thai man suffering from impotence has chopped off his penis with a meat cleaver.

Bangkok police say the 49-year-old asked his doctor to arrange an amputation because of his impotence.

The doctor advised Jaruwat Techawachayanun to seek help for the condition at another clinic. He refused.

Witnesses say they saw him rest his penis on a stone and chop it off. He then threw it in a bin.

A witness picked it out, packed it in ice and phoned police. Officers took him to hospital. It is not known if it can be reattached.

Witness Tongdee Kongsombat told the Thai Daily News: "I saw a man pull up outside my house in a pick-up truck.

"The man caught my attention because when he got out of the truck he had a towel wrapped around his waist and a meat cleaver in his hand.

"He walked down a side street, sat down, rested his penis on a large stone and with three chops severed it completely."

The witness retrieved it from the bin and called police who found Mr Techawachayanun sitting in his truck bleeding heavily.

[ocd]

Jesus christ! Three chops, that's fucking insane.

[stryfe]

i'm thinking that it had to hurt...i don't know what makes me say that but...hmm...

[stryfe]

<a href="http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_602813.html?menu=news.weirdworld.badtaste">Politicians swig cocktail containing human toe</a>

<table><td>Two Canadian politicians have received certificates for downing whiskey with a pickled human toe in it.

Gary Doer and Gordon Campbel swigged the 'Sour toe Cocktail' in the Yukon.

They were given certificates for letting the toe touch their lips as they each drank a shot of Yukon Jack whiskey.</td><td><img src="http://www.sourtoecocktailclub.com/toe/images/toe.gif"></td></table>

Doer said: "It was a little rare."

The two premiers are in Dawson City, site of the 1896 Klondike Gold Rush, for the annual western premiers conference.

More than 10,000 people have received official Sour toe Cocktail certificates.

The tradition started in the early 1970s. The first toe was believed to have come from a frost-bitten gold miner's foot, according to the Canada.com website. There have been several toes involved since.

According to the Sour toe Cocktail Club, the second was donated by a Mrs Lawrence of Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. Her middle toe had been amputated thirteen years earlier due to an inoperable corn.

The third was sent in 1982 by a trapper in Faro. He'd had his big toe removed due to frostbite.

The fourth was sent by an anonymous donor, and the eighth arrived in a jar of medical alcohol. It's understood the donor had been mowing a lawn in open-toed sandals.

[Edited by stryfe on 06-11-2002 at 12:47 PM]