Archive | March, 2009

British Stats on Oddball Injuries

17 Mar

Not friend of a friend stuff or an email going around, this wacky list is complied by the government. This article also introduced me to a fabulous new word, malcoordination.

NHS admissions: bizarre mishaps that put patients in hospital
February 26, 2009  |  www.timesonline.co.uk  |  Sam Lister

From leaf cuts, hammer blows and hornet stings to cigarettes in bed and pensioners on rollerskates — the latest admission statistics reveal the full gamut of mishaps, malcoordination and moments of idiocy that put Britons in hospital last year.

The figures, from the NHS Information Centre, point to a nation beset by clumsiness, but also show the subtle social trends and popular obsessions that resulted in a trip to hospital in England in the year to April 2008.

Insects and other creepy crawlies took their toll, whether venomous or not. A total of 2,614 people were admitted to hospital after a bite or sting from a non-venomous insect, more than triple the number of a decade ago. Large rises were reported among people over 60 — perhaps attributable in part to the growth of foreign travel as well as to recent warm summers.

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KFC Girls Get Naked-Again

16 Mar

Oh dear, these poor girls were duped and got naked, what a shame. I’ve heard of similar stories involving other fast food places and suspect a copycat effect. The last KFC girl story was about using the big sink as a hot tub and can be seen here.

Naked KFC workers fly coop in hoax
By The New Hampshire Union Leader  |   Saturday, February 28, 2009  |  bostonherald.com

MANCHESTER – Three KFC workers were hoaxed by a cruel prank caller into spraying themselves with a fire extinguisher, stripping naked and then going outside.

Cook Mary McCarthy said the Daniel Webster Highway store manager, Sonia Gilbert, received a phone call Thursday from someone claiming to be from the corporate office, telling her to test the fire suppression system.

Gilbert complied, and McCarthy said that resulted in the release of a chemical powder in the sandwich area where she and a third employee, Fay Owens, were working.

The caller then told the women to strip and go outside, because they had been contaminated. That’s when police got involved.

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Wendy Richards Passes

15 Mar

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In the states Miss Richards may be best known for her role in ARE YOU BEING SERVED which has become a favorite of PBS stations. Miss Richards is best known in the UK for her long role on the soapy EASTENDERS. Miss Richards hid her valiant struggle with cancer from the British press, a feat in itself.

EastEnders stars to give Wendy Richards a big send-off at funeral today
By Mark Jefferies  |  9/03/2009  |  www.mirror.co.uk/

The EastEnders set will come to a virtual standstill today when more than 100 cast and crew attend Wendy Richard’s funeral.

Her co-stars will say a final farewell to the loved soap actress at a church service.

Only a handful of scenes will be filmed on Albert Square by younger members of cast who did not know her.

A source revealed: “Everyone who worked with Wendy wants to be there.”

Close friend Todd Carty, who played on-screen son Mark Fowler, added: “We’ll give her a great send-off. It’ll be a celebration of her life. She was a wonderful person.”

Known to millions of BBC viewers as EastEnders’ Pauline Fowler, Wendy died aged 65 last month of cancer.

She also starred as Miss Brahms in 70s comedy Are You Being Served.

The BBC said: “It goes without saying that we’ve reworked filming so people can pay their respects.” The service is at St Marylebone Parish Church in Central London.

Meet Ms. Marijuana Pepsi Sawyer

13 Mar

An interesting story about an odd name and its origins.

A woman named Marijuana plays it straight – and wins
journalsentinel.com  |  Mar. 7, 2009

Police years ago pulled over a young woman who rushed through an amber traffic light. “I’m about to arrest this person right now,” the irritated officer radioed to a dispatcher. “She’s telling me her name is Marijuana Pepsi Jackson.”

It’s the truth. Marijuana and Pepsi are her legal first and middle names, and the Beloit woman embraces them as a symbol of her struggle to succeed and to help other children overcome obstacles.

No Mary or Mary Jane or Mary Wanda for her. It’s Marijuana, thank you, she’s told bosses, co-workers and friends over the years, and even wore it on nametags at work.

This tall, striking, self-assured, motorcycle-riding woman is a schoolteacher with a master’s degree in higher education administration. Soon, she’ll start work on her doctorate.

All of her achievement came despite that smoky, carbonated name. And partly because of it. No one named Marijuana Pepsi gets lost in the crowd.

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Stripper Pole Party Dad Attempts Suicide

12 Mar
This guy was almost a genius. Parents who allow kids to drink in their homes are not new. This guy, like many other parents, drank along with the kids. This guy even installed a stripper pole in the basement party room. The pole was well used and photos of cheerleaders working the pole, (and of a 14 year old and 16 year old girl kissing the dad at the same time) got posted on FACEBOOK. In fact, a fellow (non party gal) cheerleader reported the cheerleader stripper pole shots to the cheer coach and THAT was lead to the cool Dad’s downfall. Tragically, this entire family is now suffering. Damn you interweb!

Steven Russo

Steven Russo



Man who allegedly urged cheerleaders to dance on stripper pole must stay away from 4-year-old son
Precious Petty  |  Saturday March 07, 2009, 12:23 AM  |  www.lehighvalleylive.com

The Bethlehem Township man accused of throwing a drinking party for his 16-year-old son last year tried to kill himself and his 4-year-old son this week, according to Northampton County Court records.

The boy’s grandfather found Steven A. Russo, 36, and Michael Clapso sitting in a running vehicle with his garage door closed on Wednesday, records say. Claspo was taken to a local hospital, where blood tests showed he had an elevated level of carbon monoxide in his system, records say.

A judge Friday issued a temporary protection-from-abuse order against Russo, who must now stay away from Claspo. Jessica Claspo, the child’s mother, already has a PFA order against Russo.

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Smokers House On Fire-Guess What He Rescues?

11 Mar

Bizarre Texarkana, Ark. home fire
www.ksla.com  |  Feb 27, 2009 10:29 PM
TEXARKANA, ARK. (KSLA) – Texarkana, Arkansas firefighters were stunned when they found out what started a fire at a home early Friday morning.

KSLA News 12 was at the scene when firefighters were hosing down a mattress from a home in the 5600 block of Wallace road.

According to crews working the fire, the man who was in the home at the time of the fire is on oxygen and was lying in bed smoking a cigarette when he dropped his cigarette and the oxygen caused the bed to burst into flames.

Now here’s the bizarre part of the story, the man who was allegedly smoking in the home, refused to leave the home during the fire, you’ll never guess why.

Firefighters say the man wanted to go back into the home to get his cigarettes. The man suffered burns on his fingers.

Luckily, firefighters were able to contain the fire to the bedroom area.

Auschwitz is a type of beer, a festival or bread, say children

10 Mar

Hmmmm, I think this is what happens when children don’t hang out enough with grown ups and hear all the endlessly boring things grown ups talk about. In defense of the kids, at what age do you teach the holocaust?

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Auschwitz is a type of beer, a festival or bread, say children
08 March 2009 11:43 PM  |  The Scotsman

SOME schoolchildren believe Auschwitz is the name of a type of beer or a religious festival, rather than the Nazi extermination camp, research published today reveals.
About 1.3 million people perished in the death camp during the Second World War, but a survey of more than 1,000 pupils aged 11-16 in secondary school revealed that a quarter still did not know its purpose.

About 10 per cent were not sure what it was, 8 per cent thought it was a country bordering Germany, 2 per cent thought it was a beer, the same proportion said it was a religious festival and a further 1 per cent said it was a type of bread.

Miramax and the London Jewish Cultural Centre, which commissioned the survey, said that, as there are about 4.5 million children aged 11 to 16 in the UK, the equivalent of 90,000 youngsters wrongly identified Auschwitz as a drink and 45,000 mistook it for bread.

The poll found that six in ten youngsters did not know what the Final Solution was, with a fifth claiming it was the peace talks held to end the war.

And it revealed that, despite the Holocaust being specified on the secondary National Curriculum in England as a subject pupils must be taught, only 37 per cent knew the Holocaust claimed the lives of six million Jews, with many drastically underestimating the death toll.

While 97 per cent of those questioned could identify Adolf Hitler from a photograph, those who could not mistook famous figures, such as Winston Churchill, Salvador Dali and Albert Einstein, for the dictator.

Inmate Sneaks Back Into Jail

9 Mar
I’ve got a soft spot for this guy-he DID break back in when he could have run far, far, far away.
Camden County Residents

Fictional residents of a fictional Camden County.

Inmate captured sneaking into jail
He’s thought to have broken out, burglarized a store, then returned.
www.jacksonville.com  |  Terry Dickson  |  Mar. 9, 2009

A Camden County inmate was arrested Saturday morning as he tried to sneak back into jail, Sheriff Tommy Gregory said.

The inmate was arrested as deputies investigated a 1:55 a.m. jail breakout and the burglary of a nearby convenience store.

“We thought we had two separate incidents. By the time we locate this guy, he’s one and the same,” Gregory said.

Jail personnel suspected someone had broken out when a detention officer routinely checking doors found one to be unlocked that had been secure a few minutes earlier, Gregory said.
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Mystery Of South American Trophy Heads Solved

7 Mar

I think the headline over sells the article. Still interesting.

Nasca trophy head from a tomb at the site of Cahuachi. (Credit: Image courtesy of Field Museum)

Nasca trophy head from a tomb at the site of Cahuachi. (Credit: Image courtesy of Field Museum)

Mystery Of South American Trophy Heads Solved
Jan. 6, 2009  |  www.sciencedaily.com
The mystery of why ancient South American peoples who created the mysterious Nazca Lines also collected human heads as trophies has long puzzled scholars who theorize the heads may have been used in fertility rites, taken from enemies in battle or associated with ancestor veneration.

A recent study using specimens from Chicago’s Field Museum throws new light on the matter by establishing that trophy heads came from people who lived in the same place and were part of the same culture as those who collected them. These people lived 2,000 to 1,500 years ago.

Archaeologists determined that the severed heads were trophies because holes were made in the skulls allowing the heads to be suspended from woven cords. A debate has been raging for the past 100 years over their meaning.

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Cello Scrutom Revealed to be FAKE

6 Mar

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“ Anyone who has ever watched a cello being played would realise the physical impossibility of our claim ”  -Baroness Murphy

Baroness Murphy, thank you for one of the sweetest, subtlest hoaxes ever.

Peer reveals ‘cello scrotum’ hoax
Story from BBC NEWS  |  2009/01/28

A top doctor has admitted her part in hoodwinking a leading medical journal after inventing a medical condition called “cello scrotum”.

Elaine Murphy – now Baroness Murphy – dreamt up the painful complaint in the 1970s, sending a report to the British Medical Journal.

She came clean when the hoax resurfaced in the 2008 Christmas edition.

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Vocalist Blossom Dearie Passes

5 Mar

Reader’s of a certain age may be most familiar with Blossom Dearie as the vocalist on the haunting School House Rock tune, Figure Eight. She made the world a sweeter place.

Blossom Dearie should not be confused with Blossom Rock who played Grandmama on the Addams Family 60s tv show.

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Jazz singer Blossom Dearie dies at 82 in NYC
Feb 9, 2009  |  AP

NEW YORK (AP) — Jazz singer Blossom Dearie, whose baby-doll voice graced New York and London cabarets for decades, has died at 82.

Her manager, Donald Schaffer, says Dearie died of natural causes Saturday at her Manhattan home. No specific cause of death was given.

Marguerite Blossom Dearie dropped her first name to bolster a musical career that began with classical training in piano and later moved to jazz vocals. By the mid-1940s, she was a member of the Blue Flames, associated with Woody Herman’s orchestra and with the Alvino Rey band.

Dearie began her solo career in postwar Paris.

She recorded albums for various labels and founded her own label, Daffodil Records, in 1974. She gained national attention by appearing on the early days of NBC’s “Today” show.

Louisiana’s Rare Pink Dolphin

4 Mar
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Photo credits:Capt. Erik Rue, Calcasieu Charter Service. All rights reserved.

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Photo credits:Capt. Erik Rue, Calcasieu Charter Service. All rights reserved.

Wow, this sure is something! My favorite source of info on this lovely pink dolphin is from the Calcasieu Charter Service that first spotted it. Click here to go to the Calcasieu Charter Service site and enjoy their many more photos of the pink dolphin. I have no idea why this story didn’t hit me in the head a few years ago when the animal was first was spotted.

Rare Pink Dolphin Seen in Louisiana Lake|
Tuesday , July 03, 2007  |  Foxnews.com

It’s sleek, fast, cute — and pink.

A charter-boat captain from Lake Charles, La., photographed a rare pink dolphin a couple of weeks ago in Calcasieu Lake, an estuary just north of the Gulf of Mexico in southwestern Louisiana.

According to Calcasieu Charter Service’s Web site, Capt. Erik Rue was on the lake June 24 with fishing customers when five dolphins came into view — four normal-looking gray ones, and a bright pink one that appeared to be an adolescent.

“It appears to be an uncanny freak of nature, an albino dolphin, with reddish eyes and glossy pink skin,” the Web site reads. “It is small in comparison to the others it is traveling with and appears to be a youngster traveling with mama.”

There is a species of pink dolphin that lives in the Amazon River in South America, but this one appears to be a more common bottlenose dolphin.