IT’S ELECTRIC
In fall 2005, a strange crime wave hit Baltimore: Over the course of six weeks, 130 light poles were stolen. Each pole measured 30 feet tall, weighed 250 pounds, and cost $1,200. There were no witnesses and police were baffled. More baffling is why the thieves were so neat—when they stole the poles, they left all the high voltage wiring cleanly wrapped in black electric tape.
OH, THAT’S WHERE I LEFT THEM
In 2003, a 23-year-old woman from Tyrol, Austria, went to a police station to report that her expensive pair of ski pants had been stolen. Officers quickly solved the case—they pointed out to the woman that she was wearing the pants. “I was so nervous that I forgot to take them off,” she said.
AMAZING TALES
OF SURVIVAL
These people cheated death. Not with brains, not with brawn—but with pure, dumb luck.
BATHROOM BREAK
After an evening of heavy drinking, a 47-year-old man was stumbling through the streets of Fischbachtal, Germany, in a heavy downpour. While looking for a dry place to take refuge, he found a dumpster in an alley, climbed inside, and passed out.
An hour or so later, a garbage truck entered the alley, scooped up the dumpster with its metal claws, and dropped the contents into the truck. The driver then pressed a button that activated the hydraulic mechanism designed to crush the contents of the container into a tiny cube. Normally, the driver would have remained in the truck until the crushing was completed, but on this particular occasion, he had to pee. So he got out and walked behind the truck to do his business. That’s when he heard the muffled screams and swear words coming from his container. He immediately cut the power, then ran back and opened the back of the truck. There he found a very upset man (who had probably sobered up pretty quickly), and helped him get out. Thanks to the driver’s pee break, the drunk man suffered only minor injuries.
THE TANKER AND THE BEEMER
On the outside lane of a roundabout in Lancaster, England, a man was driving a BMW. On the inside lane was a 44-ton tanker truck…which tipped over and fell right on top of the BMW. To make matters worse, powder started pouring out of a hole in the tanker and filling up what little room was left in the crushed car. Rescuers furiously tried to get to the car so that they could free the driver, but they couldn’t budge the truck. A crane was called in, and after several long minutes it finally lifted the truck off the car. Expecting the worst, the rescuers and onlookers couldn’t believe their eyes: The man was crouched into the only uncrushed and unpowdered section of his little car. The door was removed, and the dazed driver got out and walked over to the ambulance where he was treated for minor scratches. The tanker driver wasn’t quite as lucky—he broke his arm.
It’s against the law in Jefferson City, Missouri, to tie a boat to the railroad tracks.
JUST HANG IN THERE
While gazing at a beautiful vista in the French Alps, a 45-year-old woman fell from a precipice that jutted out hundreds of feet above a canyon floor. Her fall came to an abrupt halt, however, when her foot got caught in a tree root sticking out from a cliff. There she dangled for more than two hours while waiting for a rescue team to free her. They did, and she walked away unhurt.
YOU SPIN ME RIGHT ROUND, BABY, RIGHT ROUND
A man got caught in the spinning blades of a plane’s propeller… and lived. It happened in the small town of Kleefield, near Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The owner of a small Cessna aircraft had to move it from a local church parking lot to a hangar on his property, and decided to get it there by taxiing it down a town road. He had a friend walk alongside the plane to help redirect traffic along the way. When the plane approached an intersection, the 50-year-old friend ran around to the front of the plane to check for oncoming cars. That’s when he ran right into the path of the spinning propeller and suffered major lacerations along his right side, then was thrown into the air, and then landed hard on the pavement, dislocating his shoulder. After a lengthy stay in the hospital, the man is expected to fully recover. “This gentleman is extremely fortunate,” an RCMP spokesman told reporters. “The chances of surviving impact with a propeller on any aircraft is remote.”
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FLY THE FREAKY SKIES
In July 2006, former Israeli army colonel Reuven Zelinkovsky suggested a new way to protect the country from long-range missiles: Station a battalion of “yogic flyers” around the country to create a “shield of invincibility.” Yogic flyers are adherents of Transcendental Meditation who are allegedly able to fly while sitting cross-legged.
In Denmark there are twice as many pigs as people.
LOVE IS STRANGE
Love is all you need…to do really strange things.
BACKGROUND: In 2002 Jian Feng, of Hegang, China, got married. Two years later his wife had a baby.
LOVE IS STRANGE: Jian accused his wife of having an affair—because she was so beautiful and the baby was “so ugly.” His wife finally confessed: She hadn’t had an affair—she’d had plastic surgery before they met. She showed him a pre-surgery photograph of herself to prove it. Jian immediately filed for divorce and sued for deceit.
OUTCOME: He won the divorce case, and got $99,700 for his wife’s ugly past.
BACKGROUND: Romanian Nicolae Popa said he couldn’t take his wife Maria’s nagging when he got home from work. “My business is going well but it takes all my energy,” he said. “So when I get home in the evening I am so tired I just want to go to bed.”
LOVE IS STRANGE: Popa made a deal with his wife: He paid her to be quiet. “I pay her $500 a month as long as she doesn’t nag me,” he said.
OUTCOME: Maria agreed to the deal, and the couple are even planning to have a child. But Mrs. Popa said that her husband will have to double her salary to keep the child quiet.
BACKGROUND: In 2003 German singer Werner Boehm, 62, made a music video which happened to feature a female baboon.
LOVE IS STRANGE: Boehm brought the animal home and, “It was love at first sight,” he said. “We’re on the same wavelength.” Boehm’s wife Susanne, 31, wasn’t amused. In 2004 she left the singer, telling reporters, “I gave him the choice: the monkey or me. He chose the monkey.”
OUTCOME: After complaints from animal-rights groups, police removed the baboon from Boehm’s home and put it in a zoo. Then he asked his wife to come back. “I didn’t want to,” said Susanne, “but Werner assured me I feel much nicer in bed than the monkey did.”
The scum found on top of aged wine is called beeswing.
I’VE GOT A SECRET(ION)
Strange things abound in the world around us. Most of them we never even see. Here are a few examples, which give new meaning to the term “bug Juice.”
THE ANT, THE WASP, AND THE BUTTERFLY
The dark blue, female Maculinea butterfly lays her eggs on plants; the newly-hatched larvae feed on the plant for about two weeks. Then they fall to the ground, where they are found by foraging Myrmica ants. Do they get eaten? No. The young caterpillars secrete chemicals that have a biological “mothering” effect on the ants. They are carried back to the nest, where they are given their own chambers. The ants treat them like royalty—even feeding them their own eggs. After about 10 months the caterpillars leave the ant colony, form their cocoons, become butterflies, and fly off…if they’re lucky.
If the Ichneumon eumerus wasp happens by the ant hill and detects a caterpillar inside, it has another trick to fool the already-fooled ants. It secretes a concoction of six different pheromones that first attracts the ants, then drives them into a fighting frenzy. The wasp can then safely make its way deep into the nest to the caterpillar’s chamber, where it lays its eggs inside the caterpillar while the ants are busy killing each other. The wasp then exits, leaving the eggs to develop, and eat the caterpillar from the inside out. When they finally emerge, the young wasps find themselves surrounded by hungry ants. Do they get eaten? No. The wasps release the magic potion that sends the ants into their civil war, and make their way out o
f the nest.
Scientists are studying the chemicals produced by the wasps—four of which were previously unknown—in hopes of producing a poison free ant repellent. The chemicals are so strong that the ants can still be fighting 50 days later.
THE ARACHNID KID
Spiders make their silk by secreting a liquid protein through movable nozzles called spinnerets. The liquid hardens on contact with air and the spider manipulates it with its legs to create a super-strong elastic thread. How strong? Engineers have determined that if you had a cord of spider’s silk as thick as a pencil—it could stop a jet airliner in flight! It’s also waterproof, and can stay flexible at temperatures as low as -40° C. There are seven different silk-spinning glands for making seven different types of silk, but no spider has all seven. There’s non-sticky silk for web frames and support lines, special silk for wrapping prey, another for wrapping eggs, and a fluffy, slightly sticky one for catching hairy-legged flying insects.
The traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal of corned beef & cabbage originated in Manhattan.
Only about one-third of spiders spin webs to catch their prey. The rest use other methods. Some create webs they hold in their forelegs and cast over passing insects. Spitting Spiders spray glue-venom through their fangs to immobilize their prey. One, the African Bola Spider, adds another secretion to the mix.
The Bola sits on the end of a twig, covered in sticky web to disguise itself as bird droppings. It hangs a single thread from its legs, weighted with a drop of a glue-like excretion at the end. The thread is scented with chemical secretions that mimic a female moth’s pheromones, which—no surprise—attracts male moths. When one gets close enough, the spider whirls the thread and releases it—capturing the moth in mid-flight with the drop of glue, then hauls it in for dinner. And the bola spider can change the chemicals it secretes to attract different types of moths as they enter their different breeding seasons.
MILLIPEDES—THE CAMPER’S FRIEND
When scientists observed Capuchin monkeys in Venezuela digging around termite mounds, looking for a specific bug—the Orthoporus dorsovittatus millipede—and then rubbing the bug all over their bodies, they couldn’t figure it out. And once a monkey was done, it would pass the millipede on to another monkey, who would do the same thing. After a while one of the monkeys would pop the bug into its mouth for a few seconds, spit it back out—and continue the rubbing-of-the-millipede ritual.
The puzzled scientists studied the bugs’ secretions: They were full of chemicals known as benzoquinones, which are toxic and would be very painful inside the monkeys’ mouths (one scientist proved this by doing it himself). So why the ritual? Because benzoquinones are powerful insect repellents, stronger than those used by the U.S. Army. The monkeys had somehow figured out that rubbing them on their bodies would help ward off the annual onslaught of mosquitoes and the painful sores of the bot fly. And putting them in their mouths? The monkeys’ saliva induces the bug to secrete more of the chemical, and ward off more of the bugs.
World record for the cat with most toes: Jake, who has 28 (seven on each paw).
AM I BUGGING YOU?
The Bombardier Beetle is less than an inch long and is not a great flier (some species can’t fly at all), but it has a defense system that can make much larger prey run for cover. Near the end of their abdomen, bombardiers have a special, two-chambered gland: The larger chamber produces irritating chemicals called hydroquinones mixed with hydrogen peroxide; the smaller one produces two enzymes, catalase and peroxidase. The chemicals are harmless when separate, but when a Bombardier beetle feels threatened, it secretes all these chemicals into an insulated “explosion chamber,” where they react violently with each other. The bug then “shoots” bursts of audibly exploding, boiling, corrosive liquid and steam from an opening at the end of its abdomen. (The spray can reach temperatures of 212° F.) The beetle can rotate that abdominal tip 270 degrees, so it can shoot a predator with great accuracy wherever it’s attacking from—from the left side, the right side, from underneath, and even from over its own back. The spray can shoot as far as four times the beetle’s length and a single beetle can make as many as 20 shots from its built-in farting-flame-thrower before it runs out of fuel.
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WHITE HOUSE TOILETRIES
Got a presidential case of dry skin? Try Secret Service hand lotion, the official lotion of the Commander in Chief’s “handlers.” It’s called “1600” for Men (after the White House’s address) and even has the official U.S. Presidential Seal on the label. There’s also Secret Service antibacterial hand wash, glycerin soap, aftershave, and other toiletries, all available in the White House gift shop and on eBay. All proceeds go to the U.S. Secret Service Uniformed Division Benefit Fund and other charities.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in a cave in 1947 by herdsmen searching for their lost goat.
WHAT’S FOR
THORRABLOT?
Uncle John’s theory about whether or not to eat weird food: If some culture eats it—and has eaten it for decades—it’s probably okay…but then there’s Thorrablot.
BACKGROUND
Iceland is located in the far north Atlantic Ocean.
Because of its northern location, for several weeks during the winter it is almost constantly dark. In order to cheer people up during this dark, cold time of the year, beginning late each January, Iceland holds a month-long festival known as Thorrablot. Thorrablot translates to “the blessing of Thorri,” an ancient Icelandic mythological spirit of winter. Traditional activities include dances, concerts, and plenty of drinking.
The festival isn’t all fun. Thorrablot also serves to remind residents that, despite the harsh conditions, their forefathers had it a lot worse. Iceland was first settled more than 1,000 years ago, when the only methods for preserving and cooking foods were salting, smoking, pickling, and fermenting. On top of that, there were few food options in Iceland. So today, with a strong sense of cultural pride—and stronger stomachs—modern Icelanders prepare and eat foods the way their ancestors did hundreds of years ago. Do you think you could handle…
HÁKARL: Shark has always been the most plentiful food source in the ocean around Iceland. But before shark meat can be eaten, it has to be thoroughly treated—sharks secrete urine through their skin, which has to be purged before cooking. First, a side of shark meat is washed, gutted, and placed in a hole in the ground filled with gravel…for two months. Then it’s hung outside (Icelanders sometimes use a small wooden shed, or drying shack) for another two months. Then the urine is expunged, forming a thick, brown, rotten crust around the shark meat. The crust is peeled off, and though the meat inside looks putrid and smells of ammonia, it is finally safe to cook and eat.
Rule of thumb: Your thumb is approximately the same length as your nose.
BRENNIVÍN: The national drink of Iceland, this is a schnapps traditionally served with hákarl. Made of potatoes and carroway, it’s extremely bitter and very potent. Nickname: “Black Death.”
SVIÓ: Sheep have survived in Iceland for hundreds of years—their wool coats protect them from the harsh elements. They’re also a food source. This dish is a lamb’s head chopped in half, charred in fire (to singe off the hair), then boiled. It’s then served as is, or pickled, or mashed up and mixed with whey into a paste.
LUNDABAGGAR: A sheep’s liver, colon, and other organs are ground, then mixed with animal fat and rye meal. The mixture is then stuffed back into the sheep stomach where it’s then boiled, pickled, and sliced.
SVIOASULTA: The meat from a cooked sheep’s head is pressed into a mold and cools. As the meat cools, it softens and congeals into a gelatinous, meaty goo.
HRÚTSPUNGUR: After being pickled in whey, ram’s testicles are formed into small cakes.
LUTEFISK: Cod live in cold waters, so this dried, pickled dish is common in nearby Scandinavian countries such as Sweden and Norway, but it’s done a bit differently in Iceland. First, long pieces of cod are hung outdoors so that th
e wind dries them. Next, lye and wood ashes are added to a bowl of river water, and the cod soaks in the mixture for 24 hours. It’s drained, then re-soaked in water and ash for another 24 hours. Next, the lye is washed off and the fish boils for an hour. It’s salted, then covered with butter and mustard.
RÚGBRAU: What goes best with this blackened, bitter rye bread that’s traditionally served as hard as a rock? Iceland’s favorite condiment: pickled herring.
HVALSPIK: This is boiled whale blubber. Stringy, tough, and chewy after boiling, it’s pickled to make it softer to eat (and easier to digest). If whale blubber is unavailable, Icelanders eat selshreifar—seal flippers—instead. Happy Thorrablot!
During WWII, the Pittsburgh Steelers & Philadelphia Eagles combined as “the Steagles.”
LOVE ME TENDER
Elvis Presley always had a way with women.
ELVIS AND THE WOMEN’S-LIB MOVEMENT
In 1996 Professor Joel Williamson of the University of North Carolina spoke at the Second Annual International Conference on Elvis Presley, where he presented an interesting (and odd) theory: The Elvis craze of the 1950s—featuring thousands of women screaming at his concerts—actually laid the groundwork for the Women’s Liberation movement. Williamson’s unusual explanation: “Elvis’s performance provided a venue in which young women could publicly and all together claim ownership of their bodies, declare themselves loudly, clearly, and explicitly to be sexual as well as spiritual characters.”
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wonderful World of Odd Page 32