WTF Wednesday: genital rescue, giant baby, major WIN, and more

Hives-Carrying Van Crashes; Bees Attack Rescuers
A van carrying beehives in Turkey crashed; huge swarms broke free and stung everyone at the scene. About 20 people were taken to hospitals.

Bull escapes from slaughterhouse in NJ
A 1,400-pound bull that escaped from a northern New Jersey slaughterhouse dragged officers with a lasso down a street and ran 10 blocks before being captured and sedated.

Woman tries to sell child for gas
A 37-year-old woman was arrested on a child-neglect charge after a tow truck driver told police the woman offered to sell her child in exchange for gas money.

Couple Find Garden Moved Next Door
A British couple said they discovered the garden of their former home had been stolen and installed in the yard of their next-door neighbor.

Firefighters Rescue Penis from Metal Ring
A California Fire Department sawed through a steel, ring-shaped dumbbell weight fastener that had been stuck on a man's penis for two or three days.

Phone Number for Lobster Aid Package Actually a Sex Line
Maritime lobster fishermen in need of financial help got a lift of another kind when they were directed to a toll-free number that was supposed to detail an aid package but connected them to a lusty sex line instead.

Giant Baby Draws Spectators
Indonesia's heaviest-ever newborn drew curious crowds to a hospital where a boy came into the world at a record 19.2 pounds.

Trucker Flips His Rig After Masturbating While Driving
A German trucker suspected of driving under the influence of drugs crashed his vehicle, admitting to masturbating at the time of the accident.

Woman Wins 4 Cars in 4 Weeks at Casino
Thunder Valley casino has given away eight cars and trucks in two months, and four of them have gone to the same woman.

Ex-Officer's Sex-with-Cows Charges Dropped
Animal-cruelty charges have been dropped against a former officer accused of performing sex acts with cows because bestiality is not a crime in NJ.

I think I just gave my commode a medical injection

It is a personal quest of mine to have a sparkly bathroom and so I am constantly scrubbing it down. This has worked most of my life, but yesterday while shopping, I found myself entering a strange state in the cleaning aisle. The kind of state brought on by exposure to the electromagnetic mind-erasing mechanism known as Really Bad Bee Gees at Safeway.

I happened to be in front of the toilet cleaners when "How Deep Is Your Love?" sung by a chorus of eunichs scratched over the supermarket loudspeakers, completely scrambling the electrical activity in my brain.

I blacked out.

I awoke later in the bathroom holding what appeared to be a PlaySchool syringe.

Or an applicator worthy of shotgunning a month's supply of horrid genital medicines into unoccupied diseased-ridden orifices.

I opened this box to find an applicator full of a mysterious green gel.

The instructions commanded one to take charge -- grab the applicator, aim and shoot. Clear!

And voila -- one more North American commode is now radioactive.

Anyway. The toilet should smell nice, as pleasant as plutonium-scented flowers might be. Let's see how it holds up!

TMI Thursday: I ate bugs.

So, I ate bugs.

And/or their excreta.

I was starving. And trying desperately to avoid the candy jar. "I will be healthy!" I thought. "I brought raisins and by god, I will eat them!" Living with parents who've been raised by folks who made it through the depression has made me frugal. I do not waste food easily.

Now, I have just moved back home this past weekend after being in Arizona for 5 months. I spent all of Sunday unpacking and haven't really gone food shopping yet. I mean, I picked up a box of frozen salmon but I can't really snack on that at work. So when the afternoon rapacious, greedy, insatiable hunger demon attacks, I need to be prepared. Yesterday's weapon of choice was an old, wayward box of stiff raisins that I clumsily grabbed as I was tearing out the door. I had no idea how old they were. But raisins last forever, right?

Fast forward to 4pm. Normally I get hungry around 3 but I was particularly uninterested in my anti-starvation arsenal. I waited until my stomach started to digest itself and then, while composing a response to a guy wanting to sell us his useless vinyl record collection, I tore into the box of raisins. They were dry, crumbly and unyielding (a particularly unappetizing combination in a raisin) but I mindlessly jammed giant handfuls down my maw anyway. I downed nearly the entire box this way, not even looking.

Now down to only three raisins glued to the back of the box, I clawed blindly but they were out of reach. So I tore it open. And made the mistake of looking.

And that's when I discovered something very wrong inside:

Not a normal box of raisins

Um, raisins are not supposed to look like this, right?

I looked closely, unable to help myself. Yep, bugs. Little segmented parts, tiny hairs and ingested raisin excreta all over the box. I don't know WHAT ate them, but I clearly did not get there first.

I stood there a moment contemplating the philosophical cleansing of a good retching session.

And then I emailed my workout buddy:

>>> >>> A very distressed Spleeness >>>
I have just discovered I have eaten bugs. The retching session might not end in time to workout. Call before you go anyway, might need someone to call for help.

>>> >>> Cruel workout buddy >>>
If they were in the popcorn they were good.

>>> >>> A very distressed Spleeness >>>
No. It was the raisins. kak!

>>> >>> Cruel workout buddy >>>
oh that is bad. See, in popcorn they would probably be killed during the microwaving process. Not so in raisins. they'd probably be rather plump and juicy from all the good sugar. Like when I ate the cereal and I'd see all these tiny brown specs and think "I don't remember tiny brown things like that in Wheaties." So yes, you ate good, healthy, plump, bugs. Hopefully they washed their claspers and legs after defecating.

I reread this and stared back into the box looking very carefully at droppings from most certainly unwashed claspers and legs. Then I called him, said, "I hate you," and hung up. And spent the next 10 minutes brushing my teeth. (Yes, I keep a toothbrush at work.)

I have since learned this is not the first time I've eaten bugs. The FDA details the number of allowable insect parts in its Food Defect Action Level publication. Although this contains unallowable amounts, and even though I am not a math whiz, my brain saw this and instantly calculated the reverse: acceptable levels of insect fragments, parasitic cysts, thrips, mites, aphids, rodent hairs, mold, and worms in our food. Read on:

Unacceptable food defilement levels:

• Herring: 60 parasitic cysts
  
• Sauerkraut: 50 thrips
• Spinach: 50 or more aphids, thrips and/or mites
• Mushrooms: 20 or more maggots...75 mites
• Broccoli: 60 or more aphids and/or thrips and/or mites
• Brussel Sprouts: 30 or more aphids and/or thrips
• Peanut Butter: 30 or more insect fragments...One or more rodent hairs
• Wheat Flour: 75 or more insect fragments...1 or more rodent hairs
• Tomatoes: 10 or more Drosophila (fruit) fly eggs, or 5 or more fly eggs and 1 or more maggots
• Popcorn: 1 or more rodent excreta pellets...1 or more rodent hairs
• Pepper, ground: 475 or more insect fragments...2 or more rodent hair
• Peaches, canned/frozen: 3% wormy or moldy...1 or more larvae and/or larval fragments
• Nutmeg, ground: 100 or more insect fragments...1 rodent hair
• Oregano, ground: 1,250 or more insect fragments...5 rodent hairs
• Macaroni & Noodle Products: 225 insect fragments...4.5 rodent hairs

Like, it's ok to have 29 thrips in your brussel sprouts but not 30. They draw the line at 30!

Also, according to this piece from NPR, coffee is absolutely infested with roaches. If you want it free of roach dust, get beans that are ground on the spot.

So, um, have a great lunch!

More TMI Thursdays:
My TMI Thursday archive
LiLu's TMI Thursday hub

WTF Wednesday: crimesolving via facebook! And more

Burglar leaves his Facebook page up on victim's computer
Busted! "The victim later noticed that the intruder also used her computer to check his Facebook status, and his account was still open when she checked the computer."

Coffee spill costs campus $200,000
"A coffee maker rigged to a faucet and left on in a photo lab led to a ruptured water line in July. About 10,000 gallons of water spilled down four floors, damaging ceilings, walls, computers and files." D'oh!

Cat strays 2,400 miles, returns home
"No one has a clue how Clyde managed the 185-mile sea journey across the Bass Strait from Tasmania off mainland Australia's southeast coast, and then about more than 2,000 miles overland to Cloncurry, deep in the arid interior of the Outback."

Doctor removes plastic fragment found in lung
"A man who was plagued with coughing fits should be OK now that they have removed a 1-inch piece of plastic that he sucked into his lung. The fragment of an eating utensil had rested there since he inhaled it nearly two years ago while swallowing a soft drink at a Wendy's restaurant."

Police find marijuana in suspect's dreadlocks
"A tall sergeant looked down at his head and saw a marijuana cigarette stashed in his dreadlocked hair."

Man injured by falling cow
"A Florida man sustained non-life-threatening injuries when a cow fell on him at a dairy farm. (I'm sorry, but there are NOT enough details in this story. How does this kind of thing happen?? Inquiring minds want to know!)

Poll -- do y'all like WTF Wednesday? I'm thinking of discontinuing b/c there are so many great weird news sites out there. Yah, nay or meh for me please! You can comment or email: spleeness@yahoo.com. Thx!

Herding cats

Might look something like this. Which killed me, btw, with its cuteness. Not one but two tabbies on leashes! (I saw this last week in Red Bank, NJ not far from the comic store run by Kevin Smith of Clerks fame.)
Sent from my phone, please excuse any typos.

TMI Thursday: Me and my second head

Welcome to TMI Thursday, spearheaded by LiLu, who says:

Alright, folks, you know the rules. Join us all in humiliating the crap out of yourself every Thursday by sharing some completely tasteless, wholly unclassy, “how many readers can I estrange THIS week??” TMI story about your life. Or hell, about someone else’s!

I'm short on bodily function stories right now. But will you take the next best thing -- a grotesque deformity?

I grew up in NJ, land of full-service gas stations. (Wait, this will make sense in a moment.) Only two states in the entire U.S. offer full-service by law: NJ and Oregon. Never having pumped my own gas before, I pulled into a station one sunny afternoon, rolled the window down and announced to the attendant that I wanted to fill my tank. This is important because note that I had to actually speak to someone. Face to face. In order to get gas, the most mundane of tasks.

I flung my arm out the window to offer my credit card.

Only he wasn't interested.

Instead he stared at me, his face a giant question mark, fingers absentmindedly raking over the tall white turban resting on his head. He gazed at me as if I were a creature from outer space. A long awkward moment passed before I turned to look behind me. Was it a language barrier? A UFO landing? A cat giving birth to a zebra? A UFO giving birth to a cat?

No one was behind me.

There wasn't a single living object that could have so captivated his attention.

He stood there still staring. I asked again, this time with less certainty due to the weirdness that was developing, "fill 'er up please?"

Finally he pointed.

At my face.

He. Pointed.

At.

My.

Face.

Grinning slowly, he asked, unabashed, "What's THAT??"

He had an accent but I understood him perfectly.

I slowly followed his fingertip to the end of my nose, where there stood a giant red zit. A pustule pulsating happily in its glory at the defeat of the rest of my face, it knew it had won. Like the bulbous second head of a encephalic siamese twin, it mindlessly competed for visual attention through the sheer enormity of its very presence. I didn't have a chance.

A pimple. He didn't understand what was on my face because it was so large and grotesque that it was like a physical deformity. With childlike innocence he simply could not help himself from blurting out the unspeakable. Questions must sometimes be answered.

I narrowed my eyes. Brazen candor shall be met with its equal.

"It's a ZIT." I flatly replied.

He stood, shocked. That an ordinary red bump could so hijack one's face that it could become the sole point of focus was inconceivable. He took one last gaping stare before ripping his eyes away to focus on the more earthly task at hand: filling my tank.

We spent the next several minutes in awkward silence as I cursed the SLOW SLOW pumps before paying and driving off in disgrace.

And then I made a slight change in plans that involved an entire tub of benzoyl peroxide, several sewing needles, needlenose pliers, a spare car battery and some Advil.

A moment of silence, please, in remembrance of its untimely death. But it was either it or me, and I got the brain.

Image source

My TMI Thursday archive -->
LiLu's TMI Thursday archive -->

WTF Wednesday

• Bicyclist gets hit by freak bolt of lightning
  Monty Python fans will immediately think, "DON'T stand there gawping, like you've never seen the hand o' god before!" I'll ruin it for you so you don't palpitate on me before you click over. He's fine.
  
  
• Guy robs house, returns 2 hours later to ask resident out on a date
  That's a great way to win a lady over, btw. Rob her.

These next few are older but still WTF??able:

• Muslim TV exec beheaded wife because she wanted out
  No wonder she wanted out.
  
  
• Miss Universe visits Guantanamo, says it's "a loooot of fun!" and "I didn't want to leave, it was such a relaxing place, so calm and beautiful."
  
  
• A Tunisian pilot was sentenced to 10 years in prison because he paused to pray instead of taking emergency measures before crash-landing his plane, killing 16 people.
  
  
• Top highly inappropriate toys for tots including the toy tattoo gun (does it come with toy hepatitis?), the pole dance doll, kid's nipple tassle teeshirt (for baby's practice), shave the baby, baby glutton, and (my favorite) stuffed STDs. (Thanks, Mike!)

old diary entry: my to do list

So I'm continuing to go through my old diaries. Here's a to-do list from my college days. Can you tell I was a wee bit frustrated?

1. finish that damned comm law stuff.
2. finish that damned astrology stuff.
3. finish that damned AIDS article.
4. put in a note off for work / Feb. 1 & dentist & Dr.'s app.
5. Go to the stupid bank and make a dumb deposit.
6. Pay those stupid shitty parking and speeding tickets.
7. Buy the stupid damned books and read the stupid damned material in them.
8. Stop being so damned hostile!

And here I am, trying to figure out how to pay a stupid shitty parking ticket. Some things never change!

TMI Thursday: on the topic of ginormous breasts

There, do I have your attention now? Good. But in case you wondered if this post was about MY ginormous breasts, sorry. It's not. (Regular readers will note that the above photo is not one of me.) No, this TMI Thursday post is about how, even though I am not INTO ginormous breasts, I still notice them. (Or at least I do if they're being thrown into my face.)

Here's what happened.

I was at a meeting one day with one of my old coworkers and we were sitting at a table shuffling papers, discussing the efficiency of loading a full ream of paper into the printer every third Thursday (or some equally riveting topic). She seemed uncomfortable and kept shifting her body; twisting around the chair, heaving upward and rotating upon some strange axis before settling back down. She would not stop fidgeting.

Look, it's not MY fault that she was wearing a shirt so low-cut that her boobs swung out like wrecking balls.

So I looked!

Everytime her girls swiveled into view, the sheer size, weight and momentum yanked my eyes downward. I couldn't help glancing. I really couldn't. I tried not to notice but she kept whipping them into my line of sight. If she was trying to get me to stare, she couldn't have done a better job. But she wasn't.

Finally she outright handled them. Yep. She picked her breasts up with her hands, gently cupping the bottom, and gingerly settled them down on the table.

What would you do?

You'd notice.

I've never seen someone fuss so with their torso. But she wasn't doing it to get my attention. I thought she was either just a nervous, active person, or she'd drank 78 espressos that morning, but either way, I DID notice.

She suddenly grew shy after my last averted eye attempt. After resting them on the table, she looked at me uncomfortably, glanced down and slowly pulled her shawl forward, draping loose burlap-like fabric over her cleavage, hiding all evidence of the shapes that lurked beneath.

I thought I'd die of embarrassment. BUSTED!

She actually had to cover herself because of me.

"I don't care about your boobs!" I wanted to cry. "Stop hurling them in my face!"

Really, if she'd been swiveling her elbows about, I'd be noticing them too.

And trust me, I have ZERO sexual interest in either body part.

I now sympathize with some (SOME) guys who shift their gaze downward now and then. I'm not even INTO them and couldn't help it!

Chelsea Charms and her ginormous boobs

Want more embarrassing stories?

• See my TMI Thursday archive-->
• Go to Lilu's TMI Thursday hub-->

The largest spider I ever saw

I am a true arachnophobe. I will jeopardize my own health to get away from a spider. The faster they are, the worse it is. The night I saw this monster (a "rapid wolf spider" and "rapid" here is actually part of its name but no question as to why), I was sick with a high fever and ambled deleriously into the bathroom where I proceeded to simultaneously hit the ceiling and hemmorhage my uvula.

Dan came to the rescue. He has designated spider-removal duty in our house. But instead of removing it right away, he spent about an hour photographing it, and then posted it as his computer wallpaper. He has two monitors so a quarter of the room screamed the presence of the hairy monster and I couldn't check my email for two weeks. 

9/9/09, at 9:09am

From my buddy Socam, 9am this morning. (Ahem, I meant 9:09 a.m.)

wtf Wednesday: awful stench, but man's not dead, just a slob

Hey there! I'm back from my travels. I've been living out of a suitcase for the past week while visiting family in NJ. I have much to share, but today I bring you choice WTF???'s in the news:

• Awful stench in apt. reveals that man isn't dead, just a slob
  when firefighters busted down the the door, they found the tenant very much alive and living with rotting garbage piled floor to ceiling.
• Man in Thor costume scares off burglar
  "As soon as he saw me his eyes went wide with terror."
• Teen wedged in toilet during music festival
  A British teenager had to be rescued by firefighters when her shoulders became wedged in a long-drop wooden toilet at a music festival.
• Python finds home in man's toilet
  Said python had developed a habit of slithering in from the garden and curling up in the toilet bowl.
• Accident lands jeep on home's second floor
  The driver (likely drunk -- ya think?) hit a pile of dirt and went airborne toward a house, crashing into the second floor.
  
• Man accidentally fires cannon into neighbor's house
  Recreating 19th century cannons is a longtime hobby for man who said he is sorry and he will stop shooting them on his property
• Man tries to pay for gas with pot
  Sheriff's deputies arrested a man after he allegedly offered store clerks marijuana to pay for gasoline.
• Firefighters forced to bathe elephant
  A firefighter's union says a New York City engine company had to close its firehouse for 30 minutes to bathe a circus elephant on city orders.
• Woman arrested in air freshener attack
  Police in Florida said they arrested a woman for attacking a smoker with air freshener sprayed from a can.
• Bear adept at opening car doors
  The interior of a Colorado man's car was destroyed by a black bear authorities said has become an expert at opening car doors.

Stay tuned as I do more catching up this week! And figure out my TMI Thursday post!