What was the weirdest story in 2007?
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Vote for your Favorite Weird Story of 2007
From the safety of what promises to be an utterly Non-weird 2008
The DBKP Top 44
What was the weirdest story of 2007?
There were certainly enough of them to choose from.
We've narrowed it down from 1000's of weird stories--there were hundreds at DBKP alone. We then scoured the Internet to add to our own rich storehouse of weirdness.
2007 was a boom year in Weirdness.
* A Moscow woman set fire to her ex-husband's penis as he sat naked watching television and drinking vodka. The couple divorced three years ago but continued to share a small flat.
"I was burning like a torch," the wounded ex-husband told Tvoi Den newspaper. "I don't know what I did to deserve this."
- - - -Germans were weird in 2007.
* In another unusual living arrangement, a German man left his dead mother seated in her favorite armchair at their shared home for two years after her death of natural causes at age 92.
* Yet not everything that smelled like a corpse was really dead in 2007. In the German town of Kaiserslautern, police broke into a darkened flat expecting to find a corpse after neighbors complained of a nasty smell seeping out into the hallway.
But instead they found a tenant with very smelly feet asleep in bed next to a pile of extremely foul-smelling laundry.
* A 60-year-old German man stunned lawyers during his appeal hearing on a flashing conviction by stripping off in court.
* A German bus driver threw a 20-year-old off because he said she was too sexy for his bus. "He opened the door and shouted 'Your cleavage is distracting me every time I look into my mirror and I can't concentrate on the traffic'," the woman said.
* A German court awarded a man 3,000 euros ($4,100) after he lost the top half of his skull because of faulty hospital equipment. The man’s skull had to be replaced with plastic because the cold storage where doctors placed the top of his head during surgery turned out to be defective.
Since the head was not kept cool enough by the faulty fridge, it could not be reattached. The man now has a plastic prosthetic skull.
He sought compensation of 20,000 euros on the grounds that the prosthesis gave him headaches, adversely affected his balance and made him extra-sensitive to the weather.
- - - -Wal-Mart made the Weird News Finalists in 2007.
* A security officer at the Wal-Mart store in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., had heard reports that a man commonly was doing something odd with hair spray each time he was in the store.
He watched for the man, spotted him, and followed him. Sure enough, he watched as the man took a bottle of pump hair spray off the shelf -- and drank it. He continued to follow the man as he drank a second bottle. The hair spray contains a significant amount of alcohol.
The unidentified man left the store without paying for the products, and was arrested on shoplifting charges. Security officer Christopher White noted the man had plenty of money in his pocket, so he asked him why he drank hair spray instead of just buying booze.
The man replied that he is "a hard-core alcoholic" and doesn't go into liquor stores because "the temptation was too great."
* The rivalry between Pepsi and Coke turned violent in Indiana, Pa., when a Pepsi deliveryman allegedly punched his Coke counterpart in the face three times.
The Coke driver suffered a broken nose and a black eye in the scrape, which occurred in a Wal-Mart parking lot.
- - - -* There were sadly many deaths in 2007 that were hardly noticed, such as in Zagreb, where a Croatian man who boarded a night tram and died in his seat rode through the city for more than six hours before the driver discovered he was dead.
- - - -* Unusual diets made headlines in 2007 -- such as: "No more crispy duck at Beijing toilets." Food stalls attached to Beijing's public toilets were banned ahead of the Olympics after complaints over toilets with poor sanitation.
* Also in China, 66-year-old Jiang Musheng said 40 years of swallowing live tree frogs and rats helped him avoid intestinal pain and made him strong.
* British artist Mark McGowan ate a meal of meatballs made from a dead corgi dog in a protest against animal cruelty. He said the corgi, which died from natural causes, tasted terrible.
* Criminals filled odd news headlines around the world. In the United States, two Colorado men were accused of plotting to kill a man with rattlesnakes in a dispute over a $60,000 poker debt.
"It's a story out of the Wild West -- there's poker, rattlesnakes and unsavory characters," said Lance Clem, of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. "You've got a bunch of snakes becoming involved with a bunch of snakes."
* In Sarajevo, two armed men disguised as Muslim women in burqas held up a bank and escaped with $40,000.
* A Zimbabwe man stole a bus because he needed transport to get his driving license.
The most unfortunate criminal award goes to the next entry.
* An unnamed 41-year-old man from Val des Monts, Que., Canada, suffered a seizure from a crack cocaine overdose. That apparently disturbed his dog, a pit bull terrier, which then "took a bite out of him" under his ear, police say.
His housemates, whom police said were also high, tried to save the man from the dog by swinging at it with a baseball bat. They missed, instead hitting the man in the face. He was taken to a hospital and doctors found a plastic bag in his rectum; it contained 10 grams of crack.
Police were called and charged the man with possession of drugs with the intent to traffic -- and with owning an illegal breed of dog.
- - - -"Stick 'em up! Or I'll get you gooey!"
* A robber succeeded in escaping with 613 pounds (US$1,236) from a bookmaker's shop in Leicester, England. The clerks there assumed he had a gun hidden in a bag he pointed at them, but it wasn't.
"In fact, what was contained within the carrier bag was the defendant's girlfriend's vibrator," the prosecutor told the judge. Nicki Jex, 27, admitted to the crime and was sentenced to five years in prison.
* * Two convicted murderers are among 13 escapees from a prison in Sudbury, Derbyshire, England, in recent months. But most of the men, including the murderers, are still at large because police won't release their photos, since that could breach their human rights.
"When making a decision to release any photograph, police forces must take into account numerous factors including the public interest test," lectured a police spokesman, "whether there is a strong local policing purpose and, of course, the Human Rights and Data Protection Acts."
So now what? The spokesman said by escaping, the felons "abuse the trust we have placed in them," and "it's up to us to trace their whereabouts."
- - - -* A man who was addicted to alcoholic enemas died after having one based on sherry. Texan Michael Warner, 58, died of alcoholic poisoning with a level of 0.47%, almost six times the state's legal limit of .08%. And just what are the legal consequences of helping out on a fatal alcohol enema?
His wife, Tammy Jean Warner, 45, was charged with manslaughter after administering the enema for her hubby but the case was dismissed because of insufficient evidence.
She claimed that her husband was addicted to enemas and often used alcohol in them to get drunk.
* Lisa Marie Nowak, the former NASA astronaut who in February was so anxious to get to a romantic rival, she donned NASA-approved diapers for a drive from Texas to Florida. Ms. Nowak didn’t want to have to deal with the pesky detail of finding a rest stop along the way.
Other details in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution report concerned crying and chemical sprays and a BB gun, but it’s just all too complicated.
* From the Atlanta newspaper came the tale in March of the Barbie Bandits, so called because of their blond ponytails and tendency to giggle as they robbed banks in their designer jeans and trendy sunglasses. Not surprisingly, they were captured when they took a break to visit a local salon for root touch-ups.
* Springtime 2007, a Berlin woman drove her son to a robbery, as we told you in May, because she was afraid he would get hurt if he went without her. Apparently neither mom nor the kids were very good on the details, as all were captured and the mother, at the wheel of the getaway car, received three years and 10 months in prison.
* In La Paz, the winner of a Bolivian beauty contest was stripped of her title moments after her coronation when judges noticed she was wearing false hair plaits
* Climate change found its way into weird news. A Hummer owner in Russia's St. Petersburg gave activists the green light to pelt his oversized vehicle with rotten eggs and tomatoes.
- - - -* Iowa State Fair Board President Jerry Parkins has suggested that the fair discourage the annual "erotic corn dog-eating contest" as "inappropriate". Radio personality Steve Pilchen, who runs the event, said only women have ever entered the contest, and "we stress technique." The winner is chosen by crowd applause. He notes several condiments are available to competitors: "We had ketchup and mustard, but the big hit was mayonnaise."
* Every story needs a happy ending and Bangkok delivered for this one. A 76-year-old Malay Muslim woman from southern Thailand got on the wrong bus 25 years ago and got lost, ending up living as a beggar at the other end of the country.
But in 2007 she was finally reunited with her family.
- - - -* Rebekah Rice says that in 2003, when she was 15, fellow students at Maria Carrillo High School in Santa Rosa, Calif., teased her about her Mormon religion with taunts such as "Do you have 10 moms?"
She admits that when she was exasperated with such teasing in her freshman humanities class she responded "That's so gay!"
School officials
then took quick action: she was given a written reprimand for her "offensive language," even though no one complained. Her parents sued the school district demanding they remove the reprimand from her record, claiming harassment and discrimination since the school never tried to stop the religious taunts.
The judge in the case ruled the Rices didn't prove discrimination, and that being "picked on and teased by boorish and uncaring bullies" is "part of what teenagers endure in becoming adults." The reprimand will stay in her record.
* The Frazier Park Lake near Ulysses, Kansas, has been dry for at least 20 years, so the city planned a $735,000 project to fill it by using the lake bed to hold its wastewater, rather than use nearly the same amount of money to refurbish the plant's evaporation ponds.
There's only one problem: an unusually snowy winter has filled the lake with water. The city therefore plans to drain the lake so the project can proceed.
- - - -* A group of campers in Portland OR tied a peeping Tom suspect to a tree, keeping him bound until police arrived.
* Seventy six year old Hialeah City Councilman Jose “Pepe” Caragol has drawn fire over his political slogan, “If you like oral sex, vote Caragol for council” in the upcoming city council election.
Caragol says he never meant to offend but that “people want to give it (oral sex) a negative connotation.”
* It's not the most usual way of fixing a technical problem, but Nepal Airlines recently decided to sacrifice two goats to appease a Hindu god following problems with one of its aircraft.
The goats were sacrificed in front of the troublesome Boeing 757 with the hopes that it would please the sky god Akash Bhairab. And it appears to have worked; "The snag in the plane has now been fixed and the aircraft has resumed its flights", Raju KC, a senior airline official, told the Reuters news agency.
- - - -* Sergei Morozov, the governor of Ulyanovsk region in Russia, declared the day to be a "family contact day" and encouraged couples to have sex instead of working. The whole scheme is part of a wider aim to improve population growth in the Soviet Union. If a day off work was not enough to tempt people then prizes for people who give birth nine months later on Russia's national day – June 12th – include cars and televisions.
* Men could reduce their risk of developing prostate cancer through regular masturbation, researchers suggest.
They say cancer-causing chemicals could build up in the prostate if men do not ejaculate regularly.
And they say sexual intercourse may not have the same protective effect because of the possibility of contracting a sexually transmitted infection, which could increase men's cancer risk.
* It was just another morning at the senior center: Women were sewing, men were playing pool — and seven demonstrators, average age 76, were picketing outside, demanding doughnuts.
They wore sandwich boards proclaiming, "Give Us Our Just Desserts" and "They're Carbs, Not Contraband."
At issue is a decision to refuse free doughnuts, pies and breads that were being donated to senior centers around Putnam County, north of New York City. Officials were concerned that the county was setting a bad nutritional precedent by providing mounds of doughnuts and other sweets to seniors.
- - - -A month-by-month Weird News round-up of 2007.
* In January, Joseph Pisirak of Lombard, Ill., spent 30 consecutive hours in a recliner in a sports bar defending his 2006 title of Ultimate Couch Potato. Contestants received short breaks but otherwise were required to always have their eyes on the screen and thus on the game. When a game ended, they were treated to endless reruns of the same Sports Center program.
* In February, the story of the Fish ‘n Flush. This throne for the royal guy in your home who already has everything is “a clear two-piece toilet tank that replaces a standard toilet tank.”
Company officials say it is a “sure-fire conversation starter” and that many parents are using it to entertain the kids during toilet training. It’s a pretty expensive tutor at $299, and that doesn’t include the fish, although we suppose it is pretty convenient when Goldy goes belly up.
- - - -* In April, Reuters gave us the story of a beauty pageant in Saudi Arabia in which “the legs are long, the eyes are big, the bodies curvaceous.”
But don’t look for the bathing suit competition, as the contestants come out for the judges just as bare as they day they were born.
Calm down. They were camels. Winners — or rather, the winners’ owners — were awarded SUVs and bids for the animals that reached six figures.
* In June, a couple of doctors in India, reported Reuters, allowed their 15-year-old son to perform an operation in the hope of getting his feat into the Guinness Book as the world’s youngest surgeon.
* In July, some Memphis, Tenn., women spent the hot days mowing lawns while wearing bikinis. One young thing who works for the landscaping company noted that they got plenty of attention, and not just for their attention to detail with an edger.
* In August, police officers in Thailand are forced to wear armbands picturing the cartoon character Hello Kitty for minor infractions such as littering, parking illegally or coming in late to work. This item should remind us all that there are different degrees of punishment. This one sounds pretty harsh for a macho man of the law.
- - - -* In September, a couple of college freshmen in Boston found out that a part-time job when they should be studying isn’t such a good idea. Especially if they advertise their sideline by yelling out their dorm windows stirring up interest in the marijuana they have available. It was reported they didn’t make it to their sophomore year.
* In October, a Pittsburgh man tried to pass funny money and got a little angry when the cashier at a grocery store wouldn’t take his $1 million bill. The largest bill ever printed was for $100,000, but the highest bill in the United States has been the C-note since 1969.
* The Jockey company sponsored a contest in November in which people were invited to send videos of themselves dancing in their drawers with the hope of winning a $5,000 grand prize.
* And finally, in December, a man stopped by police in Somerset County, Pa., for a broken taillight ran away from the officers, went home, shaved his mustache, changed his clothes — then went to the police station to report his truck as stolen.
- - - -He was cited for drunk driving. Big surprise.
IF you see your favorite weird story of 2007, leave a comment, we'll narrow it down to the Top 10 for your later voting and perusal.
IF your favorite weird story wasn't here, leave a link in the comments and we'll add it or maybe even it will make the Top 10.
Thank goodness the presidential elections are coming up. There shouldn't be any weird news there.
2008 couldn't be any more weird.
Could it?
by Mondoreb
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Sources:
*
Holy Smoke in nunnery Tops 2007 Weird News*
Weirdest News Story*
T&T's Year in Review: A Few things that amused us in 2007*
Man Dies of Alcohol Enema; Wife Goes Free*
Campers Tie Peeping Tom to Tree*
Sex Sells, But Does it Bring in the Votes?*
German Hospital Loses Half of Man's Skull*
Airline Sacrifices Goats; Problems Fixed*
Russians Paid to Have Sex*
Masturbation Cuts cancer Risk*
Senior Citizens Protest Ban on Doughnuts*
Coke Vs. Pepsi: Bruce Lee-Style
Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.
