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Curious Times No. 191
May 8, 2003DOOMSDAY ALERT NUMBER 4,873 AND COUNTING
Japanese authorities are planning a crackdown on a doomsday cult which has been roaming the countryside in a caravan of 15 white-shrouded cars and vans, warning that the end of the world is coming on May 15. The 1200 members of the Panawave Laboratory cult wear surgical-style white robes, headgear and facemasks, and spend their time wrapping everything they see in white bandages and erecting white fabric screens along the road sides and around guardrails and trees. They believe the white fabric will help them from the harmful effects of being exposed to electromagnetic waves, which, they say, are being used by evil communists and which will lead to the destruction of much of the human race on May 15, when the Earth's axis will experience "dramatic change." (Mainichi Daily News)DOUBLE TROUBLE
The BBC reports a creepy little tale of a seven-year-old boy who had been carrying around his twin brother as a tumour in his stomach. The boy had been complaining of stomach pains and was admitted into a children's hospital in Kazakhstan, where surgeons proceeded to remove what they assumed was a cyst. During the surgery, they discovered a tumour with nails and bones, covered in hair, which they concluded was the remains of a foetus which originally would have been the boy's siamese twin. The doctors have no explanation for how this might have occured, but assumed that some abnormal development during the mother's pregancy caused one twin to grow inside the other. (BBC)COOL SHIT
Are you a plumber stuck in a rut? Need to get away from the daily grind of clogged piles of filth? Break out of the humdrum world of pipes and sewage and head on down to Antarctica for a life of adventure and intrigue! Well, maybe not... Nevertheless, the British Antarctic Survey is desperately seeking plumbers to help stop their pipes from freezing in their Antarctic laboratories. Unfortunately, they can only pay about a quarter of what a regular old plumber would be paid, and temperatures routinely drop to about minus 50 centigrade. Apparently, the BAS is hoping that the "spectacular antarctic scenery" will be enough to entice plumbers down south for the 18 month assignment. Yeah, right... (Reuters)UGGH...
The next time you're tempted to complain about your crummy childhood, think again. Police in Akron, Ohio, recently found two emaciated and severely malnourished young boys wandering the streets barefoot. Upon investigation, they found that the boys had escaped from a home in which they and their four siblings had suffered horrific abuse at the hands of their mother and her partner. The six children, aged between six and 14, were regularly starved, beaten and locked in closets, sometimes let out only once per day to eat scraps of food. For punishment, the kids were forced to eat dog and cat feces and vomit. The boys who escaped said that the windows of the house were nailed shut to keep the kids inside, but they managed to force open one window in order to escape. (Cleveland Newsnet 5)THAT'S ODD, I THOUGHT VIBRATORS HAD ALREADY BEEN INVENTED
Liz Paul, 49, has won this year's Btitish Female Inventor of the Year Award with her clitoral stimulator designed to help women achieve orgasm more easily. The "Vielle" is a small plastic stimulator with eight nodules which fits over the finger, designed "for women suffering sexual difficulties," says the inventor. Apparently, clinical tests have proven that the device could halve the time that it takes an average woman to climax (did she say clinical trials?). The invention narrowly beat out an "anti-allergy perfume partner" and a "lightweight ergonomic fork" in order to take the top prize. (BBC)THE REAL DISNEYLAND FOR ADULTS
The Daily Planet Ltd., the first brothel ever listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, is planning on creating a "sex Disneyland" in Sydney, where prostitution is decriminalized. "We are going to build a monster," says chief executive Andrew Harris, whose plans include a massive one-stop sex shop including the brothel, adult cinemas and adult sex shops. In the future, the company hopes to expand to America, where they hope to build a small city called Metropolis complete with a 150-200 room hotel in Nevada. (Sydney Morning Herald)PLAY NOW, PAY LATER
Good new if you're too broke to get sex. Prostitutes in Romania have started acccepting deferred payments and installment plans for customers who can't afford to pay for sex. "Workers don't have much money and that's why they only pay me once a month - at pay time," explained one young prostitute, "they sometimes lie to me and forget about paying but I wait for them at the factory gates the day I know they get their salaries." (Ananova)EVERYONE'S GOOD AT SOMETHING
Dawn Marshall, 34, of Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, has been crowned the best bagger in America, an award handed out each year by the National Grocers Association. Why they would have a contest like this isn't quite clear, but it's worth two grand, so I'm sure all the wannabe bagger kings and queens are thrilled. The NGA judges baggers on speed, bag-building technique, weight distribution, style and attitude. Dawn Marshall obviously has plenty of attitude. "I believe it's an art that should be taken seriouSLy," she claims. (Wall Street Journal)
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