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Curious Times No. 230
February 5, 2004WHAT A DEAL! IMAGINARY GIRLFRIENDS FOR SALE
What do you do if you’re a bored, lonely, horny guy who’s too afraid to talk to girls and spends most of his time surfing the web? (Besides reading this column, of course.) Well, now you can go to eBay and place your bid on an imaginary girlfriend. Apparently there are more than 80 entries for imaginary girlfriends on the internet auction site, where for between $50-$100 you can find a girl who will send you love letters, e-mails and digital pictures. There are also a few services for women. For example, a mere $15 will get you a box of chocolates sent to you on Valentine’s Day from a secret admirer, and only $5 can land you an "Imaginary Stalker Ex-Boyfriend" who will e-mail you everyday, asking where you’ve been and who you’ve been with. "Amanda," one of the imaginary girlfriends who is selling her services to "make another girl jealous or to prove to your friends that you do have a girlfriend," says that it all started out as a big joke, but after some guy paid her $100, she decided "this is a lot better than working at Dairy Queen." For now eBay is allowing the transactions, saying that it doesn’t break any of their rules. "We’d draw the line if someone was offering to meet with the person, because that gets into selling human bodies, which is definitely against our policies," said an eBay spokesman. (NY Post)SURPRISE! JUNK FOOD IS BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH
New Yorker Morgan Spurlock has destroyed his own health after using himself as a guinea pig for the making of a documentary called "Super Size Me," a film which explores the obesity epidemic in America, and has been called "a Bowling for Columbine for fast food." Spurlock decided to eat three meals a day for 30 days at McDonald’s in order to document the impact of the food on his health. After 30 days, during which time he was monitored by three specialists, Spurlock’s health rapidly disintigrated. Along with gaining 25 pounds, he began vomiting involuntarily, his cholestoral shot up from 165 to 230, his liver became toxic and he suffered from headaches, depression and he lost his sex drive. "It was really crazy - my body basically fell apart over the course of 30 days," Spurlock told The New York Post. Dr. Daryl Issacs, the man who monitored Surplock’s health, added that "he was an extremely healthy person who got very sick eating this McDonald’s diet...None of us imagined he could deteriorate this badly - he looked terrible. The liver test was the most shocking thing - it became very, very abnormal." (NY Post)X-RAY GIRL CONTINUES TO IMPRESS
A couple of weeks ago I reported on a Russian girl who seems to have some kind of X-ray vision with which she can see health problems within a human body. Last week, England’s The Sun newspaper brought Natasha Demkina to London to test her skills. According to reporter Briony Warden, who recently suffered multiple injuries after she was hit by a car, Demkina accurately diagnosed all the fractures in her legs and hips, even "seeing" the scars of metal pins and screws which were in her leg until two weeks ago. "Natasha is amazing. I was very skeptical at first but after just a few minutes she focused on my major fractures," said Warden, "I was very impressed. It was as though she was looking at X-rays of me. Only my orthopedic consultant could have known more." The 17-year-old Russian girl, who is currently undergoing medical tests to understand her gift, hopes to become a doctor in the future. "I want to become a doctor who helps people," she explained. "It is psychologically very hard telling people there is something wrong with them." (The Sun UK)SMARTER THAN THE AVERAGE BIRD
Last week we learned of a parrot in England which might have belonged to Churchill and still enjoys cursing out Hitler and the Nazis. This week, another peculiar parrot is in the news. The BBC Wildlife Magazine reports that a parrot named N’kisi is astounding scientist with his remarkable vocabulary of over 950 words and an intelligence unparalleled in the animal kingdom. As well as his huge English vocabulary, N’kisi invents words and creates new phrases for things he doesn’t know. For example, he created the phrase "pretty smell medicine" to describe aromatherapy oils. N’kisi also displays a great sense of humour and might even have some telepathic powers. An experiment in which the bird and his owner were put in separate rooms showed that N’kisi was able to use appropriate words for random pictures in the other room three times more often than would be likely by chance. (BBC)WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY TO RENAME YOU
In the future, when we’re all a combination of human flesh and robotic hardware, we’re going to need righteous cyborg names to go along with our new powers. Thanks to the Cyborg Name Generator, you’ll have no problem figuring out your role in the new world order. Go to www.cyborgname.com and type in your human name, and it’ll spit out a groovy acronym of your name to guide you in your future endeavours as a half human, half machine. For example, my name was bang on: A.N.D.R.E.A.S.: Artificial Networked Device Responsible for Exploration and Accurate Sabotage.WE’RE SURROUNDED BY FREAKS
A Swedish veterinary organization is urging the government to once again make sex with animals illegal in that country, claiming that between 200 and 300 pets are injured each year due to sexual assault. Unlike most countries in the civilized world, Sweden decriminalized sex with animals in 1944, and animal sex seems to have increased dramatically in that country since 1999 when child pornography was outlawed. "It appears, in other words, as there are some people who have replaced children with animals," said Johan Beck-Friis, a spokesperson for the veterinary association, "in both circumstances, it is sex with defenseless individuals." A British study carried out in 2001 found that every 20th dog or cat injury treated by a veterinary is the result of sexual assault. (pub.tv32.no)A LEGEND IN HIS OWN MIND
The man responsible for such pop culture classics as "Knight Rider" and "Baywatch" also feels he deserves some kudos for helping to bring down the Berlin Wall. David Hasselhoff recently complained to a German magazine that a museum exhibit featuring memorabilia about the fall of the wall should include his photograph. Hasselhoff claims that he helped reunite the two countries by singing his song "Looking for Freedom" to millions of his German fans back in 1989. "I find it a bit sad that there is no photo of me hanging on the walls in the Berlin Museum at Check-Point Charlie," whined the actor. (Ananova)
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