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THE
BEST AND WORST OF 2004
December 30, 2004
GROSSEST
HEALTH KICK
While the practice of drinking your own piss is still right near the top
of the list when it comes to outrageous health claims, April of 2004 saw
a brand new entrant into this category. That’s when we learned of
a doctor in Austria who suggested that the best way to good health was
to pick your nose and eat your boogers. Professor Friedrich Bischinger
claimed that people who pick their nose and eat it are healthier, happier,
and more in tune with their bodies.
2004’S DRUNK AND STUPID AWARD
The “Drunk and Stupid” division of Curious Times is always my
favourite, and 2004 certainly saw it’s fair share. But the winner
has got to be this sorry tale from New York State, where a 59-year-old
man died after lighting a rug on fire and challenging his drunk buddy
to see who could stay in the burning house longer. The good news was that
the man won his bet after the fire started to get out of control and his
buddy chickened out and ran to the neighbour’s house to call 911.
The bad news is that by the time firefighters came to control the blaze,
the man was dead.
WORST PARENTS
This award almost went to the couple who raised a cabbage patch doll as
their son for over 19 years, but at least they cared about their “child”,
unlike the German couple who tried to sell their kid on eBay last April.
The morons were arrested after they decided to put the woman’s eight-year-old
daughter up for sale on the internet auction site. The bidding started
at a pretty dismal one Euro (US$1.18) and rose to a little over $25 before
the auction was shut down and the couple was visited by the police.
BEST DIET
While the Atkins diet was being attacked from all sides, an Italian dietician
created his own truly enjoyable diet by calculating how many calories
a person can burn while engaged in various sexual acts. According to his
“research,” it will take about 26 minutes of passionate love-making
to burn off the calories in a slice of pizza, 53 minutes of French kissing
to burn off a burger and fries, and 15 minutes of oral sex to eliminate
the calories in a glass of wine. He also calculated that taking off a
woman’s bra will burn 8 calories if done with both hands, and 18
calories if done with just one hand. For real go-getters, taking off your
partner’s bra with your mouth will burn a whopping 87 calories.
2004’S BIGGEST BOOB(S)
In February an Italian woman who went for the super-size deal at her plastic
surgeon’s office by ordering the largest possible breast enlargement
a human can receive was being hunted by police after skipping out on the
$10,000 bill. How she was able to run away with brand new boobs that must
have weighed about 10 pounds each was never explained.
MOST BONE-HEADED SCAM
Yes, there were many hair-brained money-making scams during 2004, but
the most blatantly retarded idea came from a woman in Georgia who was
arrested for trying to spend a million dollar bill at her local Wal-Mart.
Police charged Alice Pike, 35, with forgery, after she pulled out the
novelty $1,000,000 note and tried to pay for over a thousand dollars worth
of clothes. The staff at Wal-Mart said that Pike not only tried to pass
off the phony money as real, but even demanded her change, a cool $998,328.45.
WORST VIDEO GAME IDEA
In August, the Japanese unveiled a video game called Boong-Ga Boong-Ga
in which you shove your finger up the butthole of a character of your
choice and watch them writhe in pain. The video console comes complete
with a prosthetic arse conventiently bent over and awaiting your finger
insertion. After you shove it in there, the character’s face on the
video screen will twitch in pain and scream if you shove it in hard enough
(bonus points are awarded for the hardest shoves).
WORST MISSIONARY
I guess if no one will listen to your religious rants it might seem like
a good idea to try your charms on some dumb animals. Fortunately for Chen
Chung-Ho, 46, he escaped with only minor wounds after trying to convert
two lions to his religion. The man had jumped into the lion’s enclosure
at the Taipei City Zoo and began shouting “Jesus will save you!”
and “Come bite me!” Having been fed earlier in the day, the
lion’s first ignored the lunatic, but eventually the cats got annoyed
and attacked him, repeatedly biting his arms and legs.
WORST DEAL ON A GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH
After intense bidding on eBay in December, a grilled cheese sandwich which
sported the face of the Virgin Mary was purchased for $28,000 by an internet
casino. Goldenplace.com said that they would take the sandwich on a world
tour and then sell it and give the money to charity. "We believe
that everyone should be able to see it and learn of its mystical power
for themselves," said CEO Richard Rowe, apparently with a straight
face.
MOST USELESS SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
As always, 2004 brought another great batch of absolutely pointless scientific
research. But at the top of the heap is a study titled “The Effect
of Country Music on Suicide,” which concluded that suicide rates
are higher in cities with the most country music radio stations. Honourable
mentions in weird science go to a study which found that herring can communicate
by farting and to a man who actually filed a patent for his particular
style of combover.
BEST NEW SEX TOY
Perhaps the best news of the year came from a sex expert in Britain who
claimed that chocolate bars which will help give us orgasms could be in
stores within the next five years. Dr. Trudy Barber told the European
Federation of Sexology that chocolate could be developed which has much
higher levels of phenyl ethylamine, a chemical which is released by our
bodies during sex. Today's chocolate bars already contain up to 660 milligrams
of phenyl ethylamine, but Dr. Barber says that much more potent chocolate
is in development.
MOST CLUELESS COUPLE
According to supposedly reliable news sources, a German couple who went
to a fertility clinic to find out why they hadn't been able to get pregnant
after eight years of marriage stunned the doctors with blank ignorance
when they were asked how often they had sex. Apparently, these two geniuses
were so sheltered in a strict religious upbringing that they were unaware
of the physical activities necessary to get that sperm into the woman's
eggs. A clinic spokesperson at the University of Lubek said that after
doing all of the necessary tests on the couple and finding that nothing
was wrong, the doctor asked the couple how often they had sex, to which
they replied "what do you mean?"
MOST OBVIOUS SURVEY RESULTS
Money may not be able to buy happiness, but a survey carried out in January
found that about $4.8 million will buy most people everything they think
they will need in order to be happy, including their dream home, their
dream car, and all kinds of tropical vacations. Of the 2,500 people surveyed,
over 45 per cent defined their dream lifestyle as being a playboy or playgirl,
constantly partying, jet-setting and buying expensive toys.
BEST APPEARANCE BY INSTANT KARMA
In May we found more proof that’s it’s hard to find good help,
when an attempted drive-by shooting in California went drastically wrong
after the man firing a semi-automatic gun out the passenger window accidently
shot the driver of the car during the attack. According to police, whoever
he was actually trying to shoot remained unscathed.
BEST “SCOOBY DOO” INSPIRED CRIME
In August, an Indian man confessed to police that he had been dressing
up as a ghost in order to scare the people in the Bengali town of Siliguri,
then offering to perform expensive magic rituals in order to scare the
ghost away. Oddly enough, the police managed to solve this crime without
the help of a bunch of meddling kids.
WORST PRISON ESCAPE ATTEMPT
A slightly-confused inmate in a Portuguese prison had a slight problem
after trying to dig his way out of prison last July. After digging in
the wrong direction, his cunning plan came up about 21 meters short of
the prison walls, and he popped his head out only to find himself in the
prison courtyard, from where he was escorted back to his cell.
WORST EXCUSE FOR CHEATING ON YOUR LOVER
In December sleep disorder psychologists discovered a bizarre new affliction
in which men and women “sleepwalk” in the middle of the night
and seek out sex with random strangers. The condition, cleverly titled
“sleep sex,” will probably be included in the next edition of
the International Classification of Sleep Disorders.
“I READ IT ON THE INTERNET SO IT MUST BE TRUE” FACT OF THE
YEAR
Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
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