Curious
Times No. 330
January 5, 2006
NICE STALKERS FINISH LAST
A Chinese court has pardoned a man who was arrested for repeatedly
breaking into his neighbour’s house after the man confessed
that he had been madly in love with her but couldn’t summon
the courage to actually talk to her. Instead, he broke into her
house five times while she was out in order to do her laundry,
wash her dishes, make snacks for her and fix her computer. The
man was finally arrested after being caught sneaking out of her
home with one of her bra’s, some photos, and her MP3 player.
He told the court that he took the MP3 player because it needed
to be repaired, but admitted that he “took her bra and photos
out of love for her.” (Reuters)
AND THE NUMBER ONE REASON NOT TO BECOME FAMOUS IS...
A deranged woman in New Mexico has been granted a restraining
order against David Letterman, who she claims used secret code
words and hand gestures during his show in order to ask her to
marry her and train her to become his co-host. Colleen Nestler
alleged that Letterman forced her to go bankrupt and caused her
mental cruelty and sleep deprivation since May 1994, when Letterman
began sending “thoughts of love” and “eye expressions”
to seduce her through her television screen. Why the judge in
this case gave Nestler a restraining order instead of a prescription
for some very strong chemicals wasn’t made clear, but for
now David Letterman is not allowed to get within three yards of
the woman. Attorneys for Letterman have asked to have the order
removed, calling it “obviously absurd and frivolous.”
(Contra
Coast Times)
NEXT
YEAR YOU CAN RUN AWAY AND JOIN THE FREAK SHOW
If one of your new year’s resolutions is to learn some extreme
new skills, check out an article called “The Physics Behind
Four Amazing Demonstrations,” which explains the secrets
which will enable you to walk on broken glass, dip your hands
into molten lead, pick up an orange-hot (about 1000 degree Celsius)
piece of silica tile, and have a block of concrete broken over
your body while you lie sandwiched between two beds of nails.
If the chicks don’t dig you after that, you might as well
kill yourself. Start your training at www.csicop.org/si/9911/willey.html
!WOW!
Software programmer Peter Norvig has managed to write a computer
program which has generated the world’s longest palindrome,
a whopping 17,259 word sentence which reads the same forwards
and backwards. Unfortunately, this palindrome sucks total shit,
beginning with “A man, a plan, a carpus, AEC, Rickey, EKG,
navettes, Sorcha, Basil...” and deteriorating rapidly. However,
while researching this story I did manage to learn the interesting
fact that the fear of palindromes is known as “aibohphobia.”
I also discovered my new favourite palindrome of all time: “Do
geese see God?” (norvig.com/palindrome.html)
KEEP IT TOGETHER FOR THE KIDS
I’m sorry to report that senseless psychotic episodes and
sheer mindless insanity will continue well into 2006. Exhibit
A: news out of Twin Falls, Idaho reports that a 33-year-old father
poisoned all three of his young children because, he told police,
he “didn’t want the kids to suffer through the divorce.”
(CNN)
WHAT’S
THE POINT OF READING ABOUT SEX?
So how come you didn’t get me anything for Christmas? If
it’s because you didn’t know what I needed let me help
you out. Disinformation Press has released a new book in their
excellent “Everything You Know Is Wrong” series. This
one is called “Everything You Know About Sex Is Wrong,”
and, according to the blurb on their website, this one covers
some interesting territory: “Orgasms, sexual inventions,
spirituality, high-tech porn, gender-blending, hustling, masturbation,
politics, airplane sex, disabilities, sex magick, biblical erotica,
advertising, first times, sex in space, asexuality, group sex.”
Get it at www.disinfo.com.
OLD TEASPOONS DON’T DIE, THEY RETIRE TO THE LAND OF THE
SINGLE SOCKS
Australian scientists at the Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical
Research and Public Health in Melbourne have done the world a
great service by tracking the teaspoons at their workplace to
discover that most teaspoons in an office environment rapidly
disappear. The scientists tracked 70 teaspoons and found that
80 percent of them vanished within five months, with teaspoons
in private areas of the institute surviving nearly twice as long
as those in communal areas. “At this rate, an estimated 250
teaspoons would need to be purchased annually to maintain a workable
population of 70 teaspoons,” they concluded. (Reuters)
THE iREVOLUTION WASN’T TELEVISED
Check out the cool article from Macleans magazine (Mcleans.ca)
called “Somebody Call Karl Marx,” which explains why
the internet is, in fact, a Marxist utopia.
“I READ IT ON THE INTERNET SO IT MUST BE TRUE” FACT
OF THE WEEK
A “jiffy” is an actual unit of time lasting 1/100th
of a second.
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