No.
447 - April 3, 2008
How to Profit from Angst, Hypnosis, and Begging
LIFE
ISN’T CHEAP
If you’d like to start a new life in Australia there’s
a guy in Perth who is planning to put his entire life up for auction
starting on June 22. After a painful breakup with his wife, Ian
Usher, 44, re-evaluated his life and decided he had had enough.
Now his entire life - including his house, car, job, and friends
- will be sold to the highest bidder. "On the day it's all
sold and settled, I intend to walk out of my front door with my
wallet in one pocket and my passport in the other, nothing else
at all," Usher claims. "My current thoughts are to then
head to the airport, and ask at the flight desk where the next flight
with an available seat goes to, and to get on that and see where
life takes me from there.” Usher expects the winning bid to
be around $400,000 (the value of his house), a price that will include
a one-time introduction to his friends and a two-week trial run
at his job (although if you have that kind of money to waste on
this nonsense you probably don’t need another job). Bidding
starts at noon, Perth time, on June 22 and will be open for one
week. Get all the details at ALife4Sale.com.
LOOK INTO MY EYES -- YOU ARE GETTING STUPID
Italian police are searching for a man who seems to be hypnotizing
and robbing supermarket cashiers. Last week they released surveillance
video footage that shows the man bending over towards the cashier,
talking to her for a few moments, and then convincing her to hand
over a cool thousand bucks. In every case, according to police reports,
the last thing the cashiers’ remember is a man leaning over
and saying “Look into my eyes,” at which point their memory
of the incident disappears. (The
Daily Mail)
BE NICE TO YOUR SLAVES (AT LEAST IN PUBLIC)
Two teenage Bulgarian sisters were rescued from an Italian circus
last week where they were held as slaves and forced to perform bizarre
stunts such as swimming with piranhas and having live snakes thrown
at them. An audience member finally tipped off police to the suspicious
behaviour after watching one of the girls trying to escape from
the piranha tank but having her head held down in the water and
seeing the other girl being bitten by snakes. The three Italian
men who ran the circus now face charges of human slavery and various
other breaches of international human rights conventions. (The
Guardian)
BUT CAN YOU VALIDATE MY PARKING?
Last week some
dude found what he calls the best business card in the world
between the pages of a used book he bought recently. Check out the
business card of one W. W. Green, purveyor of such diverse items
as used cars, land, whiskey, manure, fly swatters and bongos. The
card goes on to list other unusual services, such as wars fought,
tigers tamed, bars emptied, uprisings quelled and orgies organized.
WILL GOUGE FOR FOOD
This week’s full supply of irony comes from the Chinese city
of Kunming, where shopkeepers have been asking for change from beggars
because there are not enough coins in circulation to run their businesses.
"Each month, a single shop needs around 2,000 yuan in coins,
but the banks always say they don't have coins," said one business
owner. Apparently the beggars have morphed into capitalists, charging
105 yuan for a 100 yuan coin. (Ananova)
WHY DO ALL GOOD THINGS COME TO AN END?
If you’re old enough to remember that last third of the 20th
century you’ll probably enjoy an article in the Washington
Post called “Left Behind,” about things from our recent
past which are obsolete or well on their way to obsolescence. The
top 10 include blind dates, mix tapes, land lines, short basketball
shorts, phone sex and getting lost. They also published a list of
another 170 on their way out, including electric typewriters, record
stores, the yellow pages, lickable stamps, smoking while pregnant,
photo albums, hitchhiking, and men with one earring. Go stroll down
nostalgia lane at WashingtonPost.com.
HOW
TO WIN A PRIZE IN LITERATURE WITHOUT REALLY TRYING
A few weeks ago I sent you off to vote for 2007’s weirdest
book title at TheBookseller.com.
Well, the results are in, and our winner this year is “If
you Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs”
with 33 percent of the vote. Runners-up were “I Was Tortured
By the Pygmy Love Queen” and “Cheese Problems Solved.”
Past winners of this award include such classics as “Joy of
Chickens” (1980), “Living With Crazy Buttocks (2002),
“Bombproof Your Horse” (2004) and “Lesbian Sadomasochism
Safety Manual” (1990).
HAPPY AS A PIG IN MUD WITH A VIBRATOR
In the hopes of making artificial insemination more enjoyable for
pigs, a company in Holland has created a combination sperm reservoir/pig
vibrator. A spokesperson from the company which designed the tool
says that the vibrations cause sows to get sexually aroused "in
no time," which, apparently, is "beneficial" for
insemination. (AFP)
I-READ-IT-ON-THE-INTERNET-SO-IT-MUST-BE-TRUE FACT OF THE WEEK
Only 36 percent of people believe that official statistics released
by the government are accurate.
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