1/03/2005

Weird Stuff that Happened in 2004

Here is the annual review of wierd stuff that happened in 2004 (from Reuters) to prove once again that truth is stranger than fiction...

* A vibrating sex toy chucked into a rubbish bin at an Australian airport sparked a security alert that only ended when an embarrassed passenger came forward to claim what was identified as "an adult novelty device."

* A fervent evangelist who leapt into the lions' den at Taipei zoo and shouted "Jesus will save you" was lucky to escape with just a bite in the right leg when he tried to convert the king of beasts to Christianity.

* Nine out of 10 Chinese calling into a suicide-prevention hotline were greeted by a busy signal (maybe this is their idea of population control?)

Germany was popular this year:
* German police arrested a flasher who stumbled over his dropped trousers during an aborted attempt to flee.

* A cost-cutting German theater was berated for using just four dwarves instead of seven in their Snow White show.

* A survey revealed that most German men wear the wrong size condoms. Germans said they find smelly co-workers to be the most annoying aspect of their jobs.

* UK nursing home staff were so proud of a 105-year-old woman who had smoked since the age of 15 that they cremated her with a packet of her favorite cigarettes in the coffin.

* A British train conductor stamped and carefully returned the ticket of a slumbering passenger without realizing the man was dead.

* A South African radio reporter went a little more live than he anticipated when he was mugged on air for his cellphone while transmitting from a squatter settlement.

* A Norwegian court acquitted a man accused of raping a sleeping woman after he said he was also asleep at the time.

* All three wives of a 67-year-old Iranian man took overdoses in an unsuccessful triple suicide bid after the youngest wife sparked jealousy by buying an expensive pair of boots.

* A Malaysian man shot his wife dead after he mistook her for a monkey picking fruit behind their house. (see my blog entry for the actual article)

* A Spaniard tried to have his wife charged with domestic abuse because she refused to have sex with him on five consecutive nights.

* Two Italians with the nicknames 'Bull Shark' and 'Nurse Shark' donned bubble-helmet immersion suits to get married in a shark tank.

* A Mexican man killed his lover in a drunken, drugged fight and then cooked the man's body in tomato and onion sauce and ate it over three days (see article below in my blog)

* And a Zambian man hanged himself in shame after his wife rushed into their house to investigate a noise and found him having sex with a chicken. The chicken was slaughtered afterwards. Moral of the Story: Don't buy KFC in Zambia.