…while she prayed, lightning suddenly exploded, blowing through the linoleum and leaving a blackened area on the concrete. Brown wound up on the floor, dazed and disoriented by the blast but otherwise uninjured.
She said ‘Amen’ and the room was engulfed in a huge ball of fire. The 65-year-old Brown said she is blessed to be alive.

There is nothing in the article that describes how they interpreted this “answer” other than a family member saying that “he will no longer assume it is safe to be indoors during a lightning storm.”

Lets just put it this way. Bea Arthur is in it – along with Jefferson Starship and the rest of “Chewbacca’s family”… I’m busy today, so I only watched the introduction.

The Internet Movie Database entry about the special gives some interesting reviews.

The part I found fascinating was their description of his “lair.” It sounds like something that would make Batman jealous.

“Raids carried out by a team of ELSPA investigators with Dumfries and Galloway police and trading standards officers took place at a number of locations: a one-bedroom flat belonging to the man, a shop, an internet cafe, and two other houses…”

The search in the flat uncovered a hidden staircase that led to a secret second floor containing several rooms of state of the art copying equipment and counterfeit merchandise. A safe containing jewellery [sic] and over £2,000 cash was also found, as well as a stash of copied discs behind a fake partition.

So he has a one-bedroom flat, two houses, and an internet cafe – but he still drives an Ice Cream truck? Going back to the secret-staircase two-story one-bedroom apartment… How do you go about getting one of those? Do you just call a local realtor and let them know what you are looking for?

Hello? Century-21? I need a house with a hidden staircase that leads to a hidden room… I’ll also need a large covered-parking spot sufficient to fit an ice-cream truck in… Oh, and I’ll be paying cash.

Original article: Pro-G: Another successful piracy raid

Imagine the joy of your children receiving their acceptance letter:

GR8 NEWS! U R IN! TTYL! – BYU

Or imagine their disappointment when they hear:

U SUK. – BYU

And if the housing department starts using the text message thing, Nicole’s old Virgin Mobile phone’s pre-written text messages such as “On top, or bottom?” would help them decide bunk-mate placement…

The future is bright.

College Texts Acceptance Notices

The dad got mad, and charged at the police officer several times. The officer knocked finally knocked him down to the ground, when – according to the police report:

Passenger removed a prosthetic leg and threw it at trooper, hitting trooper in chest. Passenger removed second leg, threw it at trooper but missed.

Now the father faces charges of assaulting a public safety officer. When the District Attorney was asked if they might issue a temporary insanity plea, he commented:

Well… They could try [an insanity plea] but they really don’t have a leg to stand on there.

Arrested for throwing legs – NEWS.com.au

“I love you, Gary”

as his owner, Chris Taylor, sat with girlfriend Suzy Collins on the sofa of their shared flat in Leeds, northern England.

Given how Parrots take forever to pick up a new phrase – that would be a rather odd thing to hear. When the owner saw how embarassed his girlfriend got when the parrot said that – he put two and two together. Of course, the fact that the parrot said:

“Hiya, Gary”

Everytime her phone would ring might have also tipped him off.

He obviously dumped his girlfriend. Taylor said he had also been forced to part with Ziggy after the bird continued to call out Gary’s name and refused to stop squawking the phrases in his ex-girlfriend’s voice, media reports said.

“I wasn’t sorry to see the back of Suzy after what she did, but it really broke my heart to let Ziggy go. I love him to bits and I really miss having him around, but it was torture hearing him repeat that name over and over again. I still can’t believe he’s gone. I know I’ll get over Suzy, but I don’t think I’ll ever get over Ziggy.”

So let me get this straight. The man’s best friend on the planet was a bird – and he wonders why a girl might have gotten bored with him? I just hope the parrot’s new owner is named Gary. (Although wouldn’t it be cute if the new owner had a male parrot named Gary?)

Read the full story at CNN.com

“I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire, and the mouse was on fire and ran back at the house”

The mouse settled itself down in a corner – and soon flames spread up the wall. Fire quickly consumed the entire house.
Village Fire Department Capt. Jim Lyssy had this to say:

“I’ve seen numerous house fires, but nothing as unique as this one.”

The moral of this story: Whack the mouse before you burn it.
AOL News – Discarded Mouse Returns to Set Home Ablaze

Wal-Mart is going to replace the iPod for the person.

Given Wal-Mart’s return policy, I think I’m going to head down there with a hunk of meat and exchange it for a new one myself

read article here

Does this seem like a lot of fun for anyone else, or is it just me? (please forgive me if I don’t blog for a while. I will be in New Zealand trying to get myself killed. Rob, can I borrow your evo 8?)

read article here

read the CNN article here

The scenario was this: 3 Mercedes S-class vehicles are driving in a line. First one brakes. The next two slam right into the back of the first one. Woops.

The Mercedes engineers said that the problem was due to the steel tunnel that the test was done in. Apparently that confused the radar.
Mercedes pile-up at safety demonstration

The video is peacefully introduced by birds, butterflies and happy Smurfs playing and singing their theme song when suddenly out of the sky, bombs rain down onto their forest village, scattering Papa Smurf and the rest as their houses are set ablaze.

This video is supposed to impress upon adults that war is bad and affects children. Wow, thanks Unicef- until I saw Smurfette blow to smitherenes I was thinking that war was awesome and something every kid should experience. Next quarter they will release a video of My Little Pony being mowed down by machine guns to show that poaching is bad – right after they show a video of GEM getting beaten and violated to show that gang rape is a bad thing.

It took me forever to find a place that actually has the video of this – but you can watch the full unedited video of the Smurfs at CBS News.com. The video is in the sidebar.

Page with video

“No female shall appear in a bathing suit on any highway within this state unless she be escorted by at least two officers or unless she be armed with a club.”

Even funnier is the amendment to that law:

The law was later amended with: “The provisions of this statute shall not apply to females weighing less than 90 pounds nor exceeding 200 pounds, nor shall it apply to female horses.”

[Via Seawave's Soliloquy]

One principle has had enough. This is what really he said:

It is not primarily the sex/booze/drugs that surround this event, as problematic as they might be; it is rather the flaunting of affluence, assuming exaggerated expenses, a pursuit of vanity for vanity’s sake — in a word, financial decadence… Each year it gets worse — becomes more exaggerated, more expensive, more emotionally traumatic… [Kellenberg] is willing to sponsor a prom, but not an orgy

I bet you never would have guessed it – but this school is a private Catholic school. Great party, Diane!

[Washington Post: Excesses Spur School To Cut Prom]

The findings, outlined in two studies, are the first time that nonhuman mammals have demonstrated they can recognise rhythms and reproduce them vocally.

Maybe they were training these dolphins to swim around with the other dolphins singing a special theme song for them.

News in Science – Dolphins sing ‘Batman’ theme