One of the sure things in life is that it's going to end eventually... Everyone dies... Not everyone gets laid to rest in style, however... The unfortunate thing is that even when money is spent on luxury, it's usually still just another version of the plain box, but with nicer fabric...

If you really want to get laid to rest in style, plan now on a trip to Accra, Ghana, in Africa... Once there, you'll need to speak to Isaac Adjetey Sowah... If you want a coffin worth spending money on, Isaac Sowah's the guy to talk to... He takes coffin making to a whole new level... In construction all your life? He can make coffin that looks like a hammer! Never got that Mercedes you wanted? You can have it once you pass away! And don't forget animal! He can make coffins that look like elephants, hens, crocodiles and lions!

Check out the pictures

A Mercedes and a Rooster




A Hen coffin
(Particularly popular with women)




An elephant and a fish
(The fish is one of his most spacious coffins)




A hammer
(Ordered by a handyman)




a shiny black shoe
(Ordered by a shoemaker)




A Uterus
(Ordered by a gynaecologist)

Walter is relaxing in a rocking chair on the front porch of his nursing home when he sees a farmer approaching, driving a wagon.
"Good afternoon!" says Walter. "Afternoon." says the farmer.
"Where you headed?" asks Walter. "Town." says the farmer.
"What do you have in the wagon?" Walter continued. "Manure."
"Manure, eh? What do you do with it?"
"I spread it over my strawberries," the farmer says matter-of-factly.
"Well," says Walter, "you should come over here for lunch some day. We use whipped cream."

And you thought you might be having a bad day!

The Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS San Francisco (SSN 711) is in dry dock to assess damage sustained after running aground approximately 350 miles south of Guam Jan. 8, 2005.

Can you imagine how the captain tried to explain that one!

Check out the pictures!

London -
Panic gripped the streets of London this morning when patches of sky took on an unusual blue color and a ball of fire appeared above the city.

The phenomenon, known as 'The Sun' and commonly found in Mediterranean countries, unleashed a terrifying heat and brightness upon the capital, causing many pedestrians to take off their hats and scarves, while motorists were able to turn both their headlights and wipers off. Tony Blair urged people to be calm and return to work as normal stating: "We've seen this sort of thing before", he said,"but it never lasts."

There are forecasts that 'The Sun' could be seen throughout the weekend but a spokesman for No.10 said, "I wouldn't hold my breath."

So in the 1600s in France there was almost a rebellion. It was eventually thwarted for about a dozen reasons, but it could have been thwarted sooner if the following story had gone differently. You see, when there was first news of the presence of rebels, the King discovered that there was one Count who was harboring them, so naturally he has that Count arrested and brings him in to be "questioned."

The questioning doesn't go well. First, the executioner cuts off all of the Counts toes one by one. The Count is strong and brave though, and doesn't offer any information about the rebels. So then the executioner cuts off all of his fingers one by one. But this Count is strong and brave and he doesn't tell them anything about the rebels. So next the executioner cuts off the Counts nose and then his ears... But STILL the Count doesn't tell them anything about the rebels.

By this time though the King is becoming impressed. He's never seen anyone withstand torture so well. So as a sort of reward, he decides to have mercy on the Count and put him out of his misery. He orders the executioner to go ahead and kill him. The executioner raises his giant ax and starts to bring it down, and just at that moment the Count panics. He screams, "Wait! Please! I'll talk!"

But it's too late. The executioner beheads him, and all of his information dies with him.

Do you want to know the moral of this story? (Brace yourself)

You should never hatchet Counts before they chicken. :)

(<Chuckling to self> That joke still cracks me up...)

Kentucky recently selected a new State Logo. The governor placed four options on the state web site and let folks vote on the one they liked best. The winner is 'Kentucky - Unbridled Spirit."
"What if other states were going to let people VOTE on THEIR state logo?"



*** REALISTIC STATE MOTTOS ***

Alabama: At least you're not in Mississippi.
Alaska: Colder than a polar bear's patoot.
Arkansas: Send us your contributions, we'll send you our Bill...
California: Hey, with this many of us, we can make anything legal!
Colorado: Mountains, what mountains?
Delaware: Parking for Dupont employees only.
Florida: Give me your sick, your old, your rich retirees...
Florida: Roadside Fruit Stand Capital of the World
Florida: Beaches and Disneyworld with not much in between
Georgia: Home of the Best Florida/California Peaches you ever tasted.
Hawaii: Try our lei-away program.
Idaho: And don't even joke about the &%$#)%^ potatoes!
Illinois: Chicago, then Not Much South of I-80
Indiana: Hoosier Buddy?
Iowa: Even more of not much to look at than Nebraska.
Kansas: Toto isn't here anymore.
Louisiana: Pretty Boring except for Mardi Gras
Maine: Home of the "other" Portland
Maryland: The best place to get crabs.
Massachusetts: Taxus Por Un Fortunat Bums.
Michigan: Where cars used to come from.
Minnesota: Where the Mosquito is our State Bird
Mississippi: Elvis was born here, but heck, even HE left.
Missouri: We love company...Any company.
Montana: More Cows than people, guaranteed.
Nebraska: Not much to look at, but we sure have a lot of it.
Nevada: Two to one you'll be back!
New Hampshire: There's no HAM in New Hampshire
New Jersey: Waste not ... send it here instead.
New Mexico: One or two emigrants away from being annexed by Old Mexico.
New York: Not a lot of Apples, but we do have one BIG one.
North Carolina: Furniture out the wazoo.
North Dakota: Where the Telephone Pole is our State Tree.
Ohio: The pillow state -- round on both ends, hi in the middle and full of fluff.
Oklahoma: Rather Sooner than Later.
Pennsylvania: Where Steel used to come from.
South Carolina: Settled by prisoners, what do you expect.
South Dakota: To rent this space call 1-800-SEE-COWS.
Tennessee: To stay here, you'd HAVE to be a Volunteer!
Texas: 13 Hours of dust from Texarkana to El Paso (815 Miles)
Utah: Fry Sauce Capital of the World
Virginia: One of just 49 states greater than Texas
Washington: If we'd meant DC, we'd have said DC.
West Virginia: Well, it sounded better than Eastern Ohio...
Wisconsin: Wear cheese or die.
Wyoming: More elk than people, but not much traffic.

Like chocolate? (OK, silly question) Ever wish there was a way for chocolate to contribute more to art and entertainment? (Or did you just eat it?) Well now you can help Cadbury immortalize a famous British celebrity in chocolate! As part of their Centenary celebrations, Cadbury UK is teaming up with Madame Tussauds to create the museum's first-ever chocolate statue! Life sized, no less! People can vote for their favorite from Cat Deeley, David Beckham, Elton John, Sharon Osbourne, Paula Radcliffe, Jonathan Ross, Ricky Gervais, Will Young, Denise Van Outen, and Denise Lewis... Polls are open until February 18th, 2005, so vote soon... Then check again in May 2005 to see who will be the first chocolate addition to Madame Tussauds!

By the time it was over Friday night, it was probably getting pretty strange... Dave Plotkin, a 25-year-old student at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, took to the airwaves on the college's WPRK-FM at 9 a.m. last Monday... He then stayed on the air until 11:03 p.m. Friday - over 110 hours later! All to set the record for the world's longest continuous broadcast by a single DJ... "Everthing I did, every facet of my life for the past five days, I was broadcasting on the radio with a wireless [microphone] or here in the studio," Plotkin said Friday evening just before reaching hour 106 (surpassing 105 hours by a Swiss DJ in 2002)...

And it wasn't easy! Under Guinness' rules, Plotkin had to speak at least once every 59 seconds... And there was no napping while some long ballad played: Songs could not be longer than six minutes... The planning alone took over a year, some of which was used to install a stall for cold showers down the hall from the studio...

But the event was a success... Plotkin not only broke the record, he also helped raise $16,150 for the 52-year-old radio station... The broadcast, which also went out over the Internet, drew donations from as far as Peru! And the longer he was one the air, the larger the crowd that gathered at the studio: medical professionals, journalists, friends, family, assorted well-wishers, and those who just wanted to watch a man stay awake for close to five days straight... Toward the end, Plotkin would try to put CDs into closed trays, bang his head on the microphone, and forget his station's call letters!

A group of prospective jurors in Shelby County, Tennessee, was summoned last week to listen to a case concerning a woman accused of hitting her brother's girlfriend in the face with a brick... Defense attorney Leslie Ballin called it the "jury pool from hell," saying "it was just one after another..."

Right after jury selection began, one man got up and left, announcing, "I'm on morphine and I'm higher than a kite!"

State prosecutor Amy Weirich asked if anyone had been convicted of a crime... One man said that he had been arrested and taken to a mental hospital after he almost shot his nephew for not coming out from under the bed... But, he pointed out, after four days they said he was OK... Another man, who had had alcohol problems, had been arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover officer... He said he "should have known something was up... She had all her teeth."

One prospective juror volunteered he probably should not be on the jury because "In my neighborhood, everyone knows that if you get Mr. Ballin [as your lawyer] you're probably guilty..."

(Mr. Ballin got the last laugh, though... The jury (which did not include any of the above people) returned a not guilty verdict!)

Ever find yourself in a situation where you know there's a problem, but don't know what to do about it? This will help! Just check out this flowchart for resolving any problem...

A Romanian couple named their son Yahoo "as a sign of gratitude for meeting over the Internet," according to a January 13 Reuters story.

Cornelia and Nonu Dragoman met online and carried on a three-month relationship over the net. They married and had a baby this Christmas, naming their son in honor of one of the web's most popular portals.

"We named him Lucian Yahoo after my father and the net, the main beacon of my life," Cornelia noted.

The baby was welcomed home to a family reunion with cousins Google and Priceline in attendance.

Did you hear about the man who made a gun out of JELL-O? He was arrested for carrying a congealed weapon!

Many people wish they could get famous enough to be covered by a pop magazine... Some get famous and wish the photo shoot had never happened... Bill Gates of Microsoft may be one of the latter! Apparently back in 1984 or so, he was the subject of a photoshoot and article in Tiger Beat magazine - the pop culture gossip mag for teens! Check out the photos of young Bill Gates posing on a desk and playfully tossing 5 1/4 floppies around

1/18/2005 6:19:02 PM | 3401 Views | Add a Comment

At the Singapore Zoo, two polar bears became green because of the climate. Sheba and her 13 year old son, Inuka, turned green from algae growing in their hollow hair shafts, says Vincent Tan, a spokesman for the Zoo. "It's the result of our country's warm and humid tropical conditions," he said. Polar bears have clear hair shafts that appear white because they reflect the light. The Singapore polar bears had grass-colored marking behind their ears, and on their backs and legs. However, the bears were treated with a bleach solution and the condition went away.
This was just one thing learned while reading the "Coffee News".

Do have you heard about the utterly fantastic shot Tiger Woods made while filming a Nike commercial? The crew had setup a film camera on the ground about 60 yards ahead of Tiger on a small rise... The director asked him to hit the ball a few inches above the camera, but the first shot sailed 10 feet overhead... "So then he had this idea that I fire at the lens," Woods said... "So I aimed right at it..." Well, his aim is pretty good - the shot went right through the lens! "I hope insurance will cover it," Tiger said...

(Now that is a hole in one!)

People were almost convinced Castel Coldrano, a 15th-century castle in the Austrian mountains near the Swiss border, was haunted! Echoing footsteps in hallways, creaking and slamming doors, and strange noises late at night had made the owner and his employees increasingly jittery... Police were finally called in to investigate... They setup video cameras throughout the castle and discovered the ghost was really a 42-year-old Polish woman! Over a period of weeks they tracked her roaming the castle at night in a campaign of ghostly disquiet... Police said she was motivated by "a personal rancour" against the manager, who also employed her husband... They charged her with harassment and incidental damage to the castle; the courts sentenced her to four months in jail... The owner thankfully states that the noises have all stopped now...

So what color is the sky in your world? It's not as silly a question as you might think... We of Earth origin (should) all have a nice blue sky...

Thanks to the NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, we are all much more familiar with the reddish-brown sky of Mars...

Now, thanks to ESA's Huygens, we have our first looks at the orange sky of Titan!

Makes you wonder what color the sky is elsewhere... Personally, I can't wait to find out!

THE YEAR'S BEST ACTUAL HEADLINES OF 2004:
Crack Found on Governor's Daughter
Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says
Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers
Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over
Miners Refuse to Work after Death
Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant
War Dims Hope for Peace
If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile
Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures
Enfield (London) Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide
Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges
Man Struck By Lightning Faces Battery Charge
New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group
Kids Make Nutritious Snacks
Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half
Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors
And the winner is....
Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead

Eighth-graders at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School in Palo Alto, California, got some odd career advice this last Tuesday... William Fried, president of Foster City's Precision Selling (a management consulting firm), was delivering a presentation on The Secret of a Happy Life, as he has done for the past three years... The presentation counsels students to experiment with a variety of interests until they discover their "life's purpose," something they love and excel in... He also distributed a tip sheet to students that included a list of 140 potential careers and areas of interest they can consider pursuing... The presentation and handout have been praised by students, school principal Joseph Di Salvo and others said...

The problem is that along with professions such as accounting and nursing, the list offers such nontraditional suggestions as exotic dancing, stripping and acting as a spiritual medium! Some students asked Fried to expand on why he included "exotic dancing" on the list... Fried spent about a minute answering questions, defining strippers and exotic dancers synonymously... He told students, "For every two inches up there, you should get another $50,000 on your salary," student Jason Garcia, 14, said... "It's sick, but it's true," Fried told the Associated Press, "The truth of the matter is you can earn a tremendous amount of money as an exotic dancer, if that's your desire..."

Di Salvo said Fried's overall presentation is a positive one... The mention of exotic dancing, however, has prompted him to consider barring the speaker from next year's career day...

(What ever happened to wanting to be President, or an Astronaut, or a Famous Actor/Actress? And shouldn't finding the job you love not be premised on your bust size or the pay? And what adult in their right mind tells an 8th grader (kids only 13/14 years old) that being a stripper or a medium is their "life's purpose" and a career to aspire to?!? Kids should be encouraged to reach for the sky, not the the dark warrens of the strip club... Let's tell them they can make the world a better place, not pander to the dregs of society...)

The European Union, under the guidance of Onera (the French aeronautics agency), has started a study into the feasibility of building and operating large commercial aircraft that do not need pilots... "The goal is to do something very different: no pilot, no control, only passengers, operated like an unmanned air vehicle," the study's manager, Claude Le-Tallec, told CASA's Flight Safety Australia magazine... Known as the Innovative Future Air System, the study will not only address technical issues, but will also consider how passengers would feel about travelling in an airliner without a pilot...

(Yeah, that second part is going to be hard to figure out...)

In Bedford England, there is a statue of John Bunyon, author of Pilgrim's Progress erected on the site of the prison where he was sentenced for long years for daring to preach without the permission of the state. The statue shows him carrying a tinker's burden in one hand and a Bible in the other. At the foot of the statue is a little bronze plaque on which are engraved the words of the Lord Judge Magistrate of Bedford which he spoke upon the sentencing of John Bunyon on this day (January 11) in 1673. The judge said:
"At last we are done with this tinker and his cause. Never more will he plague us: for his name, locked away as surely as he, shall be forgotten, as surely as he. Done we are, and all eternity with him."

Isn't it interesting that John Bunyon's book is still among the most popular in the world and no one knows the name of the Lord Judge Magistrate of Bedford.

According to a Jan. 7 Reuters story, a British man has been sent to jail for three years for repeatedly stabbing a long-lost best friend he had traced via the popular "Friends Reunited" Web site. The 27-year-old man nearly killed his old friend when he stabbed him seven times in a drunken rage.

Fortunately, the man immediately became full of remorse, called an ambulance and his friend was rushed to a hospital. Doctors said it was a miracle he had survived a stab wound to the heart.

Amazingly enough, the victim says he still wants to be buddies.

I wonder if one of those wounds was to his head?
Lesson learned: If an old friend visits, hide the knives.

Top 10 things not to say to a policeman
1. I can't reach my license unless you hold my beer.
2. Sorry, Officer, I didn't realize my radar detector wasn't plugged in.
3. Aren't you the guy from the Village People?
4. Hey, you must've been doing about 125 mph to keep up with me. Good job!
5. Are you Andy or Barney?
6. I thought you had to be in relatively good physical condition to be a police officer.
7. You're not going to check the trunk are you?
8. Hey, Officer! That's terrific. The last cop only gave me a warning too!
9. Do you know why you pulled me over? Okay, just so one of us does.
10. I was trying to keep up with traffic. Yes, I know there are no other cars around. That's how far ahead of me they are!

When the Lord calls you home, it's time to go... Some times are just more apropos than others! For Presbyterian minister Jack Arnold, the Lord called him home in the middle of the Sunday sermon... Members of Covenant Presbyterian Church in Oviedo, Florida, said pastor Arnold had just said that his favorite Bible verse was: "For me to live is Christ, to die is gain..." Associate Pastor Michael Beates said Arnold then quoted John Wesley, saying, "When my work is done, I go to be with Jesus. And that will be gain! And when I go to heaven..."

In Beates' words, "At this point, Jack paused briefly, looked up, swayed slightly and grabbed the podium before falling back to the floor... And he was gone..." According to parishoners with medical backgrounds who tried to revive him, he appeared to die instantly...

(Beates asked people to pray for Arnold's widow and sons and for the congregation, which he said, "heard a great sermon but then saw this dear saint die in their midst...")

Driving down the road the other day, I pointed out a blimp by saying it was over at 2 O'Clock...

Ever wonder how much longer that sort of reference will make sense? With all the digital clocks these days, tell some kid to "look over there at 2 O'Clock" and they're as likely to come back at 2:00 (AM or PM) to look over there... Ever been told to drive with your hands at 10 and 2? The bottom of the hour will obviously have to find some new meaning... And heaven forbid a fighter pilot forgets where his "Six" is in a dogfight!

(Of course, the "interesting" part will be seeing what replaces this sort of thing...)

Everyone's heard about somebody jumping over a bunch of buses on a motorcycle... Been there, seen that, right?

Well Lawrence Legend of Junee in southern New South Wales, Australia, has a new take on an old trick: he jumps over motorcycles while driving a double-decker bus! In fact, he set a new world record this weekend at the Summernats Festival in Canberra: He jumped over 45 motorcycles!

Every trick does get old though... The previous record (38 motorcycles) was also held by Lawrence Legend... After the jump he commented that he has had enough of bus jumps and is now looking for something different...

(Perhaps most monster trucks crushed by a Volkswagen Beetle?)

One day, a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a figure in the distance... As he got closer, he saw that the figure was a little boy who was repeatedly reaching down to pick something up from the sandy floor and then gently throwing it into the sea...

Approaching the boy, the man asked, "What are your doing?"

The youth replied, "Throwing starfish back into the ocean... The sun is up and the tide is going out... If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die..."

"Son," the man said, "don’t you realise that there are miles and miles of sand and hundreds of starfish? You can’t possibly make a difference with what you’re doing..."

The boy listened politely to the man and then bent down to pick up yet another starfish... Throwing it into the surf, he smiled at the man and said, "I make a difference for the ones I throw back!"

Overheard in passing: "He was severely brain dead..."

Now I ask you, is there a non-severe way to be brain dead?

The Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch (M-LAW), has finished its 8th annual Wacky Warning Label Contest! And if you've ever looked at a label on a product and said "What?!" then this contest's for you! Top honors went to:

• "Do not use for personal hygiene" on a toilet brush! (submitted by Ed Gyetvai) (this one won the grand prize this year)
• "This product moves when used" on a popular children's scooter! (submitted by Matt Johnson)
• "Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally" on a digital thermometer! (submitted by Ann Marie Taylor)
• "Never remove food or other items from the blades while the product is operating" on an electric hand blender! (submitted by Ken Stein)
• "Do not use this product as a toy, pillow, or flotation device" on a 9x3-inch bag of air used as packing material! (submitted by Christen Millard)

The contest is conducted yearly to reveal how lawsuits, and fear of lawsuits, have prompted many manufacturers to issue warnings against even obvious misuses of consumer products... So if you find a stupid, inane, or wacky label this year, be sure to submit it for the 2006 contest!

The United Nations has identified Norway as the best country in which to live, but a Norwegian official says that's only because they didn't factor in the cold weather.

The U.N. Development Program's quality-of-life index has ranked Norway on top of a list of 173 countries, ahead of Sweden and Canada. The United States was sixth.

"We're pleased we're at the top of this ranking for a second time," Deputy Foreign Minister Olav Kjoerven told reporters. "It shows that things here are probably not as bad as we sometimes seem to think."

The U.N. rankings measured quality of life based on education, life expectancy and per capita income ($29,918). Kjoerven suggested the ranking would have been different if climate had been a factor.

"Have you spent winter in Norway, with the cold and darkness?" he asked U.N. researchers.

Oslo in southern Norway is on the same latitude as Siberia, southern Greenland or Anchorage, Alaska.

The folks of Unicoi County in Tennessee are not having a good winter... First, it's been cold and snowy... Second, they lost all their salt trucks in a single accident on a single day! The three trucks were traveling in convoy to get more salt when the first one collided with an oncoming tractor-trailer... The force of the impact pushed the first truck back into the second and the third then rear-ended both of them... Thankfully, no one was killed... But while icy conditions were blamed for the accident, "it'll probably be March before the trucks are replaced," Terry Haynes, the county's highway department superintendent said yesterday... "It takes time to go through the insurance process..."

Here are some of the new euphemisms making their way around the workplace. You're likely to hear several of these in 2005:

Blamestorming: Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

Body Nazis: Hardcore exercise and weightlifting fanatics who look down on anyone who doesn't work out obsessively.

Cube Farm: An office filled with cubicles.

Prairie Dogging: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see what's going on.

Mouse Potato: The online, wired generation's answer to the couch potato.

SITCOMs: What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. Stands for Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage.

Starter Marriage: A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids and no property.

Stress Puppy: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

Swiped Out: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.

Tourists: People who take training classes just to get a vacation from their jobs. "We had three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists."

Xerox Subsidy: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one's workplace.

Flight Risk: Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave a company or department soon.

Irritainment: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying, but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trials were a prime example.

Percussive Maintenance: The fine art of whacking an electronic device to get it to work again.

Uninstalled: Euphemism for being fired. Heard on the voicemail of a vice president at a downsizing computer firm: "You have reached the number of an uninstalled Vice President. Please dial our main number and ask the operator for assistance." See also Decruitment.

Yuppie Food Stamps: The ubiquitous $20 bills spewed out of ATMs everywhere. Often used when trying to split the bill after a meal: "We all owe $8 each, but all anybody's got is yuppie food stamps."

Before saying a final farewell to 2004 and the year that was, it only seems fitting to see where the year ended up so we know where we are starting from in 2005... That being said, here are some of the oddest, weirdest, and strangest stories of 2004...

• A Chinese couple in Zhengzhou had raised their only child as a girl for 13 years before a hospital visit informed them the child was really a boy with underdeveloped sexual organs! Doctors concluded he was suffering from a rare disease causing sexual organs to be somewhat hidden from view and performed a 3-hour operation to correct the problem...
• A group of Buddhist monks in Ratchaburi, Thailand, were arrested and defrocked after holding several loud drug and alcohol parties at the temple! Villagers had complained about their wild behaviour to the police... Five of the monks tested positive for amphetamine pills and a sixth was blind drunk!
• Three South Korean dogmeat lovers faced over a 70 million Won (about 70,000 US dollars) lawsuit after cooking and eating their employer's pedigree dog as part of a traditional Korean Boshintang soup dish! The men killed and served up the expensve Jindo dog while their boss was away...
• A dog owner in Cluj, Romania, was forced to leave his apartment after a court ordered his mastiff to be removed from the building because its snoring kept the other tenants awake! Whenever Attila Varga's Neapolitan mastiff Sumo snored, the walls shook and burglar alarms went off... A disappointed Varga said: "We share the same bed and I've got so used to it that I don't even hear it any more."
• A drunken soldier in Aldershot, England, sparked a major security alert after leaving a regimental party dressed as an Arab suicide bomber! Fifteen police cars, along with dog handlers were called out after a passer-by spotted someone near an army base wearing an Arab-style robe, a turban and false beard, as well as orange paper, wires and candles stuffed into a jacket to make it look like he was carrying explosives... The soldier, who was drunk, was ordered to pay a small on-the-spot fine...
• A number of wealthy clients of the London restaurant Zafferano got together to buy one of the most expensive truffles in the world for 40,000 euros (70,000 US Dollars), but it ended up spoiling in a refrigerator! The 850g delicacy from Tuscany was put on display at the restaurant but then the chef went on holiday after locking the truffle in the fridge and taking the keys with him... When he returned after four days, he found it had rotted, forcing the owner to throw the whole thing out...
• A 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich marked by scorches that seem to look like the Virgin Mary was sold on eBay for $28,000! The seller said the sandwich helped her win $70,000 at a casino... It was bought by GoldenPalace.com, an online casino, that plans to take the sandwich on tour...
• A 16-year-old Akron, Ohio(US), boy donned a ski mask and prepared to rob a house with his pals... When the 84-year-old homeowner asked who was at the door, he responded, "It's me, Grandma..." Recognizing the voice, she opened the door and was promptly robbed... A couple of hours later police arrested the grandson...
• Shawn King, a former NFL defensive lineman, says he failed a league drug test because the woman whose urine he had used to help hide his marijuana use turned out to be pregnant!

Now the only question is whether things will get weirder or not in 2005!

From everyone here to all of you: Happy New Year!! May this one be even better than the last!