Weird News

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 12:27 am

Pope scares small chidren!  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Pope scares child who mistook him for doctor Fri Sep 30,10:03 AM ET ROME (Reuters) - The Pope's white robes scared a young boy who mistook him for a doctor when he visited a children's hospital on Friday. The child began crying when 78-year-old Pope Benedict approached his bed in the cardiology ward of the Bambino Gesu (babby Jesus) hospital near the Vatican. "It's the white," a nurse explained to the Pope. "He can't take anymore of these white coats." The Pope stopped to comfort dozens of children during the two-hour visit. One little girl, Fabiola, wrote a note and drawing for his visit saying: "Pray for me so that I don't have to have any more transfusions and so I can go back to the playground with my friend Simone." The Bambino Gesu, now one of Europe's most technologically advanced, was opened in 1869 with just 12 beds as Italy's first children's hospital. It was donated to the Vatican in 1924. It was Benedict's first official visit to a hospital since his election in April. He visited his older brother Georg in Rome's Gemelli hospital last August. </td></tr></table>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 7:22 pm

Well, that's different . . .  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Oct 5, 9:15 PM EDT Police: Man in Wheelchair Steals Squad Car RIALTO, Calif. (AP) -- A disabled man in a wheelchair, arrested for allegedly trying to steal a power saw at Home Depot, managed to slip out of his handcuffs and steal the squad car he was placed in. Phillip Anthony Moreno, 44, a parolee with a previous $200,000 warrant for his arrest, has eluded capture. Moreno and girlfriend Denise Marie Vasquez, 35, were taken into custody about 3 p.m. Tuesday by Home Depot security officers after they allegedly tried to steal a hand-held electric saw, Sgt. Randy DeAnda said. "He had been sitting on it. It was under him on the chair," the sergeant said. When police officers arrived, they arrested Moreno and Vasquez and placed them in separate patrol cars. Moreno's wheelchair was put the squad car's trunk and the arresting officers stepped away to search the couple's car. DeAnda said Moreno got out of the handcuffs, crawled through the security barrier window opening separating the front and back seat and got behind the wheel of the squad car. Moreno drove away, the sergeant said, noting he has a bad leg. The police car was found several hours later abandoned in Bloomington. The wheelchair was missing from the trunk. Vasquez was booked and remains in custody, DeAnda said. © 2005 The Associated Press.</td></tr></table>

Tom Flapwell · Postby **Tom Flapwell** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 9:33 pm

<img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... /blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /> I have a peculiar admiration for that crook. Now then:  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Films: More Like 'Sons of Porno' Copies of a movie aimed at a Mormon audience have been pulled from store shelves after a record mix-up left buyers watching "Adored: Diary of a Porn Star" instead of "Sons of Provo." Two Utah families say instead of a family film about a religious boy band, the DVDs they bought at bookstores owned by the Mormon church contained a movie about a gay porn star who reconnects with his family. Officials of Deseret Books say the discs got mixed up somewhere in the manufacturing process; producers of "Adored" say their film has sexual situations. (Associated Press)</td></tr></table>

erikbarrett · Postby **erikbarrett** » Thu Oct 06, 2005 10:41 pm

What? A porno with adult situations? I'm shocked speechless! <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... lleyes.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='rolleyes.gif' /> It yet more odd news, it's nice to see someone is finding some luck nowadays.  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Katrina Evacuee Wins $1.6 Million 42 minutes ago OPELOUSAS, La. - After more than a month of living with dozens of displaced relatives in Opelousas, Jacquelyn Sherman, an evacuee from New Orleans, told her niece she was depressed. That all changed when she won $1.6 million - before taxes - playing a slot machine at Evangeline Downs Racetrack and Casino. "When it happened, I didn't know what was going on," Sherman said. "I had just put in my $20 in the "Wheel of Fortune" machine when it hit. My feeling about this win is better than being blessed. Thank you, Lord." Sherman had evacuated to her sister's home in Opelousas as Hurricane Katrina threatened New Orleans. After a month with no end in sight and no prospects, she and her niece began to pray Tuesday. "I told my aunt that God works in mysterious ways and that I had prayed that something good would happen for the whole family to be happy," Jamie Sherman said. Later that night, Jacquelyn Sherman and her sister decided to entertain themselves with a trip to Evangeline Downs. Before she knew it, Sherman went from having practically nothing to being a millionaire. "I have to get an attorney and make some decisions about my future," she said Wednesday at a news conference at the racetrack. "It hasn't all sunk in right now. I'm tired. We were up very late last night and back here very early. I plan to go home right now and rest, take a nap. I have so many thoughts going through my mind about what to do and how to do it." Jacquelyn Sherman's win is the single largest jackpot won since the casino's opening.</td></tr></table>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 2:43 pm

The Ig Nobel prizes are announced! Just who is this product for, anyway? <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... /blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' />  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Oct 7, 9:04 AM EDT The Winner Is... Fake Dog Testicle Creator By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press Writer BOSTON (AP) -- Gregg Miller mortgaged his home and maxed out his credit cards to mass produce his invention - prosthetic testicles for neutered dogs. What started 10 years ago with an experiment on an unwitting Rottweiler named Max has turned into a thriving mail-order business. And on Thursday night Miller's efforts earned him a dubious yet strangely coveted honor: the Ig Nobel Prize for medicine. "Considering my parents thought I was an idiot when I was a kid, this is a great honor," he said. "I wish they were alive to see it." The Ig Nobels, given at Harvard University by Annals of Improbable Research magazine, celebrate the humorous, creative and odd side of science. Miller has sold more than 150,000 of his Neuticles, more than doubling his $500,000 investment. The silicone implants come in different sizes, shapes, weights and degrees of firmness. The product's Web site says Neuticles allow a pet "to retain his natural look" and "self esteem." Although the Ig Nobels are not exactly prestigious, many recipients are, like Miller, happy to win. "Most scientists - no matter what they're doing, good or bad - never get any attention at all," said Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research. Some, like Benjamin Smith of the University of Adelaide in Australia, who won the biology prize, actually nominated their own work. "I've been a fan of the Ig Nobels for a while," he said. Smith's team studied and catalogued different scents emitted by more than 100 species of frogs under stress. Some smelled like cashews, while others smelled like licorice, mint or rotting fish. He recalled getting strange looks when he'd show up at zoos asking to smell the frogs. "I've been turned away at the gate," he said. This year's other Ig Nobel winners include: - PHYSICS: Since 1927, researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia have been tracking a glob of congealed black tar as it drips through a funnel - at a rate of one drop every nine years. - PEACE: Two researchers at Newcastle University in England monitored the brain activity of locusts as they watched clips from the movie "Star Wars." - CHEMISTRY: An experiment at the University of Minnesota was designed to prove whether people can swim faster or slower in syrup than in water. The Ig Nobel for literature went to the Nigerians who introduced millions of e-mail users to a "cast of rich characters ... each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled." © 2005 The Associated Press.</td></tr></table>

DesertFoxCat · Postby **DesertFoxCat** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 5:13 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (VisibilityMissing @ Oct 7 2005, 02:43 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> - PEACE: Two researchers at Newcastle University in England monitored the brain activity of locusts as they watched clips from the movie "Star Wars." </td></tr></table>  Those lucky locust... <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... ns/wub.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wub.gif' /> IG NOBEL AWARDS <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... ns/wub.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wub.gif' />

DesertFoxCat · Postby **DesertFoxCat** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 5:18 pm

You too can be fit and slim like Russia's great leaders  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Diet of Kremlin politicians now available for anyone 10/07/2005 11:48 Many of the Kremlin elite have already lost weight thanks to the diet Recently, a book by Vilena Gurova, "Unclassified Diet of Kremlin Politicians" came out in Russia. The book tells about a low-carbohydrate diet that helps the Kremlin elite be in good form. The author of the book is a doctor, she tested effectiveness of the diet herself and explains its mechanism from the medical point of view. This may sound paradoxical but the diet of Kremlin politicians was developed for American military and astronauts. It is said that the diet has not become the norm for American astronauts. Politicians having access to classified information about the diet immediately decided to try the diet themselves. Today, the low-carbohydrate diet is very popular among Russian politicians. It is known that many of the Kremlin elite have already lost weight thanks to the diet. Mass media now speak a lot about the wonderful effect of the diet that costs people little effort to grow thin. Vilena Gurova says she is a busy woman but prefers to idle during her spare time. She prefers reading books, speaking over the phone, watching TV and drinking coffee with friends to physical exercises. At that, she loves to eat tasty meals and this explains that her normal weight considerably increased some time ago. Vilena decided to lose weight and for this purposes searched the most effective but at the same time the smoothest diet. She believed herself absolutely unable to give up tasty meals for green salads only. Luckily, she came across the Kremlin diet allowing to eat tasty meals with the exception of sweet. At that, people should mind the percentage of carbohydrates in food. Experts have estimated that people eating products and meals they love feel more energetic and seldom give way to depressions. In her book, the author describes the diet from the medical point of view and explains how the diet may be adjusted especially for people suffering from various diseases. She also mentions positive and negative effects of the diet. The Kremlin diet does not suppose that people must absolutely give up carbohydrates and instead just reduce their share in the ration. Thus, the organism still gets enough glucose from meals. It will not harm the organism when we give up eating cakes and chocolate; there will be no hypoglycemia as a result of it. Gastroenterologists emphasize that mayonnaise is especially unhealthy for the organism, but the Kremlin diet allows eating mayonnaise. Its ingredients are basically proteins and fat which are possible in this diet focused on fewer carbohydrates. If mayonnaise or roasted meat are not allowed, they must be excluded from the ration at all. The Kremlin diet offers a great variety of meals; it suits for people suffering from many diseases and it supposes products and ways of cooking suitable for different people.</td></tr></table>

Steve the Pocket · Postby **Steve the Pocket** » Fri Oct 07, 2005 7:40 pm

Warning: Too much gaming can cause you to have no life... <a href='http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/fun.games/ ... index.html' target='_blank'>literally</a>  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (CNN @ October 7, 2005, 10:20 a.m.)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> They can't stop playing video games Addiction has proved deadly in some cases SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Jun Mung-gyu remembers the throbbing pain in his head and shoulder aches from spending as many as 15 hours a day hunched over a computer keyboard battling his online foes. "You have no life, you only focus on gaming, putting off everything, like getting a haircut," recalled the 27-year-old Jun, who was able to kick the habit earlier this year though he remains in the milieu, running an Internet cafe in southeastern Seoul. For others, the addiction has become all-consuming, raising concerns about the health of the millions of gamers in the world's most wired country. The habit has even been deadly: In August, a 28-year-old man died after nearly 50 straight hours of playing online computer games. The man, whom police refused to identify by name, was moved to a hospital after he collapsed while gaming and died three hours later. Many of South Korea's 17 million gamers -- some 35 percent of the population, principally males in their teens and twenties -- are obsessive. At the 1,000 won-per-hour ($1) Internet cafes popular among young South Koreans, they'll sit eyes glued to monitors for hours on end. Sometimes play will extend for days. "I've seen people who play games for months, just briefly going home for a change of clothing, taking care of all their eating and sleeping here," Jun said. Gamers camped out at Internet cafes typically live on instant cup noodles and cigarettes, barely sleeping and seldom washing. In this country of 48 million people with the world's highest per-capita rate of broadband connectivity at 70 percent, the rise in addiction to multiplayer online gaming is alarming psychologists. The number of counseling sessions for game addiction quadrupled last year, the government says. There were 8,978 sessions in 2004 compared with 2,243 cases the previous year, and the first seven months of this year saw 7,649 sessions. This year's gaming death wasn't the first such case of someone dying at a computer terminal in this game-crazed nation: In 2002, a man died in Kwangju after 86 hours of marathon gaming. The latest casualty collapsed August 5 in the southern city of Daegu after having eaten minimally and not sleeping. Doctors said they presumed he died of heart failure; no autopsy was performed. So obsessed by gaming was the man that he was reported to have lost his office worker job due to absenteeism. "Such an addiction upsets the foundation of your life," said Kim Kyung-bin, a Seoul psychiatrist who counsels gaming addicts. 'I do it to win' Players stake out computers at an Internet cafe.One of Kim's patients, a high school student, would leave his house and not come back for weeks, practically living in Internet cafes playing games, Kim said. Computer games can also be a path to big rewards. Three cable channels are devoted to broadcasting game matches and a total of 4.5 billion won ($4.4 million) is given out as prize money in competitions each year. Even the government is embracing electronic sports, or "E-sports," funding construction of the world's first e-sports stadium, to be completed by 2008, where online competitions will be displayed on huge screens. Hong Jin-ho, a 24-year-old professional gamer, earns more than 133 million won ($130,000) a year, living and training with his fellow game team members in an apartment in central Seoul. Hong, who specializes in Starcraft, a science-fiction strategy game, says he has never thought of video games as an addiction. He admitted, however, that the seven to eight hours of daily training -- which sometimes drags on for nearly 24 hours before competitions -- can be physically challenging. "My body doesn't welcome it, but I do it to win," Hong said. Physicians working with professional e-sports teams recommend gamers rest 10 minutes with their eyes closed after every five matches, and never play in the same posture for more than two hours. "The energy you consume (while playing) is immense. The degree of concentration and absorption is so great that you lose yourself," said Han Hye-won, 30, a university lecturer who says she plays four hours a day. Han said she went through a phase when her mother had to pull the plug to get her to stop playing the battle simulation game Starcraft. She teaches "digital storytelling," the craft of writing scenarios for computer games. Even Han's interaction with her students has gone virtual. She sets a certain time at which the class meets inside the game world, each in their virtual persona. "You can play games like that because others are involved," Han said of serious game addiction. "It's not a game problem, it's people who had difficulty communicating with others resolving that difficulty through online games."</td></tr></table>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 10:30 pm

"But it's just a little bunny . . ."  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Wallace and Gromit posters 'banned' Posters advertising the new Wallace and Gromit movie have been banned from one superstitious corner of Britain. Posters for The Curse of the Were Rabbit have been banned from the Isle of Portland in Dorset, reports Sky News. For more than 100 years the word "rabbit" has been considered bad luck there because burrowing caused by rabbits has caused land slips in the area's famous quarries. Locals refer instead to "underground mutton" or, more prosaically, "furry things". The unofficial ban came to light when publicists tried to put up posters for the new film featuring the clay duo. Authorities on Portland, which is connected to the rest of Dorset by a causeway, warned that the adverts should not appear there because they could offend local people. Stone from Portland's quarries is world-famous and was used to build St Paul's Cathedral as well as many other London landmarks. But in the past, quarry workers were so superstitious that if they saw a rabbit they would stop work and go home for the day. A crane operator was killed 100 years ago when the ground gave way because of rabbit burrows and his crane tipped over. The only poster for the film on Portland is on the road off the island and says: "Something bunny is going on". Mayor Tim Woodcock said: "There certainly is a feeling against the word rabbit, especially from the older residents. "It is a local superstition but like any superstition, people take it seriously."</td></tr></table>

Joe3210 · Postby **Joe3210** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 1:26 am

Did they ban Dance Dance Revolution there too?

Tom Flapwell · Postby **Tom Flapwell** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 3:21 am

Well, at least it wasn't banned based on accusations of villany. I saw the movie today. It was everything I expected, which was good.

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sun Oct 09, 2005 7:28 pm

Before he got all Disneyized, Dennis really was a menace . . . <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... /blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' />  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Comics Dennis the deviant By Mark Rahner Seattle Times staff reporter If Dennis the Menace were real and grown up, he'd be on death row. That's my conclusion from Fantagraphics' new collection. "Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis the Menace - 1951-1952" ($24.95) packages the first year of one of the world's most popular characters in a squat volume the size of a glass brick. Its panels depict a far more menacing boy than the cute one currently abiding in the nation's newspapers. He's more Dennis the Sociopath. In recent strips, Dennis sits in a puddle and says to his friend, Margaret, "The good thing about jumpin' puddles is even if you don't make it, it's still fun!" He warns a boy on his porch, "Better take off your shoes. Muddy feet and moms don't mix very well." Talk about gag-writing. It's hard to pinpoint when Dennis lapsed into "Family Circus" preciousness. Seattle native Ketcham had passed the duties on to Ron Ferdinand and Marcus Hamilton in 1994 - supervising them until he died in 2001. After years of sap, the first-year panels are eye-opening. They depict a demon-child who predates Damien the "Omen" kid and the "The Bad Seed" girl, not to mention "Calvin & Hobbes." Walking out of an elevator with his concerned-looking mom, malicious-eyed Dennis says, "Did you see that? I pinched that fat dame to make her give me room, and she slugged a guy in back of her!" The volume isn't just a hilarious chronicle of violence, humiliation and destruction. It's a case-study in antisocial personality disorder. The Dennis file Animal cruelty is an early trait that serial-killers share. A swan with its neck tied in a knot warns its mate, "Stay away from that kid with the black pants!" Armed with a slingshooter on a park bench, Dennis asks his mom, "Hey, do you know how to cook a pigeon?" Sociopaths are unable to empathize with the pain of others. A teacher tells Dennis' mom, "Your Dennis is a happy child. He hit Sammy with a sand shovel and I thought he'd die laughing!" Young Dennis manifests the violent proclivities that would lead to his institutionalization as an adult. In a playground sandbox, the diabolical-looking boy shows a friend how to make a weapon: "You fill your sock with sand, like this, see? And then - wham!" With a fiendish expression, he performs a variation on the familiar hand rhyme and gestures: "Here's the church and here's the steeple. Close the doors and squash the people!" Clearly, 5 1/2 -year-old Dennis is a dangerously "at-risk" youth. He also displays strong Oedipal behavior, continually emasculating his poor father, Henry, and attempting to drive the parents apart through sleep-deprivation and betrayal. Holding his embarrassed mom's hand, Dennis stops a friend on the sidewalk: "Billy, this is my mother. Some looker, eh?" He walks in on Alice while she bathes, and she covers her nude body in horrified modesty. He tells another friend, "This is my mother, Tommy. Isn't she pretty?" These unsettling bath incidents increase in frequency. Note the blatant symbolism when father and son are fishing. As frustrated dad grips a sagging pole, Dennis brags, "Your fish looks like something my fish would eat!" The boy's psychic dominance appears complete when he hops off of a wagon Henry is pulling. "Hold it!" Dennis boasts to friends. "Wait'll I get my whip!" Dennis persistently tries to drive a wedge between Henry and Alice by exposing their flirtations. He narcs out dad on the beach to a furious Alice: "Boy, did we meet a pretty girl! Her name was Sally Holt. I forget her phone number." Likewise, he deals poor Henry another blow to his masculinity in front of Henry's male friend: "If you're so handy, how come Mom had the man next door fix the leg on the cardtable?" Only Dennis' nemesis, Mr. Wilson, sees the truth about this young Hannibal Lecter. "Genghis Khan was a little boy once, too," the neighbor tells his cookie-enabling wife, Martha. Dennis, pointing angrily at his little Yale shirt, tells his dad, "Mr. Wilson said this should say Jail 1966!" The fact that Wilson is a retired U.S. postal worker might be alarming in light of the boy's relentless antagonism. But in the character profiles in his 1990 autobiography, "The Merchant of Dennis" ($24.95, reprinted by Fantagraphics), Ketcham wrote that flat feet kept Wilson out of World War II combat. Even if that rules out post-traumatic stress disorder, "he usually turns to the cooking sherry when he's under stress." Kids aren't born bad, though. There are hints of physical abuse that could have sparked Dennis' acting-out: Entering the kitchen filthy and soaked, Dennis tells stern Alice, "Hey, Mom. Will you turn on the bath, fix my bed and bring the strap?" What would adult Dennis look like? His junk-food penchant for cookies, ice cream and hot dogs, and his intense hatred of barbers, suggest he'd be morbidly obese and long-haired. He'd have issues with women, too. Ketcham describes little Margaret with shocking candor as "threatening, bossy, superior, always pursuing, the incipient castrator. Some of us marry her, some escape, and others are rescued. Here we see the problem in its haziest beginnings." The real Dennis Where did all this hostility come from? Ketcham describes a happy youth on Seattle's Queen Anne Hill in the '30s, flipping burgers at the Grizzly Inn, grooving to Bing Crosby records, hamming it up in bands and plays, and smitten with cartoons after seeing Disney's "Three Little Pigs." But there is a puzzling admission: "I can't truthfully complain that we lived under much tension or nervous strain - but I bit my nails, sucked my thumb, and wet my bed until I was nearly fourteen." One afternoon in 1950, when 4-year-old Dennis Lloyd Ketcham destroyed his bedroom, his volatile Irish mother shouted to her husband, "YOUR son is a MENACE!" The strip was born. There's little else about the real Dennis in "Merchant," apart from a mention of his being sent to a boarding school. Dennis' mother died from a drug overdose in 1959, Brian Walker writes in "The Complete" volume's introduction. Dennis served a tour of duty in Vietnam, suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and grew estranged from Hank. "Ketcham always regretted the burden he created for his son when he named his famous character after him." The burden was inescapable. "Dennis the Menace" appears in more than 1,000 papers in 48 countries. There was the 1959-1963 TV series starring also-troubled Jay North, an animated "Dennis" from 1988-89 and more than 50 million books sold. And don't forget that junk-food-jonesing Dennis is the mascot of Dairy Queen. Reached at the Monterey, Calif., "Dennis" office, Ketcham's longtime assistant and friend Dottie Roberson said, "They weren't totally estranged. It's a difficult situation, and a person - Dennis had some ... he just had some rough waters in his life. So it wasn't a copacetic childhood." Whatever became of Dennis? "I don't know. We don't know," Roberson said. "I have no clue, and we haven't had for quite a few years. A few years before Mr. Ketcham passed away, he dropped out of the scene." He didn't even show up at his dad's funeral. "No, and he didn't get in touch with us. Nor did he get in touch with any other family member. Everyone has lost touch with him." Friendly but firm, Roberson said, "He's not the story, and we really are not interested in him being the story. And if I did know anything, I wouldn't tell you then, either." As for the pronounced edge in those early panels, Roberson said, "I think in general society had that kind of an edge. There was a big difference in how people did relate to comedy, or even the roles that males and females played." Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com </td></tr></table>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Mon Oct 10, 2005 8:35 pm

Say it ain't so! <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... ns/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' />  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Fire guts Wallace & Gromit home studio Associated Press Monday, October 10, 2005 Just as Wallace & Gromit landed on top at the North American box office, a fire claimed a major archive of sets and models at its U.K. studio. (AP/DreamWorks) BRISTOL, England -- Wallace and Gromit weren't able to save the day when a fire broke out at an Aardman Animations warehouse in England. The blaze claimed irreplaceable sets and models from the clay animation stars' past films, as well as other series. The fire at the archive hit just as the absent-minded inventor and his dog sidekick topped the box office in the U.S. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit opened first, grossing more than $16 million at North American theatres. A spokesman for the studio says instead of celebrating the success, the company is mourning the loss of its "whole history." Aardman says the fire in Bristol didn't get any of the sets or props from the latest movie. Nick Park, who created the popular characters, says while the loss hurts, it "isn't a big deal" in comparison to recent natural disasters hitting the world. © The Associated Press 2005</td></tr></table>  Firefighters at the scene: Just as Wallace & Gromit landed on top at the North American box office, a fire claimed a major archive of sets and models at its U.K. studio. (AP/DreamWorks)

Steve the Pocket · Postby **Steve the Pocket** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 1:45 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (VisibilityMissing @ Oct 9 2005, 02:28 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Before he got all Disneyized, Dennis really was a menace . . . <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... /blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' />  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> stuff </td></tr></table>   </td></tr></table>  I have the 40th anniversary book, and I've seen some of those strips. There's also one where Dennis taunts a police officer who had just given his dad a speeding ticket: "Oh yeah, come back here and say that, flatfoot!" Kinda frightening... but I'll bet parents liked it because it gave them something to compare their own kids to.

GhostWay · Postby **GhostWay** » Mon Oct 17, 2005 7:39 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Halloweencostumes for iPods? That's scary Monday, October 17, 2005 BY DRU SEFTON Newhouse News Service If you think Halloween outfits for dogs and cats are ridiculous, you probably won't appreciate the latest fad: costumes for cell phones and iPods. Yes, Americans are dressing inanimate, everyday objects in seasonal garb. One expert says that's unprecedented - but to be expected. Given how Halloween retail sales are now second only to Christmas, "It was probably inevitable that the holiday would collide head-on with the hottest products,'' said Lisa Morton, author of "The Halloween Encyclopedia.'' "Since you can't feed an iPod candy or carve it into a jack-o'-lantern,'' she said, "all that's left is dressing it in costume.'' Thus your iPod portable music player can become a jaunty pirate on Oct. 31, complete with teensy eye patch and sword. Your flip-phone can masquerade as a fuzzy monster named Ruphus. Or maybe a pink monkey. "That's good for Halloween, since you don't find pink monkeys in nature,'' said Shari Maxwell of Extreme Halloween Inc. in Dania Beach, Fla. Sales of the $10.95 outfits on the "Cell Phone Costumes'' area of the company's Web site, anniescostumes.com, are so brisk that the staff is having trouble keeping up. Shanalyn Victor's Pixelgirl Shop (pixelgirlshop.com) sells furry "iPod monsters'' in various colors for $30. They're handmade by Ann Arbor artist Marty Flint - and hard to keep in stock. "It takes him an hour for each case,'' said Victor, also of Ann Arbor. "We've sold 30 or 40 in the last month or two.'' And yes, Victor said, an iPod is fully functional while dressed as a monster. Cell phone outfits have been around for at least seven years. That's when the Fun Friends idea took root in Julian Parry. Now, "we have 500 or 600 different styles,'' Parry said from Funfriends.com headquarters in Sarasota, Fla. Standards include a dog, cat, bear, frog, pig and monkey, available for flip-phones as well as bar-style; most retail between $7.99 and $9.99. Halloween-theme Fun Friends were offered (and sold out) in the past, but not this year. "We're concentrating on Christmas right now,'' Parry said. Basketballer Shaquille O'Neal, actress Hilary Duff, singer Avril Lavigne and model Heidi Klum have been spotted with Fun Friends on their phones. Parry also is the father of tiny floppy-dog costumes for TV remote controls and staplers. "It's a fun little puppy dog, it's like he's taking a bite out of your paper,'' he said of the stapler version.</td></tr></table>  Wait, you can't carve an iPod into a jack-o'-lantern? Heh heh heh . . . whoops. <!--emo&

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