Weird News

[Bocaj Claw]

Be prepared to always lose the House Cup to random do-gooders who score extra points by doing plot related stuff.

[Doc Sigma]

Meh, school athletics have always meant precisely dick to me, so let the babies have their bottles.

[Bocaj Claw]

But the bottles can be redeemed for ten cents a head in california and some other state that I don't remember!

[Tarukai]

That there would be Michigan. Crazy peoples out in the midwest.

[Tom Flapwell]

One problem with modeling a school after Hogwarts: Who wants to be in Slytherin?

*raises hand*

Perhaps I should have asked, "Would there be enough kids willing to be in Slytherin? For that matter, at their age, will 90+% of them try to crowd into Gryffindor?

[Arloest]

I'd want to be in Ravenclaw. And every Hogwarts House quiz I've taken said I'd been in Ravenclaw anyway.

[Muninn]

As ever Hufflepuff gets ignored, I'd choose that.

[Tom Flapwell]

I'd shoot for Ravenclaw, but there's a fair chance that the hat would put me in Hufflepuff anyway.

[Bocaj Claw]

I'd attempt to burn the school down to once and for all free all the poor muggles from the shadowy control that wizards have over their lives. And then I'd accept a big fat check from Rowling for giving her fuel for another book.

[VisibilityMissing]

The streak is alive and well, and living in Delaware . . .

Drunk, naked man causes I-95 wrecks

Wed Nov 21, 11:21 AM ET

BRANDYWINE HUNDRED, Del. - A naked, drunk man was arrested after he caused three accidents by running into highway traffic, police said.

Two people stopped to try to help 26-year-old Ardonas Gilbert, who was running naked along the southbound lanes of Interstate 95 on Monday night, but he allegedly cursed at them and punched them, Delaware State Police said.

Gilbert then ran into traffic, causing three separate accidents as motorists tried to avoid him, police said. No one was seriously injured.

Gilbert, of Chester, Pa., was charged with two counts of assault and a single count of being drunk on a highway.

He remained in custody Wednesday. Officials of the Court of Common Pleas in New Castle County said he did not yet have an attorney to speak for him.

[VisibilityMissing]

When turkey goes bad . . .

Holiday meal sickens workers

United feast intended as good-will gesture

By Megan Twohey

Tribune staff reporter

November 23, 2007

After years of acrimony between management and workers, United Airlines recently began offering an olive branch: elaborate meals for employees working holidays.

The goodwill backfired Thursday when a Thanksgiving spread that United had bought for thousands of workers at O'Hare International Airport turned out to have dangerous turkey that made at least five employees sick to their stomachs.

The entire meal for one of the day-shift crews was dumped Thursday morning after staff discovered that the "turkey was not edible," said Megan McCarthy, a United spokeswoman.

By then, she said, some of the employees had eaten the turkey, including the five who sought medical attention at the O'Hare office of the University of Illinois-Chicago Medical Center.

They reported nausea, and a couple of workers vomited, said John Zautcke, medical director of the center's O'Hare office, who treated the patients for a couple of hours before releasing them. Zautcke said he did not have a definite diagnosis of the illnesses.

McCarthy said three of the employees returned to work, but she did not know what happened to the other two.

United's operation was not disrupted, she said. The food was not for flight crew but for mechanics, baggage handlers and other airport employees. Management gave them all $10 gift certificates for the airports' food vendors to make up for the loss of the meal.

Offering holiday meals was seen by many as a reconciliation gesture, said Don Wolfel, president of Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association Local 4, which represents mechanics at United Airlines.

In recent years, management and unions battled over contracts, and workers were livid over thinned jobs, cut wages and gutted pensions so the airline could survive bankruptcy. They seethed when executives received pay increases and bonuses shortly after the recovery.

"For years, management worked to distance themselves from employees, but now they're trying to reach out to us," Wolfel said of the holiday meals. "The idea is that we're all in this together."

But Thursday's meal left a bad taste in the mouths of employees who had the turkey.

Wolfel, an airline inspector, was off on Thursday, but he spoke to people who were working the holiday shift, including some who ate the spread.

"There were questions about whether the turkey smelled quite right," Wolfel said. "The popular opinion was that it didn't."

It was unclear who was responsible.

McCarthy said the meal had been catered by Asti Italian Foods in Bensenville. But Roseanna De Astis, a member of the family who owns the Italian deli, insisted that was not the case.

She said United asked them to do the catering for 2,900 employees, but because her family's deli doesn't do large turkey dinners, they passed the job on to a west suburban caterer. That caterer could not be reached for comment.

----------

mtwohey@tribune.com

[klimt]

One problem with modeling a school after Hogwarts: Who wants to be in Slytherin?

*raises hand* I'm ambitious, cunning, and dark, though not necessarily evil. I've taken multiple "which house would you be in" quizzes, and each one has said that I'd be in Slytherin. Plus there have been some damn cool Slytherins (Andromeda Black comes to mind). I'm also a huge fan of Slugworth and an even huger fan of Snape, so, yeah, I'd want to be in Slytherin.

i have often been told i look like snape. i dont see it, and i would probably end up in hufflepuff. which is fine by me, they seem to die less.

[Rooster]

I'd attempt to burn the school down to once and for all free all the poor muggles from the shadowy control that wizards have over their lives. And then I'd accept a big fat check from Rowling for giving her fuel for another book.

I'd raid the place with the cops, take back the children that Dumbledore has obviously mind-washed into thinking that they are wizzards (probably with LSD in the Ribena) , and be known as the king of nothing.

Also, do you think that Harry Potter could outrun a sidewinder heat-seeking missile on his broom?

[Muninn]

All this talk of brainwashed little wizards reminded me of this comic.

[Bocaj Claw]

I'd attempt to burn the school down to once and for all free all the poor muggles from the shadowy control that wizards have over their lives. And then I'd accept a big fat check from Rowling for giving her fuel for another book.

I'd raid the place with the cops, take back the children that Dumbledore has obviously mind-washed into thinking that they are wizzards (probably with LSD in the Ribena) , and be known as the king of nothing.

Also, do you think that Harry Potter could outrun a sidewinder heat-seeking missile on his broom?

Probably. The broom doesn't produce much heat so its really a question of whether the missile would lock onto a person's heat signature and whether Harry can do that thing that every other person in fiction does, try to make the missile run into somebody else. Perhaps Malfoy.