moonbuggy

Lots of trivia and randomly interesting things.

`Wiggle jiggle, yellow middle.. That’s the best of what you are..’

I wouldn’t want to drive on it.

‘A host with the Shop at Home channel apparently has trouble telling the difference between a horse and a butterfly. The best part is when he actually starts trying to identify differnt parts of the horse in the picture.’

(2.8meg Windows media)

see it here »

(6.8meg Flash video)

see it here »

`An Indian born scientist in the US is working on developing DVD’s which can be coated with a light -sensitive protein and can store up to 50 terabytes (about 50,000 gigabytes) of data.

Professor V Renugopalakrishnan of the Harvard Medical School in Boston has claimed to have developed a layer of protein made from tiny genetically altered microbe proteins which could store enough data to make computer hard disks almost obsolete.’

`Malevolent ghosts stealing your chickens and torturing you in the night? Who you gonna call? For farmer Sunil Das, his first call was the police, who laughed at what they thought was a joke, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported Tuesday.

But a judge in India’s northeastern state of Assam saw little humor in Das’ allegation that ghosts controlled by his neighbors were making off with his poultry at night. Instead of laughing, the judge ordered police to get to work and find the culprits, the newspaper reported.’

`Fifteen dollars can get you a lot at The University Center. You can shoot pool with a friend for three hours at the Side Pocket game room, or you can drop your pants and receive oral sex from a stranger in the bathroom. [..]

There is a “glory hole” drilled in the wall between the two stalls in the first floor men’s bathroom in The University Center. And it has been there for a while. “Glory holes” are fist-sized holes, through which people anonymously perform various sexual acts.

“I noticed it last September,” said a student, who asked to remain anonymous. The junior English major said that while he was using a urinal in the first floor men’s room, a man in the first stall slipped him a note, asking if he wanted oral sex. “I thought it was a joke, until I read the writings on the walls and saw the hole.”‘

`Health officials said Manuel Uribe weighed 1,235 pounds when he made a desperate plea for help on national television in January.

Unable to leave his bed for five years, the 41-year-old mechanic in the northern industrial city of Monterrey longed to move again.

His plea was answered by doctors and nutritionists who prescribed a high-protein diet, helping him lose about 200 pounds since then.’

followup to Man weighing 1,200 pounds seeks life-saving surgery in Italy.

`It’s still not a good time to be a bird in the Compton Heights neighborhood of St. Louis.

“The lizard is on the lam,” says Shelley Donaho, whose son Zane, 17, owns the missing crocodile monitor that is presumed to be still roaming the area.

The 4-foot-long lizard, which feasts on birds and rodents, resembles a cross between an iguana and a dinosaur. Its aggressiveness is matched by sharp teeth, dangerous claws and deft climbing skills. It escaped last month from the family’s home on Russell Boulevard after breaking out of a cage.’

`Only 20 years ago, what you weighed was mainly your own concern. That was before statistics showed that six out of 10 adult Americans weigh too much, and 17 percent of American children and teens are overweight or obese, too.

With such a large percentage of the population weighing more than is healthy, the public health implications of being overweight have taken on greater importance.’

`More than 20 desperate students in Vietnam paid up to 50 million dong ($3,125) to don elaborately wired wigs and shirts that allowed them to cheat on their college entrance exams, police said Monday.

During a weekend raid, Hanoi police confiscated 50 mobile phones, 60 earphones, 150 SIM cards, eight shirts and five wigs, an officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.’

`Syd Barrett, the troubled Pink Floyd co-founder who spent his last years in reclusive anonymity, has died, the band said Tuesday. He was 60.

A spokeswoman for the band said Barrett died several days ago, but she did not disclose the cause of death. [..]

He reverted to his real name, Roger Barrett, and spent much of the rest of his life living quietly in his hometown of Cambridge, England. Moving into his mother’s suburban house, he passed the time painting and tending the garden. His former bandmates made sure Barrett continued to receive royalties from his work with Pink Floyd.’

`A dog that was removed from an assisted-living home after it was found licking flesh off an elderly woman’s arm has been found suitable for adoption. [..]

Ninety-one-year-old Nina Borseth, died May 24, four days after Cosita caused the wounds that a Pima County Medical Examiner’s report said contributed to her death.

Borseth’s death was mainly due to Alzheimer’s disease. [..]

Investigators say Cosita was likely licking Borseth’s arm as a way of being sociable.’

`An apparently intoxicated Jackie Chan disrupted a concert by Taiwanese singer-songwriter Jonathan Lee in Hong Kong and exchanged insults with the audience, a news report said Tuesday.

Ming Pao Daily News said Chan suddenly jumped on stage at the concert Monday night and demanded a duet with Lee. He then tried to conduct the band but stopped and restarted the music several times, Ming Pao said.

As the awkward interruption dragged on, audience members started to heckle Chan and the actor replied with an insult, according to the report.’

`The Bush administration, bowing to court edict and political pressure, guaranteed the basic protections of the Geneva Conventions to captives in the war on terrorism and asked lawmakers Tuesday to restore the military tribunals now in limbo.

As senators took up the prickly question of how suspected terrorists should be treated and tried, the administration disclosed it had ordered a review of military detention practices to make sure they comply with Geneva standards.

The administration has refused to grant Geneva status to the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere, saying they were not from a recognized nation, were not captured in uniform and did not observe traditional rules of war.’

`The Manhattan building collapse that injured 11 people, including 5 firefighters, and snarled New York City’s morning rush hour was linked to a man’s attempt to commit suicide, police officials said to ABC News.

Nicholas Bartha blew up his Manhattan townhouse today as part of a suicide attempt that he had engineered in order to also prevent his estranged wife from obtaining the proceeds from the sale of the multimillion-dollar building.’

A funny prank involving a hole in the ground and some water.

`British motorist John Hopwood concocted a novel scheme to avoid payment when he was given a speeding fine — simply switch the road signs.

Hopwood, 44, had been snapped by a speed camera breaking the 30 miles per hour limit.

So he went to a 40 mph area, removed a red “40” warning sign, drove back to the 30 mph area, attached it to a lamp post and took a photo as “proof” that his offence of driving at 48 mph had not been so bad.

However, suspicion soon arose when other drivers started querying the sign.’

`File this under “what’s old is new again.” A German company is introducing sails it says may help propel ships across the sea cheaper and faster than modern engines.

SkySails’ system consists of an enormous towing kite and navigation software that can map the best route between two points for maximum wind efficiency. In development for more than four years, the system costs from roughly $380,000 to $3.2 million, depending on the size of the ship it’s pulling. SkySails claims it will save one third of fuel costs.’

`US War Dept produced comic strip included in the first edition of the “POCKET GUIDE TO CHINA”, a 75-page booklet distributed to US soldiers (Army and Navy) during their stay in China during World War II.’

`Four-wheel-drive owners, already seen as a road menace, are more dangerous than we thought, a study of more than 40,000 vehicles has found.

A person behind the wheel of one is far more likely to be wielding a mobile phone while driving, and less likely to wear a seatbelt, researchers say. They have concluded that four-wheel-drive owners take more risks because they feel safer.

But that distorted logic is a threat to the safety of everyone on the road, says Lesley Walker, a research associate with Imperial College London’s primary care and social medicine department.’

`For an aeronautical engineer it was the perfect day and a perfect end to a quest that has consumed his life for more than 30 years.

Yesterday Dr. James DeLaurier, an aeronautical engineer and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto’s Institute for Aerospace Studies, fulfilled a lifelong dream, seeing his manned mechanical flapping-wing airplane, or ornithopter, fly — a dream first imagined by Leonardo da Vinci.’

`A Dutch design student bored with conventional advertisements has set up a fake online agency offering advertising space for beer, cars and TV stations on prostitutes’ thighs and cleavage.

On his website www.instoresnow.nl, Raoul Balai also proposed painting brand names on zoo animals and floating huge billboards off popular beaches to get vacationers’ attention.

“I was getting sick and tired of advertising everywhere,” Balai told reporters. “But I don’t want to preach, and I thought satire would work better.”‘

`Hundreds of people have flocked to a hospital in the Indian city of Calcutta to see a man holding a sizeable chunk of his head in his hands.

Doctors say a section of electrician Sambhu Roy’s skull fell off on Sunday, months after he suffered severe burns.

He has now become the centre of public attention as the man who literally “holds his head in his hands”.’

`An 89-year-old New Zealand woman on a mobility scooter fled the scene after twice running down and injuring a pedestrian, the victim alleged.

June Bridgman pleaded guilty in a South Island court this week to carelessly operating a vehicle causing injury, but denied it was a hit and run, The Dominion Post reported.

Bridgman plans to continue using the scooter. [..]

Ellison told the newspaper she lay in agony with broken bones on a street in the town of Picton after being hit twice as Bridgman fled “like a bat out of hell”.’

`A policeman stabbed his son through the heart while demonstrating a tribal killing, an inquest heard today.

Conor Johnson, 11, of Littlehampton, West Sussex, died from a single thrust of the knife by his father, Pc Ian Johnson.

[..] “He was describing some sort of tribal killing that occurred to someone. He was holding a knife to him. He said his son didn’t like it and his son slipped forward on to the knife.”‘

`Royal Dutch Shell, the world’s top marketer of biofuels, considers using food crops to make biofuels “morally inappropriate” as long as there are people in the world who are starving, an executive said on Thursday.

Eric G Holthusen, Fuels Technology Manager Asia/Pacific, said the company’s research unit, Shell Global Solutions, has developed alternative fuels from renewable resources that use wood chips and plant waste rather than food crops that are typically used to make the fuels.

Holthusen said his company’s participation in marketing biofuels extracted from food was driven by economics or legislation.’