You are browsing the archive for 2008 August.

by Nick

Malaysian man gets nut stuck around penis

7:01 am in General by Nick

A Malaysian welder had to have a nut removed from around his penis after an attempt to lengthen it before he gets engaged next week went embarrassingly wrong, a news report said Sunday.

The nut got stuck on his penis following an erection, the Star newspaper said, forcing him to seek help at a hospital in southern Johor state.

Staff from the Sultanah Aminah hospital had to drain some blood from the penis and cut away a top layer of skin before the object could be removed, the newspaper said.

It said the fire and rescue department were also involved in trying to remove the nut from the unnamed welder, who is in his 20s and hoped the nut would weigh down his penis to make it longer. Read the rest of this entry →

by Nick

Modesto man tries to amputate own arm

6:58 am in General by Nick

Police say a man tried to cut off his own arm at a restaurant in Modesto, Calif., because he thought he had injected air into a vein while shooting cocaine and feared he would die unless he took drastic action.

Authorities say 33-year-old Michael Lasiter rushed into the Denny’s restaurant late Friday and started stabbing himself in one arm with a butter knife he grabbed from a table.

They say that when that knife didn’t work Lasiter took a butcher knife from the kitchen and dug it into his arm. Read the rest of this entry →

by Nick

Japan says no word from China on dumpling poisoning

9:17 am in General by Nick

Japan’s Foreign Ministry denied on Saturday media reports that Beijing had for the first time acknowledged that pesticide-laced dumplings — at the heart of a bilateral row — had probably been contaminated in China.

Japanese media, including NHK public television, said China had told Japan an individual working with the factory that produced the poisoned dumplings was probably to blame for causing food poisoning in China in June. Read the rest of this entry →

by Nick

Georgia town’s scarecrows h(a)unting for world record

7:14 am in General by Nick

This small northeastern Georgia town’s population boom is frightening. In a bid to break a world record for scarecrows and scare up some fun for the fall season, thousands of straw-stuffed newcomers are creeping across town.

There’s a scuba diver, the Georgia Bulldogs football team and — of course — the cast of the Wizard of Oz. Even likenesses of Jesus and Elvis popped up.

The 1,700 real residents of Hoschton hope to nearly triple their population with 4,000 scarecrows and break the Guinness World Record for “Most Scarecrows in One Location.” Read the rest of this entry →

by Nick

Man says he found dead shark in Lake Michigan

6:55 am in General by Nick

There’s no telling what might turn up in Lake Michigan.

Rich Fasi of Traverse City says he found a dead 2-foot shark in the water while fishing on West Grand Traverse Bay on Wednesday.

The saltwater fish was a juvenile blacktip shark, said Mark Tonello, a fisheries biologist from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Read the rest of this entry →

by Nick

Sweden’s Loch Ness monster possibly caught on camera

7:40 am in General by Nick

Sweden’s own version of the Loch Ness monster, the Storsjoe or Great Lake monster, has been caught on film by surveillance videos, an association that installed the cameras said Friday.

The legend of the Swedish beast has swirled for nearly four centuries, with some 200 sightings reported in the lake in central Sweden.

“On Thursday at 12:21 pm, we filmed the movements of a live being. And it was not a pike, nor a perch, we’re sure of that,” Gunnar Nilsson, the head of a shopkeepers’ association in Svenstavik, told AFP.

The association, together with the Jaemtland province and local municipality of Berg, installed six surveillance cameras in the lake in June, including two underwater devices. Read the rest of this entry →

by Nick

Remember your loved one – as a diamond

7:36 am in General by Nick

Diamonds really are forever. Algordanza, a small company based in the mountainous southeast of Switzerland, uses the ashes of dead people to make diamonds as a permanent memento for their nearest and dearest.

And with prices starting at less than 5,000 euros ($7,488), the jewels are not solely the preserve of the jetset.

“Some people find it helpful to go to the cemetery and grieve, and they leave their grief in the cemetery,” said Algordanza Chairman Veit Brimer. “There are some people who, for whatever reason, do not want to have this farewell. Read the rest of this entry →