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 [ BACK]  [NEXT]                       Issue #129 - 01/31/1999

THE ODDITY AWARDS

SUNFUN's 3rd Annual Awards

Greetings, SUNFUNers,
     Is it just me, or was last year weirder than normal?  Of
course we had Congress - they are always good for a few laughs. 
But the rest of the world seemed to have failed a reality check
somewhere along the line, too.
     Microsoft launched Windows '98, perhaps the most
over-hyped bug-fix in history.  According to Microsoft's
projections, the new Windows 2000 won't arrive until after the
Y2K problem hits.  That will be in about 1901, they say...
     It was last year that Koko the gorilla chatted on the web,
giving her opinions - and mostly acting bored - during a
session online.  America OnLine promoted it as the first
example of interspecies communication.  They forget that many
of us have been in AOL chatrooms before.  Given the way some of
AOL's subscribers behave, it's quite easy to believe that this
was not the first time AOL had been used by a subhuman primate.
     It was the year that three retired police chiefs in the
Syracuse, New York area opened a retirement business to
supplement their incomes.  A donut shop.  "We took our ...
police experience and put it toward what we know best," one of
the chiefs explained.  This will likely be a situation comedy
some time in the near future.
     And it had to be a strange year when the "Wild Water &
Wheels" water park in Memphis, Tennessee closed last June -
because there had been too much rain.
     But last year was also the year that we heard from so many
of our friends and contributors.  It's always great to know
you're out there!  For this week, special Thanks to: Nnamdi
Elleh (& welcome back!), Laura Hong Li, Jerry Taff, Larry
Sakar, Harry Cherkinian, Sue Yan, Dale Frederickson, Caterina
Sukup, Fumiko Umino, Kerry Miller, Bob Martens, Peter Adler,
Timothy McChain, The Peterson's, Carol Becwar and Carrie
Riesen.  And now, the envelopes please...
     Have a Great Week,

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                ===== THE ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
                            POLITICS
                            --------
The Clinton Administration.  Any questions? 

          [ I could give you the reasons, but I try
          to keep this column to less than 50 pages a
          week. ]

----------

          "I have trouble understanding the self-destructive
     personality of Clinton.  He doesn't just thrive on chaos;
     he genuinely likes chaos."
                          --  best selling author TOM CLANCY,
                              giving USA WEEKEND magazine his
                              views on the White House sex
                              scandal.

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                  ===== ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
                         PUBLIC SAFETY
                         -------------
     To the Seattle (Washington) Fire Department, which was
cited by the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries
for failing to maintain its fire extinguishers.  79% of the
department's extinguishers lacked the required safety
inspection tags.  (AP)

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                  ===== ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
                          BEST TIMING
                          -----------
     A safety meeting at the Clemente Latham Concrete Company
in Troy, New York was interrupted recently when someone noticed
that one of their unattended trucks had vanished from the
company parking lot.  Police and company officials followed
tracks in the snow fifty yards from the parking lot across a
street and over an embankment.  The tracks ended at a 20-foot
(6 meter) drop off to the Hudson River.  Police speculate that
the driver may have been in a hurry to attend the safety
meeting and forgot to set the parking brake.  (AP)


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                  ===== ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
                        JUDGEMENT CALLS
                        ---------------
     It's nice to know that after years of believing something
just on faith, the government finally steps in to make it
official.  The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York
ruled last March that men's and women's breasts are different. 
The three-judge panel was ruling on a New York city zoning law
that prohibits strip clubs employing topless women from certain
neighborhoods.
     "We must recognize that the public reaction to the
exhibition of the female breast and the male breast are highly
different," the panel said.  (Reuters)
          [ Well, I'm glad they finally got that
          straightened out... ]

----------
FIRST RUNNER UP:

FRONT MAN....
---------
     Now, what would the federal judges make of Las Vegas
gambler Brian Zembic, who will apparently do most anything to
win a bet. In October, he picked up a cool $100,000 on a bet by
a fellow gambler.  The bet?  That the 37-year-old Zembic had to
have breast implants and keep them in at least one year.
     "Having breasts gives you insight into what life is like
for women.  You start to see what pigs men are," said the
newly-sensitized Zembic.


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                  ===== ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
                ACCIDENTAL CELEBRITY OF THE YEAR
                --------------------------------
     I thought this would be easy.  Monica, right?  In a year
that saw more political manure shoveling than any dozen normal
years, I thought this would be the easiest prize of all.
     But it isn't.
     There are many stories I can't do because we are all sick
of them.  I have no idea how many zillion words have been
written on this.  So many that it is extremely difficult to say
anything new, interesting or intelligent on the subject. 
Actually, it's getting awfully hard not to go vacant-eyed and
start drooling.  Don't think so?  Check this recent headline:

          Ex-intern tells Starr She'll Admit Denial of
          Clinton Trysts Was a Lie
                                   (Washington Times) 

     That actually makes more sense if you read it backwards.
     And the senators were horrified to find that they had
signed their oath of impartiality for the trial of President
Clinton - perhaps the most historic document they will ratify
in their careers - with special ceremonial pens that should 
have read: "United States Senator", but instead were 
garbled to "Untied States Senator."  (Reuters)
     Also embarrassed by the scandal was the Armed Forces
Radio-Television Service.   AFRTS are the folks that supply
cable TV to U.S. military bases around the world.  They were
surprised to discover that the movie scheduled to run just
before President Clinton's State of the Union Speech was titled
"Devil in the Blue Dress."  The movie had been scheduled months
in advance, so changing it at the last minute would have just
made things worse.

--------

SO YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT MONICA...
-----------------------------------------------------
     The SUNDAY FUNNIES found at least two people in the world
more tired of this story than you are.
     One is Nancy Alperin, a realtor from Philadelphia, who
woke up one morning last year to see her own face staring back
from the newspaper.  Alperin has straight thick brunette hair
shoulder length and with bangs, she also has thick dark 
eyebrows, a full mouth and strong facial features -- a
description that sounds pretty familiar these days.  In fact,
she's a near twin to the famous former White House intern.
     "I was horrified. Shocked," she told the Philadelphia
Inquirer. "You don't expect to see a twin.  You believe you
have one somewhere, but you don't expect to see her in front of
you in a purported scandal."  (Reuters)
     Also more than ready for Monica Lewinsky to drop out of
the headlines is Monica Lewinsky.  No, not THAT Monica.  This
Monica is a 34-year-old Columbian woman living in Santiago,
Chile.  Though the name Monica is quite common in Latin
American countries, Lewinsky is extremely rare.  Which leads to
some pretty nasty jokes, according to Columbia's leading weekly
newpaper "Semana."
     "Whenever she gives her name most people think she's
putting them on," the magazine said. (Reuters)


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                  ===== ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
         THE YEAR'S MOST STUPID QUESTION, NON-POLITICAL
         ----------------------------------------------
     West New Haven, Connecticut police officer Ralph Angelo
was on the stand, defending himself in a police brutality
lawsuit.  Officer Angelo said that suspect Vincent Morrissey
had provoked the confrontation by striking police first. 
Morrissey's attorney said that he was skeptical that his peace-
loving client would have done anything as stupid as to strike
police officers, so it must have been accidental.  The attorney
then tried to prove that the blow was just an accident by
asking Officer Angelo to demonstrate just how Morrissey had
struck the officer.
     The police officer did exactly as requested, with a short
uppercut to the lawyer's chin, knocking the attorney [even
more] senseless and causing an immediate recess.


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                  ===== ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
                        CUSTOMER SERVICE
                        ----------------
     When you come back from vacation, you almost expect to be
a little overdrawn.  Liz Seymour, who lives in England, did. 
And her bank statement from TSB Bank did show a slight
overdraft - 121 billion Pounds ($206 billion US).  Like many of
us with outstanding credit balances, the interest payment makes
it difficult to catch up.  In Liz's case, that amounts to 2.5
billion Pounds per month (over $4 billion US).
     A TSB spokesman apologized, saying it was just an
administrative error.


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                  ===== ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
                           ECONOMICS
                           ---------
     Some interviews go better than others...  Stephen Byers,
newly Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the cabinet, had made
headlines earlier in the year when he was Schools Standards
minister.  On a live talk show, the host had innocently asked
how much was 8 times 7.
     "I think it's 54," replied Byers.
     Somehow, that didn't prevent British Prime Minister Tony
Blair from appointing the mathematically-challenged minister to
the position of Deputy Chancellor of the Exchequer (Assistant
Finance Minister).  For England's sake, we hope that Blair also
provided Byers with a good calculator.  (Reuters)
          [ Wait a minute... Does he have any
          connection with TSB Bank? ]

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                  ===== ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
                          DUMB DRIVING
                          ------------
     "Normally accidents like this shouldn't happen," according
to a police spokesman in Caputh, Germany.
     A 57-year-old driver from Hamburg was following driving
instructions on his new BMW's satellite navigation system.  The
system had only one flaw: it failed to note that the river
crossing shown on the screen is not a bridge.
     The driver obediently followed the computer map past a
stop sign, down the ferry ramp and into the Havel River.  The
driver and his passenger were not injured.
     "This sort of thing can happen when people rely too much
on technology," police spokesman Frank Heinichen said. (Reuters
/DF)


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                  ===== ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
                            BUSINESS
                            --------
     Japan's NTT Mobile Network has had incredible growth over
the last few years.  So much growth that they have run out of
people; projections show that soon nearly every Japanese
citizen will have at least one cellular phone.  That's when a
business has to get creative in order to find new markets.
     "We have to target everything that moves," says company
president Keiji Tachikawa. 
     And not just trains, cars and laptop computers, either. 
Tachikawa suggested that one possible customer might be the
family pet.  "Depending how your dog barks, you could tell
whether it is in an emergency or not," Tachikawa claims. (AFP)
          [ Gives a whole new spin to "calling your
          dog," doesn't it? ]

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                  ===== ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
                THINGS THAT GO BOOM IN THE NIGHT
                --------------------------------
     Maybe it's a modern fear of terrorism, but bombs were in
the news quite a lot last year.
     German explosives experts were rushed to Stuttgart when a
ticking device was heard inside of a mailbox next to a
supermarket.  Police sealed off the area and carefully opened
the letter box, revealing a child's missing Tamagochi toy,
which was bleeping to be fed.  (Reuters)
     Meanwhile, police evacuated about 100 people from four
buildings in Bow, New Hampshire after finding an abandoned
lunch cooler in a parking lot.  Using a small explosive charge,
the local bomb squad shattered the box, revealing a ham and
cheese sandwich and a container of yogurt, which did not
explode.
     Maybe more understandable was the decision by the Ontario
Fire District Bomb Squad to blow up a back pack at Alicia
Cortez Elementary School in Chino, California last May.  The
backpack had the word "BOMB" written on it.  The detonation
revealed that the bag contained only pens, papers and a school
library copy of the book, "Old Yeller."  Authorities only found
out later that the word "bomb" is youthful slang for something
"neat" or "cool" and that the back pack belonged to a fifth
grade girl.
     And in Bangkok, Thailand, police found a newspaper wrapper
package left in a car outside of the U.S. embassy.  Working
carefully, police bomb experts unwrapped the package,
discovering that it only contained a large china mug decorated
with a cartoon character and a matching saucer.  The owner of
the car said they were a present for a friend.  (Reuters)

-----

     Then there was the man in Kirovohrad, Ukraine, who found a
dud artillery shell from World War II, which he cleverly
decided to dismantle using a large hammer.  Oh, you've already
guessed...  The shell wasn't really a dud at all, just
unexploded.
     Until then.


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MADNESS TAKES ITS TOLL - PLEASE HAVE EXACT CHANGE...
-------------------------------------------------
     As in 1996 and 1997, it cost more to laugh last year. 
Malcolm Kushner, who compiles the laughter index, said that the
cost of laughing rose about 3 percent last year.
     The index, which is based on 16 humor indicators was led
this year by increases in comedy club tickets and the minimum
Writers Guild of America fee for writing a half-hour television
comedy - now at $11,891.  But many items on the index have held
steady over the past few years.  Groucho glasses have been $15
a dozen since 1992 and rubber chickens have held steady at $66
a dozen.
     "This is a result of natural market farces," Kushner said.
"If you can laugh for free at the Monica Lewinsky spectacle,
you don't need to buy a rubber chicken."  (Reuters)
          [ The SUNDAY FUNNIES: Always a bargain... ]


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© 1999 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.