Welcome back, Funnies Fans,
When I set out to do some of the weirder stories of last
year, I quickly came to the conclusion that there was no way a
year as bizarre as 2001 was ever going to fit into one SUNFUN
episode. Unless I made it 20 pages long, that is. Last year was
pretty bent, alright. There were over _two_thousand_ stories in
the "odd" file.
Did it strike anyone as unusual that the two of the biggest
movies of the year had little sex or violence, were OK for the
whole family AND were true to books they were based on? That's
"Harry Potter" and "Lord Of The Rings," of course. Hollywood
plans to respond to this positive, sensitive, thoughtful trend by
making "Die Hard 4," "Texas Chainsaw Massacre 5," and "Batman
27.4."
Losers of the year had to be the Taliban, who did more to
legitimize George Bush than the Supreme Court. I'm sure they
never considered that, far from destroying the US, the attack
would trigger the start of an economic rally here, raise support
for the US from around the world (even Libya, of all places) and
make New York's rather prickly Mayor Guiliani into St. Rudy of
Battery Park. People haven't felt this warm a feeling about New
York City since Jimmy Walker was around - in the 1920s. And part
of that might have been a haze from the bad booze of the
prohibition era.
Thanks this week to all of the folks who help keep this
franchise running, keeping me off the streets and out of trouble.
Special Thanks this week to: The ever-youthful Helen Yee, Laura
Hong Li, Eva Lu Yu Hwa, Jerry Taff, Kerry Miller, Chuck Maray,
Jan Michalski, Anna Macareno, Carol J. Becwar, Bob Martens, Bruce
Gonzo, Wallace Adams, Kiyomi Kanazawa, Kenn Vanit and Charles
Beckman. Here's hoping that your 2001 was good enough and that
your 2002 will be better. But not stranger.
Have A Great Week,
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===== THE ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
UN-BRIDAL'D STUPIDITY
---------------------
When a wedding dress was stolen from her bridal store in
Southwestern England, shopkeeper Linda Purdey was sure she'd
never see it again.
But she did, about four months after the $525 dress went
missing - in a wedding photo published in the local newspaper.
Police were called to investigate and shortly arrested the not-
so-happy bride, Joanne Dixon, and her new husband, Che, for
receiving stolen property and theft, respectively.
"I was amazed that she had the cheek to let her picture be
published in the paper wearing a dress stolen under my very
nose," Purdey told reporters. (Reuters)
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===== THE ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
ONE OF THE MORE UNUSUAL HANG-UPS
--------------------------------
Life has a curious way of happening in threes. Jokes, for
one example, tend to repeat a premise three times. And then
there's the Holy Trinity, quarterly (three-month) profits, three
holes in a bowling ball and three strikes, you're out, whether in
baseball or criminal law. While no one has yet figured out why
the psychological effect of threeness seems all around us, life
goes on presenting us with triplets.
Stupidity, it seems, may also run in threes. Take the 33-
year-old (!) man who swallowed a small balloon at a party after
someone put it in his drink. Well, that's the way he claimed it
happened. That was, of course, pretty stupid, but stand by for
strike two: in an attempt to remove said swallowed plastic
bubble, the guy bent a wire coat hanger into a hook and began
fishing for it.
"He just bent it and forced it down his throat," said police
spokeswoman Janet Johnson.
The tipsy victim realized the folly of this unorthodox
medical procedure only when he discovered that he couldn't remove
the balloon that way. Or the wire hook, either, for that matter.
In intense pain, and with a wire sticking out of his mouth, our
hero had a friend drive him to a local hospital, where doctors
were able to remove both the wire and balloon with more
traditional surgical methods. Though facing a week in the
hospital, the now de-wired do-it-yourself surgeon was expected to
make a full recovery.
Just in time, too: while doing the balloonectomy, medicos
discovered that said missing item was filled with cocaine. Now
the balloon-swallower faces charges of felony drug possession, as
well. (Reuters)
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===== THE ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
PARKING LIGHT
-------------
Scientists say that the lack of sunlight during the long
winter months causes many people in the northern latitudes to
suffer lethargy and depression.
But that's not what happened in Nottingham, England, where
drivers have been overjoyed NOT to see the sun. The reason is a
simple technology that doesn't work quite as intended. Tired of
paying for constant maintenance on the city's parking meters,
Nottingham officials installed solar-powered ones to cut costs.
And they did - except that they cut costs for the parking
public, instead. Faced with the relentlessly gray skies of
England, the sun-starved meters quickly went dead, resulting in
free parking for thousands of motorists. This even though
meteorologists say that British skies were slightly less dull
than normal at the time.
"This is an ill-thought scheme," Nottingham city councilor
Sally McNamara admitted to reporters.
The high-tech meters had apparently been designed for
sunnier climates, though the manufacturer was hopeful they could
make adjustments by using a larger solar cell. (Reuters)
[ In gray old England, that could mean a
parking meter solar panel that could double
as a bus shelter. ]
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===== THE ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
THE (PHONE) CALL OF THE WILD
----------------------------
The staff at Blair Drummond Safari Park in central Scotland
found themselves suddenly bombarded by prank calls to their
cellphones. They couldn't imagine who was calling so often that
they could hardly get any work done. Even after they found out,
it was hard to imagine.
The solution came when one zookeeper remembered that his
cellphone went missing just after he cleaned the cage of a
chimpanzee named Chippy. Some of the staff then remembered
hearing chimp sounds in the background of some of the prank
calls.
"He picked my pocket when I was cleaning out the cages and
later that day I noticed my mobile phone was missing," park staff
member Gary Gilmour said later.
The 11-year-old chimp quickly learned how to dial numbers
stored in the phone's memory and started making the random calls.
"He was a bit depressed when we took the phone away, but
[now] everybody comes in wanting to see him... I haven't been
able to do my work," said the keeper. (Reuters)
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"There are great opportunities in putting the film in
the present day, with technological developments. What
would it look like if Moe stuck Curly's head in a
microwave?"
- Director Peter Farrelly, on plans
to film a contemporary "Three
Stooges" feature.
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===== THE ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
SURPRISE, DARLING!
-----------------
Ian Johnson and Ann Dolby sound like a good match: they are
both loving, impetuous, generous and love to travel. In fact,
they'd probably be a couple already if they lived on the same
side of the world. Ian is a 27-year-old bricklayer now living in
Australia. Though happy there, he missed his girlfriend in
England so much that he impetuously jumped on a flight and headed
back to London to propose to her.
Armed with an engagement ring, champagne and flowers, he
arrived at Amy's apartment to find her out. Far out. Or more
correctly, far outback - she was in Australia looking for him and
they were still 11,000 miles apart.
It turns out that she had missed him just as much, so the
26-year-old secretary hopped a flight in the opposite direction.
Tearfully comparing notes on the phone, they discovered they had
even managed to miss each other when they sat in the same airport
lounge in Singapore at the same time while waiting for connecting
flights.
Johnstone then asked Dolby to marry him via phone.
"I didn't know whether to laugh or cry but I accepted," she
said.
Dolby was given a tour of Sydney by Johnstone's friends
before heading home. Johnstone had to stay in Britain for two
weeks because he could not change his ticket. (Reuters)
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===== THE ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
CALDEN-ERROR
------------
"...published monthly, except for combined July/August
and December/January issues."
- This probably wouldn't be funny at
all - except that it appeared in
the March/April 2001 issue of
"Today's Homeowner Solutions"
magazine!
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===== THE ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
JUST LIKE HOME
--------------
Among the many reasons not to patronize brothels is that you
never know who might see you there. A man in the German city of
Aachen found that out the hard way when his wife chanced to
discover him patronizing a house of prostitution late one night.
But her hold on the moral high ground was somewhat diminished by
the fact that she was secretly working there.
Upset that his wife was making money on the side (so to
speak) the couple got into a such a fight that police had to be
called to straighten things out. (Reuters)
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===== THE ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
LIKE A BROKEN RECORD
--------------------
If you rate ministers on their ability to give a sermon,
then British vicar Chris Sterry has to be near the head of the
pack. But not if you intend to get out early on Sunday for a
round of golf.
The Anglican minister in the north of England just set a new
world's record for the world's longest unscripted sermon -
talking for a bottom-numbing 30 hours.
His feat has been governed by strict rules restricting
nonsense, repetition and pauses lasting longer than 10 seconds,
though a 15 minute break is permitted every eight hours. The
vicar made his public speaking marathon in an attempt to raise
$2,800 for a local charity, the Whalley Parish Church Ministry
Fund.
"He is doing well. He is not talking rubbish. It's
actually making sense," said local businessman Anthony Capstick
on the super-sized sermon.
At last report, the 47-year-old minister was still spreading
God's message in the pulpit of his church in Whalley, Lancashire,
in training in the hope of extending his record to 36 hours.
(Reuters)
[ Well, there goes the weekend. ]
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===== THE ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
GIMME THAT OLD-TIME POLITICS
----------------------------
"It's curious to me why there are some people who are
more interested in keeping the Ten Commandments on the
City Hall lawn than they are in keeping the Ten
Commandments."
- Milwaukee Alderman Don Richards,
former Catholic priest, on a
controversy about removing a plaque
of the Ten Commandments from City
Hall. The plaque had been placed
decades before as a promotion for
the 1956 movie with Yul Brynner.
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===== THE ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
MISSED IT BY THAT MUCH
----------------------
A teenager taking her driving test in a Toronto suburb was
doing very well and the driving inspector was just about to grant
the new driver a license. But that was before she slipped off
the brake pedal and onto the gas.
"They came back to the parking lot of the testing center and
when they went to park the car, the car went out of control and
it struck the vehicles and a pedestrian," said a police official.
After it hit the first four cars, the teen's vehicle spun
around and hit two more vehicles and a pedestrian. Fortunately,
injuries were fairly minor. And the driving instructor was
treated for shock.
Needless to say, the student driver was sent back for a
little more practice - preferably somewhere a long way from the
inspection center. (Reuters)
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===== THE ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
TAKING STOCK
------------
Investment professionals study long and hard to pick the
best stocks. You know that because you see them trumpeting
their successes in TV ads.
One thing you will never see in those commercials is that
eight of Canada's top stock brokers were beaten at picking
winners last year by a technological device. This might not be
quite so discouraging if it was a high-speed computer, or
something of the like. But the device that beat the pros for
picking winners in the market was a wind-up, plastic, toy Santa
Claus.
The Toronto Globe and Mail said that the red-and-green
plastic helicopter in which Santa was sitting came to rest on the
stock of Denbury Resources Inc., a Texas-based oil and gas
company, when it was released at the launch of the newspaper's
year 2000 stock contest. That stock, which started the year at
C$6 ($4) on the Toronto Stock Exchange, soared to C$16.75
($11.22) at the close for an excellent yearly return of 179.2
percent.
The best any of the stock pros could manage was 149.3
percent.
"He sleighed it," the newspaper crowed about Santa's
performance, saying that: "Santa will now be given an honorable
retirement, in gratitude for his services in the science of
investing.
We look forward to following the exploits of this year's
stock picker: Jahe, a Sumatran orangutan who lives at the Toronto
zoo. (Reuters)
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===== THE ODDITY AWARD FOR: =====
WHAT GOES AROUND
----------------
Columbia, South Carolina and New York City wouldn't seem to
have all that much in common. Gotham is a huge, world-class
city, and the Southern town doesn't quite have 100,000 people.
But folks in Columbia have long memories of a kind gesture made
by New Yorkers well over a century ago.
Wrecked and burned at the end of the bitter Civil War,
Columbia was left with no fire protection except for crude bucket
brigades. They certainly had no money for new equipment, having
lost everything in the war. That's when a group of New York
firemen heard of the struggles of their brother fire fighters,
and decided they could help out. Collecting $2,500, the New York
Firemen's Association presented Columbia with a fine, state-of-
the-art hose wagon and other equipment. The New York Times
described the wagon as being made of polished rosewood, with
wheels painted in crimson and gold.
In the presentation ceremony in 1867, the Southerners were
clearly touched by the gesture of their former enemies, and made
a solemn promise that they would help New York City someday, if
they were ever able. Speaking at the ceremony, Col. Samuel W.
Melton, a former Confederate officer and a legal adviser to the
Independent Fire Engine Company of Columbia, told the visiting
New Yorkers that he hoped his city would one day be able to "obey
that golden rule by which you have been prompted in the
performance of this most munificent kindness to a people in
distress."
Flowery words, but it wasn't an empty promise. Now, 134
years later, the citizens of Columbia rallied together to collect
over $440,000 - enough for a pumper with full equipment to
replace one of the trucks damaged when the World Trade Center
fell. Spearheading the drive were the Columbia Fire Department
and the students of White Knoll Middle School. Besides losing
over 300 fire fighters in the WTC attack, the New York Department
lost 98 vehicles, including 19 pumpers and 15 ladder trucks. The
total replacement cost of the equipment has been estimated at $47
million.
In 1867, Capt. J. J. Mackey, the president of the Columbia
fire company, told the New York fire fighters "these noble
efforts of yours to assist us must forever remain green in our
memory."
He wasn't exaggerating. Today, as then, the gift may narrow
regional differences.
"We have stopped seeing New Yorkers as distant and
unfriendly," said Nancy Turner, who originated the fund raising
campaign at White Knoll School. "And I hope that feeling of the
American family will only continue to grow." (New York
Times/AP)
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"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny
matters compared to what lies within us."
- Henry David Thoreau
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© 2002 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.
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