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Bull free in Tokoyo
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Tokyo, Japan:
A bull bound for slaughter gave its handlers the slip Wednesday and escaped into
Tokyo's teeming streets.
The 1,300-pound bull, shipped in from southern Japan, thundered down the
gangplank as soon as it was lowered, bolted past port police and headed for the
wide open spaces.
More than 20 policeman chased the animal for 40 minutes through nearly three
miles of city traffic before managing to herd it into the parking lot of a posh
hotel. Waiting patrol cars formed a makeshift corral to avert another escape.
Police then roped the bull's horns and tied it to a tree until the owner came to
transport it.
Closing down Denny's
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Denny's resturants are also open 24 hours a day. When they decided to close last
Christmas (first time ever), they realized that a lot of doors did not have
locks, most of those that did have locks, no one knew where to find the keys!
Wrong place wrong time
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Four teenagers were arrested in the parking lot of a large mall in Lakeland,
Fla., just before Christmas when, attempting to steal an automobile at random,
they tried to break into a police van containing three officers on a stakeout.
Serving on the jury
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Gene Robinson, 24, was arrested in Dayton, Tenn., after having sat for part of a
session as a member of a grand jury hearing drug cases. He had already voted on
20 indictments when the next name that came up was his. He raised his hand,
said, "That's me," and excused himself. His fellow members indicted him, and
police arrested him at his home a short time later.
Economic pressures
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Faced with economic pressures, many commercial offices are cutting back on costs
wherever possible, in an attempt to remain profitable.
At one particular office, employees are taking management's belt-tightening
orders seriously:
"I'm taking home only half the office supplies I used to", one staffer notes.
Apple sues Apple Corp.
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Apple Corporation Sues Itself.
[AP] In a move that has industrial analysts scratching their heads, Apple
Computers has filed suit against Apple Computers Corporation. The company claims
that Apple has violated the Look and Feel of their own machines which has helped
to make the company famous.
An Apple Spokesperson stated "This is no joke. If we don't protect our
copyrighted interface, everyone will use it and we could lose the exclusive
right. So it is in our best interests to sue anyone who uses the Macintosh Look
and Feel, including ourselves." The spokesperson says Apple has retained the
prestigious LA law firm of Kukla, Fran and Ollie to spearhead the lawsuit.
Apple's in house lawyers will defend.
Long time Apple observer Ernest Dinklefwat stated that this is a sure sign that
Apple has too many lawyers and not enough engineers. "In the old days Apple
depended on its talented engineers to keep ahead of the competition, but now
they have lost the edge, as well as their grasp on reality."
The industry will be sure to watch this case closely. If Apple wins the suit
against itself, this could mean a massive recall of all Macintosh and Lisa
computers which will need to be converted to avoid all graphics and desktop
metaphors and instead provide a simple terminal-like interface. Such a move
would cause a massive digression in the personal computer market. Users of
computers would be forced to learn to read, which could cause dangerous literacy
among college students and professionals.
Wrong place wrong time
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Darnell Madison, 37, was shot and killed in July in Homewood, Ala., when he
burst into a motel room intending to rob the seven men whom he had seen with a
wad of money. He was unaware they were armed police officers working on another
case.
Who drove that bus
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being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
In June a replacement bus driver hired by Greyhound during the drivers' strike
met the bus he was to drive from Delaware to New York City. However, a passenger
on the bus wound up driving to New York because the substitute driver could not
drive a stick shift.
Wrong place wrong time
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being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Rory Johnson, 29, was arrested in May for a liquor store robbery in Elkhart,
Ind. Johnson had parked in the back of the store to facilitate his getaway but
had trouble exiting because of congestion due to road construction. Five minutes
after the robbery, he was sitting in his car, having moved only a few feet, and
liquor store employees pointed him out to police.
Annoying phone calls
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
A co-worker of mine fielded phone calls from his Alumni Association every three
months for about five years, ostensibly checking to see that his records were up
to date, and coincidentally asking if he'd like to donate to the Alumni
Association. Once, when checking his records, the employee asked, "Is xxx-xxxx
your current phone number?
Seeing his opportunity, he answered no, and made up a new phone number. He
hasn't heard from them since.
Documentation products
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
FrameMaker and Interleaf are competing documentation products. When the spelling
checker of FrameMaker 2.1 encounters the word Interleaf in a document, it flags
it as a misspelling. What does it offer as the correct spelling? "FrameMaker"!
Yankee Doodle history
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being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
The song, "Yankee Doodle" was originally sung by British Soldiers to insult the
colonialists ( which was typical of the British in those days). The Continental
Army took to singing it to annoy the British (which was typical of the
colonialists).
Home Alone children
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
St. Paul, MN
The hit movie "Home Alone" about a boy thwarting burglars with imaginative
mayhem, wasn't total fantasy. Just ask the guy who tried to break in while
13-year-old Ryan Hendrickson was home alone.
Ryan was watching television Wednesday night when he heard a noise that sounded
like a window screen being cut.
"I ran to the closet and grabbed a bat," Ryan said Thursday. "I went...into the
dining room, where I saw him cutting the window with a knife. He put his left
hand in first and I was waiting for his right hand to come in...and I took the
baseball bat and I hit him as hard as I could."
The man ran. Ryan called 911.
Police, while cautioning Ryan to call 911 first next time, did enjoy the fact
that the kid got in the first lick against a bad guy.
Caught by alligators
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Inverness, FL
A 71-yearl-old man fell off a dock and into the jaws of an alligator but said
his knowledge of reptiles, gained from watching wildlife programs on television,
helped him escape.
"I wasn't a bit afraid. I knew what they usually do," said George Blinn, who got
away from the 7-foot gator by jabbing his thumb in its eye.
Blinn said he has long been a fan of such programs as Wild Kingdom and knew
about alligators' general behavior.
He got the chance to use that knowledge when he fell into the canal behind his
house. Blinn said the alligator bit him on the left hand and then flopped him
over in the water three times before Blinn escaped.
Insulting to women
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being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Bangkok, Thailand
A member of the ruling junta who oversees Thai Airways International has ordered
the carrier to hire more-attractive stewardesses.
"We have received a lot of complaints that our air hostesses are not pretty
enough, too old and unsmiling," Air Chief Marshal Kaset Rojananil said.
In an interview published in "The Nation", the airline has been hiring too many
college-educated women, he said, adding: "Intelligent women tend not to be good
looking."
Who was drinking more?
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Bellevue, WA
On Saturday, police broke up a disturbance between a couple arguing over which
one was drunker. Both were arrested and taken to Overlake Hospital for treatment
of injuries to their heads.
The police are charging them with disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace,
but not assault.
They each injured themselves and not the other.
It seems, according to police and witnesses, that the couple were taking turns
bashing their heads into the drywall walls and the wooden door of their
apartment in order to prove they were so drunk that they couldn't feel the pain.
A new type of fraud
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being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
New York, NY
Police across the nation are warning people who wear pagers to be on the lookout
for the latest scam.
According to police, pagers in several states have been beeped by a number
displaying a 212 area code (New York) and the prefix 540. When the victims
return the call, they are charged $55 on their phone bill.
The call the respondent makes has been electronically linked into a 900
"pay-per-call" system which allows the charge to be added to the phone bill.
"People will look at the number and say 'Gee, who is calling me from out of
state? It must be important,'" said an investigator.
Homeschooling kids
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Bellevue, WA
There's a story circulating through the Bellevue School District about the woman
who called wanting information on home schooling.
Both Lake Washington (Renton, WA) and Bellevue districts are noted for their
support of home schoolers, and the Bellevue spokesperson was explaining
procedures and what to do to the mother on the telephone.
Among other things, the mother needed to file a declaration of intent, a kind of
home school registration. The spokeswoman offered to send out the proper form.
The mother gave a Renton address.
The spokeswoman suggested registering the children in her home district in
Renton, the Lake Washington School District.
"No way," said the mother. "Everyone knows Bellevue schools are much better than
Renton schools."
Most popular video
The following is supposedly a true story. To be included, besides
being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Wednesday, October 21, 1992
The most popular video in Sweden earlier this year was a 60-minute fireplace
fire, shown from the point of ignition until it burns into cinders, and
featuring a sound-track of fire-crackling wood. Price: about $35.
Unsanitary conditions
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being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Wednesday, October 21, 1992
The local board of health closed down the Wing Wah Chinese restaurant in South
Dennis, Mass., briefly in August for various violations.
The most serious, said officials, was the restaurant's practice of draining
water from cabbage by putting it in cloth laundry bags, placing them between two
pieces of plywood in the parking lot, and driving over them with a van.
Said Health Director Ted Dumas, "I've seen everything now."
Robbing a locked bank
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being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Wednesday, October 21, 1992
In Annandale, Va., two armed men rushed the front door of First American Bank
just after manager Dwight Smith opened up.
Unknown to the men, the door had locked automatically behind Smith.
The first robber bounced off the door hitting the second man.
They escaped in their van and have not been captured.
Appear on television
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being true, the story is most likely strange, weird, surprising, or funny.
Wednesday, October 21, 1992
In July, Danny Fouts and his wife and her sister, in New York City to appear on
the "Sally Jessy Raphael" show to discuss their arrest for shoplifting their
wedding supplies on their wedding day in March, were arrested for stealing from
the New York Ramada Hotel the TV show had booked them in for their stay.