What weird news stories make you either laugh out loud, or just say "huh?'

[Elennare]

http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/06/news/economy/100_bill_trouble/index.htm

oops...

[Lady Rebecca]

too much Christmas?

I'm glad the neighbors weren't total grinches. One of the biggest displays that used to be in my area was outlawed by the city because the neighbors complained. The following year, the only decoration they had on their (mansion) property was a giant grinch pointing at the one neighbor. By the following year, the neighbor had moved, but they still weren't allowed to put up their displays. And I think they had donated most of it to various community locations.

[Becky10]

here's a video of his house
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyKlEYuTklE

[Rowan MacD]

Africa's "terrible hairy fly" found in Kenya!

  NAIROBI (Reuters) – Scientists in Kenya have located one of the world's rarest and oddest-looking flies after a long hunt for an insect dubbed the "terrible hairy fly," experts said on Wednesday.

Scientists first stumbled across the yellow-haired fly in 1933 and then again in 1948. Since then, at least half a dozen expeditions have visited a site between the towns of Thika and Garissa to find it again.

At about one centimeter long and so far found on a single 20-meter high rock, the Mormotomyia hirsuta looks more like a spider with its hairy legs, scientists said.

Unable to fly and partial to breeding in bat feces, the fly is thought to live only in the dank, bat-filled cleft of an isolated rock in the Ukazi Hills. It also has non-functional wings that resemble miniature belt-straps, and tiny eyes.

Dr Robert Copeland of the Nairobi-based International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology said the fly's physical appearance had left scientists bamboozled about where exactly it belonged in the entire order of Diptera, or "true flies."

"We have collected fresh specimens for molecular analysis to see where exactly the 'terrible hairy fly' fits into the evolutionary process," Copeland told Reuters by telephone.

"The fly has no obvious adaptations for clinging onto other animals for transfer from one place to another. With its long legs, it could perhaps wrap itself around a bat and get a ride ... but it's never been found elsewhere."

The Mormotomyia hirsuta is the only member of its biological family and some fly experts reckon the fly will eventually prove to be the only family of fly completely restricted to Africa.

[Rowan MacD]

Giggle....
300 pound chimp

I thought it was illegal to keep chimps at home nowadays.  Those critters are dangerous.  The owner was lucky 'Susie' didn't decide to take exception to someone or someone's pet.

[Rowan MacD]

too much Christmas?

I can feel for the neighbors, we've got the same thing here in Papiliion. 
   Our guy is a wealthy investor that lives on a large lot in a 100 yr old restored farmhouse.  Our neighborhood was literally built around his 3/4 acre property, so he has plenty of space for the $100,000 (and growing) display that he started working on in about 2002.  He has even installed special electrical boxes around the yard last year to power this mini Las Vegas, which is put up by his landscaping contractor the day after thanksgiving each year. 
   Besides the basic house lights, wreaths and bunting, two of his 80' pine trees are completely covered in lights/with a star on top of each installed by high lift trucks. He has a life size Santa, sleigh and reindeer on top of his 5 car garage/guesthouse.  The rest of the yard is surrounded by 8 foot box hedges covered with light nets.  5 foot lighted candy canes edge the circular drive leading up to and surrounding the fountain leading up to at least 20 life sized Nutcracker soldiers standing in formation.   
    I have had to hang light blocking curtains on my bedroom windows on that side of the house just to sleep at night, and I nearly back-ended someone last weekend who had slowed abruptly to 10 mph to gawk at his display.
   The limos that include the house in the 'Christmas Wonderland' tour are becoming a nuisance; they just stop in the middle of the street (in a no passing zone) to allow the passengers to stare and I've seen cars stopped there for a 5 full minutes, blocking traffic.
    I used to put up decorations on my house, but what's the point?  It would be like putting on a church carnival next to Disneyland.   
 

 

[Merlin the Elder]

One of our locals used to have a display on a major thoroughfare...people slowing down to look...drifting into head-on traffic...you can see the problem. I almost got hit head-on one evening. It wasn't the idea, it was the location!  People were parking their cars on the neighbors' lawns.  The power draw was more than the neighborhood's infrastructure could handle, and caused a blackout for several days in the dead of winter.  He even bought the houses on either side of his so he could expand the display.

Property values plummeted. Finally, a lawsuit, then a court decision limiting his display size, and when it could be turned on. It wasn't Christmas spirit...it was narcissism.

[William_MacKean]

One of our locals used to have a display on a major thoroughfare...people slowing down to look...drifting into head-on traffic...you can see the problem. I almost got hit head-on one evening. It wasn't the idea, it was the location!  People were parking their cars on the neighbors' lawns.  The power draw was more than the neighborhood's infrastructure could handle, and caused a blackout for several days in the dead of winter.  He even bought the houses on either side of his so he could expand the display.

Property values plummeted. Finally, a lawsuit, then a court decision limiting his display size, and when it could be turned on. It wasn't Christmas spirit...it was narcissism.

Should have rented a generator and worked with the city to do this.  Going off all independen like this is what got him.  Same thing happenned in my toen of Roseville, MN.  Eerily similar....  City got the courts to tell him to tone it down.  He decided to do nothing at all.  Has not for over a decade.

[dbaldock]

One of our locals used to have a display on a major thoroughfare...people slowing down to look...drifting into head-on traffic...you can see the problem. I almost got hit head-on one evening. It wasn't the idea, it was the location!  People were parking their cars on the neighbors' lawns.  The power draw was more than the neighborhood's infrastructure could handle, and caused a blackout for several days in the dead of winter.  He even bought the houses on either side of his so he could expand the display.

Property values plummeted. Finally, a lawsuit, then a court decision limiting his display size, and when it could be turned on. It wasn't Christmas spirit...it was narcissism.

Do you mean Jennings Osborne's house on Hwy 10/Cantrell Rd?  That pretty close to where I used to live in Little Rock.

Google Maps location of Jennings Osborne's house

I believe he started doing the elaborate Christmas lights even before I moved to Texas in 1986, and certainly had them up until the lawsuit in 1993.  After that, he began doing (or paying for) the Christmas lights at Disney World.  I don't know if he took a break from doing that, but they're back this year - Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights.

Take Care,
David Baldock

[Merlin the Elder]

Yes, that's him! I realize he was trying to do something special, but it was just in the wrong place, and a lot of people suffered for it. He moved a display to Hot Springs for a year or so, then went to Disney with it, if memory is still working.  You could see his display from Petit Jean Mountain (mountains in Arkansas are tall hills), and it was used by VFR pilots!

[Rowan MacD]

  The annual Tacky Lights Tour....The best and worst over the top Christmas decor.  Actually some of these are quite pretty  

http://www.elledecor.com/image/tid/4332?page=8&pause=1

[Lady Rebecca]

Yes, that's him! I realize he was trying to do something special, but it was just in the wrong place, and a lot of people suffered for it. He moved a display to Hot Springs for a year or so, then went to Disney with it, if memory is still working.  You could see his display from Petit Jean Mountain (mountains in Arkansas are tall hills), and it was used by VFR pilots!

I love the Osborne spectacle of dancing lights! They decorate the Streets of America section of Hollywood Studios, and have all the lights up on all the buildings, plus music playing, and "snow" falling. It's really pretty awesome. Apparently the Osborne family came for the first night, but I didn't get to see the lights until after the first weekend. They had a large crew of technicians setting them up every night starting back in the beginning of Oct, though, and they didn't turn them on officially until the 2nd week of Nov.

[LadyStitch]

I know they had to limit people at Reed's Springs, Missouri.  The guy owned an estate right on the road that went into Branson. One the road is clogged anyway due to holiday Branson traffic, but add in people stopping on the highway gawking and even getting out and taking pictures  drove people mad for years.   Don't know if he is still doing it though. 

[Rowan MacD]

  Found in the archives....Which flavor would you try? I can't believe I missed this last spring 

Haggis crisps, anyone? Gary Lineker promotes the World Cup flavours.

This being Easter Monday, what better way to celebrate than a column devoted to describing the flavour of assorted novelty snacks? It's what Christ himself would've wanted. Although I suspect even the messiah himself might prefer crucifixion to the horror of tasting Walkers BBQ kangaroo crisps. The moment the first sliver of fried potato hit his tongue, delivering its payload of marsupial flavouring, he'd moan "forgive them father, for they know not what they do" through a mouthful of wet crumbs.

Last year's "Do us a Flavour" campaign, in which the company launched six temporary new varieties, was eventually won by the hideous "Builder's Breakfast", which tasted like a fried egg in an envelope. This year, they're celebrating the World Cup by launching 15 – yes, 15 – new flavours, each ostensibly representing a different nation. I was alerted to this exciting development by an email from Walker's PR agency – I'm presumably on their radar after reviewing the "Do Us a Flavour" varieties last year. On that occasion, I went out and bought the crisps myself. This time I'd get them for free. Following a brief phone call, a courier delivered a mock suitcase full of crisps to my door. So you can view everything that follows as essentially free publicity for Walkers, albeit the kind of publicity that explicitly states that their new crisps taste revolting. Well, most of them. A couple of them are quite interesting, as you'll see in a moment:

Japanese chicken teriyaki

The first ones I tried, and not a good start. There's no identifiable teriyaki element – just a whiff of chicken stock. They should've tried tackling a sushi-themed salmon-and-wasabi flavour. Instead they've created something that tastes about as authentically Japanese as Lenny Henry. Cowards.

Scottish haggis

After a bad start, another step down. These tasted of nothing, yet somehow managed to make that "nothing" deeply unpleasant. It's like a small piece of fried potato failing to recall a repressed abuse memory while sitting on your tongue.

Argentinian flame-grilled steak

At last a vague stab at accuracy: there's a faint whiff of steak, although identifying the "flame-grilled" aspect would require a leap of the imagination so vast you might as well use it to imagine something more exciting, like sex with a movie star or a holiday on Venus. Still: the Argentinians take the lead.

English roast beef and yorkshire pudding

Did Rio Ferdinand create this himself? The beef hits you first: not dreadful, but quickly overpowered by the oleaginous "yorkshire pudding" element. The result is a mixture of cold Sunday roast and stale grease: like inhaling from a pub dustbin on Monday morning. Also, it's surely not wise to use the word "roast" in any product that notionally represents the England World Cup squad. It's not looking good for our boys.

German bratwurst sausage

Ah. These actually taste like sausages. Not suitable for vegetarians either. Glancing at the ingredients reveals no pork, although they do contain the downright sinister "poultry extract". What exactly is "poultry extract"? And how is it "extracted"? Walkers must tell us. Preferably in the form of a televised re-enactment starring Gary Lineker.

Dutch edam/Welsh rarebit

Yeah, whatever: these are both just "cheese flavour". The former is mild, but still tastes more like "real" cheese than edam itself does. The rarebit offering tastes like a flattened Wotsit with a splash of Worcestershire sauce. Perhaps that's a traditional Welsh dish too.

South African sweet chutney

South African what? They've made this one up, surely. It's actually OK-ish: a bit like spicy ketchup flavour.

Italian spaghetti bolognese/ Brazilian salsa

Tomato time. These both taste like scratch'n'sniff pizza aroma: a lame committee meeting of watered-down herbs. The "Brazilian salsa" has a slightly more sugary feel, but otherwise I couldn't tell the difference. My face was openly sobbing by this point, mind.

Spanish chicken paella

It would've been fun to annoyed the Spanish by releasing "maltreated donkey" or "slaughtered bull" flavours instead, but no: chicken paella it is. Amazingly, these actually taste like rice. And slightly like chicken. But they don't taste like chicken paella: more like chicken fried rice. Maybe Walkers were expecting China to qualify.

Irish stew

No.

French garlic baguette

Garlic Bread diluted by a factor of approximately 10,000. So weak and ineffectual, it's almost homeopathic. They missed a trick: a novelty "snail" or "frog's legs" flavour would at least have grim curiosity value, much like . . .

Australian BBQ kangaroo

See? You want to know what these taste like, don't you? A: watery barbecue sauce with a dim hint of meat. There's no actual kangaroo in them, so the "kangaroo" is delivered entirely by your subconscious. They could call it "boiled pilot's leg" and the effect would be similar.

American cheeseburger

By far the most interesting entry, if only for the sake of accuracy: these precisely capture that instantly recognizable McDonald's aroma. Not Burger King. Not Wendy's. McDonald's. If they were an official McDonald's product, you'd begrudgingly admire their authenticity. Instead, you're left wondering whether Walkers will get sued.

So that's the lot. If these crisps are in any way representative of their associated national squads, the World Cup itself will be an underwhelming kickaround which the US will eventually win on points. Presumably the company's crisp technicians are already working on a series of stunt flavours to honour the 2012 Olympics. Here's hoping they steer clear of yet more bastardised takes on national dishes and go for topicality instead. How about American tea party flavour? Iranian uranium? Chinese dissident? Give it your best shot, Walkers, and with any luck you'll start a war.

[DonaCatalina]

If a camel falls in the pew...