Oddities and Humor

Thanks, Edgar.

Great stories, everybody. Glad they all ended well, however.

Oddity? Two left hands playing piano.



Now the funny. Nature Boy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUJdPceUazM

I wonder if the employees were blaming each other for the missing food, or maybe a janitor?

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at 07:58 on August 18, 2010, EDT.

Police: Homeless man lived into US library basement for nearly 2 weeks, took employees' food

The Associated Press

OCEAN TOWNSHIP, N.J. - Police say a homeless man lived unnoticed in the basement of a New Jersey library for nearly two weeks.

Police told the Asbury Park Press that a custodian saw Charles Jones Jr. peeking out a basement window of the Ocean Township library in Monmouth County on Friday night.

Neptune police Detective Lt. Steven Peters says Jones told officers he had been living in the building. Police discovered several books in the basement and found the 26-year-old had taken food from the employee break room.

Jones was released on a criminal summons. He's charged with burglary and theft.

link to story

That's a strange recording, letty. I copied some information on it from youtube.

This is a song with a lot of legend and lore behind it, summed up pretty well by GojuBob from the Mad Music Archives:

"..Because of the recording ban of 1948, the only member of the Natural Seven in it is Karen Tedder the singer. Most of the rest (including sound effects) is provided by the famous disc jockey Jim Hawthorne. The song has lots of his 'in' jokes and trademarks (hogan, Skippy, peachy keen, etc.). Only toy or wacky instruments are used: kazoo, ukulele, cardboard box ... The weird noise in the second part of the instrumental bridge is made by Jim Hawthorne's 'hogantwanger': graduated hacksaw blades mounted on a wooden frame. As a hillbilly parody of 'Nature Boy' (as sung by Nat King Cole), why isn't this called 'Erutan Yob'? 'Serutan' and 'under 40' are sneaky references to contemporary commercials for a laxative called 'Serutan' promising regularity to the over 35s. Some people think that Karen Tedder is really Jo Stafford in disguise (Jo Stafford had already recorded 'Temptation' with Red Ingle, as 'Cinderella G. Stump'). There was a real person called Karen Tedder who sang with Red Ingle; but the voice in this song does sound rather like the voice in 'Temptation'.." Thanks, GojuBob!!

Two weeks is a long time. He had to have taken quite a lot of food and drink.

Yeah, that's what I figured!

I suppose this counts as an oddity -- a strange and beautiful oddity....

totally!

onion on facebook:
Dog Experiences Best Day of His Life For 400th Consecutive Day

News: 56-year-old chimpanzee gives birth

KMBC.com
At Sunset Zoo in Manhattan, Kansas a 56-year-old chimpanzee gave birth. According to reports, the… Post Chronicle ·

Hope he doesn't mind that I grabbed this off of facebook:
.
.Jonathan Jeffries
Now that you mention it, I am a little p.o.ed about all those Mexican Restaurants right near the Alamo!!

edgar(the devil made me do it)blythe

Man shot in head, notices years later
After doctors found a bullet, he recalled a blow to the head at a party years ago when he was drunk.
Bing:
Nude Oregon St. player tased, busted

Well, we know that alcohol was the original "ether" and that bit about the nude guy was odd and funny.

This claim has been made before, but it's back.


Adolf Hitler is likely to have had Jewish and African roots, DNA tests have shown.

By Heidi Blake
Published: 6:25AM BST 24 Aug 2010

Now the humor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MReV9dkAVhY

It's also odd that we talked about Charlie Chaplin and The Great Dictator.

der furher's face is a comic masterpiece to me.

The Onion CORRECTIONS: Last Sunday, The Onion failed to post the answer to the Kids' Korner brainteaser. The correct way to bring the fox, hen, and sack of corn safely across the river in the two-passenger canoe is to first beat both the fox and hen into unconsciousness with the sack of corn and then take them across the river together, making a second trip to retrieve the corn. The Onion regrets the error.

My wife knows everything the wife doesn't know.

(Watch it to the end)

That was a cute one.

Watching the news, a woman was caught smuggling a tiger cub. It had been sedated and placed among a collection of stuffed animals in her luggage. I have wondered how it received oxygen.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A Sri Lankan maid returned from her job in Saudi Arabia with 24 nails inside her body — the result of torture by the family who employed her, according to a doctor and a government official.

L.G. Ariyawathi's body is riddled with needles and nails, which are scheduled to be removed Friday, a doctor confirmed.

Ariyawathi, 49, returned to Sri Lanka on Saturday from Saudi Arabia and was hospitalized the next day with severe pain at a facility about 100 miles away from capital, Colombo, according to media reports.

She told a local newspaper that her employers tortured her with the nails as punishment.

"They (employer and his family) did not allow me even to rest. The woman at the house had heated the nails and then the man inserted them into my body," Ariyawathi was quoted as saying in the Lakbima, a newspaper published in local Sinhalese language.

She told the paper that she went to Saudi Arabia in March and was paid only two months' salary, with her employer withholding three months' salary to buy an air ticket to send her home.

Dr. H.K.K. Satharasinghe of Kamburupitiya hospital said X-rays showed Ariyawathi has 24 nails and needles in her body. The nails range from 1-2 inches.

Her initial puncture wounds have healed over, the doctor told The Associated Press by telephone. However, she finds difficult to walk because she has two nails in her knee and two in her ankles.

Another needle is in her forehead, and the rest are in hands, he said.

"Her condition is stable, but we are giving antibiotics and painkillers," Satharasinghe said, adding that doctors will begin removing the nails on Friday.

The 24 nails are "inside the body due to torture meted out by her Saudi employer," Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena, deputy minister of economic development, said in a statement on a government website.

Abeywardena said the government would "report about this matter to the Saudi Government and provide her adequate compensation."

Kalyana Priya Ramanayake, a spokesman for Sri Lanka's Foreign Employment Bureau, said that Ariyawathi had been too afraid to complain about the abuse to Saudi authorities, fearing that her employers might not let her return home.

She also did not report the abuse to Sri Lankan officials, until she was hospitalized.

The bureau is a government agency that oversees the welfare of expatriate workers.

Working as maids or drivers, Sri Lankan workers can earn higher salaries overseas. About 1.5 million Sri Lankans work abroad, nearly 400,000 of them in Saudi Arabia alone.

How the heck could the thief plead 'not guilty' here?

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at 20:38 on August 24, 2010, EDT.

Gotcha! Camera catches thief in background as NJ family poses for photo at Wis. state capitol

The Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. - The camera of a vacationing New Jersey family who posed for a picture in front of the Wisconsin state capitol captured more than smiles. It also caught a thief in the act.

John Myers, of Bloomfield, N.J., set the self-timer on his camera and hustled into the frame with his wife and two children Saturday. While their backs were turned, someone grabbed their bag, which held Myers' wallet and other items.

After Myers discovered the bag missing, he checked his camera. Sure enough, the image showed a man picking up the bag.

Myers told the Wisconsin State Journal that he showed the photo to officers, who recognized the man.

When officers found him, he was still carrying the bag.

The suspect pleaded not guilty Tuesday to misdemeanour theft.

link to story