Oddities and Humor

On the other hand, plagiarism is not cool.

edgar, the lyrics to that laughing bird can be found on the internet if you're interested. They're cute. The laughing gulls to which I have referred so many times, sound as though they are laughing when they give out there cry to be fed as does the Kookaburrah.

tsar, They sued the band and Men at Work appealed recently, but was overruled, once again, in favor of the bird.

A central California man has been arrested for possession of child pornography, thanks to a tip from burglars who robbed the man's property, authorities said.

Last month, a juvenile and a 19-year-old illegally accessed the property of Kraig Stockard, 54, of Delhi, California, according to a statement from Deputy Tom MacKenzie of the Merced County Sheriff's Department. They broke into Stockard's barn and stole approximately 50 CDs they believed were blank.

Stockard filed a police report on the incident on September 12, according to MacKenzie. But the young people who stole the CDs were in for a surprise. When they began putting the discs into their computer, they discovered that some of them contained pornographic images of children, the statement said.

Despite having obtained the CDs under decidedly shady circumstances, the pair decided to report Stockard to the police.

A search warrant was served and three more computers and three laptops were taken from Stockard's home, along with several external hard drives. Police said there were thousands of pictures and movies on the CDs -- more than 30 of the 50 discs had child pornography on them.

Investigators said Stockard has been downloading indecent images of children since 2004. He has admitted possessing the pornography on the CDs but has refused to say whether there is pornography on the computers, they said. Stockard was booked for possession of child pornography and posted $25,000 bail.

The two burglar suspects who reported Stockard have not been arrested.

Their case has been sent to the Merced County District Attorney's Office for review. When reached for comment, a press officer told CNN the office could not comment on the case because one of the informants in question is a juvenile.

I can look up the lyrics in a bit, letty. Thanks.

Now there's a story.

I think this one is both odd and moderately humorous -


Fan hurls hot dog toward Tiger Woods
from the SF Chronicle golf blog (I didn't know they had one of those)

Tiger Woods’ final round at the Frys.com Open took a strange, memorable turn today — a spectator ducked under the ropes, walked onto the No. 7 green and threw a hot dog, bun and all, toward Woods.

The fan, described by authorities as a white, 31-year-old male from Santa Rosa, got no closer than 30 to 40 feet from Woods. Witnesses described the man as standing about 5-foot-10 and weighing more than 200 pounds.

Jose Cardoza, a sergeant with the Santa Clara County sheriff’s office, said the man was arrested, removed from CordeValle and cited for disturbing the peace (a misdemeanor) and released. Cardoza would not identify the man.

The hot dog and the bun didn’t reach Woods, who was startled more than anything else. He never feared for his safety, he said, mostly because security officials and sheriff’s deputies quickly converged on the intruder, brought him to the ground and whisked him away.

“He was pretty far away from me,” Woods said after his round. “When I looked up, the hot dog was already in the air.”

Cardoza said the man admitted having had one beer earlier in the day, though officials could not smell alcohol on his breath. The incident occurred about 2 p.m., on Woods’ 16th hole of the day (he started his round on No. 10).

“He’s just an idiot,” Dan Diggins, the tournament’s director of security, said of the man. “It wasn’t a chili dog — that could have been bad.”

Tour pro Arjun Atwal, who was playing in Woods’ group, called the incident “funny” in retrospect — but he acknowledged it could have turned violent if authorities had thought the man posed a threat to Woods.

“That guy could have gotten shot,” Atwal said.

This is the sound of the deadly, tsunami-triggering earthquake that hit Japan, sped up 16 times.

http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/japan-earthquake-audio-1391/

====================
The devastating earthquake that struck Japan earlier this year was powerful enough to slightly alter the pull of gravity under the affected area, scientists now find.

Anything that has mass has a gravity field that attracts objects toward it. The strength of this field depends on a body's mass. Since the Earth's mass is not spread out evenly, this means its gravity field is stronger in some places and weaker in others.

The magnitude 9.0 Tohoku-Oki temblor in March was the most powerful earthquake to hit Japan and the fifth-most powerful quake ever recorded. To see how the temblor might have deformed the Earth there, scientists used the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites to analyze the area's gravity field before and after the quake.

See picture at,

http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/japan-earthquake-altered-earth-gravity-2073/

===================
Japan Quake May Have Struck Atmosphere First

The devastating earthquake that struck Japan this year may have rattled the highest layer of the atmosphere even before it shook the Earth, a discovery that one day could be used to provide warnings of giant quakes, scientists find.
The magnitude 9.0 quake that struck off the coast of Tohoku in Japan in March ushered in what might be the world's first complex megadisaster as it unleashed a catastrophic tsunami and set off microquakes and tremors around the globe.
Scientists recently found the surface motions and tsunamis this earthquake generated also triggered waves in the sky. These waves reached all the way to the ionosphere, one of the highest layers of the Earth's atmosphere.
Now geodesist and geophysicist Kosuke Heki at Hokkaido University in Japan reports the Tohoku quake also may have generated ripples in the ionosphere before the quake struck.
Disruptions of the electrically charged particles in the ionosphere lead to anomalies in radio signals between global positioning system satellites and ground receivers, data that scientists can measure.
Heki analyzed data from more than 1,000 GPS receivers in Japan. He discovered a rise of approximately 8 percent in the total electron content in the ionosphere above the area hit by the earthquake about 40 minutes before the temblor. This increase was greatest about the epicenter and diminished with distance away from it.

...

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/japan-quake-may-struck-atmosphere-first-145603921.html

Osso... I can imagine some vigilant security guard yelling, "he has a hot dog!!" then diving between Tiger Woods and the attacker crying out, "Noooooooo...!" in slow motion.

I saw that Tiger story. Sad that a man has to act that way. I wonder what it is that's eating at him?

Thanks jtt.

Here's an idea for a new thread, unusual sports hazards.

Like this one, brings a whole new meaning to the water hazard on a golf course.
Would you go in after your ball?, those balls are worth money.
http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2011/10/killer-sharks-a-real-hazard-on-aussie-golf-course/552104/1

I don't remember shark anatomy - gills? (Sigh, I knew it once.) Wonder if golf balls are also hazards to sharks.

Interesting observation Osso. But the likelihood that a golfer would get a hole in one (the shark's gill) is really small. I can imagine that it do a small bit of damage to a shark's gill if it swims in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Great stories of oddity here today, yawl.

Here's another oddity that is rather sad, but believable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN37qEJvHt8

But they do have rather large mouths..

"Oh Shark what big teeth you have"

"All the better to eat you with Osso"

Awww! That just makes me want to go out an hug a great white shark today!

I never knew Elvis had a twin. I don't believe in his twins spirit talking to him although I'm sure Elvis did. Superstition coupled with guilt is a powerful and persuasive influence. All rather sad really, but who knows maybe it did drive Elvis on to achieve success. I wonder why his twin was buried in an unmarked grave. Sad story.

It was nice knowing you Tsar.

some good stories, today. Sharks don't communicate with dead twins, I am fairly certain. Elvis had a huge appetite in his later years, I bet. I bet he could have ate a shark by himself. As he sang: Just don't let a good (delicious) thing die.