... I guess I really should replace my power cord...

Heroes pull woman from Xbox blaze
Narrow escape for unconscious gamer
By Lester Haines
Published Wednesday 23rd November 2005 10:46 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/23/xbox_blaze/

An Anglesey woman was pulled unconscious from her house by two strangers after succumbing to smoke generated by a faulty Xbox.

Stuart Ward and Robert Johnson ran from a pub in Llanfairpwll to find the unnamed victim's house engulfed in thick, black smoke and resembling "the Black Hole in Alton Towers" as Ward later put it to the local Daily Post.

Inside were the woman and her father, who had rushed to the scene in response to a call from his daughter before she was overcome. Ward recalled: "We shouted 'Is anybody there?' The next thing the father upstairs answered 'Yes, I'm upstairs'. We shouted 'Anybody else in the house, we can't see.'

"We put some coats over our mouths and ran upstairs. Robert and I were swearing and the father was shouting 'My daughter's here!'. We were going on our hands and knees - that's how dark it was. You couldn't see your fingers if you put them in front of your eyes.

"We felt our way around the darkness. We found her and dragged and carried her down the stairs and outside. She was going in and out of consciousness."

Johnson added: "We could only feel our way about. The father was stumbling around. He couldn't find his daughter. We found her on the floor.

"I tried to get her on my shoulder but it was impossible. She was in a pretty bad way."

Happily, though, the woman made a full recovery after hospital treatment.

Anglesey fire and rescue spokesman Dave Evans confirmed the fire was caused by a "fault in an Xbox game machine" left on standby. Back in February, Microsoft recalled 14.1m Xbox power cables shipped into Europe before 13 January, 2004 and in other territories before 23 October, 2003, as we previously reported. MS admitted to "30 or so reports from users suffering minor burns, singed upholstery or scorched carpets as a result of power lead malfunctions".

'911 isn't a joke in this town'

(my first Public Enemy reference...)

'Police? My onion rings are cold!'

A US woman was arrested for calling 911 after a restaurant served her cold onion rings.

Sharita Williams, 30, of Houma, Louisiana, told police the food was cold when she received it and the waiter refused to replace it.

So she dialled 911 from the Malt-N-Burger restaurant in Thibodaux, reports the Daily Comet.

Police turned up - but only to arrest Williams for wasting police time. She is due in court in December.

Are you terrified of flying ... because you're a moron!!!

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- A French woman who is terrified of flying admitted in an Australian court Monday that she drunkenly tried to open an airplane door mid-flight to smoke a cigarette.
Sadrine Helene Sellies, 34, was placed on a good behavior bond after pleading guilty in Brisbane Magistrates Court to endangering the safety of an aircraft.
Sellies was traveling on a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to the east coast city of Brisbane on Saturday when the incident occurred at the start of a three-week Australian vacation with her husband, the court heard.
She walked toward one of the aircraft's emergency exits with an unlit cigarette and a lighter in her hand and began tampering with the door, prosecutors said. But a flight attendant intervened and took Sellies back to her seat.
Sellies was arrested and charged by police on arrival at Brisbane airport.
Defense lawyer Helen Shilton told the court Sellies was terrified of flying and had taken sleeping tablets with alcohol before takeoff.
Shilton said Sellies has no memory of what happened on the flight and that she has a history of sleepwalking.
But Magistrate Gordon Dean sternly warned the woman: "You must understand, if you are on a plane you must behave yourself."
Sellies, who did not speak in court and was aided by a translator, was placed on a 1,000 Australian dollar (US$734; euro623) bond -- meaning she will have to pay that amount if she commits another offense in the next 12 months.

Nice work if you can get it

 

Expert uses breast size to shape body character analysis

 

Looking at a woman's bosom is the best way of keeping abreast of her character, self-professed breast expert Dr. Mitsugu Shiga tells Shukan Josei (11/22).

 

Ignoring his many skeptical knockers, Shiga claims that the size and shape of a woman's breasts define the type of person she is.

 

"Boobs tell you about a woman's character," Shiga tells Shukan Josei.

 

Shiga claims to have refined theories about character traits and body shape that were first defined by 20th century German psychiatrist Ernst Kretschmer, who argued that particular body types influenced mental states.

 

Shiga's says that taking the German psychiatrist's theories further by studying the influence of estrogen distribution has allowed him to work out how the size and shape of a woman's breasts is also an indication of the type of person she is.

 

He claims that breast size is a fair indication of the degree of female hormones the body produces and, after having worked out what sort of character a woman has, he can also devise her attitudes toward sex.

 

Shiga's Method is fairly complicated.

Shukan Josei provides dozens of diagrams to show how he works it out. Basically, it involves calculating the distance from the base of the throat to the tip of the nipples, which becomes distance "A." Distance "B" is the length between the tips of the nipples of both breasts, while Distance "C" is the space from the center of the navel to the point of the breasts. Depth of the breast also apparently plays a role, with roundness, perkiness and sagging bosoms.

 

Though Shiga's diagnoses may be filled with boobies, Shukan Josei gives a broad outline of the four main ways breasts can apparently reveal a woman's character.

 

Women whose Distance A is longer than their Distance B and Distance C

These gals are usually of regular build and are the most common in Japan. They are basically obedient and often viewed by men as the ideal wife, the women's weekly says. They are sturdy types usually good for child bearing.

 

Women whose Distance A and Distance C are both shorter than Distance B

Tall, slender women. Many are naive, nervy and spoiled. They yearn for love and smother those who give it, occasionally making them difficult to be around at times.

 

Women whose Distance B is shorter than their Distance A and Distance C

Slightly pudgy types with bulkier breasts. They are generally easy going romanticists. However, they also have a dark side, easily becoming emotional. Often, these women have lots of children.

 

Women whose Distance A and Distance B are about the same, but both are less than Distance C

These are women with modelesque figures centering on long torsos. They have plenty of male hormones working inside them, which makes them more muscular and taller than other women. Shukan Josei says they're can be a little harsh, but they are naturally independent and do anything and everything for themselves.

shouldn't somethings be self-evident

Australian food officials caution consumers about glowing meats

SYDNEY -- An Australian food agency sought Wednesday to quell fears about glow-in-the-dark meats after a man called a Sydney radio station alarmed about his luminous pork chops.

The New South Wales state Food Authority said the phenomenon was caused by a harmless light-emitting bacteria, pseudomonas fluorescens, that is naturally present in most meats and fish.

"While most of us would understandably be shocked to see our food glowing, it is important to remember that the microorganism responsible for the glow is not known to cause food poisoning," the authority's director general, George Davey, said in a statement.

The Food Authority receives around two phone calls each month from nervous consumers who have discovered glowing meats in their refrigerators, and issued the statement to allay fears about possible radioactivity in Australia's meat supply.

"There has been some speculation in the media that glowing food might have been irradiated, and I can assure consumers that this is definitely not the case," Davey said.

While the bacteria is harmless to humans, it spreads quickly on meat that is starting to spoil, said the food agency, which recommends throwing glowing meats in the trash. (AP)

One last post about the Domino toppling Pigeon

Threats to man who shot domino-toppling sparrow

An animal worker who shot a sparrow after it almost wrecked a world record domino toppling bid has asked for police protection after receiving death threats.

Several international animal rights groups expressed outrage over the killing of the sparrow that toppled 23,000 of the four million dominos set up for record attempt in Holland.

Investigations into the legality of the shooting in Leeuwarden have also been launched.

A representative of the animal management company that employs the man said: "We have not made an official complaint as that would be no use.

"But if an idiot comes around here, we want a direct line to the police so they can come quickly to help us."

Organisers of the upcoming event have hired extra security staff following the death threats and an offer of £2,000 made on Dutch radio to anyone who topples the dominos prior to the event.

Dude ... seriously maybe keep somethings to yourself, maybe it's better not to ask why

Rugby fan tells how he lost his tackle

A Welsh rugby fan has spoken out about how he hacked off his own testicles after his team beat England.

Geoffrey Huish, 31, took an agonising ten minutes to perform the op using a pair of blunt wire cutters, says the Sun.

Then he put his severed parts in a blue plastic bag and staggered to a social club to tell fellow Wales fans what he'd done.

Jobless Geoffrey finally collapsed with blood pouring from his groin as horrified drinkers put his testicles in a pint glass of ice.

They were handed to paramedics who rushed him to hospital - but surgeons could not sew them back.

Geoffrey, of Senghenydd, spent several months in a psychiatric unit as experts tried to fathom his actions.

He said: “I’d told my pal Gethin Probert before the game that Wales didn’t stand a chance. It wasn’t a bet, but I said I’d cut my balls off if we won...

“So I started hacking away at my tackle. It took about ten minutes and there was quite a lot of pain — but I just kept going.

“The cutters were blunt so I had to keep snipping. I cut my penis as well. There was a lot of blood but not as much as you would expect.”

He added: “I think about what happened every day and still haven’t come up with a good reason why. I’d had a lot going on and felt a bit down. I can’t have kids now, but still want a family. Maybe I’ll adopt.”

Those Domino guys are asking for it (see previous post)

Mussenknaller met dood bedreigd

Daar hebben we de doodsbedreiging alweer. De man die de mus heeft doodgeschoten, een medewerker van het bedrijf Duke Faunabeheer, dreigt te worden gemold. Het bedrijf doet geen aangifte, maar is vandaag toch even met de pliesie gaan praten over het voorval. Over de precieze inhoud van de doodsbedreiging wil de organisatie niets zeggen. Wat de uitdaging voor jullie nog groter maakt is dat Endemol extra veiligheidsmaatregelen heeft genomen rond het Frisian Expo Centre. Dit is volgens een woordvoerder gedaan omdat Ruud de Wild en Geenstijl.nl een actie op touw hebben gezet. Wat de maatregelen precies inhouden wil de zegsman van Endemol niet zeggen. Dat kunnen we wel raden. Meer beveiliging en bladerblazerdetectoren bij de ingang. Over op plan b: Stuiterballen en 1500 watt bastonen. En er is ook goed nieuws. Van de pliesie hebben jullie niks te vrezen.
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Whoops! in case you can't read Dutch
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"Now the dutch weblog Geenstijl.nl and a famous dutch DJ Ruud de Wild are both offering a reward of respectively 1000 and 3000 euro's to the first person to knock over the domino's as revenge for the bird that was killed."

That bird was asking for it

Sparrow knocks over 23,000 dominoes before being shot

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — A sparrow knocked over 23,000 dominoes in the Netherlands, nearly ruining a world record attempt before it was shot to death Monday, the state news agency reported.

The unfortunate bird flew through an open window at an exposition center in the northern city of Leeuwarden where employees of television company Endemol NV have worked for weeks setting up more than 4 million dominoes in an attempt to break the official Guinness World Record for falling dominoes on Friday night.

Only a system of 750 built-in gaps in the chain prevented the bird from knocking most or all of the dominoes over ahead of schedule, "Domino Day" organizers were quoted as saying by the NOS news agency.

The bird was shot by an exterminator with an air rifle while cowering in a corner.

The organizers are out to break their own record of 3,992,397 dominoes set last year with a record of 4,321,000.