From a Greek nunnery turned into a marijuana farm by two
Gay Rodeo clowns posing as gardeners, to a
African-American student with a gunshot wound in his
head who was told by his gym teacher to "walk the pain off," the
world was full of crazy shit in 2007.
A Moscow woman set fire to her ex-husband's penis as he sat
naked watching television and drinking vodka. She said, "I
was cold and asked him to go get more shredded newspaper to keep us
warm. He was pretty shnagya (pants-pissing drunk) and didn't
move fast enough to suit me."
The couple divorced three years ago but continued to share a
small flat, share the bills, have sex, raise kids and get
hammered together.
"My Little Stalin was burning like an Olympic torch," the wounded
ex-husband told Tvoi Den newspaper. "I don't know what I did
to deserve this, but I got news flash for you - vodka,
penises and open flames? No good! Throw in a big mongrel
wife whose whole family were Cossacks... and it's
dick-blowing time. Not blowing-good, blowing-out!"
In another unusual living arrangement, a German man left his
dead mother seated in her favorite armchair at their shared
home for two years after her death of natural causes at age
92. At the end of two years there was scarcely a skeleton
left and his two cats - Hindlick and Frontlick - weighed in
at over 45 pounds each.
Yet not everything that smelled like a corpse was really
dead in 2007. In the German town of Kaiserslautern, police
broke into a darkened flat expecting to find a corpse after
neighbors complained of a nasty smell seeping out into the
hallway. But instead they found a woman who hadn't douched
since the Apollo 11 lunar landing.
There were sadly many deaths in 2007 (Now, now, don't start with
your weepin'...) that were hardly noticed, such as in
Zagreb, where a Croatian man who boarded a night tram and
died in his seat. His body rode through the city for more
than six months before the driver proposed and traded him a
cheap signet ring for casual three way sex with Senator
Larry Craig.
Unusual diets made headlines in 2007 -- such as: "No more
crispy duck at Beijing toilets." Food stalls attached to
Beijing's public toilets were banned ahead of the Olympics
after complaints over toilets with poor sanitation. The
ducks were raised hydroponically in the outhouse muck which
imparted a distinctly Beijing Je Nous Se Qua.
Also in China, Jiang Musheng said 40 years of swallowing
live tree frogs and rats helped him avoid intestinal pain
and made him strong and live to the ripe old age of 41.
British artist Mark McGowan ate a meal of meatballs made
from a dead Corgi dog in a protest against animal cruelty.
He said the Corgi, which he bludgeoned to death with a driveshaft from a 1967 Austin Healey 3000, tasted like
exactly like chicken that had been bludgeoned to death with
a driveshaft from a 1967 Austin Healey 3000.
Criminals filled odd news headlines around the world. In the
United States, two Colorado men were accused of plotting to
kill a man with a rattlesnake in a dispute over a $60,000
poker debt. "It's a story out of the Wild West -- there's
poker, a rattlesnake and unsavory characters," said Lance
Clem, of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. "The only odd
twist to this tale is that the men attempted to get the
victim to force the snake into his rectum and "dance like
George Michael." Luckily, the man declined, saying that "George Michael dancing would require several snakes."
In Sarajevo, two armed men disguised as Muslim women in
burqas held up a bank and escaped with $40,000. Muslim
authorities apprehended the men and - since it was
Sarajevo - recovered the money and castrated the men with a
rusty tin can lid while screaming, "Allahu Ackbar!" The men,
now deballed and stubbed, wear the same burqas for a far different reason.
A Zimbabwe man stole a bus because he needed transport to
get his families dismembered body parts to the local
rendering plant so he could get "some juice money."
A German bus driver threw a 20-year-old off because he said
she was too sexy for his bus. "He opened the door and
shouted 'Your cleavage is distracting me every time I look
into my mirror and, since I don't have a shot at glazing
your lil' sugar donut, why the fuck should I try to steer
around my wood?"
In La Paz, the winner of a Bolivian beauty contest was
stripped of her title moments after her coronation when
judges noticed she was covered with chiggers and was wearing
a necklace made of human ears.
Climate change found its way into weird news. A Hummer owner
in Russia's St. Petersburg gave activists the green light to
pelt his oversized vehicle with rotten eggs, cheese and
tomatoes. Afterwards, the man and his family ate the first
real meal they had had in years: a hearty tomato and cheese
omelet.
A 60-year-old German man stunned lawyers during his appeal
hearing on a conviction for exposing his penis by stripping off in court.
He was released because of insufficient evidence.
Every story needs a happy ending and Bangkok delivered for
this one. A 76-year-old Malay Muslim woman from southern
Thailand got on the wrong bus 25 years ago and got lost,
ending up living as a beggar at the other end of the
country, beaten, raped and tortured at the hands of
Islamicists, she subsequently died and is no being pounded
by 72 virgins in the afterlife.
