Odd news- "Chewbacca" arrested for head-butting in

[Harvey Wallbanger]

It's not wise to upset a Wookiee

A Chewbacca impersonator was arrested after being accused of head-butting a Hollywood tour guide who warned the furry brown Wookiee about harassing two Japanese tourists, police said on Saturday.

"Nobody tells this Wookiee what to do," "Chewie" from the "Star Wars" movies said before slamming his head into the guide's forehead, the Los Angeles Times newspaper reported.

The 6-foot, 5-inch-(1.96-metre-) tall 44-year-old man was charged on Friday with misdemeanor battery and later released on $20,000 bail, the Los Angeles Police Department said.

"Superman" and other movie and cartoon impersonators were reported to be witnesses to the aggression in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater amid concern that such behavior could endanger their livelihoods.

Street performers at the world-famous cinema collect tips from tourists by posing for photos, but some are known to turn hostile if they don't get money.

Two years ago, Mr. Incredible, Elmo the Muppet and the dark-hooded character from the movie "Scream" were arrested for "aggressive begging," the L.A. Times reported."

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Batman Sighting Puts Schools on Lockdown

To an Arizona middle school, Batman! Three schools in the north Phoenix suburb of Cave Creek were on lockdown for about 45 minutes Wednesday morning after a student at Desert Arroyo Middle School reported seeing a person dressed as Batman run across campus, jump a fence and disappear into the desert, Scottsdale police Sgt. Mark Clark said.

The student described the person as 6 feet 3 inches tall and possibly male.

"We're assuming it was male, although they did have a mask on," Clark said.

Officers combed the desert around the middle school. A nearby elementary school and high school also were on lockdown as officers sought the caped crusader.

The result - no Batman.

"It's just one of those interesting little stories that we looked into but we couldn't find anyone," Clark said.

Nedda Shafir, a spokeswoman for the Cave Creek Unified School District, said putting all the schools on lockdown was a precautionary measure.

"We didn't want to take any chances," Shafir said. "We just don't want to put anyone at risk."

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Skittering Squirrel Forces Plane to Land
An American Airlines flight made an unscheduled landing in Honolulu after pilots heard something skittering about in the wire-laden space over the cockpit. The airline blamed the emergency landing of the Tokyo-Dallas flight with 202 passengers on a stowaway squirrel.

"You do not want a varmint up in the wiring areas and what-have-you on an airplane. You don't want anything up there," said John Hotard, spokesman for the Ft. Worth, Texas-based airline. He said pilots feared the animal would chewed through wiring or cause other problems.

"So, as a precaution, we diverted," Hotard said.

Once on the ground late Friday, the Boeing 777's human passengers were put up in hotel rooms and later rebooked on other flights.


Officers with the state and federal agriculture and wildlife officials boarded the plane, set traps, and captured the eastern gray squirrel.

The species is native to parts of North America, and has been introduced to other areas, including South Africa, England and Italy.

It isn't known where or how the squirrel boarded the plan, said Janelle Saneishi, spokeswoman for the state Agriculture Department.

Hotard said the plane had flown to Tokyo directly from New York before the Dallas flight.

Honolulu, however, proved to be the squirrel's final destination.

Fearing it may have been carrying rabies, authorities had the rodent killed, Saneishi said.

The results of lab tests on the animal were still pending Wednesday.

[Harvey Wallbanger]

Strangest thing. The Rotti we had hated cats.

Mom Cat Adopts Rejected Rottweiler Pup

By STEPHEN SINGER

Charlie, a Rottweiler mix, whose own mother rejected him, snuggles

MERIDEN, Conn. (AP) - Who says cats and dogs don't get along? Workers at the Meriden Humane Society are marveling at a short-haired mother cat who has willingly adopted a six-day-old Rottweiler puppy that was rejected by its mother.

The tiny pup, named Charlie by Humane Society volunteers, nurses alongside a jumble of black and gray kittens recently born to Satin, who was surrendered to the shelter by an owner unable to care for her.

Charlie's mother was found by the side of the road in Meriden a couple of months ago. She gave birth to two puppies, but one was stillborn. As sometimes happens with a stillborn in the litter, the mother dog refused to accept Charlie.

Volunteers bottle-fed him every two hours, but the effort was both exhausting to humans and insufficient for the puppy, who needs to feed when he wants, said volunteer Chris Chorney.

Research indicated that a suitable substitute could be Satin, who had given birth to four kittens that have quickly warmed to Charlie.

"The kittens scrum up with him and the kittens treat him like one of their own," Chorney said. "There's a certain social benefit of small animals being with each other."

The cat-and-dog relationship is not all that unusual in certain circumstances, said Deirdre Chiaramonte, a veterinarian at the Animal Medical Center, a specialty teaching hospital in New York.

"In those types of situations, it's common," she said.

The cozy arrangement between Charlie, Satin and the kittens will likely changes as the pup grows. Full-grown male Rottweilers commonly weigh 100 pounds.

Volunteers are hoping that dog owners will volunteer their puppies to be Charlie's playmates.

"Dogs need to be with a litter of puppies, to learn to play with other dogs," Chorney said. "He has to learn to be a well-socialized dog."

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A palm-sized pet turtle and the golden retriever that gobbled it up survived the misadventure thanks to the quick actions of a 12-year-old girl, a veterinarian said.

The saga of Pepper the red-eared slider turtle and Bella the golden retriever started last week. Shelby Terihay, 12, moved her pet pond turtles indoors to protect them from a cold snap - a plan that worked well until Bella found some of the turtles in a bathtub, The Tampa Tribune reported.

A quick headcount confirmed Bella had swallowed one of the turtles. Shelby insisted on a rescue mission and, on the advice of a vet, her parents made Bella vomit. Out came Pepper, still alive despite a shattered shell and an estimated 10 minutes inside Bella's belly.

"This was definitely a first for me," veterinarian David Thomassy said.

Thomassy patched up Pepper's shell and credited Shelby with saving Bella, too.

"The turtle would definitely have caused an obstruction," Thomassy said. "Without cutting it out directly, it eventually would have killed the dog."

[Harvey Wallbanger]

There’s more to life than Bond and all of us are more aware of James Bond than our neighbors and co-workers. These odd news are just to entertain us with the outside world.


A British soldier's postcard to his sweetheart has finally arrived - 92 years after he sent it from the trenches of World War I.

Pvt. Walter Butler wrote to Amy Hicks in 1915 telling her he was alive and well - but the army issued postcard never made it to her home in Wiltshire, 60 miles west of London. Butler survived the war, and the couple went on to marry.

The postcard turned up in a postal sorting office, which sent it along last week to the post office near Hicks' address. A local postman called the home of the couple's daughter, Joyce Hulbert, to announce the discovery.

Hulbert, 86, a grandmother of three, said her late parents rarely discussed the war, and that the relic of the past had little meaning for her. She wondered what the fuss was all about.

"I think it's rather excessive," Hulbert told The Associated Press. "There's lots more interesting things going on than a postcard arriving 92 years late."

[Harvey Wallbanger]

A University of Southern California hockey goalie put on a show, but it had nothing to do with stopping shots. Mickey Meyer rode his stick like a horse, dropped his bulky pants, mooned the crowd and slapped his buttocks during a game against Brigham Young University, police said.

He was ejected and ticketed for lewdness, a misdemeanor, after an officer who was working security at the rink said he witnessed the scene Saturday.

"I had my fill of these refs," Meyer said on an Internet broadcast of the game, according to The Herald-Journal of Logan.

It will be up to prosecutors whether to pursue a case against him.

"This is a small town," North Park police Sgt. John Italasano said. "This was a college team playing and hockey's a wild game. Sometimes things get out of hand."

Meyer's antics occurred while play was stopped and referees were trying to sort out penalties in the third period of a consolation game in the ACHA West Regional tournament at Eccles Ice Center.

The junior from Clinton, N.Y., was "riding his hockey stick like a horse and slapping his butt," North Park Officer Mike Stauffer said in a report.

After pulling down his pants, Meyer slapped his bare bottom several times, Stauffer said.

Rink manager Floyd Naegle was unhappy.

"We don't treat this as a funny incident," he said Tuesday. "We're a family oriented business. It's a one-time incident and we try to do what we can to protect ourselves."

The Trojans lost the game against BYU, 6-4. The night before, they'd lost 3-1 to Utah State. USC volunteer hockey coach Mark Wilbur said the incident highlights the frustration that can come with playing tournament consolation rounds early in the morning after a loss far from home.

"All you're doing is asking for seniors to do stupid stuff," he said.

If the season's over, he'd just like to pack up the team gear and go home, he said.

Wilbur said he had no specific policy for dealing with publicly bared bottoms.

"I sure as hell don't condone it on any level," Wilbur said.

Prosecutor Scott Wyatt laughed when told about the incident Tuesday at the state Capitol, where he is a member of the Utah House. He declined to say whether he would press charges. The maximum penalty is six months in jail.

"Well, that's my call, but I haven't seen anything" from police, Wyatt said.

[Harvey Wallbanger]

Steven Spielberg Bought Stolen Painting

A Norman Rockwell work stolen from suburban St. Louis more than three decades ago was found in Steven Spielberg's art collection, the FBI announced Friday.

The painting, Rockwell's "Russian Schoolroom," was snatched during a late-night burglary at a gallery in Clayton, Mo., on June 25, 1973.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker purchased the painting in 1989 from a legitimate dealer and didn't know it was stolen until his staff spotted its image last week on an FBI Web site listing stolen works of art, the bureau said in a statement.

After Spielberg's staff brought it to the attention of authorities, an FBI agent and an art expert from the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino inspected the painting at one of Spielberg's offices and confirmed its authenticity Friday morning. Early FBI estimates put the painting's value at $700,000, officials said.

Spielberg is cooperating with the FBI and will retain possession of the Russian Schoolroom until its "disposition can be determined," the bureau said.

Several after-hour calls to Spielberg's publicist and attorneys were not immediately returned.

The oil-on-canvas painting shows children in a classroom with a bust of communist leader Vladimir Lenin. It was nabbed in a gallery heist and then resurfaced briefly in legitimate art forums before disappearing again. At the time of the theft, the work was 16 inches by 37 inches.

Mary Ellen Shortland, who worked at the long-closed Clayton Art Gallery, recalled Friday that someone from Missouri paid $25,000 for the painting after seeing it during a Rockwell exhibition featuring mostly lithographs.

The client agreed to keep it on display, she said, but a few nights later someone smashed the gallery's glass door and escaped with the painting.

"That was all they took. That's what they wanted, that painting," Shortland recalled.

The gallery refunded the client's money, and there was no sign of the work for years. Then in 1988, it was auctioned in New Orleans.

In 2004, the FBI's newly formed Art Crime Team initiated an investigation to recover the work after determining it had been advertised for sale at a Rockwell exhibit in New York in 1989.

It wasn't immediately known whether Spielberg purchased the painting at that New York exhibit.

Rockwell's work often resonates with people because much of it captures moments from everyday life, such as a boy watching his father shave, family members saying grace over a Thanksgiving turkey or a young girl having a dress fitting.

The artist died at age 84 in 1978. While "Russian Schoolroom" appeared in Look magazine, the artist is best known for the covers he did for The Saturday Evening Post. More than 300 Rockwell creations appeared on the cover of the publication.

[Harvey Wallbanger]

Sam Simon Dog Nut
Everyone knows "The Simpsons," but you might not know how much the cartoon series has helped stray dogs and people in need. Sam Simon, one of the show's co-creators, has spent millions on a foundation which trains abandoned dogs to become service animals. It's a good deed that even Bart might appreciate!

[Harvey Wallbanger]

Woman Awakens After 6 Years, Slips Back
- A woman who went into a vegetative state in November of 2000 awoke this week for three days, spoke with her family and a local television station before slipping back on Wednesday. "I'm fine," Christa Lilly told her mother on Sunday - her first words in eight months. She has awakened four other times for briefer periods.
"I think it's wonderful. It makes me so happy," Lilly told television station KKTV-TV. She also got to see youngest daughter, Chelcey, now 12 years old, and three grandchildren.
Her neurologist, Dr. Randall Bjork, said he couldn't explain how or why she awoke.
"I'm just not able to explain this on the basis of what we know about persistent vegetative states," he said.
A vegatative state is much like a coma except her eyes remain open.
"The good Lord let me know she's alright, he brings her back to visit every so often and I'm thankful for that," said Minnie Smith, her mother and caregiver after Christa slipped back into the vegetative state.

[Harvey Wallbanger]

Colorado Couple Find Faceless Dollar Coin
Mary and Ray Smith can't make heads or tails of a new presidential dollar coin they found last week. It doesn't have either. A week after the revelation that some of the coins slipped out of the U.S. Mint without "In God We Trust" stamped on the edge, the Smiths said Tuesday they found one with nothing stamped on either flat side.

It does have "In God We Trust" on the edge. What's missing is the image of George Washington on the front and the Statue of Liberty on the back. Instead, the Smiths' coin is just smooth, shiny metal.

"We're just so excited," Mary Smith told The Associated Press. "I'm just dumbfounded that we actually found something significant."

Mint spokesman Michael White said officials had not confirmed the Smiths' find. But Ron Guth, a coin authenticator with Professional Coin Grading Service of Newport Beach, Calif., said after examining it he is certain the coin is authentic.

"It's really pretty rare," Guth said. "It somehow slipped through several steps and inspections."

The couple, who live in Fort Collins north of Denver and collect coins, bought two rolls of the presidential dollars March 7 after hearing about the earlier mistake. Mary Smith said she thought they might find a "Godless" dollar of their own.

The faceless dollar could be worth thousands of dollars, maybe more, Guth said. The value will depend on how many similar misprints are found, but the Smiths' will always be worth more because it will be the first one independently authenticated, he said.

The first "Godless" coins went into circulation Feb. 15.

The Mint struck 300 million presidential coins, about half in Philadelphia and half in Denver. The Smiths' coin bears a D, meaning it was produced by the Denver Mint. The "Godless" coins were all believed to have come from the Philadelphia Mint.

The Smiths said that when they get their coin back from Guth, they'll stick it in a bank vault for at least a while.

[Harvey Wallbanger]

3 'Jeopardy' contestants end up tied

All those years of answers and questions, and it's never happened before on "Jeopardy!" What is a three-way tie, Alex?

AThe three contestants on the venerable game show all finished with $16,000 after each answering the final question correctly in the category, "Women of the 1930s," on Friday's show. They identified Bonnie Parker, of the famed Bonnie and Clyde crime duo, as a woman who, as a waitress, once served one of the men who shot her.

"We've had a lot of crazy things happen on `Jeopardy!' but in 23 years I've never seen anything like this before," host Alex Trebek said.

The show contacted a mathematician who calculated the odds of such a three-way tie happening — one in 25 million.

The three contestants, Jamey Kirby of Gainesville, Fla.; Anders Martinson of Union City, Calif.; and Scott Weiss of Walkersville, Md; were all declared champions and taped a rematch that will air Monday

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Mouse Absconds With Maine Man's Dentures

Never underestimate a mouse's determination. There's a mouse in Bill Exner's house that he says he has captured three times. Each time, the mouse escaped, and the last time the rodent made off with his lower dentures.

Exner, 68, said he and his wife Shirley scoured his bedroom after the dentures disappeared from his night stand.

"We moved the bed, moved the dressers and the night stand and tore the closet apart," he said. "I said, 'I knew that little stinker stole my teeth' - I just knew it."

They found a small opening in a wall where they suspected the mouse was coming and going, and their daughter's fiance, Eric Holt, stepped in to help.

"He brought a crowbar and hammer and he sawed off a section of wood and pulled up the molding and everything," Exner said. "It was quite a job."

They retrieved the dentures, and Holt suggested his future father-in-law boil them in peroxide and whatever else he could find for to disinfect it.

The mouse apparently isn't done. It frequently comes out and stares at Exner, his wife said.

"He's taunting him - I swear he's taunting him," Shirley Exner said.

[Harvey Wallbanger]

Google April Fools: Web Service Through Toilet


Presiding over a company with a market value of $143 billion apparently gives Silicon Valley's most famous billionaires a good sense of humor - and a case of corporate potty mouth.

Senior executives at Google Inc. (GOOG) launched their annual April Fools' Day prank Sunday, posting a link on the company's home page to a site offering consumers free high-speed wireless Internet through their home plumbing systems.

Code-named "Dark Porcelain," Google said its "Toilet Internet Service Provider" (TiSP) works with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)'s new Windows Vista operating system. But sorry - septic tanks are incompatible with the system's requirements.

The gag included a mock press release quoting Google co-founder and president Larry Page, a step-by-step online installation manual, and a scatological selection of Frequently Asked Questions. On some Google sites, the company's official logo - a multicolored "Google" that changes according to the season and on holidays - substituted a commode for the second "g."

"There's actually a thriving little underground community that's been studying this exact solution for a long time," Page said in the facetious statement. "And today our Toilet ISP team is pleased to be leading the way through the sewers, up out of your toilet and - splat - right onto your PC."

Marissa Mayer, a Google vice president, called TiSP a "breakthrough product, particularly for those users who, like Larry himself, do much of their best thinking in the bathroom."

TiSP is the latest April Fools joke at the Mountain View, Calif.-based company, where hijinks pervade cubicles all year long. In blogs, Google employees joke about the recent injection of green dye into milk in the cafeteria, while another talks about zany underlings filling the vice president of engineering's office with sand.

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Ala. Woman on Horseback Charged With DUI
A woman who went for a horseback ride through town at midnight and allegedly used the horse to ram a police car was charged with driving under the influence and drug offenses, police said Tuesday.

"Cars were passing by having to avoid it, and almost hitting the horse," said Police Chief Brad Gregg.

He said DUI charges can apply even when the vehicle has four legs instead of wheels.

Police in the northeast Alabama town received a call around midnight Saturday about someone riding a horse on a city street, Gregg said.

Officer John Seals found Melissa Byrum York, 40, of Henagar on horseback on a nearby road and attempted to stop her. Seals asked the woman repeatedly to get off the horse, but she kept trying to kick the animal to make it run, the chief said.

"She wouldn't stop. She kept riding the horse and going on," Gregg said.

After ramming the police car with the horse and riding away, the woman tried to jump off but caught her foot in a stirrup, Gregg said. The officer took the woman into custody and discovered that she had crystal methamphetamine, a small amount of marijuana, pills and a small pipe, the chief said.

York was charged with DUI for allegedly riding the horse under the influence of a controlled substance. She was also charged with drug possession, possession of drug paraphernalia, resisting arrest, assault, attempting to elude police and cruelty to animals.

Gregg said the horse, which belonged to York, "wasn't in the best of health, but it's still alive."

York was released from the DeKalb County Jail on $4,000 bond and was being transferred to the jail in Jackson County, where authorities had a warrant for her arrest on unrelated charges, Gregg said.

Jackson County officials said Tuesday that York had yet to be booked, and there were no records indicating whether she had a lawyer.

[Harvey Wallbanger]

Movie Mistake: Families Get Horror Film

An audience expecting to watch a family film was stunned to get an glimpse of a horror movie, which left some parents shaken and the theater chain apologizing for the movie mix-up.

The moviegoers were expecting to see "The Last Mimzy," the PG-rated tale of a brother and sister who discover a mysterious box of toys and become endowed with superhuman powers to help preserve humanity's future.

Instead, the crowd saw the opening scene of "The Hills Have Eyes 2," the R-rated sequel to a recent remake of a 1977 horror classic by the genre's renowned director, Wes Craven. The film centers on National Guard troops who stumble on a clan of mutant cannibals and starts with a chained woman giving birth to a mutant.

"There were kids that were crying, there were people trying to cover the kids' eyes, they were caught off guard," said Anthony Rasco, who was in the audience when the scene was unexpectedly shown Thursday in one of the theaters at the Island 16 multiplex.

Another patron said the episode had left his 3-year-old son with lingering, and unsettling, questions.

"My wife is eight months pregnant, and he's been asking, 'Is that what mommy's going to have?'" said Frank Doll, 31, of Mastic.

Theater staffers soon stopped the movie, gave the patrons free ticket vouchers, and started "The Last Mimzy" about a half-hour late, according to parents.

National Amusements Inc., which operates the Island 16 and about 1,500 other movie screens in the United States and elsewhere, expressed "deepest apologies" in a statement Friday.

"We are working with our theater's managers to correct this situation and ensure that it does not happen again," said the statement from the company, based in Dedham, Mass.

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Thats right s**t saves the day

Chinese faller saved by pile of, er, excrement
A Chinese woman survived a plunge from a sixth-floor balcony thanks to a convenient pile of excrement which broke her fall, local media said.

The accident happened when the woman was hanging out laundry on Monday in Nanjing, capital of the eastern province of Jiangsu, the Kuaibao tabloid said on its Web site (www.kuaibao.net).

"Workers happened to be emptying the building's septic tank, which had not been tended for a long time and had regularly blocked sewage pipes," the newspaper said.

"She probably stretched out too far and fell ... right on to a 20 cm-thick heap of excrement."

The woman suffered only slight injuries, the newspaper said.

In March, a six-year-old girl broke only her left leg when she fell six floors on to a pile of snow in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.