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HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW: A woman said she and her boyfriend went out drinking on a Sunday night. “The two of them had a conversation about trust, when [the boyfriend] convinced [her] to let him use her Wachovia bank card to get $40,” an officer wrote. When he returned from the ATM, she asked for her card back, but he allegedly refused to return it. Then, she said, the boyfriend pulled off her wig — and returned to an ATM and took all her money — $320.  Continue reading Blotter.

(Illustration by Tray Butler)

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LEAD STORY: Through the years, News of the Weird has reported on restaurants around the world with singularly quirky themes and signature dishes, such as the one in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, that seats all diners on toilets and the Beijing restaurant whose cuisine features animal penises. Last year, a group of doctors in Riga, Latvia, opened Hospitalis, a medical-themed restaurant whose dining room resembles an OR, with “nurse” waitresses bringing food on gurneys, accessorized with syringes and forceps in addition to knives and forks and with drinks served in beakers and test tubes. Hospitalis’ signature dish is a cake with edible toppings that resemble fingers, noses and tongues.

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My girlfriend and I were fighting over which led to a greater chance of getting cancer, smoking or tanning. I probably average a cigarette a day, and my girlfriend usually goes tanning two or three times a week. Who gets cancer first?
— DAVE, COLUMBUS, OHIO

A slo-mo suicide pact — quel romantique! The competitive aspect bugs me, though. Why not jump out the window hand in hand and have this end in a tie?

Research on light smokers is fairly sparse (heavy smokers get most of the ink), but what there is won’t be much comfort. One Norwegian study, which tracked more than 40,000 people for up to 30 years, found the risk from smoking just one to four cigarettes per day was surprisingly high. For men, the risk of dying from lung cancer was 2.8 times higher than for nonsmokers; for women, it was more than five times higher. The cardio news was bad, too: The risk of death from ischemic heart disease was 2.7 to 2.9 times higher than for nonsmokers. Overall, light smokers’ risk of dying from any cause was about 50 percent greater than nonsmokers’. (This means within a given period of time, you understand. The long-run risk of death for anyone short of the Virgin Mary is a solid 100 percent.)

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(Illustration by Slug Signorino)

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SEEING BLOODY RED: At Chastain Square Shopping Center on Roswell Road, a 29-year-old woman said she went to the Dumpster to throw away some cardboard and discovered a box on the ground filled with bloody clothes. So she called police. An officer arrived to investigate. “As I approached the box, I noticed what appeared to be bloody clothing inside,” the officer wrote. Then, he looked closer. “The suspected blood appeared to be some type of red syrup. It also had a sweet smell to it. … To make sure that the substance was not blood, I [got] an ID unit to come out and take pictures of the scene before I started removing contents of the box.” After photos, the officer fully opened the box. “Inside the box was a plastic fake head, pants, a white shirt, and rubber flies and worms. It appeared that someone may have used the items to advertise a game of some sort. The reason for this assumption is because I also found a Chinese to-go box with a bloody fake hand inside. On the box, it advertised a game called ‘Grand Theft Auto in China.’ The game is believed to be full of blood and gore from the display on the box.” The officer discarded the fake bloody contents and filed a police report.

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(Illustration by Tray Butler)

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What are the risks of anal sex if the partners are heterosexual and monogamous? Could one contract some disease? And if so, how bad is it?
— GUERITA2KOO

Anal sex, eh? Well, I suppose anything beats another round of “Gilmore Girls” reruns. But let’s get one basic concept on the table right away. While there’s no denying anal sex has a certain kinky charm, the rectum was designed as an exit, not an entrance. So yeah, you take some risks.

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WOMEN GONE WILD: Two officers responded to a fight call on Cushman Circle and found several women engaged in a verbal spat. A 25-year-old woman reportedly threw something upstairs, trying to hit a 27-year-old woman. One officer grabbed the 25-year-old woman, and the other officer was trying to help when “a puddle of water came pouring down on myself and [the other officer] from upstairs. We were drenched in what appeared to be bleach, but as it turns out, the liquid was only water poured from a bleach bottle.” Police gave both women tickets for disorderly conduct. Apparently, the argument extended to the 25-year-old woman’s mother. She allegedly burned the other woman “with fire on her hand,” police wrote. Also, a man said he was walking his dog, when the mother shouted at him and pointed a sharp object in his face. Apparently, the man’s wife sprayed the mother with pepper spray. The 60-year-old mother went to a psychiatric ward.

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LEAD STORY: Canadian filmmaker Rob Spence said recently that he would install a prosthetic eye with a camera and wireless transmitter (of the size now used for colonoscopies) into the socket from which one of his eyes had been removed as the result of a childhood accident. He hopes to control the prosthetic eye in the same way that his muscles control his good eye, to record what his eyes see, and his first project will be a documentary on people’s attitudes about privacy in an “Orwellian society.” Says Spence: The “best way to make a connection [with an interviewee] is through eye contact. … When you bring in a camera, people change.”

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With modern medicine and hygiene and diet, we’ve extended life expectancy far beyond what it’s ever been. Yet we all still get old and die. Few make it past 80 or 90 years, and almost nobody makes it past 100. Is there any real hope of something that could allow humans to stop or slow the aging process?

— Eric R., Los Angeles
My initial reply was: Want to stop aging? Move to the developing world, where they’ve got the problem licked. With frequent war, famine, and disease, getting old isn’t an issue for vast swaths of the population. On reading your note more carefully, however, I see your beef about aging is that it makes you die, meaning early death probably isn’t the strategy for you. So instead, I give you Cecil’s Guaranteed Longevity Plan. We’ll start with the easy steps and work up.

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(Illustration by Slug Signorino)

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FASHION STATEMENT: A 50-year-old man said he has been staying at a hotel on Northside Drive in the Castleberry Hill district for an extended period of time. “[He] stated that he feels that someone is coming into his room and wearing his clothes and then returning his clothes unwashed,” an officer wrote. There were no signs of forced entry to his hotel room.

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(Illustration by Tray Butler)

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LEAD STORY: A 1970s-style San Francisco commune is organized around the practice of “orgasmic meditation,” but for women only, in daily sessions that start promptly at 7 a.m. Men belong to the commune, too, but are useful only digitally to the women and must remain clothed, according to a March report in the New York Times. The founder of the One Taste Urban Retreat Center, Nicole Daedone, 41, is considered by some former members to be running a “cult,” because of her dominant personality and ability to play on the vulnerabilities of her members, but the three dozen now in residence seem to admire her vision. One man said, according to the Times, that he had improved his own concentration at work (as a Silicon Valley engineer) through “the practice of manually fixing his attention on a tiny spot of a woman’s body.”
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I keep hearing pit bull owners claim their dogs are no more dangerous than any other medium-size to large dog. It’s just bad press, they say. Are there any statistics that prove that they (the dogs, not the owners) are more dangerous or aggressive than other dogs? Maybe they are generally docile but so powerful that when they do attack they cause more damage.
— DECENT DOG-FEARING AMERICAN

Not sure this is a distinction of importance. “Sir, my little Muffy is a docile creature who doesn’t know her own strength. Let me get a flashlight and we’ll see if we can find your arm.” So let’s skip the pit bull owners’ rationalizations and get to the gut question: How dangerous are these dogs?

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(Illustration by Slug Signorino)

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LEAD STORY: When Alcoa Inc. prepared to build an aluminum smelting plant in Iceland in 2004, the government forced it to hire an expert to assure that none of the country’s legendary “hidden people” lived underneath the property. The elf-like goblins provoke genuine apprehensiveness in many of the country’s 300,000 natives (who are all, reputedly, related by blood). An Alcoa spokesman told Vanity Fair writer Michael Lewis (for an April 2009 report) that the inspection, which delayed construction for six months, was costly but necessary: “[W]e couldn’t be in the position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people.” (Lewis offered several explanations for the country’s spectacular financial implosion in 2008, including Icelanders’ incomprehensible superiority complex that convinced many lifelong fishermen that they were gifted investment bankers.)

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LEAD STORY: Americans’ Special Relationship with “Taxes”: It is not just that the secretary of the Treasury owed back taxes for years, or that two other presidential Cabinet-level nominees owed back taxes. In January, federal prosecutors revealed that District of Columbia Councilman Marion Barry, who was already on probation after a 2005 conviction for failing to file tax returns for the years 1999 through 2004, and subsequently almost tauntingly failed to file a return for 2006, has now doubled-down the taunt by failing to file for 2007. And in March, a Georgia state senator proposed punishment for the 22 members of the Legislature who either owed back taxes or had failed to file returns for at least one year since 2002. The 22 were not identified, in compliance with privacy laws, but the Senate’s Democratic leader, Robert Brown, outed himself as one of the 22 in the course of calling his scolding colleague a “bloodsucker.”

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TROUBLE ON WISTERIA LANE: A middle-aged woman said her car alarm went off around midnight on Wisteria Lane. She said she went outside and saw someone running away in the distance. She has “high suspicion” of the suspect’s identity — a man known as “Pooh.” (And Pooh is described as a man about 6-feet-2-inches tall with short hair.) She said Pooh is a known person who breaks into cars and houses in the area. Police lifted two sets of fingerprints from the woman’s Cadillac.

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(Illustration by Tray Butler)

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My buddies and I have been considering (while drinking) the idea of becoming “airship pilots.” I put this in quotation marks because we cannot find any information on how this (possibly fictitious) profession could be pursued. We have looked into both purchasing an airship and gaining the credentials to pilot one. We cannot find any information beyond stuff about owning amateur hot air balloons. We are frustrated (and possibly drunk) and desperately need to know a few things only you can answer. First, how do you obtain pilot status for an airship? And second, how can we buy our own airship, zeppelin, or dirigible?
— THE THREE “AIRSHIP CAPTAINS”

Fictitious? What makes you think airship piloting is fictitious? You think those are monkeys flying the Goodyear blimp? In fact, an entire federal department, the Federal Aviation Administration, is charged with making sure airships and other airborne craft are operated by qualified personnel, as opposed to, no offense, a bunch of drunks. If you still want to do this once you sober up, here’s how.

Continue reading Straight Dope.

(Illustration by Slug Signorino)

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LEAD STORY: Americans’ Special Relationship with “Taxes”: It is not just that the secretary of the Treasury owed back taxes for years, or that two other presidential Cabinet-level nominees owed back taxes. In January, federal prosecutors revealed that District of Columbia Councilman Marion Barry, who was already on probation after a 2005 conviction for failing to file tax returns for the years 1999 through 2004, and subsequently almost tauntingly failed to file a return for 2006, has now doubled-down the taunt by failing to file for 2007. And in March, a Georgia state senator proposed punishment for the 22 members of the Legislature who either owed back taxes or had failed to file returns for at least one year since 2002. The 22 were not identified, in compliance with privacy laws, but the Senate’s Democratic leader, Robert Brown, outed himself as one of the 22 in the course of calling his scolding colleague a “bloodsucker.”

Continue reading News of the Weird

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As I sit here at my desk inadvertently watching the UNC/Radford game on my cell phone (nice job on that ACC record Hansbrough! Wish I’d seen it last week though), I came across this article on Slate discussing loss of workplace productivity during the NCAA tournament.

For the record, my editor did try to take my phone away from me when she realized I had the ability to watch games on it. “I’m gonna blog about it!” I protested.

“Whatever,” she said.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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I once saw a man on “Oprah” who always unplugged appliances because he didn’t want to pay for “phantom” electricity that would leak through the plug even when the appliance wasn’t being used. Recently, a coworker told my husband he saved a lot of money unplugging TVs, computers, etc. Am I really wasting money leaving appliances plugged in even if I turn them off?
— Rebecca

I’ve heard people are selling capacitors to lower electrical bills. Is that possible?
— Big Red

With everyone trying to economize these days, you’re going to hear a lot of dubious ideas about reducing energy costs. Here are a couple. We’ll start with the dumber one.

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(Illustration by Slug Signorino)

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LEAD STORY: University of California researchers, on a
Pentagon contract, announced in January success at rigging a live
flower beetle with electrodes and a radio receiver to enable scientists
to control the insect’s flight remotely. Pulses sent to the bug’s
muscles or optic lobes can command it to take off, turn left or right,
or hover, according to a report in MIT’s Technology Review,
and the insect’s “large” size (up to a whopping 4 inches in length)
would enable it to also carry a camera, giving the beetle military uses
such as surveillance or search and rescue. The researchers admired the
native flight-control ability of the beetle so much that they abandoned
developing robot beetles (which required trying to mimic nature).

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PEBBLES GOES BAM-BAM: A 23-year-old woman said someone damaged her truck between midnight and 12:45 a.m. outside her apartment on Roswell Road. “There were dents in the front driver’s door, the driver’s side rearview mirror was damaged, and the fuel door was also damaged,” an officer wrote. “Someone had written, in what appeared to be lipstick, ‘Bitch ass [racial slur]’ and ‘Fuck U’ on the driver’s side windows.” The 23-year-old said she suspects her child’s father’s ex-girlfriend, “Pebbles,” who works at Strokers and Blazing Saddles.

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(Illustration by Tray Butler)

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I recently saw a special on the Large Hadron Collider, which, among other things, hopes to find evidence of the “God particle.” Since physics is not my strong suit, I’ve tried to understand this particle through the library and the Web, but everything I find makes my eyes glaze over. Cecil, please explain the God particle in layman’s terms.

— J.S., Palatine, Ill.

Some people find God in church, some in the great outdoors, but it takes truly transcendent geekiness to find divinity in the Large Hadron Collider.

Your question takes us to the strange world of quantum physics, where most folks find almost nothing makes intuitive sense, and which even I find is best grasped with the aid of some good Cabernet. For years physicists have sought a Theory of Everything that would explain how all the particles and forces in the universe interact to produce the workaday world. So far they’ve made some progress: The so-called Standard Model explains the relationship between three of the four fundamental forces, namely electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force (holds atomic nuclei together), and the weak nuclear force (has to do with radioactivity). However, the Standard Model leaves out that fourth force, gravity – a nontrifling omission – and hasn’t been significantly revised since the heyday of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. The God particle and the Large Hadron Collider are an attempt to get things off the dime.

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LEAD STORY: Belgian workers take sick leave nearly four times as often as U.S. workers, mostly attributed to Belgian law, which grants full salary the first month and then government-guaranteed 80 percent pay indefinitely. A recent study, noted in a January Wall Street Journal report, found that only 5 percent of Belgian leave-takers were proven malingerers, but that the biggest medical problem now is easily diagnosed “depression” (exacerbated by the worsening economy), leading to free-form medical leave-taking and creative treatments often unchallenged, such as for the man who frolicked on the soccer field, bought an Alfa Romeo, and reconnected with old friends (all of which, said his doctor, lessened his depression).

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KEEP UP WITH YOUR PANTS, MAN: An officer got a call about a stolen credit card at an apartment on Westmoreland Circle. A woman said a 27-year-old male friend had come by her apartment that morning and stayed for about two hours. She said he got upset because he was missing some money and his ATM card. While the officer and woman were talking, the friend showed up. He said he had arrived earlier at the woman’s apartment around 10 a.m. “He stated that he had taken his pants off in the living room,” the officer wrote. “He stated that he went into [the woman's] bedroom. He stated when he went back into the living room to get his pants, he saw the locks on the door turning. He stated that he then looked in his pants and discovered his ATM card and $1,900 cash was missing.” Also, he said someone had used his debit card at a gas station in Mableton around 11:15 a.m. He said he felt the woman set him up and that her boyfriend had taken his stuff.

Continue reading this week’s Blotter.

(Illustration by Tray Butler)

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LEAD STORY: Though India is recognized as a world leader in promoting the health benefits of urine, its dominance will be assured by the end of the year when a cow-urine-based soft drink comes to market. Om Prakash, chief of the Cow Protection Department of the RSS organization (India’s largest Hindu nationalist group), trying to reassure a Times of London reporter in February, promised, “It won’t smell like urine and will be tasty, too,” noting that medicinal herbs would be added and toxins removed. In addition to improved health, he said, India needs a domestic (and especially Hindu) beverage to compete with the foreign influence of Coca-Cola and Pepsi.

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HARD TIME STAYING CLEAN? At a pharmacy on Cascade Road, the manager said a man was caught stealing three boxes of Tylenol PM. “He was known for shoplifting soap from the store and has been arrested in the past for shoplifting,” an officer wrote. Apparently, the employees know him as the “Soap Man.” On this day, the Soap Man “was observed walking to the soap aisle and bypassed the soap and continued to aisle 11, the medication aisle,” the officer noted. An employee reportedly stopped the man and recovered the Tylenol PM. But apparently Soap Man left the store before police arrived. Soap Man is described as a 37-year-old man wearing a gray coat.

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