Man gulps 11.5 pounds, wins Ohio chili contest
MASON, Ohio - A man nicknamed "Humble Bob" stuffed himself with 11.5 pounds of a local specialty called chili-spaghetti in only about 10 minutes to claim victory in a holiday eating contest. Bob Shoudt won $2,500 at the inaugural Skyline Chili Spaghetti eat-off Monday at Kings Island amusement park.
"Humble Bob" dashed to an early lead, sucking down more than two pounds in less than a minute.
Shoudt, of Philadelphia, is ranked No. 5 by the International Federation of Competitive Eating.
He did so well at vacuuming up the pasta mixture Monday that he narrowly beat the federation's top-ranked competitive eater, Joey Chestnut. Chestnut won this year's July 4 hot dog-eating contest at New York's Coney Island with 59 dogs in 10 minutes.
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Cat survives 70-mile trip under owner's truck
GILBERT, Ariz. - A cat survived a 2 1/2-hour trip on a spare tire under her owner's truck. Gil Smith recently drove from his Gilbert home 70 miles away for a business meeting in Kearny. When he got out of the truck, he heard a cat in distress and realized it was his.
Smith said the cat, Bella, was hysterical, shaky and tired, but was smart enough to know not to jump off the tire as the truck was moving.
Smith and his wife have adopted three indoor cats, three goats and three chickens. But Smith said Bella, an outdoor cat the couple adopted years ago, has a special place in his wife's heart.
Smith said he canceled his meeting with a state Department of Economic Security official who had driven 50 miles to get to Kearny so he could get Bella home.
It was either that, or, he jokes, get a divorce.
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Suspected car burglar gets a dirty dumping
TAMPA, Fla. - A 22-year-old suspected truck burglar made a dirty mistake after he tried to hide inside a portable toilet on Saturday. Tampa police said the man broke into two pickup trucks at a parking lot and the owner of the second truck fought the suspect and chased him to a nearby construction site.
The suspect tried to hide in the Port-O-Let, but the victim found him and turned it over, covering him in huge amounts of human waste.
The man was been charged with auto burglary and possession of burglary
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Malaysian man gets nut stuck in delicate place
KUALA LUMPUR - A Malaysian welder had to have a nut removed from around his penis after an attempt to lengthen it before he gets engaged next week went embarrassingly wrong, a news report said Sunday.
The nut got stuck on his penis following an erection, the Star newspaper said, forcing him to seek help at a hospital in southern Johor state.
Staff from the Sultanah Aminah hospital had to drain some blood from the penis and cut away a top layer of skin before the object could be removed, the newspaper said.
It said the fire and rescue department were also involved in trying to remove the nut from the unnamed welder, who is in his 20s and hoped the nut would weigh down his penis to make it longer.
"The patient is now recovering and we hope to discharge him today (Sunday)," hospital director Daud Abdul Rahim told the Star.
On August 25, another young man in Kuala Lumpur had tried to increase his sexual prowess by slipping a steel ring around his penis, forcing the fire department to cut off the ring after doctors were unable to remove it, the newspaper said.
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Iowa man accused of offering bribe with sandwich
IOWA CITY, Iowa - Iowa City police said a man who was driving drunk tried to bribe a police officer — with a sandwich. Police said a 25-year-old man was charged with drunken driving early Sunday morning after an officer saw him driving with his headlights off and pulled him over.
Police said the man was riding with a police officer in a squad car when he offered the officer free sub sandwiches if he could go home.
The officer declined.
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Why it's so hard to swat a fly
CHICAGO - The brains of flies are wired to avoid the swatter, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
At the mere hint of a threat, the insects adjust their preflight stance to flee in the opposite direction, ensuring a clean getaway, they said in a finding that helps explain why flies so easily evade swipes from their human foes.
"These movements are made very rapidly, within about 200 milliseconds, but within that time the animal determines where the threat is coming from and activates an appropriate set of movements to position its legs and wings," Michael Dickinson of the California Institute of Technology said in a statement.
"This illustrates how rapidly the fly's brain can process sensory information into an appropriate motor response," said Dickinson, whose research appears in the journal Current Biology.
Dickinson's team studied this process in fruit flies using high-speed digital imaging equipment and a fancy fly swatter.
In response to a threat from the front, the fly moves its middle legs forward, leans back and raises its back legs for a backward takeoff. If the threat is from the side, the fly leans the other way before takeoff.
The findings offer new insight into the fly nervous system, and lends a few clues on how to outsmart a fly.
"It is best not to swat at the fly's starting position," Dickinson said. Instead, aim for the escape route.
Dickinson, a bioengineer, has devoted his life's work to the study of insect flight. He has built a tiny robotic fly called Robofly and a 3-D visual flight simulator called Fly-O-Vision.
This is TheOldGuy reporting from
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3 comments
I love the one about the guy getting caught in the outdoor potty ! LOL
Thanks Steve!