News of the Weird M519, March 19, 2017

[Chuck Shepherd]

WEIRDNUZ.M519 (News of the Weird, March 19, 2017)
by Chuck Shepherd

Copyright 2017 by Chuck Shepherd.  All rights reserved.

Lead Story                                  
              
* Perhaps there are parents who (according to the Cinepolis movie
chain) long to watch movies in theaters while their children (aged 3-
and-up) frolic in front in a "jungle-gym" playground inside the same
auditorium.  If so, the company's two "junior" movie houses
(opening this very week in San Diego and Los Angeles) may bring a
new dimension to "family entertainment."  Another view, though, is
that the noise (often "screaming"), plus the overhead lighting
required for parents to monitor their tykes' equipment-usage, plus
the planned $3 ticket surcharge, will soon create (according to the
Guardian critic) a movie-going "apocalypse."  [The Guardian
(London), 3-8-2017]

Can't Possibly Be True
                             
* (1) The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in January granted
IBM's 2010 application for a patent on "out-of-office" e-mail
message software (even though such messages have of course been
ubiquitous for two decades) after the company finally convinced
examiners that its patent had enough software tweaks on it to
qualify.  (Critics, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
laughed at the uselessness of the tweaks.)  (2) Also in January, the
Office granted Daniel Dopps a patent for Adhesive Vaginal
Lipstick, which his Mensez Technologies claims can cause the labia
minora to tighten so strongly as to retain menstrual fluid until the
woman can deal with build-up in privacy. [Ars Technica, 3-1-2017]
[News Limited via Fox News, 2-21-2017]

News of the Pretentious

* Why live with a cat if one cannot take it out for some wine
together?  The Apollo Peak, in Denver, and the Pet Winery, in Fort
Myers, Fla., serve a variety of the real grape to humans and non-
alcoholic proprietary drinks for the kitties to enjoy tableside (or
underneath).  "Pinot Meow" ($12) in Denver and "Meow &
Chandon" ($15) in Fort Myers, are specialties--basically watered
catnip, according to a February New York Times report (so the
felines can also get buzzed).  The wine outing is the human's
preference, of course, with a loftier cachet than the "happy hour"
most cats might prefer (say, a "sardine bar").  [New York Times, 2-
15-2017]

* "I tried the $5,000 hamburger, and it was absolutely worth it,"
wrote the apparently straight-faced CNBC reviewer Robert Frank in
February, describing his meal at the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay
restaurant Fleur.  (The burger included Waygu beef, foie gras, and
truffles, and was served with a similarly inexplicably-priced wine.)
Other recent consumer challenges:  an $18 cup of coffee at
Brooklyn's Extraction Lab; a $100 bottle of Norwegian iceberg
water (Svalbardi.com); a $2,000 pizza at New York City's Industry
Kitchen (caviar, truffles, gold flakes); and a $25,000 taco at the
Grand Velas Los Cabos resort in Mexico (caviar, brie, Kobe beef,
langoustine lobster, rare tequila--and once again with the gold
flakes).  [CNBC, 2-23-2017] [WABC-TV (New York City), 2-8-
2017] [Fox Business, 3-3-2017] [Industry Kitchen, 12-17-2016]
[Houston Chronicle, 3-9-2017]

Wait, What?

* Anglers fighting to preserve  choice spots on the fishing pier on
Sebastian Inlet, north of Vero Beach, Fla., have taken to tossing
lead weights and other items at "competitors," especially those who
approach the pier to fish directly from their boats.  Such territory-
marking by the piersters includes, according to a February report in
Florida Today, perhaps a version of classic mammal behavior, like
strategic urination and hurling their feces at the waterborne
invaders.  [Florida Today, 2-20-2017]

Government in Action

* Illinois has problems:  a $130 billion unfunded-pension crisis, 19
months without a budget, the lowest credit rating and highest
property taxes in the country, and murder rate in Chicago.
However, at least the state House of Representatives is not standing
by idly.  In February, it moved to designate October 2017 as Zombie
Preparedness Month (basically, adding "zombie invasion" to the list
of mobilizations for any natural disaster and urging residents to
stockpile food and supplies for up to 72 hours).  [Wall Street
Journal, 3-7-2017]

* Lawyers for former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. have convinced
federal officials that his bipolar disorder was "caused" by the stress
of being a Congressman and thus that he is entitled to "total
disability" worker compensation for an "on-the-job" injury--and
thus to about $100,000 a year, tax-free, according to a February
Chicago Tribune report.  (Jackson, 51, also receives Social Security
disability payments.)  Lawyers said his disorder (often attributed to
genetic factors) surfaced during an investigation into Jackson's
looting of his campaign treasury for luxury goods and vacations
(charges eventually settled with a guilty plea).  Jackson dated his
onset to June 2012, meaning that his last 72 House votes came
while "totally"  disabled.  [Chicago Tribune, 2-23-2017]

Bright Ideas

* A councilman in Overtornea, Sweden, introduced a bill (a
"motion") that workers be given paid "sex breaks" during the
business day in order to improve well-being and, thus, job
performance.  The primary beneficiaries would be married, fertile
couples, but all workers would receive the benefit. And employers,
said Councillor Per-Erik Muskos, would have to "trust" their
employees because some surely would "cheat" (by not having sex!). 
[International Business Times, 2-21-2017]

* Not Clever Enough:  Daniel Crowninshield, 54, pleaded guilty in
federal court in Sacramento in 2016 to illegally manufacturing
assault weapons that had no serial numbers--despite efforts to
circumvent the law by claiming that his customers actually "made"
their own weapons using his equipment.  Crowninshield (known as
"Dr-Death" online), an expert machinist, would take a "blank" metal
casting and, using special equipment and computer programs, create
the firing mechanism for a numberless AR-15--provided the
customer presses a button to start the process.  "Pressing the
button," Crowninshield figured, made the customer the creator, not
a buyer or transferee of the gun, and thus exempt from federal law.
In February, Judge Troy Nunley, unimpressed, sentenced
Crowninshield to three years and five months in prison.
[Department of Justice press release, 2-16-2017]

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

* "Life's full of peaks and valleys, man," Californian Georgiy
Karpekin told a reporter, but January 18th seems all-valley.
Karpekin has both a pickup truck and a car, and as he was leaving
Sacramento City College that day during violent storms, a falling
tree crushed the truck.  When he got home, he learned that the same
storm had taken down another tree--on top of his car.  (Karpekin,
insured and uninjured, called himself  "the luckiest guy.") [KTXL-
TV (Sacramento), 1-19-2017]

Readers' Choice

* Miami, Fla., defense lawyer Stephen Gutierrez caused quite a
spectacle on March 8th when, representing a man accused of arson,
he rose to address jurors, and his pants appeared to catch fire.  He
insisted afterward that a malfunctioning e-cigarette caused smoke to
billow from his pocket, but observers had a field day with
metaphors and "stunt" theories.  [Miami Herald, 3-8-2017]

* Despite an exaggerated, widely-read headline in London's Daily
Mail, the recent death of a 50-year old man in Japan was indeed
pornography-related.  The man was a hoarder of porn magazines,
living alone with an unimaginably large collection, and when he
suffered a fatal heart attack sometime last year, he collapsed atop
the piles, where his body was found in March 2017.  (The Daily
Mail headline had him "crushed" to death under a six-ton stack, but
the Mail conceded below the headline that he might have just
fallen.)   [Daily Mail, 3-3-2017; Gizmodo.com, 3-6-2017]

A News of the Weird Classic (June 2013)

* Chengdu, China, barber Liu Deyuan, 53, still provides traditional
"eye-shaving," in which he holds the lid open and runs a razor
across its inner surface.  Then, using a thin metal rod with a round
tip, he gently massages the inside of each lid.  Liu told Chengdu
Business Daily in April [2013] that he had never had an accident
(though the reporter balked at volunteering for him), and a highly
satisfied customer reported afterward that his eyes felt "moist"
(surely the easiest part of the story to accept) and his vision
"clearer."  [South China Morning Post, 4-15-2013]

     Thanks This Week to Jim Weber, Elaine Weiss, Bob
Stewart, Neb Rodgers, Robin Daley, Mark Hazelrigg, Gerald
Thomason, Paul Kaplan, Alex Boese, and Chuck Hamilton, among
others, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.
                     ****
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