Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S


Pumpkin

He ain't heavy... Italy's metal brother



Image
©REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo
Friar Cesare Bonizzi (or Fratello Metallo, "Metal Friar") (C) poses with his group for a Reuters photo after a rehearsal session in downtown Milan, July 10 2008.

Dressed in his traditional brown robe, sandals and twirling the rope around his waist, 62-year old Friar Cesare Bonizzi is no ordinary heavy metal rocker.

But as guitarists around him grind out heavy notes, the long-white-bearded Capuchin, a former missionary in Ivory Coast, has no qualms bobbing his head and shouting lyrics about alcohol, sex, tobacco and life in general into his microphone.

Snowman

Jim Smiths gather to honor Jim Smiths

The best thing about the Jim Smith Society is Jim Smith, according to Jim Smith.

"I've never met a Jim Smith I didn't like," said Smith, 71, of Vancouver. "I'm still looking."

Here's his chance. A baseball roster of Jim Smiths -- 25, plus relatives -- converged on Pittsburgh on Thursday for the Jim Smith Society Fun Fest, which runs through Sunday.

Recycle

UK: Armed robbers swept away by grandma with a broom

A gang of would-be robbers armed with hammers was sent packing by a grandmother wielding a broom. Anne Withers, 55, attacked three hooded men with her 4ft brush when they raided the convenience store where she works.

The thieves, carrying claw hammers, burst into Premier News in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, as Mrs Withers was opening up the shop with her boss, Guljinder Hayer. They began beating Mr Hayer and demanding cash.

Penis Pump

North Korea's "Hotel of Doom" wakes from its coma



Ryugyong Hotel
©Reuters
The 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel splits the sky over Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. Picture taken April 24, 2002.

Seoul - North Korea's phantom hotel is stirring back to life. Once dubbed by Esquire magazine as "the worst building in the history of mankind," the 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel is back under construction after a 16-year lull in the capital of one of the world's most reclusive and destitute countries.

Smiley

Satire to Sue New Yorker

In an unprecedented legal move that should shakeup the dictionary industry already under siege by critics and linguists, Satire - the word and its definition - has filed suit against The New Yorker for classifying its cartoon depiction of Barack and Michele Obama as satire.

"Words can no longer stand by and let the media abuse them without retribution," said Satire's lawyer, Noah Webster VI. "Words have rights too. But more importantly, they have real meaning and represent to people the truth. The courts have said so."

Smiley

Chile: Activist stripper arrested for subway pole dances

A stripper who danced on the poles of Santiago subway trains to challenge the prudishness of Chilean society was arrested on Thursday during one of her lightning performances.

Monserrat Morilles, 26, surprised subway riders all week stripping to skimpy underwear, but she refused tips.

Comment: The Surrealists would have been proud...


Coffee

A Betty Ford clinic for jihadis

PlayStations, new kitchens and art classes are part of Saudi Arabia's softly, softly approach to rehabilitating terrorists

terrorist jail
©Unknown

Bizarro Earth

UK: Young mother finds a Lithuanian crane driver living in her shed

The Lithuanian crane driver would have been the perfect tenant - he was house-proud, scrupulously neat and tidy and an energetic gardener.

In the space of a week he turned a shed at the bottom of an overgrown garden in Banbury, Oxfordshire, into a haven with all the creature comforts of home, including a television and juicer. The only problem was that the shed's owner, Kelly Dudley, had no idea she was sharing her garden with a stranger.

At first Ms Dudley, 25, assumed that the figure in blue overalls had been sent by her landlord to clear the foliage. The truth slowly dawned when she spotted him emerging from the shed on Sunday morning looking as though he had enjoyed a good night's sleep. It turned out that he had.

Wine

Carla Bruni 'hurt' by critics of new album

Paris - France's first lady Carla Bruni said Friday she was "hurt" by frosty reactions to her new album from critics of her husband President Nicolas Sarkozy, as the much-hyped record went on sale across Europe.

Half a million people logged on to the web to listen to the third album by the supermodel-turned-chanteuse, "Comme Si De Rien N'Etait" (Simply), ahead of its official release, according to figures from her record label Naive.

But the '60s-flavored album has sparked some mocking reviews and an outpouring of vitriol on the Internet by French voters hostile to the right-wing leader.

"Of course it hurts me, but I also find it quite natural," Bruni said in an interview on RTL radio Friday.

Pumpkin

Directionally Challenged Go Looking For God - End Up Devil Worshippers By Mistake

A group of American directionally challenged (DC) people from Mississippi, who went looking for God, became devil worshippers by mistake.

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Santa or Satan?