Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S


Magic Wand

Light-fingered Japanese thieves nab 80kg gold tub

TOKYO - Japanese police are scratching their heads over how a gold bathtub worth 120 million yen ($988,100) and weighing some 80 kg was stolen from a hotel near Tokyo.

Staff discovered early on Wednesday that someone had stolen the tub from a shared bathroom for men on the 10th floor of the hotel in Kamogawa, by the Pacific Ocean.

Comment: Hard to say what is most amazing - the feat of the thieves or the fact that 80kg of gold is used to make a bathtub?

No wonder that the Japanese police are scratching their heads!


Wine

Japanese beer for children - Kodomo no nomimono

Can you imagine these products being marketed overseas? With so much concern about "the children" these days we doubt that fake beer for kids would make it past the pitch stage at any beverage company. Well, almost any company. Sure, there's the sparkling grape juice that kids sometimes get on New Years Eve in lieu of champagne, but to have it specifically marketed to kids is a different matter. While Americans would likely overreact and freak out, we haven't seen any such reaction here in Japan and these drinks have been out for a couple of years now.

©Unk

Rocket

The Original Seven



©NASA

In this 1960 photograph, the seven original Mercury astronauts participate in U.S. Air Force survival training exercises at Stead Air Force Base in Nevada. Pictured from left to right are: L. Gordon Cooper, M. Scott Carpenter, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Virgil I. Grissom, Walter Schirra and Donald K. Slayton. Portions of their clothing have been fashioned from parachute material, and all have grown beards from their time in the wilderness. The purpose of this training was to prepare astronauts in the event of an emergency or faulty landing in a remote area.

USA

Pastor with 666 tattoo claims to be divine

The minister has the number 666 tattooed on his arm.

But Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda is not your typical minister. De Jesus, or "Daddy" as his thousands of followers call him, does not merely pray to God: He says he is God.

"The spirit that is in me is the same spirit that was in Jesus of Nazareth," de Jesus says.

Penis Pump

Canada Seeks Man With Groin-Kick Request

GUELPH, Ontario - Police in Ontario are looking for a man who allegedly approached women and asked them to kick him in the groin.

Bizarro Earth

Is tale of a boy killing a giant boar just a load of hogwash?

An 11-year-old Alabama boy hunter has killed a wild hog so large there is widespread speculation that the story, and its accompanying picture, could be a hoax. The boar, after all, apparently measured 9ft 4 in (2m 74cm) from snout to tail and weighed a staggering 75st (476kg), with hams "as big as car tyres".

The animal thus dwarfs "Hogzilla", the famed wild boar killed in south Georgia in 2004, which is now the subject of forthcoming, and assuredly bloodcurdling film. Hogzilla was a mere 8 feet long. The story of the slaying of the Alabama hog, takes a bit of swallowing, as will the hundreds - of thousands - of sausages its killer's father says are now being made from it.

It all began in east Alabama on 3 May, when Jamison Stone, his father, Mike, and two guides went hunting. Jamison, who killed his first deer at age five, said he shot the huge animal eight times with a .50-calibre revolver, and then chased it for three hours through hilly woods, finishing it off with a point-blank shot.

Sheeple

They'll be singing the Blues - Hillary's search for a theme song

Hillary Clinton has asked her suppoorters to select a theme song for her presicential campaign. The choice doesn't matter; they'll be singing the Blues.

Heart

Mid-flight drama ends in airborne birth

"We tied the rope (umbilical cord) with some rope from somewhere, we cut it with something - I don't know what it was because you're not allowed knives and things on aeroplanes any more," he said.

Light Saber

Infestation of mites found in man's ear

A New Zealand man is now sleeping peacefully after years of living with an infestation of mites in his ear finally came to an end.

Paul Balvert's "noisy nightmare" went undiagnosed for two years before it was discovered by a nurse at a specialist clinic.

"For years I had no idea what was wrong," a relieved Mr Balvert told the New Zealand Herald.

UFO

Line up for an alien abduction

ROSWELL, New Mexico - Businesses here have been cashing in on the UFO craze for years -- paintings and replicas of unidentified flying objects and space aliens adorn downtown buildings, and even the McDonald's and Wal-Mart are UFO- and space-themed.