News from a Weird World : Offbeat News 23 March 2011

In this edition of News From A Weird World you can find the following stories, Give Me A Kiss, A Big Boy, Supermarket Scrabble, Cashing In On The Royal Wedding, Pay To Pray, Car Insurance Quotes and more.

News From A Weird World (previously known as Offbeat News) is a selection of bizarre stories, strange stories, odd stories and weird news stories from the past week, that have been cleverly extracted by scouring news sites from around the world.

The stories to be found on News From A Weird World are the kind that are just so bizarre, they make you realize that fact is often stranger than fiction, and make you wonder what on earth people were thinking to get into the news in this way.

This is a selection of weird news stories from the past week that I hope you enjoy, and if you do, please can you help spread the word by sharing the stories with your friends.

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"Give Me A Kiss" : "No!" : BANG!

Those of you who read News From A Weird World regularly and who are from Florida, have argued that I ought to not pick on Floridians as much as I do, since there are dumb people in other parts of the USA, as well as the rest of the world.

So with my intention this week being to try and stay clear of Florida news, I headed off to an Australian news site, and what is the first article that I come across?

Well this is indeed an unusual one, and as you may have already guessed, it's a news story from Florida.

When a 53 year old ex police officer man moved in next door to a 92 year old woman six months ago, it seems that she developed a crush on him.

Things came to a head in the last week, when the woman went to his house, and refused to leave unless he gave her a kiss.

When the man refused, the woman left, but minutes later four shots rang out, all aimed at the man's house, one of which broke a window and covered the man in a shower of broken glass.

So fellow men, should we be concerned if a little old lady comes up to us in the future and demands a kiss?

Read the full story HERE .

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He's Just A Growing Boy But Watch Him Grow!

A three year old boy from China was only 5.7lbs when he was born, but from the age of 3 months he took a liking for food, and apparently cried non stop unless his parents placated him.

Now at the age of three, he is five times the size of a normal toddler, and weighs 132lbs (well at least that was last week)!

The boy, named Lu Hao, eats three large bowls of rice a day, more than his parents combined, and they seem unable to cope with his continued weight gain.

The situation has become so serious that now his mother is unable to pick him up, and since he hates walking, she takes him to school on a motorcycle.

The family have tried to get him to do exercise, and have taken him swimming to a local river, but it seems that whenever he does anything it just makes him even hungrier.

One wonders if the cure is to just suffer his cries for food, and to feed him normal amounts, while he gradually loses weight, or to keep on as now and suffer the consequences of him reaching a weight where he will be unable to move at all.

Read the full story HERE and see the photos.

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Supermarket Scrabble : Now That's My Kind Of Game

British supermarket chain Tesco thought that they were going a good thing, when they changed the labels on their herb and spice containers to show a large initial letter ( see pictures ), to make it easier for shoppers to find the one that they wanted.

The problem is though that when staff come to stock up the shelves, they find that naughty shoppers have re-arranged the containers on the shelves to spell out rude words, such as B-O-T-T-O-M, B-O-O-B-S and S-P-A-N-K-I-N-G.

Known at Supermarket Scrabble, the game has taken off in a big way, and has spread to other stores and also other products, such as birthday cards with large letters.

The cure? I don't know, is there a cure for schoolboy humor? It certainly makes shopping more fun. Knowing my luck though, if I tried it I would get caught.

Read the full story HERE .

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Guess Who Is Cashing In On The Royal Wedding

Every time there is a big event, like a Royal Wedding, it seems that just about everyone jumps on the bandwagon and floods the marketplace with products to commemorate the event.

It came as a bit of a surprise to visitors to the gift shop at Prince Charles's Highgrove Estate last week to find that they were selling nothing less than a jigsaw of Prince William and Kate Middleton, as well as other Royal Wedding memorabilia.

Prince Charles is not the only one to be found cashing in on the event of the year however, with Kate Middleton's parents selling Royal Wedding themed items on their party gift web site, including Rule Britannia trivia scratch cards that expose the words "Off With Your Head" should the wrong answer be scratched off.

Even Lady Diana's brother, Lord Spencer, is selling April wedding vacation packages to wealthy Americans, which include a guided tour of the estate.

So what's next? Is Nanna Elizabeth about to open rooms in Buckingham Palace for Bed & Breakfast, with VIP views of the happy couple arriving after the wedding ceremony.

Read the full story HERE .

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If You Pay To Pray The Nuns Say Hurray!

When the nuns of the Holy Trinity Monastery near Oxford in England were looking for ways to help pay their bills, they came up with the idea of offering prayer retreats.

Now these are not your typical prayer retreats, as these are set to be online retreats, which cost between £10 ($15) and £150 ($225) per program, each lasting five days.

During the program, participants are guided in prayer through pod casts, reading texts and online chat.

It sounds good in theory, but how do the people who subscribe to these online retreats know whether they are being duped or not.

We all know that should you dial a number that offers erotic chat, while you might be aroused by believing that you are talking to a gorgeous young woman, in reality she could be a grandmother in her 60's and with no teeth.

The same could be true when signing up for this service, you never really know who you are dealing with, unless of course they have video chat.

Read the full story HERE .

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How Much Was That You Wanted To Insure My Car?

Jake Redshaw from Salford near Manchester in England saved up and bought himself a six year old Vauxhall Corsa for £3,000 ($4,500) when he turned 17.

Being at the minimum driving age in the UK he expected to pay about the same for insurance as it cost him to buy the car, but he was horrified when he saw the quote from the AA (Automobile Association), who are one of the largest vehicle insurers in the UK.

The quote was more than just a little above what he expected, in fact it was 10 times higher, at £32,819 ($52,000).

The AA did apologize and say that the quote was due to an error, but statistically speaking, even though only 12% of drivers in the UK are in the 17-24 age bracket, they are responsible for 30% of all accidents.

But the quote as compared to the average which is between £12,000 and £13,000, well that's worth putting in a frame.

Read the full story HERE .

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I hope you enjoyed this edition of News From A Weird World as much as I enjoyed compiling all the stories.

You can now also find links to all of the News From A Weird World and Offbeat News editions at Squidoo , and if you do enjoy these weekly Offbeat News articles, please could you help share them with your friends etc. I am sure they could use a good laugh too.

News Reports Are Taken From The Following Sources:

ABC News Australia
Courthouse News
Demotix
Digital Spy
Football 365
Metro UK
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
The Bournemouth Echo
The Daily Mail
The Daily Telegraph
The London Evening Standard
The Sun

You Can Read Previous Editions Of News From A Weird World Here

For more fun at the expense of victims around the world, take a look at the previous editions of News From A Weird World:

2_Mar_2011 - 9_Mar_2011 - 16_Mar_2011
2_Feb_2011 - 9_Feb_2011 - 16_Feb_2011 - 23 Feb 2011
5_Jan_2011 - 12_Jan_2011 - 19_Jan_2011 - 26_Jan_2011
1_Dec_2010 - 8_Dec_2010 - 15_Dec_2010 - 22_Dec_2010 - 29_Dec_2010
3_Nov_2010 - 10_Nov_2010 - 17_Nov_2010 - 24_Nov_2010
6_Oct_2010 - 13_Oct_2010 - 20_Oct_2010 - 27_Oct_2010
1_Sep_2010 - 8_Sep_2010 - 15_Sep_2010 - 22_Sep_2010 - 29_Sep_2010
4_Aug_2010 - 11_Aug_2010 - 18_Aug_2010 - 25_Aug_2010
7_Jul_2010 - 14_Jul_2010 - 21_Jul_2010 - 28_Jul_2010
2_Jun_2010 - 9_Jun_2010 - 16_Jun_2010 - 23_Jun_2010 - 30_Jun_2010
5_May_2010 - 12_May_2010 - 19_May_2010 - 26_May_2010
21_Apr_2010 - 28_Apr_2010
3_Mar_2010 - 10_Mar_2010 - 17_Mar_2010 - 24_Mar_2010 - 31_Mar_2010
2_Feb_2010

As always, your comments on any of these news stories are appreciated, and if you enjoy News From A Weird World, please share this edition with your friends.