Offbeat News
"What is Offbeat News?" you might ask.
Offbeat news items are those events that make you realize that fact is stranger than fiction, the news stories that make you wonder how, why, what on earth were they thinking, and that's just amazing!
But before I begin with this week's items, I would like to point out that the Offbeat News post I wrote last week has had hardly any traffic, since it went missing for two days, and only a few people have since found it, as it's buried below my other articles. If you would like to see the selection of odd news stories that I picked for last week, click here.
Despite it being Offbeat and Bizarre, and therefore worthy of inclusion in this article, I did ignore the Killer Whale incident at Seaworld for two reasons. Firstly, just about everyone has already seen enough of this, and secondly I don't think it was an accident. You may have read that the whales were acting strange in the hours before the tragedy, and this is all related. I don't think this was a lone attack, it was planned. The whales had been discussing this amongst themselves, and the one that attacked the killer drew the short straw. Yes, it's true I tell you! Can't you see that the whole thing was orca-strated...
OK, enough of my bad jokes, and on to the news... This is a selection of news items from the past week that had me laughing and bemused.
Destruction Of Statue Of Christ in Rio De Janeiro Upsets Catholic Church
Brazil's Catholic Church is taking legal action against Hollywood for using unauthorized images of Rio de Janeiro's famous statue of Christ in the apocalyptic movie 2012. The archdiocese is demanding damages from the Columbia Pictures company in Hollywood for showing the destruction of this famous landmark in the disaster movie that came out in 2009.
It seems these days that people have to gripe and complain about everything doesn't it. I wonder if New York City charges every time someone films in Manhattan? I hope they don't want to charge me for my home movies!
I took video of Corcovado (the hill where the statue of Christ stands in Rio De Janeiro) too, do they want compensation?
I wonder how many people flock to New York and star up at the Empire State Building, imagining King Kong climbing up there, or look at the Chrysler Building which has collapsed in at least several movies that I can think of.
Dope caught snorting drugs on police car
Police in Germany arrested a party-goer from a nightclub who they caught trying to snort amphetamines off the roof of their unmarked patrol car.
The man had been lining up the powdered drug on top of the car which was in a car park near the club when he was surprised by the two police officers.
Well I have heard of being caught in the act, but you can't get much more obvious than this
Spring breakers don speedos, pantyhose and head to Kmart
It's the start of Spring Break in Florida, and already the crowds of unruly students have been hitting the headlines at Panama City Beach.
A group of seven college students that were visiting for the weekend were just there to party. As the weather was cold, they put on fancy dress costumes, and headed off to the local Kmart, where they disrupted shoppers until the police arrived.
The students, all men between the ages of 18 and 20, were dressed in speedos, women's wear, wizard costumes and a one even had a lifelike sex toy according to the local Sheriff.
Needless to say, they were rounded up by the police and ordered to leave.
It makes you wonder though, if this was Halloween and not Spring Break, would any action have actually been taken?
Man charged with making over 200 fake calls to 911
The man made a total of 218 calls to the emergency services on three days. He would apparently only talk to female dispatchers, and made remarks that were sexually explicit to them. When troopers arrived on the scene of each of these calls, they found nothing.
The caller was finally traced, arrested and fined $109,000.
I hope you enjoyed these news items from the last week.
More next Wednesday...
Sources:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/offbeat/
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/specials/weirdflorida/blog/
Published by Tony Payne
Tony Payne is a freelance writer who lives on the South Coast of England with his wife Debbie. He has worked in the IT Industry all his life, and has been writing on various sites for the last 10 years. T... View profile
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22 Comments
Post a CommentGreat stuff, thanks for reporting!
Cool stories, Brazil needs to get a life!
Thanks for this. I love reading strange stories!
And to think he could have saved a bunch of money just calling a real phone sex line. Haha, these are great! Thanks for this!
There are some amazing true stories out there aren't there. I enjoyed puttign these together.
This was fun to read!
Great job and idea. I may copy you.
Sometimes the comments are as much fun as the original article :)
Very bizarre news, enjoyed the comments too!
Entertaining article! Loved the whale puns!! :-)