The Nightly Quill

Take some advice from Thai Ngoc:

As songbirds awaken the early risers at dawn on the farm, one resident is already up; in fact, he never slept – not once in the past 33 years.

You’d think going without sleep for that long may have its drawbacks, but not for the man in central Quang Nam province who has never been ill after decades of insomnia. His inability to sleep has not only made him famous, but also represents a “miraculous” phenomenon worthy of scientific study.

Sixty-four-year-old Thai Ngoc, known as Hai Ngoc, said he could not sleep at night after getting a fever in 1973, and has counted infinite numbers of sheep during more than 11,700 consecutive sleepless nights.

“I don’t know whether the insomnia has impacted my health or not. But I’m still healthy and can farm normally like others,” Ngoc said.

Proving his health, the elderly resident of Que Trung commune, Que Son district said he can carry two 50kg bags of fertilizer down 4km of road to return home every day. His wife said, “My husband used to sleep well, but these days, even liquor cannot put him down.” She said when Ngoc went to Da Nang for a medical examination, doctors gave him a clean bill of health, except a minor decline in liver function. Read the rest of this entry »

A man who lost his wife to pneumonia 13 years ago has gone to great lengths to preserve her.

Computer Billing Hell

In March 1992 Andy Mikula living in Dickson City near Scranton, Pennsylvania, received a bill for his as yet unused credit card stating that he owed $0.00. He ignored it and threw it away. In April Andy received another and threw that one away too.

The following month the credit card company sent him a very nasty note stating they were going to cancel his card if he didn’t send them $0.00 by return post. He called them, talked to them, they said it was a computer error and told him they’d take care of it.

The following month Andy decided that it was about time that he tried out the troublesome credit card figuring that if there were purchases on his account it would put an end to his ridiculous predicament. However, in the first store that he produced his credit card in payment for his purchases he found that his card had been canceled.

He called the credit card company who apologized for the computer error once again and said that they would take care of it.

The next day he got a bill for $0.00 stating that payment was now overdue.

Assuming that having spoken to the credit card company only the previous day the latest bill was yet another mistake he ignored it, trusting that the company would be as good as their word and sort the problem out. Read the rest of this entry »

The gas we pass may cause others to snicker, hold their noses or even flee the room.

Although we all suffer gaseous emissions from time to time, flatulence is more of a problem for some than others. Often its just a matter of controlling diet. But such conditions as irritable bowel syndrome, certain medications and lactose intolerance can result in excessive or especially foul-smelling flatulence and thus extreme social embarrassment.

Pueblo-based Under-Tec Corp. offers help with Under-Ease protective underwear for flatulence.

The company’s motto: Wear them for the ones you love.

We get a lot of jokes, acknowledges Buck Weimer, company president and inventor of Under-Ease. But we don’t have any doubt that this is a serious product that serves a purpose.

Under-Ease is somewhat similar to the more-established Flatulence Filter, which absorbs odor and can be concealed in a simple chair cushion. Since it is worn, Under-Ease offers around the clock protection.

Under-Ease is made from a soft, air-tight fabric with an exit hole cut from the back of the airtight material for gas to be expelled; a replaceable filter, which includes two layers of Australian sheep’s wool; and a layer of activated carbon, which traps foul-smelling gas. Read the rest of this entry »

What follows is an actual exchange of letters between David Price (District Representative Land and Water Management Division) and Stephen L. Tvedten (landowner)

STATE OF MICHIGAN

Reply to: GRAND RAPIDS DISTRICT OFFICE STATE OFFICE BUILDING 6TH FLOOR
350 OTTAWA NW GRAND RAPIDS MI 49503-2341
JOHN ENGLER, Governor
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
HOLLISTER BUILDING, PO BOX 30473, LANSING MI 48909-7973
INTERNET: http://www.deq.state.mi
RUSSELL J. HARDING, Director

December 17, 1997

CERTIFIED

Mr. Ryan DeVries 2088 Dagget Pierson, MI 49339

Dear Mr. DeVries:

SUBJECT: DEQ File No. 97-59-0023-1 T11N, R10W, Sec. 20, Montcalm County

It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity:

Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of Spring Pond. A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity. A review of the Department’s files show that no permits have been issued.

Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Michigan Compiled Laws annotated. The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris dams and flooding at downstream locations. We find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all unauthorized activities at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the strewn channel. All restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31, 1998. Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed so that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our staff. Failure to comply with this request, or any further unauthorized activity on the site, may result in this case being referred for elevated enforcement action. We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this matter. Read the rest of this entry »

The squares marked A and B are the same shade of gray.
No Way !!   Yes They Are !!
Read why: Read the rest of this entry »

Are you telling me that there IS a world record for this??

Amazingly there is!!

Terminal 4 at JFK International Airport was the unlikely location for 21-time Guinness record holder Ashrita Furman’s latest attempt to make history. Furman was attempting to break the Guinness record of 29 minutes for rolling an orange with his nose for one mile.

Although rolling an orange with ones nose may look amusing, getting in record-setting form is serious business, said Furman. “It’s down to 29 minutes for the mile and it’s actually very fast, it’s a very intense record and so it’s a challenge to me even though it’s silly so hopefully it’ll work out.”

After 24 minutes and 34 seconds, the orange and then Furman entered the record books, squashing the old record by over 3 minutes. It was the first for the orange, but Furman’s 87th time in the Guinness book.

“Well it’s actually like really physically very, very demanding but besides that a lot of is technique. Being able to smack the orange till you get the greatest amount of distance, and so that took me a while,” said Furman.

David Allen Bawden (born September 22, 1959), is an American citizen who was appointed “Pope Michael I”. He was elected by a group of six conclavists, that included himself and his parents, to fill the vacancy they consider to have been caused by the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958. He is one of a group of self-proclaimed papal claimants (or antipopes), including Fr. Lucian Pulvermacher (proclaimed Pius XIII) in Montana, the late Clemente Domínguez y Gómez (proclaimed Gregory XVII) and his succesor Manuel Alonso Corral (proclaimed Peter II) in Spain. While it has been suggested that the Discordian popery of the world should also be included here, these do not claim to be popes in the sense traditionally understood by the Roman Catholic Church. Unlike other papal pretenders, David Bawden’s election did not involve any previously ordained clergy from the Catholic Church. As he is not and has never been ordained a priest, David Bawden has never offered a Mass as “pope.”

Bawden’s claim to the papacy:

Bawden’s position is that the elections of Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul I, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI were invalid because they are all modernists. Pope Pius X had in Lamentabili Sane, condemned the heresy of Modernism. This Index was supplementary to the general Syllabus of Condemned Errors issued by Pope Pius IX.

In 1907 Pope Pius X had issued Praestantia Scriptura where he imposed automatic excommunication upon all Modernists who remained within the church. He stated:

“We declare and determine that if anyone, which may God forbid, should go forward so brazenly as to defend any proposition reprobated in either of these documents, by that fact itself, he incurs excommunication reserved to the Roman Pontiff.” Read the rest of this entry »

OMG!! A creepy meal….

Michel Lotito (born June 15, 1950) is a French entertainer. Lotito, who was born in Grenoble, is famous as the consumer of undigestables, and is known as Monsieur Mangetout (Mister Eat-it-all).

Lotito’s performances are the consumption of metal, glass, rubber and so on in items such as bicycles, televisions, a Cessna 150, and smaller items which are disassembled, cut-up and swallowed. The aircraft took roughly two years to be ‘eaten’ from 1978 to 1980. He began eating unusual material while a child and has been performing publicly since 1966.

Lotito does not often suffer from ill-effects due to his diet, even after the consumption of materials usually considered poisonous. When performing he consumes around a kilogram of material daily, preceding it with mineral oil and drinking considerable quantities of water during the ‘meal’. He apparently possesses a stomach and intestine with walls of twice the expected thickness, and his digestive acids are, allegedly, unusually powerful, allowing him to digest a certain portion of his metallic meals.

Crime-obsessed South Africans have a powerful new weapon with which to stop likely criminals: the car flamethrower.

Casting a man-high fireball, reportedly with no damage to the paint, the Blaster has been placed on 25 South African vehicles since its introduction last month. At 3,900 rand ($655), it offers a cheap, dramatic defense against carjackers. It has yet to be deemed illegal. South African courts allow killing if convinced that it’s in self-defense. The defense is not unheard of. In last year’s 13,000 carjackings, criminals often brandished weapons or used them with little provocation.

The Blaster squirts liquefied gas from a bottle in the automobile’s trunk through two nozzles, located under the front doors. The gas is then ignited by an electric spark, with fiery consequences. Both sides flame at the same time, regardless of whether the attack is coming from just one side of the vehicle, or whether passersby are on the other side. But the breadth and depth of blast can be modified according to individual preference.

Blaster inventor Charl Fourie, 33, disputed concerns that the flamethrower could burn someone to death. “My personal feeling is that it would definitely blind a person. He will never see again,” he said Read the rest of this entry »

In Honduras, the Lluvia de Peces (Rain of Fishes) is a unique phenomenon that has been occurring for more than a century on a yearly basis in the country of Honduras. It occurs in the Departamento de Yoro, between the months of May and July. Witnesses of this phenomenon state that it begins with is a dark cloud in the sky followed by lightning, thunder, strong winds and heavy rain for 2 to 3 hours. Once the rain has stopped, hundreds of living fish are found on the ground. People take the fish home to cook and eat them. Although some experts have tried to explain the Rain of Fishes as a natural meteorological phenomenon, the fish are not sea water fish, but fresh water fish; they are not dead, but alive; they are not blind, they have eyes; they are not big fish, but small; and the type of fish is not found elsewhere in the area. There is no valid scientific explanation for this phenomenon. Many people believe this phenomenon occurs because of Father José Manuel Subirana, a Spanish catholic missionary and considered by many to be a Saint. He visited Honduras from 1856-1864, and upon encountering so many poor people, prayed for 3 days and 3 nights asking God for a miracle to help the poor people by providing food. The Rain of Fishes has occurred ever since.

Sanju Bhagat’s stomach was once so swollen he looked nine months pregnant and could barely breathe.

Living in the city of Nagpur, India, Bhagat said he’d felt self-conscious his whole life about his big belly. But one night in June 1999, his problem erupted into something much larger than cosmetic worry. An ambulance rushed the 36-year-old farmer to the hospital. Doctors thought he might have a giant tumor, so they decided to operate and remove the source of the bulge in his belly.

“Basically, the tumor was so big that it was pressing on his diaphragm and that’s why he was very breathless,” said Dr. Ajay Mehta of Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai. “Because of the sheer size of the tumor, it makes it difficult [to operate]. We anticipated a lot of problems.” Mehta said that he can usually spot a tumor just after he begins an operation. But while operating on Bhagat, Mehta saw something he had never encountered. As he cut deeper into Bhagat’s stomach, gallons of fluid spilled out — and then something extraordinary happened.

“To my surprise and horror, I could shake hands with somebody inside,” he said. “It was a bit shocking for me.” Read the rest of this entry »

Yokoi Shōichi, March 31, 1915 - September 22, 1997) was a Japanese soldier and celebrity. Born in Saori, Aichi Prefecture, he was conscripted into the Imperial Japanese Army in 1941 and sent to Guam shortly thereafter. In 1944, as American forces reconquered the island, Yokoi went into hiding.

On January 24, 1972, Yokoi was discovered in a remote section of Guam by two of the island’s inhabitants. For 28 years he had been hiding in an underground jungle cave, fearing to come out of hiding even after finding leaflets declaring that World War II had ended.

“It is with much embarrassment that I have returned alive,” he said upon his return to Japan, carrying his rusted rifle at his side. The remark would later become a popular saying

After a whirlwind media tour of Japan, he married and settled down in rural Aichi Prefecture. Having lived alone in a cave for 28 years, Yokoi became a popular television personality, and an advocate of austere living. He was featured in a 1977 documentary called Yokoi and His Twenty-Eight Years of Secret Life on Guam. He would eventually receive the equivalent of $300 in back pay, along with a small pension.

In 1991, he received an audience with Emperor Akihito. He considered the meeting the greatest honor of his life. He had even prepared a speech of regret to read to the emperor. Months later, Yokoi told a Japanese journalist that he had in fact had a deeply personal reason for remaining isolated: “I had a tough childhood, among many unkind relatives,” he explained. “I stuck to the jungle because I wanted to get even with them.”

Yokoi died in 1997 of a heart attack at the age of 82. He was buried at a Nagoya cemetery, under a gravestone that was initially commissioned by his mother in 1955. Visitors to Guam can take a short ropeway ride to ‘Yokoi’s Cave’ a (very rundown) tourist attraction/monument to Yokoi’s life. The cave itself is sealed off; only the entrance and airhole are visible.