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Here we go, spanning the globe in trying to find unusual, not-oft-repeated, and somewhat lighthearted events that you get rarely elsewhere, and never without the my precious pearls of wisdom accompanying them!
Story # 1: The funny sh... er, stuff- God created
Headline: "Box seat: scientists solve the mystery of why wombats have cube-shaped poo", from London's The Guardian
Frankly, I didn't even know the poor dears pooped cubes, but there it is...
Apparently scientists were baffled at how a non-cubic bu- er, you know- could produce poop briquettes, but after one enterprising vet opened up a wombat hit by a car, he found that the were cubes before reaching, shall we say, the light at the end of the tunnel. Again apparently, the bugger's intestines have a 'some rigid, some flexible' quality that shapes the pooplet. I don't remember that functionality on my Play-Doh squeezer back in the day...
Story # 2: In Russia, it is ALL Government
Headline: "Ex-PM Medvedev regrets his Twitter account is marked as a government one", from Tass
Dmitry Medvedev had a personal twitter account- no, he hasn't dropped it over censorship or 'Cossack Lives Matter' or anything like that- with 4.6 MILLION followers. His problem- he sits on Russia's Security Council, and since Twitter, according to him, considers Russia one of a group of "countries with which relations are not very simple", it automatically gets shoved into a government account. Which means, he's got a personal account which is government whether he likes it or not. Which also means he can't just share that meme about Putin and the drunken Polar Bear without consequences...
Story # 3: This is a prize? To each their own...
Headline: "Swedish Covid nurse to watch entire film festival alone in lighthouse", from BBC News
And yes, Lisa Enroth won this as her prize which she applied for and beat out 12,000 other fans of the Goteborg Film Festival- alone (save for one security person to watch out for her) with a lighthouse and a 60 movie package that everyone else will have to pay to stream. " Ms Enroth, who said she has been "drained of energy" due to the pandemic, will spend a week living alone in the Pater Noster lighthouse on Hamneskar island, without a phone, computer, books or any other form of entertainment."
Me, I'd be drained of energy trying to watch all those movies. No word on the popcorn concession...
Story # 4: Think, 'Hansel and Gretl'...
Headline: "Russian Artist Brings Baba Yaga Lego Set to Life" from Moscow Times
Baba Yaga, the old grandmotherly type that consumes bad little boys and girls, is being pitched to become a Lego set.
(Artem) Bizyaev’s Lego design includes figures of Baba Yaga as well as her
companions Vasilisa the Fair, Bayun the cat and Vova the frog — plus, of
course, Baba Yaga’s hut on chicken legs.
The hut comes equipped
with all the accessories an ancient witch of the forest might need,
from cookware and dishes to the giant mortar she uses to fly around in
her free time.
While Baba Yaga is notorious for her child-eating
ways, she also occasionally helps other Slavic folk characters who
happen to wander into her forest. But only occasionally.
Friday it was announced that Artem and BY had received the votes needed in the Lego design contest to be considered for commercial production. I wonder when the Freddy Kruger set gets pitched...
Story # 5: Off again, on again, gone again, Harrigan
Headline: "Banned 1969 British royal family documentary leaked on YouTube swiftly taken down" from The South African
In 1969, a 110-minute film documenting a week in the life of England's Royal Family came out. It was meant to "humanize" the Windsors, but in their opinion it did more to satirize them, with bits where Elizabeth compared the American ambassador to a gorilla, and other such bits to which critic Michael McCaffrey says:
“That premise doesn’t fare so well when the Queen goes through her
stunning jewelry collection, marveling at the glorious history of
pillaging that has bequeathed her such impressive accoutrements.”
After it was originally shown, the BBC had it suggested to them it never see the light of day. Which it wouldn't have, except for Netflix. Their show, The Crown, apparently discussed the making of the show... which led an unknown someone to get ahold of the original and leak it to YouTube.
Story # 6: You could've at least bought me dinner...
Headline: "Man finds gold coins in Germany, but reward unlikely" from Deutsche Welle
So this guy was working a landscaping detail in a dink town called Dinklage (see what I did there?) in NW Germany, and stumbled onto several buried plastic containers that contained an estimated $600,000+ in gold and other cash. He dutifully reported it to the police, expecting a reward. However, the cache was, according to the court, neither lost (as it had been purposefully hidden) nor a 'lost treasure' (as several coins were minted 2016, so they couldn't really be considered under the treasure law). Rub is, the cops haven't been able to locate an owner (can you say, 'inefficient laundering of money?').
Story # 7: More monkey see, monkey do
Headline: "Mysterious monoliths make multiple appearances in Finland" from Helsinki Times
Our final story is a familiar one to some of us- first, it was in Utah where the "monolith" thing occurred. And now, it has spread at least to Finland-
The story says that "several" have appeared there, including this one in Nurmijärvi, so I looked the phenomenon up, and here's what I found:
Ahmenabad, India
Casablanca, Morocco
4 in Austria
3 in Belgium
Zlin district, Czech Republic
4 in Finland
4 in France
10 in Germany
A field near Budapest, Hungary
5 in Italy
4 in the Netherlands
Kristiansand, Norway
2 in Poland (one roped off for a possible increase in area radiation)
2 in Romania....
I knew about the wombat poo, the rest made me think what the hell
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