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News of the Weird

9/17/2014

A nerd’s rhapsody

Nicholas Felton’s latest annual recap of his personal communications data is now available for just $30. Key findings, graphically presented, of Nicholas’ busy 2013 (according to a report by FiveThirtyEight.com): He received 44,041 texts and 31,769 emails, had 12,464 face-to-face conversations and 320 phone calls (all detailed by communicatee, from where, at what time, in what language). He reported 385 conversations, for example, with female cashiers, and 54,963 exclamation points were used across all methods of written communication. (The 2012 report went for $35, but is, along with 2010 and 2011, “sold out,” according to feltron.bigcartel.com.)

Can’t possibly be true

When he was 19, Rene Lima-Marin (with a pal) robbed two Aurora, Colorado, video stores at gunpoint and, winning no favors from the judge, received back-to-back sentences totaling 98 years. In 2008, eight years into the sentence, Lima-Marin was mistakenly released and, until this year, was a model citizen, employed, married with a son, on good terms with his parole officer. However, the mistake was found in January, and he was returned to prison, and according to his lawyers in their August appeal, the original sentence has been reimposed, thus moving his release date to the year 2104.

Close enough for government work

CNA - Stop HIV Iowa

Florida was one of 26 states to decline billions in federal funding under the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) to establish their own state insurance “exchanges” (including expanding their state Medicaid programs). Florida legislators chose instead to offer a separate state program, funded at less than $1 million, to provide a small level of assistance, including help to the 764,000 people whose low income qualified neither for Medicaid nor Obamacare subsidies. The Tampa Bay Times reported in August that, according to the most recent tally, the nine private plans under Florida Health Choices had registered 30 people (26 of whom receive only discount plans for prescription drugs or vision care).

Wait. What?

Guests at the May wedding of Shona Carter-Brooks in Ripley, Tennessee, reported that the bride’s idea for integrating her month-old daughter into the ceremony consisted of tying her (“well-secured,” she said later) to the long train of her wedding dress, dragging the child as the bride walked the aisle. Carter-Brooks was forced to take to her Facebook page in defense: People always “have something negative to say,” she wrote, but her wedding was “exclusive and epic.”

First-world dilemmas

Plastic surgeons, first in University of Missouri research in 2000 and recently in a study by Singapore doctors in the journal of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, have postulated that the “ideal” navel is basically vertically shaped with slight hooding — and, of course, an “innie.” The earlier study “analyzed” photos of 147 females aged 18 to 62, while the Singapore surgeons gazed at shots of 37 Playboy playmates and used a computerized tool to measure “vertical ratio,” “midline horizontal position,” length “from the xiphoid process … to the lower limit of the vulvar cleft,” and how nearly oval-shaped the belly buttons were.

The Aristocrats

Ten years ago, New York City skyscraper heir Robert Durst beat a murder charge by claiming self-defense, and now lives more quietly in Houston. However, police in that city accused Durst in July of, “without provocation,” urinating on a cash register in a CVS store, “drenching” a candy rack.

Least competent criminals

A 20-year-old woman was arrested in Seattle in August after calling police to complain that she was being harassed by a man who was following her. Police arrived to find that the “stalker” was simply trying to get his phone back after the woman stole it from him while he was napping on a bus.

Recent American scenes

A Washington State Patrol lieutenant pulled over a 28-year-old drunk driver on Aug. 9 in a logistically impressive arrest. The lieutenant, when he spotted the driver, happened to be in the 36-foot-long motor home converted to the department’s mobile unit for processing DUIs, but nonetheless maneuvered the vehicle well enough to pursue and stop the driver. …

Sarah Espinosa, 22, crashed into a fire station in New Hyde Park, New York, on Aug. 4, notable for the involvement of two factors — alcohol and the presence of a python draped around her neck. (She was charged with having just stolen the snake from a Petco store.) CV

Read more weird news at www.WeirdUniverse.net.

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