The Longest Ride

May 20, 2013

CHICAGO  — A manager of Chicago's Navy Pier rode the tourist spot's Ferris wheel for more than two days, bringing the world record for the longest ride to the birthplace of the amusement park favorite.

Clinton Shepherd spent 48 hours, 8 minutes and 25 seconds riding Navy Pier's Ferris wheel over the weekend. Shepherd is park operations manager at Navy Pier.  It was not clear who was managing park operations over the weekend whilst Shepherd was spinning.  Nor was it clear whether Shepherd was paid during the period of his frolic on the Ferris wheel.

He calls it "a very overwhelming experience," made easier by the support of friends, family and the city of Chicago.

Guinness World Records allowed him to have one five-minute break each hour. He played hours of videogames to stay awake during the ride, and watched James Bond and Batman movies. Supporters followed him on Twitter.

The first Ferris wheel was built in 1893 in Chicago for the World's Columbian Exposition.  It was nothing like the one shown here.

Eyeoch, Chinese Man Cuts Off Own Genitals With Scissors

May 19, 2013

The next time he fights with his girlfriend, he'll be less cocky.

A drunk man in Jilong, Taiwan reportedly used scissors to cut off his own penis and testicles during an argument with his girlfriend, according to Chinese newspaper Kwong Wah Yit Poh, as translated by The Toronto Star Online.

The 46-year-old, whose name has not been released, reportedly flushed his love muscle down the toilet before his girlfriend rushed him to the hospital. By the time he got there, he had fallen into a coma due to blood loss, according to Rocket News 24's translation of the Japanese-language website Big Globe News.

Doctors said that had the man not flushed his penis, they likely would have been able to reattach it, according to Big Globe News.

With only 1.2 inches of manhood left, the man is reportedly still able to urinate. He has reportedly emerged from his coma and is expected to recover.

Is this story too bizarre to be believed?

It's not the first time a man intentionally dismembered his member. In June 2012, a California man cut off his penis with an exacto knife.  The photos depicted above demonstrate the relative frequency of this bizarre procedure.

Blow Jobs Recommended by Calif. Doctor

California Doctor Suggests Patient Have Oral Sex With Husband To Treat Gag Reflex »

May 17, 2013

Dr. Deep Throat, I presume? J. Peter Zegarra, a California doctor, has been publicaly reprimanded by the state's medical board after he told a patient to practice oral sex on her husband. The patient had expressed concerns her gag reflex would interfere with an upper-gastrointestinal endoscopy, according to CBS affiliate KOVR. The patient, an unidentified woman, complained that the Sacramento-based colo-rectal surgeon told her to practice oral sex on her husband "twice a week" prior to the procedure ...

How About a Nice Semen Hair Rinse? A Facial?

May 19, 2013

Jared Weston Walter, 26, is accused of masturbating and ejaculating on the heads of TriMet bus passengers in Portland, Oregon, The Oregonian reported.
Walter allegedly gave a female passenger the special protein treatment at about 7 a.m. Tuesday, and authorities believe he did the same thing to at least two other women over the past three weeks.
"At the time of those first two reports, the victims were unsure as to what had transpired, and the seriousness of the offense was not understood," wrote Sgt. Pete Simpson in a statement obtained by The Oregonian.

Walter has become known as the "TriMet barber" because in 2010, he was convicted of cutting off the hair of random bus passengers and spreading super glue on their heads. He was sentenced to 13 months in prison and two years of parole, according to KATU, and was just recently paroled.
Now he's facing charges of sex abuse, harassment, disorderly conduct, public indecency and interfering with public transportation. According to KGW, he pleaded not guilty and will return to court in June.

In 2010, Walter's mother told KATU that her son had been difficult to handle growing up, but she was unaware of him having an obsession with women's hair.

Immaculate Conception?

Birth of anteater has Conn. zoo staff puzzled

May 17 2013

GREENWICH, Conn. (AP) — An anteater has given birth at a Connecticut conservation center, prompting officials there to wonder how the mother conceived.

Officials at the LEO Zoological Conservation Center tell the Greenwich Time (http://bit.ly/14wsum4 ) they had removed the only male anteater from the enclosure in August, long before the six-month gestation period for baby Archie would have begun.

They feared that male, Alf, would kill another baby in the pen.

That left the mother Armani, and the young female, Alice, in the enclosure.

But little Archie was born in April anyway.

Marcella Leone, founder and director of the conservation center, suspects this might be a rare case of delayed implantation, when fertilized eggs remain dormant in the uterus for a period of time.

Funeral home offers bicycle hearse for die hard bikers

May 17 2013 

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon funeral home in Eugene offers natural burials where the ride to the person's final resting place is on the back of a three-wheeled bicycle.

Sunset Hills Cemetery and Funeral Home director Wade Lind says he got the idea from bikers and designed the pedal-powered hearse himself. It has an electric motor to give him a little help hauling the casket.

KVAL reports (http://bit.ly/10VwlL1 ) Lind has bicycled five bodies so far and there's a waiting list for the service. The ride and a bamboo casket that looks like a basket costs about $3,500.

Venezuela Virtually "Wiped Out"

Why Is Venezuela running out of toilet paper?

• View Photo

A shopper is seen scoring a toilet paper haul from a Venezuelan store.

The government has announced an emergency toilet paper run for 50 million rolls

Venezuelans are scrounging around for toilet paper, some turning to discarded newspapers  and magazines.  Stores throughout the country have run out, and when they are in stock the rolls fly off the shelves.

"This is the last straw," Manuel Fagundes told The Associated Press as he hunted for toilet paper in downtown Caracas. "I'm 71 years old and this is the first time I've seen this."

The problem is so bad that the Venezuelan government says it will import 50 million rolls to help alleviate the shortage.

Why is Venezuela running low on toilet paper?

The government is blaming the media. "There is no deficiency in production, but an excessive demand generating purchases by a nervous population because of a media campaign that has been created to undermine the country," Venezuelan Minister of Commerce Alejandro Fleming said on state-run AVN News. Fleming said that importing 50 million rolls will help the country meet its average monthly usage of 125 million rolls.

Outside economists, like Johns Hopkins professor Steve Hanke, are blaming the government's economic policies:

State-controlled prices — prices that are set below market-clearing price — always result in shortages. The shortage problem will only get worse, as it did over the years in the Soviet Union. [AP]
Venezuela also has tight controls on foreign currency, which makes it hard for companies to import raw materials and equipment, slowing down production of a wide range of goods, according to the AP.
Right now, the scarcity index in Venezuela is at 21 percent — meaning that out of 100 basic goods, 21 of them aren't available on store shelves. Lines for commodities like milk, sugar, cooking oil, corn flour used to make arepas, and, yes, toilet paper, can often stretch down the block.

The flip-side of state-controlled prices, writes the BBC's Irene Caselli, is that poor Venezuelans can afford foods that they couldn't before. A kilogram of pasta costs 30 cents at government-run supermarkets. At private markets, it costs 10 times as much.

That has led to a drop in the number of Venezuelans who are undernourished, to less than 5 percent today, from 15 percent in 1999, according to the BBC.

"There are always queues, but we need to be patient," Raul Espana, a 63-year-old retiree, told the BBC. "Before, we couldn't eat a complete diet. Now we can afford everything."