TWW'S CRAZY NEWS STORIES

[TexasStooge]

China offers hungry elephants "dinner halls"

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese officials hope to lure hungry wild elephants away from farmland by offering "dinner halls" with banana and sugar on the menu, state media reported.

Last year three villagers were killed by elephants around nature reserves in Xishuangbanna in the southwest province of Yunnan, Xinhua news agency reported. Crops belonging to 12,000 families were also destroyed.

Wildlife officials are planning "dinner halls" of banana plantations and sugarcane planted several kilometers from villages to entice the animals away, Xinhua said. So far, 70 ha (170 acres) have been set aside.

Twenty years ago, Xishuangbanna had only 80 wild elephants compared to some 300 today.

In April, the Yunnan province government set aside 4 million yuan ($500,000) to compensate farmers for crops lost to hungry elephants, Xinhua said.

"So far the experiment has had mixed results," it said of the new dining initiative, but did not elaborate.

[TexasStooge]

Estonians reign at wife-carrying championships

SONKAJARVI, Finland (Reuters) - Finishing upside down clinging to a man's back may not be the most graceful way of winning gold, but it sure helped Sandra Kullas and Margo Uusorg to the world wife-carrying crown on Saturday.

The Estonians were among 40 pairs from eight countries who competed in the annual event in Sonkajarvi, in central Finland.

They raced along a 250-meter track, complete with pools and hurdles, with the men running or walking and carrying the women on their backs.

The championship, being held for the 11th time, evokes the legend of robber Rosvo-Ronkainen who made people trying to join his gang run through a forest carrying heavy sacks.

Uusorg, 26, finished in 56.9 seconds, a world record, while Kullas, 19, clung to his back upside down with her legs around his neck. They beat Uusorg's bother Madis by 3 seconds.

"I was a bit nervous before the start, but when I started running it felt fine," Margo Uusorg said after the race. "I wanted to jump over the hurdles, but I was afraid I might fall and get penalty seconds."

It was Uusorg's fifth world-championship and he said it might be his last.

The winning Estonians received laptop computers and Kullas' weight, 49 kg, in beer.

[TexasStooge]

U.S. pins wiener-eating hopes on Chestnut

By LARRY McSHANE, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK - The biggest challenge of his life awaits Joey Chestnut on the Fourth of July — and he doesn't want to choke. It's a legitimate worry. Chestnut aims to inhale more than four dozen frankfurters in 12 minutes at the annual Coney Island hot dog eating competition. And there's the pressure of going jaw-to-jaw with the world's foremost competitive eater, five-time defending champion Takeru Kobayashi of Japan.

The 6-foot-1, 230-pound Chestnut is warming up for his East Coast showdown by downing 40 hot dogs or more in a single sitting, twice a week.

"If I'm not eating hot dogs, I'm not eating much," said Chestnut, whose U.S. record of 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes earned him a mention in May in Sports Illustrated. "Everything is going pretty good."

Chestnut, of San Jose, Calif., is the great American hope at reclaiming the mustard yellow belt symbolic of gastronomic greatness (or sheer gluttony). Since July 4, 2001, the belt — presented annually at the original Nathan's hot dog stand — has remained wrapped around Kobayashi's incredibly thin waist.

Kobayashi is undefeated in eating competitions on American soil. But the possibility of a Chestnut upset is piquing interest in this year's event, said Rich Shea, one of the founders of the International Federation of Competitive Eating.

"People believe Joey can win this contest," Shea said. "How much can a human being eat? What is the capacity? I think we'll find out."

At 5 feet 7 and 144 pounds, Kobayashi doesn't look like a master gulper. But he's devoured the competition: Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas, the world's premier female competitive eater; Eric "Badlands" Booker, the 6-foot-4, 400-pound subway conductor; even William "The Refrigerator" Perry, the ex-NFL star who managed to suck down an embarrassing four hot dogs in his Nathan's debut.

The history leaves a bad taste in Chestnut's mouth.

"Everybody knows that the Americans get beat by this little Japanese man," Chestnut said. "And not just beat, but slaughtered. A victory for me would be to even get close. He never lets an American get close."

Frankly, there's no questioning Kobayashi's credentials. He remains the Nathan's hot dog record holder, with 53 1/2 franks on July 4, 2004 — one frank every 13.45 seconds.

But there's no reason for Chestnut to feel cowed when he steps in front of the all-beef dogs. The one-man table for 10 has eaten 32 grilled cheese sandwiches in 10 minutes, 5 1/2 pounds of pork ribs in 12 minutes, 173 chicken wings in 30 minutes — all world records.

Last year, in his Coney Island debut, an admittedly unfocused Chestnut finished in third place with 32 hot dogs. It was a good experience for several reasons, but particularly because it offered him a close-up look at Kobayashi.

"He's a real humble guy," Chestnut said. "He's a sportsman, and he treats it like sport. He's a good guy, and I love competing against him."

[TexasStooge]

Elder Krause reclaims pit spitting title

EAU CLAIRE, Mich. (AP) - Rick "Pellet Gun" Krause has reclaimed family bragging rights.

Krause on Saturday took home his 13th championship at the International Cherry Pit Spitting Championship in southwestern Michigan, an event his family has dominated in recent years.

Krause, of Tuba City, Ariz., also knocked off his son, power spitter Brian "Young Gun" Krause, who had won the previous four years and currently holds the Guinness World Record after spitting a pit 93 feet, 6 1/2 inches in 2003.

The 52-year-old also celebrated his 10th wedding anniversary with wife Marlene, whom he married at the event in 1996.

Krause's winning spit was 67 feet, 5 inches. Bart Pierce took second at 44 feet, 5 inches and Keith Roush placed third at 43 feet, 8 inches.

Brian Krause, 28, struggled at the 33rd annual competition held at the Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm, propelling a pit just 33 feet, 5 inches.

Pit-spitters had to battle gusty winds during the competition, event coordinator Lynne Sage said.

Alexis Haimbaugh, 14, was the top woman spitter at 41 feet.

Two of "Young Gun" Krause's sons carried on the family's winning tradition. Cole Krause won the 5 and younger category with a 20 foot, 3 inch spit, and Braden Krause won the age 6 to 8 division with a distance of 31 feet, 7 inches.

Alexis Teichman won the 9 to 12 age group with a 31-foot, 7-inch spit.
___

On the Net: Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm

[rainstorm]

Estonians reign at wife-carrying championships

SONKAJARVI, Finland (Reuters) - Finishing upside down clinging to a man's back may not be the most graceful way of winning gold, but it sure helped Sandra Kullas and Margo Uusorg to the world wife-carrying crown on Saturday.

The Estonians were among 40 pairs from eight countries who competed in the annual event in Sonkajarvi, in central Finland.

They raced along a 250-meter track, complete with pools and hurdles, with the men running or walking and carrying the women on their backs.

The championship, being held for the 11th time, evokes the legend of robber Rosvo-Ronkainen who made people trying to join his gang run through a forest carrying heavy sacks.

Uusorg, 26, finished in 56.9 seconds, a world record, while Kullas, 19, clung to his back upside down with her legs around his neck. They beat Uusorg's bother Madis by 3 seconds.

"I was a bit nervous before the start, but when I started running it felt fine," Margo Uusorg said after the race. "I wanted to jump over the hurdles, but I was afraid I might fall and get penalty seconds."

It was Uusorg's fifth world-championship and he said it might be his last.

The winning Estonians received laptop computers and Kullas' weight, 49 kg, in beer.

estonians are very strong

[TexasStooge]

Infant's death investigated

By MARISSA ALANIS / The Dallas Morning News

The Colony Police Department is investigating after a 7-month old girl died in a Carrollton hospital on Monday.

Police responded to a call about a baby who was unresponsive and not breathing at 3:04 p.m. Monday in the 7400 block of Independence Drive in The Colony.

London Davis was transported by ambulance to Trinity Medical Center in Carrollton, where she died about 4 p.m., police said.

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner's office hasn't determined a cause of death.

[TexasStooge]

Piece of man's skull falls off, draws crowds

By Bappa Majumdar

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - Hundreds of people are thronging a hospital in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata to see a patient holding a piece of his own skull that fell off.

Doctors say a large, dead section of 25-year-old electrician Sambhu Roy's skull came away Sunday after severe burns starved it of blood.

"When he came to us late last year, his scalp was completely burned and within months it came off exposing the skull," Ratan Lal Bandyopadhyay, the surgeon who treated Roy told Reuters Wednesday.

"Later, we noticed that the part of his skull was loosening due to lack of blood supply to the affected area, which can happen in such extensive burn cases."

The piece came off Sunday and hundreds of people and dozens of doctors now crowd around his bed, where he lies holding the bone.

Bandyopadhyay said the skull's inner covering and the membrane which helps produce bone was miraculously unaffected, allowing fresh bone to grow.

"When the skull came off, I thought he will die, but we noticed a new covering on his head forming and that might have pushed the 'dead skull' out," he said.

While possible, such cases are extremely rare.

Roy was injured and almost killed when he was electrocuted while repairing a high voltage wire last October.

"Doctors say a new skull covering has replaced the old one, but I am not letting go of this one," he told Reuters.

He intends to keep his prized possession for life and not hand it over to the hospital when he leaves: "My skull has made me famous," he says.

[TexasStooge]

Fake agency offers ads on hookers' thighs

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch design student bored with conventional advertisements has set up a fake online agency offering advertising space for beer, cars and TV stations on prostitutes' thighs and cleavage.

On his website http://www.instoresnow.nl, Raoul Balai also proposed painting brand names on zoo animals and floating huge billboards off popular beaches to get vacationers' attention.

"I was getting sick and tired of advertising everywhere," Balai told reporters. "But I don't want to preach, and I thought satire would work better."

Far from taking his ideas as a joke, an Amsterdam zoo had its lawyer threaten Balai with a defamation suit after his website depicted fish from the zoo bearing the brand name of a frozen fish company.

Prospective customers phoning his fake agency are kept on hold and bombarded with sales pitches until they give up.

[TexasStooge]

Nazi ship to become vehicle of faith

ZAGREB (Reuters) - Croatia's defense ministry has donated a World War II Nazi ship to a local Roman Catholic monastery, which will turn it into a sailing church, the Jutarnji List daily newspaper reported Tuesday.

The landing ship DTM-219 was used by Nazi Germany to transport tanks and infantry. It was given to communist Yugoslavia after 1945 as part of war compensation, it said.

The ship, currently anchored at a Croatian navy port, will be towed to the city of Sibenik, in the central Adriatic, where it will be adapted at a local shipyard.

It will be used as sailing church for the young, who will be able to sail the Adriatic, pray and meditate as part of church-sponsored religious cruises, the daily said.

Some 90 percent of Croatia's 4.4 million people are Roman Catholics. The country, which gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, hopes to join the European Union by the end of this decade.

[TexasStooge]

Police horse rides heatwave with sun cream

LONDON (Reuters) - An albino British police horse is coping with this summer's heatwave with the help of 30 bottles of sun cream every day.

Humberside Police horse "Blue," nicknamed "Sunny," has a rare genetic condition which means that he has no melanin and therefore little or no pigmentation to protect him from the sun.

Mounted officers put out an Internet appeal for help to get Sunny through Britain's current heatwave. A pharmacy donated five gallons of factor 50 lotion in huge drums.

"We have been so worried about Sunny, especially now the temperature is soaring," a police spokeswoman said.

Britain has been experiencing a heat wave, with temperatures Tuesday reaching above 30 degrees centigrade (86.00F) for the fourth day running.

[TexasStooge]

Tahoe bear swills booze with pizza snack

STATELINE, Nev. (AP) - A bear cub drew a crowd of spectators at a Lake Tahoe neighborhood as it munched on barbecue-chicken-and-jalapeno pizza in the back seat of a vintage red Buick convertible.

It also apparently washed it down with a swig of a Jack Daniel's mixer, an Absolut vodka and tonic, and a beer taken from a cooler, the vehicle's owner said.

About 30 people watched the cub lumber around a parking lot in upper Kingbury Grade on Sunday before it homed in on the Buick and the spicy pizza on the floor.

The bruin was unfazed by the car's horn the blew nonstop as the cub pressed the seat into the steering wheel.

"The bear was loping along in the parking lot and then decides to get inside the car," said resident Jerry Patterson.

"People were screaming at him, the horn was going off, but he was completely unaware. He did what he wanted to do and the people didn't matter."

The bear remained inside the 1964 Buick Skylark for about 20 minutes and at times put his paws on the dash as if he were holding on for a ride, Patterson said.

The owner of the car, David Ziello of South Lake Tahoe, said the bruin didn't cause any damage, but slopped cheese and jalapenos on the seats and floor.

Carl Lackey, a biologist with the Nevada Department of Wildlife, said up to two dozen bears live in the Kingsbury region near the south shore of Lake Tahoe.

The residential area sees more of them because the bears have found a primary source from Dumpsters and people who leave their food and trash in the open, said Lackey, who tracks and relocates bears on the Nevada side of the Tahoe basin.

Lackey warned visitors and residents against keeping food inside their vehicles.

"When you are in bear habitat, regardless of the time of year, you cannot leave any kind of food out — whether it's food inside the car, trash inside or outside your car, or pet food," Lackey said.

"Bears will find it and in doing so, it is increasing your chances of serious conflict."
___

Information from: Tahoe Daily Tribune

[TexasStooge]

Hot ice cream comes with a warning

ANGIER, N.C. (AP) - This ice cream comes with an unusual stipulation — customers must sign a waiver before tasting it because it's so hot.

Cold Sweat, a flavor sold at ice cream shop Sunni Sky's, is made with three kinds of pepper and two kinds of hot sauce.

"It tastes like fire — with a side of fire," said Scott McCallum, a regular customer, who was eating the more sedate butter pecan flavor.

"I thought it was a cool idea, but I didn't think he'd make it that hot," McCallum said of proprietor Scott Wilson.

Wilson started out experimenting with jalapenos in vanilla ice cream to appeal to Hispanic customers — which was unsuccessful — and worked his way up to Cold Sweat.

The waiver for the fiery mixture has dozens of signatures. Pregnant women and people with health problems are not supposed to eat it. Anyone younger than 18 needs the consent of a guardian.

Among the first to try Cold Sweat was Justin Smith, 22, an Angier woodworker. He went to the restroom and vomited after a spoonful.

He's had about five samples since, and wants to go for the record of 14 ounces in a sitting.

"It's got a good flavor," Smith said. "As someone who really likes hot stuff and doesn't mind being scorched, I can taste the difference, and it really does taste good."

If he doesn't get the record soon, he might not get a chance. Wilson isn't sure he'll make another batch after the current supply runs out.
_____________________________________________________________

If you have the guts to try that hot ice cream, you can take on Deep-fried Chocolate Covered Hamwinkies! (Britney Spears Approved)

Image courtesy of E!'s "The Soup".

[TexasStooge]

A year's burger supply offered for balloon's return

By STEVE STOLER / WFAA ABC 8

DENTON, Texas -- Krystal’s bought the balloon to draw even more attention to the home of the tiny burgers, but now the balloon is gone.

“And they told me: ‘Oh the balloon is gone’ and then we started looking for the balloon. We thought maybe one of our managers took it in because something happened to it. But nope, it was nowhere to be found,” said Margarita Alvarado, assistant manger of Krystal’s.

"This is a college town. There are two big universities here. I'm sure whoever took it, did not take it for anything but the thrill of trying to do it while it was open," said Billy Roussel, a Krystal’s customer.

The eight foot tall balloon, which is valued at $2,000, was sitting right next to the Krystal sign.

Whoever stole the balloon did it in plain view of the drive-through window, which is open 24 hours.

“We've been here at 3 a.m., and waited in line, so it's busy at all hours of the night. So I can see how they can stay behind and not watch the parking lot as easy," said Roussel.

Krystal managers are hoping an unusual reward will entice anyone with information about the balloon's whereabouts to come forward.

They're offering a sack-full of 12 hamburgers every week, for one year. That's 48 a month and 576 a year.

The folks at Krystal are banking on burger lovers to get their balloon back.

[TexasStooge]

Man behind 14 bank heists pleads guilty

Dallas: He talked others into holdups, including teenage girlfriend

By TIM WYATT / The Dallas Morning News

Pointing a gun at a teller wasn't quite how a 24-year-old Lancaster man known as "Cash" pulled off more than a dozen North Texas bank robberies late last year.

In less than two months, he built an impressive résumé when it came to talking others into helping with 14 holdups and splitting the money, including his then-16-year-old girlfriend, who skipped classes to help rob banks.

On Wednesday, Caster Deryl Chatman Jr., admitted to a federal judge in Dallas that he was behind a string of robberies in November and December. Without a plea agreement, Mr. Chatman pleaded guilty to six counts of bank robbery, each of which could draw a 20-year prison term.

During a 10-minute hearing Wednesday morning, U.S. Chief District Judge Joe Fish accepted Mr. Chatman's plea and set his sentencing for September.

Special Agent Lori Bailey, an FBI spokeswoman, would not comment on Mr. Chatman's case since he hasn't been sentenced. But she said bank robberies in Dallas County have been on the rise. In the first six months of this year, the FBI responded to 62 bank holdups – almost double the rate of the same period last year, Agent Bailey said.

"Bank-robbery rates climb and fall; they're cyclical," she said. "I can't tell you what's driving this latest trend, but we haven't had a big spike in a while. The only thing that's constant is that our solution rate remains very high."

Just hours after Mr. Chatman entered his guilty plea, a man robbed the Guaranty Bank on East Belt Line Road in Richardson and fled in a stolen car. On Friday, three Dallas banks were held up by different people. Authorities have not said how much was taken in those robberies.

According to court records, Mr. Chatman is accused of planning bank robberies in Cedar Hill, Grand Prairie, Dallas and Richardson in November and December, and of directing two other people to carry out those heists.

Neither Mr. Chatman nor his lawyer offered details on the robberies, which netted more than $40,000.

Mr. Chatman eluded the FBI until late February, when, two days after his federal indictment, he turned himself in to Plano police and confessed to fatally shooting a man during an argument on the east side of town.

The string of holdups began Nov. 7, when 19-year-old Aaron Wade Doss of Quinlan walked up to a teller at a Grand Prairie bank and slipped her a note demanding the contents of her cash drawer. He walked away with less than $500 in cash, but court records show Mr. Doss robbed a Dallas bank of $8,500 the same day.

Mr. Doss pleaded guilty in federal court in April to his role in three of the five November robberies planned by Mr. Chatman. He faces up to 60 years in prison for that plea and is scheduled for sentencing next month.

By December, Gabriela Gonzalez of Dallas had begun helping Mr. Chatman rob banks. She is accused of participating in seven robberies that month and was nicknamed the "Ms. December Bandit" by federal agents.

Ms. Gonzalez, now 17 and out on bail awaiting trial, faces seven counts of second-degree robbery in state court. Under federal law, she is considered a minor, but she has been certified to stand trial in state court as an adult.

Federal authorities said Wednesday that Mr. Chatman would pick up the girl from her high school campus, drive her to a local bank to rob it, then take her back to school. Court records indicate that in one robbery attempt, she panicked and fled the bank lobby without taking any money. Records show the pair then went to another bank, where the girl walked out with $6,100.

In late February, two days after federal authorities indicted him in connection with the bank robberies and began searching for him, Mr. Chatman turned himself in to Plano police in the Feb. 25 shooting death of Robert Lee Parker, 27.

But Collin County prosecutors said they are in no hurry to indict Mr. Chatman on murder charges until his federal sentencing has unfolded. If convicted of the slaying, Mr. Chatman would face five to 99 years in state prison and would be eligible for parole by middle age.

The federal system, however, has abolished parole and has no mandatory sentencing guidelines, so Mr. Chatman could spend the rest of his life in federal custody.

[TexasStooge]

Throw another Barbie on "the shrimp"

BEIJING, China (Reuters) - A Chinese man bought two dozen Barbie dolls to keep his whining eight-year-old daughter quiet, but it only meant howls of protest from his wife instead, Xinhua news agency said Thursday.

"The man was so desperate to please his daughter he spent 5,000 yuan ($625) on 10 school bags and 20 Barbie dolls," the agency said, quoting a Beijing newspaper.

"The father's shopping sprees ended up frightening his daughter who stopped making gift demands but the wasted money angered his wife who threatened to divorce him."

Xinhua did not say where the family lived.

Pampered offspring, the result of China's one-child policy and known as Little Emperors, are expected to underpin a domestic consumption boom in the next decade.

The one-child policy was introduced in 1977 to manage a population that officially hit 1.3 billion last year.

The Barbie doll story ends happily -- the man's mother-in-law had the bags and dolls sent back and the shop refunded all the money.

[TexasStooge]

Scorpions, worms and ants on the menu at club

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A discerning guest at a Manhattan cocktail party removed a scorpion from its bed of cheese on an endive leaf and popped it in his mouth, determined to savour the taste unadulterated.

"Nutty, sweet," was the verdict of Gourmet magazine food editor Ian Knauer at the recent soiree.

"That's an antenna," he added, pointing to a morsel of cricket left poking through lips of his companion at the Explorers Club in New York, which likes to entertain its well-traveled members with exotic culinary adventures.

Founded in 1904, the exclusive international club has some 3,000 members around the world including Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest, astronaut John Glenn and paleontologist Richard Leakey.

On the menu at a reception for some lesser mortals in June were worms, crickets, scorpions, ants and pigeon pate.

"We're so fast to make fun or make comments about the way someone talks or the way someone walks, and food is like the last bastion," said Gene Rurka, the Explorers Club's exotic foods expert. "But someone today is living off this."

"I guarantee you people in Africa who haven't had rain for seven years would love to see an insect," he said.

Rurka, a biologist who has studied coral reefs in the Virgin Islands, devotes much thought to devising dishes for the Explorers Club's annual dinner in March where guests feast on tarantulas, maggots and exotic parts of various livestock such as eyeballs, testicles and penises.

TEXAS ANTS AND MAGGOTS

Large ants from Texas are served with blackcurrants in a sweet mini-tart, while he likes to serve the maggots stuffed in mushrooms. "They're delicious," Rurka said. "I was going to say like a tasty rice grain, but soft. It's not chewy like that."

He has experimented with worms and decided the best option is to disguise them as a pretzel, tying them in a knot like the salty dough snack, and to serve them with mustard. First they have to be fed on oatmeal for 10 days to cleanse the system, and he does not recommend taking worms from just anywhere.

"You don't want them raised in a dump site, you don't want them raised in manure," he said.

Earlier Richard Wiese, president emeritus of the Explorers Club, led several dozen people through Central Park for a foraging hike to find edible plants in the heart of New York.

Among the findings were wood sorrel -- a heart shaped leaf that tastes a little like sour apples -- dandelions, violet leaves and burdock, as well as pods from a Kentucky coffee tree from which he had brewed a batch of coffee for the party.

"It's naturally decaffeinated," Wiese said. "It's kind of fun to go into Central Park and make your own coffee."

Rurka sources the more exotic ingredients such as spiders and scorpions from farms in Texas and Nevada where they are raised as pets or to feed animals.

At $30 each, the scorpions make a costly canape.

TARANTULA CANAPES

Rurka prepared two large black tarantulas for the cocktail party but he said at the annual dinner he serves hundreds of them, each costing $175. They have to be stored individually and kept alive until just before cooking to stay fresh.

"They kill each other if they're kept together," he said, adding that occasionally the hairs on the legs can cause an allergic reaction, just as some people are allergic to bees.

He neutralizes the stings of the scorpions with heat to avoid adverse reactions.

"When you look at a scorpion your salivary glands dry up. It's not like looking at a pizza," said Cal Dennison, winemaker for Redwood Creek, who was offering advice on wine pairings.

He recommended a pinot grigio or something similar "to get your salivary glands working."

Rurka said he tries to overcome people's aversion to creepy-crawlies by serving them with something appetizing -- for example a cactus jelly with the cricket, or cheese and sun-dried tomato with the scorpion. He admits he would not normally feast on such creatures by choice.

"This is for sustenance, this is not an every day meal," he said. "The chances are you're not going to be looking for this unless you're in dire straits, and if you're in dire straits, I would suggest you go out and survive."

But he said attitudes to food changed over time and between countries, and with environmental problems and a growing population, the food industry could eventually be looking for new sources of protein, such as maggots or worms.

"I would say in the future our protein source will be different," he said, comparing raising insects to farming battery chickens. "I would say we could raise insects faster, get a better source of protein, control the fat content and have a higher nutritional value."

"I think you're going to see bio-foods," he said. "It's getting over that hurdle; it's hard to put that worm in your mouth."

For the record, a worm pretzel, or worm-zel, is a little chewy but doesn't taste too bad smothered with mustard.
_____________________________________________________________

Welcome to the Fear Factor restauraunt.

[TexasStooge]

Trump, "Apprentice" loser going Hollywood

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Real estate tycoon and reality TV star Donald Trump said on Wednesday he is adding a Hollywood production company to his business empire, and has named a "fired" contestant from "The Apprentice" to run it.

"He's a very talented guy, a very fine student from Harvard, and he's going to be terrific. I have no doubt about it," Trump said of Andy Litinsky, the young Ivy League graduate put in charge of Trump's as-yet unnamed new company.

Trump said he is developing a television show based on the classic real-estate board game Monopoly that is likely to be one of the first projects to emerge from his latest business venture.

Trump said he and reality TV producer R.J. Cutler, who helped make the Oscar-nominated documentary "The War Room," have been shopping the TV "Monopoly" idea to major networks and "people are very interested in it."

Monopoly seems like an ideal fit for Trump, who owns several casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey -- the original setting for the board game in which players buy and develop property while trying to force each other into bankruptcy.

Trump, 60, already has had a hand in producing "The Apprentice," as well as the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, but wanted an outlet for developing new programs.

Litinsky, a champion debater and Harvard graduate from Florida, was 23 when he appeared on "The Apprentice 2" in 2004 as one of 18 corporate wannabes competing for a high-paying job in the Trump organization. He even took his final Harvard exams while the show was in production.

Although Trump gave Litinsky his trademark board-room dismissal "You're fired!" in one of the final rounds of the show, Litinsky made enough of an impression to land a job later as a project manager on Trump's business development team.

"He did very well; he just had a particularly bad night," Trump said of Litinsky's "Apprentice" performance.

[TexasStooge]

Up in arms over handbag jibe

SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) - Australia has upset near-neighbor New Zealand with television advertisements depicting some of its rugged rugby players carrying women's handbags.

Seven Network television has been running the handbag ads, an irreverent reference to one of the most embarrassing moments in New Zealand sport, to promote Saturday's first Tri-Nations test between the arch-rivals.

They show All Blacks players, including former captain Tana Umaga, performing the haka, a traditional indigenous Maori war dance performed by New Zealand teams before every test match.

But the television station has placed large, digitally enhanced handbags over their shoulders.

In a bizarre off-field incident in May, Umaga broke up a fight between team mate Chris Masoe and an unidentified man in a nightclub by hitting the burly Masoe over the head with a woman's handbag he picked up off a table.

The incident reduced a tired and emotional Masoe, who weighs in at a hefty 106 kg (233 lb), to tears.

The offending handbag later attracted NZ$22,750 ($13,650) in an online auction and made New Zealand players the butt of many cross-Tasman jokes.

But New Zealand rugby officials have complained about the ad.

"It's insensitive, I think, to Maori and disrespectful of the All Blacks," New Zealand assistant coach Wayne Smith said.

[TexasStooge]

Village tries outhouse humor to pay bills

CHAUNCEY, Ohio (AP) - A citizens' group is trying to pay the street light bill with a little potty humor.

The Chauncey Emergency Management Group places an old-fashioned, wooden outhouse on a resident's lawn with a donation box where the toilet bowl should be and a sign on the door that says "Redneck Wishing Well."

People who find the latrine in their yard have to chip in to get it shipped out. They also get to pick the next home it graces.

The emergency management group's Jerry Dowler, whose phone number is posted inside the outhouse, hauls the privy in his pickup truck.

The money — donations of any size are acceptable — helps cover the southeast Ohio village's $500-a-month bill for street lights. Voters defeated a tax levy last year, and a committee that gets money from local cable TV bingo has paid the bill since then.

In its first two days, the outhouse collected $200, Dowler said. The primary purpose of the emergency management group, which is made up of village officials and citizens, is to keep the lights on.

The emergency management group takes over the bill this month, and the levy is on the ballot again in the fall. If passed, enough money to pay the bill would not be generated for about a year, Mayor Fredricka Shover said.

In the meantime, the group has raised about $3,000 through bake sales, car washes and the outhouse.

"There's a lot of people who really care about Chauncey," said Ronnie McKibben, a member of the village council and the emergency management group. "There's a spirit in this community."

[TexasStooge]

Hunting Norwegian whalers shock tourists

By DOUG MELLGREN, Associated Press Writer

OSLO, Norway - Hunters shocked a boatload of tourists on a whale watch off Norway's Arctic during the weekend, harpooning a whale in front of them.

About 80 tourists were aboard the trawler Reine, which was headed for areas off the Arctic Lofoten Islands known for their abundance of whales, when the incident happened on Saturday, the boat's skipper Geir Maan said by telephone on Wednesday.

"We were on our way out to the whale watching area when we passed a whaling boat," Maan, the boat's skipper, told The Associated Press. Usually, whaling and tour boats maintain a distance between them.

"This time, we got close, and right when they were passing, I realized they had a minke whale in firing range," he said.

The whaling boat fired, and Maan said he later learned through the hunters that it had made a kill in front of the tourists.

"Some were pretty upset," he said. "Many thought it was awful to see."

The areas are popular with Norwegian whale-hunters, who so far have killed more than 400 of this year's quota of 1,052 minke whales, the smallest of the baleen whales at about 30 feet.

"This was definitely not what we came to see," Leontien Dieleman, of the Netherlands, was quoted as saying in Wednesday's Andoeyposten newspaper. "We wanted to see live whales."

Norway outraged many by resuming its commercial whale hunts in 1993, after a six-year break.

The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling in 1986, because some species were endangered. However, member countries can reject commission decisions. The Norway claims the whales it hunts are plentiful.

Hunters kill whales by shooting them with explosive-tipped harpoons, and then haul them back with a wire attached to the harpoon. The whales are then butchered on deck, and eaten in Norway as steaks and sausages.

"It was a little unlucky," Maan said of the incident, adding that the whalers usually wait until tour boats have passed to make a kill.

On the way back, the tourists also saw another whaling boat hauling a dead minke aboard, he said.

The hunting season lasts until Sept. 1.