Fun_People Archive
16 Dec
Weirdness [459] - 22Nov96

Content-Type: text/plain
Mime-Version: 1.0 (NeXT Mail 3.3 v118.2)
From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 96 03:35:49 -0800
To: Fun_People
Subject: Weirdness [459] - 22Nov96

Excerpted-from: WEIRDNUZ.459 (News of the Weird, November 22, 1996)
		by Chuck Shepherd

* Denny Constantine revealed to the San Jose Mercury News in October that
he was part of a team that almost got the go-ahead to drop flying-bat bombs
on Japan in World War II.  The plan:  Tiny incendiary devices would be
attached to millions of bats, which would be put into egg-carton-like trays
in a bombshell.  When the bats were released, they would roost in Japan's
wood-and-paper buildings, and fires would start all over the country.  That
would "frighten, demoralize, and excite the prejudices" of the Japanese,
according to team member Jack Couffer.  President Roosevelt was said to have
really liked the idea, but he apparently liked the atom bomb even more.

* For the last year, Allen Fahden has operated the READundant bookstore in
Nicollet mall in Minneapolis, set up like a traditional bookstore (sections
on sports, religion, history, etc.) but its 5,000-book inventory consisting
of only one title-- Fahden's own management book, Innovation on Demand.
Fahden said his store is based on one of his management principles:  the
use of opposites to generate creative thoughts.  The store's in-house
best-seller list shows Innovation on Demand occupying each of the ten slots.

* In July, after arriving at Baltimore-Washington International Airport,
the daughter in a family of four was refused boarding on American Airlines.
Mother, father, and son presented driver's licenses as ID to satisfy new
FAA rules, and the daughter presented a student ID from the University of
Maryland.  However, the American Airlines clerk refused to accept the card,
saying that even though it was issued by a state university, it didn't meet
the requirement of being issued by a "government." On the basis of this
denial, the family meekly gave up their already-arranged vacation in Las
Vegas and drove home.

* In July, the New York Post reported that Vivid Video, which produces
pornographic movies and which had just signed actor Steven St. Croix to an
unprecedented 33-picture deal, became so concerned when St. Croix bought a
motorcycle that it purchased a $1 million Lloyd's of London policy insuring
St. Croix's genitals.  Said a Vivid spokeswoman, "He's an incredible talent
and we don't want to lose him--or any part of him."

* Ray Bell of Tallahassee, Fla., said in October that he holds the patent
for a condom which belts onto a man's leg to prevent what Bell believes is
the common problem of the condom's unrolling during use.  But in 1992, News
of the Weird reported that Merlyn Starley of San Francisco said he had the
patent for such a device, which he called "condom suspenders."

	Copyright 1997 by Universal Press Syndicate.

© 1996 Peter Langston