The Lighter Side of the News

[Rusty Edge]

From the left-
I have no idea about the yellow dude. If I were the artist, I would have taken my que from the pose and transformed him into "The Flash"

Then Joker, Wolverine, Santa, Super Man, Ronald McDonald, Captain America, Robin,
and Wonder Woman.

I think.

[Buster's Uncle]

Agreed.  I decided after I posted that it was supposed to be Wonder Woman in back - but I can't think of anyone who wears all yellow...

The Reverse-Flash?

[Rusty Edge]

Agreed.  I decided after I posted that it was supposed to be Wonder Woman in back - but I can't think of anyone who wears all yellow...

The Reverse-Flash?

Yeah, that's what my social media sources suggested.  I guess he's called "Professor Zoom"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Zoom

[Buster's Uncle]

Eobard Thawne wears only mostly yellow - there's bits of red, exactly the opposite of the Flash...

[Buster's Uncle]

KFC fried-chicken keyboard: It's finger-clicking good
CNET CBS
By Amanda Kooser  September 5, 2014 3:15 PM



This is complete madness.  KFC Japan


Have you ever gazed at your keyboard and thought, "Wow, that looks good enough to eat"? Probably not. That's because you don't own a KFC fried-chicken keyboard. Yes, such a miracle does exist, but only if you're fortunate enough to live in Japan and get onboard with the chicken giant's Twitter promotion that will select a winner to become to the proud owner of the deep-fried-style peripheral.

As far as fast-food-chain publicity stunts go, this is quite an original one. The keyboard is covered with little raised models of various cuts of fried chicken on each key. The only easily readable letters are the "K," "F," and "C" from the company's name. Colonel Sanders shows up in a couple of places. His face appears down where the Windows button normally sits on a PC keyboard, and a mini-Colonel figurine stands sentry where the escape key usually is.

There's also a miniature bucket and soft drink in the upper right-hand corner. It would help to be an accomplished touch typist to use this keyboard, because hunting and pecking would require squinting past the drumsticks and thighs to make out the small embossed letters on each key.

This melding of greasy, poultry-based food with a computer input device doesn't just call it a day with a keyboard. There are more wonders left to discover. The promotion also involves a drumstick-shaped mouse with a scrolling wheel on the top (it actually looks more like a diseased sweet potato than a chicken part). The drumstick theme continues with a USB drive. To complete the look, KFC Japan also created some screw-on drumstick earrings, so the lucky winners can fashionably match the keyboard.

There's no word on whether the keyboard will coat your fingers with oil for realism or if it will smell like a deep fryer. The biggest issue is not that the keys look uncomfortable to type on, but rather that every other keyboard in the world will now pale in comparison to the sheer magnificence that is the fried-chicken keyboard.



This is supposed to look like a drumstick. KFC Japan


(Via Kotaku)

http://news.yahoo.com/kfc-fried-chicken-keyboard-finger-191533685.html

---

Now, I am hungry...

[gwillybj]

Sleepwalking Camper Injured in Cliff Fall in Kentucky
AP
September 9, 2014 8:26 AM

SLADE, Ky. (AP) — Rescue crews say an Ohio man who was camping with friends in central Kentucky's Red River Gorge is recovering after falling from a cliff while sleepwalking.

Powell County Emergency Management told WKYT-TV (http://bit.ly/1puqDGb) that the group had set up camp near Grey's Arch Trail and the man's friends called for help after realizing that he was missing in the middle of the night.

Wolfe County rope technician John May told the station the Cincinnati man, whose name wasn't released, fell about 60 feet early Thursday and landed in an area with several large boulders.

He called it a "miracle" that the man survived. May said the camper suffered a head injury, a dislocated shoulder and a fractured leg, but he's expected to make a full recovery.

___

Information from: WKYT-TV, http://www.wkyt.com

http://news.yahoo.com/sleepwalking-camper-injured-cliff-fall-ky-122640372.html

Let's be careful out there!

[gwillybj]

Brewer Releases 99-Pack of Beer
Richard Cazeau
August 28, 2014 2:58 PM
Odd News



We all know the saying "Everything is BIG in Texas." But for beer lovers everywhere, this is even cooler than big hats, belt buckles, and barbecue. Actually, this would be ideal with a lot of freshly charred barbecue.

Austin Beerworks has just unveiled a new over-the-top way to get its beer into your gut with a limited-edition 99-pack of brewski. The big box of brew will set you back $99 (or a buck a can), which is pretty good for a can of this Texas good stuff. But don't expect it to fit in your compact car with ease. The packaging is insanely exaggerated at seven feet long. The brewery released the gigantic box as part of a social media campaign for its Peacemaker Anytime Ale.

The 99-pack is only available in Austin, and only for a limited time and in limited quantities. By state law, the brewery is not allowed to ship out of state, so you might have to make the drive. Just drink responsibly, and it will probably last for a while. Maybe this will inspire people to have house parties called "99-ers."

Strong demand for the seven-foot uber-pack in the wake of the wild campaign has inspired the brewery to roll out more 99-packs sooner rather than later. And now you can have 99 cans of beer on a wall.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/oddnews/brewer-releases-99-pack-of-beer-185852870.html

[gwillybj]

Canada: Air Force Raids Museum for Spare Plane Parts
By News from Elsewhere...
...media reports from around the world, found by BBC Monitoring
16 September 2014 Last updated at 11:22 ET



Canada's air force has had to take spare parts from a museum to keep its search-and-rescue aircraft flying, after government promises to buy new planes never materialised, it's been reported.

Technicians from the Royal Canadian Air Force went to a military base museum in Trenton, Ontario in 2012 to find navigational equipment for a similar aircraft that's still in use, The Ottawa Citizen reports. They got the part from an E-model C-130 Hercules airplane on display, after getting permission from the museum.

"They sort of called up and said, 'Hey, we have these two INUs (inertial navigation units) that we can't use. Do you have any on yours?'" museum curator Kevin Windsor recalls. He says they were lucky the parts were available and interchangeable, and took only half an hour to remove.

The former head of military procurement, Dan Ross, says it's embarrassing that the air force has to "cannibalize old stuff that's in museums" to keep up its rescue planes - eight Hercules and six Buffaloes - which are apparently on their last wings. The planes respond to thousands of emergencies every year. The government has been promising since 2002 to replace the planes, but has kept putting it off to make sure it's "getting the purchase right", the Citizen says.

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-29224170

[gwillybj]

Ottawa Citizen
Royal Canadian Air Force Raided Museum for Search-and-Rescue Airplane Parts
LEE BERTHIAUME
Published on: September 15, 2014
Last Updated: September 15, 2014 6:21 PM EDT


The Hercules 313 (copyright, National Air Force Museum 2014)

The Royal Canadian Air Force has quietly turned to an unusual source for spare parts to keep its venerable search-and-rescue airplanes flying: a museum.

The Citizen has learned that, in July 2012, air force technicians raided an old Hercules airplane that is on display at the National Air Force Museum of Canada because they needed navigational equipment for a similar aircraft still in use.

The revelation highlights the difficulties military personnel have increasingly faced in keeping Canada’s ancient search-and-rescue planes flying after more than a decade of government promises to buy replacements — with no end in sight.

The air force museum is on Canadian Forces Base Trenton and boasts a large collection of military aircraft that have been retired and subsequently placed on display.

Among them is an E-model C-130 Hercules transport aircraft that entered service in 1965 and was used in a variety of roles before being retired in 2010 and given to the museum the following year.

Museum curator Kevin Windsor said classified equipment is typically taken off the display aircraft, but otherwise the museum tries to keep the aircraft as close to operational as possible to give visitors an authentic experience.

It was during his Windsor’s second week on the job that the search-and-rescue squadron at CFB Trenton contacted the museum’s executive director, retired lieutenant-colonel Chris Colton, to see if they could go through the Hercules.

In particular, Windsor said, they were looking for two inertial navigation units that they could take from the museum’s airplane and install in one of their H-model Hercules, which range in age from 20 to 40 years.

“They sort of called (Colton) up and said ‘Hey, we have these two INUs that we can’t use. Do you have any on yours?’ ” Windsor said. “Some of the parts are interchangeable. They just kind of got lucky on that.”

The INUs work in conjunction with two GPS units to provide the Hercules’s main navigation system, RCAF Capt. Julie Brunet said in an email. “These high value and essential systems allow long non-stop flights to be able to provide better response time to any search-and-rescue mission.”

Once air force technicians confirmed the museum’s Hercules still had its navigational units, it only took about half an hour to get them out.

“They’re two boxes, maybe a little bit smaller than a computer printer,” Windsor said. “They’re not huge things. They just sort of popped the cords and away they went.”

Auditor General Michael Ferguson raised concerns last spring that the federal government’s search-and-rescue capabilities are in danger of crumbling, in part because the air force’s eight Hercules and six Buffaloes are on their last wings.

The airplanes are used to respond to thousands of emergencies across the country every year.

Defence Department officials were also told in a secret briefing last year that the military had been forced to “purchase spare parts from around the world” to ensure the “continued airworthiness” of the air force’s 47-year-old Buffalo airplanes.

Defence Minister Rob Nicholson’s office defended the air force’s decision to ask a museum for parts to keep its search-and-rescue planes flying.

“The RCAF took the initiative to remove these functional, perfectly good parts and use them effectively,” spokeswoman Johanna Quinney said in an email. “It was a sound decision, helping to ensure the long-term viability of the aircraft.”

But former head of military procurement Dan Ross said it’s “embarrassing” that the air force has to “cannibalize old stuff that’s in museums” to keep its planes flying.

And retired colonel Terry Chester, national president of the Air Force Association of Canada said it’s “indicative of a larger problem, which is maintaining a fleet of older aircraft and having to become increasingly creative in ways to make that happen.”

Officials were warned back in February 2012 that spending extra money to extend the lives of the Hercules still being used for search-and-rescue “is an evil necessity” because of delays in obtaining replacements, according to documents obtained by the Citizen.

Successive Liberal and Conservative governments have promised to replace the Hercules and Buffalos starting in 2002, but it remains unclear when new aircraft will actually materialize.

In 2005, the Defence Department was accused by some companies of rigging requirements for the new search-and-rescue airplane so that one specific aircraft, the Italian C-27J Spartan, would win. That prompted the new Conservative government to send the project back to the drawing board.

More recently, internal documents show, military officials had hoped to release a request for proposals from aerospace companies in early 2013, with new aircraft flying by 2017.

Instead, the Conservative government has ordered extensive consultations with industry as part of its revamped defence procurement strategy. While the government says this is essential for getting the purchase right, it has also pushed back the timeline yet again.

Public Works spokeswoman Annie Trepanier said in an email Friday that the government now hopes to release a request for proposals either later this year or in early 2015.

That would likely mean no replacement until at least 2018, during which time the Hercules and Buffalo will need to remain in service.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/royal-canadian-air-force-raided-museum-for-search-and-rescue-airplane-parts

[Geo]

Any info if obselete F 16's are in store on the Kingman Army Air Field Museum? The Belgian Air Component may need to have a look somewhere in the future...

[gwillybj]

BBC Nature News
Hedgehogs' Inky Paw Prints Point to Sparse Distribution
By Michelle Warwicker
17 September 2014 Last updated at 02:30


The UK's hedgehogs are thought to be in rapid decline, but the elusive creatures have been hard to monitor

Hedgehogs are more thinly spread in the UK than previously believed, a study using ink pads to record their paw prints has revealed.

The nocturnal mammals were found at only 39% of sites surveyed.

Experts and volunteers set up tunnels baited with tinned sausages. Hedgehogs had to walk over ink pads to reach the food, leaving their prints on paper.

The method allowed researchers to identify hedgehog presence with almost complete accuracy for the first time.

The research, which was carried out by scientists from Nottingham Trent University, the University of Reading and The Mammal Society, is published in the journal Mammal Review.

Hedgehog populations in the UK are believed to be in rapid decline.



The new study builds a picture about how they are distributed in urban and rural areas. The finding that hedgehogs were only present in 39% of locations visited was "lower than anticipated", said research team member Dr Richard Yarnell, from Nottingham Trent University's School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences.

"Historically we thought that hedgehogs were pretty well distributed across the country," he told BBC Nature.

He added: "What's certainly clear now and after using this methodology is that the populations... seem to be quite local but not widely distributed across the countryside as we once suspected.

"And in the wider rural landscape they do generally seem to be absent."

The research also supported previous findings that hedgehogs are more likely to be present in areas where there were no badgers. But the reasons for this are unclear.


The inky footprints method can identify the presence of hedgehogs with 95% accuracy

Spiky subjects

In the past, monitoring the secretive creatures accurately has proven difficult.

The team wanted to test the effectiveness of footprint tunnels as a way of monitoring hedgehogs on a large scale.

The study is the first to assess "actual hedgehog numbers on the ground", said Dr Yarnell. Ten tunnels complete with ink pads and paper were positioned at 111 rural and urban sites and inspected for paw prints every morning.

The method can identify the presence of hedgehogs in an area with 95% accuracy, according to the team.

"This is the first method that we've been able to actually get a true feeling for what their habitat preferences may be, and how they're occupying our wider countryside," said Dr Yarnell.

The researchers are now using the ink pad technique to carry out the first national hedgehog survey* in England and Wales with the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and the People's Trust for Endangered Species to build a picture of the state of the species.

Volunteers have already been setting up and monitoring the tunnels over the summer, and the project is due to continue from May to September in 2015.

Dr Yarnell said of the footprint tunnels: "In terms of the methodology, it's easy to deploy, can be used by amateurs and hopefully it will be the cornerstone of hedgehog monitoring going into the future."

It is hoped studying hedgehogs in this way could reveal more about their decline, and lead to more effective conservation of the animals, which are classified as a "species of principal importance" in England under the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act (NERC).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/29208304

* http://ptes.org/get-involved/surveys/countryside-2/national-hedgehog-survey/

[gwillybj]

Falcon Has Cataract Surgery, Gets New Lenses
Associated Press
September 30, 2014 8:59 AM

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A falcon in New Hampshire has undergone eye surgery to remove cataracts and has received new synthetic lenses.

Banner, a 4-year-old falcon, lost its sight and hasn't been able to fly or hunt for the past two years. On Monday, a team at Capital Veterinary Emergency Services in Concord removed the cataracts and put in artificial lenses in the hour-long procedure.

The Concord Monitor reports (http://bit.ly/1DUMvpn) I-Med, a Canadian ophthalmology supply manufacturer, donated the 6-milimeter-wide lenses. Dozens of people in Montreal, California, Ohio, Germany and Abu Dhabi were involved in their design. A surgeon and veterinary ophthalmologist donated their time for the operation.

Banner's owners, Nancy and Jim Cowan of the New Hampshire School of Falconry in Deering, say it's the first time this surgery has been done on a falcon.

Banner will need anti-inflammatory eye drops for a few weeks to make sure her eyelids don't become too irritated by the sutures in her corneas.

"When we first started looking for help, we heard a lot of anecdotal, 'well it can't be done,'" Jim Cowan said.

Nancy Cowan held Banner on her glove as he shook a leather tassel a few feet away. He smiled when Banner turned toward it.

"You can see something all right," he said. "You can see something."

http://news.yahoo.com/falcon-cataract-surgery-gets-lenses-124756352.html

[gwillybj]

14 July 2014
Cheers! A Celebration of Literature’s Booziest Books
Hephzibah Anderson


(Thinkstock)

Take a literary cocktail tour with BBC Culture as Hephzibah Anderson reveals how booze and books make such fine bedfellows.

Oscar Wilde wrote of his inordinate fondness for absinthe and Dorothy Parker, who was at her waspish best when she disliked something, was partial to a martini or three (at the most –by four she was famously “under the host”). Ernest Hemingway’s poison was a mojito (among others) and William Faulkner’s a mint julep, while Dylan Thomas reached straight for the whiskey. Again and again and again.

Alcohol plays a well-documented role in literary life – or at least it used to, what with liquid lunches and all-night benders that ended at the typewriter. (The clatter of those keys must have been murder with a hangover, which perhaps explains why certain authors chose to remain drunk instead.)

These days, wordsmiths tend to be a more sober bunch but their reputation for enjoying a nip of this, a flagon of that, and a vat of the other, endures. It’s hardly surprising that some of the stronger stuff has sloshed onto their pages and into their stories. Flip through classics old and new and you’ll find scenes of weepy, wanton, comical, carefree and tragic inebriation, in which beds get set alight (as in Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim), bears are tied to policemen and thrown into rivers (Tolstoy’s War and Peace), and wives sold (Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge). Children’s literature isn’t exempt either – remember when Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox led a raid on Farmer Bean’s cider cellar?



Proof Reading

Some authors run up a longer bar tab than others. As one Thomas Pynchon devotee has discovered, there’s enough liquor in the Pulitzer Prize winner’s books to generate a dedicated blog. In May, the anonymous fan, who also tweets as @Drunk Pynchon, embarked on a project to imbibe every drink mentioned in every Pynchon novel. Let’s hope he has a strong constitution because Gravity’s Rainbow alone features almost 50 different libations, including something that calls for grain alcohol, beef tea, grenadine, herbal infusions (blue skullcap, valerian root, motherwort and lady’s slipper, no less) and a dash of cough syrup.

It’s the kind of drink you could imagine Raoul Duke and Dr Gonzo consuming on their road trip through southern California in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. In fact, it’s pretty much the only thing they don’t drink. Alcohol fumes rise from the page as they wash down a rainbow of pills with everything from beer to tequila. Their baggage includes a pint of raw ether.

And then there’s the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster’, as invented by Zaphod Beeblebrox in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Imbibing this cocktail, Douglas Adams wrote, is “like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon”, wrapped “round a large gold brick”, which is no wonder with ingredients like Arcturan Mega-gin, Fallian marsh gas and the tooth of an Angolian Suntiger. Its effects, you might imagine, are every bit as disorienting as the potion that Lewis Carroll’s Alice glugs.

A more refined literary cocktail list might feature a sidecar, as sipped by wealthy Arthur Ruskin in Bonfire of the Vanities, a white angel, which was Holly Golightly’s choice, or a refreshing daiquiri, James Wormold’s order in Graham Greene’s Our Man in Havana. Jay Gatsby prefers gin rickeys while Daisy Buchanan is a mint julep kind of a gal. For Anthony Blanche in Brideshead Revisited, it’s brandy alexanders, that sticky mix of cream, cognac and crème de cacao. Personally, I prefer the sound of the jack roses that boozy Jake Barnes knocks back in Ernest Hemingway’s career-maker, The Sun Also Rises. They’re a mix of applejack, lemon or lime juice, and a splash of grenadine.


Jay Gatsby's preferred drink is a Gin Rickey (Warner Bros)

There are simpler drinks, too. In On the Road, Dean and Sal hang out in a San Francisco ‘sawdust saloon’ where a guy named Walter orders wine spodiodi, ‘a shot of port wine, a shot of whisky, and a shot of port wine’.

Then there’s the Moloko Plus. Also called a Knifey Moloko, this fictitious tipple comes in many forms but is essentially milk with barbiturates. Featured in Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, it’s drunk by the narrator Alex in preparation for “a bit of the old ultraviolence”.



Raymond Chandler’s chess-playing sleuth, Philip Marlowe, keeps things altogether mellower with a gimlet, a recipe for which appears in The Long Goodbye. The drink becomes the glue in a fledgling friendship between the loner private eye and a washed-up playboy named Terry Lennox. “A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose's Lime Juice and nothing else,” Lennox tells Marlowe. “It beats martinis hollow.” 

And since he brings them up, it would be remiss not to at least nod to the “very strong” vesper martini that Ian Fleming describes so precisely in Casino Royale. It comprises three measures of gin, one of vodka and a half-measure of the French aperitif Lillet. Shake until ice-cold, then pour into a deep champagne goblet and finish with a twist.

‘In Vino Veritas’

Of course, authors were dousing their pages with liquor long before the invention of the cocktail. Weave your way back towards the canon’s beginning, and you’ll find the hero of Beowulf defending the king’s vast mead hall against the marauding monster Grendel, who’s seemingly incensed by the drinkers’ din. Mead, if you’ve never encountered it, is a honey-based wine with an ale-like taste, beloved by humans if not Old English ogres.

It pops up in Shakespeare’s plays, too, along with still more obscure wines like malmsey and canary (it really did have a yellow tint, apparently). For that joker Falstaff, though, there was only one tipple: sherry. As he eulogises in Henry IV, Part II, it makes him witty and bold, warms his blood and sets his face aglow. Drunk, in other words.

For authors, on the page though infinitely less so their lives, drunkenness is put to good use, becoming another tool for illuminating their characters’ traits and fates: in vino veritas, as the saying goes. And while it wreaks its fair share of Bacchic destruction (just consider the middle portion of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch), in moderation, it can also be a force for good, as when Ebenezer Scrooge offers to share a bowl of Smoking Bishop (that’s port, wine, oranges and spices) with Bob at the end of A Christmas Carol.

If just reading about all this boozy over-indulgence has left you a little tipsy, there’s one drink from Gravity’s Rainbow that might be best: a Shirley Temple.

Cheers!

[gwillybj]

Loose Crabs in Cargo Fold Delay New York Flight
Associated Press
October 3, 2014 11:56 PM

NEW YORK (AP) — If passengers on a delayed flight from New York to Charlotte, North Carolina, got a bit crabby, no one could really say they were being too shellfish.

Their flight left LaGuardia Airport about a half-hour late Thursday evening because some live crabs got loose in the cargo hold.

US Airways spokeswoman Liz Landau said Friday it's unclear how the fairly small crustaceans escaped their container or what species they were. She says there were "more than a few" of them.

It's unknown who was shipping them. The airline carries various cargo shipments, along with passengers' luggage.

Workers swept the crabs out of the hold, and the flight went on its way.

[gwillybj]

Yahoo! News | Odd News
Security Cameras Capture Horse Walking Into Police Station
By Mia Fitzharris
October 10, 2014 3:38 PM

'Neigh'-bour visits Cheshire Police HQ

A horse walking into a police station sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but that scenario actually happened.The horse trotted into the Cheshire Constabulary Headquarters in Winsford, England, early Monday morning. The animal is seen on closed-circuit video casually entering the station through automatic doors before an officer walks him back out a short while later. Apparently the horse was from a nearby field, where it was returned by the staff. Police Superintendent Peter Crowcroft released this statement:

"We were somewhat saddled with our unexpected guest, who in the early hours of the morning quickly became the mane event of the night shift. ... At neigh point did the horse pose a risk to security."

That is probably the best example of British humor we have seen in a while.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/oddnews/security-cameras-capture-horse-walking-into-police-station-193826853.html