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by Mathew
Ingram
CIRCLEMAKERS
The folks at the ultra-cool site Circlemakers are some of the guys who started the whole crop circle thing -- honest. Or is it another hoax of a different kind? You decide. Includes the article "I Was A Teenage Plasma Vortex."
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DARWIN AWARDS
Ever wanted to pay tribute to all the really stupid people out there? The Darwin Awards site already has -- dedicated to all those who have kept the gene pool clean by killing themselves, preferably before they reproduce.
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KISS THIS GUY
If you thought Jimi Hendrix was saying "Excuse me while I kiss this guy," you're not the only one. Check out Kissthisguy.com, and laugh at all the other people who've done the same, or submit your own. I don't think lyrics from Van Morrison should count, since he's unintelligible a lot of the time.
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ANOMALIES
If you know what the legend of the Green Children is, or Spring-Heeled Jack, or you know what the mysterious death of Mary Reeser refers to, then you probably don't have to visit Anomalies. If you don't, then you do. Especially if you're into spontaneous human combustion -- quite a good review of the phenomenon.
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REAL DOLL
It had to happen eventually -- a high-tech sex doll. RealDoll supposedly started when a sculptor made a life-size, posable model of a woman out of silicone, and it was so lifelike that someone suggested it might come in handy for, um... certain purposes. Now, if you've got $5,000 or so you can order one -- they will even custom-make one from a photograph if you want.
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Every now and then I come across something weird/strange/odd, or just plain stupid that I feel requires more mention than just a brief item as part of my Weird Pages. In such a case, I feature it here on the Weird Feature page. If you've got any comments or additions you'd like to make, please feel free to mail me.
Weird One | Weird Too | Weird Three | Weird Four |
| Weird Feature | The Stupidfun Page |
Love and Afferications
This feature at WORD magazine is about George Kotolaris, a mentally disturbed man who lived with his mother in Seattle. In the 1960s they started buying and selling real estate, and this led George to create a strange, disjointed autobiography. Whenever a parcel of land is bought or sold, the title deed is recorded -- but there are no restrictions on what is considered a title deed. So George recorded his whole life on the title deeds for his properties. The entire collection consists of almost a hundred thousand pages spanning nearly thirty years.
How to deal with your teen
David Van Blarigan, a 16-year-old high-school student in Oakland, Calif., was woken up in the middle of the night at his home and taken to Tranquility Bay, a treatment center for "difficult teens" in Jamaica. Youth treatment centers are commonly used for drug-addicted or criminal teenagers -- but apparently, David simply refused to be properly respectful of his devoutly Christian parents. At Tranquility Bay, parents sign a waiver allowing staff to use force, pepper spray, handcuffs and sedatives to subdue their teens. A judge ruled they were well within their parental rights. Here's a story Salon magazine did about these types of programs.
Serial killers and their fans
In August of 1997 or so, a woman named Sondra London got a lot of media attention when America Online decided to remove her Web site because it was devoted to the writings of various murderers. Ms. London has co-written a book with one of these killers -- Danny Rollings -- who at one point proposed marriage, and he and a bunch of other killers started sending letters and drawings. As it turns out, one of the killers she refers to on her site was a lover of hers when she was a teenager. Ms. London also happens to be the Erisian Elestria, or High Priestess of something called Discordism, which appears to be devoted to causing disorder and chaos.
Satanic child abuse hoax
One of the first widespread allegations of Satanic child abuse took place in Nottinghamshire, England in 1988 -- the so-called Broxtowe case. The report is available on the web -- or at least part of it, since the entire report is 600 pages. More than 10 men and women were charged with 53 counts of abuse against more than 21 children, who told psychologists about abuse and cannibalism taking place in places that turned out not to exist. Corroborating statements from the children included details such as "an uncle killing a man, cutting him up and putting him in a bag after going to a fantastic castle in a boat with Mr. Pooh Pants and the local vicar."
Reset your internal clock
There are lots of supposed remedies for "jet lag" -- including having sex and looking at a certain wavelength of light for a certain period of time. Now, medical researchers have found that shining a light on the back of the knees is just as effective as shining light into the eyes. A Cornell University researcher says experiments showed that the body clock, which controls the so-called "circadian" cycle, can be changed by shining a light on the skin behind the knees for a certain period of time. His study appears in the January 18, 1998 issue of the journal Science. Here's a wire story about it.
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