Man arrested for train surfing… naked

To quote from a tongue-in-cheek post by the Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office in Colorado:

Greetings Sedgwick County,

For those of you who had the unfortunate experience of seeing this gentleman surfing naked on top of a moving locomotive yesterday, I want you to know that he was arrested on felony and misdemeanor charges.

Daniel Ray Ballance of Quartzsite, AZ decided to visit our County yesterday via the Union Pacific Railroad after he broke a window on a locomotive and entered it. To some he blew the horn, to others he showed a little too much.

Daniel expressed his love of vodka, beer, and playing the Banjo. Unfortunately, we had to separate him from those loves and the train ride. Instead Daniel is spending some time at an all expenses paid stay in jail, where he is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Don’t Wait For Weird

From Canada: a strikingly surreal breast cancer PSA.

Link to video

RIP Gary Sobers

From a tribute on the AP News website:

Sobers held a slew of records. His unbeaten 365 against Pakistan in 1958 — remarkably his first test century — was the record score for 36 years, before countryman Brian Lara bettered it. He also was the first player to reach 8,000 runs in test cricket and to hit six sixes in one over in a first-class game, for Nottinghamshire against Glamorgan in English county cricket in 1968.

All this achieved while maintaining a party lifestyle.

“Well, it’s an exaggeration to say I was partying every night. Just every other,” Sobers told The Guardian newspaper in 2002.

“The night before a test match, I’d always be out and about all night. Sometimes I didn’t sleep at all before a big game.”

RIP Brenda Fricker

The pigeon lady has flown on to the Great Beyond.

So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993)
  - The Paper
  - ‘A sexy wee bastard’

Woman caught smuggling python… in her bra

To quote from a news report out of Amsterdam:

You truly never know what headline you’ll read next. A Canadian woman has been caught at Schiphol trying to smuggle a ball python onto a plane.

Thankfully, before Schiphol passengers could experience a real life version of “Snakes on a plane”, the woman was caught.

According to the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA), the snake was discovered during a safety check, RTL Nieuws reports.

How did she attempt to hide the animal? By stuffing it into her bra… Unfortunately for her, it seems that the cupsize wasn’t enough to disguise a living snake.

Leave your VanMoof anywhere

A series of spots for the Dutch bike maker featuring unusual settings and unusual ‘thieves’.

   -Plastic Bag
   -Tumbleweed
   -UFO

Man tries to rob bank… with a stolen kitten

To quote from a report out of Maryland:

A man grabbed a kitten from the adoption area of a Maryland pet store, then allegedly tried to use her to rob a nearby bank.

But it was far from the purr-fect crime — police were on the scene in minutes, and the kitten, named Magnolia, came through it all unharmed.

Security camera video shows a man wearing a light-colored t-shirt and black beanie walking into Pet Supplies Plus on Baltimore Avenue in Beltsville, Maryland. Seconds later, he ran out clutching a black and white kitten.

Witnesses said he kept running straight for the PNC Bank in the same shopping center.

Stephanie Stullich of Beltsville Community Cats rescue was nearby when she got a call from a very alarmed store employee around 10:30 a.m. They said someone used the key hanging nearby to open the cat adoption area and take 3-month-old Magnolia..

Stullich drove over immediately.

“Immediately saw all of these police cars, and I thought, ‘Wow, that's a heck of a response for a stolen cat,’ but then I realized they all were going down to the bank,” she said. “[…] They came back out a few minutes later and said, ‘Yes, there is a cat inside the bank.’ Apparently he went into the bank with the cat in his arms, and he walked up to a bank employee and said, ‘Can you hold this?’ And then he wrote a note and handed it to a bank teller and it said, essentially, give me all your cash.”

RIP Sam Neill

The Hunt for Red October (1990)
  - Living in America

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
  - ‘Word of advice’
  - ‘Nothing surprises me’

The Future Is Feline

In a new campaign, pet-tech company Whisker unambiguously announces where it stands in the cat vs. dog debate.

   -Green Bag Blues
   -Raining Cats and Dogs

Look up, and take it in

Fujifilm makes a case for cameras over mobile phones.

Link to video

Instructor-pilot commits suicide… midair

As reported by CNN:

A pilot jumped out of the door of a moving plane to his death, leaving the student he was teaching to fly to land the aircraft by herself.

Flight instructor Leandro Andrés Bertazzo, 42, was found dead following the incident, which took place in Toledo, central Argentina, on Saturday, according to a statement from the country’s public prosecutor, published Tuesday.

Bertazzo was on board the Cessna 150 aircraft with a 22-year-old student named Rosario, CNN affiliate TN reported.

The student said Bertazzo told her, “You know what you have to do, carry on,” before taking off his headset and seatbelt, opening the door and jumping out of the plane, TN reported.

Eduardo Álvarez, director of the Flying Parrot Córdoba flying school where Bertazzo worked, told TN that there were no signs that the pilot was planning to throw himself from the plane.

RIP Bonnie Tyler

Total Eclipse of the Heart

A nutritional take on cannibalism

As reported by Reuters, quoting from a statement released about a study by scientists from Poland and the Czech Republic:

From a caloric perspective, a person turns out ​to be ‌an average meal ... The key problem, ‌however, lies elsewhere: the risk of infection. Pathogens have an easier task because they end up in ⁠an organism with almost identical physiology.

‘Only fans’ from Back Market

In a tongue-in-cheek spot,  the refurbished goods platform turns up the heat, to help beat the heat.

Link to video

Marmite is Wemite… for the World Cup

As posted by the brand (shortly after the tournament began):

We’re changing our name from MARMITE to WEMITE. Because WEMITE reach the quarters, WEMITE reach the semis, WEMITE even go and win it.

Life out there

In the backdrop of Pentagon footage prompting the question of life ‘out there’, Suzuki Australia offers a playful answer.

Link to video

Man charged over ‘using seagull as a weapon’

That’s according to a news report out of Oban, Scotland.  To quote:

Oban police investigate after report of man using seagull as a weapon

Police in Oban have charged a man who is alleged to have assaulted someone with a seagull.

Officers were called to Queens Park Place near Station Square on Saturday June 27 after members of the public raised the alarm when a man allegedly grabbed two seagulls from the street and used one to attack a member of the public.

There was no evidence of the birds being injured in the incident.

RIP Michael Byrne

The Sum of All Fears (2002)
  - Keeping the Back Channels Open

Woman pleads ignorance about drugs found in her butt

Well, there’s more.  She suggested that the drugs were planted in an “intimate encounter”.  As reported by the Brevard County Sheriff's Office, Florida:

You really just can’t make this stuff up…butt you sure can try as this one puts the ole… “those are not my pants” excuse to shame!!

Over the weekend, Deputies arrested Reagan Cox for resisting an officer without violence during a traffic stop. Of course she was transported to Ivey’s Iron Bar Lodge and folks this is where things get interesting…

As Cox was being processed through the scanner, an abnormality was seen in the “lower region” of her person or “Jail Purse” area if you will. Our Corrections Deputies moved Cox to a change out room where she was observed trying to cover her buttocks area with her hand. After moving her hand, a baggie dropped to the floor containing approximately 3.8 grams of cocaine!!

Now here’s why we say you just can’t make this stuff up as when the baggie dropped to the floor, Cox spontaneously uttered that she knew nothing about the drugs and that someone must have put it in there during an “intimate encounter!!”

There’s just not much else to say about this one folks, other than Cox received an additional charge for Introduction of Contraband into a Detention Facility for bringing cocaine into the jail facility!!

Folks, if not realizing that someone left cocaine in your “Jail Purse,” is not a good enough reminder to not do drugs, then I don’t know what is!!

Heat forces yodelers to sing in fountains

As explained in an AP News report out of Basel, Switzerland:

Switzerland’s national yodelling festival does not stop for a heatwave. It just moves closer to the fountains. Singers need to keep hydrated, and these yodellers have found their own solution to 38-degree heat. And why not practice while you’re bathing? It’s a familiar story all over the city. Its 45 fountains are full of yodellers, which is not something you can say every day.