Weird News

Tom Flapwell · Postby **Tom Flapwell** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 10:51 pm

Still not as crazy as that stolen in-ground swimming pool.

Richard K Niner · Postby **Richard K Niner** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 12:49 am

From <a href='http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/11/drugs_mix_up/' target='_blank'>El Reg</a>...  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Copper supplies drugs to schoolgirl, 10 Accidentally, but still... By Lester Haines Published Friday 11th November 2005 14:34 GMT A Lincolnshire mum has been left "annoyed" and "gobsmacked" after her 10-year-old daughter returned from school with a bag of amphetamines - courtesy of the local Old Bill. Now, we can think of several sink estates where parents would be delighted if their kids came home with speed in their satchels, but Amanda Butterfield mercifully does not live in one of them. The outrage resulted from a bit of a mix-up during an anti-drugs day organised by Kia Butterfield's school, held at a Butlins near Skegness, the BBC reports. Cops hid two bags of whizz to demonstrate their sniffer dog's prowess, but only one was retrieved. Lincolnshire police spokesman Chief Superintendent Dave Wheeler explained: "When the packages were being hidden two packages were inadvertently placed in the girl's bag and when the dog found the drugs only one package was retrieved. It was a training exercise for the dog and education for the children but what happened shouldn't have happened." Wheeler promised that steps were being taken to ensure that never again would Lincolnshire constabulary supply class-Bs to minors. The police collected the drugs from Butterfield's home and apologised to the family. Kia's mum concluded: "I am pleased Kia is sensible and did the right thing by handing the drugs over to her father - and the police did the job to get the message across. But I am very annoyed it did happen."</td></tr></table>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 1:32 pm

Yes, the cardboard box, a classic toy!  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Nov 12, 7:05 AM EST Cardboard Box Added to Toy Hall of Fame By BEN DOBBIN Associated Press Writer ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) -- Forget the fancy toy: The box it comes in can be much more fun. Spaceship, castle, haven to daydream in, the cardboard box was enshrined Friday in the National Toy Hall of Fame along with Jack-in-the-Box and Candy Land. No kidding, grown-ups. "I think every adult has had that disillusioning experience of picking what they think is a wonderful toy for a child, and then finding the kid playing with the box," said Christopher Bensch, chief curator of the Strong Museum. "It's that empty box full of possibilities that the kids can sense and the adults don't always see." Low-tech and unpretentious it may be, but the cardboard box has fostered learning and creativity for multiple generations - a key qualifier for inclusion in the museum's seven-year-old hall of fame. And its appeal as a plaything or recreational backdrop is universal. All over the world, "packaging is something that's accessible to kids, whether that's cans or tins or wooden crates," Bensch said, and the cardboard box "makes a point that you don't have to spend a lot, have a certain income level or charge it on your credit card to have your kids have a great play experience." The museum, which boasts the world's largest collection of toys and dolls, acquired the hall in 2002 from A.C. Gilbert's Discovery Village in Salem, Ore. So far, 34 classic toys have been enshrined, from Barbie to Mr. Potato Head, Legos to Lincoln Logs, Slinky to Play-Doh and Crayola crayons to marbles. Candy Land, a board game decorated with a sweet-treats trail and destinations such as Gumdrop Mountain, was created in the 1940s by a San Diego polio victim, Eleanor Abbott, who wanted a pastime for children recuperating from illness. Jack-in-the-Box, the jester who bursts open his box lid when a compressed spring is released, appears to have originated in the 16th century. The toy is loosely based on Punch, the dynamic puppet in the "Punch and Judy" show. The corrugated cardboard box, which quickly came to dominate the shipping industry in North America, was invented by a Brooklyn printer, Robert Gair, in 1890. Strong Museum, the second-largest children's museum in America, is aiming to wrap up a $33 million expansion next summer that could double its attendance to nearly 700,000 visitors a year. The 23-year-old museum contains more than 70,000 toys and dolls and features circus memorabilia, children's books, household furniture, miniatures and various objects of American culture dating from the 1820s. --- On the Net: Strong Museum: <a href='http://www.strongmuseum.org' target='_blank'>http://www.strongmuseum.org</a> c 2005 The Associated Press.</td></tr></table>

Steve the Pocket · Postby **Steve the Pocket** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 11:41 pm

Very cool. I remember my favorite plaything as a kid was the gigantic box my dad's leaf-mulcher came in. It was as big as those castle forts Little Tykes makes almost. But the one thing I kept begging my parents for was a refrigerator box I could make a spaceship out of. I had designs planned out and everything... never got one though. EDIT: I just realized that makes it sound like we were pathetically poor. For the record, we weren't; my parents could have afforded plenty of discarded refrigerator boxes, I'll have you know!

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 12:02 am

Drunk Mooooooose!  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Nov 12, 10:27 AM EST Drunk Moose Invade Swedish Seniors Home STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) -- They rarely have problems with drunks or rowdy animals, but residents of a retirement home in southern Sweden had to deal with both: A pair of intoxicated moose invaded the premises. The moose - a cow and her calf - had become drunk over the weekend by eating fermented apples they found outside the home in Sibbhult, said employee Anna Karlsson. Police managed to scare them off once, but the tipsy mammals returned to get more of the tempting fruits. This time the moose were drunk and aggressive, forcing police to send for a hunter with a dog to make them leave. Police did not pursue the culprits, but made sure all apples were picked up from the area, police chief Bengt Hallberg said. No one was hurt. </td></tr></table>

erikbarrett · Postby **erikbarrett** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 12:59 am

In recognizition of good work,  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Cat Show Plans Memorial Service for Dog By JIM FITZGERALD, Associated Press Writer Thu Nov 10, 9:54 PM ET WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - This will probably be the first time a dog's memorial service is attended by 300 cats. A schnauzer-Siberian husky mix named Ginny will be eulogized Nov. 19 at the Westchester Cat Show, where she was named Cat of the Year in 1998 for her uncanny skill and bravery in finding and rescuing endangered tabbies. "It'll be right during the show, with the judging going on and all the cats out there on the floor," said Leslie Masson, a spokeswoman for the Westchester Feline Club, which sponsors the show. "We'll call for quiet, and then a few people will get up on stage and talk about Ginny. Her owner will be there and talk, if he's able to, and some people from her fan club." Ginny died in August at age 17, after a long career as a one-dog rescue party for cats on Long Island's South Shore. The club says she saved hundreds of cats who were abandoned, injured or in harm's way. Her owner, Philip Gonzalez of Long Beach, has written two books about Ginny and the cats she found, several of whom moved in with him. Among the best-known rescues is the time Ginny threw herself against a vertical pipe at a construction site to topple it and reveal the kittens trapped inside. She once ignored the cuts on her paws as she dug through a box full of broken glass to find an injured cat inside. Gonzalez, 55, said Thursday that over the years he has tried to train other dogs to do what Ginny did, but "They just didn't have it." "I didn't train her," he said. "Ginny was just magical in a way. I adopted her from a shelter, and they said she's never been with cats before. But she just had this knack of knowing when a cat was in trouble." As he used to do with Ginny, Gonzalez still goes out every night to feed stray cats in the area, with the help of the Ginny Fund, which pays for food, medical care and spaying or neutering. The cats seem to miss Ginny too, he said. "They want nothing to do with my other dogs," he said. "They used to come up to Ginny and rub against her, even if I was putting food out." The memorial service will be followed by this year's Cat of the Year award, which is going to an actual cat - Zoe, an 8-year-old ragdoll from Larchmont who saved her owner from carbon monoxide poisoning. Other cats of the year have included a cat with a cleft palate who taught herself to hold her feeding tube and a cat who campaigns against rules that prohibit pets in senior housing. Besides the memorial service, the Cat of the Year award and the best-of-breed judging, the show features a household pet competition, an agility contest for cats and a book signing by Allia Zobel, author of "101 Reasons Why a Cat is Better Than a Man." In addition, about 80 cats from shelters will be up for adoption.</td></tr></table>

johndoe0028 · Postby **johndoe0028** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 5:51 am

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Dell began offering a new desktop PC on Tuesday with no operating system installed. The machine is designed for people who want to run open-source software such as Linux instead of Windows. The Round Rock, Texas-based company's Dimension E510n PC comes with a blank hard drive and a copy of the FreeDOS operating system, which can be installed by customers. The computer is part of Dell's n-Series of PCs, which first started shipping without an operating system back in September 2002. The desktop retails for $849 and comes with a Pentium 4 processor; 512MB of advanced DDR computer memory; a 128MB ATI Radeon X300SE HyperMemory video card; an 80GB serial ATA hard drive and a one-year limited warranty. Dell's open-source PC The computers are designed for customers and companies that want to experiment with Linux and other open-source operating systems. Many large companies that have pre-purchased Windows through licensing programs have to erase all the software that comes on factory-shipped PCs and then install the alternative software they've chosen. Buying a PC without an operating system saves a step and eliminates the cost of the extra software. Despite its affinity for selling Windows-based computers, Dell is also a staunch supporter of Linux. The company has invested almost $100 million in open-source developer Red Hat and sells PCs and servers based on its operating system, such as its Dell PowerEdge SC430 with a dual-core Pentium. On the desktop, Dell has been installing Linux on its Precision workstations for a couple years. Dell spokesman Liem Nguyen said the company will continue to do so. The launch of the new Dimension desktop also marks the beginning of Dell's efforts to streamline its consumer products business, which features Inspiron notebooks and the Dimension desktop PCs. During its launch of its new XPS series last week, Dell said it will continue to offer Dimension and Inspiron products as they are, for now, but each will eventually split into two increasingly divergent categories. One of these categories will target audiences for basic systems; the other will aim at markets for entertainment PCs. The entertainment series will come with Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition (WMCE) standard, and the basic series will be loaded with Windows Home Edition. Although the entertainment systems will offer WMCE both with and without a TV tuner and related hardware, Dell expects most of these computers to go out the door without the media hardware, since the company is counting on its media-savvy customers to trade up to the new XPS series. </td></tr></table>  Wow, an open-source computer with an ATI card...

Richard K Niner · Postby **Richard K Niner** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 2:02 pm

The problem is, the N-series computers are more expensive than their Windows-loaded counterparts. And even when you add the options to the Windows counterparts to get the same specs, you don't save any money. <a href='http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/06/dell_open_pc/' target='_blank'>More info...</a>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 2:24 pm

This is a problem . . .  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Sunday, November 13, 2005 - Page updated at 12:40 AM Pilots mistake taxiway for runway at Sea-Tac By David Bowermaster Seattle Times aerospace reporter When Roger Seher flew a 37-seat Air Canada Jazz turboprop into Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in January 2004, he was aware of the "Taxiway Tango" problem. He'd flown into Sea-Tac many times and knew pilots arriving from the north sometimes confused the western landing strip, Runway 16 Right, with the nearby taxiway, called T or Tango. He also knew Sea-Tac had placed a 25-foot-by-25-foot "X" at the end of the taxiway to prevent potentially catastrophic landings there. So after touching down that morning, as he later reported, Seher and his co-pilot were startled to hear from the control tower: "You have landed on taxiway." At least eight times since December 1999, experienced pilots from five different airlines have mistaken Taxiway Tango for Runway 16R. Three planes, including an American Airlines MD-80 carrying 111 passengers and crew members, actually landed on the taxiway. Five others - most recently in January of this year - either performed last-minute "sidesteps" to shift course and land on 16R, or aborted their landings before circling and touching down safely on the runway. The incidents have alarmed the highest levels of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which has repeatedly warned that the confusion could cause a collision between incoming jets and planes or vehicles on the taxiway. Acting NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker wrote in an Aug. 8 letter to Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Marion Blakey that "the Safety Board believes the Taxiway T situation at Sea-Tac is a serious problem that has the potential to contribute to or cause a major accident, yet the FAA is unwilling to take interim steps to mark the taxiway." The FAA and NTSB have been feuding over the issue for years, but local FAA and Sea-Tac officials were unaware of the August letter until a reporter brought it to their attention late last month. They disagree with the NTSB's conclusions, as did several pilots interviewed by The Seattle Times. They cite multiple steps taken in recent years to make Sea-Tac's runways more visible and to educate pilots, and they insist passengers have little to fear. "I believe the problem's fixed," said Mark Coates, manager of operations at Sea-Tac. "We haven't had an unsafe landing on Taxiway Tango yet. Every one of them was wrong, and every one of them should not have happened, but they were not unsafe." The NTSB wants Sea-Tac to take additional actions that sound simple, such as painting warnings on the taxiway surface itself. But FAA and Sea-Tac officials say there is no proof those measures would work. Confusion from the start Taxiway Tango is lightly used, mostly by small private planes and corporate jets rolling to the general aviation hangar on the airport's west side. Those planes represent just 1 percent of the traffic at Sea-Tac. Commercial jets use Tango less often, mostly to reach parking spots on the edge of the taxiway during weather delays or when overnight parking at the terminal is full. The taxiway was completed in October 1999, an accessory to the planned third runway that has been delayed for years by court battles. Pilots noticed it right away. "We started having issues with that [taxiway] almost from day one," said a senior commercial pilot who has been flying into Sea-Tac since 1977. His employer allowed him to speak only on condition neither was identified. From the air, the taxiway's pristine pavement draws the eye, pilots say. "When you're 15 or 20 miles from the airport, you pick up this piece of concrete first because it's newer and brighter," said Jack Wilkes, an Alaska Airlines 737 captain with 34 years of experience and air-safety chairman for Alaska's pilots union. The first-known instance of a pilot mistaking Tango for Runway 16R occurred two months after Tango opened. In an anonymous report filed with a voluntary federal air-safety database, the pilot of a 737-800 said he lined up to land on the taxiway "because of the intense glare from the sun where the taxiway was clearly visible and the other landing surfaces were not able to be seen." When he realized his mistake, the pilot executed a "sidestep," lined up with Runway 16R and landed safely. At least one other pilot - in the 757 just ahead of the 737 - made the same mistake that day, but that incident was not formally documented. The most recent incident happened in January. The pilot of a Southwest Airlines 737 was just 500 feet above the ground when he realized he was about to land on Taxiway Tango. He executed a "go-around" at 250 feet and landed on Runway 16R. Elements of Tango's design add to pilots' confusion. Both the taxiway and Runway 16 Right are made of concrete, which has a white-ish appearance from the air. Runway 16 Left is made of asphalt, which looks dark. "16L just kind of blends in because it's black, and looks like the ramp area" in front of the main terminal, said the senior pilot who spoke on condition of anonymity. The dimensions of Tango and Runway 16R are similar as well. Counting the landing surface and the adjacent shoulders, Runway 16R is 200 feet wide, close to Tango's 180-foot span. Runway 16L is much wider at 250 feet across. Additionally, Tango is just 400 feet from Runway 16R. Runway 16L is 600 feet from 16R. Seattle's geography and weather complicate matters further. Each of the erroneous approaches has involved planes flying from the north toward the southern sun. And they've occurred between December and March, when the sun is low on the horizon and most likely to be shining into pilots' eyes. Several also took place on days when rain showers doused the runways, followed by bright sun breaks. "If the sun is peeking below the clouds and the surface is wet, you're going to see one heck of a glare," said Tom McRae, regional safety coordinator for the Air Line Pilots Association and an Alaska Airlines captain. Steps taken so far Sea-Tac officials have tried several strategies to keep pilots from landing on Taxiway Tango. In May 2000, they placed a small "X" on the ground about 200 feet north of the taxiway. It didn't do the trick. About six months later, a 14-passenger Cessna 208 operated by Harbor Air became the first plane to land on Taxiway Tango. The problem got more attention after the heavily loaded American Airlines MD-80 landed on Taxiway Tango on March 14, 2003. The NTSB, FAA, Sea-Tac officials and pilots formed a working group to study the problem. Soon after, in May 2003, Sea-Tac installed the yellow 25-foot-by-25-foot "X" near the end of the taxiway. Also, an audio warning about Taxiway Tango was added on the weather and conditions radio broadcast that pilots check before landing at Sea-Tac. Yet the incidents continued, most notably the Air Canada Jazz landing on Tango in January 2004. Seher, the captain, could not be reached for comment. But he told NTSB investigators neither he nor his co-pilot saw the X during their final approach, though they knew it was there. "Despite the airport's efforts, flight crews continue to mistake Taxiway T for an active runway," the NTSB wrote in June 2004. Sea-Tac in late 2004 added runway end identifier lights (REILs) to draw pilots' attention toward the two runways. But the lights "were very disappointing," admitted Bob David, manager of FAA's airport-safety and operations divisions. One problem: REILs are easy to see when a plane is lined up on the runway, but not when the plane is off to one side. The flight crew of the Southwest Airlines 737 that lined up on Taxiway Tango in January 2005 told NTSB investigators they did not see the REILs until after they aborted the first landing. More recently, the FAA persuaded the publishers of flying charts and maps for Sea-Tac to include written warnings about the Taxiway Tango situation. What else can be done? In June 2004, the NTSB recommended the FAA allow Sea-Tac to paint "TAXI ONLY" or "TAXIWAY" repeatedly on Tango, along with a serpentine center line. Other airports have used such markings with good results. When Palm Springs International Airport added a second parallel runway in 1991, planes began landing on the taxiway between the two landing strips. Twenty taxiway landings took place in 1995 alone, although most involved small private planes rather than commercial jets. Steve Zehr, systems aviation director at Palm Springs International, said the airport in the late 1990s painted several "TAXI" and "TAXIWAY" labels on the taxiway and added a serpentine center line. "The incidence of errant landings dropped dramatically," Zehr said. Airports in Las Vegas and Tucson took similar precautions, with similar success. But Matt Cavanaugh, manager of the safety and standards branch of the FAA's Pacific Northwest office in Renton, said: "The flight tests we've done have verified that when it's wet and shiny, you cannot see markings." "The water on the surface will obscure those markings," agreed Alaska pilot Wilkes. Max Tidwell, head of runway safety in the FAA's Pacific Northwest office, said such markings work best at airports where pilots fly past the airport before landing, allowing them to look down and see the taxiway. "At this airport all you have are straight-in approaches," said Coates, manager of operations at Sea-Tac. "You don't have an opportunity to fly beside a taxiway and look out a window and say, 'What's that?' " The FAA says it tested paint on the taxiway last February and concluded it would not be visible. The NTSB said the FAA painted only small strips on the taxiway's dark asphalt shoulders, rather than on the bright concrete surface, and didn't try running a serpentine line down the taxiway. "Given this information, the Safety Board questions how the FAA could determine that these measures were ineffective," the NTSB wrote in its Aug. 8 letter. Target fixation No matter how Taxiway Tango is marked, electronic instruments can guide pilots precisely to Runway 16R. When the coordinates for Sea-Tac are dialed in to a plane's navigation system, it indicates whether the final approach is on target. But on clear days pilots generally opt for visual approaches rather than relying on their instruments. Both airlines and air traffic controllers prefer this because it allows shorter distances between incoming planes. Kathryn Vernon, air-traffic hub manager for the FAA in Seattle, says most airlines' policy is that pilots should check their electronic guidance anyhow when doing a visual approach. Yet even highly experienced pilots occasionally forget to look back at their instruments once they see what they think is the runway. "You pick it up, you get locked in and you land," Wilkes said. The FAA's Max Tidwell said the agency and Sea-Tac officials are trying to correct the taxiway problem at that early point in pilots' decision making, so they do not let their eyes deceive them. Coates said he thinks the cumulative effect of all of the measures taken by Sea-Tac has greatly diminished the possibility of another airplane landing on Taxiway Tango. But he said he, air traffic controllers, the FAA and the NTSB will keep a close eye on the situation this winter. Because as long as Tango remains at Sea-Tac, more errant landings remain a possibility. "The only 100 percent solution is to remove that taxiway," Wilkes said, "and I don't believe that's going to happen." David Bowermaster: 206-464-2724 or dbowermaster@seattletimes.com Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company</td></tr></table>

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 5:34 pm

Anchorage Barnes & Noble tries out new drive-in concept . . .  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Subaru crashes into bookstore Vehicle skims past Barnes & Noble shoppers, injuring two By KATIE PESZNECKER Anchorage Daily News (Published: November 14, 2005) A woman accidentally drove a station wagon through a wall of the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Midtown Anchorage on Sunday afternoon, sending glass, wood and books flying, and causing shrieking shoppers to run for safety. No was one was hurt badly -- an amazing fact, witnesses agreed. Two people were taken to the hospital, according to the Fire Department. The store was filled with Sunday-afternoon browsers when the Subaru Outback came plowing through picture windows in the reading area, in the store's northwest corner. The car took out the travel section and barreled about 40 feet through the bookstore before coming to rest in nonfiction. "I thought it was an earthquake," said shopper Chris Badgett, 27. "There was screaming, people were running. I was running too." The driver has not been charged, and police had not released her name Sunday night. It happened around 2 p.m., a peak weekend time inside the sprawling bookstore. Just before the Subaru hit, Geoff Brosamer was sitting in the reading area -- a cozy space with cushy armchairs, reading tables, framed portraits of famous authors, and a faux fire flickering in the hearth. He wandered over to the checkout counter and asked staff members to announce that his creative writing group would be meeting momentarily in the lounge. He said he walked back to the lounge, looked out the window, and saw the Subaru approaching. "I saw this car turning, like it was going to go into the parking space," Brosamer said. "And then she just kept going and going." The Subaru burst into the room -- right where Brosamer had been sitting a few minutes earlier. The sound of shattering glass was deafening, witnesses said. People screamed and shrieked and dodged the car as it headed toward the fireplace, jerked right, obliterated shelves of travel books, and smashed into the stacks of the history section. Shoppers instantly sprung into good Samaritan mode, said Terise n'ha Caitriona, the store's cafe manager. A retired police officer helped get the woman out of the car. Doctors and nurses who were previously skimming titles and sipping coffee rushed to tend to victims. There was even a veterinarian on hand who promptly saw to the woman's two large dogs, barking up a storm in the back of the car. The vet took the pups to her animal clinic for safekeeping, n'ha Caitriona said. "It's Anchorage, and people are like that," she said. "Everyone who could help, helped. People who couldn't got out of the way." Witnesses said the driver looked to be in her 50s. She told people she'd just taken her dogs for a run and decided to stop by Barnes & Noble on her way home. She seemed to be in shock, several bystanders said. "She couldn't say if the car malfunctioned, or if she hit the wrong pedal," n'ha Caitriona added. Police, medics and the fire department were on scene within minutes with multiple fire trucks, rescue vehicles and police cars. The store's lot looked like the scene of a massive crime. Sgt. Jeff Morton with the Police Department dubbed it a "multicasualty response," since initial reports were someone might be trapped under the car, or maybe got hit hard by the Subaru. The driver was uninjured, said Tom Kempton, Fire Department spokesman. Three people were treated for minor injuries; two of them were hospitalized, he said. The store never closed. Police swiftly cordoned off the reading area with yellow tape as astonished shoppers crowded up to get a look. Some dumbfounded adults muttered expletives. Children took in the scene with saucer-round eyes. The crash unleashed literary upheaval -- the sort of disorganization that would surely horrify any type-A minded librarian: Books on Mexico and Venice intermixed with volumes on Vietnam and George Washington. Alaska Mileposts mingled with tomes about Spartans and ancient Rome. Thick texts on the FBI were shuffled among massive atlases. Glass sparkled against the carpet. Bulky volumes half-buried bookshelves splintered like dry kindling. The car didn't look so hot either. Cracks spider-webbed across the windshield. The driver's side mirror? Gone. Long scrapes marred the passenger side, where a deep dent punctuated the panel just above the tire. Books and chunks of glass and the remains of furniture hid the Subaru's hood. Police and fire crews cleared debris, while others yanked remaining glass from the Subaru's entry point at the windowed wall. It left a gaping void an estimated 10 feet tall and 12 feet across. Cops and firefighters pushed the car back through that hole and into the parking lot, where a tow truck would later take it for the police investigation. "Right now, all I can say is the vehicle entered from the parking lot," Morton said. "We're taking everything into account at this point. But this wasn't planned and we're investigating it as an accident, not as a criminal act." The driver was "truly having a bad day," horrified at the idea she might have hurt anyone and badly shaken by how much worse it might have turned out, Morton said. N'ha Caitriona said she tried to console the woman after the accident. "I told her, 'Look at it this way, they're travel books that aren't selling anyway because it's not tourist season.' " At least one customer was bummed by the loss. "Oh my God," 21-year-old Amanda Chriest said, as she crept toward the yellow tape. "I was going to get books for my trip to Germany -- and the travel section is gone!" Elsewhere in the store, it was business as usual. In fact, n'ha Caitriona said, business was slightly up for the day. "We're actually quite lucky," she said. "Really, it could have been so much worse." Daily News reporter Katie Pesznecker can be reached at kpesznecker@adn.com.</td></tr></table>

Zaaphod · Postby **Zaaphod** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 1:46 am

Maybe she was trying to avoid a moooooose. <img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' />

VisibilityMissing · Postby **VisibilityMissing** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 5:45 pm

Random . . . Riiiight . . .  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: </td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Plates getting replaced Ken Hasenmueller holds a set of license plates outside his Altoona, Wis., home. The Wisconsin Division of Motor Vehicles randomly assigned the plates which read 666-KEN, but the Christian father of three plans to exchange them because he doesn't want anyone to get the wrong idea about him. He said his first name is paired with the number recognized as a symbol for the Antichrist. (AP photo by Steve Kinderman, Eau Claire Leader-Telegram) Posted November 15, 2005</td></tr></table>

Bocaj Claw · Postby **Bocaj Claw** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 9:03 pm

Who decided that 666 was an evil number and why?

Gizensha · Postby **Gizensha** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 9:06 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (Bocaj Claw @ Nov 16 2005, 09:03 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Who decided that 666 was an evil number and why?  </td></tr></table>  The mark of the beast within Revolations. I presume the actual number 666 has something todo with Hebrew numerology. In the same way that 613 is the number of Jehova.

Bocaj Claw · Postby **Bocaj Claw** » Wed Nov 16, 2005 9:17 pm

<table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (Gizensha @ Nov 16 2005, 05:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'>  <table border='0' align='center' width='95%' ><tr><td class='quotetop'>Quote: (Bocaj Claw @ Nov 16 2005, 09:03 PM)</td></tr><tr><td class='quotebody'> Who decided that 666 was an evil number and why? </td></tr></table>  The mark of the beast within Revolations. I presume the actual number 666 has something todo with Hebrew numerology. In the same way that 613 is the number of Jehova.  </td></tr></table>  Piffle. Numbers are numbers are numbers. Thirteen is no more or less lucky than 7.

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