Dateline: Japan—According to the Shukan Gendai newspaper, an inventor has come up with a cell phone ring tone that will increase a woman's breast size. Hideto Tomabechi, who first made a name for himself in Japan by deprogramming brainwashed members of the AUM Shinrikyo doomsday cult, says, “Most would think it's a lie, but the techniques involved in the process have been known for some time and are the result of research I carried out in the '80s and '90s. I use sounds that make the brain and body movie unconsciously. It's a technique involving subliminal effects.” Amazingly, more than 10,000 people have scrambled to download the ring tone in its first week. “I listened to the tune for a week expecting all the time that I was being duped,” Chieri Nakayama, a 19-year-old pinup model, told Shukan Gendai. “But, incredibly, my 87-centimeter bust grew to 89 centimeters! It was awesome!” Tomabechi says he's already got plans for ring tones that improve memory, reduce baldness, help people quit cigarettes and increase attractiveness with the opposite sex.
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Dateline: West Virginia—A family dinner turned into a gun battle after a father and son argued over the proper way to cook chicken. “It started out as a physical confrontation, but it escalated until both of them were shooting at each other,” Detective Sgt. A.D. Beasley of the Mercer County Sheriff's Department said. The two men allegedly argued last Sunday night over the best way to prepare skinless chicken for dinner. According to police, Jackie Lee Shrader, 49, and Harley Lee Shrader, 24, each ended up firing a .22-caliber handgun at the other. Harley Lee was struck by a bullet that went through the upper part of his right ear and lodged in the back of his head. He was treated at a local hospital and released. The elder Mr. Shrader was charged with malicious wounding and wanton endangerment, while the younger Mr. Shrader was charged with wanton endangerment.
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Dateline: Arkansas—In other southern crime blotter news, 19-year-old Leroy Brown of Pine Bluff ended up burning down his mobile home after intentionally setting his wife's pants on fire. Officers said that Brown believed that his wife had been with another man. Naturally, he set fire to the pants he thought she was wearing at the time of the marital indiscretion. Surprisingly (to Brown anyway), the flaming pants soon began to singe his fingers, so he dropped them. Which, according to Pine Bluff police detectives James Golden and Kelvin Hadley, is how the trailer caught fire. Brown was detained on an arson charge after last Tuesday's fire, pending a formal review by the Jefferson County prosecutor's office.
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Dateline: Illinois—A man has filed suit against the White Castle hamburger chain for selling “unreasonably dangerous” onion rings. Michael Strauss' suit, filed last Wednesday against the burger chain, alleges that he suffered “great pain and anguish in mind and body” after biting into an onion ring two years ago causing “scalding hot grease” to splatter out and onto his arm “scalding and severely burning him.” Strauss wants more than $50,000 for the “severe and permanent injuries” he suffered after ordering White Castle “onion rings that were in an unreasonably dangerous and defective condition.” The suit alleges six counts of negligence on the part of White Castle.
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Dateline: Virginia—According to the Washington Post, students at the Alexandria Country Day School were introduced to happy hour a tad early last week when the school cafeteria accidentally served margaritas with lunch. Kitchen staff reportedly found pitchers of the fruity concoction in a refrigerator and mistook it for limeade. The tequila and margarita mix was poured into small cups and served to the third, fourth and fifth graders as a lunchtime treat. Some of the kids were turned off by the smell and refused to drink it. Others took a sip and declared it gross according to Alexander Harvey IV, head of the private day school. An administrator soon realized something was wrong and started investigating. The pitchers of margaritas were apparently left over from a party two days earlier at the school for staff, faculty and the Board of Trustees. “I am embarrassed and deeply sorry this happened,” Harvey told parents in a letter home. Liquor has now been banned from the school campus and all future faculty parties will be held off-campus. Bill Paxson, a former U.S. congressman who has two children at the school told the Post that his third-grader was “very excited” about the incident. “Her words were, ’Something really fun and illegal happened today at school.' Then she proceeded to say what happened. … She said she tasted it and it was so disgusting she couldn't drink it.” Harvey said he received no complaints from parents over the handling of the beverage-based mistake.
Compiled by Devin D. O'Leary. E-mail your weird news to devin@alibi.com.
