Great Pumpkin of California Wins $9,144
How do you grow a 1,524 pound pumpkin? With love, of course.
Thad Starr, a stay-at-home dad from Pleasant Hill, Ore., win the 34th annual pumpkin weigh-off in Half Moon Bay, shattering the competition's old record by almost 300 pounds.
"You'll see me kiss all my pumpkins," Starr told reporters, after winning $9,144 in prize money for the 1,524 lb. pumpkin. "It kind of sounds corny, but you develop a bond with your pumpkins. ... They're almost your friends."
Starr's gourd was just 11 pounds short of the California record. The world record pumpkin is a 1,689-pound squash grown by Joe Jutras of Rhode Island.
Weird News Highlights
- Joints at a Hamburger Joint: Man tries to pay for McDonald's drive-thru with pot (You Must Be Wasted);
- Pincers be Damned: Man accused of smuggling six lobsters in his pants (Humans Behaving Badly);
- In the Name of Animal Rights: PETA activists changes her name to 'CutOutDissection.com' (Name Games);
- Stuck in the Muck: Because of the heavy stink of fecal matter, police needed protective gear as they cut free a 600 lb. man trapped in his home (Weighty Issues);
- Peek-a-boo-boo: Former Wisconsin priest pleads guilty of showing nude pictures of himself to female church members. (Nude News).
Photo © Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Keep Up With Buck's Weird News Blog on Facebook
Tongue-Piercing, Cheek-Piercing Fun
Thailand's Vegetarian Festival traces its roots back to the early 1800s when miners began piercing their tongues, cheeks (and other parts of their body) to chase away evil spirits and bring good luck to the community. Today, the people of Phuket Island continue the tradition -- refraining from eating meat, drinking alcoholic drinks, engaging in sex, quarreling, telling lies or killing as they punch holes in their body to show their devotion to the ancient gods.
- More Photos of the the Phuket Island Vegetarian Festival
- Weird Photo Extravaganza
- More Wordless Wednesday Blogs
Photo © Chumsak Kanoknan/Getty Images
Keep Up With Buck's Weird News Blog on Facebook
Naked Clown Calendar
Are you ready to greet 2009 with a greasepaint smile -- and nothing else?
Twenty-one buff bozos have stripped off their goofy suspenders and floppy shoes for a calendar that will make you laugh and help people with multiple sclerosis.
"You might not think clowns have good bodies, but with all the acrobatics training that goes into performing, we're actually in pretty good shape," says Chad Benjamin Potter of the San Francisco Clown Conservatory.
These clowns were inspired by conservatory co-founder Judy Finelli, who has performed on Sesame Street and at Carnegie Hall over the course of three-decade career.
Finelli, once a renowned juggler, was diagnosed with MS in 1989. "She remains very articulate, and she's a mentor and an inspiration," Potter tells me. "But the disease has put her in considerable pain."
These civic-minded clowns are hoping to raise $1 million with their $20 calendar. And it's not vulgar. A strategically placed top hat or bicycle horn saves you from seeing the full Monty.
I'm just glad this is a charitable cause, because I'm the type who just can't live without a naked clown calendar. At least I can tell people, I bought it for charity (and I did it on the same day I completed the MS Bike New York Marathon).
"We actually thought of doing a clowns-in-bikinis calendar," Potter said. "But then we thought, we've got to go all the way."
Weird News Highlights
- Great Pumpkin Caper: 450-lb. gourd stolen (Dumb Crime Du Jour);
- Sex, Lies and Neiman Marcus: Security guards caught having sex at work are suing, claiming they were illegally video taped (Love Sex & Marriage);
- Sign of the Times: Man sells home on eBay for $1.75 (Economic Woe);
- Too Fat to Fly: British couple (who weighed a combined 532 lbs.) say a flight attendant asked them to move from the back of the plane because they were too heavy (Weighty Issues).
Photo © Mario Tama/Getty Images
Keep Up With Buck's Weird News Blog on Facebook
Coca-Cola as Birth Control
Science has now proven what all but the dumbest among us already knew -- Coca-Cola is not effective as birth control -- but research now shows that it's not as bad as you probably think.
At Harvard University's annual Ig Nobel Awards -- a satirical honor for the latest in outrageous research -- this year's kudos went to medical researchers at Boston University who published a study that proves Coke actually kills sperm on contact.
Diet Coke is an even more effective spermicide, according to the work of Gynecology Professor Deborah Anderson and her team, who published their findings in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Not that it's my job to play school nurse, but let us get one thing straight: Anderson and her colleagues were just putting an old Urban Legend to the test -- and they were doing it as a joke. You wouldn't want to drink or douche with the soft drink in place of, say, using a condom.
"We're thrilled to win an Ig Nobel, because the study was somewhat of a parody in the first place," Anderson said.
To underscore this information, the Ig Nobel committee also honored a group of Taiwanese doctors that proved the soft drink doesn't work as a contraceptive, even if it does kill sperm.
My favorite cola legend involves a woman in North Texas who supposedly drank dried rat urine and contracted a deadly disease. I'll leave the debunking of that whopper to the great David Emery.
-
Related:
- Coke Folklore
- Weird Science
Photo © Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Keep Up With Buck's Weird News Blog on Facebook
On Your Marks! Get Set! Watch!
You can step into the batter's box to face a 100-MPH Francisco Rodriguez fastball. You can try to cross the line of scrimmage with a 300 lb. defensive lineman bearing down on you.
But in the world of marathon movie watching, that's like trying to sit through The English Patient at 4 a.m., after watching 20 straight hours of DVDs -- one after another, with limited bathroom breaks, no sleeping. and judges ready to disqualify you for turning away from the screen for a mental health break.
"It takes an iron will. You have to want it more than anyone else," Suresh Joachim of Sri Lanka told me just minutes before stepping into a glass chamber at New York's Times Square to beat his own world record of nearly 70 torturous hours.
The Netflix Movie-Watching World Championship kicked off this morning, pitting Joachim against such rivals as three-time champ Claudia Wavra of Germany, and competitive eating legend Crazy Legs Conti -- a man who once woofed down 30 Maine Lobster in twelve minutes.
I've always admired Crazy Legs. I sat next to him at Shea Stadium two years ago after he ate more than 20 hot dogs to qualify for the Nathan's July 4th championship. I ate two hot dogs that day, and yet I was the guy with the upset stomach who kept running to the bathroom.
But this is no Major League Eating chow-down, and Crazy Legs might be out of his league. Joachim holds more than 30 Guinness records, including one for running 1,000 hours on a treadmill.
"I'm going to wing it," Conti told me. "I asked the judges to play a Marx Brothers movie. That always perks me up."
Photo © Buck Wolf
Keep Up With Buck's Weird News Blog on Facebook
Coked Up on the Stock Market
Stock markets around the world are on a wild ride. Amid the madness, this Coca-Cola party animal stood in Britain as members of the Conservative Party discussed finance, undoubtedly in hopes to bring back a bull market.
- Related Photos:
- Weird Photo Extravaganza
- World's Tallest Man Marries
Photo © Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Keep Up With Buck's Weird News Blog on Facebook
Best Mug Shot Ever: Cow-Woman on a Rampage
Michelle Allen of Middletown, N.Y. is accused of urinating on a neighbor's porch and chasing children while wearing this cow costume. Police say she smelled of alcohol and was verbally abusive when they found her creating traffic problems along North Verity Parkway.
Photo Courtesy Middletown Police Dept.
Keep Up With Buck's Weird News Blog on Facebook 
Stumble It!
Frenchman Fails to Pedal Across English Channel
The unfavorable winds on Wall Street seem to blow all the way to Western Europe, where French adventure Stephane Rousson had the bright idea of attempting to float across the 34-mile English Channel in a pedal-powered balloon.
You'd think the disappearance and presumed death of Steve Fossett would have put an end to loony ballooning. But Rousson says he was inspired by Stephen Spielberg's E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.
Rousson, 39, and his helium-filled mini Zeppelin set off Sunday at 8 a.m. from Kent, and made it roughly three-quarters the way across before deciding to give up, after winds shifted and kicked up.
"I'm not disappointed," he told Reuters. "I feel happy because it had nothing to do with any technical failure."
Rousson was 11 miles from Wissant in France, his final destination . . . and that's the way the bubble bursts. There's always Snake River Canyon.
Weird News Highlights
- Better to Overeat Than Be Eaten: Woman says being fat helped her beat a flesh-eating disease (Strange Medicine);
- Headline of the Day: Guy walks out of bar with new leg (Drinking Tales);
- Mo-o-o-ve Over, Holsteins: PETA asks Ben & Jerry's to tap nursing mothers for the milk in its ice cream (Man Vs. Beast);
- Pray for a Happy Ending: Arizona prosecutors say a house of prostitution has been passing itself off as a church (Strange Religion);
- Marital Dis: Man sues priest for stealing wife (Love Sex & Marriage).
Photo © Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
Join Buck's Weird News Central on Facebook
World's Tallest Man to Become a Father
The 7-foot-9-inch Bao Xishun and his 5-foot-5-inch wife are expecting a child.
These have been good times for Bao. He had lost his title of the Guinness World Record as tallest living man in 2006 to Ukrainian Leonid Stadnyk. However, Stadnyk refused to be measured early this year, and he was decertified.
In March 2007, just before regaining his crown, he married Xia Shujian. They've said that theirs is a marriage of equals, despite the fact that she barely reaches the top off his elbow. Proof once again that love conquers all.
-
Related
- New World Records
- World's Tallest Man Marries
- A Big Goodbye to the World's Tallest Woman
- Weird Photo Extravaganza
Weird News Highlights
Photo © ChinaFotoPress
Keep Up With Buck's Weird News Blog on Facebook
Even Blaine's Blasting Bush
These are dark days for President Bush. He's taking a lot of heat for the country's economic meltdown, and now, even David Blaine is blaming him for his latest stunt going awry.
The over-the-top showman spent 60 hours this week hanging upside down 40 feet off the ground in New York's Central Park as part of his ABC special, David Blaine Dive of Death.
In his big finish, Blaine was supposed to be whisked off with helium balloons. But he never got to float off into the Manhattan skyline. Bush was addressing the nation, and so, Blaine had to put his plans on hold.
"My show was delayed 15 minutes and when they let us resume, the wind had picked up," he told TMZ. "Then, they were saying to me I couldn't do it."
More troubling, some people are saying Blaine cheated. Not true, Blaine shot back.
Though he did eat, drink and sleep upside down for two and a half days, he turned upright for bathroom breaks. He says he really didn't have any choice.
"I'm not going to pee all over myself and everyone below me," he told the Associated Press. "That's gravity."
As a lifelong New Yorker and Central Park user, all I can say is, "Thanks, Dave."
-
Related:
- Photo Gallery: David Blaine's Greatest Stunts
- Oddly Enough's Robert Basler on Bush's U.N. Speech
Photo © Bryan Bedder/Getty Images
Keep Up With Buck's Weird News Blog on Facebook