December 2010

Fart

Yes, there is a team out there whose official name is Fart. Fotballaget Fart is a Norwegian football club based in Vang. They play home games at Fartbana Stadion. The club has both men's and women's teams. The women play in the First Division (second tier), having been relegated from Toppserien following the 2008 season, while the men currently play in the Third Division (fourth tier). Thorstein Helstad started his career here.

Deportivo Wanka

Deportivo Wanka is a Peruvian football club, based in the city of Huancayo in the Peruvian Andes. It has been giving Manchester United a run for its money in the replica kit market, although the Huancayo-based outfit has no idea why more than 1,000 British footie fans might want to sport a Deportivo Wanka shirt. The team is, according to UK tabloid The Sun, named after the Wanka tribe which once occupied Huancayo. A spokeswanka said: "It is very strange. Everyone in Britain seems to think we have a funny name." The team's ignorance of the true meaning of its delicious moniker was confirmed by Subside Sports, which punts the kit online. "The club just doesn't get the joke," The e-commerce operation admitted. The Deportivo Wanka shirt is currently sold out, although hard-core Wankas can pre-order now for March delivery.

The Nads

There is a hockey team from the Rhode Island School of Design called the Nads. This name was created for the sole purpose of being funny. Their mascot is a giant set of genitals on hockey skates. Their basketball team is called the “Balls.”

Fighting Cocks

WTF? Yes, you heard it right; Fighting Cocks is the name of the team from Cocke County High School, a public high school located in Newport, Tennessee. The school serves around 1,100 students in a predominately rural area of East Tennesse.

The Yuma Criminals

Yuma High is the oldest standing high school in Yuma, Arizona. It was erected in 1909 and earned its mascot, the Criminal, after the school burned down and the students had to finish their classes in the Yuma Territorial Prison, where they remained for the next three years. Teachers conducted classes in the cell block area, and the school held assemblies in what had been the prison hospital. YHS is the only school in America that has a copyrighted high school mascot. In 1913 the Yuma football team travelled to Phoenix to play the "Coyotes". Yuma High won, and the angry "Coyotes" dubbed the Yuma High players the "Criminals". At first "Criminals" was a fighting word, but before long students and teachers wore the name with pride. In 1917 the school board officially adopted the nickname. Yuma High School has been proudly called the home of the "Criminals" ever since. I bet this name will definitely make a positive impact on the kids.

Orofino Maniacs

In Idaho, Orofino is the location of a state mental hospital. Their mascot? The Orofino maniacs. Very subtle, right? Actually, contrary to popular belief, the school's teams were not named for the mental hospital; the school was built before the hospital. The early Orofino players were dubbed "Maniacs" due to their frantic style of play.

UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs

The Banana Slug, a bright yellow, slimy, shell-less mollusk commonly found on the redwood forest floor, was the unofficial mascot for UC Santa Cruz coed teams since the university's early years. It became the university's official namesake in 1986--but not without a challenge.

When the campus decided in 1980 that five of its teams would begin playing at the NCAA Division III level, the chancellor at the time and a group of athletes and coaches determined that the Sea Lion would be a more distinguished mascot. Students would have none of that. They advocated fiercely on behalf of the loveable Banana Slug, organizing an election in which the Banana Slug bested the Sea Lion by a 15 to 1 ratio.

The Webbies

The Webb Institute is a specialized private college in Glen Cove, New York, that has only one program, which is undergraduate. Each graduate of Webb Institute earns a Bachelor of Science degree in naval architecture and engineering. Their team is called The Webbies. I can only imagine laptops lined up along the field. The coach calls in a play to the quarterback via I.M. through the tiny personal PC strapped to his arm.

Cedar Rapids Kernels

The Cedar Rapids Kernels are a Class A minor league baseball team based in Iowa. A name like this may look really odd at first glance, but when you consider that Iowa is known for its corn, the name ‘kinda' fits the region.

Teutopolis Wooden Shoes

Can you imagine how the Teutopolis Wooden Shoes got their very unique name? Way back in 1932, when John Harold Griffin was hired as the coach of the new athletic department, he looked for a "unique" name for the basketball team. At the time, there was an old Teutopolis pioneer, George Deyman (pronounced diamond) who carved wooden shoes for a living. To recognize Mr. Deyman and the German heritage of Teutopolis, Mr. Griffin chose the name "Wooden Shoes" for the team. I guess they are not very good at soccer.

The triplets who were born 11 years apart

Ever wonder what you were like when you were growing up? Two 11-year-old sisters in England will have just that chance, thanks to the amazing birth of their newborn triplet who had been on ice since she was conceived more than a decade ago. When Adrian and Lisa Shepherd decided to start a family in 1998, they underwent in vitro fertilization at the Midland Fertility Clinic because Lisa suffered from fertility issues that made traditional conception difficult. Doctors obtained 24 eggs from the mother, 14 of which were successfully fertilized. Two of those embryos were then implanted in Lisa, who gave birth to twins Megan and Bethany in 1999.

The other 12 embryos were placed in cryogenic storage until the family started talking about having another child last year. The Shepherds returned to the clinic, where doctors implanted a third embryo in Lisa that had been conceived on the same day as Megan and Bethany. Ryleigh was born on November 2010 at 7 pounds 10 ounces -- 11 years after her sisters. Experts told the paper it could be the longest age gap between siblings conceived during the same fertility treatment.

The man who was shot in the head but only found out 5 years later

A man living in Germany walked around and functioned normally for five years without noticing he had been shot in the head. The .22 caliber bullet was found when the man went to the doctor to have what he thought was a cyst removed. All he could remember was that he had received a blow to the head around midnight at a New Year's party "in 2004 or 2005," but had forgotten about it because he had been "very drunk." The wound later healed around the bullet and it was not until the man decided to have the lump examined due to recurring pains that the discovery was made.

The man who shot a teenager for wearing baggy pants

Cops in Tennessee say 45-year-old Kenneth Bonds got so angry at a teenager's baggy pants that he shot the young man in the buttocks. In Sept 25, Bonds, who was charged with two counts of aggravated assault, allegedly fired several shots at the 17-year-old after the victim refused to pull up his sagging trousers and called the accused gunman a "fat ass."

The Taliban insurgents who were training Kalashnikov-armed macaques and baboons to shoot at US troops

A report in China's People's Daily indicated that the Taliban is creating an army of monkey mujahideen. The story that appeared in July 2010 in the Chinese People's Daily suggested that insurgents used a reward-and-punishment system to train macaques and baboons to target soldiers wearing U.S. military uniforms. The Taliban supposedly "taught monkeys how to use the Kalashnikov, Bren light machine gun and trench mortars." But a researcher who has spent his career studying the social life of non-human primates casted a highly critical eye on the story.

"They can be trained to do things like turn off lights and open faucets and so on, but eventually that breaks down," said William Mason, a psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of California. The Chinese story cited unnamed British journalists and U.S. military sources when discussing the idea of insurgent monkeys. By contrast, the U.S. Stars and Stripes news source interviewed a NATO spokesman who said the notion had no basis in reality.

The woman who achieved the record of world's fattest at 700 pounds

Terri Smith, 49, a 700-pound woman is pinned in her sleeping room, incapable to move, stand or roll across by herself - adjusting the fresh world record as the Fattest woman. She suffers severe headaches and needs an MRI scan to check out for a potential brain tumor, unfortunately she is also too big to fit in a scanner or to pass through the doors of a hospital.

Terry has never been a delicate female child. At the age of 7, she weighed almost 70 kilograms. The woman explains that her family was poor which did not allow for her parents to bargain healthy foods. At the age of twenty, Terry weighed about 120 kilograms. Terri wedded husband Myron, whom she looks up to as her guardian spirit, in 1986. At the age of 32 she built up severe arthritis in her knees and was incapable to walking more than a couple of steps at one time. Smith was lastly given an electric wheelchair to get around in. The lack of physical exercise and not having modified her eating caused her weight balloon to the point wherever she could barely stand. Then about three years ago a change in her medicine caused her to gain 91 pounds in 30 days. Those pounds forced her to the bed ridden state she has been in ever since.

The thief who tried to steal from a museum wearing an elaborate camouflaged "ghillie suit"

Gregory Liascos might have been an invisible man, but he still had an ill-conceived plan. According to police in Oregon, the 36-year-old suspect wore an elaborate camouflaged "ghillie suit" before attempting to break through the wall of a rock and mineral museum over the course of several nights in October in an attempt to snatch the museum's quarter-million-dollar gold collection. Museum staff alerted police after spotting a half-chiseled hole that the Moss Man had allegedly carved into a bathroom wall, and though his grassy outfit was hard to spot, police dog had no trouble sniffing out the suspect. The animal found a large piece of ground interesting. The dog bit - the ground screamed.

The man who fled hospital to avoid having his penis amputated after 27 hours erect

In May 2010, a man tried to escape from a hospital in the Dominican Republic where he had been hospitalized for priapism, a condition characterized by a prolonged and painful erection not associated with sexual desire after learning that doctors planned to amputate his penis because he may have gangrene.

Luis Rodríguez Taveras, 45, had been admitted more than three weeks in a hospital north of the Dominican Republic because of this problem, which was caused by eating a lot of sexual stimulants. In statements given to local journalists later, Rodriguez declared that he had ingested drugs. Rodríguez Taveras said he warned his wife not to sign the document authorizing the operation because “I could not live without my penis.” He argued that the erection began to subside gradually after treatment provided by an urologist at another hospital, who was defined as a good doctor and “very human.”

The baby who survived a seven-story fall

In November 2010 a 15-month-old baby girl survived a seven story fall after she bounced off an awning into the arms of a man in Paris. The tot had been playing unsupervised with her older sister when she fell out of the window. A young man saw the baby starting to fall and alerted his father, who raced to get into position, arms outstretched, to catch her after she hit the awning. “He must have played rugby for years to have developed reflexes like that,” a bystander reported. The baby was lucky: normally the cafe owner closes the awning because people throw their cigarette butts on it. The baby girl is in the hospital, but is virtually unscratched.

The Flight Attendant who quit his job during a flight using the emergency slide.

In August 2010, Steven Slater, a flight attendant of JetBlue airlines, got into an argument with a passenger during boarding at a Pittsburgh airport. He finally had enough of his job, quit, and opened the emergency slide on the plane in order to leave. He grabbed the intercom and said: “To the passenger who called me a mother ——, —- you. “I've been in the business 28 years. I've had it. That's it.” Mr Slater then activated the emergency exit and slid down the inflatable slide on to the tarmac. He then boarded a train to the terminal, stripping off his tie and discarding it to the astonishment of bemused onlookers. Slater was later arrested and charged with reckless endangerment and criminal mischief.

The dog who swallowed a $20,000-worth diamond in a jewelery

A diamond dealer never imagined that his $20,000 dollar diamond would make for a good dog biscuit, but a dog named Sully had other plans. In March 2010, the dealer brought the $20,000 dollar gem into the Robert Bernard Jewelery Store to show owners Robert Rosin and George Kaufmann, but dropped it when he went to pull it from his pocket. In the blink of an eye, Sully, a golden retriever, pounced on the diamond and sent it down the hatch; it was by far the priciest dog treat Sully had ever tasted. Sully's expensive taste sent the owners of the jewelery store owners into a panic. A quick call to the vet and the owner's had a plan to retrieve the gem -- allow nature to take its course and don't leave Sully out of your sight.

Owner Kaufmann says it was an unpleasant experience, as he had to no only follow Sully, but also check up on the dog's bathroom breaks in hopes of finding the diamond.After three days of careful search, Sully gave up the goods and the owners were able to return the stone back to its owner -- after a thorough shine and polish. Sully is back on a steady diet of regular doggy treats.