New Zealand trucker inflated by compressed air

Steven McCormack in hospital

You would think that compressed air is used by truckers only to power the truck’s brakes.

Well, yes, but if freak accident happens it could do something bizarre, like what happened to Steven McCormack, 48, a New Zealand truck driver.

Overnight, McCormack became a sensation, when he was reported to having been a human balloon!

What happened was that while he was standing on the plate between the cab of his truck and semitrailer he slipped, and broke the hose off a brass nipple connected to the compressed air reservoir powering the truck’s brakes.

McCormack who is heavy set must have fallen so hard onto the brass fitting that it pierced his left buttock and air compressed to 100 pounds per square inch started inflating his body to three times its original size.

“I was blowing up like a football,” he said. “I had no choice but just to lay there, blowing up like a balloon.”

McCormack’s workmates heard his screams and ran to him, quickly releasing a safety valve to stop the air flow.

Robbie Petersen, co-owner of the trucking company brought McCormack carefully to the hospital where doctors were amazed at the sight before them.

Doctors said the air separated fat from muscle in McCormack’s body, but it did not enter into his blood stream.

After his lungs were cleared at Whakatane Hospital, a drill was used to clean the wound in his buttock  that left a hole about 2cm wide and 5cm deep.

Planking, anyone?

Didn’t know there was a craze called planking happening somewhere until I read that an Australian dude died attempting to do it.

Wikipedia defines planking as the action of lying face down with arms to the sides, in unusual public spaces and photographing it.

With the advent of social networking sites such as Facebook, this activity evolved into an internet phenomenon because the unusual pictures can now be uploaded to your page for your friends to see. Thus, it became a contest as to who could post the craziest planking picture.

Before this fad took Australia by storm calling it ‘planking’, it was named ‘lying down game’ by two early practitioners, Gary Clarkson and Christian Langdon, who started lying down in public places in Taunton, South West England, in order to be photographed.

Whether it was the impulsiveness of youth to do something weird, showing-off, or seeking the attention of people, the fact is that this activity, though risky at times, caught on and became a fad amongst the young and got the help by being blown up by media.

Acton Beale, the Australian aficionado that died was reportedly attempting to lie face down on a balcony railing seven-stories up while a friend took pictures of him. His was the “first planking death” reported

Japanese invents internet ‘kissing’

Nobuhiro Takahashi with his 'Kiss Transmission Devise'

If there is anything made and sold for titillating human senses, you can bet your last penny that a Japanese is on the forefront of it.

Just like the Japanese sex dolls that were initially made for handicapped men who might have problems finding a partner, but are now being hotly availed of by normal people, a new Japanese erotic invention is now in the offing.

Researchers at Tokyo’s Kajimoto Laboratory explained that their study is more intended for lovers who are separated, for one reason or another, but still would like to feel and experience their ‘presence’ somehow.

They call their invention a remote “kissing machine!”

Nobuhiro Takahashi, a graduate student and researcher at The University of Electro-Communications, says, the “Kiss Transmission Device” allows a user to manipulate the plastic tube or straw with his tongue, simulating for instance a “French kiss,” and causes a similar devise elsewhere to move the same way.

The sending and receiving devises are linked by a program that transmits the movements to mimic the kind of kiss you are giving that is being felt in someone else’s mouth.

According to Takahashi this is only the beginning and that refinements of the program can be done.

“The elements of a kiss include the sense of taste, the manner of breathing and the moistness of the tongue,” Takahashi said. “If we can re-create all of those, I think it will be a really powerful device.”

Catholic Church should stop crucifixion, self-flagellation

Nothing wrong being a copycat.

People from all over the world are doing it, too.

We copy designer originals.

We mimic Lady Gaga’s outrageous costume and looks.

We imitate accents – ask any call center agents.

But, we, Filipinos, are taking our apery preposterously farther.

Every Holy Week some of our brothers put up a show looking like Christ, dressing like Christ and depicting the suffering of Christ until his ‘death’ on the cross.

As a finale, some gets as real as it can be by being nailed to the cross.

All, in the name of repentance!

Among the penitents, however, most choose self-flagellation, not because it indulges a little less suffering, for that is neither here or there.

The question is: are these practices – this grim, outward expression of compunction and atonement for sins, still acceptable and needed in this time and age?

Being the third largest Catholic country in the world, shouldn’t the leaders of the Church start preaching the real meaning of repentance and the appropriate manner by which one should make amends and do penance?

Let us stop being a nation of twisted religious beliefs. There is only one Jesus Christ who suffered and died brutally to save humanity.

Nobody should be making a travesty of His fate, for doing it means totally nothing, but a big folly.

Repentance is not about the re-enactment of Christ’s notorious suffering and painful, public death by crucifixion.

Repentance is a solemn reflection and contemplation of our faith on whether or not we have become better Christians as we age.

Either the Catholic hierarchy puts a stop to this religious chicanery that is being feasted on by busybodies from here and abroad or expect the Department of Health (DOH) to be repeating, like a broken record every Holy Week, their warning on the health risk with these kinds of superstitious practices performed by penitents, which at best is absurd and ungodly at worst.

Legless man to teach physical education

Doug Forbis playing frisbee

Doug Forbis is a unique individual.

Undaunted by his physical handicap, he is an example that inspires others.

You see, Forbis was born with a very rare health condition called sacral agenesis. It’s when the spine doesn’t develop properly in the womb. It left him with malformed legs, which would only serve to hinder movement. So at the age of 2, his parents took a doctor’s recommendation and opted to have his legs amputated.

Growing up Doug never felt comfortable using prosthetics even if it meant being more like everybody else. He decided to be his natural self.

“They were tiring, hot and more hassle than they were worth,” Forbis said of his artificial legs. Instead, he gets around by walking on his hands or using a custom-built titanium wheelchair.

Doug, who is from Spartanburg, South Carolina, is finishing up his first year of a two-year graduate education program at Converse College. He plans to teach physical education to kids with special needs.

In an interview, the 24-year old Doug lamented the fact that when he was growing up and found himself in a PE class, that his participation was limited to either keeping score or as an audience.

To make productive use of his time Doug decided to join swimming and basketball leagues for disabled kids.

“It was a big deal to meet others going through the same issues. It gave me a safe zone each week going to practice,” he said.

Once he receives his teaching degree, Doug will be officially recognized to teach, help and boost the confidence and spirit of those children with special needs.

Helping others with the same or similar disabilities understand that they are just as able as the normal person next to them has always been Doug’s advocacy.

He is inspiring them into saying, “Look, Mr. Forbis is a teacher, I can do that, too. He lives by himself, gets around town, goes shopping, I can do that, too.’

Doug and girlfriend

If that is not enough, Doug is showing them, too, that having an able bodied girlfriend is how far he can get to being a normal individual.

Marianne’s size breasts displeases French mayor

 

Marianne - symbol of liberty

Mayor Gerard Cordon of Neuville-en-Ferrain, France, is making much ado about Marianne’s breasts.

Marianne is actually a terracotta bust depicting a proud and determined woman wearing a Phrygian cap.

A Phrygian cap is a soft conical cap with the top pulled forward. It is sometimes called a liberty cap. In its artistic representations it signifies freedom and the pursuit of liberty.

Marianne is one of the symbols of the French Republic and embodies the Republic as much as the nation’s tricolored flag. Marianne represents the permanence of those values which bind French citizens to the Republic: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

It is said that Catherine Lamacque, the artist, deliberately sculpted an oversize mammaries for a Marianne, to symbolize the mood and the generosity of the Republic of that era.

Unfortunately, a much endowed Marianne in Mayor Cordon’s town hall is not anymore to his liking when he ordered it thrown out and then asked his councilors to approve 900 euros (1,280 dollars) in this year’s budget to buy a replacement, a more conventional bust of Marianne modeled on the statuesque French model Laetitia Casta.

According to reports, the town hall bought Marianne’s terracotta statue in 2007 for 1,400 euros.

It must have been the extra large breasts that really made the statue more expensive.

But that is neither here nor there for the statue was made in good taste.

There is just something wrong with the mayor, being alone and making much ado, about wanting the old Marianne replaced with a new, slimmer one when the rest of the people find the act of changing it absurd, if not unnecessary.

Same looking fur, unlike faces

The quirk of nature is playing tricks on humans again.

What makes it more disbelieving, however, is that the story has been reported occurring in China and we all know that anything happens in China.

It is alleged that a sheep in one of the sheep farms in Shaanxi Province gave birth to a new offspring with the trademark of a lamb’s wool covering its body, but having the rest of the features similar to that of a dog.

According to Liu Naiying, the farmer, he was gathering the sheep together when he saw a mother sheep licking her newborn lamb on the pasture.

“When I went up close to check on the lamb, I was shocked because it looked so weird, like a cross between a sheep and a dog.” Liu said.

If it is impossible for sheep and dogs to produce an offspring because they are of different species, where then did the sheep-dog or dog-sheep come from?

Was their a dog used to herd the sheep to and from the pasture?

Irv Kornfield, a professor of biology and director of the Molecular Forensic Laboratory at the University of Maine, in Orono, says that dogs and sheep have been isolated genetically for so long that they differ greatly in their chromosome numbers.

“It’s the equivalent of trying to do a hybridization between a primate and a sheep — it’s that level of divergence,” Kornfield added.

But, hybridization is not new. There was the zedonk, a cross between a zebra and a donkey, born at the Chestatee Wildlife Preserve in Dahlonega, Ga. The baby had her donkey mom’s ears and zebra dad’s striped legs.

Then there were the liger cubs – hybrid offspring of a male lion and female tiger, born in a Taiwanese zoo.

Is the puppy cloth in lamb’s fur a hoax then?

Or could it just be one of those quirks only mother nature can create?

Some weird news

Rodell Vereen

Been writing serious articles lately that I would like to change gear and slow down a little and write about a couple of weird news I have come across lately. These make me wonder what the hell is going on.

First, there is this black, South Carolina man by the name of Rodell Vereen, who is officially registered as ‘sex’ offender.

You would probably think that Vereen was convicted of crimes involving sex with women, right?  Wrong!

Vereen pleaded guilty to having sex with a horse, not once, but twice, the scumbag!

He was released on probation the first time he committed the offense, but despite the provision that he keeps his distance from the horse, the pervert returned to the scene of crime and this time he was caught with his pants down by the stable’s surveillance camera.

The horse’s owner said she feared he had returned because her horse was acting strange. She also noticed dirt and hay piled up near the horse’s stall.

Vereen said he wasn’t taking his medicine for schizophrenia when he went to the stables and promised to keep taking his medicine when he got out of prison.

Helen B. Staudinger

Another weird story is about this 92-year old woman from Marion County, Florida, who has been reported to have opened fire on her neighbor’s home for denying her a kiss! Holy cow!

For not indulging granny Helen B. Staudinger a kiss, Dwight Bettner, a neighbor, got hit with shards of glass after the 5-foot, 100-pound nonagenarian fired four rounds into his residence with a semi-automatic handgun.

Bettner admitted he helped his elderly neighbor run an errand and once gave her a peck on the cheek “trying to be nice to her,” but he said he has always rejected her advances.

It seemed like Staudinger wasn’t only mad because she was not given a kiss, but she was also angry at her neighbor because of his “lies” and because he had not been “paying his way” when they went out to eat.

Not only was Helen charged with aggravated assault, but was also ordered by the judge to keep her distance from Dwight.

Bottom line: Both offenders have to keep away from their poor victims!