Posts filed under 'Crazy Folks'
And here is yet another intersting internet based story. It’s a dream-come-true for web addicts: you can now earn a college credit for watching YouTube. Pitzer College began offering what may be the first course about the video-sharing site this fall . About 35 students meet in a classroom but work mostly online, where they view YouTube content and post their comments.
Class lessons also are posted and students are encouraged to post videos. One class member, for instance, posted a 1:36-minute video of himself juggling. Alexandra Juhasz, a media studies professor at the liberal arts college, said she was “underwhelmed” by the content on YouTube but set up the course, “Learning from YouTube,” to explore the role of the popular site.
Class members control most of the class content and YouTube watchers from around the world are encouraged to comment, Juhasz said. She hopes the course will raise serious issues about YouTube, such as the role of “corporate-sponsored democratic media expression.” YouTube is “a phenomenon that should be studied,” student Darren Grose said. “You can learn a lot about American culture and just Internet culture in general.” I gotta get me one of those weird and strange degrees.
September 21st, 2007
Here is a weird internet gaming story. A man in southern China appears to have died of exhaustion after a three-day Internet gaming binge, state media said Monday. The 30-year-old man fainted at a cybercafe in the city of Guangzhou on Saturday afternoon after he had been playing games online for three days, the Beijing News reported. Paramedics tried to revive him but failed and he was declared dead at the cafe, it said.
China has 140 million Internet users, second only to the United States. It is one of the world’s biggest markets for online games, with tens of millions of players, many of whom hunker down for hours in front of computers in public Internet cafes.
Several cities have clinics to treat what Chineese psychiatrists have dubbed “Internet addiction” in users, many of them children and teenagers, who play online games or surf the web for days at a time. They don’t eat and sometimes they even wear adult diapers or use chemical toliets so they don’t have to take breaks. Ewwww, gross!
September 19th, 2007
Here is some really strange - odd - weird news shorts from around the world.
-A teenager has been arrested on suspicion of having posted a video of himself on YouTube driving at speeds of more than 140 mph.
-Real estate billionaire Leona Helmsley left $12 million in her will for her dog Trouble but cut out two of her four grandchildren entirely. I love that one.
-China’s Shaolin Temple, the cradle of Chinese kung fu, is demanding an apology from an Internet user who said its monks had once been beaten in unarmed combat by a Japanese ninja, Chinese media reported.
-Hungry visitors to next summer’s Beijing Olympics won’t have to choose between “steamed crap” and “virgin chicken” if Chinese authorities succeed in ridding restaurant menus of mangled English translations.
September 1st, 2007
Here are a few weird news headlines from around the world.
-A Chinese couple tried to name their baby “@”, claiming the character used in e-mail addresses echoed their love for the child. The unusual name stands out especially in Chinese, which has no alphabet and instead uses tens of thousands of multi-stroke characters to represent words.
-A U.S. judge appealed his $54 million (27 million pounds) lawsuit on Tuesday against the dry-cleaning shop that misplaced his trousers, shrugging off legal setbacks and international ridicule.
Judge Roy Pearson filed a notice of appeal with the District of Columbia Superior Court, indicating that he won’t abandon the crusade that has turned him into a symbol of America’s lawsuit-happy legal culture.
Pearson asked his neighbourhood dry cleaners to pay him $1,150 when they misplaced a pair of trousers he brought in for a $10.50 alteration in May 2005. The owners of Custom Cleaners said they located the garment a few days later, but Pearson said the pair they offered him was not his.
Claiming that the shop’s “satisfaction guaranteed” sign misled customers who, like him, were dissatisfied with their experience, Pearson sought $1,500 for every day that Custom Cleaners displayed the sign over a four-year period, multiplied by the three members of the Chung family, who owned the business.
He also sought $15,000 to rent a car to take his clothes to another cleaner for 10 years. Talk about abuse of power, only in the US.
-A South African man shot three weeks ago was told to “walk the pain off” and is still trying to persuade hospitals to remove the bullet lodged in his side.
The bullet passed through his elbow and entered his body just above the hip, missed his vital organs and stopped beneath the skin on the opposite side of his body, the Star said.
Mashiane told the paper he was turned away by one private hospital because he could not afford the bills while a public hospital took X-rays and kept him in for observation before patching him up and sending him home with painkillers. When he returned a doctor told him to “walk the pain off.”
August 16th, 2007
Not sure this is really PC but it sure as heck is funny.
April 3rd, 2007
It has been reported the Mr. Luo of Chong Qing city in China has not washed his hair for the past 26 years.
“After many failed attempts using regular shampoo, they spent a total of 5 hours and 3 packs of laundry detergent to wash him clean.”
Personally I just don’t think this is possible, the guy would have had head-lice or worse and been forced to clean his hair at some point. What do you think?
March 12th, 2007
What happened when this letter got mailed? See the entire funny story here.
March 9th, 2007
The State department’s annual human rights report criticizes Kazakhstan for taking action against the satirical Web site of Sacha Baron Cohen, creator of the fictional Kazakh journalist in the film “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”
They charged that he was denied a web address from them and they also planted propoganda against him in chat room, monitored his email and purposely slowed down his website for their users.
Borat Rules!
March 7th, 2007
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