Strange & Stupid: Amusing News

This story is wonderfully simple.
A family went to FedEx/Kinkos to get their Christmas cards printed, but the store refused to make the copies.

From the family blog:
Tonight I walked into the Fedex Kinkos store on Calhoun Street here in Charleston, SC to print our Christmas cards, only to have the clerk, Tammy Johnson, reject my order as obscene.
We Cringelys are known for our Christmas cards, I admit, because we make them ourselves and we’re naked. The tradition began by accident and now our cards are so popular friends remind us to send them. Making naked Christmas cards that are tasteful isn’t easy, either, but we do it. With three little boys you can only go so long until they begin to realize they are, well, naked. That leads in our family not so much to protestations of modesty as to demands for bribes. The price of this year’s photo session was $2 worth of sour gummy worms per kid. Yum.
Thankfully, the Charleston, SC family found an online store to print them for less than FedEx.
The internet saves the world, once again.

MILWAUKEE—An army reservist was in for a surprise after being mugged at gunpoint in an alley this weekend.
The 21-yr-old student was forced to the ground at about 1:15 a, and let back up a wallet, keys, and cell phone lighter. But they didn’t get far before turning around and returning the wallet with apologies and thank yous for his service.

[And here I quote from the Boston Globe:]The reservist says one robber gave him a quick fist bump before walking away.

PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ― Southwest Detectives are going door to door trying to get information about a robbery and assault that left a 100-year-old man beaten to the ground.

According to police, the disturbing attack happened in broad daylight on the 6700 block of Grovers Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia.

“He placed his hands around his neck, threw him to the ground and began striking his head against the cement sidewalk,” said Lt. John Walker. “He took the man’s groceries and $30 out of his pocket and fled on foot.”

Though suffering bleeding in the brain, authorities say the man will have a full recovery.

Michael Jackson will appear in cinemas in 3D this autumn after Sony Pictures was given permission by a judge in Los Angeles to make a film from the footage of the singer rehearsing for his planned This Is It concert series at the O2 in London.

The $60 million movie, which is expected to be directed by Kenny Ortega, will be released in cinemas on October 30 in the United States.

“What we’ve seen is this constant demand for attention. And maybe it’s the mother in me or the experience that I’ve had with small children and unruly teenagers and people who are demanding attention — don’t give it to them, they don’t deserve it, they are acting out,” she said.

Not content with having the tallest building in America, the owners of Sears Tower in Chicago have installed four glass box viewing platforms which stick out of the building 103 floors up.

The balconies are suspended 1,353 feet in the air and jut out four feet from the building’s Skydeck.
Designers say the platforms - collectively dubbed The Ledge - have been purposely designed to make visitors feel as they are floating above the city.

The reward is unobstructed views of Chicago from the building’s west side and a heart-stopping vista of the street and Chicago River below - for those brave enough to look straight down.

Taking the Snuggie to a whole new level, we have the Peekaru, a kangaroo-like pouch for moms and dads to carry baby around in. Yuppie alert: It’s $80.

snuggiepubcrawl.com
ITS COMING SOON to a city near you.

Laurens County (The Greenville News) - Tammy Fausel said that she and her family were shocked at what happened during her uncle’s funeral in Gray Court.

A Candler, N.C., woman danced in front of the service, waved a wand around the casket, opened the lid, laid her hands on the deceased’s head and struck the body with a wand, according to an incident report from the Laurens County Sheriff’s Office.

Nicole Marie Loretta Leonard, 25, has been charged with disturbing a funeral and public disorderly conduct in Tuesday’s incident, according to tickets.

Fausel said she had never before seen the woman and had no idea why she would’ve been at funeral at Church of God on State 14.

“Everybody was just kind of flabbergasted,” she said. “They didn’t know what was going on.”

The woman took flowers from the top of the casket and threw them at the family before leaving in a burgundy Toyota, according to the report.

Fausel said she called the Sheriff’s Office.

A lieutenant intercepted a burgundy Toyota Corolla heading south on Interstate 385, according to the incident report.

When deputies asked the woman why she acted the way she did, the woman said “she felt that it was the right thing to do at the time,” according to the report. The woman told deputies she knew no one at the church, according to the report.

Fausel said the deceased’s immediate family was in another room at the time of the incident and didn’t witness it.

Leonard, of 117 Davis Creek, was released from the Johnson Detention Center Wednesday, according to jail officials and tickets.

Computers that are being stolen have just been given the upper hand: scientists have created a program to allow them to cry out for help.

The Retriever program allows users to personalize a message for the thief of their favorite product.

Messages can be set to reappear at 30-second intervals, no matter how many times the thief closes the laptop.

Retriever is made by the Front Door Software Corporation in Colorado, the company behind the software, said the software had already seen personal messages such as: ‘Get your hands off me you S.O.B’.

When a thief attempts to access the internet with the stolen laptop, the Retriever package collects information on nearby wi-fi access points, which alerts the police to the missing machine’s location. It costs about $40.