Odd Stew – Weird and Bizarre News – Issue 1

July 10, 2015

weirdnews1The first inaugural post from the Odd Stew – weird and bizarre news that has happened recently that you might not have seen.

Not Recommended As a Source of Nutrition

Zhang Weiwei, a 22-year old student at Wuhan University in China, had an incident that she probably would never want to relive.  She was walking back to her dorm room with friends, eating some ice cream, when another friend thought it would be a good idea to leap on her back.  Weiwei was so startled at being jumped from behind that she accidentally swallowed the entire 14 centimeter metal spoon she was eating the ice cream with.  The spoon was successfully extracted from her stomach at the hospital, and there’s no word on what she did to her friend for the little joke.

My Frangrance is the Bomb

A Cincinnati courthouse had to be evacuated in June on a Tuesday morning because during routine screening of entrants to the courthouse, screeners noticed something odd that looked dangerous.  A bomb-sniffing dog was brought in to check the item in a woman’s suitcase and gave a positive indication before the courthouse was emptied.  What did they find inside?  It was a perfume bottle that was shaped like a World War II hand grenade.  It looked like a “pineapple” type grenade that was used during the war.  The courthouse was closed for the day and no charges were expected to be filed on the woman.

You’re Never Too Old to Keep Having Fun

A 73 year-old Ohio man named Gary Coleman (and no it’s not that Gary Coleman) had some fun at the end of June and took his 12,000th ride on his favorite roller coaster.  The feat took place at King’s Island Amusement Park in Ohio where the retired minister has made 493 trips since 2009.  Coleman says he plans to continue riding the coaster as long as his health permits.  The Diamondback steel roller coaster Coleman rode is 230-feet tall and gets up to speeds of 80 mph.

Another Degree That Won’t Make Any Money

Boston’s Emerson College has rolled out a new degree offering that is intended to make people funny.  Starting in September 2016, the Communications and Arts School at Emerson College will have a degree in Comedic Arts.  It will be a four-year bachelor of fine arts degree and will include everything from the history of comedy and theory to preparing students for a career in comedy.  The college has said it was in response to the impact of comedy on American culture.  Good luck to all the future graduates.

A New Crime Prevention Tool?

Ping pong may be the future of crime control, at least that’s what the City of Seattle hopes.  The city installed a free ping pong table in Chinatown’s Hing Hay Park over four years ago, and since then, the crime rate has gone from 46 crime incidents in 2009 to 16 in 2014.  The city has put four more tables in since they installed the first one in response to the stats.  They can’t make a concrete connection between the ping pong table and crime prevention, however, but they believe it might be because ping pong is a positive activity that brings people in to play and has pushed out negative behaviors.  We’ll be waiting on pins and needles to see if they’re right.

That’s all for the weird news for this week.  Come back next Friday for more of the most recent happenings that you probably didn’t see in your news feed.

Subscribe to our newsletter for a collection of stories that have been added to the Stew and get our FREE Ebook Quick Facts as a thank you.

About the author 

Daniel Ganninger - The writer, editor, and chief lackey of Knowledge Stew, the author of the Knowledge Stew line of trivia books, and editor of Fact World and the Knowledge Stew sister site on Medium, our ad-free subscription sites (you can find out how to join below). I hope you find things here to annoy those around you with your new found knowledge.

Follow the Stew


How to Join the Knowledge Stew Ad-Free Subscription Site on Medium

Join Medium now and get access to every story from Knowledge Stew and Fact World plus thousands of others ad-free. Your membership fee directly supports a continued stream of great content on Knowledge Stew and Fact World, and you’ll also get full access to thousands of other writers and stories on Medium. ($5 per month)