The fifth issue of the Odd Stew: Oddities plus other bizarre, strange, and fascinating things that have happened in the news over the past week that you may have missed.
After Drinking This, You May Feel a Little Perky
A different type of ingredient found its way into thousands of bottles of alcohol in China this week. That ingredient, incredibly enough, was Viagra. Yes, the Viagra that helps get things going for men when things just aren’t going. The distillers accused of mixing the ingredient into a popular Chinese beverage known as baiju, or shaojiu, had more than 5,300 bottles confiscated by the Liuzhou Food and Drug Administration. The beverages had promises of “health-preserving” properties. The administration also confiscated Sildenafil, a white powder that is sold as Viagra and other names, that helps the problem of erectile dysfunction. The seizure of bottles and powder were estimated at around $113,000.
The Answer to a Long and Happy Life?
A woman in New Jersey named Agnes Fenton just turned 110 this week and had some valuable advice that she partly attributes to her longevity. First she gave the credit to God for assisting her to reach her age, and she said she thanked God every morning for it. The next bit of advice she got from her doctor almost 70 years earlier in her life. He instructed her to drink three Miller High Lifes every day. She not only did that from that point forward, but also added a shot of scotch to finish it off. A shot of Johnny Walker Blue Label, to be exact. She’s had to eliminate her drinking because she is now on a limited diet, but Agnes has done something right all these years to live such a long life. More importantly, she seemed to have a good time doing it.
Your Hair Smells Like the Ocean…A Stinky Ocean
A new polymer has been discovered by scientists at Glyndwr University in North Wales, United Kingdom, that could give new bounce to hair. The strange part? It’s been developed from rotting seafood. The waste of prawn shells is where the new molecule comes from, and it will give hair moisture, volume, and reduce split ends. The polymer will be an alternative to the synthetic ingredients used in hair products, plus it would be environmentally friendly. There is no word if the seafood smell will actually be part of the hair care product.
No Choice With This Proposal
A 20-year old man in East Texas was given two choices by a judge; marriage or jail. Josten Bundy of Tyler, Texas had been arrested in March charged with assault causing bodily injury. He had gotten in a fight with the ex-boyfriend of his current girlfriend after he had said derogatory things about her. The judge told Bundy that he would only grant probation to him if he married his 19-year old girlfriend within 30 days. He also would have to write Bible verses and attend counseling. If he didn’t agree to this he would have to go to jail for 15 days. Bundy agreed to take the marriage route, and the couple applied for a marriage license and got an appointment with the justice of the peace. They got married 18 days later. While the couple doesn’t regret getting married, they were upset that they weren’t able to plan to have people they wanted at their wedding, such as Bundy’s father and his sisters. Even the bride’s father was upset because he didn’t believe that a judge should be ordering people to get married. A constitutional lawyer in Tyler named Blake Bailey agreed, saying that an order to marry isn’t legal and that the sentence would have been struck down on an appeal to a higher court.
Somebody Thinks They’re Special on Their Last Day
The city of Yakima, Washington wants a employee to pay back the cost of her own farewell party. Sounds mean, doesn’t it? But that’s before you find out how much was spent on the party. Yakima human resource director Cheryl Ann Mattia, who had resigned in December, ordered $757.40 worth of gourmet cupcakes for her farewell party, paid for with taxpayer money. Mattia says there was a misunderstanding when the order was placed, but contends that it was a legitimate expense. The city manager of Yakima, Tony O’Rourke, disagrees, and wants Mattia to repay the money. He’s even willing to take Mattia to small-claims court to get it back.
Paving the Streets with Kindness
A man named Gangadhara Tilak Katnam has the nickname, the “road doctor” since he’s repaired over 1,000 potholes in his hometown of Hyderabad, India, using his own pension money to do it. Tilak has been fixing the holes since 2011 and travels around the city everyday looking for abandoned tar and gravel. If he can’t find enough material, he uses his own money to purchase supplies. Tilak was a formal railroad engineer and then had a job as a consultant with a software company. His car got stuck in a pothole during his first drive to his new job. This was where he got his first indication of the problem with potholes in his city. But a major accident that he witnessed, that could have been prevented if the pothole in the road had been filled, made him want to act. He began to fill up every pothole he came upon, even skipping his lunch break to fill potholes. He ended up quitting his job just to fill them. Eventually the municipality of Hyderabad began to help out Tilak, and he continues to fill potholes as often as he can.
Thanks for reading another issue of the Odd Stew. Check back again next week for more bizarre and weird things that you may have missed in your news feed.
