Hard to Believe: Just Plain Weird

In October, Patty Cooper, 50, accused her landlord (the Central Vermont Community Land Trust) of failing to "accommodate" her disability under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act when it barred her "service horse" from living in her apartment. Cooper uses a wheelchair because of a brittle-bones disorder and says the miniature horse (100 pounds, 32 inches tall) not only pulls the chair but cheers her up. A trust spokesman said keeping rats out of the hay bales would be difficult enough, but he doubted Cooper's assurance that the horse could be easily housebroken.

In October, Patty Cooper, 50, complained to her landlord, the Central Vermont Community Land Trust, accusing it of failing to "accommodate" her disability under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act by barring her "service horse" from living in her apartment. Cooper uses a wheelchair because of a disorder that causes brittle bones, and says the miniature horse (100 lbs., 32 inches tall) not only pulls the chair but cheers her up. A Trust spokesman said keeping the apartment clean of loose hay was perhaps achievable, but he doubted Cooper's assurance that the horse could be easily housebroken.

Questionable Judgments: Japanese adults desiring to teach their kids the value of saving are usually a good market for piggy banks, but not the one introduced by the TOMY Company in November, which, if not fed with savings for period of time, explodes, spraying coins everywhere.

Not actually for sale is bra-maker Triumph International's prototype "chopstick bra," shown in November in Tokyo as an environment-friendly demonstration project. The bra houses two reusable chopsticks (to publicize a national campaign to discourage use of disposable ones), which can also be positioned to enhance the wearer's cleavage.

Software engineers told Fortune magazine in November that they are constructing a filter to eliminate stupid messages to online forums and bulletin boards. Lead researcher Gabriel Ortiz said his team had compiled a database of idiotic comments and that the new software would detect unintelligible remarks and either alert the writer to fix them or divert the message to the recipient's "junk mail." Easy dumb messages to filter: those with the tacky, immature repetition of a closing consonant, e.g., "That thing is amazinggggg!!!" More difficult: how to treat sarcasm and irony, in that smart writers sometimes deliberately use dumb statements to mock other writers.

In Cary, N.C., a woman gave birth to twins early in the morning of Nov. 4, one at 1:32 a.m. and the other 34 minutes later, at 1:06 a.m. (after Daylight-Saving Time ended).

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