Via the Indy Star:

Indianapolis, Indiana – Jeri Holland, 25, of the 3700 block of West 10th Street, said a man in a pick-up truck stole the basketball goal in front of her house at 6 p.m.

After backing his silver Chevrolet pick-up onto her property, the robber — about 5-feet, 10-inches tall, and 145-pounds — lifted the goal off the ground and threw it into the bed of the truck.

If I were the thieving kind I’m pretty sure that a basketball goal would be pretty far down the list of things I’d be after.  But hey, sometimes in the summertime I guess you just have to have your hoops.

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Via AFP:

LONDON — The strongest and most expensive beer ever created sold out within hours Friday, a Scottish brewery said, as they courted controversy by packaging the bottles inside the bodies of stuffed animals.

BrewDog, the self-described maverick brewery, presented the beer — which contains a record 55 percent alcohol — inside the bodies of dead squirrels and stoats.

Animal rights activists rushed to condemn the stunt.

“It’s pointless and it’s very negative to use dead animals when we should be celebrating live animals,” Advocates for Animals policy director Libby Anderson told BBC Scotland.

“This seems to be a perverse idea.”

BrewDog said the limited edition Belgian ale — made with juniper berries and dubbed “The End of History” — was also the costliest beer ever sold.

The squirrel bottles cost 700 pounds (1,000 dollars, 840 euros) each and the seven stoat bottles went for 500 pounds a pop.

All sold out within four hours of going on sale, BrewDog managing director James Watt told AFP.

Watt said the controversial drink was the last in a line of experimental brews, explaining: “For the final installment in the strong beer series, we wanted to create something epic, something monumental.”

He said there were no plans to come up with a beer to beat this record, insisting: “We’re quite happy at 55 percent.”

As for the taste, Watt described “The End of History” as a “complex” beer with a multitude of flavours including honey, mint and cinnamon.

He recommended sipping the drink “much like you would a malt whiskey”, served up in a spirit glass rather than a pint glass.

I can’t say that sounds appealing at all, but if that’s up your alley I’d love to hear about it.

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Via AFP & Yahoo!

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russian beachgoers got a shock when they saw a donkey soaring in the blue skies over the balmy beaches on the Sea of Azov in southern Russia last week, police said on Tuesday.

Attached to a parachute, the animal screamed in fear as it circled over heads of holidaymakers sunbathing on a beach in the Cossack village of Golubitskaya in the Krasnodar region.

A regional police spokeswoman said the donkey ended up in the skies as a result of an impromptu advertising campaign by several Russian entrepreneurs to attract beachgoers to their private beach.

Instead, they attracted the attention of regional police who learned of the flying donkey earlier this week and launched a probe.

“The donkey screamed and children cried,” regional police spokeswoman Larisa Tuchkova told AFP. “No-one had the brains to call police.”

Instead, she said, people reached for their cameras and bombarded a local newspaper with phone calls.

“It was put up so high into the sky that the children on the beach cried and asked their parents: “Why did they tie a doggy to a parachute?” the newspaper, Taman, said late last week.

“The donkey landed in an atrocious manner: it was dragged several metres along the water, after which the animal was pulled out half-alive onto the shore.”

The incident is stunning even for a country where animal cruelty is widespread and came as a shock to the locals, said Taman newspaper’s editor, Elena Iovleva.

“This has never happened before,” she told AFP.

The footage of the parachuting donkey was aired on national television Tuesday.

Wow. That’s funny & not funny at the same time. I’m not sure what to say other than if I saw a parachuting donkey calling the police would not be my first reaction either…and I’m not sure I’d even be able to find my camera to document the experience. Wow.

Thanks to my sister-in-law for sharing this oddity.

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Via WISH TV:

HAMILTON COUNTY (WISH) – A pet monkey went berserk Wednesday morning injuring two people and prompting a family to barricade themselves in a Hamilton County home.

Hamilton County Sheriff’s Deputies were called to a home in the 2900 block of East 276th Street after Eujo, the Patas monkey, got out of his cage.

Deputies called in animal control officer Tom Rogers who was finally able to wrangle the monkey.

The two injured people are said to have minor injuries.

The Patas monkey is said to be one of the fastest primates; it can reach speeds of 34 mph.

A few days ago it was Jungle Cats in Indiana. Today it’s a pet monkey. Seriously people, what are you thinking with your exotic pets?  I know what I’m thinking…I’m thinking that’s kind of funny and want to see a video.  You have fun with your monkey.  I’ll stick with my Zhu Zhu Pets.

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Via WIBC:

Officials with a child advocacy group are trying to retrieve some 1,000 plastic ducks that remain on the loose following a Fort Wayne duck race last month.

Stop Child Abuse & Neglect says 17,000 ducks were placed in the St. Joseph River for the annual fundraiser duck race on June 19, but were swept away by the current and only 15,000 were retrieved the same day.

Spokeswoman Jennifer Boen says about 1,000 of the rogue ducks have been recovered and some have been spotted as far away as Ohio.

The group says it’s working with the city water department to catch the remaining ducks. Officials also are taking boats downstream to search the riverbanks for runaways.

The group’s website says it doesn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the beauty of the river.

I’m thinking to only be missing 1,000 out of 17,000 isn’t too bad…those are numbers I can live with.

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God Bless Hardee’s…

USA Today – A cheeseburger sold as a foot-long sandwich, with three burgers and three cheese slices, is being tested at 50 Carl’s Jr. restaurants in Southern California and 50 Hardee’s units in Indiana. That’s the same chain that introduced the world to the 1,400-calorie Monster Burger and the Monster Breakfast Sandwich, with 47 grams of fat.

“We live in a society that’s fascinated with all things big,” says Scott Hume, editor of BurgerBusiness.com, an industry trade site. “It’s inherently American to push for something bigger and better than anyone else has.”

The foot-long burger idea was hatched two months ago from a product development chef at Carl’s, says Brad Haley, marketing chief. The chain is especially eager to create products that appeal to its core customers: young men ages 18 to 24. “Obviously, the foot-long sandwich has been very successful at Subway. But we decided to do it the Carl’s way.”

That means big — and controversial. The sandwich has 850 calories with 20 grams of saturated fat. It’s served on a white sub roll, sliced in half and wrapped in butcher paper.

If it’s a hit in testing, it could be sold at all Carl’s and Hardee’s — sister chains in different regions of the country — within three to six months, Haley says.

Responds Haley, “I’d rather have a charbroiled, foot-long cheeseburger than a cold, foot-long deli sandwich any day.”

Say what you will, but I love the fact that Hardee’s is up front about their food not being the most healthy option out there.  But boy, is it tasty.  I love that Indiana is a Hardee’s test market as there is always some sort of odd creation that they’re touting.  I may have to give the footlong burger a whirl…I only wish they had a Mushroom & Swiss option.

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Via WTHR:

Goshen, Ind. – The Indiana Department of Natural Resources believes a hybrid of a rare tropical jungle cat is living in a vacant lot in Goshen.

DNR spokesman Phil Bloom says an Indiana conservation officer went to investigate Wednesday after a neighbor spotted an unusually large cat living there. Bloom says experts looked at photos of the cat and believe it is a hybrid of an ocelot, which are native to South America.

Bloom says there is an online market for ocelot hybrids, which is an ocelot crossed with another kind of cat.

More crazy people with exotic pets are trying to kill us all.

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Via WISH TV:

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – Metro Police are looking for a man who gave a Broad Ripple security guard a hard time while stealing several boxes of condoms from grocery store.

Officers were called around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday to the Marsh supermarket located at 2350 Broad Ripple Avenue. The security guard told investigators he witnessed a man shoving several boxes of condoms down his pants.

The guard told police he initially followed the man to the prophylactic aisle because the man matched the description of the suspect in a previous condom theft at the Marsh.

Wow. Is a 45-year old man is either embarrassed to buy condoms or find himself a place that gives them away for free?

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Via Fox News:

SLIDELL, La. — Police say a naked man who appeared to be drunk or on drugs broke into a Louisiana home, cooked himself a meal and took a shower before leaving, wrapped only in a sheet.

Slidell Police Capt. Kevin Foltz says a video surveillance system at the home captured the naked man using a garden hose to shower outside the house around 1 a.m.

The in-the-buff burglar then tried knocking on the front door, police said. When there was no response, he went to the back of the house and wrapped himself in a trash bag, according to FOX 8.

The man allegedly broke several windows, entered the house and ransacked it before cooking himself a meal, having several drinks and showering again.

After all these years this sort of thing just doesn’t surprise me any more.  My hunch is that the man was drunk & high and might have some other “friends” talking to him as well.  From the outside this might seem funny, but in actuality it’s really sad and scary.  This guy is really lucky that he didn’t break into the wrong house.

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Via SeaCoastOnline:

PORTSMOUTH — A pizza delivery person bringing an order to a city residence on Saturday was met by a naked man for the fourth time, say police.

According to the city’s public police log, at 5:42 p.m. on Sept. 26, police were called to a Holiday Drive residence where the delivery person said “when they deliver pizza there the resident comes to the door naked.” Police Lt. Rodney McQuate said the delivery person has encountered the naked resident during four different pizza deliveries, but did not wish to press charges.

So it’s apparently 4 strikes are you’re out in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  After the first time I’d be wary of showing up again. And after the second time I’d definitely not be coming back again. But maybe that’s just me.

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