Kitten afraid of remote control mouse
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Kitten afraid of remote control mouse 2!
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Kitten afraid of remote control mouse 2!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Arrest threat for 'Good Samaritan' comic
Stand-up Tom Wrigglesworth was threatened with arrest – after coming to the aid of an elderly train passenger who had been reduced to tears by Virgin Train staff.
The comic stepped in after he saw 75-year-old Lena Ainscow sobbing after she was forced to pay £115 for getting on the wrong train.
He organized a whip-round among fellow passengers to cover the fare, but the officious train manager said his actions amounted to begging – and called police. He ordered 32-year-old Wrigglesworth to hand back the cash or face being arrested.
The incident occurred yesterday as Mrs Ainscow was traveling from her home in Bolton, Greater Manchester, to see family in Bromley, Kent, including her son-in-law, who had just returned from a tour of duty in Iraq with the Royal Artillery.
She had paid £11.50 to travel on the 10.45am Manchester to Euston service. But her travel itinerary, issued by Virgin, said she had been booked on the 10.15am train. When she queried the discrepancy with Virgin staff in Manchester, they told her to board the earlier service.
However, that held no sway with the train manager who forced her to pay for a new ticket for being on the wrong service.
Wrigglesworth told Chortle: ‘I was trying to sleep when I heard the train manager insisting this old dear pay the fare, so I tried to intervene, because it was obviously just a mistake.
‘She said, "It’s all right, love" and produced loads of notes from her handbag to pay the fare. But it was only pride that she said that, and I saw she was crying. It turned out she was carrying all that cash because she’d saved up her pension money to buy her grand-kids presents.’
‘I thought I had to do something, so I got a paper bag from the buffet car and started a collection.
‘I wasn’t sure that I wanted to get involved, but I had this weird sense that I had to, because of what I do for a living. If anyone was going to be able to stand up in front of a carriage full of people and ask for money, it should be me. I thought that I just said the words of anger that were ringing in my head, the worst thing that can happen is that I die as if it was a bad gig.’
‘So I went through about six carriages, making a little speech that if we all chucked a quid we would get the money in no time. Everyone was happy to help and someone even put in £30.
‘But there was this drunk bloke in one carriage – and this was about 11.30am – who accused me of begging. He started heckling me. I thought, "You don’t know who you’re dealing with." I turned it into a gig and put him down. People were happy to pay the £1 for that entertainment. At some carriages I got a round of applause.’
‘The manager, who was the Nazi jobsworth personified, accused me of begging and asked me to give everyone’s money back. I started to get quite cocky. He said I should have asked his permission first – but I told him I hadn’t done this sort of thing before, so I wasn’t aware of the procedure.
‘He lost his temper and said he was going to get me arrested if I didn’t give people their money back. I told him people didn’t want it back.’
So the comic was met at Euston by transport police, and he had to explain what had happened – as a supportive ‘mob’ of about a dozen fellow passengers looked on. Among them was fellow stand-up Jack Whitehall, who happened to be on the same train. ‘It all kicked off,’ said Wrigglesworth. ‘I was the calmest man there.’
When the police learned what had happened they walked away, taking no further action.
Wrigglesworth said: ‘Virgin’s Customer Service people at Euston were horrified at what happened. They promised to refund the £115 – so the money we collected will go to charity when she gets that back.
‘They asked me what else I needed, sand I asked for a form to complain about the train manager – and I told them they should get a cab to take this lady to Bromley. She got that cab, all paid for by Virgin.’
Mrs Ainscow said: ‘When the guard said I had to buy a new ticket I was devastated. The only money I had was the savings I’d scraped together to get my grandchildren a present. Tom really spoke up for me, he was marvelous.’
Virgin Trains today apologized for ‘the distress that has been caused to both these people’.
The comic stepped in after he saw 75-year-old Lena Ainscow sobbing after she was forced to pay £115 for getting on the wrong train.
He organized a whip-round among fellow passengers to cover the fare, but the officious train manager said his actions amounted to begging – and called police. He ordered 32-year-old Wrigglesworth to hand back the cash or face being arrested.
The incident occurred yesterday as Mrs Ainscow was traveling from her home in Bolton, Greater Manchester, to see family in Bromley, Kent, including her son-in-law, who had just returned from a tour of duty in Iraq with the Royal Artillery.
She had paid £11.50 to travel on the 10.45am Manchester to Euston service. But her travel itinerary, issued by Virgin, said she had been booked on the 10.15am train. When she queried the discrepancy with Virgin staff in Manchester, they told her to board the earlier service.
However, that held no sway with the train manager who forced her to pay for a new ticket for being on the wrong service.
Wrigglesworth told Chortle: ‘I was trying to sleep when I heard the train manager insisting this old dear pay the fare, so I tried to intervene, because it was obviously just a mistake.
‘She said, "It’s all right, love" and produced loads of notes from her handbag to pay the fare. But it was only pride that she said that, and I saw she was crying. It turned out she was carrying all that cash because she’d saved up her pension money to buy her grand-kids presents.’
‘I thought I had to do something, so I got a paper bag from the buffet car and started a collection.
‘I wasn’t sure that I wanted to get involved, but I had this weird sense that I had to, because of what I do for a living. If anyone was going to be able to stand up in front of a carriage full of people and ask for money, it should be me. I thought that I just said the words of anger that were ringing in my head, the worst thing that can happen is that I die as if it was a bad gig.’
‘So I went through about six carriages, making a little speech that if we all chucked a quid we would get the money in no time. Everyone was happy to help and someone even put in £30.
‘But there was this drunk bloke in one carriage – and this was about 11.30am – who accused me of begging. He started heckling me. I thought, "You don’t know who you’re dealing with." I turned it into a gig and put him down. People were happy to pay the £1 for that entertainment. At some carriages I got a round of applause.’
‘The manager, who was the Nazi jobsworth personified, accused me of begging and asked me to give everyone’s money back. I started to get quite cocky. He said I should have asked his permission first – but I told him I hadn’t done this sort of thing before, so I wasn’t aware of the procedure.
‘He lost his temper and said he was going to get me arrested if I didn’t give people their money back. I told him people didn’t want it back.’
So the comic was met at Euston by transport police, and he had to explain what had happened – as a supportive ‘mob’ of about a dozen fellow passengers looked on. Among them was fellow stand-up Jack Whitehall, who happened to be on the same train. ‘It all kicked off,’ said Wrigglesworth. ‘I was the calmest man there.’
When the police learned what had happened they walked away, taking no further action.
Wrigglesworth said: ‘Virgin’s Customer Service people at Euston were horrified at what happened. They promised to refund the £115 – so the money we collected will go to charity when she gets that back.
‘They asked me what else I needed, sand I asked for a form to complain about the train manager – and I told them they should get a cab to take this lady to Bromley. She got that cab, all paid for by Virgin.’
Mrs Ainscow said: ‘When the guard said I had to buy a new ticket I was devastated. The only money I had was the savings I’d scraped together to get my grandchildren a present. Tom really spoke up for me, he was marvelous.’
Virgin Trains today apologized for ‘the distress that has been caused to both these people’.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Rainbows
Click to Enlarge
Semi-circle double rainbows
Alaskan-Rainbow
Takakkaw Falls
The Double RainbowEvery once in a while, if you get lucky, you may see a second rainbow on the outside of the first, brighter rainbow. This is the "secondary rainbow" which occurs when raindrops high in the atmosphere refract and reflect light back to the viewer.
In the News
NY election mix-up: 'Osama' on the ballot
Who is running for president? In an upstate New York county, hundreds of voters have been sent absentee ballots in which they could vote for "Barack Osama."
The absentee ballots sent to voters in Rensselaer County identified the two presidential candidates as "Barack Osama" and "John McCain." In the United States, the best-known individual named Osama is Osama bin Laden, leader of the al Qaida terrorist group behind the 2001 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City.
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Retailers start eco-friendly packaging as cost-saving measure
Due to the soaring prices of raw materials, retailers are trying to cut costs with measures to reduce packaging, such as simplifying plastic wrapping and abandoning the use of polystyrene trays.
Retailers also hope that this new positive attitude toward garbage reduction will appeal to eco-conscious consumers and thereby boost sales.
Convenience store chain FamilyMart is changing the way it packages about 70 percent of its lunch boxes. Although the entire box used to be covered in plastic wrap, the company is planning to now only cover the area where the box meets the lid, a move that could reduce the amount of plastic wrap used by about 60 percent.
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Who is running for president? In an upstate New York county, hundreds of voters have been sent absentee ballots in which they could vote for "Barack Osama."
The absentee ballots sent to voters in Rensselaer County identified the two presidential candidates as "Barack Osama" and "John McCain." In the United States, the best-known individual named Osama is Osama bin Laden, leader of the al Qaida terrorist group behind the 2001 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City.
.
Retailers start eco-friendly packaging as cost-saving measure
Due to the soaring prices of raw materials, retailers are trying to cut costs with measures to reduce packaging, such as simplifying plastic wrapping and abandoning the use of polystyrene trays.
Retailers also hope that this new positive attitude toward garbage reduction will appeal to eco-conscious consumers and thereby boost sales.
Convenience store chain FamilyMart is changing the way it packages about 70 percent of its lunch boxes. Although the entire box used to be covered in plastic wrap, the company is planning to now only cover the area where the box meets the lid, a move that could reduce the amount of plastic wrap used by about 60 percent.
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Friday, October 10, 2008
The Sky is Falling
A Pennsylvania woman is recovering after a huge chunk of ice smashed through the roof of her home and hit her on the head."Something woke me up," said Mary Ann Foster, who has lived with her husband in her York Township home the past 31 years. "I felt my head and I had kind of a big, a kind of a bump."
Foster's husband Perry said the ice weighed about six pounds.
The chunk broke into pieces after it punched a hole in the roof and bounced off the side of Mary Ann's forehead.
"She came in and very calmly said, 'Something hit me on the head,'" said Perry. "She said, 'You better go upstairs and look at the ceiling. It's in bad shape.'' The ice left a gaping, two-foot hole in the ceiling.
Mary Ann escaped with a bruise and feels lucky that's all that happened.
"If I had been over further, if I had be laying on my back, if a bigger piece had hit me, I could be dead," she said. "Just remember, you never know what's going to happen. Just enjoy everyday."
It's not yet known where the ice came from. The Fosters say it's possible it came from space or from an airplane.
Perry gathered the pieces and put them in his freezer. The Fosters plan to take the ice to York College for analysis.
Video
In the News
2 people watch 123 hours of movies in NYC
You may want to try this at home.
Suresh Joachim, of Toronto, and Claudia Wavra, of Germany, claim to have broken the world record for continuous movie watching, after seeing 57 films in 123 hours in a plexi-glass house in Times Square.
A Guinness World Records spokesman says it appears the non-dynamic duo have broken the movie-watching record but says it will take two weeks to officially verify.
The attempt began Oct. 2 when eight challengers started watching "Iron Man." After 72 hours, only two remained. They watched "Thelma and Louise" until the end on 3:10 p.m. Tuesday.
Susan Sarandon, a star of that film, dropped off the final film.
The rules: Each movie had to be viewed until the last credit rolled, and competitors could not divert their eyes from the screen. They were allowed 10-minute breaks between movies.
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One Squirrel Leaves Trail of Destruction
A squirrel ignited a fiery chain reaction that led to a power line collapse, car fire, natural gas fire and a power outage in northwest Spokane Wednesday morning.
It all started at 8:22 a.m. in the 4900 block of North Hartley at Wellesley when, according to Avista investigators, a squirrel came in contact with a transformer. That single action set in motion a chain of events.
First, the power line burned through causing the line to fall to the ground and come into contact with a metal fence and a car. The car caught on fire.
The fence, meanwhile, was energized by the fallen power line and the electricity was conducted underground to a natural gas pipeline which in turn burned through and started an underground natural gas fire which burned up to two gas meters at nearby houses.
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$42M Lottery Winner In Mich. Favors Annuity Over Lump Sum
A winner of a $42 million Mega Millions jackpot in Michigan may do something almost unheard of: receive the money in installments rather than getting a smaller, one-time cash payment. The winner of the Oct. 3 jackpot indicated a preference for taking the annuity. State lottery spokeswoman Andi Brancato says she can't remember a Mega Millions winner in Michigan ever doing that since the game was launched in 2002.
Lottery winners typically take a lump-sum payment with plans to invest it, but confidence in the market has dropped with the current financial crisis. The Dow has lost nearly 40 percent since closing at its all-time high a year ago.
.
You may want to try this at home.
Suresh Joachim, of Toronto, and Claudia Wavra, of Germany, claim to have broken the world record for continuous movie watching, after seeing 57 films in 123 hours in a plexi-glass house in Times Square.
A Guinness World Records spokesman says it appears the non-dynamic duo have broken the movie-watching record but says it will take two weeks to officially verify.
The attempt began Oct. 2 when eight challengers started watching "Iron Man." After 72 hours, only two remained. They watched "Thelma and Louise" until the end on 3:10 p.m. Tuesday.
Susan Sarandon, a star of that film, dropped off the final film.
The rules: Each movie had to be viewed until the last credit rolled, and competitors could not divert their eyes from the screen. They were allowed 10-minute breaks between movies.
.
One Squirrel Leaves Trail of Destruction
A squirrel ignited a fiery chain reaction that led to a power line collapse, car fire, natural gas fire and a power outage in northwest Spokane Wednesday morning.
It all started at 8:22 a.m. in the 4900 block of North Hartley at Wellesley when, according to Avista investigators, a squirrel came in contact with a transformer. That single action set in motion a chain of events.
First, the power line burned through causing the line to fall to the ground and come into contact with a metal fence and a car. The car caught on fire.
The fence, meanwhile, was energized by the fallen power line and the electricity was conducted underground to a natural gas pipeline which in turn burned through and started an underground natural gas fire which burned up to two gas meters at nearby houses.
.
$42M Lottery Winner In Mich. Favors Annuity Over Lump Sum
A winner of a $42 million Mega Millions jackpot in Michigan may do something almost unheard of: receive the money in installments rather than getting a smaller, one-time cash payment. The winner of the Oct. 3 jackpot indicated a preference for taking the annuity. State lottery spokeswoman Andi Brancato says she can't remember a Mega Millions winner in Michigan ever doing that since the game was launched in 2002.
Lottery winners typically take a lump-sum payment with plans to invest it, but confidence in the market has dropped with the current financial crisis. The Dow has lost nearly 40 percent since closing at its all-time high a year ago.
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