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Bizarre News - July 11, 2015
Greetings fellow Bizarros:
In 1982 there was Lawnchair Larry. He was a man with a dream, and that dream was to launch himself into the sky in a lawn chair tied to 45 helium-filled weather balloons.
His wild plan took him right into the controlled airspace of Los Angeles International Airport where miraculously he and his contraption did not get sucked into a jet engine.
In 2008 an Oregon man named Kent Couch became the first person to achieve interstate travel by balloon-powered lawn chair when he traveled 240 miles to land safely in western Idaho.
This year it is 26-year-old Canadian Daniel Boria.
Boria's wild idea was to promote his cleaning-products company by flying a helium balloon-powered lawn chair over the city of Calgary where he planned to parachute into a rodeo event called the Calgary Stampede, because nothing makes Canadian cowboys want to buy cleaning products more than a crazy man committing suicide in the middle of their rodeo.
But Mr. Boria is probably better at selling cleaning products than he is at physics. He slightly over-estimated the lifting power he needed, and the 120 over-sized party balloons he attached to his chair took him much higher than he expected.
"I was sitting in a lawn chair looking down through the clouds at 747 airplanes and looking up to a cluster of balloons," Boria told the Toronto Star.
"I rose to a certain altitude and the winds got pretty intense. I was somersaulting out the chair and it felt like minus 30. I watched below as the stampede and my dream drifted away."
He missed the rodeo by a bit, landing in a field just outside the city, but he did not die. He suffered a broken ankle and was arrested for 'causing mischief' and could face further charges.
The chair was never found and is probably somewhere over Saskatchewan by now.
There is no report on the sales of Mr. Boria's cleaning products.
Bizarrely,
Lewis
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*-- Shark drops from the sky into Virginia woman's yard --*
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (UPI) - The real-life version of Sharknado proved to be far less threatening than its Syfy counterpart when a small shark fell from the sky into a Virginia back yard. Sue Bowser of Virginia Beach said her grandchildren found the 13-inch dogfish shark, also known as a sand shark, dead near a pond in her back yard about two weeks ago. "This could be the shark house, but hopefully not too many more will be falling from the sky," Bowser told WAVY-TV. "The kids found it, and they came upstairs and they were all excited and said, 'We found a shark in the backyard.'" Bowser said she suspects the baby shark was the victim of an osprey that lost its lunch. "There's a little mark on his side where the talons probably went in, and it's a little bloody on the side where the talons had poked him," she said. Susan Barco, research coordinator and senior scientist with the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center Foundation, said it would not be unusual for an osprey to grab a dogfish shark pup from the shallow waters where they are born. Bowser said she is keeping the shark frozen as an object of curiosity. "I would like to preserve the shark because a lot of people have asked about it and I think it's just so unique," she said.
* Skeleton 'driving' Jeep turns heads in Kentucky *
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (UPI) - A Jeep seen driving around the Louisville area is turning heads for an unusual reason -- it looks like a skeleton is driving. Mr. Bonz, a prop skeleton belonging to mechanic Andrew Johnson, has become a regular sight "driving" Johnson's Jeep around Louisville and the surrounding area. Johnson said the driving skeleton was born out of his affection for the Jeep, which has its steering wheel and pedals on the right side -- which is usually the passenger side for cars in the United States. Johnson installed a fake steering wheel in front of the left front seat and hired Mr. Bonz as his fake driver. "I get everything from screams, to 'man that's fantastic,'" Johnson told WDRB-TV. "It's just all in fun. It's just to make people smile. If I've scared anybody, I apologize." Johnson said Mr. Bonz was originally a temporary feature of the Jeep two Halloweens ago, but locals demanded his return. "People would stop me in Walmart, Kroger, Kmart, wherever and say, 'where's your skeleton?'"
*-- READER COMMENTS --*
Hi Lewis, I just read an update on Devon, the guy in Maine who lit the mortar on his head - his mother wants stricter laws. All I can think is, maybe they should have a sign at fireworks vendors that reads, "Your IQ must be THIS high before you can purchase fireworks."
[
Yes, but while the story happened in Maine, this Devon guy was from Florida. So maybe what Maine needs are stricter laws about allowing Floridians into the state.]
July 08, 2015 Bizarre news...chris should realize that most responsible individuals DO NOT MIX ALCOHOL AND FIREARMS! but there is a whole crowd of folks out there who do not even give it a second thought about fireworks. I have always said "blasting agents and alcohol do not mix!" being a 'war between the states' re-enactor in the artillery I know this SO WELL!! even though we shoot blanks out of the gun, the blast still can KILL YOU! be it cannon or musket. -barry
[
While this is all very true, nobody can argue that firecrackers aren't more fun after a few drinks.]
*-- END OF READER COMMENTS --*
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