KEY POINTS:
Jane Sparks of Westmere was disappointed (well, almost), that neither her husband nor her best friend had brought along their respective firearms to this shop in Lewiston, Idaho. It would have been nice to oblige.
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Graeme Lay of Devonport noticed this enticing description for a course called Adventures in Creative Writing at the University of Auckland's Centre for Continuing Education: "Do you ever look at a block of everyday words and think to yourself, 'If I rearranged these they might say something beautiful?' This course is designed for fearful beginners as well as any other writers looking for a chance to further coax their muse out of its sarcophagus. The focus will be on experimentation with writing styles, forms and most of all language, and in the process our journey will take us across diverse terrains, including painting and music." Perhaps "fearful beginners" and other aspiring writers could start by rearranging the words contained in the above in the hope that they might then resemble something sensible, says Graeme.
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Adrian McKegg saw a funny thing on the way to the dairy in Mt Eden. "This girl walked past me with her skirt zipper undone at the back and she was displaying a g-string and pair of bum cheeks. Needless to say, I asked another lady to have a discreet word with her about her back porch. The bum was not in good shape and shouldn't have been on display. The lady thought that was a good idea."
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The New Scientist magazine ran a competition asking readers to compose a short text message sent home by an alien who had just arrived on our planet. Here are some of the winning entries:
1. Arrived safely. Weather chilly, but improving steadily over the next century or so. Found out why Aunty didn't come back from her Roswell trip.
2. Arr. Earth. Dominant species car. Colourful exoskeleton and bizarre reproduction via slave biped species. Aggressive but predictable. Intelligence uncertain.
3. We followed the wormhole and have now discovered the source of the wet socks (of the singular kind) which are spontaneously materialising on our planet.
4. Source of electromagnetic pollution located. Initiating steps to turn it off. Will ensure solution is permanent. Oh, my God, you have to see how they procreate.
5. Our assumptions were wrong. Their diet is so full of unhealthy chemicals they don't taste at all like chicken. Even their chickens don't taste like chicken.
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Sixty years after Indiana abolished gambling, wrecking the economy of the resort town of French Lick, the state brought it back. It now allows casinos, but they have to be located on water and not dry land. So developers of the French Lick Springs Resort spent US$382 million ($550 million) on a plush "riverboat" casino on a man-made lake barely larger than the boat, and it opened in November. (Source: News of the Weird)
