Sex, Dogs and Chickens -- Weird Headlines of 2004

LONDON (Reuters) - Humming sex toy shuts Australian airport. Taiwanese man tries to convert lions to Jesus, gets bitten.

Talking toilet orders German men to sit down. Chinese get busy signal on Beijing suicide line.

Judging by the bizarre headlines that greeted readers around the world, 2004 was a bumper year for the weird and wacky.

Canadian guide dog barred for only answering its master's commands in French. Japanese boy writes apology in blood for dozing in class.

The list is endless, living proof that truth is all too often stranger than fiction.

A vibrating sex toy chucked into a rubbish bin at an Australian airport sparked a security alert that only ended when an embarrassed passenger came forward to claim what was identified as "an adult novelty device."

A fervent evangelist who leapt into the lions' den at Taipei zoo and shouted "Jesus will save you" was lucky to escape with just a bite in the right leg when he tried to convert the king of beasts to Christianity.

Feeling suicidal in Beijing? Then be patient.

Nine out of 10 Chinese calling into a suicide-prevention hotline were greeted by an engaged signal.

When it comes to quirky ideas, man's ingenuity knows no bounds.

A German inventor came up with a best-selling gadget that berates men if they try to use the toilet standing up, telling them: "Put the seat back down right away, you are definitely not to pee standing up."

The Germans have been accused of being a deadly serious people with a severe sense of humor failure.

But several surreal tales that would not look out of place in a Monty Python sketch prove they can laugh at themselves.

German police arrested a flasher who stumbled over his dropped trousers during an aborted attempt to flee.

A cost-cutting German theater was berated for using just four dwarves instead of seven in their Snow White show.

A survey revealed that most German men wear the wrong size condoms. Germans said they find smelly co-workers to be the most annoying aspect of their jobs.

Britain had its share of oddities too.

UK nursing home staff were so proud of a 105-year-old woman who had smoked since the age of 15 that they cremated her with a packet of her favorite cigarettes in the coffin.

A British train conductor stamped and carefully returned the ticket of a slumbering passenger without realizing the man was dead. A South African radio reporter went a little more live than he anticipated when he was mugged on air for his cellphone while transmitting from a squatter settlement.

Romance certainly had its rough patches in 2004.

A Norwegian court acquitted a man accused of raping a sleeping woman after he said he was also asleep at the time.

All three wives of a 67-year-old Iranian man took overdoses in an unsuccessful triple suicide bid after the youngest wife sparked jealousy by buying an expensive pair of boots.

A Malaysian man shot his wife dead after he mistook her for a monkey picking fruit behind their house.

A Spaniard tried to have his wife charged with domestic abuse because she refused to have sex with him on five consecutive nights.

Two Italians with the nicknames Bull Shark and Nurse Shark donned bubble-helmet immersion suits to get married in a shark tank.

But from Latin America to Africa, tainted love turned twice to tragedy.

A Mexican man killed his lover in a drunken, drugged fight and then cooked the man's body in tomato and onion sauce and ate it over three days.

MICHELLE- thats funny.... no one likes to talk politics w/ me cause i go way off the deep end with all kinds of conspiracy shit, it's funny... but hey you never know, the stuff could be true....

got a hold of the Ibanez 90th anniversary thing with andy timmons, paul gilbert and steve vai.... theres some awesome stuff they play..... all day, all night was hilarious... steve looked completely pissed off about his string being broke, it was tought to follow up the blitz of notes andy and paul blasted everyone with and steve's solo sucked in comparison....bummer

Joe I hope you wil go to france in 2005, for you're new album. I't's been a long time since we've seen you in france... Is there any concert in France?

hey joe! are you coming to finland in 2005? whole finland would be so happy... get well soon!

parane pian! (in finnish)

Reasons 2005 Is Totally Going to Suck

Ashlee Simpson and Jessica Simpson continuing to enjoy stardom, while Lisa Simpson's soulful saxophone skills remain unheralded.

The post office's new "No Pants, No Stamps" policy.

The three new diet fads of 2005: insect smoothies, the Cat Food Diet and Dr. Phil's book "Naked Pictures of Me."

Amazing-but-True Facts!

In the weightlessness of space a frozen pea will explode if it comes in contact with Pepsi.

The increased electricity used by modern appliances is causing a shift in the Earth's magnetic field. By the year 2327, the North Pole will be located in mid-Kansas, while the South Pole will be just off the coast of East Africa.

The idea for "tribbles" in "Star Trek" came from gerbils, since some gerbils are actually born pregnant.

Male rhesus monkeys often hang from tree branches by their amazing prehensile penises.

Johnny Plessey batted .331 for the Cleveland Spiders in 1891, even though he spent the entire season batting with a rolled-up, lacquered copy of the Toledo Post-Dispatch.

Smearing a small amount of dog feces on an insect bite will relieve the itching and swelling.

The Boeing 747 is capable of flying upside-down if it weren't for the fact that the wings would shear off when trying to roll it over.

The trucking company Elvis Presley worked at as a young man was owned by Frank Sinatra.

The only golf course on the island of Tonga has 15 holes, and there's no penalty if a monkey steals your golf ball.

Legislation passed during WWI making it illegal to say "gesundheit" to a sneezer was never repealed.

Manatees possess vocal chords which give them the ability to speak like humans, but don't do so because they have no ears with which to hear the sound.

SCUBA divers cannot pass gas at depths of 33 feet or below.

Catfish are the only animals that naturally have an ODD number of whiskers.

Replying more than 100 times to the same piece of spam e-mail will overwhelm the sender's system and interfere with their ability to send any more spam.

Polar bears can eat as many as 86 penguins in a single sitting.

The first McDonald's restaurant opened for business in 1952 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and featured the McHaggis sandwich.

The Air Force's F-117 fighter uses aerodynamics discovered during research into how bumblebees fly.

You *can* get blood from a stone, but only if contains at least 17 percent bauxite.

Silly Putty was "discovered" as the residue left behind after the first latex condoms were produced. It's not widely publicized for obvious reasons.

Approximately one-sixth of your life is spent on Wednesdays.

The skin needed for elbow transplants must be taken from the scrotum of a cadaver.

The sport of jai alai originated from a game played by Incan priests who held cats by their tails and swung at leather balls. The cats would instinctively grab at the ball with their claws, thus enabling players to catch them.

A cat's purr has the same romance-enhancing frequency as the voice of singer Barry White.

The typewriter was invented by Hungarian immigrant Qwert Yuiop, who left his "signature" on the keyboard.

The volume of water that the Giant Sequoia tree consumes in a 24-hour period contains enough suspended minerals to pave 17.3 feet of a 4-lane concrete freeway.

King Henry VIII slept with a gigantic axe.

Because printed materials are being replaced by CD-ROM, microfiche and the Internet, libraries that previously sank into their foundations under the weight of their books are now in danger of collapsing in extremely high winds.

In 1843, a Parisian street mime got stuck in his imaginary box and consequently died of starvation.

Touch-tone telephone keypads were originally planned to have buttons for Police and Fire Departments, but they were replaced with * and # when the project was cancelled in favor of developing the 911 system.

Human saliva has a boiling point three times that of regular water.

Even More Amazing Facts

Watching an hour-long soap opera burns more calories than watching a three-hour baseball game.

Until 1978, Camel cigarettes contained minute particles of real camels.

You can actually sharpen the blades on a pencil sharpener by wrapping your pencils in aluminum foil before inserting them.

To human taste buds, Zima is virtually indistinguishable from zebra urine.

Seven out of every ten hockey-playing Canadians will lose a tooth during a game. For Canadians who don't play hockey, that figure drops to five out of ten.

A dog's naked behind leaves absolutely no bacteria when pressed against carpet.

A team of University of Virginia researchers released a study promoting the practice of picking one's nose, claiming that the health benefits of keeping nasal passages free from infectious blockages far outweigh the negative social connotations.

Among items left behind at Osama bin Laden's headquarters in Afghanistan were 27 issues of Mad Magazine. Al Qaeda members have admitted that bin Laden is reportedly an avid reader.

Urine from male cape water buffaloes is so flammable that some tribes use it for lantern fuel.

At the first World Cup championship in Uruguay, 1930, the soccer balls were actually monkey skulls wrapped in paper and leather.

Every Labrador retriever dreams about bananas.

If you put a bee in a film canister for two hours, it will go blind and leave behind its weight in honey.

Due to the angle at which the optic nerve enters the brain, staring at a blue surface during sex greatly increases the intensity of orgasms.

Never hold your nose and cover your mouth when sneezing, as it can blow out your eyeballs.

Centuries ago, purchasing real estate often required having one or more limbs amputated in order to prevent the purchaser from running away to avoid repayment of the loan. Hence an expensive purchase was said to cost "an arm and a leg."

When Mahatma Gandhi died, an autopsy revealed five gold Krugerrands in his small intestine.

Aardvarks are allergic to radishes, but only during summer months.

Coca-Cola was the favored drink of Pharaoh Ramses. An inscription found in his tomb, when translated, was found to be almost identical to the recipe used today.

If you part your hair on the right side, you were born to be carnivorous. If you part it on the left, your physical and psychological make-up is that of a vegetarian.

When immersed in liquid, a dead sparrow will make a sound like a crying baby.

In WWII the US military planned to airdrop over France propaganda in the form of Playboy magazine, with coded messages hidden in the models' turn-ons and turn-offs. The plan was scrapped because of a staple shortage due to rationing of metal.

Although difficult, it's possible to start a fire by rapidly rubbing together two Cool Ranch Doritos.

Napoleon's favorite type of wood was knotty chestnut.

The world's smartest pig, owned by a mathematics teacher in Madison, WI, memorized the multiplication tables up to 12.

Due to the natural "momentum" of the ocean, saltwater fish cannot swim backwards.

In ancient Greece, children of wealthy families were dipped in olive oil at birth to keep them hairless throughout their lives.

It is nearly three miles farther to fly from Amarillo, Texas to Louisville, Kentucky than it is to return from Louisville to Amarillo.

The "nine lives" attributed to cats is probably due to their having nine primary whiskers.

The original inspiration for Barbie dolls comes from dolls developed by German propagandists in the late 1930s to impress young girls with the ideal notions of Aryan features. The proportions for Barbie were actually based on those of Eva Braun.

Dear, Joe hello, I gess it's kind of strange talking to a guitar hero, but anyways I'm trying to start my own band and I'm writing you for some advice about how to start one. I want to be like you, a guitar hero a maater at playing the guitar. so please reply. I need all the help I can get.

The Top 16 Signs Your Cat is Overweight

Cat door retro-fitted with garage door opener.

Confused guests constantly mistaking her for beanbag chair.

Always lands on her spleen.

Fewer calls to the fire department, but a sudden upsurge in broken branches.

Fifteen month gestation period, and still no kittens.

No longer cleans itself unless coated in Cheese Whiz.

Anna Nicole Smith fits through your kitty door without the aid of lubricants.

Catfood dish replaced with Rush Limbaugh trough.

Luxurious, shiny black fur replaced with mint green polyester pants suit.

It's no longer safe to lift him without a spotter.

"Steals breath" from all five quintuplets, simultaneously.

Larry King keeps trying to kiss it full on the lips.

Waits for the third bowl of food to get finicky.

He only catches mice that get trapped in his gravitational pull.

Enormous gut keeps your hardwood floors freshly buffed.

and the Number 1 Sign Your Cat is Overweight...

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