Man attacks tree after holding grudge against it for years

A La Crosse, Wisconsin man took revenge on a tree last weekend.

When officers came across a crowd gathered around a tree outside a Mexican restaurant in downtown La Crosse, they found Mitchel Pfaff, 25, up in it.

Pfaff, who had broken off a branch, told police he was avenging a friend that had fallen from the same tree and split his head open a few years before.

A La Crosse Tribune commenter claimed that there 'were at least 10 police officers and 8 firemen' there to deal with Pfaff's having gotten himself up a tree. 

The Tribune reported that 'Pfaff was given a $240 ticket for damage to property and $177 ticket for disorderly conduct.'

I don't think it's going out on a limb to expect to read something about drunkenness in a weird story like this, but either the paper failed to report that, the cops neglected to ticket him for it, or the fool was actually sober when he did this at 3am on a Saturday.

Two drunk, unlicensed drivers arrested driving the same vehicle minutes apart.

Sounds like a bit of police incompetence in Australia's Northern Territory.

According to the NT News, the cops first pulled over the Toyota Hilux pickup truck for speeding in the town of Patterson at around 10pm last night. The 22-year-old female driver, who only had a learner's permit, was reportedly doing 100km/h (62 mp/h) in an 80km/h (49 mp/h) zone and gave a .112 on her roadside breathalyzer reading.

Then 15 minutes later, police again pulled over the same truck about 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) away, in the town of Tivendale. This time it seems an unlicensed 27-year-old man was driving and his test returned a reading of .203.

Now, how could the same vehicle be pulled over by police 15 minutes later unless the police let the drunker of the two take off in the truck after the first stop?

Unfortunately, the NT News article sheds no light on this, whatsoever.

Bus ads featuring zombies investigated after complaints they are too scary

Apparently there are a bunch of scaredy cats in West Sussex, England this Halloween:

A Halloween bus advertisement for the Tulleys Farm Shocktober Fest featuring a zombie covered in blood has been criticised for being too scary.

The Advertising Standards Authority is investigating the banner, which is on the side of more than 100 buses, to see if any rules have been broken after receiving several complaints.

The advert, for the visitor attraction in Turners Hill, Crawley, West Sussex, can be seen on buses travelling through Crawley, Croydon and Kingston upon Thames, as well as Tunbridge Wells in Kent.

Stuart Beare, organiser of the Tulleys Farm Shocktober Fest event, said they had not intended to offend anyone with the advert.

He said: "The image of the zombie girl on our advertising is no worse than many images you'll see at this time of year in newspapers and magazines, on the Halloween costumes in the supermarket aisles and even on kids' TV programmes."

I've seen scarier in my bathroom mirror after a night on the town.

Source: The Argus

Which of these twins is the smoker? (Photos)

 

 

 

Click here for the answers.

Drugged chocolates? Razor blades in apples? Here's what 'the world’s leading authority on poisoned Halloween candy' says:

Not so much. That's according to self-professed expert, Joel Best professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware:

"I became skeptical about Halloween sadism while I was a grad student. I couldn’t understand what would lead someone to hand out poisoned Halloween candy. When I’d say this to my friends, they’d be outraged: 'Of course people do that! That’s just what people like that do!'

"Eventually, I decided to test this. I figured that a child killed by a poisoned treat would be a big news story, so I looked at 25 years of Halloween coverage in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune—the most prominent papers in the nation’s three biggest urban areas. I could not find a single report of a child who had been killed or seriously injured by a contaminated treat picked up on the course of trick-or-treating.

"To be sure, one boy had died after his father gave him poisoned candy. Presumably, his father figured that so many kids were poisoned by Halloween maniacs that the death wouldn’t arouse suspicion. He was wrong on both counts and was arrested, convicted and eventually executed. The story of that poisoning—in Texas, a long way from New York, L.A. or Chicago—made all three papers, and reports of a couple other deaths were followed by retractions. One little boy had gotten into his uncle’s heroin stash and so on. That the press hadn’t covered any cases seemed telling.

"I published my results in 1985 in a sociology journal and wrote a shorter piece for Psychology Today...  Each year, I update my research and post the new version on the UD library’s UDSpace [UD’s institutional repository], but my conclusions haven’t changed... My data now cover more than 50 years, and I still haven’t found a documented case of a child who was seriously harmed by a contaminated treat. I can’t say it has never happened; after all, logicians tell us that it is impossible to prove a negative. But I can say with great confidence that it isn’t common. Nonetheless, people still worry...

"I’ve come to realize that, regardless of how much attention my research receives, some people won’t be convinced. An urban legend is harder to kill than a vampire."

Here's a link to Professor Best's research: Halloween Sadism: the evidence.

Have a happy and safe Halloween!

Source: Insurance Jouirnal

What's odd?

adjective

1. differing in nature from what is ordinary, usual, or expected: an odd choice.

2. singular or peculiar in a strange or eccentric way: an odd person; odd manners.

3. fantastic; bizarre: Her taste in clothing was rather odd.

4. leaving a remainder of 1 when divided by 2, as a number (opposed to even ): Numbers like 3, 15, and 181 are odd numbers.

5. more or less, especially a little more (used in combination with a round number): I owe three hundred-odd dollars.

6. being a small amount in addition to what is counted or specified: I have five gross and a few odd dozens.

7. being part of a pair, set, or series of which the rest is lacking: an odd glove.

8. remaining after all others are paired, grouped, or divided into equal numbers or parts: Everybody gets two hamburgers and I get the odd one.

9. left over after all others are used, consumed, etc.

10. (of a pair) not matching: Do you know you're wearing an odd pair of socks?

11. not forming part of any particular group, set, or class: to pick up odd bits of information.

12. not regular, usual, or full-time; occasional; casual: odd jobs.

13. out-of-the-way; secluded: a tour to the odd parts of the Far East.

14. Mathematics . (of a function) having a sign that changes when the sign of each independent variable is changed at the same time.

noun

15. something that is odd.

16. Golf.
  a. a stroke more than the opponent has played.
  b. British . a stroke taken from a player's total score for a hole in order to give him or her odds.

Related forms

odder (comparative adjective)
oddest (superlative adjective)
oddly (adverb)
oddness (noun)

Odd - Adjective Synonyms

Definition:     miscellaneous, various
Synonyms:     accidental, casual, chance, contingent, different, fluky, fortuitous, fragmentary, incidental, irregular, occasional, odd-lot, periodic, random, seasonal, sundry, varied

Definition:     single, unmatched; uneven
Synonyms:     additional, alone, exceeding, individual, irregular, left, leftover, lone, lonely, over, over and above, remaining, singular, sole, solitary, spare, surplus, unconsumed, unitary, unpaired

Definition:     unusual, abnormal
Synonyms:     atypical, avant-garde, bizarre, character, crazy, curious, deviant, different, eccentric, erratic, exceptional, extraordinary, fantastic, flaky, freak, freakish, freaky, funny, idiosyncratic, irregular, kinky, kooky, off-the-wall, offbeat, out of the ordinary, outlandish, peculiar, quaint, queer, rare, remarkable, singular, spacey, strange, uncanny, uncommon, unconventional, unique, way out, weird, weirdo, whimsical

Definition:     not normal; varying from the usual
Synonyms:     abnormal, atypical, bizarre, deviant, different, flaky, mental, nonstandard, odd, off-base, off-color, out of line, peculiar, psycho, strange, unusual, weird

Definition:     different from standard or norm
Synonyms:     aberrant, anomalistic, anomalous, atypical, bizarre, curious, deviant, deviate, deviating, divergent, eccentric, exceptional, extraordinary, fantastic, funny, grody, gross, heteroclite, heterodox, heteromorphic, irregular, odd, off-base, off-color, out of line, peculiar, preternatural, queer, screwy, spastic, strange, uncommon, unexpected, unnatural, unorthodox, unusual, weird

Definition:     deviating from normal, usual
Synonyms:     aberrant, abnormal, atypical, bizarre, divergent, eccentric, exceptional, foreign, heteroclite, incongruous, inconsistent, irregular, odd, peculiar, preternatural, prodigious, rare, strange, unnatural, unorthodox, unrepresentative, untypical, unusual

Definition:     nonconforming
Synonyms:     aberrant, abnormal, anomalous, deviant, different, divergent, exceptional, heteroclite, irregular, odd, peculiar, preternatural, strange, unnatural, unrepresentative

Oddly - Adverb Synonyms

Definition:     curiously
Synonyms:     inexplicably, peculiarly, queerly, ridiculously, strangely, unusually

Definition:     exceptionally, particularly
Synonyms:     abnormally, above all, before all else, chiefly, conspicuously, curiously, eminently, exclusively, expressly, extraordinarily, in particular, in specie, mainly, markedly, notably, oddly , outstandingly, peculiarly, preeminently, primarily, principally, remarkably, signally, singularly, specially, specifically, strangely, strikingly, supremely, unaccountably, uncommonly, uncustomarily, uniquely, unusually, wonderfully

Definition:     infrequently
Synonyms:     exceptionally, extra, extremely, hardly ever, in few instances, irregularly, not often, now and then, occasionally, oddly , on occasion, particularly, peculiarly, rarely, remarkably, scarcely ever, seldom, sporadically, strangely, unusually, very

Definition:     extremely
Synonyms:     almighty, awful, awfully, curiously, especially, extra, extraordinarily, mighty, oddly , peculiarly, plenty, powerful, rarely, real, really, remarkably, right, so, so much, strangely, surprisingly, terribly, terrifically, too much, uncommon, uncommonly, very

Definition:     unusually
Synonyms:     almighty, awful, awfully, curiously, especially, exceptionally, extra, extraordinarily, mighty, oddly , peculiarly, plenty, powerful, rarely, real, really, right, singularly, so, so much, strangely, surprisingly, terribly, terrifically, too much, uncommon, uncommonly, very

Oddness - Noun Synonyms

Definition:     bizarreness, unusualness
Synonyms:     aberration, abnormality, anomaly, caprice, capriciousness, foible, freakishness, hereticism, idiocrasy, idiosyncrasy, irregularity, kink, nonconformity, oddity, oddness , outlandishness, peculiarity, queerness, quirk, singularity, strangeness, unconventionality, unorthodoxness, waywardness, weirdness, whimsicality, whimsicalness

Definition:     peculiarity of how someone behaves, acts
Synonyms:     affectation, air, characteristic, eccentricity, foible, habit, idiosyncrasy, oddness , pose, pretension, queerness, quirk, singularity, trait, trick

Definition:     abnormality
Synonyms:     anomaly, bizarreness, characteristic, conversation piece, curiosity, eccentricity, extraordinariness, freak, freakishness, idiosyncrasy, incongruity, irregularity, kink, oddness , outlandishness, peculiarity, phenomenon, queerness, quirk, rarity, singularity, strangeness, unconventionality, unnaturalness

Definition:     eccentricity
Synonyms:     aberration, abnormality, anomaly, caprice, capriciousness, foible, freakishness, hereticism, idiocrasy, idiosyncrasy, irregularity, kink, nonconformity, oddity, oddness , outlandishness, peculiarity, queerness, quirk, singularity, strangeness, unconventionality, unorthodoxness, waywardness, weirdness, whimsicality, whimsicalness 

Etc.
Obviously, there are a lot of options for this blog.
Source: Dictionary.com