Lay your hands off my moon dust, NASA
A woman from Tennessee is proactively suing NASA to keep what she says is a vial of moon dust that astronaut Neil Armstrong gave to her has a gift. Apparently, Armstrong was a family friend who gave her a piece of the moon when she was 10 years old along with an autographed note from the first person to walk on the moon. The woman’s attorney has authenticized Armstrong’s signature through autograph experts. However, there’s no law preventing people from owning lunar objects.
Gunning your engine
A driver on Interstate 5 in Washington state pulled over to get some gas and discovered something lodged in the front bumper – a handgun placed barrel-first. The driver was heading down the freeway when a black object came soaring through the sky, hitting his Honda, according to a tweet from state trooper Guy Gill, a spokesman for the district. No injuries were reported and it’s unknown whether the gun was thrown, dropped from an overpass, or kicked up by a passing vehicle, but the handgun is now in the custody of the Lakewood Police Department in Washington State.
Written on your forehead
And if you thought there was only one gun related bizarro brief this time around, you’d be wrong. A man with a criminal record in South Carolina was charged with possession of a firearm, which wouldn’t surprised anyone seeing as the man has a tattoo of a handgun on his forehead. The man slammed his Toyota Camry into a power pole and then promptly tossed his handgun into the nearby grass as witnessed by firefighters. Maybe there’s a link to the mysterious bumper handgun in Washington State? Probably not though.
The sign said, ‘All you can eat!’
An all-you-can-eat restaurant in China declared bankruptcy because people ate too much food. Jiamener, an all-you-can-eat hot pot restaurant in Chengdu, located in China’s Sichuan province launched a promotion to allow guests to pay 12 yuan ($19) to eat as much hot pot as they could stomach for an entire month. Well, patrons decided to dig into the bottomless deal and more than 500 diners visited daily. Hungry patrons lined up outside from 8 a.m. and stayed late until the night. After incurring a debt of 500,000 yuan ($78,000), the restaurant shut down. It was less than two weeks into its promotion.
A not-so-rosy restoration
The tiny town of Estella, Spain is 60 miles south of the French border and is home to 14,000 people, wineries, restaurants, monasteries and a painted wooden effigy of San Jorge, dating back to the 16th century located in the Chapel of San Jorge. However, in recent years Saint Jorge hadn’t been looking too rosy, with paint flaked from his nose and eyelids. So that’s when an amateur restorer decided to bring this ancient beauty back to life … looking like a character out of a Pixar movie with arching eyebrows and a permanent look of surprise on its face. The local mayor is now reaching out to experts to see if someone can ‘unrestore’ the statue.
Toxic language
Librarians at the University of Southern Denmark wanted to read the scraps of manuscript used to make the cover of three books dating back to the 16th and 17 centuries. However, after an X-ray analysis they found they had some poisonous text on their hands – the books’ covers were infused with arsenic. The librarians hypothesized that the arsenic book covers were used to protect them from insects and other vermin. The books are now kept in a ventilated cabinet and boxes marked with warnings.
Growing dear to your heart
A white-tailed deer in North Carolina had a close encounter with a hunter, which left it with several broken ribs and a part of an arrow embedded in its body. The animal survived, but the arrow remained, and a bone grew around the shaft and arrowhead lodged in its side. The deer lived with the arrow for years until ironically another hunter killed the animal and discovered its medical oddity.
Hot chocolate
A semi trailer carrying chocolate from Hershey, Pennsylvania caught fire on Interstate 80 near Dexter, Iowa. The Iowa State Patrol says the truck driver had problems with the brakes and they caught fire. The driver pulled off on the interstate onto a grassy area. Fortunately, he escaped without injury and was able to save the cab of the truck. Sadly, however, the trailer went up in flames and all of its chocolate was destroyed.
The drunk leading the drunk
Authorities say a New Jersey woman drove drunk to a police station where she was picking up a man who had been charged with drunken driving.
Police say the woman was obviously impaired when she arrived at the station. She was soon charged with drunken driving after she allegedly failed sobriety tests.
An Earth shaking World Cup
Mexican engineering and mining firm reported that seismic tremors were recorded in Mexico City after Hirving Lozano fired the winning goal during their match with Germany. “The earthquake detected in Mexico City originated artificially,” the firm called Simmsa said. They speculated that it was “possibly by massive jumps during the goal….of Mexico in the World Cup.” The agency said at least two sensors detected the earthquake inside Mexico City at 11:32 a.m. Mexican time.
