xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
New Product Launches:
–“Purring Kitty” software that makes Nokia cell phones vibrate continuously to create a “discreet massager” (according to the British firm, Vibrelet).
–A healing stone that when heated, is a smell-remover, a sterilizer, and a treatment for heart disease (according to the developer, the government of North Korea).
— A fashionable but electrically charged woman’s anti-assault coat, with rubber lining and vinyl outer layer sandwiching 9-volt circuitry that, when armed, delivers a finger-in-a-wall-socket-type jolt to anyone who touches it (from Advanced Research Apparel).
–And the 4-year-old, but recently trendy, half-inch, gold-enameled good-luck charm in the shape of curled feces (from Ryukodo of Kyoto, Japan).
While the average chief executive of a $2.7 million, not-for-profit organization is paid just over $100,000, the swimming coach who is head of the De Anza Cupertino Aquatics program in California’s Silicon Valley last year earned over $350,000, according to an April report in the San Jose Mercury News. The CEO-coach Pete Raykovich took over the program (training swimmers, from toddlers through internationally competitive athletes) when it was small and gets 10 percent of revenues plus a salary of $85,000, and the board of directors appears to have no regrets about Raykovich’s pay.
Lawrence Omansky was arrested in April in New York City and charged with kidnapping business partner Lawrence Schlosser, who had criticized Omansky’s property management work at a meeting in Omansky’s office in the TriBeCa section of Manhattan. Allegedly, during the meeting, Omansky bound Schlosser and forced him into a 3-foot-high crawl space under the second floor, where Schlosser remained for 28 hours before untaping himself and escaping. Said Omansky’s lawyer, “The case will ultimately be viewed as a business dispute.”
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or [email protected]
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd
NEWS OF THE WEIRD
