“Why do I need to buy windshield wiper fluid?” wheezed the Cheapest Man in the World. “I’m just going to shoot it out on the street!”

As it turns out, those who try and use tap water to clean the bug incrusted looking glass are likely poisoning themselves with Legionnaries’ Disease.

If you use standard tap water in your windshield washer fluid reservoir instead of a cleaner, you may have effectively turned your vehicle into a biological weapon. Sure, that sounds cool and all, but according to BBC News, the only person you’re going to be hurting is yourself. As it turns out, using plain water can cause the washer fluid system to become a breeding ground for Legionella bacterium – the same nastiness that causes Legionaires’ Disease and pneumonia. Spray your windshield and the bacteria becomes airborne, allowing it to easily enter your lungs and wreak havoc with your immune system.

Don’t be such a cheapskate. Buy the fluid. Save on antibiotics.

[BBC via Autoblog]

Beautiful hair…

[CNN]

Everyday this week… Brett Rounsaville brings us the Weirdest Survival Stories ever told.

What happens nine months after that stick bug from Disney/Pixar’s Bug’s Life and Dumbo get a little frisky one night at a Disney holiday party?

You get Ming Ming. The six-year-old Chinese boy was left alone sleeping in his apartment while his grandfather ran an “errand.” (I’m going to avoid making an opium den joke here.) Unfortunately, the poor kid woke up, freaked out and started wandering the apartment screaming for granddad. With no sign of him inside he wandered out onto the safety grate outside the window where the skinny little rascal promptly fell between two bars 8-stories to his certain death.

This is one of those moments where, if this were a movie, the camera would tilt downward following the trajectory of his death dive only to realize that halfway down he somehow wasn’t in frame anymore, and when the camera quickly tilts back up we’d all be met with the image of a screaming six-year-old boy hanging 80 feet in the air by…his ears.

Yes. His ears. (See, now the stick bug/Dumbo line doesn’t seem so silly after all, does it?)

Eventually firemen were able to force the bars apart and pull the little boy back into the apartment without either dropping him to his death or suffocating him.

No word on whether or not he still had the magic feather in his possession.

Your thoughts? I guess if you had to be dangling 8 stories off the ground by a body part it could be worse, right? Any thoughts on jokes I may have left out? Do you have a better survival story you’ve found lurking around the internets?

Well now…

The “King of Kings” statue, one of southwest Ohio’s most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.

The lightning strike set the statue ablaze around 11:15 p.m., Monroe police dispatchers said.

The sculpture, 62 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained early Tuesday.

After the blaze erupted, first respondents included local fire and police officers, as well as officials from the Department of Irony and Metaphorical Symbolism.

[MSNBC]

The premiere site for paranormal sightings in Latin America, Inexplicata, prints this tale from a Mexican pilot. Word around the hangers is a white arrowhead has been eye balled a few times by different flight crews.

“Dear Ana Luisa – My best regards to you. This photograph was taken by Fausto Abaroa on May 21st as an Aeromexico 737-800 approached Mexico City along the San Mateo air corridor. The same image shows a black flying object that dangerously escorts the passenger jet.

“It should be noted that the allowed distance between one airliner and another is one mile (1209 meters) as per SVRM Regulations for passenger aircraft navigation in Mexican airspace.

Read the original post for the full letter. Could it be an unregistered aircraft? Military prototype? UFO?

[Inexplicata]

Dolphins emit a calming noise that notifies all other dolphins to chill out when dolphin emotions run high and a dolphin fight is about to break out… dolphin-sytle.

The burst-pulsed sounds are used “to avoid physical aggression in situations of high excitement, such as when they are competing for the same piece of food, for example,” said lead researcher Bruno Díaz of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute in Sardinia.

Bottlenose dolphins make longer burst-pulsed sounds when they are hunting and at times of high aggression, he said, and these calls allow each individual to maintain its position in the hierarchy.

“Burst-pulsed sounds are used in the life of bottlenose dolphins to socialize and maintain their position in the social hierarchy in order to prevent physical conflict, and this also represents a significant energy saving[s],” Díaz said.

So next time things are about to break down at a bar late night, make like a dolphin and croak out a low burst-pulse sound. Then leave the story of what happened in the comments.

[Live Science]

Wenseslao Moguel is the guy you never want to run into at a cocktail party…and not just because of his hideous, gag inducing face. In fact, he plays a prominent part in my worst nightmare, if not directly, then at least in spirit.

Imagine if you will: you’re regaling the audience at large with your adventurous tales of daring do. You have their full attention with the story about your time spent in Nevada racing ostriches, you weave a tale of wonder with your hang gliding exploits, finally you have their complete admiration as you outline you time spent living on the streets and on other people’s couches as you wander the country without any meaningful possessions like some sort of extremely selfish Kane. But then, it happens.

Wenseslao Moguel steps slowly out from the shadows letting light fall ever so gently on his disfigured face. Somehow, everyone realizes for the first time that he’s in the room and his mere visage brings the laughter and carousing down to a muted hush. He whispers just one sentence.

“I was shot nine times by a firing squad, and once more in the face to ensure my death.”

HOW AM I (er…I mean…ARE YOU) SUPPOSED TO TOP THAT STORY?!?1?!

Allow me to set the stage. The year: 1915. The verdict: guilty. The revolution: Mexican.

Wenseslao (or Wenny as the kids in the school yard presumably called him) is sentenced to death without trial for his role as a soldier in the revolution. After being shot repeatedly he manages to wait until his executioners leave and somehow makes his way to safety and treatment. (I can only assume he ran across the Mexican wildernesses equivalent of Dr. McDreamy’s skilled surgical hands.)

Wenny then went on to live a long and full life touring with the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum. Oh, and he had a song written about him.

Man, I hope he’s never at the same party as me.

What do you think? Do you have a story that can steal this survivor’s thunder? What four survival stories could possibly be weirder than this one?

[via Pharyngula]

Sheep are being brutally murdered in the United Kingdom country side. Who’s to blame? Psychotics? Hellfire ritualists? Revenge-driven sheep?

In one man’s opinion, it’s proof of UFO visitation.

In rural Britain, dead sheep are being found by famers with mysterious – and gruesome – injuries. Mike says a “highly active” area in the UK includes Shrewsbury, Dartmouth and parts of Wales.

“We’re talking about some fairly remote areas,” he said

“These injuries to the animals – the animals are invariably killed – are very specific. If you’ve seen some of the bodies that I’ve seen, it’s just absolutely incredible.

“The flesh appears to have been cauterized indicating some sort of thermic lance or micro-sonic wand has been used. We’re talking incredible technology. There is never any blood.”

Ahhh, the tell tale signs of the thermic lance or micro-sonic wands…

[BBC News]

A Maryland court has struck down a county law that barred fortune telling as a violation of free speech. Just as I foresaw in the espers of time!

Judge Clayton Greene Jr., who wrote the court’s opinion, concluded that while fortune-tellers may sometimes deceive their customers, it’s not up to the court to pass judgment on the validity or value of their soothsaying.

“If Montgomery County is concerned that fortune-tellers will engage in fraudulent conduct, the county can enforce fraud laws in the event that fraud occurs,” Greene wrote in the majority opinion.

The suit was brought by a man who was denied a business license for his fortune dispensary in 2008.

[Business Week]

Add communal to the list of adjectives used to describe roaches. New studies show that the disgusting insects will choose to eat together even if other options present themselves.

Cockroaches prefer dining as a group it seems. New research shows the pesky critters cluster and remain feeding on one lump of food even if another morsel exists nearby.

The result demonstrates that cockroaches possess a collective decision-making process previously thought to exist only in highly social species, such as ants and bees, according to the study scientists.

Family dinner, yet another trait that roaches share with the cast of Jersey Shore.

[Live Science]

Sure, it’s a weather phenomenon and not mystical mischief makers of lore. Still, pretty cool.

[Science Daily]

Legend tells of an intensely insular, physically tiny race that lived in the north of Japan thousands of years ago before humans settled there. Brent Swancer of Cryptomundo takes a fascinating look at who they were and why they might be closer to hobbits than modern day dwarves.

[Cryptomundo]