A man who brought a small zebra and parrot with him into a bar called the Dog House was later arrested for drunk driving. Police found the two animals in the truck of his vehicle.

Reiter says the zebra and macaw parrot are pets and like riding in the truck. Reiter claims he sometimes takes the animals into the bar, but the owner says they’re not allowed inside.

The makeshift mobile menagerie owner confessed to the cop that he thought someone who took a picture with his animals ratted him out about the tipsy driving. Which reminded him that he should really buy a rat to show off as well.

[Fox News]

A pair of fraud Romanian fortune tellers have been busted for the oldest tricks in the rankable page index: Googling information on their clients.

The two made a living allegedly selling “the future” to customers by pearing into a crystal ball. Their claims were only bolstered by the fact that they seemed to know so many other facts about the lives of those that called upon them. Police exposed their antics after an accomplice attempted to bribe an officer to make the whole affair go away.

Although the pair are shut down now, it did not come soon enough for one poor woman who was parted with a large sum of cash in one of the most awesome scams ever.

One woman told how she had believed the two Roma women were genuine mystics, and had been persuaded to take tens of thousands of pounds and go to a nearby lake for a midnight ritual. She had been told that she had to release herself from the burden of her money and throw it all in the lake – but when she hesitated a demon like figure had emerged from the water and in a panic – she had thrown the money into the water and run away.

But police discovered that the water devil was in fact a pal of the pair who had put on diving gear and a mask to terrify the unsuspecting victim.

The Old Water Demon Running Out Of The Lake graft. What a rube.

[Austrian Times]

A rogue shopper assaulted several with a replica light saber on Wednesday at an Oregon Toys R Us.

After being chased into the parking lot and fending off responding officers with his trusty weapon, police decided to employ a taser. However, even that would not bring down the man…

“Officers arrived and attempted to take the suspect into custody, but he continued to swing the light saber and was yelling incoherent statements,” officers said in their report. One officer was able to hit the man with his Taser, but the suspect then broke the Taser wire with his light saber — at which point officers grabbed him and wrestled him to the ground.

The suspect is currently awaiting a mental health evaluation. And likely a stern rebuke from the Jedi council.

[LA Times]

A squirrel has been busted for sneakily setting off a fire alarm after footage was reviewed by school officials.  The squirrel had been living in the cafeteria, but after this little stunt it was captured and kicked out.

“The squirrel was eventually trapped and let go.

“It’s really hard to fine a squirrel, so he got a stern lecture and was released outside,” Henson joked.”

[My Fox Tampa Bay]

What’s that? The muffled whisper in the cool British night?

If you are a metal thief, ripping apart a track so you can sell the scrap for drug money, it’s the sound of justice.

Police are employing “ghost trains” rail cars with the lights dimmed and engine muffled in the dead of night to catch the brigands using infrared technology.

They employ thermal-imaging equipment with a range of 440 yards to scour the sides of the track for criminals, and use torches to inspect cables running above the train for evidence of damage or theft.

The officers are also poised to trigger powerful lamps mounted alongside cameras on the front of the train, positioned to record any suspicious activity ahead.

Still more, authorities have installed motion sensitive cameras in unsuspecting rocks which broadcast live images to the trains so they know where crime needs to be stymied.

[Daily Mail]

Phoenix Jones prowls the streets at night, keeping things safe for the citizens of Seattle. But today he finds himself on the other end of the law, accused of needlessly pepper spraying a pack of late-night revelers who may press charges against the body-armor clad super hero.

A video of the incident, seen above, shows Jones rushing into what looks like a violent scrum before breaking it up. To pacify the crowd he pulls the trigger on a black bottle of pepper spray and shoots into the scrum. This does not please some of the women of the group who begin to beat Phoenix with handbags and shoes.

While waiting for the cops to arrive, two of the men from the group attempt to gain retribution by charging Phoenix, only to end up with an eye full of pepper-y tears for their troubles.

The pedestrians, described as “drunken” in the video of the incident, claim they were singing peacefully before Jones charged toward them.

Police eventually arrived and arrested Phoenix who spent the night in jail.

[Fox News]

We’ve talked about them on the Weird Things podcast and they ended every episode of Weird Things TV, but if you’re curious about the history of number stations (the creepy repetitive voices, transmitted on low power radio that repeat the same codes over and over and over) then here is a great 50 minute lecture about them.

Thank to reader Ben from Norway for passing this along.

[YouTube]

In a release, the Petoskey Department of Public Safety said officers pulled the man back onto the roof and found a baton type striking weapon, a can of chemical irritant spray, and a pair of lead lined gloves.

The suspect, a Harbor Springs resident, was arrested for trespassing and possession of dangerous weapons.

I like to think he wears lead-lined gloves in case his buddy Superman needs help with any Kryptonite.

[Click On Detroit via Phantoms and Monsters]

A power struggle between Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has led the latter to arrest many of the former’s top allies on charges of “sorcery.”

Several people said to be close to the president and his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, have been arrested in recent days and charged with being “magicians” and invoking djinns (spirits).

Ayandeh, an Iranian news website, described one of the arrested men, Abbas Ghaffari, as “a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds”.

No, but seriously Supreme Leader, was this your card?

Officials in Mishima City, Japan have reported that a terrorist monkey, known as “Lucky”, has escaped during a cage cleaning and has left the government-run nature park where it was being held. Lucky is most widely known for biting nearly 120 people during a two month terror spree of the resort towns in central Japan last year.

“The city published an emergency notice urging residents to lock their doors, though no new attacks have been reported.”

[AP image: (AP Photo/Kyodo News)]

The question of how the law should hand real life super heroes is a very interesting one. On one hand, they are mostly well-intentioned citizens who deter crime in a neighborhood. After all, if you were going to mug someone would you want to do it near the dude in a suit of molded rubber, or move a few blocks down the road. Then maybe while walking down the road you see a Little Caesars and totally agree to split a pizza. Then you forget about the mugging stuff whilst stuffing your face and laughing about the last episode of the Jersey Shore.

But on the other hand, tacitly approving vigilante justice can lead to situations like Phoenix Jones, who had his nose broken while being held at gunpoint last week.

A few of the Weird Things staff members (most notably Andrew Mayne whose production company produced the series) created an episode of G4 Underground about his very topic. You can check it out on iTunes.

[Boing Boing]

One movie. Five people, living or dead, at the screening. Who and why?

Today’s screening: “eXistenZ”

An indispensible entry in the mid-‘90s oeuvre of sci-fi mind-ef cinema, David Cronenberg’s “eXistenZ,” a pseudo update of his 1986 opus “Videodrome,” is the story of a state-of-the-art simulated reality game played on a bio-organic console that plugs into the user’s spine. But it goes wrong! Or is it just part of the game? Only some mutated lizards and Willem Defoe know the truth.

William Gibson (1948- ), Author

Gibson, whose 1984 novel “Neuromancer” kick-started the literary cyberpunk movement, was the first author to write in detail about an artificial reality accessed via surgically installed bio-ports. After the screening, he’ll want to personally thank Cronenberg for blatantly sexualizing his concept. Get in line, Will. You’re behind the inventor of the VCR and the first car crash victim.

Nick Bostrom (1973- ), Philosopher

Before the Wachowskis mated simulated reality with an S&M munitions factory, Bostrom posited the simulation hypothesis, which offers an empirically reasoned argument for reality as a technologically generated simulation. I have a lot of questions for Nick. “That door…is that a simulation? Okay, but what about the TV? Really? How about the ocean? Damn. But the moon is real, right?…”

James Woods (1947- ), Actor

Noted maniac and star of “Videodrome,” Woods can entertainingly contribute to the inevitable discussion comparing the two films – Which is cooler, “Videodrome”’s flesh gun that shoots cancer, or “eXistenZ”’s jawbone gun that shoots teeth? Would you rather have sex with Woods’ VCR tummy vagina or Jude Laws’ Konami spine anus? Woods responds, “yes to all.”

Carol Shaw, Video Game Designer

Best known for creating Activision’s “River Raid” in 1982, Shaw, now retired, was the first female game designer. Given that “eXistenZ” portrays a savvy female game designer (definitely not a Hollywood archetype), it would be fun to watch it with her. Plus, she’s something else I can point to and ask Nick if it’s simulated.

Jerry Holkins (1976- ), Writer

Writer of the hilarious gaming-centric webcomic “Penny Arcade,” Holkins is an outspoken gaming expert. He’s likely to offer a funny, intelligent critique of the movie’s portrayal of video game art and cultural. Also, I don’t know what his policy is on people rubbing his big, bald baby head, but I think Woods is gonna be all over it, regardless.

We were saddened today to find out from Cryptomundo that Chris Davis, the originator of the South Carolina Lizard Man legend was shot to death at his home in a drug related incident.

According to Davis’ reports: on June 29, 1988 he was changing a flat tire at 2 AM on his way home from work, when he was attacked by a seven foot tall, humanoid, bipedal lizard creature. In Davis’ account he was able to start the car and drive away while the lizard man clung to the top, eventually falling off when Davis swerved the car from side to side.

This is how the American crypto-classic Lizard Man was born. The question now is will the story live on without its central character?