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(Dec. 17) -- "Star Wars" conventions are usually held in major cities, but from now on, devoted fans may want to gather smack dab in the middle of a forest -- at Redwood National Park, to be precise.

Several weeks ago, the national park, located just north of Eureka, Calif., opened its first new hiking trail in 10 years, and it appears the Force is strong with the brand-new path.

Redwood enthusiast Richard Stenger, of the Humboldt County Convention and Visitors Bureau, told AOL News that a major surprise awaits imaginative visitors on the trail: a giant redwood tree that resembles Darth Vader's iconic mask from "Star Wars." View attachment 137085 "When you look at the tree from a certain angle, it looks just like Darth Vader. It's a very big, dark redwood, too, so that adds to the visual. We think the tree is likely a survivor of fires and lightning strikes, which would explain its scars and dark appearance," Stenger said.

Stenger said the Darth Vader Tree, as it's being called, can be found roughly halfway through the three-mile Berry Glen Trail -- not too long a trek for die-hard "Star Wars" fans.

However, since the path hasn't been open for long, not many people know about the tree yet.

"Maybe by next year, we'll have 'Star Wars' fans lining up to take pictures with it," Stenger said with delight. "If George Lucas wants to take a look at it, I'm sure our park rangers would be more than happy to take him to it."

Though the Darth Vader Tree is certainly the latest lord of the redwoods, Stenger assured there are plenty of other odd and strange trees worth checking out in Northern California redwood country.

Stenger said that if you head 30 minutes south of Eureka to Humboldt Redwoods State Park, you'll come across a bizarre breed of trees known as albino redwoods, or "forest ghosts."
Like albino animals, these trees lack pigmentation, so their needles are snowy white instead of green. Stenger said albino redwoods grow in the deepest, darkest parts of the redwood forest, so they really stand out among the rest.

"They sort of glisten like a white Christmas tree. There are only 50 or so of these in existence, and at least six of them can be found at Humboldt Redwoods State Park," he said.

Stenger said Humboldt County is also home to the world's tallest trees, including a reclusive redwood known as Hyperion, which towers high above at 379 feet tall.

"It's six stories taller than the Statue of Liberty and is the world's tallest living tree. It's at an undisclosed, remote location that's hard to get to, but that keeps the tree protected," Stenger said.

There's also the 365-foot Tall Tree within Redwood National Park, which Stenger said used to be the world's tallest tree before Hyperion came along.

He guessed that Tall Tree is about 900 years old, completely normal in redwood years.

"It's not uncommon for redwoods to be 900 to 1,500 years old. In some cases, they even surpass 2,000 years. Redwoods are super trees. They can withstand almost any element."
While the Darth Vader Tree may be the coolest conifer you've seen today, the "Star Wars" redwood isn't the only wacky plant to make headlines this year.

Back in August, a 100-year-old tamarind tree in Thailand became an instant Internet sensation. It supposedly boasted branches that looked like the open legs of a naked woman.

But after some serious sniffing around by locals, the sexually suggestive tree turned out to be nothing but a big, fat viral hoax.

Well, at least the Darth Vader Tree is the real deal.

And if you just can't see it, try harder. As Darth Vader himself would say, "I find your lack of faith disturbing."
 
That Darth Vader tree is pretty cool, but I want to see the Yoda tree. :001_smile

The top looks just like him
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November 3rd was National Sandwich Day, and several U.S.
eateries capitalized by mixing up bar drinks in honor of such
favorites as the cheeseburger, the BLT (bacon-infused rum), and the
PB&J (peanut syrup, strawberry jam, banana, and rum). The
mixologist at Toronto's Tipicular Fixin's makes his cheeseburger
cocktail with beef stock reduction, Roma tomatoes, and iceberg
lettuce water, garnished with a cheddar crisp and a kosher dill.
[New York Daily News, 10-27-10]
 
Cell phones and GPS devices have led national-park visitors to
do "stupid" things, confident that they will be saved from
themselves, a Grand Teton National Park spokesperson told the
New York Times in August--such as the lost, cold hiker who called
rangers to ask for hot chocolate or the visitors flummoxed by cold
weather who wanted a personal escort back to their campsite. In
August, a party of hikers in Illinois called for (and received) three
separate rescues in 24 hours.
 
A 46-year-old Athens, Ga., man suffering from bronchitis went to the emergency room for respiratory relief, only to come home with a pearl, which doctors pulled out of his ear, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.

Calvin Wright told the newspaper he always had trouble hearing himself speak, but could never figure out the reason why. When the ER nurse was examining his ear, she thought he had a Q-Tip stuck in it, except it felt too hard, so she referred him to a specialist.

Wright said when he was 5, he and his sister were playing with their mother’s pearl necklace and it broke. Wright’s sister shoved two pearls into his ear, and the pain was so bad, their mother took him to the hospital, but at the time, the doctor assured them he had removed the gems.

Wright said he didn’t think anymore about the incident.

“Everybody would say, ‘Why don’t you lower your voice?’” Wright said. “Now, when I went to the barber shop, they said, ‘You’re not talking loud like you used to.’ I notice I can hear myself better.”




nothing about pants removal in this story though
 
TAIPEI (Reuters) – A Taiwan forensic scientist nicknamed the "jigsaw expert" has helped one fortunate man recover cash he accidentally shredded, piecing together the remains of 200 bills in just seven days.

The man, surnamed Lin, dropped a bag containing T$200,000 ($6,600) in T$1,000 bills into his plastics factory's shredding machine last month.

With the help of a local official, Lin had the shredded notes passed on to the forensics division of the Justice Ministry's special investigations unit, which offers a free service repairing damaged cash.

There 30-year veteran forensic scientist Liu Hui-fen put all the notes back together in seven days, a task, she was quoted as saying, that was "difficult" and "required patience."

A ministry official told Reuters on Thursday that the unit receives about 250 cases of damaged notes each year after fires or similar incidents, and attempts to repair as many as possible free of charge.

The central bank has determined that the notes have been sufficiently restored to its requirement for three-quarter completeness, and will return the cash to the lucky Mr. Lin.

($1=30.10 Taiwan Dollar)

(Reporting by Jonathan Standing;editing by Elaine Lies)
 
TAIPEI (Reuters) – A Taiwan forensic scientist nicknamed the "jigsaw expert" has helped one fortunate man recover cash he accidentally shredded, piecing together the remains of 200 bills in just seven days.

The man, surnamed Lin, dropped a bag containing T$200,000 ($6,600) in T$1,000 bills into his plastics factory's shredding machine last month.

With the help of a local official, Lin had the shredded notes passed on to the forensics division of the Justice Ministry's special investigations unit, which offers a free service repairing damaged cash.

There 30-year veteran forensic scientist Liu Hui-fen put all the notes back together in seven days, a task, she was quoted as saying, that was "difficult" and "required patience."

A ministry official told Reuters on Thursday that the unit receives about 250 cases of damaged notes each year after fires or similar incidents, and attempts to repair as many as possible free of charge.

The central bank has determined that the notes have been sufficiently restored to its requirement for three-quarter completeness, and will return the cash to the lucky Mr. Lin.

($1=30.10 Taiwan Dollar)

(Reporting by Jonathan Standing;editing by Elaine Lies)
:thumbup::thumbup:
 
Nicholas Hodge, 31, was arrested in Winona County, Minn., in
November after he entered the home of an acquaintance at 2:40 a.m.
and refused to leave, complaining that a person who lived there
owed him something. According to the deputy's report, Hodge was
cuffed while sitting on a toilet "in the kitchen." The deputy added,
"I'm not sure why they had a toilet in the kitchen.:blink::blink:
 
Dennis Davis, 40, and his wife
were convicted in October in Britain's Staines Magistrates' Court of
manufacturing a line of pirated music CDs. Davis initially denied
ownership of the pirated stash but was unable to explain why the
CDs bore his company's label with his own photo on it. [New York
Daily News, 11-9-10] [Local Guardian (Croydon, England), 10-11-
10]


*Facepalm
 
In December, Mr. Alkis Gerd'son moved out of student
housing at Canada's University of Victoria, which had been his
home since 1991 (and even though he long ago obtained his degree
and had not taken a class in 13 years). Gerd'son claims various
stress disorders (over, perhaps, finding a job?) and had until now
stymied efforts to evict him by filing claims before human rights
tribunals.
 
Two hundred boredom "activists" gathered in London in
December at James Ward's annual banal-apalooza conference,
"Boring 2010," to listen to ennui-stricken speakers glorify all things
dreary, including a demonstration of milk-tasting (in wine glasses,
describing flavor and smoothness), charts breaking down the
characteristics of a man's sneezes for three years, and a PowerPoint
presentation on the color distribution and materials of a man's
necktie collection from one year to the next. Another speaker's "My
Relationship with Bus Routes" seemed well-received, also.
Observed one attendee, to a Wall Street Journal reporter, "We're all
overstimulated. I think it's important to stop all that for a while and
see what several hours of being bored really feels like." [Wall Street
Journal, 12-29-2010]
 
Everyone washes hair, but those who want a license to apply
shampoo in Texas need 150 hours of training, with 100 hours in
"theory and practice of shampooing," including a study of "neck
anatomy." A February Wall Street Journal report on excessiveness
of state regulation highlighted California's year-long training to be a
barber, Alabama's 750-hour schooling standard for a manicurist's
license, and Michigan's 500 practice hours for performing massages.
(By contrast, many less-tightly regulated states seem not to suffer.
Connecticut, without licensing, fielded only six complaints last year
against manicurists--four of which involved disputes over gift
cards.) Next up for licensing, perhaps: cat groomers in Ohio.
[Wall Street Journal, 2-7-2011]:blink::blink:
 
* New York University arts professor Wafaa Bilal had his camera
surgically removed in February--the one that was implanted in the
back of his skull in November to record, at 60-second intervals, the
places he had left behind (beamed to and archived by a museum in
Qatar). The camera had been mounted under his skin, braced by
three titanium posts, but his body very painfully rejected one of the
posts, and his temporary solution is to merely tie the camera to the
back of his neck (even though that work-around is unsatisfactory to
him because it represents a less-personal "commitment" to the art).
In the future, he said, communication devices like his will routinely
be part of our bodies. [Chronicle of Higher Education, 2-7-2011]
 
* Mental health practitioners, writing in the January issue of the
journal Substance Abuse, described two patients who had recently
arrived at a clinic in Ranchi, India, after allowing themselves to be
bitten by cobras for recreational highs. Both men had decades-long
substance-abuse issues, especially involving opiates, and decided to
try what they had heard about on the street. One, age 44, bitten on
the foot, experienced "a blackout associated with a sense of well-
being, lethargy, and sleepiness." The other, 52, reported "dizziness
and blurred vision followed by a heightened arousal and a sense of
well-being," and apparently was so impressed that he returned to the
snake charmer two weeks later for a second bite. [Substance Abuse,
January 2011]
 
A Michigan man who was arrested after being spotted atop a building while wearing a Batman costume won't be dressing up for a while.

The Petoskey News-Review reports 32-year-old Mark Williams was sentenced Monday to six months of probation. During that time, a judge says he's not allowed to wear costumes — including the Batman one he was wearing when Petoskey police picked him up in May.

The Harbor Springs man earlier pleaded guilty to attempted resisting/obstructing an officer.

Williams said he was inspired by others who dress as super heroes to prevent crime and reach out to the homeless.

Officers in Petoskey, about 225 miles northwest of Detroit, also confiscated a baton-like weapon and a can of chemical irritant spray. Williams says he didn't intend to use them.
[Detroit Free Press, 10-18-2011]

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No costume? But whatever will he wear? :001_unsur
 
and WHO thought this was a good idea????

Hospital Staff Caught Storing Caviar in Morgue

Published December 29, 2011
NewsCore



Two Russian men were caught storing caviar for a New Year's Eve party alongside bodies in a morgue refrigerator.
A 64-year-old funeral business owner and a 42-year-old morgue attendant stashed the 385 pounds of red and black caviar in the morgue of the St. Petersburg hospital where they worked, The Moscow Times reported.
Police said Wednesday that the men "stored and packed red and black caviar next to the corpses inside the morgue's pathology department."
A police video leaked to a Russian news website showed the jars of caviar next to a body.
The men claimed the large supply of the delicacy was "meant for their private use to celebrate the new year and a party for the hospital personnel," police said.
Authorities now are checking to see if sanitary laws were broken or any of the caviar was bought on the black market. Less than 10 percent of black caviar sold in Russia last year was done so legally.


 
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