intresting stories.....

Some Interesting Stories of Life, from various internet sources:


WRONG NUMBER

Leola Starling of Ribrock, Tenn., had a serious telephone problem.

But unlike most people she did something about it.

The brand-new $10 million Ribrock Plaza Motel opened nearby and had acquired almost the same telephone number as Leola.

From the moment the motel opened, Leola was besieged by calls not for her. Since she had the same phone number for years, she felt that she had a case to persuade the motel management to change its number. Naturally, the management refused claiming that it could not change its stationery. The phone company was not helpful, either. A number was a number, and just because a customer was getting someone else's calls 24 hours a day didn't make it responsible. After her pleas fell on deaf ears, Leola decided to take matters into her own hands.

At 9 o'clock the phone rang. Someone from Memphis was calling the motel and asked for a room for the following Tuesday. Leola said, "No problem. How many nights?"

A few hours later Dallas checked in. A secretary wanted a suite with two bedrooms for a week. Emboldened, Leola said the Presidential Suite on the 10th floor was available for $600 a night. The secretary said that she would take it and asked if the hotel wanted a deposit. "No, that won't be necessary," Leola said. "We trust you."

The next day was a busy one for Leola. In the morning, she booked an electric appliance manufacturers' convention for Memorial Day weekend, a college prom and a reunion of the 82nd Airborne veterans from World War II.

She turned on her answering machine during lunchtime so that she could watch the O.J. Simpson trial, but her biggest challenge came in the afternoon when a mother called to book the ballroom for her daughter's wedding in June.

Leola assured the woman that it would be no problem and asked if she would be providing the flowers or did she want the hotel to take care of it. The mother said that she would prefer the hotel to handle the floral arrangements. Then the question of valet parking came up.

Once again Leola was helpful. "There's no charge for valet parking, but we always recommend that the client tips the drivers."

Within a few months, the Ribrock Plaza Motel was a disaster area.

People kept showing up for weddings, bar mitzvahs, and Sweet Sixteen parties and were all told there were no such events.

Leola had her final revenge when she read in the local paper that the motel might go bankrupt. Her phone rang, and an executive from Marriott said, "We're prepared to offer you $200,000 for the motel."

Leola replied. "We'll take it, but only if you change the telephone number."

Received from Steve Sanderson. from The Good, Clean Funnies List




Here's one that actually happened to a friend of mine.

My friend likes to read his two young sons fairy tales at night. Having a deep-rooted sense of humor, he often ad-libs parts of the stories for fun.

One day his youngest son was sitting in his first grade class as the teacher was reading the story of the Three Little Pigs. She came to the part of the story where the first pig was trying to acquire building materials for his home. She said "...And so the pig went up to the man with a wheelbarrow full of straw and said 'Parden me sir, but might I have some of that straw to build my house with?'"

Then the teacher asked the class "And what do you think that man said?" and my friend's son raised his hand and said "I know! I know! He said 'Holy smokes! A talking pig!'"

The teacher was unable to teach for the next 10 minutes.


Received from Doug Waterfield - Monroe, LA. from The Good Clean Funnies List



SUSPECT

The District Attorney requested all the robbery victims to come to the police station to study a lineup of five people. He placed his suspect at the end of the line. Then he asked each to step forward and say, "Give me all your money... and I need some change in quarters, nickels and dimes." The first four did it right. However, when it was the last man's turn to recite, he broke the case by blurting out, "That isn't what I said." Nancy M. Carson

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SELF INCRIMINATION?

Oklahoma City -- Dennis Newton was on trial for the armed robbery of a convenience store in a district court this week when he fired his lawyer. Assistant district attorney Larry Jones said Newton, 47, was doing a fair job of defending himself until the store manager testified that Newton was the robber. Newton jumped up, accused the woman of lying and then said, "I should of blown your [expletive] head off." The defendant paused, then quickly added, "-if I'd been the one that was there." The jury took 20 minutes to convict Newton and recommended a 30-year sentence. Mike Avery

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EVIDENCE THAT SMELLS

The Dutch have come up with a new way of catching criminals, that's even better than fingerprints, it's called smell prints. Apparently, each of us not only has one unmistakable fingerprint and DNA, but we also have a unique scent that is identifiable. In solving a crime, the police can retrieve an article used by the perpetrator (such as a gun), and extract a smell print from the object in as little as 20 minutes. The smell can then be stored for as long as 4 years. Once a suspect is apprehended, he is asked to wash, and then handle a cloth for a few minutes. The cloth is then placed in a line up and a specially trained dog is given the original smell print to examine. The dog is then asked to identify all the smells in the line up. If the dog finds a match, he barks at the container identifying which one. To make the evidence admissible in court, the process is repeated but this time without the suspects smell. This new crime fighting tool has solved hundreds of cases in Holland, and they are now starting to archive known criminals' smells to compare against outstanding crimes. W.I.S.E.CRAKS

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KISSING FREEDOM GOOD-BYE

Newport News, Virginia -- Criminals are routinely nabbed because they leave fingerprints or stray DNA behind at the scene. A peeping Tom suspect in Virginia left lip prints. Police arrested Robert N. Smith, 41, on Tuesday for allegedly peeping into apartments after the state forensic crime laboratory was able to match his lip print with one taken off a window at one of the apartments. "We get fingerprints all the time, but that's not the case, obviously, with lip prints," Paul Ferrara, director of the state Division of Forensic Science, said Friday. The print was discovered on an apartment window Aug. 18, and a detective lifted the print Sept. 11. Smith was arrested and charged with indecent exposure at the same apartment complex about two weeks later. Police got a search warrant for Smith's lips and found they had their man. The indecent exposure charge was dropped at Smith's trial Tuesday when the chief witness failed to appear, but he was arrested on five misdemeanor peeping charges as he was leaving court. He remains free on bond awaiting trial. He faces up to a year in jail. WhiteBoard News for Monday, December 15, 1997 Joseph Harper Received from Keith's Mostly Clean Humor & Weird (McHaw) List -=+=- The Good, Clean Funnies List





Disturbing Medical Stories

**Contributed to Swenny's E-Mail Funnies by Lyn Deadmore Taylor, Atlanta, Georgia**

BLIND DRUNK

A drunk staggered into a Pennsylvania ER complaining of severe pain while trying to remove his contact lenses. He said that they would come out halfway, but they always popped back in. A nurse tried to help using a suction pump, but without success. Finally, a doctor examined him and discovered the man did not have his contact lenses in at all. He had been trying to rip out the membrane of his cornea.



(OUCH AND DOUBLE OUCH!)

A couple hobbled into a Washington (state) emergency room covered in bloody restaurant towels. The man had his around his waist, and the woman had hers around her head. They eventually explained to doctors that they had gone out that evening for a romantic dinner. Overcome with passion, the woman crept under the table to administer oral sex to the man. While in the act she had an epileptic fit, which caused her to clamp down on the man's member and wrench it from side to side. In agony and desperation, the man grabbed a fork and stabbed her in the head until she let go.



INNER SKELETON

A 63yr old widow was admitted to the hospital in Recife, Brazil, suffering abdominal pains. X-rays showed that she was carrying a 20-inch long skeleton of a fetus which she conceived a decade earlier. It had become lodged outside the womb and was never expelled from her body. PRICKLY PAIR In Michigan, a man came into the ER with lacerations to his penis. He complained that his wife had "...a rat in her privates..."and it bit him during sex. After an examination of his wife, it was revealed that she had a surgical needle left inside her after a recent hysterectomy.



PING PONG ANYONE?

A 20 yr. old man came into the ER with a stony mass in his rectum. He said that he and his boyfriend were fooling around with concrete mix, then his boyfriend had the idea of pouring the mix into his anus using a funnel. The concrete then hardened, causing constipation and pain. Under general anesthesia, a perfect concrete cast of the man's rectum was removed...along with a ping pong ball.





Oscars Held Twice in 1930s

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was established in May 1927 as a non-profit corporation to promote the art of movie making. In the first year, the Academy had 36 members, with Douglas Fairbanks Sr as president. The first Academy Awards, now better known as the Oscars, were presented at a private dinner in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, with less than 250 persons attending. Today, the Academy has over 6 000 honorary members - the Oscar Awards are viewed by more than a billion people on television.

The first television broadcast of the Oscars took place in 1953 - on black and white TV, telecasted throughout the US and Canada. Telecasting in colour begun in 1966, and since 1969, the Oscars have been telecast throughout the world. By the mid-1990s it was telecast in over 100 countries.

The first Oscars

At the first Acadamy Awards, held in May 1929, Best Director awards went to Lewis Milestone for Two Arabian Knights and Frank Borzage for 7th Heaven. The first award for Actor in a Leading Role went to Emil Jannings for his roles in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. The first Best Actress award was won Janet Gaynor for her roles in 7th Heaven, Street Angel and Sunrise. The first Best Picture award went to WINGS. All those films were screened in 1927. Those were the days of the silent movies, thus WINGS was the only silent to have won a Best Picture Oscar. It also featured Gary Cooper in a minor role. Swiss-born Jannings grew up in Germany and had a heavy German accent which, with the advent of sound in movies, basically put an end to his Hollywood movie career.
The most popular night in the world

The Academy Award ceremony basically was a non-public affair in 1927 and 1928. But it had created such public interest that the Oscar Presentation Night was introduced in 1929. Until 1954 the Oscars were presented mostly on a Thursday. From 1955 to 1958, they were presented on a Wednesday. From 1959 until 1998 the Oscars were, with a few exceptions, presented on a Monday night. Only since 1999 did the Awards ceremony take place on a Sunday (in March). In total up to 2005, the famous statuettes have been handed out on 32 Monday nights, 21 Thursday nights, 8 Wednesdays, 6 Tuesdays, 2 Fridays, once on a Saturday (1948), and four times on a Sunday.

In 1930, the Academy Awards were held twice: on 3 April and on 5 November. No ceremony was held in 1933. Since 1940 people have been kept on the edge of their seats with the familiar phrase "The envelope please."
The Envelope Please

The record for most acting nominations without a single win is shared by Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton with seven. The most nominated actors for Best Actor and Best Supporting Roles are Jack Nicholson (11), Laurence Olivier (10), and Spencer Tracy (9). No male performer has yet won three Best Actor awards.

Only one actress has won the Best Actress award four times: Katharine Hepburn is the only actress to have won the Best Actress award four times, for Morning Glory (1932/3), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and On Golden Pond (1981). In 1968 Katherine Hepburn was tied with and Barbra Streisand for the Best Actress award.

Anthony Quinn's performance as painter Paul Gaugin in Lust for Life (1956) is the shortest ever to win a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. He was on screen for only 8 minutes. Judi Dench made the an equally short performance, winning Supporting Actress for her potrayal of Elizabeth I in "Sheakespeare in Love" (1999). More Oscar factoids

In 1997 James Cameron's Titanic received 11 Oscars, sharing the record of the most Oscars awards for a single film with William Wyler's Ben Hur (1959). The closest runner-up is West Side Story with 10 Oscars in 1961.





Woman with longest nails loses them in a crash



SALT LAKE CITY - A Salt Lake City woman who held a Guinness World Record for her long fingernails before they broke off in a car crash says it was the most dramatic event of her life.

But Lee Redmond, who lost the fingernails in February, says it's now much easier to do things and her hands seem to fly with the weight of the nails gone.

The 68-year-old won't grow her nails out again, saying it took 30 years the first time and she may not live for another 30.

Redmond hadn't cut her nails since 1979 and entered the Guinness World Records book in 2002 for longest fingernails on a woman.

The Guinness Web site says her nails measured a total of more than 28 feet long in 2008, with the longest nail on her right thumb at 2 feet, 11 inches.





Chinese experts grow live mice from skin cells
By Tan Ee Lyn

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese researchers have managed to create powerful stem cells from mouse skin and used these to generate fertile live mouse pups.

They used induced pluripotent skin cells, or iPS cells -- cells that have been reprogrammed to look and act like embryonic stem cells. Embryonic stem cells, taken from days-old embryos, have the power to morph into any cell type and, in mice, can be implanted into a mother's womb to create living mouse pups.

Their experiment, published in Nature, means that it is theoretically possible to clone someone using ordinary connective tissue cells found on the person's skin, but the experts were quick to distance themselves from such controversy.

"We are confident that tremendous good can come from demonstrating the versatility of reprogrammed cells in mice, and this research will be used to... understand the root causes of disease and lead to viable treatments and cures of human afflictions," said Fanyi Zeng of the Shanghai Institute of Medical Genetics at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

"It would not be ethical to attempt to use iPS cells in human reproduction. It is important for science to have ethical boundaries," she said, adding that their study was "in no way meant as a first step in that direction".

No one has ever cloned a human being and while many stem cell experiments in mice have been replicated in humans, not all have.

Led by Qi Zhou at the Chinese Academy of Sciences's State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Biology, the team created iPS cells, using mouse fibroblasts, which are cells found in connective tissue in the skin.

Stem cells are the body's master cells, giving rise to all the tissues, organs and blood. Embryonic stem cells are considered the most powerful kind of stem cells as they have the potential to give rise to any type of tissue.

But they are difficult to make and require the use of an embryo or cloning technology. Many people also object to using human embryonic stem cells and many countries limit funding for such experiments.

From the skin cells, the Chinese scientists created 37 stem cell lines, and of these, three generated live births.

"One line can generate such competent mice that the longest living one we have is nine months," Zeng told Reuters.

"It has generated now more than 100 of second-generation (mice) and more than 100 third-generation (mice). It really demonstrates how fertile and strong the system is."

The Chinese experiment generated questions and caution from other stem cell researchers not connected to the study.

"These investigators have, for the first time, unequivocally demonstrated that the iPS lines they have generated are truly pluripotent," wrote Andrew Laslett, group leader of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Technology at the Australian Stem Cell Centre in Melbourne, Australia.

Pluripotent is a term meaning the cells can give rise to all the tissues in the body.

"Moreover, the long-term stability of both the iPS cell lines and the long-term health of the mice generated using this procedure are yet to be reported. It will be interesting to see whether mice generated in this fashion have a higher propensity for tumour formation," Laslett wrote.