I triple-dog dare you: Boy’s tongue stuck on pole

HAMMOND, Ind. – In a scene straight out of the movie “A Christmas Story,” a 10-year-old boy got his tongue stuck to a metal light pole. Police said the unidentified fourth-grader was able to tell them that a friend dared him to lick the pole Wednesday night. Temperatures in Hammond were around 10 degrees at the time.By the time an ambulance arrived, the boy was able to yank his tongue off the frozen pole.

Police said ambulance personnel explained to the boy’s mother how to care for his bleeding tongue.

The 1983 movie is set in a fictional city based on Hammond, the hometown of author Jean Shepherd.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090116/ap_on_fe_st/odd_tongue_pole

The Text Messaging Whiz Kid – Almost 15,000 Each Month

Greg Hardesty didn’t LOL when he got his teen daughter’s cellphone statement.All he could think was “OMG!”

PHOTOS: Text-Crazed Teen

The California man’s 13-year-old daughter, Reina, racked up an astonishing 14,528 text messages in one month. The online AT&T statement ran 440 pages.

“First, I laughed. I thought, ‘That’s insane, that’s impossible,’ ” the 45-year-old dad said. “And I immediately whipped out the calculator to see if it was humanly possible.”

He found it was – barely.

It works out to 484 text messages a day, or one every two minutes of every waking hour.

“Then I thought maybe AT&T made some mistake on the bill,” said Hardesty, of Silverado Canyon.

The reporter for the Orange County Register grilled his daughter on her texting habit – by text message, of course.

“Who are you texting, anyway? Your entire school?” he asked.

“Well, a lot of my friends have unlimited texting. I just text them pretty much all the time,” she explained.

She messages a core of “four obsessive texters” – all girls between the ages of 12 and 13 – on her LG phone.

Reina had a karaoke birthday party, and while other people were singing, she was texting her best friend sitting right next to her.

She even texted her friends to brag about the high number of text messages she had logged when her parents got the statement.

Her texting soared last month because “it was winter break and I was bored,” Reina told her parents.

Luckily, Hardesty has a phone plan that allows unlimited texting for $30 a month. Otherwise, he estimates, he would have owed AT&T $2,905.60 at a rate of 20 cents per message.

The average number of monthly texts for a 13- to 17-year-old teen is 1,742, according to a Nielsen study of cellphone usage.

Hardesty admits he himself punches in 900 messages a month – 700 more than average for his age group, according to Nielsen.

Hardesty and his ex-wife have since placed restrictions on Reina’s cellphone use, ruling she cannot text after dinner.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01112009/news/nationalnews/this_kids_a_text_maniac_149614.htm

NY man demands estranged wife pay him for kidney

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. – A Long Island surgeon embroiled in a nearly four-year divorce proceeding wants his estranged wife to return the kidney he donated to her, although he says he’ll settle for $1.5 million in compensation.Dr. Richard Batista, a surgeon at Nassau University Medical Center, told reporters at his lawyer’s Long Island office Wednesday that he decided to go public with his demand for kidney compensation because he has grown frustrated with the negotiations with his estranged wife.

He claimed he has been prevented from seeing their children, ages, 8, 11 and 14, for months at a time.

“This is my last resort; I did not want to do this publicly,” Batista said.

He said he gave his kidney to Dawnell Batista, now 44, in June 2001. She filed for divorce in July 2005, although he claims she began having an extramarital affair 18 months to two years after receiving the kidney transplant, his attorney, Dominick Barbara said.

Douglas Rothkopf, the attorney representing Dawnell Batista, did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

Matrimonial attorneys were quick to shoot down any possibility Batista would succeed.

“I’ve been in this business over 40 years and I’ve never heard of that,” said Seymour J. Reisman, a Long Island divorce lawyer. “It’s not marital property, not a marital asset you can put a price tag on.”

Manhattan attorney Susan Moss said, “The good doctor is out of luck and out a kidney. This is similar to cases where a husband wants to be repaid for the cost of breast implants and the such. Our judges are not willing to value such assets, so to speak.”

Batista, 49, said he has no regrets about donating the kidney, only about the failed marriage. The couple was married in 1990 and lived in a million-dollar home in Massapequa. They met while he was working at a hospital and she was training to be a nurse.

He still recalls the day after the surgery took place.

“There is no greater feeling on this planet. As God is my witness, I felt as if I could put my arm around Jesus Christ. It was an unbelievable; I was walking on a cloud.

To this day I would still do it again.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090108/ap_on_fe_st/odd_kidney_dispute

The man who can down a huge bottle of ketchup in just 39 seconds

Speed is the word for Guinness Rishi as he powers his way through a giant 490 gram bottle of ketchup in just 39 seconds.Guinness believes he holds the fastest time for drinking the world’s favourite condiment, which he sups through a straw.

His brand of choice is a toss up between Maggi or the more traditional Heinz.

And 67-year-old Guinness, from Delhi, India, doesn’t confine his talents to the world of tomato sauce.

He claims to hold 19 world titles and even changed his name – from Har Parkash to Guinness Rishi – in a bid to win over official record-keepers.

But so far none of his bizarre stunts have been recognised in the Guinness Book of Records.

Guinness puts his motivation down to the need to stand out in a country of over 1 billion people.

‘People consider me an extraordinary person, not an ordinary person,’ he said.

His records include ‘taking on the world’s oldest adoptee’, after he legally took custody of his 61-year-old brother-in-law.

Guiness also built the tallest sugar cube tower in the world, which stands at 64 inches.

He took his new name in 1991, after keeping a motor scooter in continuous motion for 1,001 hours for another bizarre record.

‘Persons who have no money wish to do something in their lives, so the poor people try to break records by their strength or their will,’ said Guinness, who is joint owner of an auto-parts factory.

The ketchup-crazed pensioner said he will continue to find new records to break until he achieves his dream of official recognition.

‘I hope to make my family proud,’ he said

‘My children feel they are more important in the field of business and money-making.

‘I have to show the family and the community that I am a professional person.’

Now Guinness is trying to find a way of combining eating chips with his ketchup-drinking record in the hope of attracting the attention of judges.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1103854/Pictured-The-man-huge-bottle-ketchup-just-39-seconds.html

Michigan twins born on different days, months, years

ROCHESTER, Mich. – They’re twins, all right, despite what their spanking new birth certificates say. Tariq Griffin entered the world at 12:17 a.m. on New Year’s Day at Crittenton Hospital in Rochester, Mich. Twin brother Tarrance was born a bit earlier – 26 minutes to be exact.That means the boys have the unique distinction of having been born on different days, months and years.

Their dad, Tarrance Sr., is also a twin. The parents say the boys are doing well, which is their main concern.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090102/ap_on_fe_st/odd_new_year_s_twins