* Latest Nicotine Urges: Connecticut inmate Frank W. Banks, assigned to a no-smoking prison, was convicted in December of mailing harassing letters to a judge; Banks said he thought threats via the U. S. mail would cause him to be sent to a federal prison, where he could smoke. And in November, three stranded Alaska hunters radioing for help claimed they had been without food for three days so the rescue would be treated as an emergency; actually, they had a week's worth of food with them but panicked because they had run out of cigarettes. [Hartford Courant, 12-8- 95; Anchorage Daily News, 11-24-95]
THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT
* The owners of a new Chevron gas station in Oakhurst, Calif., received an official blessing by their neighbor, Catholic Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles, which included the pumps, a snack area, and an advertisement for Marlboros. And earlier in the month, Father Matvei of the Russian Orthodox Church blessed the $30 million expansion of the Coca-Cola plant in Moscow. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch-AP, 12-29-95] [Dallas Morning News-AP, 12-2-95]
* The New York Times reported in December that a patent had recently been granted to Jeffrey Holden of Humble, Tex., for a decoy to ward off burglars. The device is simply a face mask of a person holding open a shutter or blind and peering out. (The face appears to have limited utility because, unlike time- controlled house lights, the face never moves until the owner takes it down.) [New York Times, 12-18-95]
* In December, magazine salesman Samuel A. Erby, 20, was charged in Euless, Tex., with assault after he attacked an 88- year-old woman, reportedly because she had just declined to buy a subscription from him. And in June in Fort Collins, Colo., a 22-year-old man working in his yard suffered a similar fate when he declined to buy a subscription from a Denver salesman. [Albuquerque Journal, 12-10-95] [Fort Collins Coloradoan, Jun95]
* In October, the Alexandria (La.) Daily Town Talk reported that Sheriff Bill Belt and Judge Michael Johnson own telephone businesses that give each a cut every time prisoners in several local jails make calls from pay phones. According to the newspaper, the judge made $85,000 from Avoyelles Parish jail calls last year, and the sheriff has similar contracts with the jails in seven parishes. [Dallas Morning News-AP, 10-31-95]
* Among products recently brought to market: Sandals, handbags, and accessories under the A Bomb label, from Tokyo's Mode et Jacomo (whose public relations director said she thought "A Bomb," in English, signified "cute"); the Peace Missile golf club and companion putter, made from melted-down Soviet Union nuclear missiles, in San Rafael, Calif.; China's Soft soap (and its competitor, Seaweed Defat Soap), which according to the "Preventive Medicine Society," removes body fat in 76% of cases; and from the Spencer and Fleetwood firm in Great Britain, slowly available in the U. S., provocatively-shaped noodles called Pasta Boobs and Penis Pasta. [Daily Yomiuri, 9-6- 95] [The Tennessean-AP, 8-15-95] [Globe & Mail-Reuters, 10- 20-95; The Economist, 9-16-95] [Time Out New York, 12-6-95]
* Among tourist-attraction theme parks recently proposed: one modeled after the Berlin Wall (armed guards, re-enacted escape attempts) in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; an amusement park at the $5 billion, never-used Kalkar, Germany, nuclear power plant (with the cooling towers holding up the roller coaster); the Navy Glory Center tribute to the Cold War in Vladivostok, Russia (charging visitors $700 to fire a Soviet missile); and the Billie Sol Estes Museum in Granbury, Tex., featuring papers and artifacts of the notorious fertilizer-tank swindler of the 1960s. [Sun Times of Canada, Dec95; Albuquerque Journal, 11-4-95; [Globe & Mail, 12-19-95] [Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Sept95]
* In October, a judge in Belfast, Northern Ireland, rejected plans for a proposed restaurant called School Dinners that would feature meals served by young women in short skirts wielding whips against patrons who did not clean their plates. Though opponents called the restaurant immoral, the judge said merely that the mock spankings would constitute "entertainment," which is forbidden by the lease. Said one disappointed supporter, "We have had 25 years [of oppression]. Now is the time for the fun to come flooding back." [Columbus Dispatch-AP, 10-26-95]
* Fortune magazine reported in October on the foresightedness of Procter & Gamble in registering names for potential exclusive Internet addresses. It won the right to use, among other names: toiletpaper.com, pimples.com, germs.com, bacteria.com, dandruff.com, underarm.com, badbreath.com, and diarrhea.com. [Fortune, 10-16-95; Louisville Courier-Journal, 10-9-95]
* Elle magazine reported recently on the services of Eleni Santoro, a New York City "psychic house cleaner" who rehabilitates hard-to-unload real estate by neutralizing the evil auras and "balancing the energy" in the house--at $300 to $2,500 a job. She specializes in homes in which there had been a death or in which the inhabitants fought a lot. [San Francisco Chronicle-Elle, Dec95]
OUR ANIMAL FRIENDS
* A full page of letters from readers in a September issue of New Scientist magazine reported sightings by London, England, subway riders who say they saw pigeons board, and disembark from, subway cars in "purposeful" ways that suggest they have figured out where they are going. [Philadelphia Inquirer, 10-1- 95]
* In September, Terri Hudson, 39, was jailed in Naperville, Ill., for failing to hand over the family cat, Seymour, to ex-husband Jeff Sucec, who won custody of it, along with the couple's 3- year-old son. [Chicago Sun-Times, 9-22-95]
* A July article in The Wall Street Journal reported on the latest monthly show of the National Fancy Rat Society in Surbiton, England, featuring white rats with talcum-powdered coats, shampooed tails, and clipped paw nails. Among the 13 awards given was for Best Stud Buck, with criteria of "a nice shape, an arch to the back, not too pointed a face," according to a judge. Rat owners also have a bimonthly magazine, Pro-Rat-A. [Wall Street Journal, 7-11-95]
Copyright 1996, Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Released for the entertainment of readers. No commercial use may be made of the material or of the name News of the Weird.