Stories that make you think and say, "huh?"

The Internet is a great source of stories focusing on - how shall we say - the unsual but always interesting side of life. Being a generous writer, I'm sharing some that are a fun read.

'IVE GOT A CRUSH ON YOU, LADY LIB-ER-TY...'

There are crushes...and then there are crushes but this love- from- afar takes the cake.

A woman living in Leeds, England, is convinced that she has found true love. This in itself isn't unusual or earth-shattering but the love of her life and object (in the true sense of the word) of her affection is - wait for it - the Statue of Liberty. You read it right: Lady Liberty herself.

The woman, who lives in Leeds, England, can't stop thinking about the - um - statue. According to the piece in The Sun newspaper, she has been attracted to inanimate objects throughout her life and as a student, was enamored with a drum kit. There is a medical explanation for this unusual attraction called, objectum sexuality, in which people fall in love with objects rather than real people. This makes one - me - wonder about this condition.  I mean, I really like chocolate mint frozen yogurt but wouldn't go as far as to say I'm madly in love with it. Then there's this big thing for purses and shoes...and of course jewelry... But I digress.

It was a case of love at first sight for the woman after she saw a photo of  "Libby", her name for the statue, posted online. In additon, she has visited the statue in person four times, stroking it and leaning out of a window to kiss its "hair." She did think about marriage at one point but dropped the idea "because so many others love her too". Not in the same way of course...

In her home, she has set up a shrine as a visual reminder of her "Libby" replete with a six foot replica, along with smaller models, ornaments and very large U.S. flags.

"Other people might be shocked to think I can have romantic feelings for an object, but I am not the same as them," she explained.

To say the least.

A WADDLE TO FREEDOM

Residents of Tokyo, Japan, could run into an unusual feathered friend who has flown the coop from its home in an aquarium. He was last seen taking a dip in a nearby river.

The young one-year old Humboldt penguin, who managed to scale a net twice its size, was spotted by an employee of another zoo who contacted the aquarium. This leads one - me - to wonder the reason behind his escape. Was he feeling crowded among the 134 other penguins or perhaps he didn't care for the fish being served, or maybe he saw the movie, "Happy Feet" and was heading for Hollywood to be a star! Go know!

Meanwhile the aquarium is asking Tokyo residents to keep an eye out for the escapee. Maybe they should keep a few cans of sardines in water around, just in case.

DOGGONE IT!

I dunno. Given the state of the world these days, this really makes you wonder, "why?"

A British couple has spent more than $13,000 on a tummy tuck, facelift and other procedures on - wait for it - their pet pooch over the past two years. They had the surgeries performed on their 5-year old dog, Junior, to save him from blindness. The pooch has a rare disease that causes excess skin to develop on his body that results in mobility difficulties and unable to see due to skin flaps that grew over his eyes. This in itself is understable although some people would wonder about spending $15,000 on their pet, especially since some of the ;procedures were cosmetic.

Pet plastic surgery has grown in popularity over last last few years. Performed nose jobs have risen 25 percent over three years totaling $2.5 million, with another $1.6 million being spent on eyelifts. I wonder if they use doggie botox.

Plastic surgery for dogs... Hmmm.... Meanwhile, here are some before and after photos of Junior:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4174195/Junior-the-dog-has-had-10000-worth-of-cosmetic-surgery-to-help-with-his-health.html

So - whad'ya think? Notice a difference?

FEELING CHILLY? TRY THE HEATED BRA!

Women living in cold climates or at least climates that experience winter for a good portion of the year, might welcome this new innovation or some would call it, gadget.

A leading lingerie company has joined Japan's fight against high fuel use, unveiling a heated bra for winter.

You read it right: a heated bra to keep your breasts nice and warm and cozy. Now how this fits into the big picture of fighting global warming is somewhat questionable.

The fluffy creation contains special pads filled with an eco-friendly gel that can be easily heated in a microwave oven or with a hot water bottle. The design also includes a furry boa designed to double as a winter scarf.

Lingerie giant Triumph unveiled the bra months after PM Junichiro Koizumi urged Japan's office workers to ditch ties to save on air conditioning.

Being padded, the new bra packs a little more bulk than most regular designs, but the Japanese arm of Triumph insisted the look was more chic than sheep.

Sheep?

"We hope this will not only help prevent global warming but also provide a little fashion chic to the office," the company said in a statement.

The bra, which comes only in white, also features a pendant shaped like a chili pepper dangling on its front.

Only in white? How unfashionable! And a chili pepper? The siginifigance one presumes is that the bra provides enough heat as when consuming a chili pepper. Or something similar... I dunno!

The boob warmer also comes with matching shorts but is not being offered for general sale and the two pieces are being promoted as a prototype product, the first step towards mass-producing eco-friendly clothing.

Japan's government is encouraging people not to set their domestic heating higher than 20C this winter, to reduce fuel consumption and conserve energy stocks.

During the summer, Mr Koizumi surprised Japan's traditionally well-dressed office workers by discarding his tie and urging his countrymen to do the same.

Just wondering how discarding a tie will help the environment. Perhaps it's a small effort to keep cool. Go know!

The drive to reduce air-conditioning use and thus greenhouse gas emissions was estimated to have saved enough power to supply 240,000 homes for a month.

Somehow and maybe it's just me but a bra that is heated in a microwave makes me a little nervous.

See a photo of the bra here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4420820.stm

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A FISH TALE WITH A HAPPY ENDING

So y'see...as it is in life, there was this male salmon who met a female salmon and they got along really well. So well that they decided they wanted to start a family but after a while and no eggs to speak of, they did what many human-types did: they found a surrogate parent...fish.

Researchers in Japan have put a new spin on surrogate parenting having engineered one fish species to produce another to preserve endangered fish. Scientists in Idaho are continuing this concept in an attempt to produce a sockeye salmon, highly endangered in the state, but using trout as surrogate parents.

Those first experiments, funded by a Japanese research institute, used still fairly plentiful species to develop the technique. Now comes Idaho's attempt to prove if the method is really useful in trying to produce the endangered sockeye salmon.

Last January, YoshiGoro Yoshizaki, a Tokyo University marine scientist who is leading the research helped University of Idaho scientists collect and freeze immature sperm tissue from young sockeye salmon being raised at a state-run hatchery. Next month, he'll be back to help thaw the tissue and implant it into sterile rainbow trout.

In Japan, Yoshizaki is focused on bluefin tuna, noting that standard "marine ranching" techniques are difficult for tuna that can reach man-size.

He has begun experiments into how to produce baby tuna from mackerel, which are nearly a thousand times smaller than adult tuna. If it works, "we can save space, cost and labor," he predicted in an e-mail interview.

Read about the entire cut-and-implant process here:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0058EF3E-E7F2-99DF-3C2EC5A22E22A477&chanID=sa007

I dunno. It's not nice to fool Mother Nature... I mean, at some point down the line, a trout just may receive the unexpected (and traumatic) news that his mama was a salmon. Or a tuna may discover it has mackeral-ish tendencies. Who knows where all of this can lead...


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