Is Romanian UFO Krypton's favourite son?

Terry Mcconnell
The Edmonton Journal

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Either the folks in the Romanian town of Gemeni are suffering from mass hallucination or they've been smoking that funny-looking weed that grows on the outskirts of town.

Or maybe they really saw what they say they saw.

Police in Romania's Mehedinti County are investigating claims that Gemeni's villagers saw a Superman-type figure flying over the town.

According to ananova.com, about 20 villagers are making the claim, and that the UFO was wearing a blue outfit not unlike the one worn by the Man of Steel.

"He looked like Superman," said one of the locals, Constantin Toader, 41, who added the figure was flying slowly, about 100 metres above the ground. "He didn't make any smoke or sound. Just cruising around."

Spokescop Ion Anuta said the witnesses were of different ages but all were "reliable citizens of our village," who described the figure in the same way. "We'll just have to see what happens next."

NO MEN OF STEEL?

Lois Lane: "Any more at home like you?"

Clark Kent: "Uh, not really, no."

-- From the 1978 movie, Superman

MAN BEHAVES BADLY

Superman and Lois Lane may have had an up-and-down relationship over the years, but nothing quite so turbulent as the one shared -- and we use that word advisedly -- by a couple in the Indiana duckburg of Evansville.

When Alejandro Valencio showed up at the home of his former girlfriend, she locked the doors and told him to go away. But he had other ideas, reports All Headline News.

Valencio, who later admitted to being drunk at the time -- it was the middle of the night -- instead climbed up on the roof and started to come down the chimney. And then he got stuck.

Firefighters subsequently tried to rescue Valencio from the chimney, but were hampered by the girlfriend, Connie Deweese. She told them to "leave him in the chimney and let him die." She blocked access to the fireplace and, eventually, police were called in to hold her back.

TV news crews filmed the scene as firefighters tore through a wall to rescue Valencio. Deweese could be seen hitting him with a garbage can and pelting him with bottles.

"Everyone does stupid things sometimes when they're drunk," said Valencio the next day. He promised to pay for the damages incurred by his rescue.

AND ANOTHER

Maybe there was a full moon that night. When another guy wanted to impress his ex-girlfriend, he stuck a 50-centimetre rattlesnake in his mouth. (That's a 20-inch critter for the metrically challenged.)

Matt Wilkinson was soon near death -- his swollen tongue blocking his windpipe, reports the Portland Oregonian. The former girlfriend drove him to hospital, where doctors saved his life.

"You can assume alcohol was involved," admitted the 23-year-old Wilkinson afterwards.

GOOD ADVICE

"Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."

-- Dean Wormer to student Kent Dorfman in the 1978 movie

National Lampoon's Animal House

SCRATCHING THE ITCH

In Germany, meanwhile, a politician has called for a seven-year time limit on marriages.

Gabriele Pauli said couples would have to apply to have their marriages extended beyond the seven years. The idea, she said, is to save the expense of divorce and force couples that wish to stay together to make more of an effort.

But according to London's Daily Telegraph, other politicians have condemned her plan to combat the seven-year itch. The idea was dismissed as "irresponsible and stupid blather" -- and that was just what members in her own party had to say. The opposition was even more critical.

Somehow, we don't think the women in Evansville and Portland think it's so crazy.

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Who could blame women for asking what they need men for anyway? Well, except for mowing the lawn, as Madonna suggested in this space earlier this month. After all, there is a female shark in Arizona that has proven beyond all doubt she doesn't need a man.

Now wait a minute, before you get to asking what a shark is doing in Arizona, we'll tell you it lives in a tank at a high school in Phoenix. Alone. By itself. Without contact with any male sharks.

Yet that shark just gave birth, reports the Arizona Republic.

Students at Carl Hayden high school were stunned to see a baby shark swimming in their shark tank because mom has been alone for four years.

Turns out it's the third documented case worldwide of parthenogenesis, in which an unfertilized egg develops into a newborn pup.

You know, this could explain Michael Jackson.

HE THANKS YOU VERY MUCH

On a related subject, the number of Elvis impersonators jumped from 150 in 1977 to about 35,000 in 2001, says Gordon Forbes III, producer and director of the documentary Elvis and the Men Who Would Be King.

If the trend continues at that rate, one-third of the world's population will be impersonating the King by 2019.

HAPPY 25TH :-)

Speaking of dates, the smiley face celebrated its 25th birthday last week.

Scott Fahlman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, was the first to use the electronic greeting -- a colon followed by a hyphen and a parenthesis -- reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The smiley face and all the other electronic salutations that followed are called emoticons.

DAMAGED GOODS

In other computer news, Belgium was put up for sale on eBay, reports the Houston Chronicle. It attracted a top bid of $14 million Cdn.

Free delivery was included with the sale, but many potential buyers may have been scared off by the European country's national debt, which these days is topping out at $300 billion.

BUS STOP BLUES

So this guy is waiting at a bus stop in St. Paul, Minn., for a bus to take him to his anger management class.

But someone else at the bus stop ticks him off, you see, and he starts hitting other people with his anger management folder.

Then he runs off, dropping the folder he is supposed to take to his anger management class. Police find the folder and the arrest of Justin Boudin, 27, quickly follows.

"Clearly, he has issues," Metro Transit official Bob Gibbons tells the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

GUIDE TO CLEAN LIVING

What's really clear is that this guy needs a happy place to go in his mind, a Zen-like state if you will. He might even consider reciting the following to himself.

It was sent to us by astute Telescope reader Linda Logan. We call it the Zen of Sarcasm:

- Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just pretty much leave me the hell alone.

- The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and leaky tire.

- It's always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbour's newspaper, that's the time to do it.

- Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you won't be promoted.

- Always remember that you're unique. Just like everyone else.

- Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

- If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

- Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

- If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is probably not for you.

- Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

- If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably a wise investment.

- If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

- Some days you're the bug, some days you're the windshield.

- Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.

- The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.

- A closed mouth gathers no foot.

- Duct tape is like The Force. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

- There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither works.

- Generally speaking, you aren't learning much when your lips are moving.

- Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.

- Never miss a good chance to shut up.

And finally...

- Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.