NewsQuirks 703

Curses, Foiled Again

Police investigating reports of a front-end loader hauling away an automated teller machine from a theater complex in Saint-Eustache, Quebec, were able to pursue the vehicle because it left tire tracks in the fresh snow. Unable to persuade the driver to stop, however, the 16 officers taking part in the low-speed chase fired 28 bullets, first at the construction vehicle's tires, then at its radiator. It continued. According to Inspector Robert Green, the chase ended only after the driver took a shortcut through a field, and the front-end loader toppled over. Police arrested Steve Lemieux, 32.

Two plainclothes police officers in Arlington, Va., witnessed Fernando Javier Arraya, 34, trying to steal a license plate from a parked car. One of the officers was inside the vehicle at the time. The other was parked next to it. Both had their windows rolled down and their police radio turned on while they discussed strategies for catching car thieves when they spotted the suspect. They said he looked around to see if anyone was watching, then walked to the front of one of the unmarked cruisers and began unscrewing the license plate. "My partner wanted to jump out and grab him," Officer Chris Feltman said. "I said, 'Hold on, let's see how far this goes. This is interesting.'" The officers arrested Arraya when he was unable to get the plate off and went back to his car for another tool.

Carpal-Tunnel Epidemic in the Making

Workers at a debt-ridden Romanian car factory offered to sell sperm to help the plant regain solvency. "Our feasibility study shows that if 1,000 workers donate their sperm for several months, we can get enough funds to pay part of the plant's debts," Ion Cotescu, trade union leader at ARO Campulung, said. Calling the solution "one that even the best economists have never thought of," Cotescu explained that the idea for the fund-raiser followed news that a fertility clinic in the western city of Timisoara was offering donors $50 a visit. The ARO Campulung plant, which makes Jeep-style four-wheel-drives, has debts of $20 million.

United We Stand

Michael Childress, 36, who was hired to process mail and donations to the Los Angeles Times's Sept. 11 Disaster Relief Fund, pleaded no contest to stealing more than $67,000 from the fund. Los Angeles County prosecutors said the thefts were discovered after several donors complained about grammatical and spelling errors in the thank-you notes that they received from the Times. Childress reportedly wrote the notes.

Little Feat

Seeking to establish once and for all the relationship between a man's shoe size and penis length, British researchers gently stretched and measured the flaccid penises of 104 urology patients, then recorded their shoe sizes. They concluded there was "no statistically significant relationship" between the two. When asked if any other body part might predict penile size, lead researcher Jyoti Shah of St. Mary's hospital, London, said studies suggested that hand span, finger lengths or nose size "may be predictive."

Way to Go

Gardner Memorial Chapel in Nashville, Tenn., Sullivan Brothers Mortuary in Spartanburg, S.C., and Junior Funeral Home in Pensacola, Fla., recently installed windows to allow mourners to pay their respects from their cars. "A lot of people aren't comfortable with coming into a funeral home," Andrew Gardner Sr. said. "So when I designed the building, I wanted a window big enough so people could view the body from outside."

When Ed Headrick, the creator of the modern Frisbee and designer of toy ma ker Wham-O's first "professional model" flying disc, died this summer at age 78, his family honored his wishes and molded his ashes into memorial flying discs for family members.

A Chicago company announced it has developed a process for turning cremated human remains into diamonds that can be worn as jewelry. Greg Herro, the head of LifeGem Memorials, explained that carbon recovered from the ashes is subjected to heat and pressure to become a blue diamond. Adding that the diamonds are of the same quality that "you would find at Tiffany's" and cost $22,000 a carat, Herro said he expects the company's biggest market to be Japan, where 98 percent of the people choose cremation, compared with only 26 percent of Americans.