From T-Rex racing to bog diving, and incidents of note involving both ham and hamburgers, we continue to bring you the latest from our weird and wacky world.
(NO) FILM AT 11
A Chicago television news crew reporting on a string of robberies ended up robbed themselves after they were accosted at gunpoint by three armed men wearing ski masks. Spanish-language station Univision Chicago said a reporter and photographer were filming just before 5 a.m. in Chicago’s West Town neighbourhood when three masked men brandishing firearms robbed them, taking their television camera and other items.
Luis Godinez, vice president of news at Univision Chicago said the news crew was filming a story about robberies that was slated to run on the morning news. He said the footage they shot was in the stolen camera, and the story never made it on the air.
The episode was the second robbery this month involving a Chicago news crew, after a WLS-TV photographer was assaulted and robbed on Aug. 8 while preparing to cover a news conference on Chicago’s West Side, the station reported.
A WHOPPER OF A PROMOTION
The Miami Marlins put together a whopper of a promotion to welcome trade deadline acquisition Jake Burger. The Marlins celebrated the slugger and his appetizing last name by offering $5 hamburgers for a recent game against the Philadelphia Phillies. The 27-year-old Burger added that he’s good with the nickname “SmashBurger.”
DINO-MITE
A track for live horse racing in suburban Seattle turned prehistoric over the weekend as more than 200 people ran down the track cloaked in inflatable Tyrannosaurus rex dinosaur costumes (photo). The 2023 T-Rex World Championships at Emerald Downs – an event that started in 2017 as a pest control company’s team-building activity – ended in a photo finish on Sunday, with three competitors hitting the finish line together.
In case you were wondering, Ocean Kim took top honours in the 100-yard dash after officials agreed Kim, of Kailua, Hawaii, hit the finish wire just ahead of the pack. Second place went to Colton Winegar of Boise, Idaho, who entered as Deno the Dino. Seth Hirschi, of Renton, as Rex Ray Machine, finished in third.
SLICE OF LIFE
A woman who fractured her left ankle during a trip with her husband to the Italian food emporium Eataly in Boston last year is blaming her injury on a piece of ham.
Alice Cohen was heading to an area where food samples are distributed to customers when she slipped on a piece of prosciutto and fell, according to the recently filed lawsuit. Her medical expenses, including a hospital visit and physical therapy, have resulted in more than $7,500 in bills, according to court papers.
The lawsuit claims Eataly was negligent for not properly cleaning the floor, stating the restaurant “had a duty to ensure that the surface of the floors were free from unnecessary dangers…”
OH, FOR THE LOVE OF BOG!
Intrepid athletes donned snorkels and slithered through slime on Sunday during one of Britain’s quirkiest sporting events: the World Bog Snorkeling Championships. The annual competition in the tiny town of Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales, sees competitors race to complete two lengths of a 55-metre water-filled trench cut through a peat bog.
Some contestants accessorized their snorkels, masks, and flippers with more flamboyant touches – one carried a giant plastic toad on their head, another had a bathing cap adorned with flowers. Spectators also got in on the fun, with two wearing pink cardboard boxes proclaiming them to be limited edition bog-snorkeling Barbie and Ken.
Competitors at the 35th annual contest were hoping to beat the time of current world record-holder Neil Rutter, who won in 1 minute, 18 seconds in 2018.
A HISS-TERICAL ENCOUNTER
Like a scene out of a horror movie, Michelle Lespron returned to her Tucson, Arizona, home to find a snake had set up camp in her toilet. “I’d been gone for four days and was looking forward to using my own restroom in peace. I lifted up the lid and he or she was curled up,” Lespron said, adding, “Thank God the lid was closed.”
Lespron has been getting messages from family, friends and even people she went to high school with since Rattlesnake Solutions, a Phoenix-based company that removed the snake, recently posted an employee’s video. The 20-second video shows the snake being pulled out of the toilet bowl and then hissing straight at the camera.