"Your balls are showing"

Spencer Tunick, a New York photographer famous for large-scale nude projects, has created some 'balls-out' shots to celebrate The Beautiful Game.

Tunick shot 1,840 nude volunteers yesterday in Vienna's Ernst Happel stadium--the site of the EURO 2008 — the European soccer championship — which will be played next month.

The photographer had hoped to get 2,008 people out for the shoot, but no go. The shoot took place over a several hours, and the models posed in various positions throughout the stadium. [click here to view the gallery]

The goal, according to an ad for volunteers, was "to capture and combine the spirit of sports, the grand sweeping waves of stadium architecture and the abstract relation of the human form to modern structures."

Literally stuck on the john

I cannot even do this story the justice it deserves. Please, please, please read below. This is potentially one of the most ridiculous stories I've ever heard.

Authorities in the US are trying to establish what caused a 35-year-old woman to sit on her boyfriend's toilet for so long her skin grafted to the seat.

Kansas woman Pam Babcock had to be prised off the toilet at her boyfriend Kory McFarren's house after allegedly sitting there for two years.

She was only moved when McFarren called 911 on February 27 and told police there was "something wrong" with his girlfriend.

Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple told AP there was no indication Babcock had been restrained against her will.

"She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body," Whipple said.

McFarren told police he had asked Babcock every day to please come out of the bathroom, but her reply was always: "Maybe tomorrow."

He also said he brought her food and water every day. Police found Babcock clothed and sitting on the toilet with her pants lowered to mid-thigh level.

"We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital," Whipple said. "The hospital removed it."

Ontario's City News website is reporting that McFarren may face charges in relation to the case. Questions are being asked about why the 36-year-old antique store worker didn't raise the alarm earlier.

But he insists the situation developed slowly and he had come to believe his girlfriend's behaviour wasn't strange.

"It just kind of happened one day; she went in and had been in there a little while, the next time it was a little longer. Then she got it in her head she was going to stay - like it was a safe place for her," he said.

McFarren insisted Babcock hadn't spent the entire two years on the toilet, claiming that until late January she was taking baths and changing her clothes regularly.

He says he panicked and finally called for help two weeks ago when Babcock appeared groggy after spending as much as a month sitting on the toilet. McFarren says Babcock developed a phobia about leaving the bathroom which stemmed from beatings she received in her childhood.

But despite his professions that he was caring for his partner of 16 years, authorities have indicated they are considering charging him with mistreatment of a dependent adult.

Babcock's legs atrophied (suffered muscle wastage) as a result of her sitting on the toilet for so long and it's not known if she will ever walk again.

"Maybe tomorrow"???? I really don't know what to say to this. There are so many questions I need answered here. It's so bizarre that suddenly toilet humor (in the literal or figurative sense) doesn't even seem justified.

Thanks, Matt!

How does it go? Jesus is the light of the world?

Okay, some Internet scanning yielded this entirely phallic and very creepy-looking light switch cover. Thoughts? Look at the children's faces. Father, forgive me, but this is terrifying.

Forever and ever, even after do us part

A 66-year-old woman had been living with the corpse of her dead 85-year-old lover for nearly a year, APA reported yesterday.

Police found the man's remains in the couple's Austrian cottage wrapped in blankets Tuesday. The body was obviously decomposing and the smell of death was permeating the building.

Officials said the man probably died in March of natural causes, but final examinations were still being conducted.

The woman had told a local doctor and neighbors who tried to contact the man since last March that he was abroad.

It kind of sounds a little like Hitchcock's 'Psycho,' but still, for a split second, I thought this was slightly romantic in an extremely creepy way. Maybe she just really loved him and was waiting to die next to him.

...but then I read that police are looking into whether the woman concealed his death in order to collect his pension payments, and that just totally kills the sentiment.

God's right-hand man?

An Idaho man who believed the biblical "mark of the beast" had appeared on his hand, chopped off the body part and cooked it Saturday, according to the Associated Press.

The mark, or number, of the beast is more commonly known as "666."

The Book of Revelation in the New Testament contains a passage in which an angel is quoted as saying: "If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink the wine of God's fury."

So the man, who is in his mid-20s, chopped off his hand with a circular saw and put it in the microwave. When authorities arrived, the man was reportedly calm, but they took him to the mental health unit of a local medical center. Couldn't imagine why...

"It had been somewhat cooked by the time the deputy arrived. He put a tourniquet on his arm before, so he didn't bleed to death. That kind of mental illness is just sad."--Capt. Ben Wolfinger said.

God is great and all, but oh man...this is the second body part cooking story this week!

David stuck in the John

A Scottish man who was trapped in a lawn bowling club bathroom for 100 hours was freed today. I think just one question remains:

What the hell is lawn bowling??

No, really. David Leggat, 55, survived nearly four days inside the bathroom in Aberdeen after the door jammed and the handle fell off. That's some high class country club there. He had no food and no cell phone. The paper said he survived by dipping his feet into hot water (and I don't really want to know what water or how it got hot).

Leggat was rescued when the cleaning woman arrived to collect her equipment, and what did the man's prolific emergence speech: "At least there was a toilet to use" (not joking).

Tortuous owner you have

This dog, ala Daily Costume, made my day.

"Agree with you the council does. Your apprentice Skywalker will be."

Save a tree

An Indonesian fisherman named Dede is better known as the "tree man" in his village.

That's because the man, 35, has sprouted grotesque tree-like growths on his hands and feet due to what is being called a rare strain of Human Papilloma Virus [click here to read his story].

U.S. doctors took blood and tissue samples from Dede over seas, but Indonesian health minister Siti Fadilah Supari is claiming that whatever result comes out of the American studies will be far too expensive.

But U.S. doctors are countering with “We did it for humanitarian reasons, to help the patient.” They're really root-ing for him, right? (bad joke alert)

Freak show

Marilyn Manson is being legally confronted for being a heteroclite freak--shocking, I know.
Manson's keyboardist Stephen "Pogo" Bier filed a breach of contract lawsuit in August accusing "Dope Show" singer of taking cash belonging to the rest of the band...a buying "sick and disturbing" things.

Such as? According to the Bier's newest complaint, Manson bought Nazi memorabilia (including swastika wall tiles), African masks made of human skin, the full skeleton of a four-year-old Chinese girl and the full skeleton of a 17th-century male in a wheelchair. He also allegedly used funds to pay roadies to move suitcases filled with "Alice in Wonderland" books because he is obsessed with Lewis Carroll.

The best part of this story, though, is Manson's response:

"And I would never spend my money on a Chinese girl skeleton. That would be crossing the line. It's a Chinese boy, for the record," Marilyn Manson, to MTV News.

And a little fun fact about Manson: he is currently dating 19-year-old Evan Rachel Wood, the doe-eyed star of "Across the Universe." Odd couple much?


*Note (posted Feb. 5) - To my surprise, this post has been one of The Jerc Store's most viewed, and while I'm pretty much indifferent to Marilyn Manson and his music, I would just like to let everyone know that the word 'freak' is being used loosely here. In an admittedly sad attempt to be clever with my headlines, all I could muster was a reference to 'Dope Show.'

And I wasn't kidding when I said I loved his response to MTV News; it's hilarious! But personally, I think Marilyn Manson relishes in the fact that people call him a freak, that's why he says things like that, so I doubt he'd be offended by reading my post, though I'm sure he'd be happy to know that he has so many fans willing to defend him against the evil bloggers of the world.

Thank you for reading, and please visit my main page: www.thejercstore.com

18 Lives??

This cat from Arizona, named Lil' Bit, was born with four eyes, two mouths, two noses, but only two ears.

The cat's outlook seemed grim, but he has been purring away now for seven months.

Lil' Bit's two middle eyes have almost morphed into one, and vets believe the cat may actually have two brains. His owner said she has seen one face fall asleep while the other stays awake.

I think I'd prefer the black cat crossing my path over Lil' Bit. In fact, they should probably name him Two'Bit, ehh? [post-bad joke drum fill]

Spaghetti and hairballs

An 18-year-old girl had a 10-pound hair ball removed from her stomach after years of eating her hair caused all sorts of health problems (and probably caused you to gag a little, too).

The girl complained of a five-month history of pain and swelling in her abdomen, vomiting after eating and a 40-pound weight loss. I guess that's one way to keep the pounds off?

After seeing a team of gastrointestinal specialists, she underwent surgery to remove the mass of black, curly hair, which measured 15 inches by 7 inches by 7 inches, the doctors said.

The girl had a habit of eating her hair, a condition called trichophagia. Yummy in her tummy.

Here's another example of this trichophagia, but don't click this link if you are easily grossed out--seriously.

See-food

Seattle seafood shoppers are questioning why the FDA is not investigating glowing shrimp being sold at supermarkets.

One woman decided to give her cats a little treat and instead found the bioluminescent buggers glowing in the cats' dish hours later when darkness fell. Inside her fridge, she found more glowing shrimp, and while she did not fall ill, she felt queasy over the fact that she just ingested something that looked radioactive.

The FDA is saying that the bioluminescent shrimp are as safe as colored ketchup, but I don't know...if my ketchup looked like an acid trip, I'd probably want someone to investigate too.

Holy pumpkin house!

For the past 20 years, Ric Griffith has been carving more than 3,000 jack o'lanterns to line the outside of his 115-year-old Victorian home in West Virginia. No, not 3,000 pumpkins over 20 years, more than 3,000 pumpkins PER YEAR. It's the Kenova Pumpkin House, and apparently the glow of it can be seen from Ohio.


And if you think the picture is nuts, check out the video of the pumpkins' lights synchronized to the 1812 Overture. I don't know how he did, but it's incredible.

Interesting way to pick up chicks?

Travelodge hotels in Britain have retrained their staff to prepare them for naked men sleepwalking through the halls at night. Sleepwalking instances have massively increased and 95 percent of them just happen to be men. Improvements include having a towel handy to cover up the sleepwalker's manhood and being prepared to answer normal nakedmansleepwalker questions such as, "Where is the bathroom?" and "Do you have a newspaper?"

To me, this is just asking for drunk or bored men staying at these hotels to convince their buddies how funny it will be to walk up to the receptionist at night with no clothes on and pretend to be asleep. I'm sure the attractive female employees will start hearing all sorts of clever "sleepwalker" lines. "I can't find my room. I have the key but I don't know where to put it."

Extra, extra, read all about it

Here's a few news stories I found particularly interesting today. Nothing political and definitely nothing too practical, but please, indulge yourself.

• "Fifteen minutes of flame"? That's so corny it sounds like I wrote it.
• And I just went to one of these meetings last night. Certainly nothing like brains on the wall.
  
• Could these people have been bigger assholes? Probably not. Poor little old guy.

Look, a dolphin! Wait, that's a little Chinese girl.

Please, read this story from CNN and tell me this is not the most insane form of training ever.

First reaction to the headline is, "[gasp] that's child abuse!" But then you come to find the child asked to be thrown into the river bound by her hands and feet? And don't stop there...she also ran more than 2,200 miles in 55 days (approx. 40 miles per day) while her father drove behind her in a motor scooter?

I can't wait to see this 10-year-old beat us in the Olympics.