Zodiac Killer? Not Hardly.

My sister posted this article on my Facebook wall the other day because she knows that I'm a very proud Taurus and have no regrets whatsoever about the Taurus tattoo that I got for my 20th birthday.

Because, let's face it, this tat rocks!

I read the article, laughed at the hype, and learned a bit more about the stars.  I figured that this would blow over pretty quickly and didn't think anything else of it.

But now it's everywhere - on every news site, on every radio, on tons of new Facebook groups - and I felt the need to say something:  "Calm the fuck down!!"

Seriously, if any of these idiots had taken 5 seconds for a quick Google or to look up a Wikipedia article, there wouldn't be any of this ridiculous "panic" I keep reading about.  The fact that these people are missing is that there's not one single zodiac calendar; many cultures have their own.  The traditional Western zodiac calendar is the Tropical zodiac calendar.  What's really interesting is that Ophiuchus, the sign that's causing all the fuss, is not a new sign at all, but has just been largely ignored in modern astrology.  Ophiuchus is a sign that is recognized in a variation of the Sidereal zodiac calendar, and even that's not unanimously agreed upon; most Sidereal astrologers use a 12-sign calendar.

I'm not sure how this recent hullabaloo got started, but here's where it ends in my world:  I'm a Taurus.  My stubbornness on this issue should be a perfect indicator of that.

I hear Mars is nice this time of year

Japan has just elected a new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, who has been given the nickname "The Alien". That may seem strange at first, until you learn that his wife claims to have been abducted by aliens who took her on a trip to Venus. That nickname seems oddly appropriate now, doesn't it?

Miyuki Hatoyama claims that 20 years ago, in the middle of the night, her soul left her body and took a little excursion with some aliens in a triangular spaceship to Venus. While we here at DPtC do not rule out the possibility of extraterrestrials, as well as the possibility that said extraterrestrials may possess the technology to visit our planet, we highly doubt that astral projection would be the travel method of choice for their human passengers. What would they accomplish by this, recording her reaction? And isn't Venus just a big, desert-y rock??

Also, we here at DPtC are not politicians, but we can't help but wonder if it might be a better idea to keep this sort of thing to yourself!

Apparently, stupidity leads to people bursting into flames...

In our second people-catching-fire scenario of the week, we can definitely spot the problem person. See that guy over to the left? Yeah. That guy right there. Please try to contain yourselves, as I know this is a shocking revelation.

This is Daniel Wood, 31, of Ohio. Mr. Wood has a problem with making good decisions. In this particular instance, he made three very bad decision. The first one was huffing flammable vapors (some reports say it was gasoline, others say it was aerosol from a can of compressed air). The second was yelling threats at K-Mart patrons while darting into traffic. And thirdly, when confronted by police officers, he resisted arrest and assaulted them.

The officers, after Mr. Wood kicked and tried to bite them, realized that he wasn't going down without a fight. So they tased him. Unfortunately, whatever he'd been huffing (see bad decision #1) interacted quite badly with the electricity from the taser and his shirt ignited. The cops were on the ball, though; they turned off the taser and put him out right away, so he actually fared much better than Mr. Feltham from Wednesday's post.

By the way, the crazy doesn't stop with Mr. Wood. If the comments on CBS's coverage of this story are to be believed (and they shouldn't be), one would think that cops are going around setting suspects on fire with tasers all the damn time for their own amusement. Of course, it doesn't help that CBS also left everything leading up to the altercation completely out of their article. Thanks, CBS, for your diligent reporting!

He says, she says: Greek style

Malia, on the island of Crete, has apparently become quite the tourist hotspot for Brits on holiday. Unfortunately for one Brit, it got a little too hot. According to Marina Fanouraki, a 26-year-old Greek student, a very drunk Brit tourist whipped out his junk and tried to grope her, so she dumped her Sambuka on him. Understandable, right? Well, she claims that after this happened he tried to light a cigarette and, as most of us are well aware, alcohol and fire don't play well together.

On the other hand, Stuart Feltham, the 20-year-old tourist in question, claims he never even spoke to the girl. In fact, the friend that was with him claims that all Stuart did was bump into her, causing her to go nutzoid and set him ablaze with her lighter.

Either way you look at this, someone went crazy that night. But which one? Unfortunately for those of us following the story, it looks like the assault case against Miss Fanouraki will be postponed until May while he recuperates, his lawyer finds witnesses, and she decides whether or not to sue for sexual harassment. Never fear, faithful crazy readers, we shall be keeping up with this story so that you can be well informed on just which one of these two is actually crazy!

The Tale of a Horse's Ass

I think you've gotta be a little crazy to think that having sex with a horse is a good idea. You've gotta be even crazier to sneak onto someone's ranch, rearrange the horse's stall, and have sex - on multiple occasions - with someone else's horse. But if you do all of the above, get caught, put on the sex offender list, sentenced to probation, and then go back to the same ranch to have sex with the same horse two years later, you're off-the-deep-end crazy!


Besides, would you really wanna mess with this woman? (Photo from AP)

Rodell Vereen was undeterred by any such logic or reasoning when he broke into Barbara Kenley's stable and violated her horse, Sugar, even after he'd already been apprehended for the same offense, with the same horse. Ms. Kenley, naturally suspecting the Mr. Vereen (even though the authorities didn't think he'd be that stupid), set up surveillance cameras, capturing the assault on poor Sugar, and then held the guy at gunpoint until the police arrived.

Ms. Kenley, you get approximately eleventy billion awesome points (that includes bonus points for showing admirable restraint by not actually shooting the guy).

And all Mr. Vereen gets is jail time, where, presumably, he'll learn to empathize with Sugar.

Being a Redhead Can Be a Real Pain...

I found this article today and since my first reaction was "Woah! That's just crazy!" I decided to share it with the rest of you.

Basically, there have been rumors/urban legends floating around the medical world for a long time about the pain tolerance of redheads, so researchers actually decided to study it. Turns out that it's true - most people who carry the redhead gene have a lower pain tolerance and a higher resistance to anesthesia. Crazy, right? Side note: The anecdote about the redhead getting a root canal is pretty scary!

This article really makes this redhead glad that her hair comes from a bottle - I'm already kind of a wuss! Then again, my grandma is a redhead, so maybe it's all in my genes...