Still a weird world

> Life is strange enough to keep columnists busy for a while yet churning out more amazing-but-true tales

Earlier this year, two of internet’s best weird news websites, Nothing to Do with Abroath and The Presurfer, stopped abruptly after the deaths of their respected writers (Kevin Gray and Gerard Vlemmings respectively).

Does all this mean that the world will become less weird? Certainly not! In fact, the opposite seems to be true: life and the universe is getting increasingly bizarre.

Just in recent weeks, readers have written to me to report more amazing-buttrue tales.

They include a mass outbreak of transgenderism in a river’s fish population, as well as the discovery of a tribe which has evolved to be immune to poison, and a man who ‘identifies himself as an alien’.

People are weird. Life is strange. There’s really nothing quite like it. However, let us give the last anecdote to Chuck Shepherd.

In 1995, he alerted the world to the antics of jailbird Robert Lee Brock, who filed a US$5 million (RM21.46 million) lawsuit against Robert Lee Brock.

Yes, Brock sued himself, arguing that his dark side, by committing numerous crimes, had violated the rights of his good side.

“I ask the state to pay it on my behalf since I can’t work, and am a ward of the state,” he said.

The judge prudently rejected his lawsuit. But at least Brock’s cheekiness gave people a smile.

In the meantime, thanks to Google Translate and Autocorrect, the number of funny menu items sent in by readers continues to grow.

From Japan, we have ‘Roasted Husband’; from China, we have ‘Stir-Fried Wikipedia With Pimientos’; and an item on a Taiwanese menu is translated as ‘I Can’t Find on Google But It’s Delicious’.