"My Weirdness Detector Blows a Fuse"

(Written 2/28/12 by ChristopherK2)

 

I've long had a Weirdness Detector somewhere deep within my brain.  It explains my love of "Stupid Human Tricks" and "Dumb Criminals" articles and videos.  And every now and then it senses a "change in The Force," so to speak.  Last night The Detector sent me such an alert and today it became obvious why as I read the news on the AOL Welcome window.

 

 

The weirdness began last night while I was sleepily watching the Daytona 500 stock car race.  I normally find packs of cars driving at high speeds in circles quite conducive to sleep.  I was about 90% on the way to dreamland when suddenly a huge fireball exploded on the tv screen.  I *love* all things explosion-related, so I almost jumped out of my recliner in quickly ramming up to full attention.

 

 

And there it was in all its glory... a lone stock car far behind the pack blasting along at nearly 200 mph had suddenly hung a dead right to pick the only spot on the track able to cause a major catastrophe... a "jet dryer" (a very large truck equipped with a hang-on jet engine to blow dry the track) trudging along at about 1 mph and loaded with 200 gallons of volatile jet kerosene!  KABOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!! 

 

 

It was immediately obvious that no one had been seriously injured, so I was free to enjoy the fireball stuff.  And a huge fireball on a racetrack is clearly weird enough to set off my inner detector. 

 

 

But my brain was also sending a signal that there was something else also happening.  And that wouldn't become clear until I started reading AOL's Welcome window news this morning.  It seems that we're now officially going thru a period of Universal Weirdness, which have occurred randomly but repeatedly over the years.

 

 

My Weirdness Detector began screeching when I saw the headline: "Angelina Jolie's Leg has over 15,000 Fans (on Twitter)."  Now THAT is weird!  I thought everyone KNEW that even though she's one of the most beautiful women on the planet, she has SKINNY legs. But apparently her appearance at the Oscars has led to many people finally figuring that out.

 

 

I quickly noticed many other headlines about seriously Weird Stuff: "Man Gets 3 Years for Punching Bunnies;" (WHAT?) "Alien Caught on Google Street View;" (didn't I just write about Street View the other day???) "Plane Drops Poop On New York Couple;" (ruined THAT picnic) "Waiter Spills Beer on German Chancellor;" (the 99% getting even with the 1%?) and "Hank the Cat Runs for Office in Virginia;" (a cat??? no dogs available???).

 

 

Laughing so hard by now that I could barely control the mouse, I moved on to TMZ.  And I wasn't disappointed.  It started off with "Angelina Jolie's Legs the Morning After."  Geesh, the woman has SKINNY, ugly legs, people... deal with it!  My Weirdness Detector's meter then suddenly shot up at "Rodney King-No Jail After 2nd DUI Arrest."  Yes, THAT Rodney King was back in the news, his pic staring up at me from the pages of TMZ.  How many years has it been???  Very strange...

 

 

By this point, I was almost afraid to press on to the CNN site for fear of a heart-attack-by-excessive-laughter story of truly epic proportions.  But there it was: "Doggie DNA used in Poop Crackdown"!!!  I kid you not, my loyal fans, an apartment complex in Ohio is cracking down on doggie dooty offenders by sending samples off to a lab for DNA matching to the residents' dogs and charging folks $200 a poop... er... pop.

 

 

But even a delightful Dog Dooty story didn't send me into paralyzing spasms of laughter.  Why not???  Well, I think it's because my Weirdness Detector was also letting me know that there's a LOT more weirdness to come over the next few days.  So, I'll have to restrain myself mightily.  I wouldn't want my obit to read, "He died from reading a Dumbest Criminals e-mail."