Police arrest man who scaled San Francisco tower
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco police have arrested a man who scaled the exterior of a 58-story downtown skyscraper and unfurled an American flag at the top.
Police tell KCBS Radio that the man is veteran skyscraper climber Dan Goodwin. The 54-year-old Lake Tahoe resident’s other climbing credits include Chicago’s Sears Tower.
Goodwin used suction cups but no ropes to scale Millennium Tower, a 645-foot residential building overlooking San Francisco Bay. Police say he ignored orders to stop climbing.
The San Francisco Fire Department says Goodwin was too high to reach by the time firefighters got to the building.
Goodwin reached the top just before 5:30 p.m. Monday, about three hours after he began. He affixed an American flag to the building before surrendering to waiting authorities.

Philly cyclists bare all to promote cleaner air
PHILADELPHIA — Hundreds of naked and partially nude cyclists have pedaled their way through Philadelphia to promote bicycling awareness and cleaner air.
Some of the buff bikers wore body paint, some were in bathing suits and some were completely naked.
This was the second year for the Philly Naked Bike Ride. Similar rides have taken place in more than 70 cities worldwide since 2004.
The bicyclists pedaled several miles through the city on Sunday evening.

Diane von Furstenberg designs Ohio hospital gowns
CLEVELAND — Fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg has helped the Cleveland Clinic create a more stylish hospital gown without the peek-a-boo back.
The gown features elements associated with von Furstenberg designs – a wrap dress with a bold, graphic print. The clinic’s logo is printed on the fabric.
The gown has side ties, which eliminate the embarrassing open-back look.
The Plain Dealer says the fabric was chosen to address a concern that patients were too warm in the hospital.
So designers had to find a material lightweight enough to be cool but tough enough to withstand frequent laundering and having monitors and drains pinned to it.
Feedback has been mostly positive. Some men have complained that the gown is too feminine, so the design team is condering an alternate print.

Lustful Court residents tire of sinful street name
MACON, Ga. — Some residents of Lustful Court in a central Georgia community say they’re tired of being kidded and want the street’s sin-friendly name changed.
Bibb County Commissioner Lonzy Edwards brought up a possible name change Tuesday after receiving complaints.
Lustful Court resident Michelle Washington says the name sparks laughter and confusion when she tells people where she lives.
Yoshonda Patterson says she thinks the name gives people the wrong idea about the neighborhood on the east side of Macon.
After listening to residents, commissioners decided they’ll consider the change if neighbors start a petition.
The street is in a subdivision and no one could recall where the name originated.
Macon is about 90 miles south of Atlanta.

Wyo city to auction off 143 garden gnomes
GILLETTE, Wyo. — These gnomes are looking for good homes.
Office supplies, computers, tools, even vehicles – people can buy all sorts of things at the annual Gillette city auction.
Those things aren’t nearly as peculiar as the dozens of lawn gnomes sitting in the evidence room at the Police Department.
The city plans to offer the 143 gnomes at its auction Thursday.
The Gillette News-Record reports Gillette police recovered dozens of gnomes stolen from yards around northeast Wyoming in May. Two teenage girls are the alleged culprits.
Some people have claimed their gnomes. Those not picked up are considered lost and found property.

Xbox blocks W.Va. gamer over town’s name: Fort Gay
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Microsoft Corp. and the chief rules enforcer for Xbox Live are apologizing to a small West Virginia town and a 26-year-old gamer accused of violating the online gaming service’s code of conduct by publicly declaring he’s from Fort Gay – a name the company considered offensive.
The town’s name is real. But when Josh Moore tried to tell Seattle-based Microsoft and the enforcement team at Xbox Live, they wouldn’t take his word for it. Or Google it. Or check the U.S. Postal Service website for a ZIP code.
Instead, they suspended his gaming privileges for a few days until Moore could convince them the location in his profile, “fort gay WV,” wasn’t a joke or a slur: It’s an actual community of about 800 in Wayne County, along West Virginia’s western border with Kentucky.
“At first I thought, ’Wow, somebody’s thinking I live in the gayest town in West Virginia or something.’ I was mad. … It makes me feel like they hate gay people,” said Moore, an unemployed factory worker who plays shooters like Medal of Honor, Call of Duty and Ghost Recon under the gamertag Joshanboo.
“I’m not even gay, and it makes me feel like they were discriminating,” said Moore, who missed a key Search and Destroy competition because of last week’s brief suspension. His team lost.
Angry and incredulous, Moore contacted customer service.
“I figured, I’ll explain to them, ’Look in my account. Fort Gay is a real place,”’ Moore reasoned. But the employee was unreceptive, warning Moore if he put Fort Gay back in his profile, Xbox Live would cancel his account and keep his $12 monthly membership fee, which he’d paid in advance for two years.
“I told him, Google it – 25514!” Moore said, offering up the town’s ZIP code. “He said, ’I can’t help you.”’
Mayor David Thompson also tried to intervene, but with little success. He told television station WSAZ, which first reported the dispute, that he was informed the city’s name didn’t matter. The word “gay,” he was told, was inappropriate in any context.
“It was so inappropriate for them, they wouldn’t even say the word,” Thompson told the AP Wednesday. “They said, ’that word.’ It’s beyond me. That’s the name of our town! It’s appalling. It’s a slap in our face.”
Stephen Toulouse, director of policy and enforcement for Xbox Live blamed miscommunication.
“Someone took the phrase ’fort gay WV’ and believed that the individual who had that was trying to offend, or trying to use it in a pejorative manner,” Toulouse said. “Unfortunately, one of my people agreed with that. … When it was brought to my attention, we did revoke the suspension.”
Complaints, he notes, come to agents with no contextual information, including who the suspected offender is or what games they play. The agent simply looks at the language and determines whether it complies with policy.
The Xbox Live player’s contract says users cannot “create a gamertag, avatar or use text in other profile fields that may offend other members,” and lists potentially dangerous topics such as drug use, hate speech and racial, ethnic or religious slurs.
Fort Gay has been a community since 1789, when 11 people tried to establish a settlement at the junction of the Tug and Big Sandy rivers, across from what is now Louisa, Ky. It was incorporated as Cassville in 1875 but was simultaneously known as Fort Gay until 1932, when town leaders changed it to the latter for good.
Toulouse said he will contact Moore and apologize. Staying ahead of slang and policing Xbox for offensive is a constant challenge, he said.
“In this very, very specific case, a mistake was made,” he said, “and we’re going to make it right.”

Couple siphoning gas catch fire in Wash. state
TACOMA, Wash. — A couple siphoning gas from a Salvation Army van caught fire when it suddenly erupted in flames in Washington state.
A witness told police two people were trying to siphon gas Wednesday night in a Tacoma church parking lot. As the witness approached and startled the suspects, the fire broke out.
Police spokesman Mark Fulghum (FUL’-jum) told The News Tribune both suspects, the van and a nearby vehicle caught fire. The man was able to put out his own flames and fled before police arrived.
The witness used a garden house to douse the woman. She was taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle and is expected to recover.
Firefighters put out the vehicle fires.

Abracadabra! Romania witches win tax fight for now
BUCHAREST, Romania — Abracadabra, we’ll turn all of you into toads!
That’s what Romanian senators may have been fearing when they rejected a proposal to tax witches and fortune tellers.
Lawmakers Alin Popoviciu and Cristi Dugulescu of the ruling Democratic Liberal Party drafted a law where witches and fortune tellers would have to produce receipts, and would also be held liable for wrong predictions, a measure which was part of the government’s drive to increase revenue.
Romania’s Senate voted down the proposal Tuesday. Popoviciu claimed lawmakers were frightened of being cursed.
It’s unclear if Popoviciu and Dugulescu will try to redraft the law.
Maria Campina, a well-known Romanian witch, told Realitatea TV Thursday it is difficult to tax thousands of fortune tellers and witches partly because of the erratic sums of money they receive.
Romania is in a severe economic downturn and is trying to raise revenue from taxes. The government hiked sales tax from 19 to 24 percent, and slashed public sector wages by one-fourth.
In 2009, Romania negotiated a euro20 billion ($26 billion) loan with the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the World Bank to help pay state wages and pensions last year, when the country’s economy shrank by 7.1 percent.

Ohio school tells wrong parents kids are absent
REYNOLDSBURG, Ohio — An Ohio middle school says human error caused parents to be mistakenly alerted that their fifth- and sixth-graders were absent.
School officials in the Columbus suburb of Reynoldsburg says parents were “understandably upset” after being alarmed unnecessarily on Thursday.
Parents of students at Waggoner Road Middle School received an automated call around noon that their children were missing. The school’s phone lines became overwhelmed with calls, and some frantic parents showed up at school.
District spokeswoman Tricia Moore says the mistake occurred while a staff member was being trained how to use the alert system. Moore said Friday the calls reached families of 82 students, out of about 500 total.
She says parents were then sent calls telling them to disregard the earlier message.

German man’s stress-calming naked walk backfires
BERLIN — A German man’s habit of taking naked walks to reduce his stress levels backfired when his latest escapade triggered a police search and closed down a rail line.
Police in the western city of Solingen said Friday that a woman out walking her dog saw the man, who jumped onto the train tracks and fled. She found his clothes nearby and reported the sighting to police.
Police closed the rail line for 1 1/2 hours Thursday night and sent up a helicopter to try and locate the man. He eventually turned himself in, saying he panicked after being seen and fled home.
The 42-year-old told officers he often took naked walks because it helped him combat stress.
The man could now face a fine for trespassing on railway property.

Armenia produces world’s biggest chocolate bar
YEREVAN, Armenia — Anyone looking for huge amounts of free chocolate should book a flight to Armenia’s capital next month.
That’s when the world’s largest chocolate bar will be up for grabs in Yerevan’s main square. The Guinness Book of World Records certified the 9,702-pound (4,410-kilogram) chocolate bar at a ceremony Saturday.
It was made by Grand Candy factory and contains all natural ingredients, including 70 percent cocoa mass. The chocolate bar is 224 inches (560 centimeters) long, 110 inches (275 centimeters) wide and 10 inches (25 centimeters) thick.
The factory owner, Karen Vardanyan, said that the chocolate bar was produced to mark the 10th anniversary of the company. He said it will be divided up and handed out Oct. 16.

Wis. police: Street musician hit man with guitar
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin police say a street musician apparently upset by criticism of his music bashed a man over the head with his guitar, slammed another person into a wall and wrestled with an officer before being arrested.
Madison police spokesman Joel DeSpain tells The Capital Times that 31-year-old Brandin Hochstrasser, known as “Bongo Jesus,” was performing Thursday when a 54-year-old man knocked his music. DeSpain says the two argued and police were called when Hochstrasser began hitting his critic with his guitar.
DeSpain says Hochstrasser then charged the man, knocking him down. An officer used a stun gun to subdue and arrest Hochstrasser.
Online court records show no formal charges had been filed by Sunday.
A listed phone number for Hochstrasser couldn’t be found.

Tags: odd, strange

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