The Other World Series
In October, another premier world sports event reached its climax, with one team left standing, rewarded for months of grueling practices, to the cheers of adoring, frenzied fans. The “world series” of professional team computer games was settled on a stage in a packed, 40,000-seat stadium in Seoul before three gigantic TV screens and an Internet audience of millions. The powerhouse Samsung White team out-moused and out-keyboarded the Chinese champions at “League of Legends” (which 27 million gamers worldwide play every day), using its fantasy characters to destroy opponents’ bases. The winning team took home $1 million of corporate money, but future earnings should escalate when idolized world-class players unionize and swing merchandising endorsement deals.
Brits Behaving Britishly Bad
(1) Literature professor Thomas Docherty was back at work in October following his nine-month suspension from the University of Warwick for “inappropriate sighing” during meetings with a senior colleague, along with “making ironic comments” and “negative body language.” (2) In October, Andrew Davies, 51, was ordered by magistrates in High Wycombe, England, not to lie down in public places anymore (unless genuinely stricken by emergency). Previously, he had a habit of making bogus “999” (the U.K. equivalent of 911) calls to get attention, and when police confiscated his phone, he began compensating by lying in roads until compassionate passersby called for ambulances.
Bright Ideas
■ Neighbors in the Mandarin neighborhood of Jacksonville, Fla., complained to the city recently about a resident who scattered hundreds of mothballs—more than 400 now, at least—around her front yard, even driving over them in her car to crush them open and extend their noxious odor. The National Pesticide Information Center warned that the mothballs were hazards to plants, wildlife, water and air, but the female resident (unnamed in a report by First Coast News) said she was forced into the tactic in order to prevent neighborhood dogs from defecating in her yard.
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■ The most challenging toys this holiday season might be the series of furry human innards from the U.S. firm I Heart Guts—not just the soft and cuddly pancreas, brain and prostate, but especially the rectum. Each part is packaged with a cheekily written educational description explaining its importance (the rectum being “the butt of many jokes” yet with “a serious role” in waste disposal as the “fecal loading dock”), and each sells for about $20.
Weird Scenes
Richard Shear, 28, was arrested in Muskegon County, Mich., in October after an apparent violent episode with his mother and girlfriend. Shear had allegedly threatened the two, slashed an SUV tire, and tried to burn down their home with gasoline and a lit candle—but when it was time to flee the premises, hopped on his moped, ensuring his flight from police would be a short one.
The District of Calamity
The Washington, D.C., school system last year declared Avery Gagliano, 13, a habitual truant whose parents somehow require special training to ensure her attendance. The eighth grader was a straight-A student at Alice Deal Middle School, but also a piano prodigy selected for prestigious world exhibitions—which caused her to exceed the maximum 10 “unexcused” absences that trigger the assignment of a truancy officer and a series of relentless threats against the parents (which ultimately provoked them to withdraw Avery and this season to homeschool her). (In October, following a Washington Post account, D.C.’s governing council honored Avery in a public ceremony, and the D.C. schools chancellor overnight began begging the Gaglianos to bring Avery and her suddenly “excused’ absences back to school.)
Least Competent Criminals
Jamie Brown, 29, stole a fish tank from a hardware store in Leeds, England, in August and made a run for it, but had to be rescued by police and emergency personnel after he stopped to urinate in a bush—and, inadvertently, directly onto a wasps’ nest. Police said he later spent six very unpleasant hours at Leeds General Infirmary.
© 2014 CHUCK SHEPHERD
