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• Police in Wichita, Kansas, arrested a 22-year-old man at an airport hotel after he tried to pass two (counterfeit) $16 bills.
• A man in Johannesburg, South Africa, shot his 49-year-old friend in the face, seriously wounding him, while the two practised shooting beer cans off each other's head.
• A company trying to continue its five-year perfect safety record showed its workers a film aimed at encouraging the use of safety goggles on the job. According to Industrial Machinery News, the film's depiction of gory industrial accidents was so graphic that twenty-five workers suffered minor injuries in their rush to leave the screening room. Thirteen others fainted, and one man required seven stitches after he cut his head falling off a chair while watching the film.
• The Chico, California, City Council enacted a ban on nuclear weapons, setting a $500 fine for anyone detonating one within city limits.
• A bus carrying five passengers was hit by a car in St. Louis, but by the time police arrived on the scene, fourteen pedestrians had boarded the bus and had begun to complain of whiplash injuries and back pain.
• Swedish business consultant Ulf at Trolle laboured 13 years on a book about Swedish economic solutions. He took the 250-page manuscript to be copied, only to have it reduced to 50,000 strips of paper in seconds when a worker confused the copier with the shredder.
• A convict broke out of jail in Washington D.C., then a few days later accompanied his girlfriend to her trial for robbery. At lunch, he went out for a sandwich. She needed to see him, and thus had him paged. Police officers recognised his name and arrested him as he returned to the courthouse in a car he had stolen over the lunch hour.
• Police in Radnor, Pennsylvania, interrogated a suspect by placing a metal colander on his head and connecting it with wires to a photocopy machine. The message "He's lying" was placed in the copier, and police pressed the copy button each time they thought the suspect wasn't telling the truth. Believing the "lie detector" was working, the suspect confessed.
• When two service station attendants in Ionia, Michigan, refused to hand over the cash to an intoxicated robber, the man threatened to call the police. They still refused, so the robber called the police and was arrested.
• A Los Angeles man who later said he was "tired of walking," stole a steamroller and led police on a 5 mph chase until an officer stepped aboard and brought the vehicle to a stop.
• Two good ol' boys from Texas who went out into the desert one day, drank a load of "redeye" and came across a rattlesnake. They then thought it would be a good idea to catch the snake by the tail & throw it to each other. One good ol' boy was soon bitten by catching the wrong end of the snake. His friend, concerned, rushed to help him & was also bitten. The internet provider & local news services were subsequently flooded with inquiries from well-wishers asking how the snake was doing.
• Criminals are seldom known for their good sense. In Detroit, two robbers ran into a music store brandishing guns. One shouted " Nobody move !", unfortunately his partner in crime took no notice and moved - he was shot dead instantly.
• A Chinese man decided he has mastered the powers of the mind and could even halt trains running at high speed. To prove this he stood on a railway line near Shanghai to test his theory - he was promptly knocked down and killed by a speeding express train.
• The hapless mother of a man accused of a shooting in New Orleans, calmly informed detectives "Steve couldn't possibly have been involved because at exactly 10.30, when the shooting took place, he was on the other side of town - murdering someone who owed us money " (so there).
• The city of Chico in California has come up with a very strange anti-nuclear deterrent. It is now an offence, carrying a maximum fine of $500, to let off a nuclear bomb within city limits
• Crowd pleasing featherweight boxer Richard Proctor got into the ring at the World Sporting Club in London, to a raucously warm reception. It was only when he raised his gloves in the air to acknowledge the enthusiastic cheers and whistles that he realised he had forgotten to put his shorts on.
• In 1978 the state radio station in Afghanistan announced that the President had resigned on the grounds of 'ill health'. They failed to specify the exact nature of his illness - he just happened to have been shot 12 times.
• A feckless English hotel worker asked to clean the building's single lift, took four days to complete the task. He said afterwards " There are 12 of them, one on each floor and sometimes some of them aren't there "
• A man out hunting in the wilds of Arizona knew that he would somehow have to get help when he shot himself in the leg. So he sensibly fired off a shot from his gun to alert fellow hunters - only for the bullet to rocket into his other leg.
• A man in Orange County Municipal Court had been ticketed for driving alone in the carpool lane. He claimed that the four frozen cadavers in the mortuary van he was driving should be counted. The judged ruled that passengers must be alive to qualify.
• The judge called the case of People vs. Steven Lewon Crook. The bailiff opened the door to the holding cell and called, "Crook, come forward." Five of the prisoners entered the courtroom.
• When asked for her occupation, a woman charged with a traffic violation said she was a schoolteacher. The judge rose from the bench. "Madam, I have waited years for a schoolteacher to appear before this court," he smiled with delight. "Now sit down at that table and write 'I will not pass through a red light' five hundred times."
• A judge in Louisville decided a jury went "a little bit too far" in recommending a sentence of 5,005 years for a man who was convicted of five robberies and a kidnapping. The judge reduced the sentence to 1,001 years.
• A lawyer defending a man accused of burglary tried this creative defence: "My client merely inserted his arm into the window and removed a few trifling articles. His arm is not himself, and I fail to see how you can punish the whole individual for an offence committed by his limb."
  "Well put," the judge replied. "Using your logic, I sentence the defendant's arm to one year's imprisonment. He can accompany it or not, as he chooses." The defendant smiled. With his lawyer's assistance he detached his artificial limb, laid it on the bench, and walked out.
• Whangarei, March 16, 1998 - Two fishermen feared missing on the Kaipara Harbour in Northland after their boat "disappeared'' in a big swell spent an hour looking for themselves after joining in the search effort.
• In the early 80s, spurred on by a spiralling birth-rate, the Chinese state decided to begin a contraception education programme using television adverts on how to use condoms. After a while they found that their extensive campaign was having little effect and the birth rate was still rising. Researchers were sent to the countryside and they discovered that 98% of men in rural areas were following advice given on by the TV adverts - and carefully putting a condom on their index finger before having sex