Around the Weird: Bizarre News Briefs

Around the Weird: Bizarre News Briefs

DALLAS (Wireless Flash) – Talk about a jones for java: A Dallas man has spent almost $7000 in the past four years traveling to almost every Starbucks coffee shop in the U.S. and Canada. John Winter Smith says he’s visited 2850 out of the coffee chain’s 3630 stores.

NOVATO, California – Cowabunga! A herd of wayward cows wandered into a Novato, California, shopping mall over the weekend. More than 30 cows had to be wrangled from various mall locations including Taco Bell and Macy’s department store.

SHANGHAI – Sink your teeth into this. Sixty percent of rural Chinese residents don’t brush their teeth, according to the country’s Preventive Medicine Society. Most rural Chinese folks brush their teeth with a twig or rinse their teeth with tea just like communist leader Mao Zedong did.

PITTSBURGH – A strange creature called the “binturong” is haunting Pittsburgh. The creature, described as a bear with a seal’s face, is native to Southeast Asia but mysteriously appeared on the front porch of a Pittsburgh home Sunday morning.

ADELAIDE, Australia – An Australian astronomer has an “aboriginal” way of looking at the stars. Paul Curnow wants scientists to study the methods of astronomy used by aborigines. He says instead of naming their constellations after Aries the ram or Taurus the bull, the native Aussies named their stars after emus, kangaroos and parakeets.