WEIRD BUT TRUE
Marjorie Morris just wanted to pour coffee into a canister, but what she found in the package left her shocked.
Morris, 77, of Ainsworth, Iowa, discovered a dead baby turtle in her 2-pound pack of Folgers coffee.
“I thought it was a toy at first,” she said, adding that things could have been worse. “It could have been a snake.”
Folgers has several plants in the New Orleans area, and it’s possible the turtle “washed in” during the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
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In other wayward-animal news, a sparrow knocked over 23,000 dominoes in the Netherlands, nearly ruining a world-record attempt, before it was shot to death.
The unfortunate bird flew through an open window at an exposition center in the northern city of Leeuwarden, where employees of a television company have worked for weeks setting up more than 4 million dominoes in an attempt to break the official record this Friday.
Only a system of 750 built-in gaps in the chain prevented the bird from knocking over most or all of the dominoes.
The sparrow was shot by an exterminator with an air rifle.
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The artist who designed the chest-popping monster in “Alien” has been ordered to remove a model of it from outside a museum of his work.
Officials in Gruyeres, Switzerland, say H.R. Giger’s mucus-dripping beast isn’t good for the tourist town’s image.
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Now you can turn your iPod into an ooh-ooh-Pod.
A new $40 sex toy called the iBuzz connects to the iPod and vibrates in time to the music.
“The iPod is this era’s must-have accessory, while a vibrator is a timeless addition to every girl’s gadget drawer. Entwine the two and you’ve got the ultimate cheeky Christmas stocking filler,” said Jessamy Hawley of British retailer Gadget Candy.
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The conductor of a German commuter train jammed on the brakes when he thought he spotted a dead man in a tuxedo lying on the tracks. Turns out the “corpse” was a giant toy penguin.
“We are at a loss to explain the presence of this very large penguin. We would think you would notice if you lost something like this,” quipped a police spokesman in Neuwied.

