xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx

Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.

In March, Matt Robison, 21, of Ottawa, Ill., said he felt “like I’ve done something memorable with my life” after sitting for a 14-hour session in which he received 1,016 skin piercings to eclipse the previous Guinness Book record. (Immediately afterward, Robison had to remove each one, which he said was just as excruciating as the piercing.)

Prosecutors in Chicago are proceeding with the case against Howard Morgan for allegedly shooting at a police officer, although Morgan denies it, but what was clear was that in returning fire, police shots hit Morgan 25 times (from which he is recovering satisfactorily, according to a January WMAQ-TV story).

Also awesome was the endurance of a 35-year-old man in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., who, according to a February Poughkeepsie Journal report, had just been a gunshot victim for the fourth time in the same housing complex.

The El Bulli restaurant in Barcelona, Spain, has long waiting lists for reservations for innovative dishes such as strawberry walnut mayonnaise, foie gras ice cream, cocoa butter with crispy ears of rabbit, and Kellogg’s Paella (Rice Krispies, shrimp heads and vanilla-flavored mashed potatoes), according to a February report in The Times of London. The meals of the artistic chef Ferran Adria cost the equivalent of $240 a person, but the world’s leading restaurant critics rate it at the top of their lists.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or [email protected] or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.) NEWS OF THE WEIRD