A waitress was tipped a lottery ticket and won $10,000,000. She was then sued by her colleagues for their share. Then she was sued by the man who tipped her the ticket. Then she was kidnapped by her ex husband, and shot him in the chest. Then she went to court against the IRS (article)
She lost the lawsuit with her coworkers, but then won it on appeal to the Alabama Supreme Court.
The guy who tipped her sued because he said she should “buy him a new truck”. That was dismissed.
And other details are crazier, like she shot her husband in the chest, he took the gun, and then she successfully convinced him to let her drive him to the hospital.
She also won the case against the IRS.
And she gave most of the money to her family, and works as a poker dealer.
Romans were known to create tombs for their dogs and gave them epitaphs to remember them by. One such inscription read, “I am in tears, while carrying you to your last resting place as much as I rejoiced when bringing you home with my own hands 15 years ago.” (article)
Many doctors have stopped calling cancer treatment a “fight” or “battle”. They argue these terms misrepresent how treatment works and if treatments fail, the patient is left with guilt and a false belief they didn’t “fight” hard enough (article)
Everyone in Singapore above the age of 21 is automatically registered as an organ donor. Opting out from this Act will result in you being put at the very bottom of the organ priority list, should you need an organ transplantation. (moh.gov.sg)
Dr. Phil lost his license to practise psychology in 2006. Therefore, all guests on his TV show must sign a contract stating they are only there to receive “advice” from an individual, not a psychologist.
“McGraw has been involved in several controversies which put his license to practice at risk. He was brought up on ethics charges for having an inappropriate non-physical relationship with a patient in Texas in January 1989 and had a formal criminal complaint filed against him in California in 2008 for practicing psychology without a professional license or certification and violating doctor-patient confidentiality in connection with an incident with Britney Spears in 2008.
McGraw is shown to have “voluntarily surrendered” his Texas license in 2006, and he has never held a license to practice psychology in any other state, including California, since.”
A very frugal librarian, the late Robert Morin, left millions of his life savings to the University of New Hampshire where he worked as a librarian, then the University spent $1 million dollars of that money on a scoreboard for a new football stadium.
He donated 4 million – 1 million of which spent on scoreboard, only 100k spent on library where the reclusive man spent his life.
When we asked a university representative if the bequest will result in anything being named for Morin, Erika Mantz, the school’s director of media relations, noted that “a bench in the courtyard outside the library was inscribed with his name.”
Garden Veggie Straws, which shows fresh vegetables on the bag, and are promoted as a healthy alternative to chips, are actually made of salt, starch, and tomato paste. They have less nutrition than actual potato chips and the manufacturer, which has a history of false claims, is now being sued (article)
In 2007, Rockstar Games allowed fans to call a number and rant about what they thought was wrong with America. The best calls were featured on a radio station in “Grand Theft Auto IV” (starts at 16:00)
Mel Gibson could not get any studio to fund ‘Passion of the Christ’. Instead of scrapping the film, he chose to finance it all by himself, an action which analysts labelled as “idiotic”. He spent $45M on the project and went on to make over $475M because he didn’t have to split the profits.
No one wanted to touch a controversial religious movie after the Last Temptation of Christ lost a bunch of money. Plus, Mel Gibson insisted on shooting the movie in Aramaic and Latin.
Tom Cruise divorced all three of his ex-wives when they turned 33 (Mimi Rogers, Nicole Kidman, Katie Holmes) and each is 11 years younger than the last (article)
What happened when Scientology chose actress, Nazanin Boniadi to be Tom Cruise’s girlfriend…
In October 2004, Boniadi was volunteering for the Office of Special Affairs in Los Angeles when she was told by Church official Greg Wilhere that she had been selected for a special project. Boniadi was told that her dental braces had to be removed and that her red hair highlights had to be corrected; she was also encouraged to end her relationship with her longtime boyfriend. She had to sign a confidentiality agreement, stating she could not abandon this special project without the Church’s approval.
About a month later, after being flown to New York by the church, Boniadi learned that her project was to become a suitable girlfriend for Cruise. She stated in her testimony “at the beginning of the relationship [he] was very romantic but as the relationship progressed he began to have temper tantrums. He began to show violent tendencies“. After their relationship ended in January 2005, Boniadi confessed her devastation to a friend and fellow church member. She was punished for this according to Church policies: she “had to dig ditches at midnight and scrub floor tiles… She was placed on a curfew… escorted everywhere she went”. She also testified that she felt as if “she was a victim of white slavery, because she traveled across state lines under false pretenses”.
Since domestication, dogs’ eyes have changed. Dogs now have eye muscles that make them more expressive and infant-like. These same muscles are absent in wolves, their closest relative (article)
CIA revealed a “heart attack” gun in 1975. A battery operated gun which fired a dart of frozen water & shellfish toxin. Once inside the body it would melt leaving only a small red mark on the victim where it entered. The official cause of death would always be a heart attack (article)
Jim Carey used to get to do stand up in his 7th grade class. He used humor to fit in and his teacher made a deal with him – if he was quiet all day he would get 15 minutes at the end of class where he did stand up using material from life, the class, or doing impressions of faculty members (article)
Kelly, a dolphin whose trainers gave her fish for bringing them litter/dead gulls to clean her pool. She started hiding fish under a rock in her pool, then used fish to lure gulls which she brought to her trainers to get more fish. She taught her calf the strategy, who taught more calves (article)
Avatar: The Last Airbender won a Peabody Award for “multi-dimensional characters, unusually complicated personal relationships for a cartoon serial, and a healthy respect for the consequences of warfare”
Avatar tells a complete a perfectly paced epic plot over the course of 61 22 minute episodes. The show contains several unique and beautifully detailed characters among its main cast, all of whom are given consistent and engaging development throughout. From family related guilt and angst, identity dilemmas and the characters constant, overarching and looming quest, the characters are pressed with many trials which actually truly change them over the course of their magnificent journey. Aside from the primary cast, many intriguing and varied side characters appear throughout the adventure. They offer comedic levity, new forms of drama and help to add to the deep mythological and philosophical backbone of the show. All characters are exquisitely written and voice acted, with not a badly portrayed among them.
