Weekly roundup: truth stranger than fiction

Welcome to another installment of the weekly roundup we all know and love: Friday potluck! This week's theme: You just can't make these things up...


SHOULD BE BEHIND BARS

This guy should be behind bars... and not the happy-hour kind.
The repeat DUI offender showed police a beer can, instead of identification, when pulled over for his latest arrest.


SUBWAY RAILS ARE NOT PARALLEL BARS

A naked gymnast has been harassing transit riders in San Francisco.
Enough said.

Image source

A THREE HOUR TOUR...
Just sit right back and I'll tell you a tale. A tale of a fateful trip...

How long would you survive trapped inside a sunken shipwreck?
1 minute? 2 minutes? 5?

Oh... Gilligan!

Would you last underwater for a three hour tour?

How about THREE DAYS?

When his boat capsized, Okene Harrison, of Nigeria, found an air pocket inside the ship. By staying in the trapped air bubble, he survived for more than 60 hours underwater until rescue divers saved him.


LONGEVITY AWARD

When my family drove up Mount Washington some 20 years ago, my mother wouldn't even look out the window because the road was so steep.

Yet every year a group of thrill-seeking (masochistic?) runners line up to race their way up the mountain's 12 percent incline to reach the peak at 6,288 feet in the annual Mount Washington Road Race. The weather can be fierce and has been described as the worst weather in the world.

Sounds like a difficult run, right?

Try running Mount Washington at age 93, like George Etzweiler just did. Etzweiler finished just over the official race cutoff time, in 3 hours and 15 minutes, but finish he did.


IN MY KITCHEN...

I'm not sure this counts as truth-is-stranger-than-fiction, but if you told me 6 months ago that I'd loathe leafy greens, we wouldn't be friends anymore. Them's fightin' words!

Unfortunately, one of the side effects of pregnancy is that my taste buds seem to have gone on vacation. Pre-pregnancy, if you asked my favorite vegetable, I'd have told you spinach was high on the list and swiss chard a close second. Now, sadly, every green vegetable tastes bitter and horrible. For the first time in my adult life, I emapthize with little kids who don't want to eat their broccoli.

And then I realized that if I pour enough dressing on my vegetables, it drowns out the cries of "bitter! horrible! stop!" that are coming from my hormone-addled tastebuds. (Yes... I have become that person who drowns broccoli in alfredo sauce, spinach in parmesan cheese, and salad in thousand island dressing.)

So this week has been the week of the taco salad:

Taco salad

Mix leafy greens, diced tomato, sliced bell pepper, chopped onion, sliced olives, julienne jicama, minced jalapeno, shredded cheddar. Top it all with a guacamole-and-salsa "dressing" and you have veggies even this pregnant lady can love! (Hey... it might not be the most "power foods" filled salad... No kale or quinoa. But at least I didn't break down and eat nachos for dinner!)


QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

"Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't"
Mark Twain

HAPPY FRIDAY, FRIENDS!