Top Ten Thursday - Curiosities


Welcome back to Top Ten Thursday!




Today we put together the top ten curiosities / oddnesses / scurrilities we've come across lately: news, stories, items, people, signs... 

I am a member of various Facebook groups, from bloggers to mommies, ER fans to purse lovers. One of my handbag friends works as a business consultant, so her environment is typically crawling with smart (as in college educated) people. Still she got an email from a coworker that was referring to a request he was supposed to answer. His reaction (and it was in French) was "j'ai pas envie de leur répondre à ces chèvres!" which means "I don't feel like responding to those goats." So naturally we followed up with creative ways to handle the guy who behaves so poorly in a business environment. My contribution was a Michael Jackson meme.



On an early Sunday morning a guy's car broke down and he stopped near Zurich, Switzerland, main train station. A young guy who was driving his Dad's Jaguar was on his way home from a night of partying, still he stopped and offered to help. Using jumper cables he tried to get the other man's engine to start. A third guy approached the scene by foot and claimed to be a mechanic. "Let me just quickly start the Jaguar's engine" he said and got into the car. Well, he wasn't there to help as the other two were about to learn. He was there to steal the Jag!! He sped off, hitting a taxi and scratching the wing mirror in the process. 
The other two were absolutely stunned. It's not every day that in Switzerland a car gets stolen, and in broad daylight no less. The young man's mobile phone, wallet, documents, everything was in the car. 
I don't know how the first guy's car got fixed, but obviously it did, and he drove the young guy home. The police was notified, and they started a search. Three hours later the man in the Jaguar could be stopped 150 miles away in the Italian part of Switzerland.
As it turned out he was under the influence. He didn't know anything about the money that was in the young guy's wallet. Also he isn't currently holding a driver's license. 

Here's to hoping that this man will never hit the road again!




The other day a client called our office and told us the following: his accountant got an email message from him, the boss, asking her to wire a substantial amount of money to the following account. Being a dutiful employee she proceeded to transfer the money right away. Too bad that he wasn't the real sender of this order. Somebody must have hacked his or her computer and sent the fake email via some encrypted channels. Neither the accountant nor the manager seem to have much common sense because he asked "how is this possible, we purchased a firewall from you, shouldn't we be protected?" Ahem, nope, firewalls unfortunately don't prevent users from making poor decisions due to innocent cluelessness." 

You wouldn't believe me how many people have absolutely useless passwords, some actually use "password" as their password!!? If they chose a "hard" password (like "cabbage", if you don't know that story, read it here) they like to write it down and stick it to their keyboard. Very smart. Not.



Another precious Facebook post I came across: 

A lady asked her husband to please get the clothes out of the dryer so they don't get wrinkly. Of course she expected him to actually fold them. Putting them away in the closet would be even better. Instead...




Of course this reminded me of other incidents women all around the world seem to encounter with their spouses:




Last week was my birthday and Colin stayed over at a friend's house, so it was just the hubby and I, and we went to a bar. Next to us was a bunch of ladies. They must have come straight from the gym. One was wearing gear that said "just don't quit" using the same font as Nike. Looked kind of cool. 




Did you catch any of the Olympics? Even if you didn't actively watch, you may have heard of Ester Ledecka, the Czech snowboarder who thought it'd be fun to participate in the Super-G race just for the heck of it? She didn't even bring skis and had to borrow some from Mikaela Shiffrin who, for weather reasons .
After the first twenty or so athletes were done, nobody expected anything to happen anymore. They interviewed Anna Veith, the alleged gold medal winner from Austria, and then most of the reporters packed up their stuff and left. 
Ester, wearing bib number 26, skied and did a great job at it. She arrived at the bottom of the hill, people were cheering, and upon looking at the display she was convinced there was a mistake that was going to be corrected any moment. She stood there in disbelief for what seemed an eternity until it began to sank in: she won, she was faster than anyone else, Veith, Vonn, Weirather, she really won!!!

PS: Good thing this Getty Image photographer and the person who filmed this were still in the field!


Photo Source

Then there was this other girl, Austrian cross-country skier Teresa Stadlober who was about to win the silver medal - when, for reasons nobody understood, not even her, she missed her turn towards the finish. While the rest of the skiers went left, she took a right on a downhill slope. By the time she realized that nobody was following her, she finally got it. She had to turn around. The fact that she still finished ninth speaks for her awesome performance and spirit. I am not sure I would have made it back at all. To make matters worse, her Dad, who is also her coach, was sitting in the TV station as a co-commentator, and obviously he knows a swear word or two. By the time he made it to the finish to greet his daughter he got a grip and simply hugged her "it's not your day today" he stated. No kidding.


Photo Source

The sign below is outside our hockey arena. It says "to all the drivers whose only attendance at school was singing and clapping: this is an exit, meaning actual cars want to pass through here. Therefore parking is not allowed, even if you're able to dance your name!"
Now that's what I call a humorous no parking message. Unlike the cop who scolded me the other day, actually it was on my birthday, but that's a story for another post...



I saw this on the internet, and it made me chuckle. Talk about a case of bad timing!



I'm running out of stuff I found, so my number 10 is a president who thinks building a wall and arming teachers is the answer to the United States' problems. That certainly qualifies as odd. 



That's quite a collection of slightly crazy stuff, right? And all of it is true. Which one was your favorite? Let me know in the comments below or link up your own post. 

What are we going to do next week?

How about another music challenge? March 15 we're posting the top ten songs that no matter how much time has gone by, they will always take us back to a very specific moment, place or person. Sign up here.



March 22 it's time for another photo scavenger hunt. Those are the ten items to take a picture of:


  1. Pink
  2. Water
  3. Busy
  4. Teddy Bear
  5. Birdhouse
  6. Baking
  7. Track
  8. Bottle
  9. Unicorn
  10. Bicycle

sign-up here



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