Elliot (Contributed to the Press / )

By Jim Wozniak
Erwin Bureau Chief
jwozniak@johnsoncitypress.com

ERWIN — On a videotape of a pursuit by the Tennessee Highway Patrol of a man fleeing in July at speeds of 130 mph, a law enforcement officer said it was clear why the man wasn’t interested in stopping: He was naked.

That incident landed Jason Chad Elliott, 30, 1290 Milligan Highway, Apt. 3, on probation for six years Friday in Unicoi County Criminal Court and might earn him some jail time. Judge Lynn Brown will make that ruling at a later hearing.

Elliott, who pleaded guilty to felony evading arrest and felony reckless endangerment charges, told Brown that his actions were a “rash decision.” Brown quoted the late Southern columnist Lewis Grizzard about different pronunciations of “naked.” One is not having one’s clothes on. The other is not having clothes “and you’re up to something.”

The July 8 events began about 11:30 p.m. when Trooper Julian Robinson pulled up behind Elliott’s car in the emergency lane on Interstate 26 at Exit 36. Elliott got off I-26 and drove through streets on Erwin’s north side before re-entering the interstate. He did not stop until he reached the Flag Pond exit 13 miles later.

Elliott admitted during the hearing that he drove 130 mph and passed two cars by using the emergency lane on the right. Unicoi County Sheriff’s Deputy Todd Wilcox, who joined the pursuit, said Elliott drove 98 mph in the emergency lane. Elliott got off I-26 at Exit 43 but immediately returned to the interstate.

In July, Sheriff Kent Harris said Wilcox expected Elliott to emerge from the car in Flag Pond with a gun. Instead, he was in the buff. Harris said Wilcox ordered Elliott to the ground but the man jumped off the side of a bank into brush.

Wilcox was ready to run after Elliott but heard a crying 15-year-old girl, who was a passenger in the car. He stayed with her until Robinson arrived, and then went searching for Elliott. With help from K-9 Officer Stacy Wigand and Sgt. Gary, a K-9, Wilcox found him.

Harris said the girl, who was wearing only a shirt, told the sheriff’s department that she and Elliott had engaged in sex. Defense attorney David Crockett said the incident between Elliott and the girl was a “one night stand.”

Elliott pleaded guilty in November in Unicoi County Sessions Court to contributing to the delinquency of a minor and was put on probation for 11 months and 29 days. A charge of aggravated statutory rape was dismissed.

The girl, who told the trooper she had been drinking, pleaded guilty in Juvenile Court to underage consumption of alcohol.

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Courtesy By: JohnSonCityPress

Boob Relief

When faced with tight circumstances, you need not get all uptight. This little stress-reliever may help (but will be pretty hard to put away) -



Or you can (joyfully) tune in to your favorite station:


(image credit: weirdgizmos)

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Heavy Duty, Industrial-Model, Steam-Powered Dildo from 1891

...rejected by U.S. Patent Office in the same year. Good.



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Now lets see what's cool in the kitchen (where guys rarely spend time, other than nurturing a beer)

Eccentric devices that will blow your mind.
(some may be nsfw)

Just when you think you saw them all... Here is another delightfully wacky crop of gadgets and thingies, designed to help us and simplify our life - but most miserably failing in this respect, only increasing the befuddlement and confusion! Judge for yourself:

Finger Stretcher for the Aspiring Pianist

Hailing from somewhere around 1900s, this device is painful even to look at. "According to one source, Robert Schumann permanently wrecked his right hand and ended his career using an early version of one of these contraptions." Enough said. (Seen here, with more info.)



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The Earliest GPS

That would be "The Plus Four Wristlet Route Indicator" from 1927... Not only it's the earliest navigation wrist gadget, but it's also wind-up ! Something your 5-year old would love.

Insert an interchangeable map into this route indicator and never get lost - even if the whole nav-sat system goes down. (More info).


(image credit: Phillip Toscano)

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The Window Climbing Robot "Brainizord"

There seems to be no other reason for this machine's existence, other than a simple pleasure of watching it climb up your window. It will also flash and blink their lights for you, imagine that.
You can order it here



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Worried about a fish bladder not being properly inflated?

Seen here, this must be the utmost in cryptic gadget application:

"Fish Bladder Inflation Device"
Fish Bladder is encased in glass and inflated by applying force to the handles. Why? I am not sure I want to know:



"Lettuce Safety Deposit Box"

Hiding your valuables inside the head of iceberg lettuce seems like a great idea (unless the burglar happens to be very hungry and vegetarian).

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Paper LP

It works. It produces sound. Even your kid can make one. More info.





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Plushy Plagues for Your Children

Count them: locusts, frogs, cattle disease, gnats - all very cute and (attractive???) More info.



They even roll their eyes and wiggle their tails.

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Transparent Household Appliances

Can't take your eyes off your dirty dishes? Watch them get clean... Watch your dirty laundry rotate around (or on the second thought, find something better to do)


(image credit: Tokyo Mango)

"National Electronics" makes them. In Japan, of course. As a bonus, watch your toaster being made, too - order:


(image credit: inventables.com)

And then play tic tac toe with it. (if you are lonely at breakfast) - order:


(image credit: mcphee.com)

Even better for high-tech kitchen:
Zero Gravity Magnetic Spice Rack - order



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Other pearls of human ingenuity and design wisdom:


Wenger Giant Swiss Army Knife: info and order it here


Purse-styled laptops, see more here


(image credit: yankodesign)

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And - The Winner?

The Audible Detector

Purpose: Electrical detection of lost and haunted souls, and machine gibberish.

It has its very own HAIRY ear/ throat. It makes accordingly throaty and hairy sounds. However, during daylight hours it produces mostly static. Oh well, you can at least turn its knob.


But "when the sun goes down, affecting upper-atmospheric radio conditions, a disturbing mixture of radioteletype, weather station images, and international proselytizers blur into an auditory hallucination."

More info. Made by the wacky & wonderful WPS, which we already featured in our previous issues.

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No, we digress - The Winner among the "World's Weirdest Devices" is...

The Device!

(Patented) Process Indicating Apparatus. It indicates PROCESS. Any process. It even has its own web page with FAQ.




(designed by David Glicksman)

Certainly, if it's not lit up, then you must be really in the backwater of the world, where nothing surely is happening. You might consider start doing something, just to make your little device happy.

(CNN) -- Scientists in Colombia have unearthed the remains of a true prehistoric monster believed to be the biggest snake ever to have lived on Earth.

Named Titanoboa cerrejonensis, the snake would have weighed 1,140 kilograms (2,500 pounds) and measured 13 meters (42.7 feet) nose to tail tip -- dwarfing the largest modern pythons and anacondas which can grow to 6 meters (19.5 feet).

Scientists believe it slithered around the planet between 58 and 60 million years ago.

Geologist David Polly, who identified the position of the fossil vertebrae which made a size estimate possible, said in a statement Wednesday: "At its greatest width, the snake would have come up to about your hips. The size is pretty amazing.

"But our team went a step further and asked, how warm would the Earth have to be to support a body of this size?"

Titanoboa's fossilized remains were discovered at a coal mine in the tropical Cerrejon region of northern Colombia by an international team of scientists.

"Truly enormous snakes really spark people's imagination, but reality has exceeded the fantasies of Hollywood," paleontologist Jonathan Bloch, who co-led the expedition, told reporters.

"The snake that tried to eat Jennifer Lopez in the movie 'Anaconda' was not as big as the one we found."

Based on the snake's size, the team was able to calculate that the mean annual temperature in equatorial South America 60 million years ago would have been about 91 degrees Fahrenheit, about 10 degrees warmer than today, Bloch said.

"Tropical ecosystems of South America were surprisingly different 60 million years ago," said Bloch. "It was a rainforest, like today, but it was even hotter and the cold-blooded reptiles were all substantially larger.

"The result was, among other things, the largest snakes the world has ever seen...and hopefully ever will."

According to Nature.com, snakes are poikilotherms (cold-blooded) that, unlike humans, need heat from their environment to power their metabolism. Therefore research suggests that at the time the region would have had to be no less than 86 to 93 degrees Fahrenheit for the snake to have survived.

Most large snakes today live in the tropical regions of South America and south-east Asia, where the high temperatures allow them to grow to impressive sizes.

Meanwhile, Carlos Jaramillo -- who was also part of the expedition -- said the tropical rainforest at Cerrejon appeared to have thrived at these temperatures.

"This data challenges the view that tropical vegetation lives near its climatic optimum, and it has profound implications in understanding the effect of current global warming on tropical plants," he said.

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Courtesy by: CNN 

www.pickNthrow.com

Market owner held in fatal shooting of man who urinated behind building

BY TAMMY STABLES BATTAGLIA • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

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The 69-year-old owner of an east side Detroit fish market is in custody after he allegedly shot and killed a man for urinating on his building.

Meanwhile, longtime business neighbors say there has to be more to the story.

“Peeing on the side of the building isn’t going to make someone that mad,” said David Short, owner of Gratiot Pelkey Auto. Short’s building shares a wall with Asian Fisheries, 13516 Gratiot, the spot of Tuesday’s 7 p.m. shooting. “There’s a lot worse things going on where we’re at,” Short said.

But investigators say that’s why a 36-year-old man died, Detroit Police spokesman James Tate said. Officials aren’t releasing the name of the alleged shooter, Tate said. But he said the suspect spotted the victim relieving himself behind the building, then told another man, “Go get my gun.” After shooting the man urinating, the suspect then took off in a tan Lincoln, and the man who got the gun fled in a black truck, Tate said.

Tanya Armstrong, who works across the street at Lewis Tool Rental, said the alleged gunman is a “gentleman.”

“That doesn’t seem like something he would do,” she said. “I get my fish and crab legs from there. He and his son are very nice people and they’ve seen their share of crime.”

“I just figured this had something to do with a robbery attempt,” Armstrong said.

Short said his neighbor, married with children and living in Detroit, at times would give away food from his fish market to those hungry for a meal.

“The man would give anybody the shirt off his back,” Short said. “He’d give homeless people dinners. People who came by that didn’t have any money, he’d give them fish dinners.

“I can assure you there’s a lot more than what we’re hearing,” Short said.

Since the fish market opened in 1998 or 1999, the neighborhood has seen its share of crime, he added. And that’s what makes Short think that someone urinating wouldn’t incite his neighbor to the point of violence.

“He’s looked the other way too many other times,” Short said. “He’s watched people stripping the copper out of houses, and said, ‘Hey, stop that.’ I’ve seen people irate at him, but him never getting out of line.” 

No one was answering the phone at Asian Fisheries this afternoon.

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Contact TAMMY STABLES BATTAGLIA at 313-223-4456 or tbattaglia@freepress.com. Staff writer Ben Schmitt contributed to this report.