Watercooler Stories

Mechanical singing Santa irks neighbors

UNION BEACH, N.J., Dec. 21 (UPI) -- A 6-foot-tall mechanical Santa Claus singing Christmas carols is drawing complaints from neighbors of its New Jersey owner.

Union Beach residents said the musical decoration has been souring their holiday spirit with its non-stop singing, WINS-AM, New York, reported.

"It's literally 12 to 13 hours a day," neighbor Mark Dittman said. "There's no consideration for the neighbors. We're very into the Christmas spirit, but this is ridiculous."

Jill Patella, the singing Santa's owner, said the ornament was the final gift she received from her husband, who died three years ago.

"This year was the time," she said. "He would have wanted me to live life again."

Hostage scene purse back on eBay

PANAMA CITY, Fla., Dec. 21 (UPI) -- A purse used by a Florida woman to strike a gunman at a school board meeting returned to eBay after the auction site initially said it did not meet guidelines.

Ginger Littleton, who made headlines when she used her purse to strike gunman Clay Duke during Tuesday's Bay County School Board meeting in Panama City, donated the purse to WJHG-TV, Panama City, to be auctioned for charity, but it was removed from eBay Friday because the listing did not meet the Web site's guidelines for charitable fundraising, the Panama City News-Herald reported.

The purse returned to the auction site Saturday after the listing was rewritten to conform to eBay regulations, WJHG-TV senior editor Joe Moore said.

Moore said proceeds from the sale will go to Salvage Santa, a toy-giving charity run by school security chief Mike Jones, who ended Tuesday's standoff by shooting and wounding Duke.

Four circus bears go into hibernation

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- A Russian circus bear trainer said four of his animals went into hibernation after a truck carrying them broke down during a long trip.

Vladimir Dobryakov said the female bears, named Varya, Manyasha, Lyalya and Lyusya, were making a 2,800-mile trek from Irkutsk to Vladivostok, RIA Novosti reported.

"It took us eight days to cover the distance ... which was, of course, a lot of strain for the animals," Dobryakov said.

Dobryakov said he attempted to keep the bears awake with strong tea and chocolate candies, but the strain of travel coupled with low temperatures caused the bears to go into hibernation.

Banknotes have color, geography errors

MANILA, Philippines, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- New banknotes scheduled to go into circulation in the Philippines this month are drawing criticism for a wrongly colored parrot and geographical errors.

The 500-peso bill bears an image on the back of the blue-naped parrot, a rare local bird, but its distinctive red beak is erroneously colored yellow and its yellow tail feathers are colored green, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.

The same bill shows the incorrect location of a subterranean river in Palawan and six different bills feature maps with an incorrect northern border and no sign of the Batanes island group, cartographers said.

A spokeswoman for the country's central bank, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, attributed the errors to the space available on the bills.

"For our banknotes, we used an artist's rendition of the Philippine map that by virtue of space and aesthetics does not reflect all of our islands and the precise coordinates of each site," she said.