This is one of those things where you just shake your head and wonder, “What were they thinking?”  From the news this week :

Woman crashes when teaching dog to drive

August 28, 2006

BEIJING – A woman in Hohhot, the capital of north China’s Inner Mongolia region, crashed her car while giving her dog a driving lesson, the official Xinhua News Agency said Monday.

No injuries were reported although both vehicles were slightly damaged, it said.

The woman, identified only be her surname, Li, said her dog “was fond of crouching on the steering wheel and often watched her drive,” according to Xinhua.

“She thought she would let the dog ‘have a try’ while she operated the accelerator and brake,” the report said. “They did not make it far before crashing into an oncoming car.”

Xinhua did not say what kind of dog or vehicles were involved but Li paid for repairs.

There’s a “rumor” going around that women aren’t good drivers… perhaps this woman thought her dog might drive better than she does…  🙂

This is an actual story from the news… it would be hard to make up something this stupid…

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A woman stole $2.3 million (1.2 million pounds) from her employers and spent the money on lottery tickets, buying as much as $6,000 worth of tickets a day in a bid to hit the jackpot, prosecutors said on Thursday.

Annie Donnelly, 38, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to stealing the money over 3 1/2 years from her employer, Great South Bay Surgical Associates, where she was a bookkeeper.

(You can read more here.)

Even though she was the bookkeeper, you figure someone would’ve noticed money missing, especially after the first million or so.  But the stupid part is that this woman could’ve had millions of dollars yet spent it on lottery tickets.  How stupid!  She must’ve not thought this through…

This happened recently, and it’s definitely something random, which you don’t hear too often…

BELGRADE (Reuters) – A Serb man set his car on fire when he heard how much he had to pay to reclaim it after it was towed away for illegal parking.

An attendant told the daily Press the man was very calm.

“He went to his car, took a few things then opened the hood and set the engine on fire. When it was well ablaze he got back on his bike and rode off.”

I’m supposing his car wasn’t worth very much…  Or maybe it was some newly-invented disposable car…  I’ve played with those in video games, and I must admit it can be fun to drive your car off a cliff, bailing out at the last second.  Of course, this concept only works well in video games when you have unlimited money and can just go get another one… but at least we’ve got video games to do such things in, since real life doesn’t afford us those opportunities.  (Is that my point?  Have I finally arrived at a point for this post?  Have you been waiting?  Do you even care?  Is anyone still reading?  For those who have stood with me during the boring and irrelevant parts of this post, I will offer you a valid point : video games are fun!  Now, I know, some of you already know this, and might feel like this post is a waste of time.  But consider this!  Suppose there’s a visitor on our site who doesn’t yet know that video games are fun… just imagine how much fun he’s about to have!  There are many worlds to explore…)