Wednesday Night ONT - April 29, 2026 [TRex]

Good evening Horde. The time has come for mid-week shenanigans. The bar is open.

Welcome to the Wednesday night ONT which means another edition of random overnight fun and games. Pull up a chair and sit a spell. Good will offerings of amusing puns are happily accepted. Pants are optional. Be nice to your fellow commenters and AoS contributors. This is a Tucker, Candace and Megyn free zone. Please.

Will you be smarter after reading this ONT? Will you be better looking? Will you be more fun at parties? Will you lose weight? Will you be wealthier? Will you be more fashionable?

Maybe you should just settle for being whelmed.

[Top photo: Somewhere unknown in Ireland that reminds me of Stonehenge but doesn't look anything like Stonehenge, Jenny Rose photo]

Flaming underpants? How is it that I have gone my whole life without knowing this story from the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne??

Barry Larkin, now a veterinary surgeon from Melbourne, planned to interupt the torch relay along with eight other students from St John's College, believing that the Olympic Flame received too much reverence.

The fake torch was hardly a master forgery, which makes the fact that it was passed off as the real deal all the more humorous. The fake was made using no more than a wooden chair leg that had been painted silver, holding at top a plum pudding can. As for the flame, which proved to be far from a reverent affair, this was created using a pair of underpants, soaked in kerosene.

After a shaky start, Larkin ran with the torch to Sydney Town Hall protected by police who thought that he was the official runner, where he presented the torch to the Mayor of Sydney, Pat Hills.

As the mayor was unprepared, he did not look at the torch and went straight to his speech. While Hills was talking, Larkin walked quietly away, avoiding attention. Hills didn't realise at all that the torch was fraudulent until someone whispered in his ear and told him it was a fake. Hills looked around for Larkin, but by now Larkin had merged into the crowd and escaped.

What could be a better tribute to the Olympic spirit than unauthorized flaming underwear on a chair leg?

Remember when Late Nite TV was fun and silly. Yeah... good times.

"Really big pig" seen wandering loose in North Carolina

Authorities in North Carolina are asking local residents to keep an eye out for a "really big pig" seen wandering loose in Durham County.

The Durham County Sheriff's Office said on social media that the "new heavyweight champion" was spotted in the Mason Road area but animal services personnel were unable to locate the "ham-bassador."

"To put it lightly: he is a REALLY big pig. We're talking 'absolute unit' status," the post said. "He's currently living his best life on the lam, but we'd like to get him somewhere safe before he decides to move into someone's backyard permanent-like."

The sheriff's office said residents should report any sightings of the pig and not attempt to capture it themselves. The pig's owner has not yet been identified.

Bill introduced to name "Loveland Frogman" as Ohio's official cryptid

A bill introduced in the Ohio House would designate the Loveland Frogman as the state's official cryptid.

A bill sponsored by Reps. Tristan Rader, D-13th district, and Jean Schmidt, R-62nd district, calls for the local legend to be named Ohio's official state cryptid.

House Bill 821 describes the Loveland Frogman as "a frog-like, bipedal creature standing approximately four feet tall."

The legend dates back to 1972, when two police officers reported spotting a large frog-like creature on different nights.

The Frogman made headlines again in 2016, when a couple claimed to have seen the massive amphibian while playing Pokemon Go.

The sighting prompted Mark Mathews, who purports to be one of the police officers who spotted the Frogman in 1972, to come forward with the whole story.

Mathews said the first officer to spot the Frogman, Ray Shockey, told him he saw the creature near the Totes boot factory and the Little Miami River.

Mathews said he was skeptical of the story, but a few days later he was driving in the same area when he saw something run across the road.

He ended up shooting the creature and putting it in his trunk to show Shockey, who confirmed it was the same animal he had seen.

The animal was a 3- to 3 1/2-foot-long iguana that was missing its tail.

I don't know whether to be impressed that the Ohio legislature has solved the rest of the world's problems so that they have time for such things, horrified that the Ohio legislature is passing legislation to to formally embrace a hoax, or pleased that people so stupid are busy doing things like this instead of doing harm by "fixing" things elsewhere.

At least in North Carolina, they're spending their time looking for something that actually exists. Although I'm not sure how big a missing pig needs to be to warrant making the news. To be fair, the report does say the pig has "absolute unit" status.

Anyone Want a 145,000-Pound Dinosaur? The World’s Largest T. Rex Needs a New Home.

The world's largest Tyrannosaurus Rex statue needs a new home.

Tyra, located in the Canadian Badlands, is a gigantic kitschy roadside attraction that, like the dinosaurs she is based on, is facing extinction. The 86-foot-tall T. rex that weighs in at around 145,000 pounds - significantly taller and heavier than any real-life T. rex - has called the small Canadian town of Drumheller her home since 2000. Visitors have been able to climb inside the giant dinosaur and stand in its open jaws that double as a viewing platform.

Unfortunately, according to the Calgary Herald, Tyra is facing a problem no dinosaur has ever faced in their collective many millions of years on Earth: her lease is set to expire. In 2029, the current terms suggest that the structure could be dismantled. Local officials understand that it is a bit of a logistical nightmare to just up and move a giant dinosaur monolith, but so far, no one has come up with a viable solution for moving such a behemoth.

In the meantime, Tyra underwent a structural assessment to ensure that she is stable and safe, and local officials invested over $300,000 into repairing and restoring the local landmark, ensuring that if Tyra does in fact change locations, she will be in relatively good shape.

Maybe AOP needs a new lawn ornament? Tyra lives just down the road. If anyone can engineer a giant T-Rex transfer, it is AOP.

Hat tip: Blaster

The Wednesday ONT is not the food thread, but this seemed like a trivia nugget worthy of an ONT.

You would be surprised to learn that almost 69% of the US mushroom production occurs in the borough of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. It is a small town of about 6000 people, but mushroom-growing facilities around town produce almost 451 million pounds of mushrooms annually (2024). 451 million pounds of mushrooms would occupy about 45 American football fields or 35 soccer fields. The dollar value of mushroom production in the US is roughly $ 1 billion per year.

China is the undisputed leader in mushroom production. China accounts for 93% of the world's global mushroom production.

The history of mushroom farming in Kennett Square dates back to 1885, when a grower obtained mushroom spores from Europe and began growing mushrooms. This concentration of mushroom farming in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, is due to historical immigration patterns, primarily of Italians in the 1950s or 1960s, easy availability of horse manure for the mushroom substrate, and easy access to the Philadelphia and New York markets.

Source

Chick-fil-A employee accused of stealing $80,000 with mac & cheese scheme

A former Chick-fil-A employee was arrested for stealing $80,000 with a mac & cheese scheme at a Texas restaurant, police say.

Keyshun Jones was fired from the store in Grapevine, outside Dallas, last November, but authorities say he would repeatedly slip back in, enter food orders on the register, and refund them to his personal credit card.

Jones was taken into custody on April 17 after allegedly ringing up 800 orders of mac and cheese.

Investigators began investigating the cheesy fraud after the restaurant reported hundreds of phony refunds.

Jones faces charges of property theft, money laundering and evading arrest.

He faces up to 10 years in state prison, if convicted - where he'll also be able to order mac & cheese, according to the menus on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Just imagine the jailhouse conversation: "What are you in for?"

"Money laundering"

"Yeah? Wow. That's sounds big. What did you do?"

"I stole 800 orders of mac and cheese."

Silence.

Public Service Announcement: by popular demand, the Hobby Thread on Saturday will be car repair.

Think of it like our very own Car Talk (with Click and Clack), Under the Hood or Motor Medics. We can expand to anything with a motor - truck, RV, motorcycle, quad, etc. Bring your ills and mechanical gremlins. Ideally, the experts among the Horde can join to offer their wisdom and advice. If they don't, the rest of us can make wild and uninformed guesses.

Either way, the advice will be free. (That also means it may be worth exactly what you paid for it.) Ace of Spades disclaims any responsibility or liability for advice given or not given. Caveat emptor.

Credit to RandomDave and ARiK for the suggestion.

The Pittsburgh police scanner keeps giving. Thank you people of Pittsburgh!

Blues Brothers for the big ONT finish:

Written correspondence can be sent to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Are you lurking ?? While not technically royalty, the Wednesday ONT enjoys a special relationship with the United Kingdom. The Wednesday ONT also wishes to express its condolences to those impacted by World War Eleven. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

posted by Open Blogger at 10:00 PM

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