By ,
Published January 13, 2015
Finally, someone created the perfect exercise accessory for the comically uncoordinated … and for workout wannabes with active imaginations.
America, meet the cordless jump-rope.
After jumping on — or, in this case, over — the pseudo-rope bandwagon, users are supposed to hold the handles and pretend to hop over the imaginary rope, inventor Lester Clancy says.
One might also assume that the exceptionally lethargic user, since he or she is already feigning the very existence of fitness equipment, could just pretend to jump over the rope that isn't while they're at it.
And it seems the U.S. Patent Office is buying into the idea — to the tune of patent number 7037243, the Associated Press reports.
Clancy explains that moving weights inside the not-a-rope's handles simulate the feel of a cord swinging around ... that is, it would if there were two of them.
He's only made handle so far because he's waiting for financial backers.
California State University professor Mike Ernst says that anything that promotes physical activity couldn't hurt.
But would he buy it?
"I'm not an idiot," he said.
Thanks to Out There reader Rob E.
Talk About Giving Them the Finger
FLEMING, N.Y. (AP) — Police in a Finger Lakes town say a cemetery vandalism suspect left behind a fingerprint — along with his finger.
Police in Cayuga County say they initially responded to Adam Warner's request for help for a hand injury. They later learned Warner may have lost part of his middle finger while at Saint Joseph's Cemetery in the town of Fleming, just south of Auburn on Owasco Lake.
Officials say more than 50 headstones were knocked over on Memorial Day.
Police found Warner's dismembered digit stuck between two grave markers.
The 26-year-old Warner is charged with criminal mischief, criminal trespass and cemetery desecration.
Thanks to Out There reader J. Haynes.
The Pizza Prophecies
POINT PLEASANT, W.Va. (AP) — Village Inn Pizza is doing its best to feed the Mothman legend.
The restaurant took the Mothman pizza off its menu a couple years back, but will whip up a 19-inch pie bearing the likeness of the mythical beast on request.
The pizzeria uses red and green peppers and green olives for the Mothman's glowing eyes, pepperoni to make his torso and sliced mushrooms for the wings.
Some say the pizza version of Mothman is more appealing than the creature described by people who claim to have seen it in the 1960s.
Pizza maker Erin Duncan says the edible version is cute.
Demand for the pizza peaked when the "Mothman Prophecies" movie starring Richard Gere came out in 2002. And orders still surge during Point Pleasant's annual Mothman Festival.
The large pie costs about $14.
Do I Know You? Does He? How About Them? No? Busted!
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Officials in Minneapolis are considering a crime-fighting proposal that would ban strangers from the city's hundreds of miles of alleys.
The proposed ordinance would ban anyone from walking in an alley who doesn't live on that block or who isn't a guest of someone who does.
Exceptions would include police, paramedics, firefighters, garbage haulers, meter readers, code inspectors and others whose jobs take them there.
Minneapolis has 455 miles of alleys — most of them paved.
Police officer Mike Killebrew proposed the ordinance to the city attorney. Killebrew says he sees "so much crime" happening in alleys, which he calls "a quick getaway."
The proposal was referred to the City Council's Public Safety Committee for review.
Something Fishy Is Going on Here
AMMON, Idaho (AP) — A woman says she's recovered a stolen class ring that was purportedly spit up from a Kentucky catfish. Lisa Peterson, an Ammon resident who moved from Ohio to Idaho several years ago, says her "Class of '84" ring from Franklin Heights High School in Columbus was stolen in 1991.
She'd given up on ever finding it — until several weeks ago, when she received a phone call from a Columbus television station that said the ring had been found by a fisherman angling for catfish in a murky pond in Augusta, Ky.
At first, she was skeptical, Peterson said.
"I thought, this is just an incredible fish story," she told the Post Register, about the initial phone call. "But they knew so much that I couldn't disbelieve it."
Wayne Nickerson, the fisherman, was collecting bait during a fishing excursion in Kentucky when he discovered the ring in the bottom of his live bait trap. The fishing area, called Long Stretch, is known for illicit dumping — in recent years, Nickerson says he's caught a sleeping bag in the fishing hole.
Nickerson, who now believes a catfish scavenging on the pond bottom spit the ring into his bait trap, says at first he was worried about finding the ring engraved "Lisa Marie Certain, Class of '84." He figured he might be dealing with a murder.
"I thought there may be a body," he said.
He called the local Augusta police chief, Col. Greg Cummins, to investigate. Cummins found Lisa Certain's picture at a Franklin Heights alumni Web site — along with the ominous description "missing in action." Classmates who were contacted said they hadn't heard from Lisa Certain in years.
Like Nickerson, Cummins feared the worst.
"I thought, the worst-case scenario is that there is a body with that ring," he said.
After the initial search turned up few leads, Cummins contacted television station WKRC in Cincinnati to broadcast Certain's photo. Finally, Columbus station WBNS-TV tracked down Certain to Ammon, where she's living under her married name, Peterson.
"The first person I heard from was the Channel 10 reporter from Columbus," Peterson said.
After the initial contact, she spoke with Cummins at the Augusta Police Department on May 2, and the ring was mailed to her the following day.
Cummins is relieved Peterson is safe — he was dreading the prospect of dragging the pond for a body. The only mystery left: How did the ring end up miles from Columbus, in a pond, 15 years after it was stolen?
"It could have been there for days, maybe years," Cummins said.
Thanks to Out There reader Mitch Mulholland.
Compiled by FOXNews.com's Taylor Timmins.
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