Odd-but-True Stories

Python on the Menu?

There are a lot of interesting foods out there, but this one is making us ssssqueamish.

Burmese python may be the newest dish on people’s tables if scientists can confirm that they are safe to eat.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is collaborating with the Florida Department of Health to investigate the mercury levels in pythons to determine if they can be safely consumed.

Pythons are nonvenomous constrictors primarily found in south Florida where they have posed a serious risk to native wildlife in the region. The snake is not native to the state and began appearing in the Everglades in the 1980s when it was likely introduced as an escaped or released pet.

Donna Kalil has been eating pythons for a while.

She is a female python hunter and has so far captured and euthanized 473 pythons. When she catches smaller ones, about 7 feet long, she uses a mercury testing kit she bought online to confirm they’re safe to eat.

Then she turns their white meat into food. First, she uses a pressure cooker to make the meat soft and tender. Later, she adds pasta sauce, chili or stir fry. She also likes turning the snakes into jerky.

“It’s really good when you cook it right,” Kalil told CNN. “This would be a wonderful way to get more people involved with helping us remove pythons from the environment. It would be a good thing for people to hunt and eat them but we need to make sure they’re safe first.”

Kalil spent her childhood catching and releasing snakes for fun. Despite her love for pythons, which she calls “magnificent creatures,”

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718.871.9402 she emphasizes the risk they pose to Florida’s wildlife and the severe damage they’ve already caused to its ecosystem. Large pythons can even eat big prey, including humans.

Pythons have been preying on smaller mammals, including rabbits, raccoons, and possums.

And now pythons may be the next thing on the menu.

Honestly, they’re not really my tasssste.

Social Distancing Sweater

Need a little space at your next gathering? SimpliSafe is here to help.

The home security company debuted its SimpliSafe Social Distancing Sweater last Monday.

The sweater is adorned with snowflakes that are outfitted with a flashing light alarm system. If a person gets closer than six feet from the wearer, lights start to flash and a screeching noise begins to blare.

Sounds like a great way to keep noshing on doughnuts undisturbed? Unfortunately, the sweater is just a prototype and is not being sold to the public.

Instead, the company is giving away the same sweater, sans lights and sirens, in a limited quantity in exchange for donations to a nonprofit.

If you really need your space, though, have no fear. SimpliSafe has published a detailed list of instructions for people on how to install an alarm system into a sweater.

“As the experts on protection, albeit home protection, we wanted to give people a playful way to protect themselves during this year’s holiday celebrations,” SimpliSafe’s Creative Director Wade Devers said. “It’s really meant to bring some lightheartedness to a time that’s otherwise proven very stressful.”

And alarms and flashing lights on a sweater are not stressful at all.

Ring of Prosperity

It’s called the Ring of Prosperity and you better be pretty prosperous to own it.

Harshit Bansal has earned a spot in the Guinness World Record due to his unique ring.

The finger ornament is called “The Marigold: The Ring of Prosperity” and is made up of a whopping 12,638 tiny diamonds. The previous Guinness record for most diamonds set in one ring was 7,801 gems.

The Marigold weighs 5.8 ounces and features a massive floral design. Each petal of the ring’s eight-layer flower is completely unique. The massive, circular flower nearly covers a woman’s entire hand.

Bansal came up with the idea for the ring two years ago during his study of jewelry design in Surat, the hub of India’s diamond industry. The diamond ring was made in collaboration with his employer, Renani Jewels.

“It’s wearable and comfortable. My target was always more than 10,000 diamonds. I trashed many designs and concepts over the years to finally zero in on this,” Bansal, 25, said.

While there are many prospective buyers, Bansal insists it’s not for sale – at least at the moment.

“We have no plans of selling it right now,” the jeweler said of the bling. “It’s a matter of pride for us. It’s priceless.”

Town for Sale – Cheap

whole town in the Wild West.

For a mere $1.6 million, a replica old-timey town in New Mexico can be yours. The right buyer will enjoy the satisfaction of owning 18 buildings across 58 acres when he or she calls the Town of Gabriella their own.

Though the town hopes to preserve the history of the American West, it rose up relatively recently, after the plot near the Datil Mountains was purchased by owner Larry Iams 20 years ago. Like true cowboys, Larry and his wife Janet proudly brought their vision for the rustic, replica settlement to life by hand, as inspired by Western towns of yore from the 1880s.

Claiming to be “the largest and most authentic Western town” in the area, the interiors of Gabriella’s buildings were thoughtfully designed to be authentic from the inside out.

Included in the sale is the town’s saloon, hotel, log cabin, dance hall, billiard hall, old-timey barber shop, and stagecoach. The space is being used for a western movie set, private parties and, naturally, “1800s gunslinger reenactment.”

Sounds like good competition for Central Avenue.

Treasure Found

The letter “Z” made two women pretty happy this recently.

Two women found a silver ornament in the shape of the letter “Z” under a bench at Eldorado Park in Las Vegas.

This was no ordinary ornament. It had been hidden there for almost 10 years and netted the women $10,000.

The ornaments were part of a nationwide treasure hunt, in which people are to locate four hidden items. Clues on the location of the items are outlined in The Great U.S. Treasure Hunt ebook released by David Steele in November, who placed the ornament under the bench nearly a decade ago while he was visiting Las Vegas.

Interested treasure hunters need to “decode a message in any of the four chapters of the book and the message leads you to an ordinary item hidden (not buried) in public, somewhere in the 48 continental United States,” according to the ebook’s Amazon listing.

“Hidden within each chapter are messages which guide the readers to 4 exact locations and describe items to be found at each location. There are no illustrations, only text. If you can read English, you can decode the messages,” the listing noted.

A month after the book was released, a clue was shared on December 13 on the Twitter account of the ebook, which noted: “This is the first bonus clue for The Great U.S. Treasure Hunt. CHAPTER FOUR. Singing loudly for all to hear, if it’s a One Hit Wonder, then it should be clear, start your quest for treasure there.”

The clue prompted Beth Hovanec, an artist based in the Pittsburgh area of Pennsylvania, to use the letters from the “One Hit Wonders” listed in chapter four of the book to spell out the message: “North Vegas, Eldorado Bench, Silver Z.”

Hovanec recruited a friend, Nancy Zitko, who lives just a few miles away from Eldorado Park where the treasure was to be found. Zitko set out for the park at 7 a.m. local time on a Sunday morning where she found the ornament at the bottom of the bench.

Hovanec was given $9,000 for solving the riddle, while Zitko won $1,000 for physically finding the ornament, as per the rules of the treasure hunt, which state “an ‘accidental’ find earns only $1,000...you must solve the code for the full $10,000 prize,” according to the ebook’s Amazon listing.

Looking for some cash? There are three other hidden items to be found.

“They are within 500 feet of a free, safe parking space. No hiking, boating, swimming, or any dangerous activity is required. Simply travel to the location, park, and go to the spot where the item is hidden. Get the item, and you win $10,000.

“Winners must be 18 or older, but readers as young as 10 or 11 might be able to discover the methods needed to crack the codes.”

In other words, please buy this book – and then maybe you can get some money out of it, too.