A deer named Rudolph escaped from a church nativity scene where he was portraying a reindeer and was chased by police before finally being caught "under the church's elf house in its Bethlehem Village area".

I didn't realize there were reindeer in Bethlehem. Nor elves, for that matter. You learn something every day!

Story

Tags: Polk, animals

Next month in a ceremony in Lighthouse Point, Kelly Hildebrandt will marry Kelly Hildebrandt.

One of them is a 20 year old woman from Coral Springs, Florida, the other a 24 year old man from Texas. She-Kelly discovered He-Kelley on social networking site Facebook. One thing led to another and they fell in love. The couple feels their relationship was meant to be.

However, their name hasn't been without problems. The couple told WTVJ that they can't tell whose mail is whose, and told the AP that one of their cruise tickets was almost canceled when an agent thought it was a duplicate booking.

Tags: Broward

The winners are in for the America’s Best Bathroom competition and we’re proud to say that Florida placed twice in the top ten best bathrooms this year. That’s right, when it comes to numbers 1 and 2, we’re numbers 7 and 8! The Tampa Theatre and NOVA 535 in St. Petersburg made the finalists round because of their restroom’s “exceptional hygiene, style and open access to the public”.

Tags: Hillsborough, Pinellas

According to a story in Florida Today, for three months a Melbourne, FL woman changed the diapers of and fed bottles to a man in his 40s, believing him to be mentally disabled, only to find out he was a fake. After answering a posting on Craigslist by a man asking for assistance taking care of his disabled brother, Janet Schulte accepted the $600-a-week job, but after three months discovered that the job poster and the “brother” were one and the same. Police say no crime has been committed as the woman voluntarily accepted the job and was paid for the service.

This apparently is not the first time the man has indulged in this... er... infantile behavior. After posting a warning on Craigslist, according to another story at ClickOrlando, Ms. Schulte received seven responses from other women who had been duped!

Tags: Brevard

The Miami Herald Reports:

A Broward father lost all rights to his daughter after being declared an unfit dad. Now he is dead, and a court is reconsidering whether to restore his parental rights.

Reached by TFF for comment on the story, the father was quoted as saying,
“RRAAAWRR! BRAAAINS!”

Tags: Broward

A Wesley Chapel sex toy shop owner recently launched a new business, recycling:

The rubber and plastics will be transformed into park benches, playground mulch and decorative yard fixtures, Kowalsky said. [...]

Several recycling and environmental organizations, including the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, did not want to comment on Kowalsky's effort because of the nature of the products. Off the record, the groups' reps said they hadn't heard of any other sex toy recycling programs in the country. [...]

"This can't be serious," said Jennifer Seney, recycling coordinator for Pasco County. "It's certainly not recyclable material in my book."

Full story here.

Tags: sex, Pasco

An older story, but too good to pass up:

An Emu named Plop-Plop escaped from a farm in Panama City and then “went crazy”. Deputies tasered the bird to get it under control. Plop-Plop made a full recovery.

This was the only Emu tasered in Florida this year, as far as I know, but not the only one in the country. Less than two weeks later, another Emu (name not given) was tasered by Pennsylvania State Police officers after a two hour attempt to catch the bird, who was running along eastbound lanes of the turnpike near Pittsburg causing all sorts of traffic problems. That Emu didn’t survive the jolt.

Tags: Bay, animals, traffic

Thousands of used shoes mysteriously appeared covering a half mile of Miami highway during rush hour this morning. The police are not sure where the shoes came from -- no signs of a crash, and nobody has claimed them. A private contractor brought in a front end loader and a dump truck to clear them. It took almost two hours to clear the road, and traffic backed up more than a mile at one point.

Story here and here.

My theory? Bungled arms shipment to militant anti-Bush journalists.

Tags: Dade, traffic

Picked up by a Texas TV station no less, we have this story:

A Florida firefighter who admitted taking a severed foot from an accident scene has resigned.

St. Lucie County Fire Chief Ron Parrish said Cindy Economou, a 14 year veteran and former firefighter of the year for St. Lucie County, resigned after she was presented with the investigation report into the incident.

He said after seeing the report, which found her at fault for removing the foot, she resigned.

Parrish wouldn't say if she was encouraged to resign or if she did so voluntarily.

[...]

Economou admitted to investigators that she removed the foot, which had been severed in the crash, so that she could take it home to help train cadaver dogs, a hobby of hers.

Tags: St. Lucie