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By TIMES WIRES
Published April 27, 2007

A sweet ride

Prom date gets the John Deere treatment

Levi Rue decided to go green at the prom this year. Not green in the Al Gore sense, but in the John Deere sense. While his classmates at New Rockford-Sheyenne High School in North Dakota were whisking dates off to the prom in classic muscle cars, limos and even a party bus, Rue picked up his date, Alissa Bachmeier, in his dad's 1992 green John Deere 8760 tractor. It was the only one in the lot. Rue made the very smart decision to clear it with Bachmeier first. "She was worried about her dress getting dirty," Rue told the Minot Daily News. But after he convinced her it would be showroom clean, she said yes. The tractor even complemented her lime green dress.

Which is a poodle, which is a sheep?

LIVESTOCK - Do not go poodle shopping in Japan. The Sun newspaper reports a big scam going on in the country where people shopping for the fuzzy pooches - and they are expensive in Japan - are getting tricked into buying an animal they think is a poodle, but really isn't. It turns out that the animals they are getting are actually sheep. Authorities say that since there aren't many sheep in Japan, people don't know what they look like. It might appear they don't much know what poodles look like, either. One couple learned they were swindled when they took their pet to get its claws trimmed, only to learn it had hooves. The sheep went for about $1,600. Poodles can fetch twice that much.

Goat herder offers longevity tips

This week, we brought you the story of the 100-year-old Brit who attributed his longevity to "remembering to breathe." Now come reports of a 116-year-old goat herder in Ukraine who offers a much more complex strategy. The Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper near Kiev reports that Grigoriy Nestor credits abstinence and ignorance. He never got married and doesn't believe in premarital sex, so, well, there's that. "People who get married just argue all the time, and that's not good for your health." That was the first part. Then there's this: "People who know too much always come to a nasty end. Better to stay stupid and not wonder too much about anything. The less you know, the longer you live."

Where was Tigger?

Pooh plot foiled by opening package

Winnie the Pooh, a.k.a. "Pooh Bear," caused a scare at a post office in Wright City, Mo. A man there ordered a novelty phone featuring the silly ol' bear, and when he went to the post office to pick it up, he heard it ticking. "It was pretty distinctly ticking," said police Chief Don Wickenhauser. "He didn't want to pick it up." The sender was contacted, and he assured nothing sinister was afoot. So they carefully opened the package and found that Winnie's head was spinning. Apparently, this was a feature. And the head, not stuffed with fluff, was banging the box. So nothing was about to blow up. But what a headache. Oh, bother.

Compiled from Times wires and other sources by staff writer Jim Webster.

[Last modified April 27, 2007, 01:38:31]