Life Imitates Art
1. "Basil Fawlty-style hotel owner 'locked up guests'"
< http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_787546.html >
"Manager Anello Aiello, 68, faces possible kidnapping charges after locking in
guests who complained about poor service including unchanged sheets and poor
quality meals"
2. "'Thelma and Louise' copycats to face court"
< http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1047684.htm >
"Two women who allegedly dressed up as Hollywood movie characters and drove
through south-west Western Australia pointing a toy gun at motorists are due
to face court today"
3. "Liberian stuck in real-life Terminal"
< http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2004/09/15/630412-ap.html >
"A man who identified himself as a Liberian national has been stuck at South
Korea's main international airport for four months without a passport"
4. "Casablanca gets real Rick's Cafe"
< http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_947303.html >
"The restaurant is named after the cafe from the 1942 classic film Casablanca
which starred Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman"
5. "Pentagon to pay millions for Scots' robot soldiers"
< http://www.sundayherald.com/36926 >
"Chief executive Simon Hardy said the technology had its nearest equivalent in
the Star Wars movie Attack Of The Clones"
George Lucas would be impressed, again:
< http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120915/trivia >
"Lucas never liked the fact that the Reagan administration used the title 'Star
Wars' as a shorthand for their Strategic Defense Initiative. As a result, he
named a character after Ronald Reagan. The last name is Reagan is inverted,
and becomes Nute Gunray."
6. "Worst-kept secret revealed: It's the Isotopes"
< http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/sports02/090402_sports_isotopes.shtml >
"The Isotopes name comes from a March 2001 episode of 'The Simpsons,' the long-
running Fox cartoon series. In the episode, titled 'Hungry, Hungry Homer,'
Homer Simpson thwarts a plan to move his favorite baseball team, the
Springfield Isotopes, to Albuquerque"
7. "Simpsons plant seeds of invention"
< http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,61091,00.html >
"Rob Baur of Lake Oswego, Oregon, dreamed of bringing to life his favorite The
Simpsons episode, one from 1999 in which Homer grows 'tomacco,' a combination
tomato-tobacco plant"
8. "Venice opera house rises from ashes"
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3317053.stm >
"Venice's much-loved Fenice ['The Pheonix'] Opera House, completely destroyed
in a fire eight years ago, reopened on Sunday with a gala concert"
