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Miami festival turns 20,000 pounds of tomatoes into ammunition

 
Published Feb. 26, 2013

Pulp nonfiction

Miami street runs red with tomato juice

What's a farm to do with a winter excess of tomatoes? At Miami's oldest bar, Tobacco Road, some 20,000 pounds were turned into ammunition at a festival on Saturday, the Miami Herald reports. Participants, mostly college students, went into attack mode after James Goll, who markets the festival, gave the call: "Let's fire it up." The concept was simple: Launch as many tomatoes as your arms can wield. Wash it off at the nearby shower. Wash it down with more beer. The free-for-all lasted about 45 minutes until a fire truck washed away the mashed-up mess. It formed a river of red out into the parking lot and onto the street. A day's worth of fun down the drain.

Karma of the ring

Homeless man returns diamond

Almost $100,000 has been collected for a homeless man in Kansas City, Mo., who returned a diamond ring a woman mistakenly dropped into his cup. Sarah Darling, who lives in Kansas City, told CNN on Friday that she had placed the ring in her coin purse. When she saw Billy Ray Harris, she gave him her change but forgot the ring. Two days later, she found Harris, who said he had been keeping the ring for her. "I actually feel like I'm especially lucky to have this ring now. … I feel like it has such great karma," Darling said on Starting Point with Soledad O'Brien. Darling and her husband set up a fund for Harris. "I like it, but I don't think I deserve it," he said. "What I actually feel like is, 'What has the world come to when a person who returns something that doesn't belong to him and all this happens.' "

One that got away

Blue tang survives hours out of water

A pipe-wielding man who broke into an exotic pet store in Fall River, Mass., emptied the cash register and smashed some aquariums probably thought he left no witnesses. But he wasn't counting on Big Blue, a tropical fish that survived six hours without water. The bizarre incident captured the attention of the local Herald News, which reported the story last week. According to its account, Big Blue, an 18-year-old blue tang perhaps better known as the Dory character in the movie Finding Nemo, was found flapping atop some rocks in his broken tank. On Saturday, three days after the incident at Animal Instincts Aquarium and Pet Center, Big Blue was back in a suitably large tank, and the reward money raised by locals to find his would-be killer had grown to $800.

No ordinary rock

Doorstop is about 450M years old

The Daily News Journal reports Betty LeMaster became curious about the 10-pound rock found on her property when she saw America Unearthed on TV. The Smyrna, Tenn., resident had used the rock as a doorstop for 15 years. Alan Brown, a geosciences instructor at Middle Tennessee State University, said it is a 450-million-year-old fossilized coral.

Compiled from wire services and other sources.