You may consider yourself a strange and unusual person. If so, see how you measure up against these oddballs.
Strange Person: Nileen Namita of Brighton, England
Background: In the late 1980s, Namita became convinced that she was a reincarnation of the ancient-Egyptian queen Nefertiti.
Very Strange: Namita decided that being a reincarnation of Nefertiti wasn’t enough; she had to also look like her. So she started having plastic surgeries. Using the famous 3,300-year-old bust of Nefertiti, which sits in a Berlin’s Neues Museum, as a model, Namita has had eight nose jobs, three chin implants, nine facelifts, two lip surgeries, five eye surgeries, and several other facial procedures—adding up to 51 operations in all. She turned 49 in 2009, and so far has spent more than $330,000 in her quest to look like the ancient queen. Did it work? By all accounts, no. She looks like…well, someone who’s had a lot of plastic surgery.
Strange Person: Japanese truck driver Yuuki Oshima
Background: One day in August 2009, 22-year-old Oshima was driving through the city of Noda when he saw a woman walking…and fell instantly in love with her. He discreetly followed her to her apartment, and over the next couple of months, tried to get up the courage to tell her his feelings…but he was too shy to do it face to face. Then he got an idea.
Very Strange: Oshima went to the woman’s house in the middle of the night…and peed through the mail slot in her door. That, not surprisingly, didn’t cause the woman to fall in love with him. She called police. Oshima was arrested, and explained, “I absolutely went crazy for her the first time I saw her, and just did it.” He was charged with property damage.
Strange Person: Rick Murray, a teenager from Montreal, Canada
Background: “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and live in the sewers,” said Murray, “But as I got older, I fell in love with zombies and wanted to become one.”
A heated jawbreaker can explode when bitten into.
Very Strange: Now Murray is known as “Zombie Boy.” His entire body is covered with tattoos that make him look like a zombie. Black ink surrounds Murray’s eyes; his “teeth” and “jawbones” can be seen beneath his cheeks, his “brain” appears from beneath his bald head; and his “guts,” “skeleton,” and several ghoulish designs are inked all over the rest of his body. When asked if people are bothered by his appearance, Murray said, “It’s like if you met someone with purple hair, after 10 minutes you’d think, ‘Oh yeah, they have purple hair. So what?’” He’s not done yet—Murray said that he’s planning on removing one of his ear lobes as well as the tip of his nose to complete the look of the undead.
Strange Person: Melanie Renfrew of Burbank, California
Background: In 2007 Renfrew, 54, saw local meteorologist Fritz Coleman on television. Renfrew, a geography professor at Los Angeles Harbor College, called the station to tell Coleman that he had confused “onshore” winds, which blow in from the sea, with “offshore” winds, which blow out. (She was right.)
Very Strange: When she got no response, Renfrew called again, demanding an apology. When that didn’t work, Renfrew became obsessed—and over the next year called and e-mailed Coleman thousands of times, trying to get him to apologize to her on the air. In March 2008, Coleman got a restraining order against Renfrew, preventing her from coming within 100 feet of him, e-mailing him, or calling him. Renfrew kept harassing him anyway, and in October 2009 was convicted of violating the restraining order. She was given a year to comply, after which time, if she is still harassing the weatherman, she could be sentenced to jail. “I don’t feel obsessive,” she said in an interview. “It’s about the truth.” (She added that she is currently working on a book, titled What It Took to Convince NBC the Winds are Coming From the West.)
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“You’re only given a little spark of madness; you mustn’t lose it.”
—Robin Williams
Exhibits at Washington, DC’s Newseum include the Unabomber’s cabin & Saddam Hussein’s poetry.