Friday Snippets and Soundbites

It's Friday! We hope you're ready to get your weekend off to a great start . . . with this week's edition of "Snippets and Soundbites."

And, as always, if these little snippets of the news of the strange aren't enough for you, check out page 38 in this month's (and every month's) issue of ec.

And without any further ado . . .

Scooby Doo would be proud
A white Great Dane in San Diego, Calif., was named the world's tallest dog by the Guinness Book of World Records this week. Titan, who belongs to Diana Taylor, is 4-years-old and measures in at 42.25 inches from floor to shoulder (which is the way veterinarians measure dogs' height). But Titan isn't in the best of health. His owner says he's blind, deaf, epileptic and undergoes acupuncture and chiropractic adjustments every three weeks. Taylor adopted Titan as a puppy from the Middle Tennessee Great Dane Rescue. When he could only see out of one eye, she taught him sign language. When he went completely blind, the two began communicating by touch. To learn more about Titan and his new title, go here. To learn more about Great Danes, go here.

Facebook to the rescue!
A 19-year-old New York man can say something about his status updates on Facebook that most of us can't: My status update got me out of jail. Robert Bradford was recently arrested and held for 12 days in connection with an armed robbery that took place in the Brooklyn neighborhood he lives in. But Bradford kept insisting to police he wasn't there at the time and could prove it by the status update he made on Facebook from a computer in his father's Manhattan building at the same time as the crime. The police have said that Facebook did play a role in Bradford's release and the dismissal of charges against him. To learn more, go here. To update your status, go here (and visit ec's fan page while you're at it).

Love is in the air. Literally.
And finally, the tale of James Ng and his ill-fated attempt at a romantic marriage proposal. Ng had invited his girlfriend on a hot air balloon ride and planned to propose to her while in the air. He'd carefully hidden the ring box in his camera case and everything seemed to be going as planned. . . until Ng accidentally dropped the case from the balloon, watching it tumble through the air, hitting a tree and falling to the ground. Ng's girlfriend caught on to what was happening (based on Ng's reaction to dropping the camera case) and Ng proposed anyway. Sonya Bostic, the girlfriend said yes, even though the ring was now missing and Ng (a pastor) knew it would take him a long time to save up to buy another. Happily engaged but ring-less, Ng decided he couldn't let the ring go. Using Google maps and flight paths, he set up search grids and asked a friend to help him search. Meanwhile, Sonya wore a twist tie and then a $9 ring on her finger as a symbol of the couple's engagement. Ng searched for seven days, and—miracle upon miracle—found the camera bag. All that remained inside was the ring box. Ng and Bostic called it a miracle and praised God for the find. To read all about it, go here.