Wednesday, May 13, 2009

As a requirement for one of my classes, I've been working what amounts to an online reference desk at the Internet Public Library. So far, it's been a pretty pleasant experience, and I enjoy it because I get to choose what questions I answer, which means it's usually something that I'm at least mildly curious about. Anything from Philadelphia's role in the Civil War to copyright laws, I've managed to pick up some interesting stuff.
A question I answered today was "Is Hello Kitty from Japan or England". It seemed like a pretty easy one to me, but as always that's a little deceiving (answer: both). Anyway, in my research, I stumbled across news records of the Hello Kitty murder, a case that shocked Hong Kong towards the end of the year 2000. Basically what happened is that a young woman was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered before her decapitated head was stuffed inside of a Hello Kitty doll. Terrifying, right? What's even crazier is that a 13 year-old girl had apparently been dreaming about it before the police there figured out what happened. Yikes. Anyway, I'm sorry if I'm ruining it for you, but I thought it was morbidly interesting.

Hopefully I'll have something a little more positive to report on for my next question...

Not to mention that there seems to be a number of Hello Kitty guns on the market... which I'm not even gonna get into.

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