A while back there was a "true" story (urban legend) about a guy
who was interrupted by the doorbell.

Upon opening the door he found some religious nuts who were very
annoying. As he was in the middle of preparing dinner, he'd gone
to the door with a very large knife in his hand.

At some point, he called out to his friends asking if they'd gotten
virgin ready for the sacrifice.  At this point, the callers fled
from the home, never to return again.

Matsushita Electric is promoting a new Japanese PC targeted
at the Internet. Panasonic has developed a complete Japanese
Web browser, and to make the system "user-friendly", licensed
the cartoon character "Woody Woodpecker" as the "Internet
guide." Panasonic eventually planned on a world version of the
product. 

A huge marketing campaign was to have introduced the product in
Japan last week. The day before the ads were to be released,
Panasonic suddenly pulled back and delayed the product launch
indefinitely. 

The reason: the ads featured the slogan "Touch Woody - The Internet
Pecker." An American staff member at the internal product launch
explained to the stunned and embarrassed Japanese what "touch woody"
and "pecker" meant in American slang. 

     -From EE Times, October 8, 1996 

Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, purchased a brand new 32-
foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, having driven onto the 
freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers 
seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not 
surprisingly, the R.V. left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. 
Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the owner's manual that 
he couldn't actually do this. The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new 
motor home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of 
this suit, just in case there were any other complete morons buying their 
recreation vehicles.