Don Deane

Have you ever really wanted a carnival prize but couldn’t win it no matter how hard you tried? Peter Drakos doesn’t have that problem. In fact, the 64 year old Detroit resident may just be the best carnival game player in the world.

In the U.K., a 40-year-old man recently had a plastic fork surgically removed from his stomach after swallowing it. That’s bad enough, but when you consider that he ingested the item a decade ago, the story reaches all new levels of weird. We’ll never look at cutlery the same way again.

Trampolines in theory seem like a heckuva lot of fun. Given that they’re typically made of fabric pulled tight by an array of coiled springs, what could possibly go wrong? Quite a bit, it turns out.

If there’s one thing we’ve always taken for granted regarding the Olympics, it’s that gold medals are actually made out of gold. So imagine our surprise when we learned that this year’s first place medals are mostly silver.

A Chicago Cubs fan named Greg wanted to give his girlfriend a marriage proposal that she’d never forget. So he popped the question via the video scoreboard during a game on Monday night at Wrigley Field. There was just one problem — she wasn’t in her seat at the time.

Last Sunday, Chinese diver Wu Minxia took home gold in the 3m synchronized springboard and became the first woman in history to win three consecutive Olympic golds. But her remarkable accomplishment was marred somewhat when it was revealed that her family intentionally hid devastating secrets as she pursued her career.

Given that his city is currently hosting the Olympics, London mayor Boris Johnson is riding high … literally. On Wednesday, the eccentric public official rode a zip line in Victoria Park to promote the summer games. There’s just one problem — he got stuck. No, this isn’t an episode of ‘The Benny Hill Show.’ This is for real.

Olympic taekwondo may not be as popular as, say, swimming or track and field, but its athletes are just as motivated. Take Diana Lopez, for example, a fierce competitor in the sport who hopes to soon add gold to her 2008 bronze medal win in Beijing.

On Tuesday, pilot Mark Simmons was towing a marriage proposal behind his small plane when he suddenly experienced engine problems and crashed off Rhode Island’s Block Island. Uh oh! We hope this isn’t a bad wedding omen.

As one-half of the legendary team also starring Misty May-Treanor, Kerri Walsh-Jennings is instantly recognizable as one of the greatest beach volleyball players in the world. Together, they’re defending Olympic champions who won gold medals in both the 2004 and 2008 games, and they’re looking to repeat their success for a third time in London this year.

More than 200 Chihuahuas were removed from a Benton, Pennsylvania home yesterday after officials deemed the environment dangerous to the dogs’ well-being. While it’s a terribly sad story to be sure, at least the internet community can breathe a sigh of relief that it wasn’t corgis.

Most kids, especially boys, love temporary tattoos. (They’re second only to, say, stickers.) But the toddler in this video seems to have some serious regret over his ink and cries out in despair. It’s okay, buddy. It’ll come off with rubbing alcohol. We promise.

A bus driver became a hero on Monday when he caught a seven-year-old autistic girl in his arms after she fell three stories from a building in New York City. The remarkable rescue was caught on tape.

While soccer isn’t nearly as popular here as it is in other parts of the world, it seems to get its due in the US during the Olympics, at least. And when the women’s national soccer team won gold after a hotly-contested battle against Brazil at the 2008 Games in Beijing, its members became superstars.

The 2012 US Olympic tennis team roster — which includes Serena and Venus Williams and Andy Roddick just to name a few — reads like a who’s who of the sport. But to casual fans, brothers Bob and Mike Bryan may not be as instantly recognizable.

A quick-thinking woman bravely put herself in harm’s way to rescue two children in a runaway van recently. And although the woman’s rescue attempt didn’t quite go according to plan, she somehow managed to stop the vehicle before it rolled into the middle of a busy intersection.

Many of the 49 men and women who make up this year’s US swimming squad — like Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Jessica Hardy and Rebecca Soni — have years of experience. But fresh-faced Missy Franklin is a relative newcomer to the sport.

As any animal lover knows, dogs are capable of feeling intense joy. (If cats feel it, by contrast, they sure don’t seem to show it.) As proof, check out this video of an Irish Terrier that literally leaps for joy after it finds its owner hiding nearby.

At 27 years old, swimmer Michael Phelps is at the top of his game. He’s won countless honors, awards and medals during his career, leading some to describe him as the greatest athlete in history to ever grace the sport.

It might seem at first like the image below has been altered in Photoshop, but this lizard really does look like everyone’s favorite Web-Slinger. Er, is this your friendly neighborhood Spider-Lizard?