Odds and Ends

WILMINGTON, Del. -- A vanity license tag chosen as a gag has left its owner holding the bag.

Jim Cara thought the "NOTAG" plate he got for his Suzuki motorcycle would give people a laugh. Instead, he found that the joke - along with more than 200 parking violations - was on him.

The new tag arrived in the mail Saturday, along with an avalanche of city parking violations.

"All the traffic tickets say, 'Notice of violation. License number: no tag,"' Cara explained.

Officials said city computers linked to state Division of Motor Vehicles computers finally found an address for ticketed vehicles that lacked license tags: Cara's home in Elsmere.

"I messed up the system so bad," Cara said. "I wonder if they can put me in jail or something?"

Cara, 43, who works for the American Motorcycle Association, said he's been a lifelong prankster. This time, though, "the cleanup is going to be worse than the joke," he said.

An incorrect computer code used by the contractor that processes the city's parking violations helped land the tickets in Cara's mail, according to John Rago, a spokesman for Wilmington Mayor James Baker. City officials plan to have it corrected, he said.

Fortunately for Cara, Wilmington appeared to be the only jurisdiction with the no-tag computer glitch, said Kelly Pitts, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation.

Pitts said Cara's best insurance against future problems would be to change the "NOTAG" plate.

No way, said Cara. "I think it's awesome."

STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Organizers of a race for homing pigeons are still scratching their heads in wonder after about 75 percent of the birds - famous for their ability to find their way home - went missing during the contest.

Of the 2,000 pigeons let loose Sunday, only about 500 have returned to their lofts after the 93-mile flight between the cities of Ljungby and Malmoe in southern Sweden, said Lars-Aake Nilsson of the Malmoe Homing Pigeon Club.

"The weather was perfect - no rain, no thunder and no strong winds," he said.

In past races, the birds, all of which sport electronic identification tags around their feet, made the journey in about two hours.

But this time, something went terribly wrong.

"I have worked with pigeons since 1960 and have never experienced anything like this," Nilsson said, adding the birds might have been thrown off course by subtle changes in the earth's magnetic field.

The pigeons have a natural homing instinct and are believed to navigate by the sun and the magnetic waves of the earth, Nilsson said.

"And even though some are lost to hawks or hazards like power lines along the way, many more should have made it back home. It's a mystery," he added.

He said there have been no reported sightings of the missing birds anywhere in southern Sweden. He declined to say how much the birds were worth.

"It's not so much the economic value as it is a loss to the sport," Nilsson said. "It takes about two years to breed a racing pigeon."

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- A 16-foot-long Burmese python was captured on a city street after a passing motorist spotted about three feet of it hanging over a curb and called police.

The brown-and-yellow snake was wrestled into a body bag and taken to the home of Animal Control Officer Bruce Dangerfield.

"This is a very irresponsible owner to let something loose like this," Dangerfield said of the capture late Wednesday. "Either it escaped - all snakes are escape artists - or someone let it loose."

Dangerfield said he has picked up dozens of loose Burmese pythons and boa constrictors over the years, but this was the biggest.

Dangerfield said the responsibilities that come with owning a giant reptile become too much for some people. Within a few years, a 20-inch hatchling bought for $100 at a pet store will become a rabbit-munching giant.

"Some people should just watch Animal Channel or something, not own one," he said.

The snake will probably be euthanized if its owner doesn't come forward, said Ilke Daniel of the Humane Society.

"There is such overpopulation, no zoo wants them," she said.