According to the latest edition of the journal Nature, baby orcas and bottlenose dolphins don't sleep at all for the first few weeks of their lives, but stay in constant motion, until gradually "growing" into regular periods of rest. They are the only mammals that can go without sleep. The science is interesting. But I'd like them to be able to bottle just a little of that...


http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v435/n7046/index.html

Recently, coming back from a gathering at the house of a friend, my girlfriend and I were stricken with hunger and a sudden craving for donuts. (Or perhaps "doughnuts.") As it happened, we were driving past Dunkin' Donuts at the time. (Which of course had absolutely no influence on our sudden craving.) Best of all, it was a Dunkin' Donuts adorned with a large flambouyant banner which proudly proclaimed that the pick-up window was open twenty four hours!

Naturally we pulled around to order donuts. We were happy. We were hungry. We were ready for a treat. We were about to be disappointed. The conversation went something like this:

My girlfriend: "Can I have a chocolate frosted donut?"
Employee: "We don't have donuts."
My girlfriend: "How about a milkshake?"
Employee: "All of our machines are off."

This is when we drove away. Apparantly, they may be open twenty four hours, but in the middle of the night they only offer conversation. If you're lonely and looking for someone to talk to, and if you don't want anything at all like a donut, you can check them out. :)

Very few hobbies go together as well as Legos and Star Wars... Take, for example, the Lego Star Destroyer... It has over 3,000 pieces, measures 37x23 inches (over 3 feet long!), and is one of - if not the - biggest Lego models sold...

So what does it take to build such a Lego model? Well, Michi and Edda will not just tell you, they'll show you! They started around midnight on a Saturday night and recorded the whole thing using their webcam... Ten hours later, they have a great 4-minute stop action video of the whole thing! (Medium [12MB] and High [32MB] quality versions of the video are available)

Cool!

(I showed this to the Wife and mentioned the fun we could have... She reminded me it took Tim Skirven 20.5 hours to build it - by himself!)

Be sure and cancel your credit cards before you die. This is so priceless, and so easy to see happening, customer service being what it is today.

A lady died this past January, and Citibank billed her for February and March for their annual service charges on her credit card, and then added late fees and interest on the monthly charge. The balance had been $0.00, now is somewhere around $60.00. A family member placed a call to Citibank:
Family Member: "I am calling to tell you that she died in January."
Citibank: "The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply."
Family Member: "Maybe, you should turn it over to collections."
Citibank: "Since it is two months past due, it already has been."
Family Member: So, what will they do when they find out she is dead?"
Citibank: "Either report her account to the frauds division or report her to the credit bureau, maybe both!"
Family Member: "Do you think God will be mad at her?"
Citibank: "Excuse me?"
Family Member: "Did you just get what I was telling you - the part about her being dead?"
Citibank: "Sir, you'll have to speak to my supervisor."

Supervisor gets on the phone:

Family Member: "I'm calling to tell you, she died in January."
Citibank: "The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply."
Family Member: "You mean you want to collect from her estate?"
Citibank: (Stammer) "Are you her lawyer?"
Family Member: "No, I'm her great nephew." (Lawyer info given)
Citibank: "Could you fax us a certificate of death?"
Family Member: "Sure." (fax number is given)

After they get the fax:

Citibank: "Our system just isn't set-up for death. I don't know what more I can do to help."
Family Member: "Well, if you figure it out, great! If not, you could just keep billing her. I don't think she will care."
Citibank: "Well, the late fees and charges do still apply."
Family Member: "Would you like her new billing address?"
Citibank: "That might help."
Family Member: "Odessa Memorial Cemetery, Highway 129, Plot Number 69."
Citibank: "Sir, that's a cemetery!"
Family Member: "What do you do with dead people on your planet?

I was having trouble with my computer. So I called Bob the computer guy, to come over. Bob clicked a couple of buttons and solved the problem. He gave me a bill for a minimum service call.

As he was walking away, I called after him, "So, what was wrong?" He replied, "It was an ID ten T error."

I didn't want to appear stupid, but nonetheless inquired, "An, ID ten T error? What's that, in case I need to fix it again?"

The computer guy grinned.... "Haven't you ever heard of an ID ten T error before?"

"No," I replied.

"Write it down," he said, "and I think you'll figure it out."

So I wrote out.... I D 1 0 T

I used to like Bob!

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono wanted to let people know he was listening to their issues... So he came up with an idea for people having problems with bureaucracy to complain directly to him - he gave his cell phone number during a meeting with farmers and fishermen in the West Java town of Purwakarta... That meeting was being broadcast live all over the country... By the next day he had received thousands of short text messages from people complaining about a wide variety of issues: delay of salary payments, land disputes, lack of service within the bureaucracy, the high cost of living, corruption, chaotic traffic conditions, and many more... So many complaints, in fact, that they overloaded his cell phone! "We apologize to all Indonesian people over this happening," Andi Alfian Mallarangeng, a presidential spokesman, said... "We are trying to find out ways of creating a system that is able to accommodate such a high number of messages..."

(I wonder what would have happened had he been using a Verizon phone?)

If you are hard pressed for time, don't read any further - it will only lead to your missing deadlines or spending an inordinate amount of time in front of the computer...

For everyone else, check out the games over at The Sect of Homokaasu (.org)... My favorite is Gravity - drop an "atom" into a field with an ever increasing number of gravity wells and see if it survives long enough to get you to the next level... Constellations is also fun - you have to connect the "stars" into a constellation of sufficient length... Plus about 25 others! There is even (though I have not tried it yet) a game called Spastic Chess... All equally addicting, easy to learn, and suspiciously involving intelligent thought... No first person shooters here, the only pain inflicted will be upon the poor neurons in your brain!

And if you have to leave the games, the rest of the Homokaasu.org web site is quirky enough to attract interest... The site is Finnish - not that that is important, but it might help to explain The Kill Everyone Project, the goal of which is to "virtually" eliminate the entire human population through the donation of mouse clicks (4.8 million donated so far)... Then there is the Global Stupidity Advisory System to alert you to level of stupidity in the world (we are apparently at color code red for "Severe" risk of stupidity)... There is also the Gematriculator, which uses Gematria to tell how good or evil a web site is (This one is currently (apparently) 69% good - I'm not sure what the other 31% is up to, but I'll deal with it later)...

I have not been through everything, so no telling what else is out there...

(Now, if you will excuse me, I need to give level 6 a try in Gravity...)

Got Legos? Well now there is a magazine for you! LegoFan.com has come out with BrickJournal - the magazine for for Adult Fans of Lego... Published quarterly, the magzine will cover lego models, the people who build them, and where you can meet others with a lego "habit"... They even made the first issue available online as a PDF! It include Lego news, how to build the space ships of the move 2001 - A Space Odyssey, how to build a 17-foot bridge, and more! So break out the lego blocks, clear off a space on the floor, and let's get building!

Ah, summer! Time for little league! Unless, that is, you were "unlucky" enough to join the Stars team in Columbus, Ohio! The Stars have been kicked out of the Canal Winchester Joint Recreation District's suburban baseball league for 11 and 12 year olds and now have no one to play ball with... Why? Bacause they won!

The 14 boys joined the league in early May and won their first 5 games 18-0, 13-0, 24-0, 10-2 and 17-6! "Our boys went into this with a good attitude," said Darla Perry, whose son R.J., 11 played for the Stars... "It's turned into a disaster..."

First people said the team was really made of older boys - so the boys brought their birth certificates to prove their age... Then they were accused of being an "all-star" team from lots of neighborhoods all around the city - so the boys brought documents to show that all but one of them live in the same zip code... And then people just would not play them anymore... "I called up the league office and said, 'No way are we going to play them,'" Terry Morris, who coaches another team in the division, said... "I wasn't going to subject my players to that..." Trina Cochran, mother of 11-year-old Stars player Mario heard more of the same saying, "[Another] team told us they didn't want their boys' self-esteem battered..."

Now the boys are home with no team... "I don't think it's fair," said Stars player Michael Allston, age 12... "We always played our best, and we were just winning games."

(What a message for today's kids: Do your best, but not if you win all the time... And if you have to play someone you think is better than you, you should first complain and then - if that doesn't work - just take your ball and go home... I wonder what would happen if this attitude made it into professional sports or the business world?)

Seeing two big, global companies duke it out is always fun to watch... Sometimes, if you get caught in the middle of it, it can be lucrative too! Take, for example, the owner of a small laundry business in Paris near the Place de l’Etoile... Sony opened a nice new PSP showroom called The Factory right across the street... Microsoft, knowing that the PSP is not available in Europe yet and much preferring people buy the Xbox 360 this fall rather than a PSP, payed the laundry owner to decorate his storefront with big Xbox 360 signs... This is where it gets to be profitable - Sony sees the ads and pays the owner even more to take the signs down!

(Why can't someone pay me to stop what i'm being paid to do?)

Guidant has announced a recall of over 50,000 of their products that could be faulty... No big deal, right? Recalls happen all the time, right? Well in this case Guidant is recalling 50,000 cardiac defibrillators that have been implanted into people! That's gotta hurt! First you have a bad heart, then they operate on you to fix it with a defibrillator, and now they have to operate again to take the defibrillator out!

(Ouch and Double Ouch!)

If you send this message off to 20 people within the next 4 days, and each of them send this letter off to 20 other people within 4 days...

In 40 days, approximately 10 trillion of these messages will cross the Internet.

From day 40 to day 44, an additional 200 trillion of these messages will cross the Internet, at an average of 50 trillion messages per day.

From day 44 to 48, an additional 4,000 trillion of these messages will cross the Internet, at an average of 1,000 trillion messages a day, 41.7 trillion messages per hour, 694 billion messages per minute, or 11.6 billion messages per second.

Of course, the Internet will have ground to a complete halt way before then, and a good thing too, because by day 44 (assuming each man, woman and child in the world is tied to the Internet) you would have to respond to about 2 chain mail letters per second, sending off 20 responses each second, giving you 5/100 of a second to send each message. If you drop the ball, you will break about 1,800,000 chain letters per day, bringing almost two million times the bad luck upon yourself than if you broke the first chain letter to begin with.

The logical conclusion? It is better to break the initial chain letter and receive one dose of bad luck than to continue the chain letter, and by day 44, receive 1,800,000 doses of bad luck.

I knew one poor fellow who ended up in such a circumstance. He ended up having 287,345 heart attacks, losing 5,137 wives, got fired from at least 100,000 jobs, and was run over by a truck. His Visa card was also revoked. Nobody liked him anymore. He finally ended up committing suicide 459 times, but he was so unlucky, he was never successful. Finally, he resigned to the idea of not dying, and was immediately hit by a meteorite and vaporized. But his cells went on to experience even more bad luck.

Quotes on Fathers and Fatherhood:

• My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, "You're tearing up the grass." "We're not raising grass," Dad would reply. "We're raising boys." (Harmon Killebrew)
• He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it. (Clarence Budington Kelland)
• One father is more than a hundred Schoolemasters. (George Herbert, Outlandish Proverbs, 1640)
• By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong. (Charles Wadsworth)
• Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope. (Bill Cosby)
• A father carries pictures where his money used to be. (Author Unknown)
• When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. (Mark Twain)
• It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder and violence every single day should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge. (Phyllis Diller)
• When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry. (Jewish Proverb)
• Spread the diaper in the position of the diamond with you at bat. Then fold second base down to home and set the baby on the pitcher's mound. Put first base and third together, bring up home plate and pin the three together. Of course, in case of rain, you gotta call the game and start all over again. (Jimmy Piersal, on how to diaper a baby, 1968)

How happy are you? Would you say you are happy generally or less so? How about your friends and neighbors? Ask enough people and you start getting some interesting results... Take those results and perform a statistical analysis of them and you have the World Database of Happiness by Ruut Veenhoven at the Erasmus University Rotterdam... The World Database of Happiness was started back in the 1990s and tracks statistical data on the happiness of people in over 90 countries around the world... And that's where it gets interesting...

There is a section for Distributional Findings in Nations - a subjective appreciation of life-as-a-whole based on the average happiness established in surveys performed in each nation each year... The list of nations and how happy people are likely to be over their lives is quite interesting... Want a good chance at being happy most of your life? Move to Switzerland, Malta, Iceland, Denmark, or Canada - all nations where people are estimated to have over 60 Happy Life Years... Like being a pessimist? Might want to move to Angola, Tamzania, or Zimbabwe - countries where people are estimated to have fewer than 20 Happy Life Years...

(The United States ranks in the middle of the pack with about 57 Happy Life Years...)

Is your monitor or LCD a little dirty? Can't see your windows for the fingerprints? Help is on the way! Now you can have your screen cleaned online any time you want! Just visit http://www.clean-your-screen-for-free-now.com, sit back, and watch the masters at work...

(Have fun!)

Just remember, sometimes it's the little questions that are the hardest to handle...

Nathan C. Woodard and Nathaniel A. Gorlin-Crenshaw of Amherst, Massachusetts, were out to prove a point... The two 8th graders from Amherst Regional Middle School wanted to show that BB guns are dangerous and should not be used by children... So they spend several months on a science project to prove just that! And this was no posterboard simple project - they compiled reams of research and spent $200 on ballistics gelatin, which has the same density and consistency as human flesh (and shows up on so many CSI episodes), and used it in their (parent supervised) experiments...

Unfortunately, they were disqualified from the state middle school science fair just 10 days before the show... Why? Because BB guns are too dangerous and shouldn't be used by kids!!! Nancy G. Degon, vice president of Massachusetts State Science Fair Inc. and co-chair of the middle-school fair, said "The scientific review committee does not consider science projects involving firearms to be safe for middle school students..."

As a token, the boys were invited to present their findings to judges outside the competition so they could receive a certificate of accomplishment, but they rejected the offer because they were not allowed to compete... "I was really disappointed," Nathan Woodard said... "We had a good point to prove..."

(Apparently the boys proved two good points: (1) BB guns are dangerous and (2) some adults completely miss the point!)

How much do you know about your birthday? Check out the Birthday Calculator at http://www.paulsadowski.com/birthday.asp to find out if you knew as much as you thought! It has all those little details like the day of the week you were born on, your Life path number, the golden number and epact number for the year and more... It will even tell you how many months, day, hours, and second old you are!

But those aren't the most interesting part! Ever consider how many candles are going to be on your next birthday cake? The Birthday Calculator will not only tell you how many BTUs of heat those candles will put out, it will tell you how many ounces of water you could boil with that many candles! Think of the fun you could have with that next time your friends or family have a birthday!

Now that this year's hurricane season is officially underway, and Arlene is drenching the Gulf Coast...
For all of us who lived through last year's hurricane season and developed that peculiar sense of humor..... and for anyone else who is curious....
This year when the storms come and the electricity goes off, put some batteries in the flashlights and get ready to play Hunker Down...

http://www.hunkerdowngame.com/

An 86-year-old woman was arrested after she continuously called 911 dispatchers — 20 times in a little more than 30 minutes — to complain that a local pizza parlor wouldn't deliver to her Charlotte apartment.

According to a recent AP story, the woman called 911 to report that a local restaurant would not deliver a pizza to her. She also complained that someone at the shop called her a "crazy old coot," according to police.

The elderly woman wanted shop employees arrested. Instead, when police came to arrest her for misusing the emergency number after being repeatedly warned to stop calling, the 5-foot-tall, 98-pound woman attacked the police officer — scratching him, kicking him, and biting his hand. That's when she was jailed.

It was not reported if pizza is served at the Charlotte city jail.

This was in the "Bob Levey's Washington" column in the Washington Post. Every year he compiles and prints the "Best T-shirts of the Summer":

• (around a picture of dandelions) I Fought the Lawn and the Lawn Won
• So Many Men, So Few Who Can Afford Me
• I Suffer Occasional Delusions of Adequacy
• God Made Us Sisters, Prozac Made Us Friends
• If They Don't Have Chocolate In Heaven, I Ain't Going
• At My Age, I've Seen It All, Done It All, Heard It All . . . I Just Can't Remember It All
• My Mother Is A Travel Agent For Guilt Trips
• I Just Do What The Voices Inside My Head Tell Me To Do
• If It's Called Tourist Season, Why Can't We Hunt Them?
• Princess, Having Had Sufficient Experience With Princes, Seeks Frog
• No, It Doesn't Hurt (on a "well-tattooed gentleman")
• (on the back of a passing motorcyclist) If You Can Read This, My Wife Fell Off
• I Used To Be Schizophrenic, But We're OK Now
• Veni, Vedi, Visa: I came. I Saw. I Did a Little Shopping.
• What If The Hokey Pokey Really Is What It's All About?
• I Didn't Climb to the Top of the Food Chain to Be a Vegetarian
• Coffee, Chocolate, Men . . . Some Things Are Just Better Rich
• Liberal Arts Major . . . Will Think For Money
• Growing Old is Inevitable; Growing Up is Optional
• IRS — Be Audit You Can Be
• Gravity. It's Not Just a Good Idea. It's the Law.
• If You Want Breakfast In Bed, Sleep In the Kitchen
• The Old Pro. Often Wrong — Never in Doubt
• If At First You Don't Succeed, Skydiving Isn't For You
• Old Age Comes at a Bad Time
• In America, Anyone Can Be President. That's One of the Risks You Take.
• First Things First, but Not Necessarily in That Order.

Have you read ’Αρειος Ποτηρ? Can you read ’Αρειος Ποτηρ?

For those of you able to read Ancient Greek, Andrew Wilson and Bloomsbury Publishers have provided a translation of the first book in J.K. Rowlings' Harry Potter series so that you can have some fun exercise for your linguistic skills. Read all about young "Warrior Cup," ("Harry Potter" translated into Greek, then back into English,) the boy who survived an attack by "Scaly Death," (Voldemort).

For those of you who have spent time and energy learning other dead or less common languages instead of Ancient Greek, Bloomsbury has also thoughtfully translated the book into Latin, Irish Gaelic, and Welsh.

Here are some of our favorite "warning labels" attached to real products:
• Sign on the side of a massage chair: "Do not use massage chair without clothing."
• "Do not use snow blower on the roof."
• "Do not allow children to play in the dishwasher."
• A warning on an electric router made for carpenters: "This product not intended for use as a dental drill."
• On a baby stroller: "Remove child before folding."
• On a bottle of prescription sleeping pills: "Warning: May cause drowsiness."
• A sticker on a toilet at a public facility in Ann Arbor, Michigan: "Recycled flush water unsafe for drinking."
• An "Aim-n-Flame" fireplace lighter cautions: "Do not use near fire, flame, or sparks."
• On a cartridge for a laser printer: "Do not eat toner."
• On a household iron warns: "Never iron clothes while they are being worn."
• On a blanket from Taiwan: "Not to be used as protection from a tornado"
• On a Taiwanese shampoo bottle: "Use repeatedly for severe damage"
• On a hairdryer: "Do not use while sleeping"
• On a bag of corn chips: "You could be a winner! No purchase necessary. Details inside."
• On a bar of Dial soap: "Directions: Use like regular soap."
• On Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding: "Product will be hot after heating"
• On a Korean kitchen knife: Warning: Keep out of children"
• On a string of Chinese-made Christmas lights: "For indoor or outdoor use only"
• On a Superman Halloween Costume: "This costume will not enable your children to fly"

Ah, what's in a name... Well, now you can find out... Behind The Name will not only tell you what someone's first name means, it will also tell you some of the history behind the name, what languages the name is most common to, and other interesting info... You can even see lists of famous people who share the same name! Pretty cool!

Costello calls Abbott to buy a computer...

ABBOTT	Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO	Thanks. I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking about buying a computer.
ABBOTT	Mac?
COSTELLO	No, the name's Lou.
ABBOTT	Your computer?
COSTELLO	I don't own a computer. I want to buy one.
ABBOTT	Mac?
COSTELLO	I told you, my name's Lou.
ABBOTT	What about Windows?
COSTELLO	Why? Will it get stuffy in here?
ABBOTT	Do you want a computer with Windows?
COSTELLO	I don't know. What will I see when I look at the windows?
ABBOTT	Wallpaper.
COSTELLO	Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.

ABBOTT	Software for Windows?
COSTELLO	No. On the computer. I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?
ABBOTT	Office.
COSTELLO	Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?
ABBOTT	I just did.
COSTELLO	You just did what?
ABBOTT	Recommend something.
COSTELLO	You recommended something?
ABBOTT	Yes.
COSTELLO	For my office?
ABBOTT	Yes.
COSTELLO	OK, what did you recommend for my office?
ABBOTT	Office.
COSTELLO	Yes, for my office.
ABBOTT	I recommend Office with Windows.
COSTELLO	I already have an office with windows. OK, let's just say I'm sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?
ABBOTT	Word.
COSTELLO	What word?
ABBOTT	Word in Office.
COSTELLO	The only word in office is office.
ABBOTT	The Word in Office for Windows.
COSTELLO	Which word in office for windows?
ABBOTT	The Word you get when you click the blue "W".
COSTELLO	I'm going to click your blue "w" if you don't start with some straight answers. OK, forget that. Can I watch movies on the Internet?
ABBOTT	Yes, you want Real One.
COSTELLO	Maybe a real one, maybe a cartoon. What I watch is none of your business. Just tell me what I need.
ABBOTT	Real One.
COSTELLO	If it's a long movie, I also want to watch reels 2, 3 and 4. Can I watch them?
ABBOTT	Of course.
COSTELLO	Great. With what?
ABBOTT	Real One.
COSTELLO	OK, I'm at my computer and I want to watch a movie. What do I do?
ABBOTT	You click the blue "1".
COSTELLO	I click the blue one what?
ABBOTT	The blue "1".
COSTELLO	Is that different from the blue w?
ABBOTT	The blue "1" is Real One and the blue "W" is Word.
COSTELLO	What word?
ABBOTT	The Word in Office for Windows.
COSTELLO	But there are three words in "office for windows".
ABBOTT	No, just one. But it's the most popular Word in the world.
COSTELLO	It is?
ABBOTT	Yes, but to be fair, there aren't many other Words left. It pretty much wiped out all the other Words out there.
COSTELLO	And that word is real one?
ABBOTT	Real One has nothing to do with Word. Real One isn't even part of Office.
COSTELLO	STOP. Don't start that again. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?
ABBOTT	Money.
COSTELLO	That's right. What do you have?
ABBOTT	Money.
COSTELLO	I need money to track my money?
ABBOTT	It comes bundled with your computer.
COSTELLO	What's bundled with my computer?
ABBOTT	Money.
COSTELLO	Money comes with my computer?
ABBOTT	Yes. No extra charge.
COSTELLO	I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?
ABBOTT	One copy.
COSTELLO	Isn't it illegal to copy money?
ABBOTT	Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.
COSTELLO	They can give you a license to copy money?
ABBOTT	Why not? They own it.

(A few days later)

ABBOTT	Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO	How do I turn my computer off?
ABBOTT	Click on "START"...

Like herring? Like fermented herring? The Swedes do! They like it so much they opened a museum dedicated to the Swedish delicacy of fermented Baltic herring! Known as surstroemming in Swedish, the dish is known for its pungent odor... Traditionally eaten in August, the herring is caught in late spring and placed in a salt mixture in wooden barrels for several days before being moved into the sun for several months to ferment... Even lovers of the dish recommend that the tins be opened outdoors...

"This is the only place in the world where herring is eaten this way. We want to show off our culture," said Sten Bylin, the project leader for the Surstroemming Museum in Skeppsmalen... The museum gives visitors a historical, cultural and culinary overview of the dish as well as an opportunity to taste it... Or, for the faint of heart (or stomach) the museum offers a "sniffing box" where the lift of a cork gives you a whiff...

Driving down the road today we passed a truck carrying one of those big dumpsters often seen used for site debris and other large jobs... The unusual thing was the trash it was carrying... Along with a desk, some drywall, and assorted building debris was an old beat-up car!

(You might be a redneck if your construction debris includes ... )

Forget boxers verses briefs - the latest trends these days are thongs and g-strings... And that's a pain in the butt! Literally! Gynecologist Thomas Gent of the Association of Gynaecologists in Hamburg says he has seen a huge increase in the number of women suffering problems, with friction caused by thong and g-string underwear often to blame... He goes as far as calling for a ban on thongs...

Anthony Rutherford, a consultant gynecologist at Leeds General Infirmary in Britain has also denounced the fashion trend... "If your G-string is worn too tight or it rolls up then that might be uncomfortable and wearing that with a tight pair of jeans might cause soreness," he said...

Glen B. Germain Jr., 19, of Warrensburg, New York, needs to plan ahead a little better next time... It was 4 AM and he was siphoning gas from a dump truck at a business in the Adirondacks... It being dark, he couldn't see how close he was to filling his container... So he used his lighter to check his progress! Needless to say, fire ensued... "He panicked and couldn't put out the fire so he fled the scene," Sheriff's Investigator Kibby French said... While Germain did burn off his goatee and suffered minor burns on his hands, the fire destroyed a nearby forklift...

From the BBC on June 1st: