A New Zealand company is hoping to strike it rich with nipple-warmers made from possum fur.

posted at 2:13 PM | link |

The goldfish did not survive the conflagration.

posted at 2:07 PM | link |

"Dear Jerry. Your Dead. Your friend, Gary Benson." Thanks for dropping me a line, pal. Jeez.

posted at 2:04 PM | link |

More dot.com casualties...

From salon.com:

John Sacrosante, who earned more than $100,000 a year as a free-lance database engineer, spent his 39th birthday last week with the "brothers" he met at the church shelter where he has been living.

I know I should feel more sorry for these guys than I do. But I don't. I mean, you make $100,000 one year and then you have no money the next year? Where did it go? If you were working 110 hours per week, how did you manage to spend it? And don't you think it might be a good idea to move somewhere where the cost of living wasn't through the roof?

posted at 1:59 PM | link |

Farscape Continues...

Television's best space opera is back after a brief hiatus. Farscape (another Saturn Award winner) returns tonight to the Sci-Fi Channel with an all-new episode entitled, "Thanks for Sharing", airing at 9:00 P.M. EST (with an encore showing at midnight). What's wrong with Talyn? Will we ever see Zhaan again? And what are they going to do with two - yes, 2 - John Crichtons?? [I could think of a few uses for them, but this is a family show - sorta]

Tune in as Season 3 of Farscape continues...

(For those of you tuning in tonight - Enjoy!)

posted at 12:51 PM | link |

At last, it's official. According to The Onion:

Vatican Declares Hours Between 3 A.M., 5:30 A.M. 'Ungodly'

V A T I C A N C I T Y-- In the first papal edict against a time of day since 1560, Pope John Paul II declared the two-and-a-half-hour interval between 3 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. "wholly ungodly." "If a man dares to come home during these demonic hours, he shall be declared anathema," said His Holiness. "Likewise, anyone calling during these hours shall face excommunication." The pope added that in some cases, devout Catholics may receive special dispensation from a priest in a different time zone.

posted at 2:16 PM | link |

What web design should be.

link courtesy usr/bin/girl

posted at 2:11 PM | link |

President Bush is mesmerized by his own reflection in the Prime Minister's glasses.

posted at 12:06 PM | link |

Well done.

The 27th Annual Saturn Awards were handed out last night, honoring excellence in science-fiction. Robert Patrick, who plays John Doggett on The X-Files, took home the award for Best Actor on Television. He was handed what was probably the hardest job on television this past year, and he knocked 'em dead. Congratulations, Mr. Patrick!

posted at 12:15 AM | link |

Oh, how embarrassing.

[can I just say that I had to smile while reading this - my mother has called the police when she couldn't contact us, and she wasn't wasted. I remember one time my sisters and I, all teenagers at the time, were home while she was at work. She tried to call and, for a reason I can't recall, she couldn't get through on the phone. Next thing we knew there was a gigantic policeman knocking on the front door, asking us if everything was alright. Sure, everything's fine, officer, except now I'm completely mortified! Well, at least she didn't call out the helicopters and dogs ;)]

K I S S I M M E E, Fla. Next time Donna Gillum isn't sure where her daughter is, she might want to call the baby sitter instead of 911.

Gillum frantically phoned the emergency line one evening earlier this month, saying she hadn't seen her daughter in an hour and was worried she'd been kidnapped, police say.

As police sent a squad car to investigate, Gillum called 911 three more times to ask for help finding the girl. Within an hour, over a dozen officers, a helicopter and police dogs were searching for the girl, said Kissimmee police investigator James Napier.

They did a door-to-door search of the building and checked with the girl's regular baby sitter, but had no luck.

"In our minds it started to look pretty bleak," Napier said.

A couple hours after the search started, however, Gillum suggested police check with another baby sitter, Napier said.

"We go over there, and the child was there," he said. "The kid said mom took her over there around 6:30 [in the evening]."

Napier said Gillum had appeared intoxicated when officers had arrived and admitted drinking nine beers in three hours before she phoned police. Gillum said she couldn't remember dropping her daughter off at the baby sitter.

She faces 3rd degree child neglect charges and police are seeking to make her pay $2,000 for the cost of the search. [abcnews]

posted at 11:28 PM | link |

Oh, crap.

Looks like I'll have to install this patch again.

posted at 10:43 PM | link |

Pope Down!

Jesus, Mary and Joseph! I thought this was real.

posted at 10:37 PM | link |

Invisibles!

This week's Invisibles quiz, Prison Blues is waiting for you. Guess what my score was - you got it, 5 out of 8 again. You can find the answers and top scores for last week's quiz here. Good luck!

posted at 10:27 PM | link |

Well, Whadya Know

Why do we say that something important is not to be sneezed at?

Sneezing was once thought to clear the mind. That was one reason why wealthy people used snuff, inducing a sneeze by sniffing the stuff. It got to the point where the idle rich in their idle conversations would frequently force a sneeze to show they were bored. By reverse logic, something important, of substance, became something that was not to be sneezed at.
[source: Why You Say It by Webb Garrison]

Why do they turn off the cabin lights on planes before takeoff?

All the better for you to see the sights outside, folks. There's nothing technical about it, and it's that simple. At night, especially, the lights are quite pretty, particularly once you're airborne and you can see them sparkle all over the city. So why don't they do blackouts for landings? Because people then are more concerned with getting their stuff together for departure.
[source: What Are Hyenas Laughing At, Anyway? By David Feldman]

Why do we say that people who get hung up on minor arguments are "quibbling?"

You'll never guess what profession is the source of this word. Yes, it's our friends the lawyers. So, how do we get from them to the word "quibble?" It's from the Latin, "quibis," a form of the word "qui," or "who." Quibis is the equivalent of "party of the first part." So to quibble, in other words, is to talk like, and therefore to act like he or she whom you should usually try to avoid at all costs.
[source: A Browser's Dictionary by John Ciardi]

posted at 10:01 PM | link |

Has it really been 5 days? My most humble apologies. Real life sort of reared its ugly head this past weekend and I gave my social life some much needed attention. Then the "cold" I was trying to shake for a week morphed into an upper respiratory infection and I've been out of commission for a couple of days, nursing my poor sick self. That's what I get for trying to have a social life!

Okay, enough of that - I'm back!

posted at 9:51 PM | link |