Volume 12, Number 42, November 11, 2007

Greetings, and thanks for joining me for another week. Starting us off are a few news stories you may have missed. First, from Reuters, a German man forgot his car after filling it up at a petrol station, police said. "He just forgot about it and walked off home," said a spokesman for police in the western city of Wuppertal. After the car had sat blocking the pump for about an hour, a woman working at the petrol station became suspicious and alerted authorities. Officers located the 63-year-old from Remscheid, who came straight back to fetch the vehicle. He had paid to fill up the car before walking off. (Yeah, he probably had to get a loan from a bank to pay for the gas.)

Next, I have to wonder if Stupid Pills were involved in this next Bit (but not for long). A couple of months ago, Matt Wilkinson admitted to KGW-TV of Portland, Ore., that he had been in a coma for three days recently and nearly died after he decided to stick his pet Eastern diamondback rattlesnake into his mouth while drinking (the tip off about liquid Stupid Pills) with some buddies: "Me, being me, I put his head in my mouth." A doctor told the station that Wilkinson barely made it to the hospital in time because his airway had nearly swollen shut from the venomous bites. Wilkinson said that the incident was "kind of" his "own stupid fault" (gee, you think?). (KGW-TV)

Finally, sue the bast… uh, sue the neighbors! Barney Vincelette, who says his autism makes loud noises sickening to him, has been feuding for several years with neighbors in Houston, Del., over their rock music. At first, he created his own sound-jammer, but a judge cut its use. Subsequently, he recorded super-annoying sounds of his own (including a foghorn) and had them written out as music ("Sonata for Calliope of Truck Horns About to Be Transcribed for Locomotive Horns Opus No. 1"), at which point the judge decided that permitting the neighbors' Bon Jovi but not Vincelette's sonata amounted to selective law enforcement, and the feuders settled their differences. (Vincelette, by the way, lives in a house shaped like a flying saucer.) [News of the Weird].

Ananova (and other news outlets carried a Bit about a new sport – something I had never heard about before). A German policeman has been crowned world champion of the hybrid sport of chessboxing (chess-boxing?). Bouts are composed of up to of 11 alternating rounds of chess and boxing. After parrying American David 'Double D' Depto's punches, Frank Stoldt clinched the light-heavyweight title with a checkmate in the seventh round. The match was fought in front of 1,200 raucous fans in Berlin in what is being touted as the ultimate in physical and mental combat. The bout was organized by the World Chess Boxing Organization which has the slogan: "Fighting is done in the ring and wars are waged on the board." The rules of the game are simple. Checkmates or knock-outs result in instant victory. Fighters also triumph if the boxing match is stopped by the referee, or if their opponent times-out at the chess board. If there is no winner after 11 rounds of punching and castling, victory is awarded to the fighter with the most points in the boxing ring. The sport has already developed a strong following in central and eastern Europe, and the WCBO plans to expand its appeal next year with exhibition events in Los Angeles (can anyone say “Reality show”?), Paris, Prague, Zurich and Moscow.

The Drudge Report offered a Bit that had me shaking my head and doing some legal research. Apparently, pupils at a Maine middle school will be able to get birth control pills and patches at their student health center after the local school board approved the proposal. The plan, offered by city health officials, makes King Middle School the first middle school in Maine to make a full range of contraception available to students in grades 6 through 8, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services. There are no national figures on how many middle schools, where most students range in age from 11 to 13, provide such services. "It's very rare that middle schools do this," said Divya Mohan, a spokeswoman for the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care. The Portland School Committee voted 5-2 for the measure. Chairman John Coynie voted against it, saying he felt providing the birth control was a parental responsibility. The other no vote came from Ben Meiklejohn, who said the consent form does not clearly define the services being offered. Opponents cited religious and health objections. (So, is the school board/district aiding and abetting rape? The laws I checked out are quite complicated (aren’t they all?), but I don’t think any condoned the above.)

The US is not the only country with the population worried about crime. The New York Times carried a Bit about some Japanese fashion innovation to help rein in their crime. Despite falling crime rates, the Japanese are becoming more fearful of crime, so the marketplace is responding. For instance, there's a new dress for women: if they're afraid they're being pursued, they can put themselves against a wall and pull a panel out of their dress that disguises them -- as a vending machine. Also available: a handbag that unfolds into a manhole cover: women can flip it open and toss it into the street. Thieves will supposedly think it's an iron disk and not pick it up and find the owner's wallet. For children, there's a backpack that unfolds into a fire hydrant so the
child can hide inside. Creative, eh?

At least they were responsible pet owners…. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that when a 30-inch red-tailed boa constrictor was stolen from a pet store in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, police had little to go on despite a security camera video showing a 15-year-old boy putting the $300 snake in his jacket and walking out of the store, with his mother acting as a lookout. But there came a break in the case: the next day, the boy and his mother allegedly came back to the store. Employees instantly recognized the pair, in part because they were wearing the exact same clothing. The snake-napers were there to find out what kind of boa it was, to get books on how to care for boas, and to buy food for the snake. Employees chatted with them until police arrived. Sebrina Hill, 35, and her unnamed son were arrested on theft charges, and the snake was recovered from their home.

Finally, some facts that you can use during a lull in the conversation or as effective pick-up lines: (1) A rat can last longer without water than a camel. (2) Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks, otherwise it will digest itself. (3) A 2x4 is actually 1-1/2" x 3-1/2". (4) The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor who had red eyes. He was an albino. (I have no confirmation on that one, but there are a bunch of interesting facts if you search 7 up in Wikipedia.) (5) 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals. (6) Most lipstick contains fish scales. (7) Daniel Boone detested coonskin caps.

Later.