Datecheck, a new iphone application, will enable daters to check the backgrounds of potential mates.

People in the dating scene will be able to use iPhones as "sleaze detectors" to quickly check whether aspiring mates are creeps or gems.

From the department of "now I've seen everything", recent college graduate Trina Cherisse Thompson is suing her college because they can't find her a job.

Reading the complaint [PDF], it looks like she should be suing her high school as well, for failing to teach her the basics of spelling and grammar. The 27-year old C-student with excellent attendance is "sueing" for a "reinbursement" of her entire 4-year "tutision" plus damages because she actually had to look for a job on her own. She alleges that the college hasn't even been able to get her "a interview".

Whomever invented this kid repellent:

A wall-mounted gadget designed to drive away loiterers with a shrill, piercing noise audible only to teens and young adults is infuriating civil liberties groups and tormenting young people after being introduced into the United States. . .

The high-frequency sound has been likened to fingernails dragged across a chalkboard or a pesky mosquito buzzing in your ear. It can be heard by most people in their teens and early 20s who still have sensitive hair cells in their inner ears.

Parking enforcement, Washington D.C. style:

You get birthday gifts wrapped like this...

No shit.

I saw this plate on a shiny blue Ford Mustang with racing stripes:

Gotta have one of these

(Click pic for more info)

Heh. Saw one of these on the ride home from work tonight.

They probably have a "Gun Free House" sign in their front yard too.

Since when did Wendy's start using Violent Femme's riffs in their songs. When I listened to the Femmes over 20 years ago they were anything but mainstream. And do we really need cheeseburger commercials playing songs about masturbation* and getting high?

When I'm out walkin' I strut my stuff
Man, I'm so strung out
I'm high as a kite and I just might stop to check you out

Let me go on like I blister in the sun
Let me go on big hands I know you're the one

Body and heat I stain my sheets
I don't even know why
My girlfriend she's at the end and she is starting to cry...

It's funny how sometimes you just find things. I was skimming the Washington Post when I got the sudden urge to go get a haircut. Paradise Cuts in Fairfax provides stylists in slinky bikinis in a calming beach-like environment. Oh yeah, I'm there.

(click for larger photo of girls in bikinis)

So I'm searching google for better photos of girls in bikinis. Okay, actually I'm googling Paradise Cuts to see if they have a web site. They do but they've never heard of meta tags, so the number one hit for unquoted Paradise+Cuts is this guy. He wrote an article back in April about a similar outfit in Salem, NH, where they'll cut your hair in lingerie. (Sometimes it's good to be a man.)

Any way, for shits and giggles I check out his main page and this was at the top of the list. . .

Jesus Image Found in Dog's Butt

"Are you ashamed to visit swimming pools because of your small penis?"

Allstate will replace Nokia as the sponsor of the Sugar Bowl. The new deal makes me wonder just how sweet the Sugar Bowl will remain. Will it cease being the Suger Bowl and become the You're in Good Hands with All-State Insurance Bowl?

It wouldn't be the first time that bowls have dumped their historical roots in pursuit of the almighty dollar. Starting this year, the Chick-fil-a Peach Bowl will no longer be Peachy. Chick-fil-a, who still won't open their restaurants on Sundays, decided that the 'Peach' moniker is not too sacred to remove from the 9th oldest bowl in the history of college football. From now on, I'll just call it the Fried Chicken Sammich Bowl.

I love capitalism, but I detest the overkill of corporate sponsorships. For one thing, other than raise brand identity it does nothing to make me want to buy their products. Furthermore they rotate the sponsorships so much, it makes it harder to keep track of the bowls. Should Nokia sponsor another bowl, would people confuse it with the Sugar Bowl? And what happens if Chick-fil-a loses the contract with the Peach Bowl? Will it just be 'Bowl'?

And some sponsorships are just embarassing. In 1993, Virginia Tech started their modern bowl run in the Poulan Weed-eater Independence Bowl. As a student there I was proud that we were going to a bowl, while at the same time ashamed to admit it was the "Weed-whacker Bowl". And where do we draw the line? Suppose Pfizer wants to sponsor a bowl and call it the Viagra Bowl.

The crooks that manage Atlanta's airport have spent years debating on whether or not to auction the names to the airport concourses. Imagine getting your plane ticket and being told to go to gate 35 on the "Home Depot Concourse". Where does it end?

UPDATE: Oh God. The Chicken Sammich Bowl has second pick in the ACC now.

Heh. A conservative dating service. What a novel idea.

How much would you pay to sleep in a gym? How about if they threw in unlimited free bowling? If you said "I'd pay $50,000 a night," maybe you can stay at the stupidest hotel in Las Vegas.

(Click to Supersize)

(Click to Supersize)

The suites just opened on New Years Eve, but so far renters have included Hulk Hogan, Carmen Electra, Chris Webber, and Dennis Rodman.

I guess they don't mind sleeping in a room that smells like feet.

Developers are concerned that the house numbering scheme mandated by Alameda County is violates the ancient Chinese tradition of feng shui and will scare buyers away.

Under a numbering system established by Alameda County in the 1950s, addresses are assigned based on how far the homes are from downtown Oakland. The method puts five digits on almost every mailbox in Hayward and other cities in the county.

The numbers have always been hard to remember. But home developers recently raised concerns they may decrease property values because the odds are greater that an address will carry a combination considered unlucky by feng shui practitioners.

How could these guys not see this coming? (5.59 MB Video) (The video is safe for work, but the link may contain some 'questionable' ad banners)

This will never work:

Jarry Slaughter, an Oklahoma Transportation Authority engineer, has posted speed limit signs of 17 mph at three toll plazas that are under construction.

He said he can't scientifically measure the effectiveness of the unusual speed limit, but he's convinced it works.

Having Mr. T bark orders at you while you drive would be pretty cool, for about 15 seconds.

Everything he tells you to do -- everything -- starts with "Hey, Fool!" That's true even when he's telling you to do something dumb, like drive onto the lower level of the Queensboro Bridge when the upper level is the one you need.

California company NavTones has contracted with Mr. T and the actors Burt Reynolds and Dennis Hopper to record voices that can be loaded into navigation systems, giving your driving directions a little extra personality. More voices are coming, the company said.

Now this (3.4 MB Video) is how you do Christmas lights.

(Hopefully this won't completely kill my bandwidth.)

UPDATE: Snopes can't debunk the video, so it may be real. They also link to another video to a different song.

"Good people shouldn't be afraid. If you're a good person and you're not doing drugs, walk with confidence." -- Mary Wolf, the Mayor of Williamsport (PA) after a rash of shootings in October. Her words inspired the T-shirt warding off attackers.

When Senator Strom Thurmond turned 100, Majority Leader Trent Lott, a Republican, complimented him as part of a birthday party toast. Thurmond was a former Dixiecrat and segregationist, and the ensuing media furor resulted in Lott losing his Senate leadership position.

We'll wait and see if a similar furor erupts over Senator Hillary Clinton's fawning of Robert Byrd, an ex Klansman, at the historic home of a civil rights pioneer.

"It's outrageous and shocking that Senator Clinton and her Democrat colleagues would choose Frederick Douglass' house to honor Senator Robert Byrd, who has a history of involvement with hate groups and has used racial slurs publicly," [New York Senate candidate Jeanine] Pirro spokeswoman Andrea Tantaros told the Associated Press...

Byrd joined the Klan in 1943 and rose the level of Kleagle before being unanimously elected to the office of Grand Cyclops. He claims to have resigned a few months later. But in 1946 Byrd wrote the Klan's Grand Imperial Wizard to express his support.

"Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth," the top Democrat urged.

Byrd led the filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and called notorious white supremacist Sen. Richard B. Russell, who was chiefly remembered for blocking anti-lynching legislation, "my mentor." In 1972 Byrd sponsored legislation to name the Senate's main office building after Russell.

As recently as 2001, the West Virginia Democrat was still using the N-word in television interviews.

"North Korea propaganda fails to crush humanity" -- Reuters headline, November 4, 2005.

Neuticles - Prosthetic testicles for dogs that have been "fixed".

And I thought it was Bush who had the weather machine.

An Idaho weatherman says Japan's Yakuza mafia used a Russian-made electromagnetic generator to cause Hurricane Katrina in a bid to avenge itself for the Hiroshima atom bomb attack � and that this technology will soon be wielded again to hit another U.S. city.
Meteorologist Scott Stevens, a nine-year veteran of KPVI-TV in Pocatello, said he was struggling to forecast weather patterns starting in 1998 when he discovered the theory on the Internet. It's now detailed on Stevens' website, www.weatherwars.info, the Idaho Falls Post Register reported.

Stevens, who is among several people to offer alternative and generally discounted theories for the storm that flooded New Orleans, says a little-known oversight in physical laws makes it possible to create and control storms � especially if you're armed with the Cold War-era weapon said to have been made by the Russians in 1976. Stevens became convinced of the existence of the Russian device when he observed an unusual Montana cold front in 2004.

"I just got sick to my stomach because these clouds were unnatural and that meant they had (the machine) on all the time," Stevens said. "I was left trying to forecast the intent of some organization rather than the weather of this planet."

I knew they were the second smartest species on Earth, but I never thought I'd read about armed dolphins swimming around the Gulf of Mexico.

Experts who have studied the U.S. Navy's cetacean training exercises fear that as many as 36 escaped mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Dolphins, considered one of the species with intelligence second only to man's, now threaten divers and surfers. The U.S. Navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

Accident investigator Leo Sheridan, 72, said he had received intelligence from sources close to the U.S. government's marine fisheries service confirming dolphins had escaped.

"My concern is that they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises. If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber and if equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire," Sheridan said.

The Navy started the Cetacean Intelligence Mission in 1989, outfitting dolphins with harness and electrodes, and teaching them to protect Trident subs in harbor. Dolphins have been used to detect mines near an Iraqi port. It is apparent the government has been working on using dolphins as weapons.

Comments (3)      top   link me

Gotta get me one of these.

I hate to sound anti-Muslim, but it's hard to take some of them seriously when they threaten to wage a holy war against a fast food chain for selling ice cream.

THE fast-food chain, Burger King, is withdrawing its ice-cream cones after the lid of the dessert offended a Muslim.

The man claimed the design resembled the Arabic inscription for Allah, and branded it sacrilegious, threatening a "jihad".

The chain is being forced to spend thousands of [dollars] redesigning the lid with backing from The Muslim Council of Britain. It apologised and said: "The design simply represents a spinning ice-cream cone." [...]

He was not satisfied by the decision to withdraw the cones and has called on Muslims to boycott Burger King. He said: "This is my jihad. How can you say it is a spinning swirl? If you spin it one way to the right you are offending Muslims."

By the way, the award for best headline goes to Right Thinking for Allahu Snakbar.

The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina hasn't just affected people. Several dolphins were washed out of their aquatic condominiums and into the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Two of the dolphins were rescued, but others remain at large.. er.. missing.

Two dolphins that were swept from their aquarium tanks into the Gulf of Mexico by Hurricane Katrina were rescued Thursday, but six others remained at sea.

The two dolphins were rescued after scientists in a boat coaxed the trained animals into sliding onto mats.

Since when did they change the definition of vegetarian? Mark Oppenheimer calls himself a near-vegetarian.

I don't think I'll ever be a total vegetarian. I'll always need occasional doses of sushi and lox; there will always be an aquatic monkey on my backbut my flesh consumption is down to a bare fraction of what it once was.

Kyla Stigdon is 15 years old and is home schooled. The Carroll County resident enjoys acting and traveling. She decided to stop eating meat when she was 12.

"I don�t like the way meat tastes," she said.

Kyla does not find it difficult to be a vegetarian, even in a meat-loving culture.

"I can always order a salad at a restaurant, and you buy what you want to eat for at home," she said.

Kyla eats fish, dairy and eggs.

Meat-eating vegetarians transform the movement

Even after five years, Christy Pugh has no trouble sticking to her vegetarian regimen.

The secret to her success? Eating meat.

A German man has concocted his own blend of bio diesel.

A German inventor has angered animal rights activists with his answer to fighting the soaring cost of fuel -- dead cats.

Christian Koch, 55, from the eastern county of Saxony, told Bild newspaper that his organic diesel fuel -- a home-made blend of garbage, run-over cats, and other ingredients -- is a proven alternative to normal consumer diesel.

"I drive my normal diesel-powered car with this mixture," Koch said. "I have gone 170,000 km (106,000 miles) without a problem."

The AP reports that this skinny home is just over 5 feet wide at it's narrowest, and 9' 11" at it's widest.

Apparently Professional Hockey is coming back. Did anyone notice it was gone?

"Lions and elephants on the Great Plains? -- Scientists suggest relocating African species to North America" -- CNN Headline, August 17, 2005.

"Tiger kills Kansas teen during photo pose" -- CNN Headline, August 18, 2005.

British crimefighters have tried some pretty strange less than lethal alternatives to guns.

The branch once worked on a special gun that blasted a toffee-like foam at a suspect. Although it was effective in immobilizing suspects, the project was abandoned when researchers found the sticky goo blocked people's airways.

A supercharged water gun, complete with a strap-on water tank, was also among the list of failed inventions. The portable water cannon did not make it past trial stage because the pressurized stream of water knocked users off their feet.

Another idea was a cannon that fired tennis balls at high speed - notably less lethal than a gun, but lacking in accuracy.

The idea was shelved when the foxes kept biting their handlers and eventually chewed through their enclosures and escaped.

It's not every day you get to see a bug eat a bird. Bird watchers were apparently horrified to see a Praying Mantis catch, kill, and devour a Hummingbird.

The town of Stehekin (WA) doesn't have any telephones, and cell phones don't work there either. As someone who lives life without a home phone, I can relate to the desire for peace and quiet. But the anti-phone residents of Stehekin don't want their pro-choice neighbors to have phones either.

Spagna and many of her neighbors have numerous arguments against bringing phones to Stehekin. They say it will damage the town's rustic but neighborly nature and ruin its reputation as a place where tourists can truly escape their hectic city lives.

Some lifelong residents, descendants of Stehekin's first white settlers, fear the phone system would further diminish the town's already eroding spirit of self-reliance. They fume over a federally mandated subsidy program that would enable WeavTel to make money even if many of the residents never hook up.

First the internet, now Al Gore has invented public access TV:

"He has a world class collection of name tags from jobs he's tried, but he does have his own public access TV show." -- Plot from the 1992 movie Wayne's World.

"The former vice president now describes himself as a "recovering politician," and today he turns the page on the next chapter of his life with the launch of Current � a cable and satellite TV network � that he claims will reinvent TV by letting its viewers supply the content." -- ABC News description of Al Gore's latest job he's trying.

"Hair found not from sasquatch, experts say" -- Canadian Press Headline, July 28, 2005.

Squirrels and power lines don't mix, as flaming squirrels are being blamed for starting fires. And for some reason, I find this passage attributed to Osoyoos fire chief Ross Driver to be hilarious.

He said he's not sure what the Fortis power utility company might do to prevent squirrel fires in the future.

A Seattle man apparently died after a romp in the hay with an equine, which is perfectly legal in Washington State. Now, people having romantic interludes with farm animals is nothing new. But turning yourself into a Darwin candidate under one of them is certainly newsworthy. And in case you're still wondering just how the poor man died, the Seattle Times backs into it.

The dead man was identified as a 45-year-old Seattle resident. According to the King County Medical Examiner's Office, he died of acute peritonitis due to perforation of the colon.

Would a dork by any other name be just as geeky?

Whatever the reason, being a nerd, a geek, a dork -- whatever you want to call the tragically unhip -- is becoming a source of pride.

Case in point: Steffi Weiss, a 15-year-old in the Chicago suburb of Lake Zurich, who plays violin in the school's orchestra.

This spring, she and a friend bought black mesh sports jerseys -- something like the football team's -- and added "ORCH DORKS" in white letters on the front, their last names on the back and their instrument on the sleeves (VLN I, for first violin, in Weiss' case).

In America, if a wolf attacks your farm animals you get a gun and shoot it. In France, you stage a protest and delay the start of your nation's most prestigious sport. (Entire article quoted below)

Tuesday's 10th stage of the Tour de France started about 40 minutes late in the Alps after angry cattle farmers protested about attacks by wolves.

The stage was also shortened from 192.5km to 181km after the farmers made their protest in Grenoble, where the start was initially scheduled.

The riders then moved on and the start was given 11.5 km further away.

The farmers were protesting against recent wolf attacks against sheep and cattle.

I know that love makes people do stupid things, but this is rediculous.

To prove his love, a 38-year-old man set himself on fire before getting down on one knee and asking his girlfriend to marry him. . .

About 100 people gathered to watch Todd Grannis perform the flaming stunt on Monday, which involved wearing a cape soaked in gasoline.

Grannis climbed a 10-foot scaffold, was set on fire and then plunged into a swimming pool, dousing the blaze. Emerging unscathed, he got down on one knee and proposed.

At least it doesn't cause cancer.

Taking regular showers could pose a health risk and even result in permanent brain damage, it has been claimed.

Scientists believe that breathing in small amounts of manganese dissolved in the water may harm the nervous system.

The damage may occur even at levels of the naturally occurring metal normally considered safe, say the US researchers.

Scientists are too busy asking themselves if they could, when they ought to be asking themselves if they should.

SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs, reanimating the canines after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans.

US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years.

Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject's veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution.

The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity.

But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an electric shock.

"Someone is stealing city's parking meters" -- AP Headline, Kalamazoo, Mich., June 23, 2005.

"Motorists get tickets at meters installed after they parked" -- KWQC Headline, Chicago, Ill., June 23, 2005.

Hey, most of us only have the 'After'.

"Beef People To Close Stores, Cut Jobs" -- Headline, Web Pro News, June 21, 2005.

The article talks about Winn-Dixie grocery stores doing some consolodating. Not sure why they refer to Winn-Dixie as "Beef People".