Currently listening to: The Best of Ten Years ~ Peter Paul & Mary
A portrait of President George W. Bush using monkeys to form his image that was banished from a New York art show last week amid charges of censorship was projected on a giant billboard in Manhattan on December 21, 2004. 'Bush Monkeys,' a small acrylic on canvas by Chris Savido, created the stir last week at the Chelsea Market public space, leading the market's managers to close down the 60-piece show. The image is seen on an electronic billboard near the entrance to New York's Holland Tunnel, December 22. Photo by Mike Segar/Reuters
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Six pistol-toting Brazilian men appeared to have more than cash on their minds when they robbed a drug store in Rio de Janeiro."They specifically demanded that we give them anti-impotence drugs. These drugs and the money was what interested them," Ailton de Souza, the drugstore manager, told Reuters on Tuesday.
On Sunday night, the robbers opened the vault with a blow torch and fled with an equivalent of about $7,000 in cash and checks, as well as more than 100 boxes containing 400 pills worth about $2,600 -- enough for a two-month sex marathon for each of the six robbers.
"They were pretty indiscriminate about the brands," the manager said, explaining that the men took packages of Viagra, Cialis and Levitra.
The drugs, used to treat erectile dysfunction, are sold prescription-free in most Brazilian pharmacies.
Won't little Billy be surprised when he opens this and tries operating the train...or is it "train?"
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A 145-year-old German maker of toy trains is giving its adult customers a chance to have a one-track mind.The miniature train company Marklin is packing a condom alongside a blue freight car emblazoned with the name of Blausiegel, a German condom maker.
Marklin, a Goppingen, Germany-based company that was the first to introduce toy track with its train sets in 1891, produces trains that often carry the names of real companies to emulate actual rail cars. Collectors' editions with less Freudian implications have been sold along with liquor advertised on the cars.
The toy freight car, which comes packaged with a "Billy Boy" condom is available in HO scale, or 1/87th of the actual size of a freight train, just under 4 inches long, and Z scale, which is 1/220th of the size of a real train.
Ralph Israel, partner of Manhattan Train & Hobby store in New York, said he sold two of the models, both to men, the first day they were put in the glass cases in his hobby shop. They are not being marketed to appear under the Christmas tree as gifts for children.
The toy train and the condom, which retail for $35, are packaged in a sleek brushed-metal container the size of a cigar box. The packaging offers no instructions on running the miniature train but does have illustrated instructions on using the condom.
Currently Listening to: International Superhits! by Green Day
The rings of Saturn are part of a young and evolving system, according to the latest observations that suggest a snowball fight is going on around the giant planet.I love space stuff. It's so big. Think about it. It's mind boggling. It's very possible you can disagree with this, but you're the one who chose to read this...but there is something else out there. There has to be. I can't imagine being the only "intelligent" life-form in this crazy infinite blackness. It's just so...big. Where does it end, and what can it mean? Eh, that's not my job to figure out. Lets all be thankful for that.
Portions of the rings, which are predominantly made of ice, may be only 10 to 100 million years old, which is a brief period of time compared to the four and a half billion-year-old solar system.
Data from the Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (UVIS) on the Cassini space probe show fluctuations in the amount of neutral gas surrounding the planet. In one instance, oxygen levels increased by about 50 percent in a region around the outermost E ring. Scientists aren't sure what's going on. Read More...
Currently listening to: My incessant thoughts
SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) - Feel like you need to turn your life around? Then a new apartment building in the Brazilian city of Curitiba could be for you.Each floor in the 11-story building can revolve independently 360 degrees to the left or to the right.
"This is the only building in the world in which each apartment can spin individually," said Joao Carlos Peters, marketing director at the Moro construction company.
The project took 10 years to complete and the suites, which each occupy an entire floor of the circular building, went on sale on Thursday for $300,000.
"This is really a work of art because this was based on an entirely new concept of living," Peters said.
Spinning in the high-tech building is activated by voice commands. It takes an hour for each 3,000-square-foot (300-square-meter) apartment to complete one rotation.
"You can't have it spin any faster because you need the turning to be subtle," Peters said.
Currently Listening to: Miscellaneous "Placebo"
ROME (Reuters) - An Italian town is setting donkeys to work mowing the grass on the side of its highways in an effort to save money and reduce pollution.See...now that's just plain fun. Unless of course you happen to be the one unlucky motorist who does run down a donkey...that could get messy.Fed up with paying some 100,000 euros ($132,800) a year to cut the grass on its out-of-town roads with tractor-mowers, the local government of Treviso, near Venice, said on Tuesday it had bought six donkeys to do the work instead.
"This purchase will allow us to save cash as well as launch an experimental ecological project," said local government chief Luca Zaia, who paid just over 2,000 euros for the six animals.
Motorists need not fear running down the donkeys -- they will only be allowed to munch the grass in roadside areas that are fenced off from traffic.
"Slither slither slither slither went the tongue," one of his winning sentences begins.
"But the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns -- oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest -- no, the hand was cupping her entire right -- Now!" Read more about the British prize for GREAT, I mean, bad sex in fiction...
Now this is very high quality stuff. I know I'm excited.
oreign, it has subtitles, it is funny, it has fun music, it is just a tad sappy, it makes you feel good. It really doesn't get much better than that, folks. The movie just has a certain energy that sucks you in right from the get-go (what an odd phrase...). The cinematography is just plain fun and the acting is quite sensational. And a big kudos to the writers. Man, I feel like I'm giving a commercial or something, but obviously I cannot say enough good things about this movie. It is wonderful, a true cinematic amazement. The story was very well thought out, and here is my odd little description of that: It has a shallow shell, but can be looked at very deeply. That's right. When looked at, it seems like a pretty standard story line, but so much is done with it, it is truly astounding. I would recommend this movie to anyone. The fact that I would be willing to watch it multiple times also says a lot, I feel. In fact, I really want to watch it again right now, less than two hours later. Good story with just the right amount of quirk. I'm a personal fan of quirk...
I must say I found her to be an amazing artist. By looking at her website she just seems like a really cool person on top of it all. She seems like a Jewel/Elton John kind of singer...very lyrical, and beautifully done, with a light sprinkling of rock and roll. Her songs are a tad bit slower, but they work really really well. I thoroughly enjoyed her CD and one that I would definitely recommend, and wouldn't mind owning myself. She seems to have led an interesting life, and has a fun way of writing about it, so that kind of makes me like her music a little more too...a little unfair, perhaps, but a good personality can go a long way. I gave her 9/10. Kudos Terra...you have received my highest score to date! You get a gold star in my books.
Wangari Muta Maathai, the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, was honoured Friday for her efforts to help women, clean up the environment and battle corruption.
Maathai urged the world "to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder."
She was given a gold medal and a diploma that accompanies the $1.5 million US prize.
"As the first African woman to receive this prize, I receive it on behalf of Kenya, and Africa, and all the people of the world," she said at the presentation ceremony in Oslo. Read On...
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - Relieved conservationists have recaptured a young hippopotamus that spent almost 10 months on the run near Cape Town after fleeing a nature reserve where it was being bullied by an older dominant male.The hippo,
known affectionately as Hugo or Houdini, escaped from the Rondevlei Nature Reserve through a broken fence in February, and was caught on Thursday after a dramatic 3-1/2 hour chase through waterways and reeds during which six tranquilliser darts were fired into his hide.
"At one stage there were two of us on the animal's back but it just kept on going," the greatly relieved Rondevlei manager, Dalton Gibbs, told Reuters on Friday. Conservationists might have had to shoot Hugo if he had not been caught, he said.
The young hippo will now be moved to an Eastern Cape private reserve, about 1,000 km (620 miles) east of Cape Town, where he will form the nucleus of a new herd.
The study speculated that laptop use may be a factor in the 15 to 20 per cent of couples who experience fertility problems each year. Chestnuts Roasting on an Open FireWire...
