Love that European sensibility about sex: bars and nightclubs in London and other British cities have begun selling sex toys such as mini-vibrators out of vending machines.
The company has also has exported about 20 of the machines to Italy and about 10 to the United States - that should be interesting, given our sexual politics these days...
As a marketing ploy for the next season of The Simpsons in Britian, a live-action version of the show's title sequence has been created.
See it at YouTube or see the story at The Sun Online.
It's definitely a British take (no one would mistake this Marge for an American) but I like it.
Have you ever suspected that our dogs are laughing at us? Maybe they are, according to this story at Science News. Seems that "a dog at play makes a distinctive, breathy exhalation that can trigger playfulness in other dogs".
Reuters reports on a test project to turn dog feces into fuel.
It could be fed into a "digester" to obtain methane. The article states that dogs and cats in the United States produce about 10 million tons of waste a year...might as well use it for something productive.
I was quite impressed with San Francisco's aggressive recycling plan when I visited last year - in addition to bottles, cans, and paper they even have curbside collection for compostable kitchen scraps.
A few interesting bits about the brain that I've seen the past few weeks...
First, contrary to long-held popular belief, adult brain cells do keep growing. So you can teach an old brain new tricks. Furthermore, it seems that a marijuana-like drug can accelerate neurogenesis, and may have anti-anxiety and anti-depressive effects. (Despite what the SSRI-pushers claim, the anti-depressant effects of drugs like Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil apparently have more to do with neurogenesis than with correcting some "chemical imbalance".)
Secondly, new brain cells follow the flow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). This should be very interesting to people who practice craniosacral therapy.
Just one line, seen on the net today:
"We were half way to Rivendell when the drugs began to take hold." -- Hunter S. Tolkien
Now that's funny.
This is just too funny not to share. From Superdickery.com, check out this photo of a Batman squirt gun. They way the figure is shaped into the gun, seems you give him an enema, then pump his crotch until he projectile vomits.
Forty Santas, many drunk, went on the rampage in Wellington, New Zealand.
Apparently there's a growing "Santarchy" movement, though most participants decry the sort vandalism that occurred in New Zealand. Wikipedia says that the first "SantaCon" was put on by The Cacophony Society - the loose inspiration for "Project Mayhem" of Chuck Palahniuk's novel Fight Club.
Remember that the 9/11 murders killed fewer than 3,000 Americans. And remember that Iraq has a population of only about 1/10 that of the U.S. In proportion, then, Bush's illegal, immoral, and stupid invasion has inflicted between 100 and 300 9/11s worth of deaths on Iraq (and about 2/3rd of a 9/11 on American troops).
Reuters reports that creativity is sexy:
Pablo Picasso, Lord Byron and Dylan Thomas had more in common than simple creativity. They also had active sex lives, which researchers said on Wednesday was no coincidence.
Psychologists at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and the Open University in Britain found that professional artists and poets have about twice as many partners as other people.