Man what I would give to be in his shoes to hear what all my friends and family really thought of me.

I’m not sure why those responsible for erecting a statue to a beloved children’s television icon would design a scary, craggy monster looking statue; but then again, this is Pittsburgh (I have no factual basis to make that claim)?

The six-year project was unveiled on a drizzy day yesterday with the 11-foot bronze statue as a center piece to a children’s tribute area.  Still.  Did NO ONE look at the statue?!?  It is as frightening as the actual Fred Rogers was comforting and inviting.  It looks like the mythical Jewish rock Golem.

Good god, if there is anything more frightening than a bear, it’s the hairless variety.  Leipzig Zoo vets have been unable to determine what caused Dolores and all other female Spectacled Bears in captivity to suddenly go bald. “Some experts believe it could be due to a genetic defect though the animals do not seem to be suffering from any other affliction.  The bears, which originate from South America,  normally have fluffy dark brown fur and would now be growing a thicker fur coat to keep warm during the winter.”

Update: Yup, just as creepy when they are seen in motion.

There’s an African-American in the White House and it was a Minnesotan who pleaded guilty to a DUI while riding a motorized La-Z-Boy.

“Prosecutors say Anderson’s blood alcohol content was 0.29, more than three times the legal limit, when he crashed into a parked vehicle in August 2008. He was not seriously injured,” the AP reports.  “Police said the chair was powered by a converted lawnmower and had a stereo and cup holders.”

To be honest, 180 days in jail is an acceptable trade-off for driving drunk on a motorized reclining chair equiped with a stereo and cup holder.

Neighbors told RMG News cameraman Austin Raishbrook that they noticed the body Monday “but didn’t bother calling authorities because it looked like a Halloween dummy.”

“The body was in plain view of the entire apartment complex [and] they all didn’t do anything,” Raishbrook told the LA Times. “It’s very strange. It did look unreal, to be honest.”

Gawker has the story of the balloon boy officially being a hoax, the back story of which is good — really, really, good.  It’s also sad, pathetic and indicative of the times we live in. Curiously, Gawker paid for the story.

We promise this will be our last Balloon Boy story.  But his throwing up on The Today Show during the live taping is indicative of this entire insidious affair.  Deep down inside, we imagine his parent’s pressure to act as a publicity tool for their own agenda was eating away at poor Falcon and he just lost it.  [via]

Falcon on CNN’s Larry King Live appears to admit the Balloon incident was an elaborate hoax.

Falcon’s Dad: “Did you hear us calling your name at any time?”

Falcon: “Mmhmm.”

Falcon’s Dad: “You did?”

Falcon’s Mom: “You did?”

Falcon’s Dad: “Then why didn’t you come out?”

Falcon: “You guys said that, um, we did this for the show.”

Oops, right? Mom? Dad?

[via]

“I played with my toys and took a nap,” Falcon told a group of reporters outside his home after the entire country held their breath as his balloon rose from the Earth and crashed back down.

I guess this is when the media and parents can say our bad.  Good prank though.

Well played, little man, well played.

The virus can cause infections in the eyes and urinary, reproductive and respiratory tracts. It can cause blindness, infertility and death.

And I thought the Herpes virus I get from stress was bad enough.  Looks like the little buggers need to start smoking weed.

Seriously, if Obama could bring back Arrested Development, that would be change I could believe in.  [via Cynical C, whom also has a link to another funny protest sign]

Woah.  Rob Matthews has printed and bound 5000 pages of Wikipedia to resemble a tradition encyclopedia. He took all of the articles from Wikipedia’s featured articles list, resulting in a volume of knowledge that’s thicker than any book I’ve ever seen and singularly improbable.  Wikipedia could exist in no other form than the internet.  [via Coudal]

This has to be one of the singular best events to happen every year and it happened on Monday.  Monday!  How did we miss that?

Anyway, the Cooper Hill’s Cheese Rolling and Wake (official name, natch), for those unsure of what it is, is an annual event wherein an eight pound round of Double Gloucester Cheese is given a one second head start, and competitors race down the hill to catch the cheese; that rarely happens because the cheese can reach a top speed of 70 mph. People tumble, stumble and rumble down the hill and usually get injured.  Hilarity ensues.

First to pass the finish line wins the wheel of cheese. There’s also a less dangerous uphill race, but no one gives a shit about that because no one gets injured or rolls down a hill.  The Big Picture has a great photo set and the official Cooper’s Hill Cheese Rolling website has results and more photos.

See that dude, that dude is a world champion.  He’s the best because, unlike you or me, David Traver spent 2.5 years growing his beard so that he could spend another 90 minutes weaving it into that awesome looking design.  And because of that dedication he was rewarded as having the best beard on the entire planet.

Stand and recognize people.  It turns out that Alaska is also like the Kenya of competitive beard growing.  If competitive beard growing were analogous to long-distance running.  Because if it’s not than my entire analogy falls apart.

From the Consumerist:

The first surprising part of this story is that the Boston Police Department has a Twitter feed. They use it to post breaking police-type information that’s useful to the public, such as roads closed due to car accidents, crime data, big arrests, etc. Sometimes they also reply to reader questions. And that is how TruTV learned that the Boston police will not hide the zombie invasion from the public.

It’s good to see at least someone in the BPD has a sense of humor.

And then she moved into a house in Shrevesport, LA and began talking to her neighbor Jamie Wheat one day. 

“We were sitting one day, talking, and she said, ‘You know what? I had a brother born January 27, 1977, that was adopted,’” Wheat said. “I was like, I’m adopted.”

Surprised, Eloph mentioned that her mother was 16 at the time. His mother was 16, too, Wheat replied.

All the details fit, and Cottrell and Wheat decided to take a DNA test.

The results: There’s a 99.995 percent probability that the two are related.

But this is the best part. 

Added his adoptive father, Ted Wheat: “It was just surprising that they lived across the street from us for two-and-a-half years. When they told us, we said, ‘This is the greatest news it could be.’”

Surprised isn’t quite the word I would use to describe finding your long-lost sibling for the past 30 years has been living next door unbeknownst to you.  I don’t know what the word is, but I’m guessing it’s closer to “great-oogly-moogly!”

What is the difference between via and h/t?  Or are they interchangeable.

As seen on the subways of New York and your lucid dreams last night.

This might be better than the red swings on the BART.  Of course, it’s slightly more scary in a druggie sense, but who’s got time for picking nits when free bouncy rides are involved.

[via MetaFilter]

Here’s the thing: your romantic success has nothing to do with your mental jewelry and everything to do with how you make the other person feel. And making someone feel a certain way is a somewhat nonlinear process that requires a different kind of mastery than that of calculus or Shakespeare.

In other words, you need to earn love (or at least lust). Sadly, no mom, dad or professor teaches us about the power of the well-placed compliment (or put-down), giving attention but not too much attention, being caring without being needy. I wrote a whole 280-page book about that, so that’s a story for a different day.

An interesting tactic, to say the least.  Instead of ticketing bicyclists who aren’t wearing helmets, the police pull them over, give them a hug and then a free helmet and send them on their way.  [via Boing Boing]

Because it’s Florida and because separation of Church and State matter little and because, um, why not?

[Via blogs.tampabay.com]

So much so, that he decided to honor The Bard today with the unofficial holiday Talk Like Shakespeare Day.  Cuz, you know, all the problems in Chicago have been fixed by his swift and confidant hand and this was the only thing left to accomplish. 

It’s assumed that today is Will’s birthday, but nobody knows for sure, anymore than they know how to talk like Shakespeare.  Though Presurfer has a few ideas.

Just in case you want to snuggle up to your deceased loved-one’s ashes. I would really like to make fun of this, but in truth I think I would rather have somebody’s ashes in a stuffed teddy bear or kitten than an ostentatious copper urn.

It’s high time we send Maury Povitch or Jerry Springer to Germany.  Enlarge to read (or just read below we’ve reprinted), but take our word, this story has more twists and turns than an episode of Lost. 

In Stuttgart, Germany, a court judge must decide on a case of honorable intentions in a situation where a man hired his neighbor to get his wife pregnant.

It seems that Demetrius Soupolos, 29, and his former beauty queen wife, Traute, wanted a child badly, but Demetrius was told by a doctor that he was sterile.

So, Soupolos, after calming his wife’s protests, hired his neighbor, Frank Maus, 34, to impregnate her. Since Maus was already married and the father of two children, plus looked very much like Soupolos to boot, the plan seemed good.

Soupolos paid Maus $2,500 for the job and for three evenings a week for the next six months, Maus tried desperately, a total of 72 different times, to impregnate Traute.

When his own wife objected, he explained, “I don’t like this any more than you. I’m simply doing it for the money. Try and understand.”

When Traute failed to get pregnant after six months, however, Soupolos was not understanding and insisted that Maus have a medical examination, which he did.

The doctor’s announcement that Maus was also sterile shocked everyone except his wife, who was forced to confess that Maus was not the real father of their two children.

Now Soupolos is suing Maus for breach of contract in an effort to get his money back, but Maus refuses to give it up because he said he did not guarantee conception, but only that he would give an honest effort.

[Thanks, Scott via Financial Mail]

Local communities, borrowing from a Depression-era idea, have begun printing their own money.

According to USA Today, “the systems generally work like this: Businesses and individuals form a network to print currency. Shoppers buy it at a discount — say, 95 cents for $1 value — and spend the full value at stores that accept the currency.

“Workers with dwindling wages are paying for groceries, yoga classes and fuel with Detroit Cheers, Ithaca Hours in New York, Plenty in North Carolina or BerkShares in Massachusetts.” 

What this does is help keep cash flow generating throughout small businesses in need.  One thing’s for sure is that Target and Wal-Mart probably aren’t accepting these scrips anytime soon.  In the case of the BerkShares, the largest example of this, some $2.3 million dollars have been pumped into the Berkshire-region of Massachusetts. 

During the Depression, local governments, businesses and individuals issued currency, known as scrip, to keep commerce flowing when bank closings led to a cash shortage.

By law, local money may not resemble federal bills or be promoted as legal tender of the United States, says Claudia Dickens of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

“We print the real thing,” she says.

The IRS gets its share. When someone pays for goods or services with local money, the income to the business is taxable, says Tom Ochsenschlager of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. “It’s not a way to avoid income taxes, or we’d all be paying in Detroit dollars,” he says.

Pittsboro, N.C., is reviving the Plenty, a defunct local currency created in 2002. It is being printed in denominations of $1, $5, $20 and $50. A local bank will exchange $9 for $10 worth of Plenty.

“We’re a wiped-out small town in America,” says Lyle Estill, president of Piedmont Biofuels, which accepts the Plenty. “This will strengthen the local economy. … The nice thing about the Plenty is that it can’t leave here.”

It gets better when the CEO for the anti-phishing software goes back to have another conversation with the scammer.  It’s quite brilliant on both ends.

[3:56:08 PM] Mike Nash says: Any luck yet ?
[3:56:48 PM] Mr. Robert Dutu says: just 1
[3:56:54 PM] Mr. Robert Dutu says: for over three hours
[3:57:07 PM] Mike Nash says: Business getting slow for you?
[3:57:13 PM] Mike Nash says: May I ask, how much you make doing this ?
[3:57:47 PM] Mr. Robert Dutu says: be my victim and you will get to know how much i can make from you
[3:58:05 PM] Mike Nash says: (rofl) Very good
[3:58:10 PM] Mike Nash says: You’re a funny guy
[3:58:20 PM] Mr. Robert Dutu says: thanks (handshake)

I ended up chatting with him for about an hour – and I have to say, he was a funny guy. A criminal, sure – but he claimed he was from Ghana, and had been doing this for only three months. He even tried to get some money out of me – but despite how amusing the guy was, he’s still a criminal, and relies on trickery and social engineering to get what he wants – which is cash.

[Clusterflock via WAXY]

If you live in Silicon Valley you might just Twitter the whole affair and set up a webcam video feed with UStream. 

That’s what one guy did anyway. 

A strange man broke into Revision3 COO David Prager’s home last night.

Did David call the police? No, he updated Twitter and turned on a live video stream at Ustream.

This is someone who needs to get out of Silicon Valley.

Just so we’re clear, we do not recommend you try this at home. Call the police when you find someone you don’t know in your apartment.

And yes, this really happened. The proof. 

Photo:

Video:

At 4 p.m. Monday, a resident of College Park called police about a car that had been parked in the 1900 block of NW 2nd Avenue for several days and had been ticketed seven times by city employees.

Police detective Bennie Smith said Waldo was seated face-forward on the passenger side of the back seat, was fully clothed and had the car’s ignition key in his possession when he was found. A loaded pistol was found inside the trunk of the car.

“We don’t expect the cause of death to be foul play,” Smith told The Sun on Wednesday afternoon.

City records show a ticket officer issued seven tickets to Waldo’s BMW, with the first ticket being issued Feb. 12, the day after Waldo was last seen alive.

According to Kameg, Smith said the reason the ticket officers apparently did not notice someone slumped over in the BMW may have been because the window tint on the car was illegally dark.

Well, okay, that explains everything.  Tinted windows!

DC gets it’s own quarter and it pays tribute to jazz legend Duke Ellington. Makes me wish more states (Alabama, no less, being the other with a tribute to Helen Keller) honored their famous citizenry rather than the obligatory state outline, or tourist attraction.

If you’re planning on running to your local bank to get a coin or two, don’t — the Mint informed us that most banks won’t get a hold of the commemorative piece until next week at least. Collectors can order a two-roll set or a 100-coin bag for $32.95 plus shipping online (or a 1000-coin bag for $309.95, more details here), or you can head down to 801 9th Street NW and use the Mint’s handy change machine to get the quarters $1 or $5 at a time.

Here he is with his orchestra playing “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If You Ain’t Got that Swing)”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is such a rare occurrence in The United Arab Emirates that according to a middle-aged woman who has lived in the area near the Jebel Jais mountains, where as much as 8 inches of snow fell over the weekend, there is no word in the local dialect to describe the event.

Which is completely opposite from the Alaskan Nanooks haveing 40 some-odd words to describe snow in their language.

The first recorded snow in the seven-state Arab federation occured in December of 2004 in the same mountain range.  Click here for more photos.

The real Mengele has become infamous for his disturbing genetic experiments for the Third Reich.

An Argentinian historian is claiming in a new book that Mengele was responsible for the astonishing rate of twins in Candido Godoi, Brazil. Jorge Camarasa makes the claim that Mengele ministered to both humans and livestock of the town during the 1960s under the name Rudolph Weiss in the book Mengele: the Angel of Death in South America.

For years scientists have failed to discover why as many as one in five pregnancies in a small Brazilian town have resulted in twins – most of them blond haired and blue eyed.

But residents of Candido Godoi now claim that Mengele made repeated visits there in the early 1960s, posing at first as a vet but then offering medical treatment to the women of the town.

Shuttling between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, he managed to evade justice before his death in 1979, but his dreams of a Nazi master race appeared unfulfilled.

The normal birth rate for twins is 1 out of 80 pregnancies.  [via Reddit]

Just in case Google wasn’t powerful enough, now it’s got the Pope on it’s side. Catholics, or anyone wanting that good ole Catholic perspective on life, can now search Catholic Google.

“Catholic search engine powered by Google striving to provide an easy to use resource to anyone wanting to learn more about Catholicism and provide a safer way for good Catholics to surf the web.

“CatholicGoogle is powered by Google using “safe search” technology, it produces results from all over the internet with more weighting to given to Catholic websites and eliminates the vast majority of unsavoury content, such as pornography. The site is not associated or affiliated with Google.com, we work closely with Google to help ensure that the adverts are not objectionable in nature, however, some of the results and adverts that are displayed may not be in line with Catholic doctrine and we do not endorse of any of the results or adverts displayed on Catholic Google.”

So there’s that. I suppose.

Luckily, a local Wal-Mart agreed to make the birthday cake.  Not sure if it came with red Swastika frosting decorations or not.

Locals who read the account were upset that Heath Campbell would bestow the name Adolf Hitler onto his son, which in turn made Mr. Campbell even more upset.

“There’s a new president and he says it’s time for a change; well, then it’s time for a change,” the 35-year-old continued. “They need to accept a name. A name’s a name. The kid isn’t going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did….”

Heath Campbell said he named his son after Adolf Hitler because he liked the name and because “no one else in the world would have that name.” He sounded surprised by all the controversy the dispute had generated…

He said he was raised not to avoid people of other races but not to mix with them socially or romantically. But he said he would try to raise his children differently.

Yeah, on the one hand it’s just a name.  The other way to look at it is that naming your child after Adolf Hitler is essentially paying homage to the Nazi Party Leader.  Which, fine.  Okay, if you want to do that.  But don’t get angry or act surprised when people are horrified by your terrible parenting choice.  I just think once the kid realizes who he was named after there might be some household friction.

Much in the same way that I had to change my name to “James” when it dawned on me that Pol Pot was not a normal name.

And every now and again a story takes place that reminds me just how screwed up this month can be for some people.  It’s like we collectively lose the screws in our heads and all go batshit insane.  At some point Bill O’Reilly will blow a vessel in his brain over the “secular progressives” attempting to ruin Christmas for every good Christian folk out there.  Which is just crazy.  I’m probably one of the people O’Reilly hates, but I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that I’ve got more Christmas spirit in my pinky than he has in his entire soul.

There was a small story in Washington about a week ago about a nativity scene put on display at the state capital and a Wisconsin-based group that put up a separation of church and state sign next to it.  The story made some traction, and at the time I thought it was pretty funny for the “atheism” group (as they’re labeled by the traditional media with as much animosity as they can muster) to do that.

And now we get the followup story and it’s wonderful.  It’s everything I love about this wacky time of year and truly encapsulates what both wrong and great about the Christmas season.  We pick up the story after the atheism sign has been stolen and dropped off to a local country-music radio station.

Meanwhile, people flocked to the Capitol to check out the crime scene, set up their own protest signs and speak to a bank of TV news cameras jamming the hallway.

Among the crowd was James Pritchard of Seattle, who wore a pointy green hat and passed out candy-striped business cards proclaiming him “J. Elfus, Special Assistant to the Claus.”

Despite his obvious preference for Christmas, Pritchard said he wants people to celebrate any holiday they like. But he was offended by the atheist message, which he felt was designed mostly to mock religion.

“I heard about what was going on down here, and we had to order a truckload of coal,” he said.

And that was just the start.

Soon, the capital steps were flocked by the elf, a preacher, nativity balloons, a Festivus pole (you know the Seinfeld-created holiday), a solstice poster and a security detail protecting the other signs being put up .  To say it became a circus is something of an understatement.

“It’s a circus and we’re the center ring,” said state Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn, who wants the atheists’ sign moved farther from the Nativity scene and the governor to establish firmer guidelines on displays.

Things in Olympia have taken a bizarre turn since Monday, when the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a national group for atheists and agnostics, put up a sign that says, in part: “Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.” The sign was partly a reaction to the Nativity scene.

Tomorrow at 2 p.m. there is a planned protest against the atheist sign, but it’s nothing to do with free speech, it’s more to support religion.  All well and good.

Ultimately, this might be the best case scenario for holiday displays.  Afterall, though Bill O’Reilly and others of his ilk don’t want to think so, this time of year is also a time when other people celebrate their religions and traditions.  It’s a time that shouldn’t be consumed with hatred and frustration, it should be a celebration of our differences but also our common humanity.  There should be room for a nativity scene, a menorah, a Festivus pole, a Kwanzaa cornucopia, whatever.

“I got sick of the way these things were going, so I wanted to put some humor into it,” said carpenter Jim Buenzli, who first noticed the missing atheist sign Friday morning, and was fed up by the whole furor. That’s why he applied for permission to place the Festivus pole, which he planned to buy and install next week.  “They’re making a big mockery out of our state on the news.”

We’re not making a mockery Jim, we’re staring at the future of holiday displays and the craziness they inspire.  Olympia is ground zero.  Afterall, what’s the holidays without a little bit of craziness? My only complaint is how do we not have photos of this craziness?  I can’t find any at all.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The pianist, who died in 1982 from Cancer, wanted nothing more than to be a part of the Royal Shakespeare Company – as an actor.  When he died he donated his body to medical science with the strange addendum that his skull be delivered to the RSC for use in theatrical performances.

For 26 years the skull was stored away and never used because no actor felt comfortable enough using a real human skull until the good doctor came and granted a dead pianist his one wish.  For 22 performances and counting, Tchaíkowsky has played the valiant role of “Yorkick” during the RSC’s production of Hamlet unbeknownst to audience members and cast members alike.

Only Tennant and director Greg Doran knew the truth.

“I thought it would topple the play and it would be all about David acting with a real skull,” admitted Doran.

The RSC had to obtain a licence from the Human Tissue Authority to use the skull because it is less than 100 years old. The truth was revealed after the final performance. The play will move to the Novello Theatre in London next week. It has yet to be decided if Tennant will use Tchaikowsky’s skull there.

And then there are the pandas who bite people in China.

He said the student was bitten in the arms and legs. Two foreign visitors who saw the attack ran to get help from workers at a nearby refreshment stand, who notified park officials, the employee said.

The student was pale as he was taken away by medics but appeared clear-headed, he said.

“Yang Yang was so cute and I just wanted to cuddle him. I didn’t expect he would attack,” the 20-year-old student, surnamed Liu, said in a local hospital, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Liu underwent surgery Friday evening and was out of danger, but will remain in the hospital for several days, Xinhua said.

Yang Yang, who was flown to Guilin last year from Sichuan province, was behaving normally on Saturday and did not seem to suffer any negative psychological effects, the park employee said.

Seriously?  I just wanted to cuddle with the panda?  What is wrong with people?

The NY Post caught up with actress Heather DeLoach, who is now 25 and not the awkwardly pudgy girl from the video.  She’s, dare I say it, pretty attractive.

“I thought I would never live this down,” she told The Post from her home in Lake Forest, Calif. “But this is the best thing that happened to me. At 80 years old, people are still going to be wondering what I’m doing,” she says. “It’s opened so many doors with acting and my personal life, it’s been a blessing.”

You know, when push comes to shove being the bee girl from the “No Rain” video is a dang good claim to fame.  Even if her acting career doesn’t pan out (though it looks like she’s getting some roles) I image it’s a great conversation starter at a bar.

Click here to view the embedded video.

[photo via Lucas - and if you haven't checked out the newly redesigned Hypeful it's scrumtulescent!]