How did it get there in the first place?

Operation removes lightbulb from anus MULTAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Fateh Mohammad, a prison inmate in Pakistan, says he woke up last weekend with a glass lightbulb in his anus.

Wednesday night, doctors brought Mohammad's misery to an end after a one-and-a-half hour operation to remove the object.

"Thanks Allah, now I feel comfort. Today, I had my breakfast. I was just drinking water, nothing else," Mohammad, a grey-beared man in his mid-40s, told Reuters from a hospital bed in the southern central city of Multan.

"We had to take it out intact," said Dr. Farrukh Aftab at Nishtar Hospital. "Had it been broken inside, it would be a very very complicated situation."

Mohammad, who is serving a four-year sentence for making liquor, prohibited for Muslims, said he was shocked when he was first told the cause of his discomfort. He swears he didn't know the bulb was there.

Ok, how do you get a lightbulb shoved up your butt and not notice? And how does it not break? Tough questions for a Friday...

Happy 4-day weekend!

I'm so excited about this weekend, I can barely stand it. Four and 1/2 days away from my job which is slowly killing my soul. A couple of bbq's, some pampering and shopping are all I have planned for right now and who knows where else I might wind up but I'm ready. I hope that no matter what you are doing, my dear readers, that you enjoy it despite rain, traffic and whatever bumps in the road may happen.

And as Ms. Ginny Stroud would say, during all of this "Fourth Of July brouhaha, don't forget what you're celebrating, and that's the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic, white males didn't want to pay their taxes."

And while I'm in the mood to spotlight government nonsense...

Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials.

Our tax dollars hard at work

A Few Things Lawmakers Can Agree On
Property taxes are soaring and upstaters are fleeing New York. But lawmakers decided that they had to tackle the ladybug question first.

The state's official insect, a nine-spotted ladybug, would no longer fly in that role: it is extinct in New York State. So legislators took a break from bickering over health care spending and property taxes in the waning days of the session and found common ground on the issue of designating a new state insect, making it the pink spotted ladybug instead.

They passed other laws, too: The snapping turtle would become the state's official reptile. And the striped bass would henceforth become the state's official saltwater fish.

I'm so glad that with all that's going on in the world that these decisions have been put to rest. I found this little tidbit quite amusing:

"I know it's not earth-shattering," said the assemblywoman, Nancy Calhoun, who represents parts of Orange and Rockland Counties. Ms. Calhoun says she was just trying to right a wrong. Lawmakers first adopted the state's official bug in 1989, but the nine-spotted ladybug had already become extinct in the state.

Good job, Nancy, good job.

Tradition:Coney Island-style

I can't believe it's been a week since I've posted. I had a pretty crazy weekend...an unexpected invitation to Belmar, an all-day/all-night BBQ in another part of NJ, Fathers' Day activities in Staten Island and finally home to Brooklyn with Monday to recover from it all. It was exhausting but one of the best weekends I've had in quite some time.


On to the post: Summer in Coney Island brings up images of Nathan's hotdogs from the original location, the Cyclone, the Wonder Wheel, skeeball and the boardwalk. In recent years, some new traditions have started and are only gaining momentum. The Mermaid Parade, (happening this weekend) started in 1983 and is quite a freak show but a truly good time. Then there's the Siren Music Festival which even though I'm not into much independent (or new) music these days, is one of the best free events of the summer. Last but not least, after losing our beloved Dodgers, we Brooklynites have been given the Cyclones and the tickets are so cheap, why schlep all the way to Queens to watch the Mets (or the Yankees in the Bronx, for that matter)?

End of an Era

Gates to leave day-to-day role at Microsoft Microsoft announced Thursday that chairman and co-founder Bill Gates will transition out of a day-to-day role at the company, effective July 2008, to spend more time working on his charitable foundation.

Gates will then work part-time at Microsoft as chairman and technical adviser and will work full time for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the organization he founded with his wife, which focuses on global health and education.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announcing Thursday that he is steppng down from his day-to-day role with the company by July 2008.

"I've decided that two years from today, I will reorganize my personal priorities," Gates said during a news conference, adding,"I have one of the best jobs in the world."

"I believe with great wealth comes great responsibility - the responsibility to give back to society and make sure those resources are given back in the best possible way, to those in need," he said. Gates added, "It's not a retirement, it's a reordering of my priorities."

You've got two empty halves of coconut and you're bangin' 'em together.

Thanks to Ben & Jerry for their new flavor honoring "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". Enjoy!

Don't root, root, root for the home team (or any for that matter)!

You can watch it, but you can't like it...

Phnom Penh patriarch Non Nget has told Cambodia's 40,000 Buddhist monks to remain passive while watching World Cup soccer games or be defrocked.

Non Nget said Monday monks should not watch the games in public, cheer or bet on matches as such actions were against Buddhism.

"It is very difficult to ban them because new technology means the games can be aired live and seen everywhere," he said. "They may watch, but must be calm."

"But if they make noise or cheer as they watch, they will lose their monkhoods," Non Nget told Reuters.

Logic wins out...hooray!

FDA approves cervical cancer vaccine
WASHINGTON - Women for the first time have a vaccine to protect themselves against cervical cancer. The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday licensed the vaccine, Gardasil, for use in girls and women ages 9 to 26.

The vaccine works by preventing infection by four of the dozens of strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, the most prevalent sexually transmitted disease.
By age 50, some 80 percent of women have been infected.

Gardasil protects against the two types of HPV responsible for about 70 percent of cervical cancer cases. The vaccine also blocks infection by two other strains responsible for 90 percent of genital wart cases. The vaccine will be available by the end of the month, with a three-shot series costing $360.

Its manufacturer, Merck & Co. Inc., seeks similar approval elsewhere around the world. Each year, cervical cancer kills an estimated 240,000 women worldwide, including 3,700 in the United States.

"FDA approval of the HPV vaccine, the first vaccine targeted specifically to preventing cancer, is one of the most important advances in women's health in recent years," said Dr. Carolyn Runowicz, president of the American Cancer Society.

It's amazing that some groups are still opposed to this vaccine being mandatory because they think pushing abstinence is better. I'm awfully glad those people didn't get their way this time around.

Is this for real?

And if so, who would want a pet with an expiration date? Creepy!

Try using this excuse

Speeding man was drying wet car
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Police confiscated the car and driver's license of a Dutchman caught speeding who said he only wanted to dry his car after he had washed it.
The 27-year-old was stopped in Amsterdam driving at 108 kph (68 mph), 50 kph over the speed limit, police said.
"Because he did not have his driver's license with him, his clean car was confiscated until he produces it," a police spokeswoman said.

A date with the devil or just another Tuesday?

It's 6/6/06 It could be a bad sign for what might otherwise be a perfectly fine Tuesday.

But as you fill out that check, write a card, or check in with building security, you might notice something sinister about the digits flowing from your pen: 666, the mark of the Antichrist, according to the Bible's Book of Revelation.

Well, 6/6/06. But what's a little 0 among those looking for signs of the impending apocalypse, or a reason to stay under the covers until 6/7/06.

The brains behind the marketing of the remake of The Omen certainly want 6/6/06 to be spooky enough to heed their call to the theaters for a Tuesday date with the devil and a tub of popcorn.

Wine technology

1,000 Points of White
The days of in-store wine tastings as we know them—oenophiles and freeloaders making small talk with importers as they sip contemplatively from plastic cups—may be over. The future is upon us, in the form of a nifty new gizmo imported from Tuscany and installed in the recently relocated Union Square Wines & Spirits (140 Fourth Ave., at 13th St.; 212-675-8100). The Enomatic wine system stores 48 open bottles, preserving them with argon gas, and dispensing 15-milliliter tastes at the swipe of a card that the store has preprogrammed with an introductory 1,000 points. Points are deducted based on the wine’s value (a 2001 Ridge Monte Bello, at 175, is the biggest splurge), and added in a five-to-one ratio—spend $10 on wine, get 50 points. Getting Italian software to communicate with the shop’s own was a bit of a challenge, though. When something goes wrong, says wine director Jesse Salazar, “it makes an Italian-sounding boing noise.”

I miss my Atari 2600

The Video Game Goes Minimalist: Nintendo Comes Full Circle : Think about video games. Once upon a time, call it the 1980's, video games were simple. Facing one joystick and at most a couple of buttons, most anyone could simply drop a quarter into a Galaga or Ms. Pac-Man machine and have some cheap thrills. And because the games were simple, they were practically ubiquitous in bars, waiting rooms and other public places. Remember arcades?

Ah, those were the days. When all you needed were some friends, quarters and a tasty (non-alcoholic) beverage to have a good time.

Techies get tough

Fight club draws techies for brawl They may sport love handles and Ivy League degrees, but every two weeks some Silicon Valley techies turn into vicious street brawlers in a real-life, underground fight club.