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14 ODDEST BOOK TITLES OF THE PAST 30 YEARS
1. "Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers"
2. "People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It"
3. "How to Avoid Huge Ships"
4. "Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice"
5. "How to Bombproof Your Horse"
6. "Living With Crazy Buttocks"
7. "How Green Were the Nazis?"
8. "The Book of Marmalade: Its Antecedents, Its History and Its Role in the World Today"
9. "How to (Poop) in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art"
10. "Reusing Old Graves"
11. "Butterworths Corporate Manslaughter"
12. "The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories"
13. "The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America"
14. "The Theory of Lengthwise Rolling"

-- The Bookseller magazine

5 RESTAURANT DISHES NAMED AFTER A PERSON OR ENTITY
1. Lick Jagger Ice Cream: It's only rocky road, but you'll like it.
2. Prius Chili: Hours later, you'll still have plenty of gas.
3. The Freddie Mac: An oversize burger made with subprime beef. If you can't finish it, the government will eat it.
4. Scarlett Johansson Dressing: The guys are delighted to see this on the menu.
5. Decider Burgers: Begin cooking burgers. After two minutes, declare that the burgers are done and a success, but continue cooking anyway. Then turn off the lights and leave the whole mess to the next chef.

-- The Washington Post

DIDN'T QUITE MAKE A CLEAN GETAWAY In Bethlehem, Pa., four teen-agers grabbed a donation box at a local park and ran for the nearby woods, with several police officers in pursuit. Three of the boys were caught, but the other made it into the woods before falling into a manure pit built by homeless people at their camp.

I THINK THERE'S A HOLE IN YOUR PLAN
In Bacolod City, the Philippines, thieves broke into a warehouse, stole a bag of rice with a hole in it and dragged the bag to their house 1,500 feet away.

AND NO, I'M NOT HAPPY TO SEE YOU!
In Danielsville, Ga., Charlie Van Wilkes Jr., 31, was walking through town with drugs and burglary tools in his pockets, according to police. But that's not all Wilkes had in his pants. As his arrest report noted, Wilkes had a "large lump in the front of his blue jeans with wires running from inside his pants and hanging down dragging the ground" as he walked. Wilkes explained that he was wearing a "homemade vibrator" hooked to a battery.
Wrote the arresting officer: "A small motor had been removed from an item and placed inside a pill bottle, and then wrapped in a piece of pipe insulation before being placed inside Wilkes' pants for a pleasurable sensation."

THE DAILY DOOFUS
In Bremerton, Wash., a man observed swerving in his car was pulled over by police officers. When he opened his wallet to show police his driver's license, some white powder fell out.
"What is that?" the officer asked.
"That's cocaine," the man replied, adding that he only used the drug when he was "with the prostitutes."

The Associated Press; Chicago Sun-Times; Universal Press Syndicate; The Kitsap Sun

Whew. So the startup of the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland didn't create a black hole that would cause the planet to disappear. We can all breathe easy now, right? Uhhh, not so fast, Chester. One of the theories about the collider is that we wouldn't disappear in an instant. In fact, there would be no sign of trouble for a month or more. Then earthquakes would start happening in random places not near any fault lines. After a few days, these seismic disturbances would reach catastrophic proportions. Cities would be leveled, the oceans would rise and wash in a series of mega-tsunamis that would attack the world's coasts, killing millions. Then the Earth would literally start to crack up. Molten lava would wash over the land and the seas would start to boil. And then, finally, a disintegrating Earth would be sucked into the black hole. But hey, it's only a theory. So let's all calm down and remember that everything went according to plan the other night when they turned the thing on, right? Why, just listen to what Lyn Evans, who oversaw the building of the accelerator, said:

"Things can go wrong at any time, but luckily this morning everything went smoothly."

Uhh, OK.

Wait, how about this quote from Verena Kain, a European Organization for Nuclear Research engineer, who was there:

"Oh, wow, it actually worked!"

See? Now don't you feel silly for worrying? Hello? Anybody there? Hello?

Headline of the Week
"Evolutionists Flock to Darwin-Shaped Wall Stain"
-- The Onion

Lame Joke du Jour
Q: What kind of tree is a karate champion?
A: Spruce Lee.

The second presidential debate will occur on the third day of National Spinning and Weaving Week.

Useless Fact o' the Day
The moon is an inch farther from the Earth than it was last year.
-- "Quick Takes" by Zay N. Smith, Chicago Sun-Times

Headline of the Week
"Kids give pope Mickey Mouse cap"
-- Reuters

Police are looking for links to other cases
In Fresno, Calif., 22-year-old Antonio Vasquez broke into the home of two farm-workers, rubbed one with spices and whacked the other with a sausage before fleeing. Police couldn't find the sausage because, they say, it was tossed away by the fleeing suspect and eaten by a dog, but they did find Vasquez's wallet containing his ID at the house, and later found Vasquez hiding in a field wearing only a T-shirt, boxer shorts and socks.
-- Fresno Bee

The Daily Doofus
In Springfield, Mass., two men broke into a clothing shop and stole a number of clothing items. When police caught up with the two men, they were wearing several of the stolen items, with the price tags still attached.
-- Dave Moreland's Bozo Criminal of the Day

Lame Joke du Jour
Q: What kind of vegetable do you get when a giant walks through your garden?
A: Squash.

On Wednesday, at 2:30 p.m. Pacific time, they were supposed to start the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland, which some physicists feared might create a black hole that would make the planet disappear. To celebrate this occasion, we wrote this incredibly HIGHlarious column that was going to run in Wednesday's paper. Hoo-boy, was it funny. And informative? Forget about it. Information coming out its black hole. But then those Swiss cheeseheads went and moved the time they were going to destroy the world up to early Wednesday morning, and we had to scrap the whole column. But then we got to thinking, hey, just because it's too late for this black hole, doesn't mean our readers don't need this information for the next one. So as a reader service, we decided to run this information now. Here it is:

SO YOU'RE GOING TO GET SUCKED INTO A BLACK HOLE
"What will happen to me if I get sucked into a black hole?" you ask. "Will it hurt? Will it be cold? Hot? How should I dress? Should I pack a lunch? Will my cell phone work in a black hole?"
For answers, we turned to the Berkeley Cosmology Group, a group of theorists from the Departments of Physics and Astronomy at UC Berkeley, Space Sciences Lab and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Here's what they had to say:

"At first, you don't feel any gravitational forces at all. Since you're in free fall, every part of your body is being pulled in the same way, and so you feel weightless. As you get closer and closer to the center of the hole, though, you start to feel 'tidal' gravitational forces. Imagine that your feet are closer to the center than your head. The gravitational pull gets stronger as you get closer to the center of the hole, so your feet feel a stronger pull than your head does. As a result you feel 'stretched' like a piece of spaghetti. These tidal forces get more and more intense as you get closer to the center, and eventually they will rip you apart."

So there you have it. Wear loose-fitting clothes (stretch pants are a good idea), BYOM (bring your own meatballs), and we'll see you in the next black hole, everybody!

Minutes of peace and quiet the average person gets, per day: 63

Number of announced candidates for president: 256

Population of the state of Alaska: 670,053

Population of Multnomah County: 701,986

Number of cities in Alaska with a population over 10,000: 3

Number with a population over 35,000: 1

Number of Sarah Palin's earmarks for Wasilla, Alaska, that were on John McCain's list of "objectionable" congressional earmarks: 3

Number of John McCain's Vietnamese torturers who have publicly endorsed his candidacy: 1

Ratio of American CEOs pay to that of an average worker in 1978: 35:1

Ratio today: 344:1

Percentage of British boys who say the most adventurous fun they've ever known has been indoors, playing video games: 40

Number of newborn baby girls in Britain in 2005 who were named Gertrude: 0

Chance that an American says his or her workplace is a "dictatorship":
1 in 4

Number of the 12 original members of Sha Na Na who hold advanced academic degrees: 8

Number of celebrities to whom Burger King has given a lifetime supply of free hamburgers: 11

Number of moons Uranus has: 21

Percentage of people who have an extra rib: 5

Percentage of Americans who think they have good-looking feet: 25

SOURCES:
Reuters; The Daily Telegraph; U.S. Census Bureau; Harper's Index; Chicago Sun-Times; Uncle John's All-Purpose, Extra-Strength Bathroom Reader; Maxim magazine; Wireless Flash News Service; Universal Press Syndicate

Pack your trunk, we're going around the world in a daze!

First stop: SWITZERLAND
Scientists calculate that the chances of Geneva's Large Hadron Collider creating a black hole that will destroy the planet when it is switched on Wednesday are only 1 in 1 trillion.

Next stop: AUSTRALIA
The world record for the number of people running a race while wearing stilettos was broken as 265 competitors dashed around a track in Sydney wearing three-inch heels.

Next stop: NIGERIA
In Niger State, a religious leader was ordered to divorce 82 of his 86 wives.

Next stop: PUERTO RICO
A 24-year-old man's last wish -- to remain standing, even after death -- was granted when, at his wake his body was propped upright in his mother's living room. Said his brother: "He wanted to be happy, standing."

Next stop: GERMANY
In Simmern, when police officers showed up to investigate a rowdy party after noise complaints, they were mistaken for strippers and urged to take off their clothes by drunken female guests.

Next stop: AUSTRIA
In Vienna, a 26-year-old man beat himself with an iron bar -- breaking his nose, jaw and arm -- and claimed he'd been robbed to avoid telling his wife he'd lost thousands of dollars at a casino.

Next stop: U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
In Port St. Lucie, Fla., a cross-dressing purse-snatcher's fake breast popped out of his tube top as he grabbed a woman's purse. The robber then hopped into a getaway car occupied by two other men in drag and sped off. Police were processing the fake breast -- a water-filled condom in a white gym sock -- for finger-prints and DNA.

-- The Age; The BBC; El Nueva Dia; Reuters; TCPalm.com; Chicago Sun-Times; Universal Press Syndicate

Blogger from the state of Georgia on the Russian invasion of the nation of Georgia:

"i heard on the news that rusia has invaded but i don't see them no where wats going on."

-- Chicago Sun-Times

Our Children Still Isn't Learning
The John McCain campaign store is no longer selling its "Student's for McCain" pen.
-- crudefutures.typepad.com

Yours For a Thong
You can still buy an "Obama Farted" or a "McCain Farted" classic thong at cafepress.com.

The Daily Doofus
In Arlington, Texas, Dexter Dwayne Williams, 47, walked into a bank, handed the teller a hold-up note that he'd written on the back of one of his personal checks, took an unspecified amount of cash, ran out of the bank to the parking lot and jumped into his car, which is about the time he realized he'd left his car keys inside the bank, the doors of which, by this time, had been locked by employees.
-- Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Give Me a Huggy
In Recife, Brazil, a baby who fell from
a third-floor apartment window was saved when his diaper caught on a spike embedded in the concrete wall of the building.
-- The Daily Express (U.K.)

Lame Joke du Jour
Q: Do you know how to make a Swiss roll?
A: Push him down the Alps.

HER BRAIN CHECK BOUNCED In Ocala, Fla., a 27-year-old woman pulled a gun and robbed a gas station -- where she was a regular customer -- of $40, then drove away. She was quickly arrested, however, after the store's owner gave police a copy of her driver's license, which she'd used on a previous visit to cash her paycheck.

AIRTIGHT ALIBI
In Seville, Spain, a man being ques-tioned by police about the robbery of a taxi driver said that he couldn't have possibly committed that crime since he was "out picking pockets" that night.

JUST CHECKIN'!
In Beloit, Wis., a man was arrested after he repeatedly threw a large rock at the glass doors and windows of the Rock County Sheriff's Office to see if they were bullet-proof.

YOU'LL NEVER CATCH ME, COPPERS!
In Gastonia, N.C., a man drove his riding lawn mower to a gas station, filled up and then left without paying. Police were called and had no trouble catching him as he puttered away at 5 mph.

DIAL "M" FOR MORON
In Las Cruces, N.M., a man who broke into the local library through a window but then discovered he was trapped inside had to call 9-1-1 for help.

The Daily Doofus
Today's doofus hails from Fort Madison, Iowa, where a man armed with a knife burst into a motel room and took five people hostage. His plan went awry, however, after he sent two of his hostages on a beer run. They called police, who went to the motel and arrested the man.

The Associated Press; Ocala Star-Banner; Quad-City Times (Davenport, Iowa); The Capital Times (Madison, Wis.); Dave Moreland's Bozo Criminal of the Day; Universal Press Syndicate

Recently The Washington Post asked its readers to combine the beginning and end of two words found in a newspaper ad, forming a new word, and then to define that word. Some of our favorite entries:

* Ameriment: The reaction of people in other countries when hearing President Bush pronounce their leaders' names.

* Beau-ger: An unfortunate pick from the personal ads.

* Bra-sort: A semi-nudist colony.

* Bris-trick: The new rabbi found that the skills from his part-time job at Benihana weren't well received at his new profession.

* Brotel: The Y.

* Buff-sect: A religious group that observes the Day of Tonement.

* Cellulightening: Toning your thunder thighs.

* Disco-tics: The heebie-BeeGees.

* Exclu-less: Oblivious to how much the people in coach hate you and your roomy leather seat and your pretty little cookies on the pretty little tray instead of the three pretzel sticks.

* Federelves: Those jolly, dependable creatures who appear not on Dec. 24 but on April 15. And in a quaint twist, you give THEM presents.

* Finantiques: Old money.

* Fromagineering: The process by which a perfectly good idea begets an altogether cheesy product.

* Gohoma: A state that doesn't exactly put out the welcome mat for strangers.

* Invice: The bill you get from an escort service.

* Peonology: The study of losers.

* Perflush: A pay-as-you-go plan.

* Rabbiole: Knishes.

* Sanson: A man with no heir.

* Spamily: The deposed former vice president of Nigeria, his niece the banking heiress and her brother-in-law the diplomat trapped on foreign soil.

* Swimpy: How a half-hour in the pool leaves one's manhood.

We just got back from the Democratic Convention and thought we'd share some of our thoughts before heading off to see the Republicans. First, how great is it that Obama picked Joe Biden to be his running mate after Biden said Obama is "articulate, bright and clean." He must have just finished reading Obama's book "The Audacity of Soap."

More nuggets from the campaign trail:

T-shirt seen at the Democratic National Convention:
"Monica Lewinsky's Ex-Boyfriend's Wife for President."

The Upper Crust
John McCain, whose campaign has referred to Barrack Obama as an "arugula-eating elitist," has expressed a preference for ciabatta or similar breads specially prepared in a rustic style for his sandwiches.

Put the gun down, Mr. Cheney
In New Port Richey, Fla., a man angered by Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention ran out of his RV, yelling and firing a gun.

Heard it through the grapevine
Zay N. Smith of the Chicago Sun-Times, on a West Virginia voter who explained that he wouldn't vote for Barack Obama because "I heard that Obama is a Muslim":
"Where do you think the man heard that? Maybe it came from some political operatives who heard that he was a rube.

We haven't seen so many bugs in a campaign since Watergate
A giant Madagascar hissing cockroach representing John McCain easily beat one representing Barack Obama in a race in New Brunswick, N.J.

SOURCES: "Quick Takes" by Zay N. Smith, Chicago Sun-Times; local6.com, Orlando; Universal Press Syndicate

The other day I was cleaning out my parrot cage when Captain Squawky started pecking the back of my head with his beak. "That's for that stupid Illinoise joke you ran the other day!" he said. As he pecked harder, driving me face-first into the bottom of the cage, a headline caught my eye. It read: "Study: A bad joke might endanger the teller." No kidding, I thought. I kept reading. It seems that this researcher at Washington State University sent a bunch of poor saps out to go around and tell people the following joke:

Q: What did the big chimney say to the little chimney?
A: Nothing, chimneys can't talk.

The responses they got ranged from "profanity, a nasty glare or even a solid punch to the arm." According to the researcher, a stupid joke "insults the listener by suggesting that he or she might actually find it funny." Hmmm. Well, we decided to do our own research on this matter. Let's see what kind of responses we get to this one:

Herb: Doc, my hair is falling out! Can you give me something for it?
Doctor: Here, take this box.

Uhh, that's not so good. How about this one?

Nancy was dating her friend Patty's ex-boyfriend. Said Nancy: "He's so romantic, every time he speaks to me he starts with 'Fair lady.'"
"Romantic, my eye," says Patty. "He used to be a bus driver."

Hmmm, let's try this one:

Q: Why did the atoms cross the road?
A: It was time to split.

Uh-oh. We'd better try another one...

A guy walks into a doctor's office with a strawberry growing out
of his head. "What can you do for me, Doc?" he says.
The doctor says, "I'll give you some cream to put on it."

Number of Google hits for "duh": 33.3 million

Number of golf balls on the moon: 3

Number of surveillance cameras in Beijing: 300,000

Number of surveillance cameras in London: 500,000

Amount by which adult Web sites reported their sales rose during the time the economic stimulus checks were issued this spring: 30

Number of people who showed up to moon an Amtrak train at the annual Mooning Amtrak event in Laguna Niguel, Calif., in July: 8,000

Percentage of Americans who admit they've thrown out a perfectly good dish simply because they didn't want to clean it: 11

Number of hours each day that sloths sleep: 9.5

Amount of money the U.S. is borrowing from Asia, per day: $2 billion

Packs of cigarettes smoked, per day, by American soldiers in Iraq: 3,000

Percentage of all income gains during the Bush administration that have gone to the top 1 percent of earners: 75

Percentage of U.S. children who think kids who wear glasses are smarter than those who don't: 66

Social Security number of Todd Davis, CEO of the identity-protection firm LifeLock: 457-55-5462

Months after he published the number as a dare to thieves that his identity was stolen: 13

Percentage of people in a recent survey who said a "unibrow" is a turnoff: 35

Percentage of Americans who say they "rest and take naps" on their company's toilet: 1

SOURCES: Harper's Index; Chicago Sun-Times; The Daily Telegraph; Bloomington-Normal Daily Pantagraph; Wireless Flash News Service; Universal Press Syndicate

"The world is full of idiots." -- Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr in a recent interview

Check the Feet
Headline: "National Enquirer says paternity test indicates the father of John Edwards' alleged love child is actually Bigfoot."
-- notthelatimes.com

Headline of the Week
"Fart-lighting youth in petrol can mishap"
-- The Register (U.K.)

Gnome Alone
From a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review story headlined "Greensburg man guilty of using gnome as weapon":
"The gnome, about a foot tall, wore a hat, a blue shirt over a bulging stomach and a wide grin as it sat on a table in open court throughout the two-day trial. Morrison and the weapon were separated by about 2 feet of table, with the gnome facing the defendant."

NOW are you satisfied?
News item: "A 60-year-old grandfather woke up from a 10-week coma after his favorite Rolling Stones song was blared into his ears."
-- Chicago Sun-Times

The Daily Doofus
In Bridgeport, Conn., Victor Rodriguez, 21, as police approached to arrest him on a domestic assault charge, turned to his 9-foot-long pet python and shouted to the snake, "Get them!" It remained motionless.
-- Universal Press Syndicate

Lame Joke du Jour
Q: What is the loudest state?
A: Illinoise.

The other day, yet another college kid stopped by seeking advice from yours truly.
"Hey, Uncle Edgester," she said, "I'm a journalism student and I'm here to do an internship, you know, to learn the ropes from a real, professional journalist. Do you know where one is?"
Later, after I led her to the broom closet and locked her in there with the others, I got to thinking.
"You know," I thought, "these college kids keep getting younger every year."
It's true! They do! If you don't believe me, check out the Beloit College Mind-set List for the class of 2012.
You see, every year, the staff at Beloit College in Wisconsin puts together this list to try to give the faculty a sense of the mind-set of this year's incoming freshmen.
For instance:
Most students entering college this fall in the class of 2012 were born in 1990, the year everyone learned to do The Humpty Dance and "Days of Waiting" swept to victory in the
Documentary, Short Subject category at the Oscars. Remember that? We could have sworn "Chimps: So Like Us" was going to win! Boy, takes you back, huh?

More about this year's incoming college freshmen:

* Harry Potter could be a classmate.
* WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.
* Clarence Thomas has always sat on the Supreme Court.
* Wayne Newton has never had a mustache.
* Films have never been X rated, only NC-17.
* IBM has never made typewriters.
* Roseanne Barr has never been invited to sing the National Anthem again.
* There has always been Pearl Jam.
* The Tonight Show has always been hosted by Jay Leno.
* Pee-Wee has never been in his playhouse during the day.
* Authorities have always been building a wall across the Mexican border.
* Macaulay Culkin has always been "Home Alone."
* Muscovites have always been able to buy Bic Macs.
* They have never known life without Seinfeld references.
-- www.beloit.edu