He was just trying to stop them itching? Bollocks!...

Has there ever been a time when you've considered paying a fine just for convenience sake?  I know I have!

Take the recent election for example.  Here in Australia voting is compulsory, they mark your name of a great big list as they hand you your ballot paper and if at the end of the day your name is still there, you get hit with a fifty dollar fine ... at least I think it's still fifty dollars.

Fifty dollars for the convenience of not having to find a parking spot, elbow my way through the people handing out leaflets, and then line up for god knows how long just to write the number 1 on a piece of paper?  It was tempting.  I guess everything has a price.

For example, want to know how much it will cost to fondle your dangly bit in public on a bus?  Exactly one hundred and eighty pounds, apparently.  At least that's what a Bletchley senior citizen had to pay when he was caught "shampooing his privates" on a public bus [link].

And no, that's not a euphemism for something else, he actually was shampooing his privates.

Apparently he was feeling a bit sensitive in the nether region and, with no ointment to put on, he decided to see if shampooing it would do the trick.  Although it does bring up the question, why did he have the shampoo with him?  And where on earth did he get water from?

Unfortunately, a woman and her child saw him and got a bit upset, resulting in his being charged with public indecency and having to pay the hundred and eighty quid.

I suppose if what he said was true, and he was just trying to stop an itch (again, not a euphemism), then you have to feel sorry for the guy.  Who hasn't had those awkward, irritating itches that you want nothing more than to scratch, but you know that if you do it in public everyone will look at you as if you just killed a bucket load of kittens by bludgeoning them with a puppy?  And he said he tried to be discreet, he just not discreet enough apparently.

Hell, if this was a storyline in an episode of Seinfeld, you know as well as I do that it would have been hilarious!

Ooh ... little lower ... to the left ... yeah, that's the spot...

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So imagine you're lying in bed when you her a noise down stairs.  You're alone in the house, so you know that whoever's down there shouldn't be.  The noises get closer and closer, the door opens, then someone silently slips into the bed beside you.

And starts to give you a back rub.

Yup, didn't see that one coming, did you!

But that's exactly what happened to a North Carolina woman when some bloke snuck into her room, crawled into her bed, and tried to give her a massage [link].

Ugh, just makes me shiver thinking about it.

Now I love a good massage.  There can never be too many back rubs in my humble opinion, and anyone who'd like to volunteer as my personal neck/back rubber can apply in the comments, but I just can't condone unsolicited middle-of-the-night neck back and shoulder fondling.  That's the sort of move a sexually awkward teen uses to hit on a girl ... the neck rub, not the crawling into bed in the middle of the night.

I remember back when I was in high school a boy did that to me.  I don't even remember why we were sitting in a position where it was possible for him to scoot up behind me and start kneading my shoulders, but he did and I just about jumped out of my skin!

Now days I'll let pretty much anyone give me a neck rub, I'm not at all discerning and, quite frankly, completely shameless.  But I was sixteen, and he surprised me.  Quite frankly, he's lucky I didn't elbow him in the face out of fright.

But I don't want to belittle what that woman must have gone through.  Whatever the guy's intentions were (and I can't imagine they were good), it must have been terrifying to wake up and find a stranger in bed with you, not knowing what he was going to do.  She must have assumed the worst, I know I would have.

Personally, I think she showed admirable restraint by not kicking him in the 'nads, but that's just my humble opinion.

You think vampire novels are angsty? Try reading young adult books from the 80's and 90's...

I remember back when I was a teenager I read a book called "The Face On The Milk Carton".  It was one of those typical angsty young adult novels that were so popular back in the 80's and 90's ... honestly I couldn't even begin to tell you how many books I read back then about kids with terminal illnesses or whose parents died ... but this one was about a teenager who finds out she was kidnapped as a toddler and left with a couple who believe they're her grandparents.

Then one day she sees her own face on a milk carton, feel compelled to call the number and find out if it's really her, and then all hell breaks loose.  She's forcibly removed from her grandparents house and made to go live with her real parents, the grandparents have to prove to the cops that they knew nothing about it and really did think she was their grandkiddy, and a generally awful time is had by all.

I remember, at the impressionable age of 15, just loving it!  It was so angsty, so melodramatic.  I got to be righteously indignant on behalf of the girl, feel bad for the parents, feel even worse for the grandparents, and generally twist myself up into emotional knots all the while knowing that it was completely implausible and probably would never happen.

Except that apparently it did happened to this poor guy [link].

For those who don't want to click on the link, the cliff notes version is that a guy who was kidnapped as a baby back in 1964 only to be returned to his parents about a year later, recently had a DNA test done that proves he's wasn't actually the kidnapped child.  The cops had done their best with matching the shape of his ears, bless their hearts, but I guess without the scientific options we have today it was never going to be a 100% guarantee.

I suppose he must have had an inkling about it, if he went to the trouble of having the DNA tests done, but I'd imagine it still came as a bit of a shock.  To find out you're not who you thought you were.  That you're not the child your parents thought they'd lost, then miraculously regained.

It does make me wonder how I'd handle it if I found out that I'm not who I thought I was.  Would I want to know who my parents really were, or would I decided that it didn't matter?

Still, that's not likely.  I've got my grandmother's hair, my father's feet, and my mother's inherited arthritic condition.  If it turned out I was actually a foundling dropped off on the doorstep one rainy night, that'd be one hell of a coincidence, don't you think?

Regardless of the outcome, you have to admit two dollars for an iPhone was a damned good deal...

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You know that old saying about how gosh darned easy it is to steal candy from a baby?  Well, turns out it doesn't translate to high end electronics, as a homeless man in New York learned the hard way.

Want to read more about it?  You can find my article on the topic over at Sprocketink [link].

A whole new spin on the term loveseat...

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I do love a tale of star-crossed lovers fighting against the forces that keep them apart.  Romeo and Juliet, Mark Antony and Cleopatra, Buffy and Angel, who doesn't enjoy a good angsty romance?

So I think that's why I find myself sympathizing with Gerard Streator, the Wisconsin man who takes "cushion pushin" in a whole other direction.

Mr Streator was sentenced to five months jail the other day for having "intimate relations" with a couch someone had left on the footpath [link].  Honestly, just because his paramour was not a traditional partner, was that any reason to put a harsh on his mojo?  I mean, it's just rude to interrupt a man mid couch-coitus.

Okay, so maybe there problem wasn't so much that he was getting funky with a couch, but that he was doing it in public.  I'm pretty sure that if Mr Streator had wanted to have romantic candle lit interludes with his sofa in the privacy of his own home, no one would have questioned it ... or at least no one would have arrested him for it.

But instead he chose to do it in public on the street, so I suppose the police can be forgiven for taking offence.

In addition to the jail sentence, Mr Streator has been fined $243 to cover court costs and, something which seems odd to me, banned from owning pornography.  Seriously?  Completely banned?  That seems overly harsh.  I mean, this really was a victimless crime ... at least, as long as you don't count the people who had to watch his bare ass bouncing up and down.  I'll admit that they may have suffered a bit.

But banning him from owning pornograhy seems overkill to me.  And really, does an IKEA brochure count as porn anyway?

If MySpace is coming back from the dead, does that make it a zombie site...

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A long time ago, back in the dark ages of the internet before streaming video was common and Facebook was just a glimmer in Mr Zuckerberg's eye, I had an account on a little page called MySpace.

Ah, those were the days, where you could do such innovative things like post a profile, put a pretty picture behind it, and if you were particularly clever set some music to play in the background.

Don't laugh, you young whippersnappers!  These were the pioneering days of social networking!  We had no idea back then what was possible!

For those of you who don't remember (or have blocked it out), MySpace was one of the first popular social networking sites out there.  Imagine Facebook, but without the apps.  There was no Farmville or Candy Crush back then, my children.  We had to play games the old fashioned way ... at games.com.

We all had a page, and we were all friends with Tom (the creator of the site who took the opportunity to make sure he had more friends than anyone else).  But its popularity took a nosedive as Facebook's grew.  It just couldn't compete with having the ability to virtually poke people, I'm afraid.

But I read the other day that MySpace is trying to make a comeback [link].  That's right, for all you people who are feeling nostalgic about the early 2000's you can now log back into your MySpace accounts and start using it again in its new and improved incarnation!

Oh god, I just realised what this means, another social networking site to keep up with.  What with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram, I think I'm going to have to give up sleeping just to fit another one in!

I now declare you third grader and woman eight times his age ... I mean, man and wife...

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I remember the first time I got married.  I think I was about five or six, and it was in the front yard of my house.

I had a lovely veil in the form of a pillow case, my bouquet was provided by the hydrangea bush under my bedroom window, and while I can't remember which of the neighborhood boys stood opposite me, I do remember that rather than kissing at the end of the ceremony we finished it up with a rousing game of tag.

Ah, it was a lovely day.

But as elegant as my ceremony was, a South African eight year old has definitely beat me.  You see, he didn't just get pretend married, he got real married.  And he didn't marry some eight year old little girl from next door, he married a sixty one year old friend of the family [link].

Well, when I say real married, it wasn't a legal wedding, just a ritual.  And if we're going for full disclosure I should probably mention that the woman already has a husband and five kids.  So I guess it was more like my childhood wedding that I first thought, just with more money, nicer clothes, and a buffet afterwards.

But why all the rigmarole, you ask?  Apparently they do things a bit differently in South Africa, and when your dead Grandad comes to you in a dream and tells you to get married it doesn't matter if you haven't even hit double digits yet.

Still, I had no idea that our dead relatives could boss us around from beyond the grave.  So just to be on the safe side, I'm going to say one thing.  Grandma?  I miss you very much, but if you come to me in a dream and tell me I have to marry some pensioner I've never even met, I'm afraid you're going to be very, very disappointed.

When victim blaming takes on a new and incredibly disturbing dimension...

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You all know how I feel about victim blaming, so it won't come as any surprise that I had opinions about Nigella Lawson's situation with her husband, and the comments made by a certain Melbourne radio DJ about it.

If you want to read about it, you can go to my article at Sprocketink.com [link] and weigh in on the topic!

You've got to love the weird ones, don't you...

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As most of you know, I do love an eccentric.  The kookier the better, in my books!  But even I have to admit that the Seattle woman who declared herself a breatharian and decided to see if she could live on a diet of water and sunshine might have taken things a touch too far [link].

Naveena Shine wanted to try and prove that it was possible for someone to survive on sunlight alone.  But after 47 days, and after losing 20% of her body weight, she decided that maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all.

Hmm, I wonder what clued her in.  The dizziness?  The shaking?  The throwing up?  Those are all symptoms she suffered during her little "experiment".  Not surprising really, given that all she'd had in that time was water "with a splash of milk". 

Now I know I'm being pretty harsh, and normally I'm first on board for an out there new age theory, but I've always tempered that with a solid belief in science [link].  And science has pretty clearly proven that human beings can't photosynthesize.

But I think my favourite part of the article was where she said she didn't want to be responsible for encouraging people to do it if they didn't have their "belief systems lined up".  Wow ... that's incredibly patronising coming from someone who was essentially admitting that it wasn't possible.

Jeez, you know it's getting bad when you start to long for the days of the good old fruitarians.

The only way I'd believe it works is if they put crack in it...

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Apparently there's a new dieting aide on the market kids, and it requires next to no effort from the user so you just know it's going to be popular!

Maybe not effective, but definitely popular.

So has anyone else read about this new dieting perfume [link]?  According to the sales pitch, you spray it on and it suppresses your appetite, boosts your metabolism and improves your mood.  That's an awful lot for one little bottle of smelly stuff, isn't it.

They claim that their combination of different herbs will help you to lose weight while you sniff.  Yeah, there's something else out there that you can sniff that'll help you lose weight, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend cocaine to get rid of those extra kilos either.

It seems like every time we turn around there's another snake oil merchant trying to convince us they've found the ideal solution to all our tubby woes.  Take this pill, sniff that perfume, eat that rhino placenta, and soon you'll be a perfect size 8 with perky breasts and a butt that won't quit.

I don't know, does anyone else miss the old days of weight loss scams?  Sure, swallowing tape worms or having a nice soothing cigarette might kill you, but at least they had some real measurable success!

But maybe I'm being a bit harsh.  I don't really know the science behind the new scent, maybe it's perfectly legitimate and people will be wasting away before our very eyes ... but I doubt it.

If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that if it seems to be too good to be true, you can bet your little cotton socks that it is.

I wonder if "honk honk" will become the new German army salute...

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When it comes to boobs, I have to admit I've been blessed.  I was definitely hit by the mammary stick and have nothing to complain about in that area.  But if you feel as if you could use a little improvement, why not consider joining the German army?

Turns out the boys in the German Guard Battalion have start to grow some pretty nice breasts [link], or as I like to call them, hooters. It's sparked quite the controversy among the ranks, raising quite a few Benny Hill-esque eyebrows.

Of course this must be disturbing for them, to suddenly start sprouting jubblies for no good reason, I'd imagine their uniforms aren't really tailored to accommodate them.

According to a plasic surgeon, the repeated slapping of their guns against their chest is triggering a hormone which is giving them a really nice set of norks.  It's been diagnosed in 75% of soldiers, which is an astoundingly successful percentage in anyone's books for a non-invasive boob enhancement procedure.

Huh, and when you think of how much money is spent every year on boob jobs, when slapping someone repeatedly on the chest is so gosh darned effective at increasing the size of your fun bags ... I'm thinking the plastic surgeons have a bit of explaining to do.

So those of you who've been considering getting a tatas enlargement might like to give this option a try first.  See if you can find a friend who's willing to slap you around the breasticles repeatedly and report back to us if you go up a bra size.  Do it for science!

And yes, I did take this opportunity to see how many euphemisms for breasts I could put into one post.  Thank you for noticing!

I'm pretty sure that wasn't in the Animal Control workplace manual...

If you found a bunch of feral kitties in your back yard, what would you do?  Put food out for them?  Try to tame them?  Train them to be your evil minions of the night?  Perhaps call Animal Control if they were a bit aggressive or sick?

The last option was the one that an Ohio woman decided on when she found a whole family of feral cats living in her woodpile [link].  They were aggressive and covered in fleas, and she had a bunch of kids, so she what any sensible parent would do.  Called Animal Control and asked them to come take them away.

But when the Animal Control guy came, instead of capturing them and removing them, he decided to euthanize them right there on the property.

Um ... okay, I could see how that might be necessary.  If they were aggressive it might not be safe to remove them.  So he must have had some sort of humane way of doing it right?

Yeah ... no.  Turns out that "euthanize them on the property" meant take out a gun and shoot the mother cat and the five kittens right there.  In plain sight of the house.  While the woman's kids were watching.

Sometimes the stupidity and thoughtlessness of some people just blows me away.  Seriously?  Shooting kittens in front of a bunch of kids?  Are you trying to traumatise them so much they'll need years of therapy to get over it, Mr Animal Control Guy?

And as for the cats, I can accept that sometimes it's necessary to put them down.  I don't like it, but I can accept it.  But to do it in such a cruel and callous way is just completely unacceptable.

As such, I hereby award you my Douchebag of the Week award.  Congratulations, I don't know if it would have even been possible for you to be more of an asshole.

Edit:  It was pointed out to me by KP that I'd misinterpreted the article and this guy didn't work for the SPCA.  He actually worked for Animal Control.  I've since altered the post to correct this.  So  my apologies to the OSPCA, I can only blame it on the fact that I'm Australian and didn't understand the difference in departments.  

Hipster parenting methods kind of scare me...

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Do you guys remember that episode of The Simpsons where, while Marge is away, Homer decides to let Maggie roam free in the backyard and let nature take its course?

Well, it looks like the Hipsters have decided to start doing it too ... in an entirely ironic way, of course [link].

Yep, it's true, there is a whole group of people who are trying a new form of toilet training for their youngsters, which pretty much consists of leaving the little dears diaperless and then rushing around after them, holding their naked butts over bowls whenever their face screws up.

Charming image, isn't it.

The theory seems to be that by using the "elimination communication" method ... yep, it's really called that ... the babies will become potty trained earlier and you save the environment by not using all those disposable diapers.  Well the diaper think is definitely true, although I'd question the early potty training bit.  Are kids only a few months old even able to control it?

I have to admit, I'm not sure how this could actually work for a normal person.  Do you let your baby poop on the footpath if you're taking them for an afternoon walk?  Do you ask to borrow a bowl if you're at another kid's birthday party?  And what about daycare?  Do you tell the carers just to let them go free range in the playground?

To be fair though, it's not like this is just some new fangled concept that they've come up with.  Our ancestors did it for thousands of years before diapers were invented, and there are still cultures in the world today where it's a common child rearing practice ... but any way you slice it you're still encouraging your kids to poop in public.

That can't be good.

Take two spankings and call me in the morning...

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I'm a try anything twice kind of girl ... once to see if I like it, and again to double check ... so when I saw a news article headline the other day that declared the way to better mental health was to have kinky, forget the feather go for the whole chicken sex [link], I just had to read it.

My first thought was that it'd end up being yet another endorsement of the 50 Shades franchise, with lots of declarations of how the new "Mummy Porn" industry is turning miserable housewives into mavens of sexual experimentation, but it turns out they did a fair amount of research.  They surveyed about fifteen hundred people, two thirds of whom were involved in the BDSM scene to some extent, and found that those who liked to get funky in the bedroom were more inclined to be mentally healthy.

Oh boy, that's going to make for some interesting therapy sessions, isn't it.

Client:  I've been feeling depressed lately, Doctor. 

Psychologist:  Okay, well take two spankings and call me in the morning.

Not that this is a new concept.  I remember a few years back reading an article about how they were using "Whipping Therapy" on depression patients in Russia [link].  They found that after a good thrashing the patients were happier and more positive about life.

I know that when you whip someone it releases endorphins that make them feel good, kind of in the same way that exercise does, but you still have to wonder what on earth lead the Russian psychologist to think to himself, "Hmm, these guys are depressed, suicidal even ... I know, lets beat them and see is that makes them happier!"

I'm sure a lot of people are going to look at the research and think it's poppycock.  Just some fringe scientists trying to get their fifteen minutes by making some eyebrow raising statements, but I'm inclined to believe them.

After all, it was published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine.  Sounds legit to me.

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I don't know if any of you noticed but I decided to put an advertising link up on my top bar a little while ago, and this week I got my first advertiser!  His name is The Six-Fingered Monkey and I've been a follower of his for a while now.  He's clever, funny, and takes awesome selfies (even if I still think he needed to show more skin).  

Go over and check him out at his Blog [link], his Bloglovin [link], his Twitter [link], or his Facebook [link].  Trust me, you'll thank me later.

I don't even want to know where they thought the cell phone was hidden...

Being a teacher must be a bloody hard job these days.  What with low pay, variable levels of support from administration, and bastard kids, I take my hat off to anyone who manages to do it and do it well.

But I do think that the teachers in Quebec who thought it was a good idea to strip search a bunch of sixteen year olds because they thought one of them might be cheating on a test [link] probably should have opted to go into retail.  Or waste management.  Or pretty much anything other than teaching.

Not that there's anything new about threatening to have kids strip searched.  I remember when I was in High School they used to threaten it if they thought a kid had drugs on them.  To be fair though they'd call the cops in, not do it themselves.  

I have to assume that this is a case of teachers pushed past their coping point.  They couldn't possibly have thought that it would be allowed.  Maybe it started out as a threat they had no intention of following through on, but just snowballed from there.

They must have known that wasn't going to go down well once parents found out!  You can't just drag kids into a room and tell them to get their kit off!  Hell, they'll be lucky if they escape without charges of sexual misconduct.  

God knows if my kid was treated like that, I'd be out for justice, and nothing less than their heads on a spike would satisfy me.

This wouldn't have happened if he'd been a crossword fan...

Like most people I spent a certain portion of my childhood doing jigsaw puzzles.  Hours upon hours of painstaking searching, matching and fitting to create a picture that, with varying degrees of success, resembled what I saw on the front of the box.

So when I read about this fellow, who made a forty thousand piece puzzle out of pictures taken from the Queen's diamond jubilee, only to watch it crumble in front of his eyes as he pressed in a tile that had come a teeny bit loose [link], I winced with second hand dismay.

You poor, poor bastard.

Can you imagine spending quite literally weeks on something like that, only to watch it fall apart and not be able to do anything to stop it?  Luckily he was able to salvage portions of it, and he thinks it'll only take a few weeks to recreate the rest of it, but he must have been so upset.

His wife, according to one article I read, was less sympathetic about it all.  When a reporter asked her what she thought about her poor hubby's masterpiece crumbling before his horrified eyes, she just started laughing and couldn't stop.

What does she do when he has serious problems?  Kick him in the shins?

Seriously though, go watch the video below.  It's one of those train wreck situations.  You know it's coming, you know you're going to cringe, but you just can't look away.

When David Bowie asked if there's life on Mars, I don't think this is what he had in mind...

So ... did anyone else hear about how those jokesters at NASA spent eight hundred million dollars so they could draw a picture of a dick on Mars?

*drops to the floor laughing uproariously*

Oh god, this is just priceless!  Surely there are cheaper ways of seeing if a robot can draw vaguely obscene graffiti.  Perhaps shelling out fifty bucks for a remote control car and a trip to the beach?

And if all they wanted was to draw dicks on things, couldn't they have just done it on a bathroom wall like a normal person? All that would have cost them is the price of a Sharpie.

Okay, okay, I know it's unfair to insinuate they did it on purpose, but that's the most amazing SNAFU I've ever seen!  Can you imagine the technicians in charge of the Mars Rover Curiosity trying to explain that one away?

"I'm sorry, sir, I don't know what happened.  One minute we were just doing our job, then Phil made a fart joke, and the next thing you know..."

According to NASA it was just a coincidence, and not a group of technicians acting like sixth graders.  But I'm not buying it.  I'm thinking that NASA guys are just like any other bunch of blokes. Get them together in a room for long enough, and their average mental maturity drops to that of a twelve year old.

Sure it was an accident, NASA ... sure it was.

And if you act now, you'll get the third month of incarceration absolutely free...

Tired of spending hundreds of dollars a month on cigarettes?  Sick of being sent outside like a naughty puppy every time you want a smoke?  Don't want to smell like the bottom of an ashtray anymore?  Well, why not try all new SlapACop!

That's right, with our revolutionary new quit smoking method, SlapACop, you too can give up smoking in as little as seventy two hours!  All for the price of a bus ticket to your nearest police station, you can exchange a face slap to a uniformed officer for an all expenses paid trip to jail.

Enjoy the peace and serenity of your very own jail cell, the professionally prepared meals, and most importantly NO CIGARETTES!  That's right, after being forced to go cold turkey, you'll be foot loose and cigarette free in no time. 

Disclaimer:  Fees listed here do not include any bond that may be required by your local law enforcement agency.  So really, if you end up having to shell out five grand to get you out of the pokey, it might not be the best option after all.

Sure it might sound like I'm being facetious, but this is something that a California woman actually did.  Rather than buy some chewing gum, visiting a hypnotist or asking a friend to yell at her every time she tried to have a smoke, she decided the best option was to try and get arrested so she'd be put in jail and out of temptations reach.

And really, with a plan like that, how could it go wrong?

I'm guessing she didn't really think it through.  I'm not exactly an expert on the clink, but I've been led to believe that cigarettes are quite plentiful in there, what with them being used as a form of currency and all.  But then what do I know, maybe she did her research and found a smoking free jail before she headed off to put her plan into action.

You'd need to be pretty careful though, I'd imagine.  Go too easy on him and you'll get off with a warning, go too hard and you might end up with a pretty new anklet and the inability to put the rubbish out after seven o'clock at night.

On second thoughts, maybe it would just be easier all round to buy a packet of Nicorette.

We've come a long way from sixpence to see the freak...

I love side shows.  I love the cheap, not at all good for me corn dogs, the endless tinned carnival music, and the ridiculously unsafe rides.  But the thing I love the best about side shows? 

The games!

I love throwing balls down a clown's throat (and yes, I know how that sounds, pervert) or shooting tin ducks with a BB gun in the misguided attempt to win a stuffed toy that I know I'm just going to throw away before the end of the day.  I don't know why I love it, but I do!  I guess it's just part of the experience.

Still, I'm guessing that if I'd done what this guy did, I wouldn't be raving about it quite so much.

This guy, poor sod, lost his entire life savings on one of those toss a ball in a bucket games.  Honestly, almost three thousand dollars trying to win an XBox Kinect, and all he ended up with was a hilariously large stuffed banana wearing a Rastafarian hat. 

I know, it's a glorious image, isn't it.

But I can understand how he got suckered in.  Anyone who's ever sat at a pokie machine, waiting for those "free spins" knows the magical lure of gambling.  And that's essentially what he was doing.  It was a crappy gamble, I'll give you that.  He'd have been better off walking into the nearest casino and putting it all on black.

But to then blame the side show for the fact that he essentially lost his mind and willingly handed over three thousand dollars ... no, I can't agree that it was their fault.  They provide crappy, hard to win games with prizes that are worth a pittance.  We all know this, it's the agreement we have going in.  To then turn around and blame them because he was out of control doesn't seem fair to me.

Still, poor bastard.  He spent three grand trying to win something that would have only cost him a couple hundred in the shops, and instead all he got was a dreadlocked banana.  That's going to be a hard one to explain to his wife, I'd imagine.

A pair of double D's does not a model make...

You know that plastic surgery I was talking about saving up for the other day?  Turns out there's no need.  If I go and tell a doctor that my crows feet are causing severe emotional distress and my wrinkles are plunging me into fits of depression, I can probably get a face lift on the public dime.

Or at least that's what I'm led to believe based on this article about a Yorkshire woman who convinced a doctor to let her get a boob job through the public health system by bursting into tears in his office and telling him that her A cups were ruining her life.

Yeah, I couldn't believe it either.

Now I'm a huge supporter of public health systems.  I believe that everyone should have access to medical assistance when they need it, regardless of whether they can pay.  And I know that sometimes cosmetic procedures are important if the person's quality of life is affected by certain aspects of their appearance.  But when some twenty two year old decides that she needs a boob job because she wants to be the next Katie Price (her words, not mine), I hardly think that fits under the definition of necessary medical attention!

Apparently this girl is so happy with the results of her surgery that she went out and got brown highlights in her hair, started collecting Louis Vuitton bags, and has bought herself one of those awful little yappy dogs that I'm always tempted to kick.  Oh yeah, she really sounds like she's got her priorities sorted.

She didn't even have the grace to keep up the appearance of it being purely about correcting what she claimed as a serious physical malformity!  Oh no, instead she just went on and on about how she was going to leave her two kids, aged five and two, with her parents so she can go to London and try to become a model.

Oh sweetheart ... if all it took to be a model was a pair of double D's, I'd be a model.  But I ain't, and it's unlikely you will be either.