Are animals developing at an exponentially faster rate than was previously thought? Will the humble octopus join his animal brethren and attempt to overthrow humanity??

If they learn to use the internet, we're done for

There are people in my office who easily outweigh everyone in this family, and they're making 40K/year minimum. I don't understand why they can't work.

Once upon a time I had a very lazy friend, very smart but fat and lazy. His laziness got him fired from every job he ever had. He gave up, now he's on welfare and lives with his mom who supports his video game habit. The fat and lazy seem to have a sense of entitlement rivaled by no-one. As a chubby guy myself, it irritates me to no end...

Add me to the growing chorus of the unimpressed. My fiancee and I eat on around $25/week. $67 a week would be a luxury. If we cut back and visit the farmer's market we can live on $10/week...

I visited the Firehouse last October! For me it was like a holy pilgrimage!

http://home.comcast.net/~cartoonistaaron/firehouse01.jpg

Maybe us Americans will not look as bad if I chime in and mention I was a fan of Hugh Laurie from "Blackadder" years ago. My girlfriend was shocked when I showed her some old episodes and contrasted them with "House."

I don't watch "House" but I'm sure he figures, as long as the checks cash, who cares if it's comedy or melodrama?

It's late to comment on this but I thought his name was "Hans" until I was 17 years old, and a friend of mine (a Star Wars fanatic) laughed at me like I was an idiot... I told him "hey, which one of us has a girlfriend, and which one of us has a wall full of HANS SOLO variant action figures?"

That was the end of that.

I LOL'd @ JustinButNotTHATJustin

This is nuts, and I agree with Evilbeagle that it's not an exclusively American thing. People everywhere are nuts.

When I read this story back on Friday, it made me re-think the whole Christmas tradition of buying cheap crap and foisting it off on family and friends. What about making people meals, or something? Or making donations in friend's names to charity? (Of course I say this as a guy who bought his girlfriend an iPod and some DVDs.)

I understand people want a bargain but...

As for the Toys R Us thing, I am as big a gun nut as the next Southern white male, but why was anybody in a toy store with their loaded gun??

I wanted to chime in with the would-be book reviewers. My girlfriend has read all 4 books and as an avid reader (and admitted fan of trashy books), she rates the books right alongside the romance novels she loves so much. Only with vampires. Somewhere between Nora Roberts and Anne Rice (only apparently a lot tamer than Anne Rice).

Also it seems like when people want to shield children from this stuff, they forget what kind of stuff they were into when they were kids. Unless older people really did lead puritanical lives until they hit 18...