Dave Bidini has a column in the National Post. I have no idea what he's talking about. Google Translate isn't helping a bit. Do you understand?

For years, I was a keener, but after my short-lived stint as reeve of Dildo, Nfld., in which I stumped for the still-unpopular Gouge and Screw Tax — dinged in the polls and my approval rating going downhill as fast as a runaway toboggan or a bus shagger — I put the kerfuffle behind me and tried to forget the fact that I’d been soundly turfed, even though Joey Smallwood’s buddy had cherry-picked me himself. I got off the chesterfield, threw on my old housecoat and thongs, hucked a forty pounder, half-sack of swish and mickey of goof in a Loblaws bag over my shoulder before leaving my bachelor apartment to head due west past fire halls and hydros and parkades and corner stores in the direction of Dead Rear, Oilberta looking for some kind of joe job — cleaning eavestroughs; stitching hockey sweaters; packing Smarties; anything! — although damned if I knew whether I would find work once I got there.

Link -via Nag on the Lake

(Photo: tnimalan)

Pets may be the hidden victim of the sluggish economy. While humans can get food stamps to help them through a rough patch, but what about pets?

Enter Marc Okon, an entrepreneur who started a privately funded nonprofit called Pet Food Stamps that aims to help those already on government assistance to get free pet food:

The group has been swamped with more applications than his staff of a dozen people can readily process. Most applicants send letters detailing how they lost their jobs to outsourcing, their homes to foreclosure or their health to disease or accident.

"I just heard from a lady in North Carolina who has an autistic son whose only companion is a Jack Russell Terrier," he said. "It's cookie-cutter sadness. … Little details change but the gist of each story is the same."

Despite nominal improvements in the unemployment rate, the U.S. Department of Agriculture counts more than 47 million people in its food stamp program—nearly one out of every seven Americans.

Link (Photo: Shutterstock)

(YouTube link)

Jeff Wysaski of Pleated-Jeans made a parody of Ze Frank's "True Facts" series starring …himself! Learn all about the introvert and his peculiar habit, including where to find introverts. -via Laughing Squid

It must have been really embarassing to find out you've stuck a love note on a random stranger's car. And it might have been one of your neighbors! This cute and extremely polite note is part of a collection called 18 Hilariously Polite Warning Signs which range from passive aggressive to clever to truly polite. Link

(Image source: reddit)

No, 15-year old Demi Barnes didn't use her own forms. But the British art student did copy enough forms to make this lovely gown:

In order to "symbolize the fact that too many people rush into marriage and end up getting divorced," she made a dress out of 1,500 divorce papers.

In order to do so, she "printed a divorce form from the Internet, filled it in and photocopied it 1,500 times to create the dress."

I didn’t really know how to do it at first. It was quite a challenge," the teenager said, but in all it took her about ten hours to complete the entire work of art.

Link -via Fashionably Geek

Guys, do you find it hard to concentrate when you meet a beautiful woman? There's now a vaccine to protect you:

Minocycline is typically used to treat acne, but it can also reduce symptoms associated with mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia and depression, and it can improve decision-making. This latter effect was analyzed further in a study described in Scientific Reports.

Japanese researchers recruited about 100 men to play a trust game using photographs of women. In the game, each man was given 1300 Yen (approx. $13) and asked to rate the attractiveness of each woman as well as how much money they would give them in the trust game. The men were told that the amount of money given would be tripled, and the woman could then choose how to split the money between herself and the man. Unbeknownst to the men, every woman had already chosen in advance to take all of the money, completely stiffing the man. In other words, every woman was a potential "honey trap."

Prior to the experiment, the men were given either placebo or minocycline. The men who took minocycline were immune to the seductive allure of the honey traps.

Alternatively, you can marry a beautiful woman and thereby build up a resistance. I've found this method very effective.

Link -via Dave Barry

(Photo: Martina Rathgens)

Seattle's Jones Soda is famous for its inventive soda flavors, such as turkey and bacon. Now they've produced one flavored like poutine, a Canadian dish consisting of gravy, French fries and cheese curd. This soda will, sadly, only be available in Canada.

I've never been to Canada, but I recently met a Canadian. South Park, I've got to tell you, is surprisingly inaccurate in its depiction of Canadians.

Link -via Foodbeast

If you love Lost, you'll get a kick out of Darin Shock's latest sculpture: Charlie's hand message from the end of season 3. The 20x20" mixed media sculpture is part of Gallery 1988's Bad Robot Art Exhibit that opened this past Friday: Link - Thanks Darin!

Don't forget to check out Darin's T-Shirt over at the NeatoShop: Tatooinian Gothic

Students in a music class were perplexed as to who has been stealing their sheet music from the printer, so they set up a sting of sorts. Find out who the culprit turned out to be: Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - Thanks Mike!

If you dropped your valuables down the drain in Times Square, you may think that you've lost them for good, but not to the grate fishermen of New York.

Meet Eliel Santos, who makes his living with dental floss and mousetrap glue fishing things from the city sidewalk grates. Gary Buiso of The New York Post followed him for a day:

Over the years, Santos has perfected his gear. He ditched the string because it was too fragile, experimented with fishing line but found it too inflexible, and now uses dental floss exclusively — 120 yards worth of Aim brand. “It’s only $1.19.”

The line is MacGyvered with black electrician’s tape to differed sized weights — found metallic objects — to accommodate even the narrowest grate.

He changes the Blue-Touch mouse glue about three times a shift, which spans generally from 9 am to about 2 pm.

To snag cash, he uses a tiny fishing hook that he’s straightened out like a spear. Heavy objects are hauled in using two or more glue weights, and a traditional fish hook is also used on occasion to grab hard-to-snag earrings or chains.

Sometimes he uses a pair of binoculars and a flashlight, and he’ll wear purple rubber gloves on occasion.

“In case it’s in toxic water,” he explains.

Read the rest over at the New York Post: Link (Photo: Angel Chevrestt) - via Oddity Central

Listverse has the stories of ten hotels with legends of ghosts or other spirits that roam the halls. A spooky tale doesn't hurt business; in fact it's great advertising, even when management denies the haunting. That's the case at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel.

The Fairmont management adamantly denies any ghostly activity, but stories abound. One spirit frequently witnessed is that of a bride allegedly killed in a tragic accident right before walking down the aisle. The other, far more whimsical tale involves an elderly bellhop named Sam McAuley. Sam so adored the hotel that after he passed, he continued to work there. Guests report a white-haired bellhop helping them, only to vanish before they have a chance to tip him.

Read about the rest of the hotels in the post. Who know, you may end up booking a room! Link  -via the Presurfer    

Travis Jonker and his team work at an elementary school library. They had some old auditorium seats left over from renovations. They were functional as seating, but Jonker and his co-workers turned them into advertisements for works of children's literature. Click on Continue reading to view more.

Why is Thor so attractive? Is it his godlike power or is it just because Chris Hemsworth has a heavy stubble? Science has the answer:

A new study shows that facial hair says a lot about a man and that attractiveness peaks at the "heavy stubble" phase. Researchers photographed 10 men at four stages of beard growth: clean shaven, 5-day "light" stubble, 10-day "heavy" stubble (shown), and fully bearded. Three hundred and fifty-one women and 177 heterosexual men viewed the photos and rated each face for attractiveness, masculinity, health, and parenting ability. Women ranked heavily stubbled faces as the most attractive. Participants said that the clean-shaven men looked about as healthy and attractive as those with a full beard, but rated the bearded men higher for perceived parenting skills. Light stubble got the short end of the stick, garnering low scores across the board from both men and women.

Link | The research paper over at Evolution & Human Behavior

Heather Greenwood Davis blogs about her family's year-long trip around the world at Globe Trotting Mama. In an article at NatGeo's Intelligent Travel blog, she tells what it was like to be a black tourist family spending a month in Beijing. They were the center of attention, as people photographed their every move and crowded around to touch them.

As we looked around, we realized that there were things about our family that made as many as 20 people at a time stand in line to get their photo taken with us:

1. Our skin color. We were in China for 30 days, but it wasn’t until our last week, in Yangshuo, that we saw another black person. The American mother-daughter duo said we, too, were the first they’d seen in the country. The sight of the six of us chatting in the street set off a camera frenzy big enough to draw shopkeepers out to gawk.

2. We’re tall. My husband Ish is about 6 foot, I’m 5′ 8”, and our sons are big for their age. There are tall people in China, but people seemed genuinely impressed with our height, sometimes even using hand gestures for emphasis. But being tall has its advantages. No matter how big the crowd, we could usually spot each other.

3. Our hair. The boys’ mini Afros may as well have been unicorn horns. People reached out to touch them all the time. Cameras were held so precariously close to my son’s hair that I’m sure there are photos out there in which you can count the strands.

From personal experience, I know that outside of China's biggest cities, white people get the same attention. Davis assures us they had a great time in Beijing, and it was a learning experience for their sons. Read the rest at Intelligent Travel. Link -via Holy Kaw!
 
(Image credit: Heather Greenwood Davis)

Indian cardiac surgeon Devi Prasad Shetty built a "no-frills" Narayana Hrudayalaya clinic in Mysore, southern India, at a fraction of the cost of building equivalent hospitals in the West, and pass on the savings to his patients:

Air-conditioning is restricted to operating theatres and intensive care units. Ventilation comes from large windows on the wards.

Relatives or friends visiting in-patients undergo a four-hour nursing course and are expected to change bandages and do other simple tasks.

In its architecture, Shetty rejected the generic multi-storey model, which requires costly foundations and steel reinforcements as well as lifts and complex fire safety equipment.

Much of the building was pre-fabricated off site and then quickly assembled. [...]

By running the operating theatres from early morning to late at night, six days a week, it is inspired by low-cost airlines which keep their planes in the air as much as possible.

The British-trained surgeon sniffs at the output of Western counterparts who might do a handful of operations a week. Each of his surgeons does up to four a day on a fraction of the wages of those in the West.

Read the rest over at Globalpost: Link