I've never had kids, so I can't imagine how a parent would just forget that her child was in a hot car and not at day care, as in this case, in which a teacher is facing charges after the death of her one-year-old daughter who she thought, she says, had been delivered to day care. But it happens often enough that I guess it's possible. People have a lot on their minds. But the children should always come first. (Dallas Morning News)

How much of a loss you think it will be to the San Francisco 49ers to lose Michael Crabtree for the season? He tore his Achilles, needs surgery, and you have to figure he's done for the season, although a few guys have come back from that faster. That Anquan Boldin trade now looks positively prescient, but Crabtree was by a huge margin Colin Kaepernick's favorite target. Can the Niners make do without him? (And the sound you hear is Randy Moss' agent on the phone to the Niners reminding them that he's without a contract, still available, and not yet officially retired) (USA Today)

New York City parking authorities pulled a fast one on drivers the other day: They changed parking signs, then ticketed cars who had been parked there legally under the old signs. They pulled down signs showing that the parking was legal and put up signs saying "No Standing Anytime," then, 25 MINUTES later, they ticketed the cars. No notice, either- they posted a few paper signs telling people to move their cars by six hours AFTER the signs changed and the cars were ticketed. And the city's stance is: Hey, if you don't think you deserve a ticket, fight it in court. That's just wrong. (WCBS-TV-WLNY-TV-WINS/New York)

How do you pronounce GIF? Hard or soft G? I've always said it like "jif," but I ave friends who always say it with a hard G and I've begun to doubt myself. No more: Steve Wilhite, who created the format, says it's "jif," soft J. Well, then, it's settled. Why did it take him 26 years to say so? (CNN)

Center, TX has finally arrested a man who they believe is the "Squatter on the Square," the mysterious stealth pooper who took dumps on the courthouse lawn. He'd allegedly been doing it for a year, even bringing his own toilet paper, but surveillance cameras set up to catch him only got video of his butt. Quote of the year: When asked what he was doing, the suspect said, according to this report, "uh... uh... uh." I'll bet he did. (KTRE-TV/Tyler-Lufkin, TX)

How bad is the sanitation problem in some areas of India these days? In one district, prospective grooms have to submit pictures of themselves with toilets in order to get registered for mass marriage ceremonies and therefore be eligible for special benefits under a government scheme. The pictures are intended to avoid fraud and prove that the grooms indeed have plumbing. Hey, anything that encourages the installation of toilet facilities is probably a good thing, but it's amazing that this is still an issue in 2013. (The Times of India)

Dead: Bernard Waber. Who? Okay, how old are you? 50 or younger? Then you should remember Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, the Manhattanite croc from a series of chldren's books. He wrote and illustrated that. Yeah, he played a role in your childhood and you didn't even know his name. (New York Times)

A guy ran out of gas on the Baltimore Beltway, pulled onto the shoulder, took out his drum kit, and played the drums by the roadside until the cops came, a state highway truck came by and gave him a refill, and he was sent on his way. Hey, if you're stuck, why NOT get a little drum practice in? (Baltimore Sun)

Everything you need is in the headline: "Pregnant woman arrested for driving drunk." Yup. She's gonna be a GREAT mother. (WFIE-TV/Evansville)

I guess context is everything: A radio commercial for a car dealer had to be pulled and apologies offered because it made a refrerence to riding the "short bus." Yes, that's offensive to a lot of people, and, yes, it probably was a poor choice to use as a joke in a commercial. But many, many people have made short bus jokes, You've laughed at that description. Yes, you have. So, is there a time when it's okay and another when it's not? (KIFI-TV/Idaho Falls)

I suppose that if you're stupid enough to do cannonball dives onto manatees, you're stupid enough to take video of it. Manatees are protected, and video's evidence. You know, even if they weren't protected, you can't be jumping onto any animal. (Florida Today via WTSP-TV/St. Petersburg-Tampa)

A woman rented a laptop, then pawned it. That's not how rentals work. It also says a lot about how diligently pawn shops check to see if you really own what you're pawning. (Tampa Bay Times)

If the report is accurate, maybe you could say that the guy was probably asking for it, but a criminal defense attorney got a ticket for what he describes asimpolitely honking his horn. The car he was honking at turned out to be an unmarked police car, and the cop gave him a warning, but the lawyer asked for a ticket so he could take the law to court. And the cop didn't show up for the case and asked the judge to dismiss the case, prompting the lawyer to ask the judge to hold the cop in contempt. So the lawyer is pushing to make this a case, and the cop is trying to let it go. Someone REALLY wants a fight. (WKMG-TV/Orlando)

Someone is building a 3-D food printer that would make food out of powders in the machine. This is really the Jetsons made real, and it's being developed for poor countries. First item to be made? Pizza. It's easiest. I would LOVE a pizza printer. THIS HAS TO HAPPEN. (Los Angeles Times)

The company that makes Nutella has backed off its cease-and-desist against World Nutella Day. Yes, this involved lawyers and trademarks. They've come to their senses. Something like this is only good for the company. Finally, somebody figured that out. (ABC News)

The only question that comes to mind when I hear about a married teacher accused of texting nude photos of herself to a student is this: under what circumstances could she possibly have thought that this was an acceptable thing to do? I mean, you don't need to be all that intelligent to know that sending nude pictures of yourself to a teenager, much less a student at a school where you teach, is just wrong. What kind of mental illness is it that makes something like that seems acceptable? Or is it just stupidity? (WSOC-TV/Charlotte)

Why did this woman allegedly try to poison five of her family members using cleanser, window cleaner, and detergent? Because she was upset when they wouldn't share their cheese. Can't condone it, but cheese IS good. (WITN-TV/Washington, NC)

Every year, a church in suburban Philadelphia holds something called "sports camp," the retreat team that men who, it seems, might be gay, and the physical activity is aimed at keeping them away from same-sex attraction. Because there's nothing alluring to a gay man at all about being around a bunch of sweaty guys in shorts. The theory, apparently, is that men develop an attraction for the same-sex because of childhood rejection, which they link with failure at sports. This is about as silly the concept as I can imagine, but it's still amazing to me that people just can't see that being gay is something that you're born with, and it's not a disease to be "cured." (Philadelphia Inquirer)

There's hitting on a slot machine, and then there's this kind of hitting, the literal kind: this guy was seen on surveillance video punching a slot machine and shattering its video screen at a casino in Pennsylvania. They caught him waiting for a bus back to New York. People think slot machines are for losers, and they may be right. (WFMZ-TV/Allentown)

I'm including the news that long time news anchor Rob Jennings is retiring from WPVI-TV (6ABC) in Philadelphia because he's been there, mostly as a weekend anchor, for 36 years, because it's fascinating to me when somebody can spend that long in one place. He was the weekend anchorman, and the ratings on that station are high enough so that he probably could've gone anywhere else if he wanted to. But he didn't, for whatever reason. 36 years with one job is remarkable, although I think I might've gone crazy if I spent that much time in one job. (WPVI-TV/Philadelphia)

Police say that these three family members lived in a single mobile home with an infant, two other people, and over 80 animals. The animals included turtles, potbellied pigs, ducks, cats, chickens, dogs, and exotic birds. And, yes, there was everywhere. Poverty sucks, but there's no excuse for stockpiling that many animals. And, at some point, you gotta clean up. (AP via KYW-TV/Philadelphia)

It's unclear whether the University of Pennsylvania did a background check at all, or any adequate background check, on a lecturer who is now being accused of two acts of lewdness, pne involving exposing himself to students, and the other just listed as a "lewd act." I wonder, because I remember lecturers at school who seemed a little off, and I know people who I can define as strange who have taught courses at brand-name schools. The bar is set pretty low. (WTXF-TV/Philadelphia)

One of the best headlines of the day: "Cockapoo Causes Car Crash." Alliterative, funny, and true. Maybe we should strike the part about "funny," because having a dog loose in your car can be fatal. A family friend of ours died that way when I was a kid. Anyway, the dog got tangled up in the steering wheel, and the driver wasn't wearing her seatbelt, but there were no major injuries, because she was lucky. (WCAU-TV/Philadelphia)

A guy jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and survived, and the boater that picked him up from the water said that the guy was not only alive but wanted to be rescued. The jumper was described as homeless, "buff," and "fit," which I suppose helps if you want to survive. But this makes me wonder how many people commit suicide but, as they die, have second thoughts. (KTVU/Oakland-San Francisco)

See, they keep telling us different things about what teens are up to. Now, they say teens are moving away from Facebook and to Twitter for their social media needs. Like other articles saying that teens are moving away from Facebook, the reason given is to avoid their parents. You don't want to hang out where your parents are. (AP via KGO-TV/San Francisco)

Now on display at the Titanic Museum in Tennessee: the violin played by the bandmaster as the ship sank. Yes, they believe that this was the instrument that played "Nearer My Got To Thee" as the ship went down. The musician died in the disaster, his body found 10 days later. Some newspaper accounts say he was found with the violin case strapped to his chest, although it wasn't on the official accounting. So it's in dispute whether this is the genuine article, but if it is, well, it's kinda creepy, right? (Knoxville News-Sentinel; Thanks to Frank Murphy at WWST (Star 102.1)/Knoxville for the link)

A study says that people will eat more food when it's labeled healthy, even if the calories are the same as the unhealthy type. Something in people's minds makes them think that they can eat more something that's labeled good for you. Turns out that you'll gain weight either way. Nutrition is better with the healthier food, but the end result is the same waist size. (Reuters via Fox News)

Someone killed a man (who, according to some reports, was a soldier) with a machete while making political statements. For some reason, the fact that the attackers said "Allahu Akbar" while making the attack is way down at the bottom of this report and other statements by those claiming responsibility included references to revenge for Muslims being killed by British soldiers isn't mentioned, although the Prime Minister didn't hesitate to note that this may have been a terrorist attack (and the Muslim Council of Britain has condemned the attack as well). Barbaric, but that's what terrorism is. (BBC)

You know about drug sniffing dogs, but here's a whale poop sniffing dog. Yes, this dog tracks and finds whale poop from up to a mile away. This is valuable to scientists who study the poop for various information you can extract from whale poop, including DNA. So now you know. (KOMO-TV/Seattle)

Just when I think humans can't sink any lower, we get a story like this one, in which people are using fake service dogs to allow them to take the pets into restaurants and the like. This is far worse then using a handicapped person to cut the line at Disney World, because this is outright fraud. But using somebody else's handicapped placard to park your car is in the same category. (KNTV/San Jose)

If you've used Urban Dictionary in the past, you will laugh when you hear that it's become a resource for the courts when slang needs to be interpreted. Do they know that people can pretty much put anything up there? And can they stifle their laughter when they read some of the entries? (New York Times)

So, here are the stats: The tornado that devastated Moore, Oklahoma had winds of at least 200 mph, was 17 miles long, and was 1.3 miles wide. It was upgraded to anEF-5. That's what hit those poor people. What chance does anything have in the path of something that massive? (AP via The Oklahoman)

Whoa: The new Xbox One is not backwards compatible with Xbox 360 discs. Microsoft will, however, support the older console and continue to issue new games. At least, they say they will. But that could be a dealbreaker for people with a large investment in existing games. (Engadget)

I've never perceived the New York-New Jersey franchise in Major League Soccer to be all that spectacularly successful. But that isn't preventing the league from putting another franchise in New York. Of course, it helps that the New York Yankees and Manchester City are investors. (I thought the Yankees were partners with Manchester United in the past. Guess that's changed.) They don't have a stadium, although they could play on a temporary basis at Yankee Stadium, but the market is getting crowded, especially since it hasn't been conclusively decided that the market can support the franchise that it already has (they average 63% of capacity in a small stadium, down from last year and below league averages). (MLS)

San Francisco -- okay, Santa Clara -- will get Super Bowl L. Maybe it's time to drop the Roman numeral thing. (NFL.com)

Golf is banning "anchor putting" starting in 2016, including when you use a belly putter. You won't be able to hold the butt end of the putter against your gut. It'll have to be a "free swing." is this necessary? Is belly putting that much more accurate? Or are they overreaching here? (ESPN)

This article is about a stand-up comic of whom you've never heard. He's been performing at the Comic Strip Live club in New York since its 1976 opening, but while other fledgling comics took off and became famous, he never did. Nevertheless, he's still plugging away, and he still performs as part of the regular lineup and teaches comedy, too. How long would you give a career before you decide you'll never make it and give it up? (New York Times)

According to this report, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson says that when his penis became swollen after a wrestling injury and surgery, he experienced "fun pain" down there. "Fun pain"? In the groinal region? Do I want to know what he meant by that? No. (Monsters and Critics)

This 21-year-old college student had to be rescued off the mountain in Colorado after she took shrooms, stripped naked, and fought with her fellow hikers. In fairness, this is the kind of thing people do when they're in college. On the other hand, she's a communications major. You have to be high to be a communications major these days. (The Smoking Gun)

George Michael fell out of a car going 70 mph on a freeway, and he's apparently okay, but this article in The Sun and he pages linking to it are filled with almost gleeful plays on his song titles, like "Scrape me up before you go slow" and "Car-less Whisper." We can laugh because he wasn't badly hurt, I suppose. He probably isn't laughing. (The Sun)

A survey says that many parents don't know that their kids are taking"study drugs" like Adderall or Ritalin to stay awake to do homework and study. About 1% of parents say that their kids use the drugs, and 4% say they don't know. Meanwhile, 10% of sophomores and 12% of seniors in high school say they've used the drugs without a prescription. So the numbers don't match. Do parents ever really know what their kids are up to? (LiveScience via Fox News)

A lot of people lost their landline telephone service due to Hurricane Sandy, and Verizon is pushing regulators to allow it to replace the old lines with wireless service, sort of a tethered cell phone. It's just too expensive for them to reinstall and maintain copper wiring, they say. But we've seen problems with running out of battery power and not having an alternative with digital telephone service, and the question is whether wireless can truly be a lifeline service. Sure, a lot of people are cutting the cord and using only cell phones, but should that decision be made for the customer or should the customer making it for himself or herself? (New York Times)

Among the things seized by customs agents at LAX in a five day period early this month: elephant meat, a dead macaque, and snake, lizard, and crocodile skin handbags. Customs officials called it a "weird wildlife week." I'll say. (Daily Breeze, Torrance)

The devastation from the tornadoes in Oklahoma are inarguably horrific, but when nature wants to get you, it can be on a much smaller scale. Take this guy who was sitting in his car during a thunderstorm in Florida when a tree fell on the car and killed him. Just like that, it's over. Totally random. Anywhere, anytime, in the strangest of ways. (WESH-TV/Daytona Beach)

A teenage girl woke up to find a masked man trying to sexually assault her. She screamed for her mother, her mother came in, and they scuffled with the guy, and that's when the girl pulled the bandana off the guy's face and discovered that it was a classmate. imagine how creepy that must be, to discover that it's somebody that you know who's trying to do that to you. But it did make tracking him down and arresting him a lot easier. (WFTV/Orlando)

So, you want to be famous? Ask how much fun it is when you get some guy allegedly harassing your family and demanding to meet you like Jennifer Lawrence is experiencing right now. Some guy allegedly tried to contact one of her brothers over 200 times, flew to Louisville, left a threatening message, and went to police trying to get information on how to contact her parents. Fame brings out the crazies. (WLKY-TV/Louisville)

This article is about the danger posed to parents by their own toddlers. Yes, kids punch, poke, and hit their parents with toys and other objects, and it's not funny when you get hurt that way. And parents do get hurt that way. (New York Times)

Oh, come on, are they still trying to run the scam where they call elderly people on the phone and claim to be a relative in trouble overseas needing money to pay a ransom, or to bail themselves out of jail, or to buy a ticket to get home? People still fall for that? Okay, then, everybody, be aware that these things are never real. (WFMZ-TV/Allentown)

The boyfriend of an assistant bank manager and two other guys are being charged with faking taking her hostage in order to rob the bank. What I don't quite get is why SHE isn't under indictment. After all, she knew it was faked, she gave a fake description of the "kidnappers"... unless she's turned state's evidence, and even then you'd expect her to be facing charges. This story must have more to it. (Los Angeles Times)

The woman says that she was kicked out of the massive King of Prussia shopping mall in suburban Philadelphia for wearing a hat with a slogan against cancer. That sounds outrageous, until you see the slogan that was on her hat: "FU(ribbon)K CANCER." Agree with the sentiment, but you can see why the mall might want people not to wear that particular slogan on their clothing. (WTXF-TV/Philadelphia)

Most jurisdictions have laws against traffic ticket quotas, but you know that police departments do it anyway. And here's proof, maybe: a TV news investigation found that the Fort Worth Police Department allegedly has aquota system, a minimum of at least four traffic stops an hour, based on a contract with the state of Texas. The contract is a $1 million grant, dependent on an increase in citations. And the three officers who write the most tickets by the end of the grant period win a trophy and a letter of appreciation. So your suspicions are probably correct. (KTVT/Dallas)

The guy who created and sold Tumblr, getting $1.1 billion from Yahoo! for his trouble, never finished high school and never went to college. He just started a business and followed through with it. Add this to the pile of articles asking whether college is worth it. And while we're at it, here's a list of the 14 best jobs that don't require a college degree. Plumber is on there. Radio host is not. So... huh. (New York Times; ABC News)

The survey asked airline passengers what they would pay extra for, it depends on how long the flight is. On flights longer than three hours, people say they're willing to pay extra to avoid a middle seat. So expect airlines to start charging for that. A small percentage said that they would prefer a plane with a child-free zone, but most would rather sit next to a crying baby in the smelly adult. What's your ideal flight situation? What would you pay extra for? (Los Angeles Times)

For sale: Estate in Greenwich, CT. 50 acres, a mile of frontage on Long Island Sound, main building with 13,519 square feet, 12 BR, 7 BA, 2 1/2BA, 2 pools, spa, pool house. Price: $190 million. The most expensive home for sale in America. Will they take a check? (WCVB-TV/Boston)

The Charlotte Bobcats are making it official and reacquiring the name "Hornets," which left with the original NBA franchise to New Orleans in 2002. With the NOLA club's name change to Pelicans, the Bobcats are applying to take the Hornets name back for the 2014-15 season. The league should never have allowed the name to go to New Orleans in the first place. And "Bobcats" never sounded right. (Charlotte Observer)

This guy rode a Ferris wheel for 48 hours, a Guinness world record, and he was able to take five minute breaks every hour, so it's kind of a ripoff. I mean, yes, he had to stay awake, but he was able to get off and go to the bathroom, and maybe get something to eat, and that's not exactly the definition of real endurance. (NBC News)

This prisoner, while in jail, threatened a prosecutor, judge, and sheriff, sent letters with fake anthrax all over town, and threw poop and pee into a guard's face. And for that, he got an additional five years in federal prison. Five years? Is that enough? (The Oregonian)

July 20th is the date when Kings County Bar will hold its Smallest Penis in Brooklyn contest. So you have time to enter. Nudity is not required, so how will they know for sure? Wet tighty-whities, apparently. As publicity stunts go, this is... well, effective. (Gothamist)

A patent application has people wondering if Colgate is planning a caffeinated toothbrush. The application was rejected for reasons other than the caffeine, but with all the talk about the federal government probing caffeinated food, this thing got a lot of attention. As a member of the early-to-rise club, I would actually welcome something like this. Any thing that would keep me awake at that hour is a fine idea by me. (ABC News)

Dead: Zach Sobeich, at 18, and you'd know him as the Minnesota teen who, while dying of cancer, released a song on YouTube, "Clouds," that became a huge success and touched many people, including celebrities like Rainn Wilson, Bryan Cranston, Ed Helms, Phillip Phillips, The Lumineers, and many more, who made a video cover. He wrote a bunch of farewell songs, and he got to know that he made an impact on people before he died. That's more than a lot of people who live much longer can say. Sad he's gone, but what a story he left behind. (St. Paul Pioneer Press)

I frequently fly Virgin America Airlines, and I like them a lot. But it might be asking for trouble to allow passengers, as the airline is doing, to buy drinks and food for other customers and send them messages, just like at a bar. Despite the chill music and purple lighting, it's an airplane, not a singles joint. (Los Angeles Times)

Congress is pissed off at something everyone knew was happening: Apple, using shell corporations, has been shielding money from taxes by putting it in entities incorporated in places like Ireland where they'll pay less tax. Is the real scandal that they didn't pay what the government considers "enough" taxes or that taxes are so high that companies are seeking relief this way? (New York Times)

So after some "rocket launching tests," North Korea has been shooting off short-range weapons. The question is whether this is worrisome or just more sabre-rattling, sound and fury signifying nothing. Do we take Kim Jong Un seriously? Do you think he's a threat or a blowhard? (AP via CBC)

Not much I can add to the coverage of the Moore, OK tornado and the other twisters wreaking havoc across Oklahoma, so go to the local stations for the best coverage. Really, there are no words. (KFOR-TV/Oklahoma City)

Dead: Ray Manzarek. Signature keyboard sound of The Doors? That was him. 74, cancer. (AP via Washington Post)

We have only one big, high bridge here in Southern California, the Vincent Thomas Bridge between San Pedro and Terminal Island (you see it in the movies, because it's a stand-in for every other suspension bridge), and people keep jumping from it. It's the same bridge that Tony Scott jumped from, and Sunday night, somebody else jumped off to his death. As for the Golden ate Bridge or the George Washington Bridge or the Sunshine Skyway, I don't understand why they can't put some kind of net or rail that would stop this. It just seems that they would have figured this out by now. (Los Angeles Times)

This woman thinks she's too pretty to work, because, she claims, she gets harassed by male colleagues. Her parents pay her rent and bills, and she insists that she just isn't able to work because of all the attention her looks get. Of course, she's not that good looking; in fact, in some pictures, she's a little scary, and she definitely looks a lot older than the 33 she claims to be. This has to be a joke, a parody; It can't be real, because nobody's that delusional. (Daily Mail)

Even his allies are now urging Toronto Mayor and noted mess Rob Ford to say something, ANYTHING more than a curt "that's ridiculous" to the story that he was videotaped smoking crack. He's stonewalling, and even people who want to believe that it's not true (and with both Gawker and the Toronto Star saying that their reporters have seen the tape and it's Ford, and with Gawker raising money in a "Crackstarter" to buy the rights to the video, that's a stretch) say that he needs to talk. Ford knows whether he's on drugs or not, and the longer he lets this fester, the worse he looks. (Toronto Sun)

Rob Stewart is almost the definition of "obscure actor," a guy who had one starring role in a Canadian "Miami Vice" knockoff called "Tropical Heat" on Global and "Sweating Bullets" in CBS' old late-night drama slot. That was in 1991, and since then, things didn't go too well, in in 2009 he ended up moving back in with his parents in Brampton, ON. And that's when he searched Facebook for stuff about his show and discovered that he was a superstar in Serbia. He had no idea that "Tropical Heat" was a hit there in the Milosevic years, and he and his character Nick Slaughter had achieved mythical status. There's now a documentary about his visit there after he found out about his fame, and it's a pretty amusing story of how even a guy who thought he'd been a failure in his career can find some consolation that, somewhere he'd never been, people loved him. (Toronto Star)

If you're an "Arrested Development" fan -- and who isn't? -- you know that Tobias Funke is a "never-nude," someone who's pathologically afraid of being naked. Turns out that's a real thing called gymnophobia, and it's people who are afraid of being naked, whether in front of other people in a locker room or even just by themselves in front of a mirror. It's rare, but it happens. Imagine being unable to bring yourself to get naked -- how would you change your underwear? You WOULD change your underwear, wouldn't you? Please? (NBC News)

Is New York Mayor Bloomberg wrong to suggest that students should skip college and become plumbers? For some, he's probably right -- not everyone needs or will benefit from college, and you can make a great living doing plumbing -- but you can't generalize, either. (Fox News)

It's been a year since the pink slime uproar, and the company that makes the beef additive that got all the bad publicity is still hurting -- it lost 80% of its business all at once due to the reports, over which it's now suing. The suit seems to be a long shot -- defamation suits tend to be hard to win -- but 700 people lost their jobs. And, yes, dubbing the stuff "pink slime" may have been a low blow and the safety concerns may be overblown, but drawing attention to stuff that's in your food of which you may not be aware isn't bad for consumers, and nobody guaranteed the company that its product would always be acceptable to the public. (Sioux City Journal)

Tumblr users are revolting over the site's pending sale to Yahoo!, posting messages of varying defiance against the move. Is this really just hipsters rejecting any encroachment of corporate influence or would you, too, jump ship? (San Francisco Chronicle)

A woman allegedly tried to poison her husband and daughter with prescription drug-laced burritos. She was upset, he said, that she had not been invited to join them when they went car shopping. That is not an adequate excuse to taint burritos. Leave the burritos alone. (WPVI-TV/Philadelphia)

Seriously? People are hiring professional photographers to take vacation photos? People have that much money to spend? There are businesses that hook you up with local pro photographers when you go abroad, to grab just the right shots of you in front of just the right attractions. And you'll stick them in a folder on your computer and never look at them, just like the ones you take yourself. (Today Show/NBC News)

This guy allegedly tried to rob a pizza shop and a grocery store with his fingers, held in the shape of a gun. It didn't work. When will we have effective finger control laws? (WFMZ-TV/Allentown)

Here's yet another situation where somebody in the process of breaking the law accidentally butt dialed 911. These two idiots were talking about doing drugs and breaking into a car while a 911 operator listened. Frankly, I still don't know him but dial 911, because it's not easy to speed dial anybody on the cell phone, especially when the screen turns off. But whatever. (ABC News)

This guy allegedly for his car up to a woman walking along the street and asked for directions. That part isn't illegal. The part where he was exposing himself, that was illegal. Please keep your stick shift jokes to yourself. (WCAU-TV/Philadelphia)

Why nobody thought of renting baby clothes, cribs, toys, and other items before, I don't know, but considering how expensive that stuff can be and how the kids outgrow all of it very quickly, seems like a good idea... as long as they sanitize it all. I mean, you've seen what kids do to that stuff. Ew. (WEWS-TV/Cleveland)

Wait, let me check- do I care that the on-again, off-again, on-again relationship of Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart is off again? Hmm... no. Okay, let's move on. (People)

A theater in Washington County, VA gets public funding, so when someone noticed that a mural in the theater has a Hindu deity included, the local pastor fought to get the Ten Commandments into the county building. I don't understand any of this. Why is it necessary to have ANY religious symbolism in ANY public place? What difference does it make that the Ten Commandments are posted in a county building? Is someone going to see it and think, huh, thou shalt not steal, I never knew that before? Isn't this just cramming religion into people's faces where it's not necessary? (WCYB-TV/Bristol, VA-TN)

Can you possibly resist a story with the headline "Teacher suspended for allegedly touching girl with banana"? The banana in question was used as a prop in a class lecture about Freudian theory, and it's weird that he allegedly rubbed her with the banana, but I'm sure that at least at one moment or another, he told his bosses that, sometimes, a banana is just a banana. (WKMG-TV/Orlando)

I'm not sure that we even need to keep offering these stories about guys allegedly planting cellphones in bathrooms to videotape women, like this one at a hospital, because they're way too commonplace. But it's still something some of you will want to talk about, because, you know, people are nuts. (Chicago Tribune)

Dead: Alan O'Day, at 72. Here's a weird admission by me: I never heard "Undercover Angel" until many years after it was number one. It was at a time I was a kid and listening to nothing but punk and "new wave," and I just didn't listen to any radio stations that would play "Undercover Angel." Did you ever just miss out on something in pop culture that EVERYBODY else knows? (Us Weekly)

Domino's Pizza in Brazil has come up with a way to make rented DVDs smell like pizza, at least according to this article. I'm not sure I believe it. The idea is that the DVDs are embedded with some kind of aroma that emerges when the laser warms up the surface of the disc. I'm all for that, unless it smells like Domino's Pizza. Because Domino's isn't very good. (Los Angeles Times)

Every time we get an article about firemen allegedly responsible for arson, we assume that the person is doing it for reasons like excitement and giving themselves something to do or satisfying their psychological need to see things burn. In this case, the firemen allegedly set fire to the fire departments headquarters to cover up atheft, specifically thousands of dollars worth of radio equipment that he then allegedly sold on the Internet. He denies the charges, of course. Imagine being one of his colleagues and finding out that he allegedly put them in danger just to cover up his own misdeeds. That's pretty low. (Daily Breeze, Torrance)

Do you play golf? Okay, how many times have you shot a hole-in-one? Uh huh. Here's a 77-year-old who shotthree holes-in-one in a single month. oh, and he had a stroke six years ago, and that left him blind in one eye. Did I mention his five-part bypass surgeries? And you haven't done what he did? How lame are you? (ABC News)

In Montclair, New Jersey, they're using police decoys in crosswalks to catch drivers who don't stop. You maty not stop every time you see somebody at a crosswalk, but you're supposed to. It's sometimes hard to tell whether somebody's actually crossing the street or just standing there, though. But while Montclair cracks down on crosswalk violations, the state of New Jersey is beginning its annual two-week crackdown on drivers who don't wear seat belts, and they say they catch a lot of people every year. The question I have is, who are the people who don't use their seatbelts? After all, every car now makes an infernal racket if you don't buckle your seatbelt while driving. And it really doesn't take a whole lot of effort to just buckle the damn thing. Why wouldn't you uncle? (Montclair Times via Bergen Record; Newark Star-Ledger)

This article talks about how millennials are being thrifty, saving money, and taking out fewer credit cards, just being generally more financially responsible than their predecessors. Of course, the bad economy might have something to do with it. Also, there might be this, the problem of crushing student loan debt. If you come out of college with a lot of loans to pay back and no job, for a job that doesn't pay as well, you have to cut back, too. That's not to say that previous generations didn't do that, but it does play a part. (Los Angeles Times; Cincinnati Enquirer)

Dead: Christine White. Who? Actress. What was she in? A lot of stuff, but only one thing that you're likely to remember: she was the wife sitting next to William Shatner in that "twilight zone" episode on the plane. It was called, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," and she was prominently festured as Shatner freaked out. If you have to be remembered for just one thing, that's not a bad one. (New York Times)

Among the "7 Secret Sins at Work" listed in this article are working too hard, being popular, bringing edible treats for your colleagues, multitasking, complaining to the HR department and assuming it'll stay confidential, overdecorating your office or cubicle, and bringing your kids to work. Telecommuting fixes all of this, though. What workplace behavior annoys you? (20/20/ABC News)

It's time for the Super Bowl XLVIII ticket lottery, the annual selection of the people who will have the right to pay face value for tickets to the game. I participated in similar lotteries for World Series playoff tickets for the Phillies (got 'em), but those were easy compared to the Super Bowl process. These days, however, I'm not even sure I would bother for any of them. The experience is just fine sitting home watching on the big screen. And the tickets are so expensive, it doesn't seem worth it. (Asbury Park Press via USA Today)

How horrible it must be to be on a plane that experiences an emergency landing after it's landing gear fails? This article interview somebody was on the plane that had to bellyflop into Newark Airport, and, yes, it's terrible. Until, that is, you realize that you beat the odds and landed safely. (Newark Star-Ledger)

They're projecting that Tuesday's mayoral election in Los Angeles will draw arecord low turnout, and that's been the case for most local elections around here for years. Why is it that people just don't care who gets elected mayor? They don't turn out for the primaries, they don't turn out for the runoff elections, they don't turn out for anything. On one level, I can understand it: the candidates are really terrible. Both are part of the establishment that caused all the problems they claim they can fix in the first place. But I don't think that's why people don't turn out. I think that the voters just don't care. (Los Angeles Times)

Here's more news from my hometown: authorities showed up at a home to investigate a possible burglary and noticed somebody that they thought matched the description of the burglar sitting in a parked car outside another house. They surrounded that other house, thinking that the burglary accomplice was inside. But what they found was a million dollar grow house for pot. This was in a fairly suburban neighborhood, although it's the part of town that's adjacent to a lower-income area. Nevertheless, if something like this was happening in your neighborhood, would you even know? I got to say, I pay so little attention to what's going on with my neighbors, I wouldn't know what's happening in their houses. (Daily Breeze, Torrance)

The FBI says that there was no foul play in that Connecticut commuter train crash. How they know that, I don't know. Anyway, when you see the pictures, it's amazing that anybody survived, let alone everybody. (ABC News)

Here's another entry in the category of worst National Anthem performance ever. This one was in Canada, where the singer lost track of the words to the American anthem, and it didn't go well after that. Sometimes, I think that we probably should just give up on making people sing the anthem before events, because it's a hard song to sing, and there's too much margin for error. But if we did that, we'd lose the unintentional comedy. (Deadspin)

This guy claims that his penis was "catastrophically disfigured" when he used Kama Sutra Pleasure Balm Prolonging Gel, leaving him permanently unable to ejaculate. He says that he used the stuff multiple times without incident, but then used it and put on a condom afterwards, and that left him with a swollen penis, needing emergency medical treatment and leaving him permanently scarred and disfigured. I really don't know what to say about that, other than that maybe it's best don't put anything near that particular area. (Courthouse News Service)

The ultimate excuse for leaving the scene of an accident: this guy told police that he led a fender bender because he ate some bad Chinese food and was about to poop his pants. I have no way of knowing whether he's telling the truth, but if you were about to poop your pants, you'd probably leave the scene, too. (The Smoking Gun)

Two new studies offer the suggestion that gadgets are making people dumber, and that's not hard to believe. The first study said that people who got interrupted by technology lower on a standard cognition test. That makes sense, although I would imagine that being interrupted by anything would cause lower scores. The other study showed that some students have a hard time concentrating on homework for more than two minutes without using social media or email to distract themselves. That also makes sense, given the number of people I see, including myself, who are constantly checking their cellphones for email or to see what's going on on Twitter or Facebook. Like calculators probably put the final nail in the coffin of people ever knowing how to do math, smartphones and tablets are probably the end of people being able to concentrate on anything else. (NBC News)

What excuse is there to explain how the cops shot the hostage in a home invasion standoff? Aren't the cops supposed to be more careful, even when the robber points his gun at them? Isn't the hostage's safety more important than that? And how was this guy, who was wanted for violating parole, being monitored? (New York Times)

Here are the $590.5 million Powerball numbers: 22, 10,13,14, 52, and Powerball 11. You didn't win. (CNN)

So, no Triple Crown, as a longshot, Oxbow, beats Orb in the Preakness. You can go back to not caring. (Baltimore Sun)

A college baseball coach is accused of promising a player that he'd recommend him to Major League scouts if he'd just perform in porn videos for him. (The acts are not disclosed in the complaint, although I think I can guess, given that the language makes it seem that the acts were solo) And he did it, 20 to 30 times. But the coach didn't come through with the Major League connections, so the player's suing for fraud and breach of an oral (huh huh) contract. The coach, by the way, was fired in 3010 for "suspected inappropriate conduct," for what that's worth. (Courthouse News Service)

A survey asked people around the world what type of people they did NOT want as neighbors, and the answers, according to the study, indicate the most and least racist countries in the world. India, Jordan, Bangladesh and Hong Kong were the least tolerant of living next to people of a different race. Britain, the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, along with Latin American countries, were the most tolerant/least racist. And then you look at the comments with the article and wonder about the accuracy of the survey. (The Sun)

This kid is one of the top high school football prospects in Pennsylvania, and got offered a scholarship to play at Michigan State. But he's turning down the free ride to pursue a rap career. It sounds crazy, but he says that he wants to chase his dreams, if that's his dream, he'd be kicking himself if he didn't try. I'm not sure why he couldn't do both, especially since the football would probably help him get attention for the music, but if it makes him happy, he has to do it. What was your dream, and did you pursue it? Was it radio? Would you give up the scholarship to do it? (WTXF-TV/ Philadelphia)

You've heard about the Candy Cab in New York by now, because it's been covered all over the place, including, I think, right here. Why does this cab driver fill his taxi with free candy for riders? Well, it is a marketing strategy, and he gets people specifically calling him for rides, so that works. But it's expensive to do what he's doing, and there's a secondary reason: his son, born with a congenital heart defect, died at the age of only 18 months old. The cab driver decided to fill his taxi with candy to help people feel good, inspired by his own actions in bringing coffee and donuts for the nurses and doctors at the hospital where his son was being treated. The candy thing is the way he likes to give to others. That's both sad and wonderful. (New York Times)

A study by the USC Annenberg School says that the number of speaking roles for women in movies has dropped to a five year low, and that women only get 20% of those speaking rolls from Hollywood movies. The study also says that 31.6% of women were "sexualized," in that percentage is higher four teenage girls. I'm not sure how they define "sexualized," but there is. And, of course, most female roles are for 21- to 39-year-olds, Because, ostensibly, they think nobody wants to look at women over the age of 39. It's dangerous, sometimes, to apply statistics to creative efforts, but it's been like this for some time, and it doesn't matter how many major financial successes have been made in recent years with strong female leads. Some prejudices die hard. (Daily Mail; thanks to Dave Elliott at WGUF/Naples-Fort Myers for the link)

Now New Jersey is considering raising the minimum cigarette purchasing age to 21 following New York's lead. And I'm surprised that the age isn't 21 already, but do they think the kids aren't going to be able to get cigarettes some other way? Because kids already get alcohol when they're not supposed to. Laws like these are mostly for show, but there's no reason to allow kids to smoke, even if it the age rules are mostly symbolic. And it does raise the question of whether we're moving closer to just banning cigarettes altogether. (AP via Courier Post, Camden/Cherry Hill)

Whose fault is it when a woman attending a party goes out back to smoke a cigarette and falls into a creek and drowns? The sons of this 73-year-old woman who did just that are suing the property owner, saying that he knew or should've known that serving her a lot of alcohol would make her vulnerable to fall into the creek. When is it an individual's responsibility not to drink too much, or to watch where she's going? (Bucks County Courier Times)

Dell's profits are down79%, And whatever the reason is for the aharp drop in income, the fact is that PC sales are way down. The question is whether you think you really need a full computer, or a laptop, or whether your smartphone and tablet have taken over the duties that you used to do on a computer. Have we finally gone mobile? (New York Times)

Dead: Dick Trickle, of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot at 71. He became well-known because of his improbable name. Never won a NASCAR race but finished in the top 10 36 times. But there was that name. (WSOC-TV/Charlotte)

Here's a study of the jobs with the fattest workers. Ralph Kramden will agree that bus drivers and other transportation workers are the fattest. Manufacturing and production workers and installation or repair workers are next, followed by office workers. Least obese? Doctors, business owners, and teachers. None of this is a surprise, is it? (Today Show/NBC News)

Remember Kai, the cheerful hatchet-wirlding hitchhiker who got interviewed on TV after saving a woman being attacked by another guy? You know, the Spicoli-like free spirit? He's wanted for murder. Police think he killed an elderly guy in New Jersey. But how could he be a murderer? He's an Internet celebrity! (WNYW-TV/New York)

It gets worse: Now, a Justice Department Inspector General's report says that the U.S. Marshals Service lost two terrorists who had been in the Witness Protection Program. They just... lost them. The DOJ says that they've "identified, located, and minimized the threat of all former known or suspected terrorists admitted into the WitSec Program," but there are two strays. They WERE cooperating with the feds, hence the WitSec program, but how did they just vanish, and what happens now? (CNN)

You know times have changed when the fact that a famous actress is posing, effectively, topless on the cover of a national magazine isn't the big story, but the fact that the magazine printed her actual weight on the cover is controversial. That's the situation with Zoe Saldana and Allure magazine. Is it still impolite or worse to mention a woman's weight? (ABC News)

Study says that retirement is harmful for your health. The study draws a connection between retirement and declining mental and physical health, and suggests that people should continue working past retirement age, both for financial and for physical reasons. I don't know about the part where it affects your mental health, but having time off would be okay by me. Besides, once you're at retirement age, you're old enough so that your physical health is going to decline whether or not you're working. (BBC)

David Beckham has announced his retirement at 38. He considered coming back for another season at Paris Saint-Germain, but decided against it. With his league title at PSG, he won championships in four countries, which is a pretty major feat. And, whether or not he was worth the money, and despite all the time he spent injured, he did get a lot of attention for soccer in America while he played for the LA Galaxy. (The Guardian)

Another same-sex wedding in Oregon encounters a baker who refuses to bake them a wedding cake. Different couple, different bakery. That's illegal in Oregon -- refusing to serve someone based on sexual orientation -- but this is a baker who's a one-person operation based out of her house, so she doesn't know from anti-discrimination laws. Still, really, what does it matter to her if her customers are lesbians? If she sold cookies, would she quiz everyone buying them what their sexual orientation is? Nobody asked her to officiate the wedding, did they? (KATU-TV/Portland)

Oh, yeah? Burger King is challenging McDonald's with its own version of the McRib. The Burger King rib sandwich is a boneless patty with barbecue sauce, and I suppose that that's not the same as the rib-shaped patty that McDonald's uses. But I wouldn't eat either one of them, so I'll let you decide whether Burger King's version is an adequate replacement. (CNN via KNXV-TV/Phoenix)

We've heard before about this particular crime, but it's always good to be on the lookout for crooks who use devices to open hotel doors with electronic locks and steal your stuff. Any kind of lock can be circumvented, but electronic locks are especially vulnerable to hacking. It's a reminder not to leave valuables in your room, and to use the in-room safe whenever one is available. (KSAZ-TV/Phoenix)

Remember a few weeks back, when we had the story from Long Beach in which thieves used some kind of device to pop cars open without using a key or any other instrument? It appears to be spreading. A woman in the Phoenix area says that somebody broke into her car the same way. And with all of the keyless entry systems out there, it was only a matter of time before somebody figured out a way to circumvent it. Are you comfortable with a car that has a keyless entry system? Aren't you just a little bit paranoid that somebody can pop your car door open with just the push of a button? (KPHO-TV/Phoenix)

Problem: you're drunk and you want to jump into a hot tub, but you don't have a hot tub. Solution: use somebody else's hot tub. Additional problem: if you don't have permission, that's illegal. This couple allegedly did exactly that, although they aren't presently facing charges. (KPTV/Portland)

When you hear about the criminal record that preceded this guy allegedly masturbating on a bus in Portland, you have to ask how he was allowed to get back on the streets. He spent over two years in prison after being convicted of climbing into a woman's bed while she was sleeping, he sprayed superglue into a woman's hair hardware store, and now, this. And he's been accused of the superglue thing more than once. Somehow, he's only been convicted of misdemeanors, and that's probably why he managed to get back out on the streets. But it's some point, prosecutors should have stuck to their guns and gotten this guy convicted of something more than just a misdemeanor. There are a lot of people in jail for things less serious than what he was doing before he played with himself on the bus. (KATU-TV/Portland)

A high school is trying to shut down an online beauty contest that somebody anonymously posted in which 32 girls are pitted against each other in a Twitter vote. Look, let's face it. boys have been judging girls by their looks forever. But making it a contest is a recipe for trouble. Still, whether it's by a Twitter vote or just guys talking amongst themselves, there's a contest going on. (KOIN-TV/Portland)

A few weeks ago, a man from Seattle set out on a quest to dribble a soccer ball 10,000 miles to Brazil, intending to arrive in time for the 2014 World Cup. On Tuesday, he got hit by a truck and killed on the Oregon coast. I'm sure there are jokes you could make about this, but it's just sad to me. (KGW-TV/Portland)

Which do you suppose are the most and least foul-mouthed states in the union? Lisa was Washington, but the top five for swearing were Ohio, Maryland, New Jersey, Louisiana, and Illinois. I bet you thought New Jersey would be first. So was I. And I was born there. How New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts missed the cut is beyond me. Come to think of it, worse Florida? (KING-TV/Seattle)

You know, I hadn't really thought about the fact that the proposed lower drunk driving limits would have a disproportionate impact on women. Smaller, lighter people will show higher BACs with less alcohol, and one drink could put a small person, including many women, over the .05 limit. How you feel about that depends on how much you want people to stop drinking and driving, I suppose. (KIRO-TV/Seattle)

Police say that homeless people are stealing cushions and supplies from a hotel, And I'm surprised that this isn't the case everywhere. Hotel security tends to be pretty lax. It's way too easy to sneak in via a backdoor, find an open door, and take whatever you need. (KOMO-TV/Seattle)

Here's another warning about detergent pods and how little kids will eat them. That's not good. You probably want to keep them walked away, or on a high shelf. Or just use the liquid stuff. (WMAR-TV/Baltimore)

How comfortable are you with the idea of your kids' school fingerprinting your children? It's being used to provide identification when kids buy kunch, but who knows what else the schools will do with the information, and who else will get access. If fingerprints are okay now and maybe eye scanning will come later, would you be okay with them collecting DNA samples from everybody? At what point do they cross the line to invasion of privacy, especially for five-year-old kids? (WGAL-TV/Lancaster)

Data security is only as strong as its weakest link, and this story is a good reminder of that: a former bank employee was arrested for allegedly stealing names, Social Security numbers, and bank account numbers of 18 customers at her bank, and selling that information to a third party for $20 per name. It only takes one bank employee hard up for money to sell you out, and sell you cheap. No amount of cyber security is going to prevent that. (WFMZ-TV/Allentown)

In the "there's an app for that" category comes this app that comparison-shops for all of your groceries and tells you what the cheapest prices for everything that you intend to buy on your grocery list. The question is whether you want to walk all over town to buy stuff at the lowest price, saving a few dollars here and there. At what point does it become worth it to do all that work? (WTXF-TV/Philadelphia)

We are entering the warm months, so it's time to be more vigilant about leaving children in cars. Here's one: a man allegedly left his 10-month-old son in the car while he was in a bar drinking beer. The doors were unlocked and the engine was running. So, he's a little unclear on the duties of a father. (WPVI-TV/Philadelphia)

A judge has rejected a couple's attempt to make the man who molested their daughter buy their home because they don't want to live next to him anymore. It's a novel legal argument, but they're not getting anywhere with it right now. And if you had children and the guy next door was convicted of molestation, and that meant that you couldn't easily sell the house on the open market, would you want to force him to buy it? Should that be the law? (WCAU-TV/Philadelphia)

People can do amazing things in emergency: this mother jumped onto train tracks to save her baby when their stroller fell on the tracks at the elevated train station. But the stroller fell because mom was distracted, so there's that. Then again, another customer knew to hit the emergency button on the platform call box, which alerted SEPTA to stop the next train. So everything worked as intended. You'd probably jump on the tracks, too, if your baby was in danger, right? I'd hope so.... (KYW-TV/Philadelphia)

This Portland yoga studio is called "Fat Yoga." That's because it's yoga for fat people and they don't make any bones about it. But besides the name, it actually kind of makes sense. If you are overweight, going to a regular class with skinny people may make you self-conscious. Maybe this is a better idea. (KPTV/Portland)

In the movies, it would be considered funny when college students dump a drunk classmate off at the hospital with a Post-it note telling doctors that he had been in a drinking competition. In real life, it's a lot more serious. This Arizona State University student was left in a wheelchair in the emergency room with a note on him, and his BAC was at five times the legal limit. He had passed out and turned blue. And his fraternity brothers were afraid of getting in trouble with the police, so they just dumped him off. Brotherhood, it appears, has its limits. (KPHO-TV/Phoenix)

Most useful smart phone app ever? This app will find the nearest open pizza place. That's all it does. That's all it needs to do. (New York Daily News)

We really do live in a different world, one that makes you want to say, "back in my day, we never..." In fact, this story happened not too far from where I lived for many years, and it's frightening: a bunch of little kids cause so much chaos on the school bus that police were called, And the whole thing was posted on YouTube. That's bad enough, but some of the students involved, including the worst of them, are as young as seven years old. One of the students tells a school bus aide, “What if I got a gun and put it right in your f--king face?” Sometimes I think the kids aren't all that different from the way we were, but this would not have happened back then. Here's another article about it. (KYW-TV/Philadelphia; Delaware County Daily Times)

Say, you can't get an hour or so of talk radio out of the Social Security Administration's list of top baby names for 2012? The page lets you search by all sorts of criteria, including by birth year and by state. What's interesting is that more traditional names are higher up on the list, with Jacob being the top male name and Sophia the top female name, pushing trendier names like Jayden and Madison further down the top 10. But it's also true that names that were considered old-sounding a few years ago are now popular, like Mason, Ethan, Isabella, and Emily. (SSA)

A woman rebuffed in her sexual advances by her boyfriend allegedly bit his penis in retaliation. The victim declined to press charges and also declined medical treatment. There is no medical treatment for embarrassment. (The Smoking Gun)

Just in time for summer, a CDC study says that more than half of the public pools they tested showed evidence that somebody pooped in the pool. They found fecal bacteria in a LOT of pools, 58%, to be exact. How did it get there? Probably because people tend not to take full showers before going into the pool. The report says that if you don't shower, you tend to carry an average of 0.14g of fecal material on your butt. Yes, you. Larger quantities happen when somebody actually takes a dump in the water, like in a diarrheal incident. And that's not the only kind of bacteria in pools, a fact which might surprise you, considering the use of chlorine. Happy swimming! (Los Angeles Times)

Wait, hold on: They're calling moonshine a growing industry in East Tennessee? Hasn't it ALWAYS been huge there? I guess it's legal now, so it's okay to name a legal distillery after legendary illegal moonshiner Popcorn Sutton, who, you'll recall, killed himself just as he was planning to open the legal operation that now bears his name. Sad. But moonshine figures to be even bigger business now. (Knoxville News-Sentinel; Thanks to Frank Murphy at WWST (Star 102.1)/Knoxville for the link)

There was almost a brawl between "Star Wars" fans and "Doctor Who" fans at a sci-fi convention in England, and, apparently, there's a bitter rivalry between the groups. In truth, it's not about the movie or show, it's about an inter-club conflict, but the headline leads you to believe that it's along "Star Wars" and "Doctor Who" fans. And this is when I get to put my Nerdist Editor-in-Chief hat on and say that there is absolutely no reason you can't love both "Star Wars" AND "Doctor Who." And, for that matter, "Star Trek" and "The Avengers" and everything else. Like what you want to like. It's not life or death, like, say, sports. (Metro, London)

Us Weekly is reporting that Nicki Minaj is leaving "American Idol." Wait, let me check... nope, don't care. (Us Weekly)

Official: The Sacramento Kings are staying in Sacramento, with the NBA denying the sale and move to Seattle. Now comes a push to get the Maloofs to sell to Vivek Ranadive, and a possible lawsuit by the Maloofs or the Chris Hansen Seattle group, but, really, let Seattle have an expansion team. The Sacramento fans were screwed over so badly by the Maloofs for so long, it's as unfair to take their team away as it was to take the Sonics from Seattle in the first place. Seattle deserves a team, but not this one. (Sacramento Bee)

The emails and notes show that the State Department went all-out to water down the Benghazi reports to minimize references to al Qaeda and terrorism and downplay the advance warnings they got. After months of the administration insisting that this never happened and, then, that it was "old news" and we should all just move on, the changes show that, at the very least, there was a strong and ultimately successful push to put a happy face on a deadly situation. (Fox News)

With the jury's determination of aggravated circumstances, Jodi Arias is eligible for the death penalty. So, would you give her the hot shot or put her in prison for life? Remember, she said she'd prefer death to spending life in prison, so.... (Arizona Republic)

One head has rolled over the IRS scandal, Acting Director Steven Miller, who wasn't even there when this went down but ostensibly knew and didn't say anything. If that's the standard, a lot more heads should be rolling. Obama made his statement and didn't say anything else new -- he's "outraged," which sounds like he's shocked to hear that gambling is going on in Casablanca, and the people responsible are being "disciplined," which probably means they're being told to shut up and lay low. This didn't end anything. (CBS News)

Trouble seems to be following Justin Bieber, with the latest incident being the theft from a safe after his concert in Johannesburg. Just after he performed in front of 95,000 people, somebody broke into the safe and stole the equivalent of $110,000. So this was not his fault, but there's been a parade of bad things happening in, around, to, and by him on this tour. Plus, it's more fun to blame him even when he's not to blame (CNN)

Seven years ago, a local L.A. TV sweeps-month investigation caught Jiffy Lube franchisees cheating customers, and they agreed to make changes to fix that. Here we are again, May sweeps, same station, another undercover investigation, and more alleged cheating, charging for unneeded or unperformed repairs, faking tests, and pressuring customers to agree to unnecessary work. The question is whether you trust any of these places. Do you let them talk you into radiator flushes or filter changes or just insist on a plain-vanilla oil change? (KNBC-TV/Los Angeles)

We're coming up on the 50th birthday of the Gateway Arch, but the thing has never been cleaned and it's stained and dirty. And they don't think there's enough time or money to clean it before the Golden Anniversary. I've never been to St. Louis, so I don't know how bad it is, but why not just call it "weathered" and leave it at that? (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Here's the latest in a long line of fad workouts, all of which are supposed to be better for you then spending a lot of time doing cardio: this one involves a chair, a wall, and using your body weight as resistance, and it takes12 steps in seven minutes. Seven intense minutes. It's always about the intensity. Willing to try it out? (Toronto Star)

The latest fad in South Africa:smoking vulture brains for good luck. The brains are mixed with mud, and then people smoke them and, I don't know, see things and stuff. Actually, it has no effect at all, and it's really stupid. But if you tell somebody something is for good luck, they'll do it. Nobody turns them good luck. (Philadelphia Inquirer/Philly.com)

I really don't explain how this guy ended up walking on the roof of a building, nor why he did what he did, but he ended up getting stuck in a chimney, And it's safe to say that he wasn't imitating Santa Claus. He was probably trying to break into the place, but it's amazing how many people still don't know that you can't just drop down the chimney into a house like Santa. Besides the fact that those things are narrow, they also tend to have grates and flaps and stuff like that blocking your way. You're better off breaking a window. (Los Angeles Times)

Okay, let's just say that it's never a good idea for a teacher to be Facebook friends with students, especially if, as is alleged in this case, the teacher is having sex with one of the students. It's just wrong, with or without the sex. (WFTV/Orlando)

You know, we keep seeing stories about how young Americans are driving less then they're older counterparts. I guess the idea is that they're all taking mass transit. You can't tell by the traffic around here. I see just as many young drivers as usual. Nobody's switching to the bus. What are you seeing in your area, and if you have kids, what's their attitude towards driving? (And if you're young yourself, are you driving less?) (New York Times)

I like when articles combine everything you need to know in one place. Take this one from the Toronto Star, in which three studies are explained, showingaerobic exercise is best to help beat depression; Longer work hours leads to weight gain: and there are "emotional strategies" to lower anxiety, namely reframing the problem that you're dealing with so that you see it in a more positive light. This last one is trouble for me, because, sometimes, there is no positive light you can find in dealing with a problem. But there you have it, three studies and one. (Toronto Star)

Police say that this teacher had a fight with his ex-girlfriend in the parking lot of an elementary school and ended up biting off part of her ear. This happened while they were meeting to exchange their belongings after breaking up. Really, once you've broken up, maybe you should just send the stuff in the mail. I suppose you can use this story for a topic about bad break-ups, but it might be too traumatic to think about. (WCTI-TV/New Bern, NC)

Textbooks are ridiculously expensive, so it shouldn't be surprising that a guy is accused of stealing eight textbooks from the Penn State Bookstore and selling them at other bookstores for almost $600. Anybody who has been to college lately, or has kids in college, can tell you how textbooks are one of the biggest expenses you have outside of tuition. It's insane. And they do whatever they can to prevent you from buying them used, including changing the texts every year. I thought that this would be solved by now with tablets, but I guess not. (Centre Daily Times)

Is it lazy parenting or just clever technology? I don't know, but check out these Smart Pajamas, which has codes printed on them so that the kids can just scan them with his or her cell phone and get a bedtime story read to him or her. It cuts into that quality time, but, then again, how many times do you want to have to read "Goodnight Moon"? (WKMG-TV/Orlando)

Did you see this story about a guy who passed out while working as an umpire at a baseball game, and then punched the first responders that tried to help him? Witnesses claim that he was visibly under the influence, and I suppose that you have to be a little drunk to umpire a high school baseball game, but, still, you can't go punching people who try to help you. (WQED-TV/Quad Cities, IL-MO)

You know that stress at work increases the risk of heart disease, right? A new study says that you can reduce that risk byliving a healthy lifestyle. Eat right, exercise, get enough sleep, and avoid smoking, drinking, and eating too much, and it all sort of evens out. At least, it better, because you're not having any fun doing it. (HealthDay via Philadelphia Inquirer)

When this guy got into a fight with two other guys in a parking lot, the woman told him to be quiet and leave. He then allegedly pushed himself against her, turned around, and mooned her. When police asked him about that, he told then that it wasn't his fault that his pants fell down. Yeah, that just happens spontaneously, all the time. Among the charges was public intoxication, so, yes, alcohol appears to be involved. (WISH-TV/Indianapolis)

Who says radio isn't good in an emergency? When this guy was robbed at gunpoint, he was able to escape by pulling out a large radio and throwing it at his assailant. Let's see your Internet streaming do that. (Buffalo News)

This family wanted to pay off its mortgage, and everybody pitched in. That includes the two teenage boys, who gave up hockey so that the family could save money. The upshot: they paid their mortgage off 11 years early. I guess that's okay if there was no shot that the kids would ever play professionally. Otherwise, the resentment would linger. (Toronto Star)

I did not need to know that Rod Stewart says an addiction to steroids shrunk his manhood. I did not WANT to know that. I do now, and so do you. (New York Daily News; Thanks to Ray Rossi at WKXW (New Jersey 101.5)/Trenton for the link)

This guy went into a supermarket before it closed and hid from employees so that when the place was locked up, he was inside. And what did he do? He allegedlydrank beer, smoked, cooked and ate six steaks, shrimp, and a birthday cake... you know, what everybody would do. He also, as the article puts it, "went to bathroom on himself." And then he went to sleep. I guess if you're poor and/or homeless, it makes sense to hide out in a grocery. That's where everything you need is. (WAVE-TV/Louisville)

Dead: Billie Sol Estes, and you'd have to be of a certain age to recognize the name, but he was one of the most notorious con men ever, a Texas huckster who ensnared the JFK administration in a scandal involving a federal farm subsidy program that he basically looted. He went to prison, and tried to take LBJ down with him, more than once. (New York Times)

Should the NTSB drop the drunk driving level from .08% down to .05% Western Mark that's the proposal, and they suggest that doing so would save lives. But it would also mean that you can't drink as much before driving, period. Are you willing to pass up that second beer? (ABC News)

New York City decided to get into the bike sharing programs that other cities have tried, and the locals were happy to see it come. That is, until they saw the kiosks that were necessary to have the bikes available on the street. Now, the same people who were excited about the bikes are dead set against the program, because they think the kiosks are ugly and a blight on their neighborhoods. See, these things are a very good idea until they show up outside your house. (New York Times)

A woman was arrested for allegedly beating another woman with a Bible. They don't say why. I don't think she's using it right. (Gaston Gazette)

Humboldt State University has released an interactive map showing where the most bigoted tweets are coming from. And it turns out that most of them are coming from the eastern half of the United States. They measured it using certain trigger words that include, well, the usual suspects. In fairness, a lot of the parts of the country where there are few racist or homophobic tweets are also lightly populated. But it's still disproportionate. (New York Daily News)

If you're a fan of "How I Met Your Mother," the big reveal that happened in the final episode of the season was... Well, what was it? It was somebody who hasn't really figured in the plot for the last seven years, and I won't spoil it if you didn't see it, but fans appear to be very disappointed. If you invested seven years in watching a show, do the producers their responsibility to give you a resolution that's satisfying? (Today Show/NBC News)

Yes, fans in Philly booed him when he was active, and yes, he underachieved (and underthrew, and overthrew). But Donovan McNabb, after ill-fated stints as a Redskin and Viking, will come back in September (at a game against Andy Reid's Chiefs, no less) and retire as an Eagle, and there's no question in my mind -- even as a rabid Eagles fan who was ultra-frustrated with McNabb when he was on the team -- that he deserves a standing ovation on that day. Whatever you thought of him back then, he did pile up some impressive achievements and deserves recognition as a winning quarterback, even if he didn't win it all. I fear that some of my fellow Eagles fans -- the "Silver Linings Playbook" fight-in-the-Linc-parking-lot contingent, the ones who throw stuff and start drinking at 6 am on game day -- will embarrass the city again. (Really, though, these "one-day-comeback retire-as-an-(insert team name here)" things are irrelevant. Wherever he played after leaving Philadelphia, McNabb was, and is, an Eagle. End of story.) (Philadelphia Daily News)

The College of Central Florida in Marion County, FL -- not to be mistaken for the University of Central Florida in Orlando -- is offering a four-year bachelors degree for the low, low price of $10,000. It's an interesting concept to offer a college degree at a discount, and I wonder how valuable a discount degree will be in the workplace. It's not Harvard, but, then again, it's not an online university or one of those colleges that advertises on UHF television during the daytime. I imagine that the education isn't bad. But do you think that prospective employers will see that college name and think Walmart U? (WFTV/Orlando)

Dead: former Chargers and Saints running back Chuck Muncie, at just 60. What does everybody remember about Chuck Muncie, no matter how good he was? That's right, the glasses. He was a three-time Pro Bowl player, but everybody remembers the glasses. Other interesting facts: he set a record for rushing touchdowns in a season on a team that was famous for throwing the ball, and he had all sorts of problems off the field that landed him in prison for selling cocaine. He later cleaned up and started a foundation that helps at-risk youth avoid gangs, including a tattoo removal program and mentoring. But, you remember the glasses. (U-T San Diego)

This guy allegedly asked his wife for $500,000 to divorce him. She ignored the comment. So he allegedly attacked her with a bat and threatened to shoot her but couldn't find his gun. Once the cops showed up, the guy allegedly texted death threats to her. I'm pretty sure this will lead to divorce one way or another. But it's an example of how people just lose their minds in domestic disputes. (Bucks County Courier Times)

If you follow me on Twitter -- and if you don't WHY AREN'T YOU? @pmsimon, and do it RIGHT NOW -- you know that at this time of year every year, I tweet photos of the goats they bring in to eat brush in fields and on hillsides before fire season gets out of hand. This week, I've been goat-tweeting every morning, because the goats are along my daily running route. This article from the other side of the country -- in fact, where I used to live before I moved to California -- is about goats being used to clear property of weeds, ivy, and other stuff. Goats, they say, eat anything. Can we be honest here? The goats don't do THAT great a job. I would think technology would have invented a more efficient way to clear brush from steep hillsides. But goats are what we have. (WTXF-TV/Philadelphia)

Mom's Boyfriend, again: This one allegedly punched, burned, and whipped his girlfriend's three-year-old son to death for pooping in his pants. It doesn't get more brutal than this. And it's always Mom's Boyfriend. Mom's Boyfriend never seems to be able to treat her kids like a human being. (Racine Journal Times)

This party bus driver was allegedly three times the legal limit when he drove a bunch of high school kids to the prom. He drove over medians, cut off other cars, and ended up in a ditch. So that prom night was particularly memorable. Having been on school buses and buses to summer camp that were similarly poorly piloted, I think there's something about the kind of people they hire to drive these things. (Chicago Tribune)

An attorney from a firm specializing in food poisoning cases is in Las Vegas to put together a lawsuit against a local restaurant chain where over 200 people allegedly contracted salmonella. The lawyer is not afraid to say how they would have gotten the disease: he points out that salmonella comes from human or animal feces. That means that, according to him, poop somehow got into the food. That could be on a workers hand, it could be from animals, it could be from something coming into contact with meat. But it all comes down to poop in the food. If you were a customer in a place that you later found out had poop in the food, how sick would you get? How unlikely would it be that you would go to any restaurant anytime soon after that? Could you even eat? (KLAS-TV/Las Vegas)

Here's a roundup of five stupid things tourists have done, Including charging an elephant, passing out on the luggage belt, riding a crocodile, stealing a laptop -- in Dubai -- to "check email," and stealing a penguin. Because international idiocy is always entertaining. Have you ever done something on a trip that you regretted later? (Fox News)

She was an author, teacher, publisher, and artist, well-known over the years in Santa Fe. But things went bad for her, and the result was that she died alone, her body found mummified after laying dead for several months or even a year or more. Her door was unlocked, but nobody came by, nobody noticed, and nobody, apparently, cared, not until her sister and brother-in-law got concerned, came to visit, and found her. How bad had her life gone? She would sleep in her car and wash up in the library bathroom; she stopped paying her utility bills, so there was no gas or electricity; she ate at soup kitchens and her home was being foreclosed upon. In 2004, she was speaking to conferences; in 2005, she began to lose it. There are pictures of her apartment; she was sort of a hoarder, and mice were all over her condo. What has to snap to make someone go from an educated, respected member of the community to that? (Santa Fe New Mexican)

I love the fact that a guy wandering New Mexico searching for the set of "Breaking Bad" got arrested for meth possession. He was arrested after he was seen in someone's back yard digging for a hidden key to get access to the show's set. Does he think there's really a Heisenberg cooking meth there? (KOAT-TV/Albuquerque)

How often does an alleged molestation by a school employee get caught on video? That's what happened in this case, when a high school instructional aide, a 60-year-old guy who was a union leader, was taped molesting a 16-year-old mentally challenged student in a stairwell. You would think that the guy would be aware of the cameras all over the school, considering that he was in the union and everything, but apparently not. (Daily Breeze, Torrance)

A couple of kids were in a backyard pool in La Cañada Flintridge (say that LAH kin-YA-da), California when, suddenly, they had a visitor: a bear, wandering through backyards in the neighborhood as TV helicopters hovered overhead. That's a hazard of living in the foothills. And you better believe that those kids got out of that pool fast. (Los Angeles times)

The cicadas are back, 17 years later, and they're going to be annoying and noisy as hell. Scientists suggest that we eat them, Because, technically, they're edible. But would you try one? (WKXW (New Jersey 101.5)/Trenton)

A 17-year-old boy in Georgia played chicken with a train. See lost. You don't play chicken with a train if you have any intention of living past 17. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Why are rents at bland, undistinguished, low-rise buildings on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River going for several times that of fine Manhattan office space? Believe it or not, it's all about the electrical power. The buildings are data centers, and they offer companies that want to locate large banks of servers someplace with plenty of available, adequate power. Also, the Jersey data centers are where Wall Street has its servers, and, ostensibly, putting your server close to, say, the NYSE's will speed up trades by the nanoseconds that might make a difference. So, when you see those plain, ugly buildings in Secaucus and Weehawken on your way to the Lincoln Tunnel, you're looking at gold mines. (New York Times)

You've undoubtedly heard about former Detroit Lions player Titus Young and his brushes with the law, including an alleged attempted burglary in Orange County, his third arrest in less than a week. His father is blaming Young's behavior on a brain disorder caused by football injuries, including getting his brain compressed against his skull. Are you buying that brain injuries from playing football are to blame for his behavior? It's perfectly possible. It's also possible that it's now an all-purpose excuse for football players. But, again, those guys do take a beating. (Detroit News)

Obscure Facts: Gotye's massive hit "Somebody That I Used To Know" is based on a sample from an obscure 1967 song "Seville" by the late Brazilian guitarist Luiz Bonfa. Back when he was unknown, Gotye gave Bonfa co-writing credit, meaning Bonfa's estate got 45% of the songwriting royalties for the song. That's over a million bucks just from sales. Not bad, and pretty generous. I mean, it was the right thing to do (although 45% is maybe a little high), but would you be kicking yourself if it turned out that your song was your one huge hit? (Radio.com)

No specifics yet, but the University of Tennessee has fired its director of student judicial affairs over alleged "inappropriate relationships with student-athletes." She refused to cooperate with their investigation, offered to resign, then didn't show up for a hearing and got fired. She has a law degree from the school, which means that, if she did have an affair with a student-athlete, she had to know it was a problem. But we're also talking about consenting adults, ostensibly -- it's college, not high school. If you do nothing but live and work and breathe college stuff, and you're always around college students, can you avoid personal relationships with students? (Knoxville News-Sentinel; Thanks to Frank Murphy at WWST (Star 102.1)/Knoxville for the link)

Here's the allegedly drunk BBC Radio Stoke host, pulled from the air on her last day in the weekday 1-4p shift because she sounded tipsy (she said she'd only had a couple of drinks). And, yes, there's audio, and, yes, she sounds like she's, er, having fun. So... ever go on the air when you were drink, or baked, or whatever? (BBC)

Angelina Jolie writes in the New York Times that she had a preventative double mastectomy because of her family predisposition to breast cancer -- she has the BRCA1 gene -- and, well, you know the debate. She says she had an 87% chance of developing breast cancer. If you got that diagnosis, would you do what she did? (New York Times)

An IHOP employee is accused of attempted criminal homicide and robbery for running over a customer with his car and robbing him. The employee confronted the victim about whether the guy had paid his bill, they argued, the guy drove away, the employee followed him, and they fought, with the employee punched the guy unconscious, kicked him in the head, then took the victim's car and ran over him twice. All over allegedly skipping out on a bill? Really? There HAS to be something else involved. (WSMV-TV/Nashville)

His choreographer testified that Michael Jackson had never sung an entire concert live. He always sang along with tracks, and he'd said that he wanted to do the ill-fated "This Is It" concerts live, but never got the chance. Is this a problem? Are you really going to arena concerts to hear everything live or to witness the spectacle? Because when you're talking about performers who dance a lot, you're not going to get both. (Los Angeles Times)

An elementary school went on lockdown and hazmat crews were called to the scene when a suspicious item was found in a sandbox. The suspicious item: a balloon, supposedly covered with a suspicious substance. Is anybody else thinking that what they found wasn't exactly a balloon? Because, well... never mind. (WCAU-TV/Philadelphia)

Drug tests don't concern me much, so I had no idea that the way they can tell whether you switched your urine sample during drug screening is, according to the charges against this rapper and reality TV "star" Lil' Scrappy for a probation violation, that the pee temperature is too low. Makes sense, I guess. Hadn't thought of that. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

McDonald's is launching three new Quarter Pounders to the menu to replace the departed Angus Third Pounder burgers. The new ones will come in bacon and cheese, deluxe, and habanero ranch versions. I would like to see is if they would put out a Quarter Pounder that didn't have anything on it but meat. I'm tired of picking off the pickles and onions. (AP via Fox News)

As epic collapses go, the Toronto Maple Leafs' Game 7 overtime loss to Boston ranks way, way up there. Consider: 4-1 lead until 9:18 to go in the third period... and they LOST. Consider: The Bruins scored two goals in less than a minute with less than two left to go in the game. Patrice Bergeron scored the tying goal with less than a minute left, then scored the game winner in OT. If you're a Leafs fan, you have to consider the strong possibility that they may never win the Cup again. It's that bad. (Toronto Star)

We forget, I guess, that O.J. Simpson is 65 years old, but did you see him at his hearing to fight for a new trial? Gray hair, bulky, puffy... old. Prison isn't a health club, that's for sure. (KLAS-TV/Las Vegas)

No, really, Newt Gingrich is trying to find a new name for the cell phone. He does have a point: he notes that the devices do a lot more than make phone calls, but, really, aren't we a little bit too far down the road to change the name now? (ABC News)

Okay, now, it's just Nixonian: The Justice Department allegedly secretly obtained AP reporters' and editors' phone records. Why? It won't say. Trying to find sources? Revenge? For an administration that was elected with the pledge of being transparent, they're sure stonewalling and acting like Big Brother. (AP via Boston Globe)

Dead: Joyce Brothers, TV and radio psychologist, frequent TV game show panelist and sitcom guest star. Not a bad career, really, especially when you realize that it started with being a game show contestant. (New York Post)

Last week, Whole Foods Market informed the public that they had mixed up vegan and real chicken salads at some of it's cold food bars at Northeastern stores. This week, a popular Salt Lake City restaurant admits that it's vegetarian sandwich isn't exactly vegetarian, seeing as how it uses marinara sauce that's also used to cook meatballs. Meat, last time I checked, isn't vegetarian. The owner isn't terribly concerned about this, and says that they informed customers that the sauce isn't strictly vegetarian. The problem is, "close enough" is not close enough for a vegetarian. No meat is supposed to be no meet. (Fox News; KSL-TV-KSL-AM-FM/Salt Lake City)

Perhaps you saw the video of the woman who was kicked off a flight for singing "I Will Always Love You," off-key, and loud. Why did she do it? Who knows? But Ray Rossi of New Jersey 101.5 blogged about it and asks what songs should be left to karaoke, or your shower. Come on, you sing in the shower, or the privacy of your car, right? What's your song? Ask callers to show off their vocal abilities. Maybe you'll find the next American Idol. Or not. (WKXW (New Jersey 101.5)/Trenton)

Dr. Kermit Gosnell was found guilty of three counts of murder. Discuss. (CNN)

The guy who opened fire at a supermarket in New Jersey nine months ago had a tattoo that read, "If there is a God he loves violence. It is his gift to mankind. It is truly magnificent and for this I am thankful." That's in the newly released autopsy report. Also in that report is that he had no drugs or alcohol in his system. So this came naturally. Really, if somebody has a tattoo that says that, shouldn't they be reported to somebody? Normal people wouldn't have that on their bodies. (Newark Star-Ledger)

The kids vandalized this high school's boys' bathrooms, so the school removed the stalls, Leaving the toilets out in the open. If you want to take a dump, you're going to do it in full view of everybody else in the bathroom. So, in other words, if you're going to want to avoid going in there. That has to be horrible, but if they can't keep the stalls from being vandalized, do they have another choice? The kids often leave the campus, which is against the rules, to go to the bathroom in local businesses, which is risky because the neighborhood is pretty bad. (Los Angeles Times)

A study says that teens who text while driving are more likely to engage in other risky behaviors like not wearing seatbelts, or drinking and driving. The problem with studies like this is that they don't tell which comes first, or which indicator is the primary one. All they tell you was that the kid who does one bad thing is likely to do another. In other words, if you're bad, you're bad all around. (KYW-TV/Philadelphia)

Police say this really happened: when her son was shot accidentally by a friend, this woman, instead of calling 911, looked up "gunshot wounds" on WebMD. It took seven hours before she drove her son to the hospital. Again, according to police, this really happened. (KHOU-TV/Houston)

Experts insist that there is no such thing as post-vacation depression. They say that the idea that people get depressed when their vacations over is largely a myth. But everybody has experienced that feeling of dread once their vacations are more than halfway over and the prospect of getting back on the plane and heading home starts to become real. so, are vacations refreshing to you or do you revert to your old, sad self once they're over? (NBC News)

Businesses and cellphone companies very much want to switch to using your cell phone as a mobile wallet, But surveys show that the vast majority of Americans are nervous about doing that. Security seems to be the major concern, and anybody who's misplaced their phone can imagine what the problem might be. Of course, you can also misplace your wallet, but you're used to keeping an eye on that. Either way, I don't know that we're ready to use our phones to pay for things. And I wonder what you do if your battery runs out and you need to buy something. (New York Post)

This article is about the free alternatives to text messaging that are gaining popularity. The biggest problem I see with these things that you have to find ones that your friends phone, because, otherwise, they're useless. Have you switched from the traditional text message to one of these things? (Los Angeles Times)

Are conservatives paranoid? After they found out that they had been targeted for extra scrutiny in applications for tax-exempt status, maybe not. And then there's the Benghazi probe, which is turning up what appears to be a pretty basic and obvious cover-up attempt by the administration after decisions were made that ultimately cost lives. After a long cold streak, the GOP is starting to gain some credibility in these areas. (New York Times)

Willie Nelson has been named an honorary doctor of music by the Berklee College of Music, and he's clearly qualified, but how many people WOULDN'T immediately ask whether this allows him to write prescriptions? It's way, way too obvious. (ABC News)

Study says that up to 30% of passengers don't turn off their electronic devices during takeoff and landing, accidentally or otherwise. Many say they just use "airplane mode," which isn't the same as turning the thing off. And 61% of those people say that the gadget they don't turnoff is a smartphone. Strangely, most of these people also say that they're concerned about electrical interference to the plane. But the fact that so many people are forgetting to turn their devices off, but planes aren't exactly dropping from the skies over it, might be a comfort. (NBC News)

Got warts? Here's a cure being touted in ads in a Yiddish-language newspaper in New York that I bet you haven't tried yet: pigeon blood. The woman who took the ad says she has no connection to the poultry market that offers the blood, and says that he cured warts on her daughter, but she warns that it only works on Jews. Neither members of the Orthodox Jewish community nor pigeon advocates (yes, there are pigeon advocates) endorse this, calling it crazy, but I guess that if nothing else works, you're willing to try anything. (New York Post)

Remember the guy who stripped naked at a TSA security checkpoint at the Portland airport last year to protest the overly intrusive screening that he was getting? He successfully defended himself against an indecent exposure charge, but now he has to fight a thousand dollar fine for interfering with the screening. Seems to me that he was far from interfering with the screening. In fact, you could say that he was facilitating it by taking off all his clothes and speeding up the process. If it threw the agents for a loop, that's not his fault. (Los Angeles Times)

If the state of American education is so bad, then it's interesting that wealthy Chinese families are sending their kids to American private schools so that they can get into American universities. Granted, they're using private schools, but, still, American education is an ideal for the rest of the world, yet here, we think it's all going to hell. (New York Times)

Hope this Oklahoma mom who allegedly drove drunk with the van door open and her two kids inside had a happy Mother's Day. Because the day before, which started with the alleged drunk driving and continued with her allegedly punching a man in a fight in a bar parking lot and continued with her getting caught with weed in her purse and fighting the cops when they tried to take her to jail, was pretty terrible. (KOKI-TV/Tulsa)

One month ago, Facebook launched Facebook Home, the launcher for Android that made phones into the "Facebook phone" that everybody was allegedly waiting for. So, how's that going for Facebook? Turns out that people don't like it is it hasn't been downloaded nearly as much as the company expected. They're revamping the app now, but, come on, was anybody really clamoring for the Facebook phone? Especially if, by using the launcher, it blocks all the widgets you like, and slows your phone down, and puts all the junk you hate from Facebook right up front? (NBC News)

One Orthodox Jewish school in Brooklyn has banned thick-framed glasses, which are in fashion. They've been told to buy "simple glasses," whatever that means. I think it's silly, but then again, I'm not working out, and I wear glasses with blue frames. (New York Post)

Uh-oh: it turns out that, contrary to what you've been told, and according to a data retrieval company, you can restore photos posted to Snapchat. One of the reasons people use snap chat is because the pictures are supposed to disappear after they've been viewed. Apparently, they don't. So whatever you've been up to there, it may not be as deleted as you thought. (Los Angeles Times)

Simple issue, now being debated in Texas: should there be a law to restrict public access to crime scene photos? The argument is that there's nothing to be gained by posting pictures of dead crime victims on the Internet, which is what's happening now. On the other hand, is propriety a reason to ban access to public records? (Texas Tribune via New York Times)

There are, undoubtedly, easier ways to get out of your marriage then to do what this guy allegedly did and leave a cell phone with video of yourself abusing a six-year-old boy behind boy's mother's house to be discovered. That, apparently, is what this guy did, taking the opportunity of being asked to babysit the boy to molest the child, incriminate himself, and admit to being sexually attracted to young boys, all, he told police, to extricate himself from his unhappy marriage to a woman who is a friend of the boy's mom. He could have just filed for divorce, although I guess we can be happy that he chose this way so that he'll be thrown in jail and kept there for a while. (WRTV/Indianapolis)

In New Jersey high school and send the girls responsible for what they called the "White Girls Club" to counseling. These are girls who posted what can only be called "racially insensitive" comments on social media, and the question is whether sending them to counseling will change them. The other question is whether what students say and do outside of school hours and not on school grounds should be used to subject them to punishment. I suppose that when it amounts to subjecting other students to ridicule and, for lack of a better word, bullying, it's the school's problem, too. (Newark Star-Ledger)

We've had a lot of articles over the years about the disappearing regional accent, but somebody's made a documentary about the New York accent, which some people claim is disappearing but seems to be hanging on nonetheless. It also points out that there are differences in accents depending on ethnicity and area of the city. It's interesting that people can grow up around the accent yet somehow not retain any of it. (New York Times)

There's an "adult book store" in Stafford, New Jersey that's up for sale. A pastor at an evangelical church in town wants to buy it and turn it into a church. Now, that would be one hell of a turnaround. But they're going to need a lot of Lysol. (Asbury Park Press; Thanks to Ray Rossi at WKXW (New Jersey 101.5)/Trenton for the link)

We previously reported on the miracles being wrought by fecal transplants, the transplant of poop from a healthy donor to someone who needs the good bacteria within to fight C.difficile infections. Where, however, to get the poop? Here's a pathology resident at Emory University's medical school who's become a poop donor. No, really, he's donated his poop to help cure infections iin other people. He knows it's not glamorous, but if it works, why not? (NBC News)

How bad can it be on the New York subway? Blogs and Tumblrs have popped up with pictures of people doing things like picking their noses, dropping their pants, and taking dumps on the trains. There's projectile vomiting, and there's a guy cleaning himself with newspapers, water, and soap. Some of it is undoubtedly mental illness, but some of it is just people unaware of how to behave in public. They don't think they're in public. I think they're in their own homes. (New York Post)

This guy has a rare disease, and he has an HMO with Kaiser Permanente. Kaiser didn't know how to treat the disease, so they approved his going to a specialist in Arkansas that could treat it. And then they decided that they wouldn't pay for it after all. So he went back to Kaiser, and they told him there was nothing they could do and that he should look into hospice care to prepare for death. He went back to the specialist, who treated him, and it turns out that he's not dying anytime soon. The only problem is, Kaiser refuses to pay again. He's on the hook for $2 million, and he's suing Kaiser. It's understandable that an HMO wants to manage care and control costs, but it seems like they were treating him by determining that he would be cheaper to them dead. Forget what it says in whatever contract or policy the HMO has; Should it ever be the case that your insurer decides that you should just die rather than them spending more money on treatment out of network? (Los Angeles Times)

How do you reduce the sugar in children's snacks and not lose the sales? Dannon yogurt did you particularly sneaky way: they cut the sugar in their Danimals Smoothies kids' flavors by 25% without telling anybody. Nobody noticed. Do you think you would notice if your favorite snack reduced the amount of sugar or salt in it by a quarter? (New York Times)

Oh, great: there's a new virus that causes pneumonia and, sometimes, kidney failure, and now it's been confirmed that the virus can be passed from human to human. It's a cousin of SARS, and it's killed two people in France. In other words, here we go again. (BBC)

The American Heart Association says that having a pet can lower your risk of heart disease. They say that there's enough evidence now that they can issue an official statement about it. But they say that the most investigative is on dog ownership, although they deny that that reflects poorly on other animals, including cats. As a cat owner, I know what my cat would do if she found out that she was being dissed. I won't tell her if you won't. (Today Show/NBC News)

Here's an article written by a postman in the inner city, written in the wake of stories about how postal workers are refusing to deliver mail to some neighborhoods of Brooklyn because of the danger. They get written, have to go through a gauntlet of people smoking dope and hanging out, and can't even get into some buildings to deliver the mail because they don't have keys and nobody opens the door. And, as far as I know, there's no such thing as combat pay for delivering the mail in a bad neighborhood. (New York Post)

O.J. Simpson is trying to get out of jail again, this time asking a judge to reverse his conviction in order we trial because his legal representation was bad and his lawyers never told him that he'd been offered a plea bargain by prosecutors. He's got five years before he's eligible for parole, so it won't make a lot of difference with the timing, but if you've been following him all this time, you might want to pay attention to the hearing this week. (Los Angeles Times)

Here's an article about a couple of blind pole vaulters, And if you're wondering how they do it, they count the strides. You have to have a pretty mathematical mind and a good sense of where things are supposed to go to be able to do that without looking. By the way, they're pretty good, too. (New York Times)

How is it that in 2013 there are millions of people whose access to indoor plumbing is nonexistent? That's what comes to mind when you read a report that blames all those rapes in India on the fact that the women have to go outside to defecate. I don't know if that's accurate -- just because someone goes outside to poop doesn't explain why the men can't control themselves -- but, really, half a BILLION people in India lack basic sanitation, and that's impossible to imagine. (BBC)

They're not sure why, but this entire neighborhood in Northern California is sinking. I think it might have something to do with the groundwater shifting, but there's also a volcano nearby, and they're looking into other possibilities. Regardless, it's happening in slow motion, not like those sinkholes in Florida that just suddenly opened up. They can have sudden shifts of several inches right away, or it can be barely perceptible, and there's no pattern. The people who own houses there are being driven crazy, not to mention out of their homes. And there's nobody to blame, because the neighborhood was built on soil pretty much identical to other neighborhoods which are fine, and the original plans were approved and tested with nothing out of the ordinary. What would you do if your neighborhood suddenly started moving? (NBC News)

Here's an article about more of the idiots who are supporting Dzhokhar “Jahar” Tsarnaev and are part of a social media movement to get him released. These could possibly be the dumbest human beings on earth. Some are two girls who are in love with him, and others are just stupid. You want to believe that this can't be more than a few dozen people, but we're talking thousands, and you want to think that it's a joke, but it isn't. Remember, Ted Bundy had fans, too. (New York Post)

Chris Brown continues to make friends, this time fighting the city and his neighbors over monsters painted on the wall outside his home. The neighbor say it's ugly and scarce children. This city says that it's a violation of local ordinances. He told them to "get a (expletive) life" and insisted "ima paint until my hands fall off." Oh, please, make them fall off. Is this a First Amendment case or does he deserve what he's getting? (Los Angeles Times)

What's the number one threat to young athletes? If you think it's concussions, or any other kind of head injury, you're wrong. It turns out to be sudden cardiac arrest, with heatstroke also a danger. There's been so much attention paid to head injuries, yet cardiac arrest, which tends to be the result of a pre-existing condition that could've been treated but wasn't detected, he's a far greater danger to young athletes. (New York Times)

Okay, I've never heard of the kind of compartment this guy had in his car, but who wouldn't want to hide over $285,000 for transport for whatever allegedly shady purposes in a hidden space that could only be opened with a magnet while the car runs in reverse with the headlights on? That's pretty impressive security. Wasn't enough for the feds not to figure it out, but I didn't even know you could rig something like that up. (KOCO-TV/Oklahoma City)

Seth Meyers will succeed Jimmy Fallon on "Late Night," and, well, think he's the right guy? (USA Today)

I think I speak for millions of people who have worked hard, achieved a little something over the years, and have acquired a certain amount of knowledge about life worth imparting to others when I say how appalled I am that PSY got to speak at Harvard because, you know, he has one pop hit that became popular more as a joke than for any other reason. So he's qualified. (Boston Globe)

The stabbing murder of an eight-year-old girl in Calaveras County, California set the entire region on high alert. Her brother said that he heard an intruder and saw a man running away from the house. That was enough to send everybody into a panic, looking for the murder. But now, the sheriff says that the murderer was her 12-year-old brother. The sheriff told reporters, "Citizens of Calaveras County, you can sleep a little better tonight." Maybe they can sleep better knowing that there's not a murder on the loose, but this story is disturbing for other reasons, too. (Los Angeles Times)

We've seen articles saying that being creative with job applications, like sending cookies or flowers, sometimes gets people's attention. But this article says that doing the same thing for college applications on the waiting list isn't very effective. How do you get off the waiting list and into a school? There's not much you can do, other than wait. But how long do you wait? How badly do you really want to go to that school? I was put on a few waiting list for law school, and I never heard back, so as far as I know, I'm still on the list. (New York Times)

Maybe the topic here would be the radically diminished bar to celebrity-hood, because I saw this story labeled "How Holly Madison Will Celebrate Her First Mother’s Day" and my reactions were "who the hell is Holly Madison," and, once I was reminded who she is -- a reality show star, known purely for being a Hugh Hefner "girlfriend" -- the reaction was "who the f--k could possibly care?" Seriously, by now, shouldn't the public be revolting over the treatment of airheaded, talent-free people as celebrities? Oh, wait, the public LIKES airheaded, talent-free people. Sorry. (ABC News)

What's striking to me about the standoff in Trenton that ended with the police storming the building, shooting the suspect, and rescuing three kids, is that the suspect was a registered sex offender with a long record. I'd like to stress the word "registered." For some reason, he was allowed to go about his business, with the only proviso being that he register and check in, which he failed to do. What's the point of having a program that allows these guys back into the population if being registered can't really be enforced? (Trenton Times)

A detective got stabbed in the face with an eyeliner pencil in an altercation with a couple of teen girls. They'll be charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, and I had no idea that an eyeliner pencil would ever be considered a "dangerous weapon." (Salem News; Thanks to John Shea at WATD/Marshfield, MA for the link)

The only reason this isn't a Mom's Boyfriend story is that the child in question is actually the girlfriend's nephew, but in either case, this boyfriend allegedly tortured the 23 month old boy with a lighter and beat the boy. The couple claimed that the baby had fallen down the stairs, but that doesn't appear to be the case. But the boyfriend didn't have any prior infractions of note, so what was anybody supposed to do? This poor kid turned out to be his first victim. One can only hope that this is the last case, too. (Detroit news)

There's a controversy in Denver over naming a library after a Hispanic leader who was also tied through his followers to violent incidents including a deadly shootout in 1973 and a plot to bomb a police substation in 1975. Even one of the men who was arrested in the bombing plot, one of his followers, says that it would be a "disaster" name the library after the man, who he says was responsible for intimidation. And this raises the question of how much of an individual's background you should consider before naming something after him or her. (KCNC-TV/Denver)

This teacher was suspended for three days without pay after allegedly biting a student. Investigation says that the teacher admitted to putting her mouth on the students are, but insists that she did not bite down in that it was all supposed to be a joke. Three of four students said that everybody had a good laugh about it, but he fourth student said that the victim was afraid and didn't want to go back to the class. You know, it doesn't really matter whether everybody took it as a joke. It's just plain weird for somebody to put his or her mouth on somebody else's body like that. Teachers aren't supposed to do that. (WJHL-TV/Johnson City, TN)

The Miami Dolphins are still angry that the state legislature didn't move forward on a plan to spend taxpayer dollars on stadium renovations. As a result, there now thinking that they might consider building a new stadium in Palm Beach County. Of course, that means that taxpayers would have to build them their new stadium, and we know that taxpayers down there, after the Marlins disaster, won't ever approve spending like that again. I would hope that this is ushering in a new age when taxpayers just refuse to be blackmailed by sports team owners who don't want to spend their own money on their own stadiums. At some point, corporate welfare for very rich sports franchises has to stop. (Miami Herald)

Mick Jagger says that he wouldn't go on the road with another Rolling Stones tour until Keith Richards apologized for insulting his penis size in his autobiography. He did, and they are. If somebody insulted you personally like that, what an apology be enough? I suppose the money has something to do with that, too. (Daily Mail)

Could it possibly get worse for Carnival Cruises? A couple on a cruise in Australia is missing and presumed dead, possibly when the man, a paramedic, jumped overboard to try and save his girlfriend, who may have deliberately jumped. It just isn't a good time for that company, for cruises, and, of course, for that couple. (Sydney Morning Herald)

This dude tried to avoid being pulled over by a cop, stopping his car and jumping out the passenger side to run away. And he got away, briefly, untl the cops got a call about an "animal attack." Turned out that while fleeing, the guy ended up getting attacked by an alligator. I can see this as a TV series -- a clever, intrepid alligator helps the police catch runaway perps. Throw in a wisecracking gecko sidekick and it's a hit. (Tampa Bay Times)

There's talk that Fox will bring back "24" as a limited run series, and you know you want to see it, even if, like me, you bailed on the show a few years before it ended. After a couple of years, the time seems right to bring it back, refreshed. Although if they leave his idiot daughter out of it, that would be fine. (Deadline)

Daniel Snyder told USA Today that he'll never change the Redskins' name. Can we at least agree that it's downright weird to have a name like that in 2013, and it was always weird to use what's basically a denigrating racial term for the name of your team? (USA Today)

The family of the rapper died in a car crash tried to get a cemetery to allow them to put the f-word on his headstone. The cemetery said no. Apparently, headstones are subject to indecency laws, too. Or, at least, the cemetery didn't want swearing of any kind on memorials. (WCVB-TV/Boston)

Here's this year's Maxim Hot 100. Miley Cyrus at number one?!? Selena Gomez at 2? Are you kidding? They tend to overrate women who have appeared in their magazine, and it's hard to take seriously putting Ronda Rousey and California Attorney General Kamala Harris on the list. We are talking purely about appearance, right? Okay, this is objectification, but guys do have favorites. Sorry to be un-P.C. And, yes, "Manti Te'o's Fake Girlfriend" is number 69 (ha ha), ahead of actual and attractive women. So take it with a pound of salt. (Maxim)

Forget "Ocean's 11": Bank thieves acting in concert in over two dozen countries were able to steal $45 million from thousands of ATMs in just a few hours. They got $2.4 million in just over 10 hours from New York ATMs alone. The alleged ringleader was found dead in the Dominican Republic in April, but they've indicted eight members of the New York group. the article is almost a how-to: they were able to infiltrate one Indian credit card processing company and another in the U.S., got into the database of prepaid debit cards, got rid of the withdrawal limits, and then had cruise in several countries take the account numbers, put them on magnetic strength cards, and kit ATMs across their cities. It almost seems too easy. But that's how it's done now, not with guns, but with laptops. (New York Times)

Remember that story we had about the company taking applications for one-way tickets to Mars? And how weird it would be to go on a trip from which you knew you would never return? Guess how many people have applied for that trip. Turns out that 78,000 people have applied, and they're getting more applications every day. Lest you think that people are just saying that they'd go because they don't have to make a commitment, remember that they're charging for applications. In America, it costs $38 to submit an application. People really are willing to leave this planet and never come back.(Los Angeles Times)

Everybody's seen that picture of the screaming woman sticking her middle finger in the face of Chicago Bulls star Joakim Noah as he walked off the court, And it's hilarious. Not as hilarious is her background, which includes being accused of murdering her husband and also may have at one point kidnapped a gay stripper named Tiger, according to Deadspin. There's way more, with links to articles about her, shall we say, colorful life. All of that from one well-timed photo. (Deadspin)

A Crossfit gym in Brooklyn is defending the name that a woman came up with for a particular fitness class. The name? Before I tell you, I suppose I should mention that you probably can't say it on the air. But here it is, without endorsement: "Tough Titsday." Hey, I'm only reporting this. Does the fact that a woman came up with it and women are defending it make a difference? It wasn't an issue until a woman who didn't like the name and made a fuss about it enough to be denied membership complained anonymously to the Jezebel website. The club isn't changing the name, so there's that. (WCBS-TV/New York)

A taco joint in Tampa allegedly offeredlion meat tacos. they were $35. Some people try. It was, as you might imagine, a little gamey. But there was a backlash, so the restaurant pulled it from the menu. Regardless of price, would you try lion meat? (WFTS-TV/Tampa)

This article is accompanied by one of the more epic x-ray photos: a Brazilian woman got shot in the mouth with a harpoon by her husband in an accident that left her cheating death by less than an inch. The gun misfired and she got hit by the spear in the mouth and jaw. It ended up lodging in the cervical part of her spine. If it had hit just a centimeter one way or another, she would either be a quadriplegic or dead. But they say she'll make a full recovery. And she'll probably not want to be in the same room with a harpoon ever again. (CNN)

The last of the original "American Idol" Judges is done, as Randy Jackson resigns. I was never all that crazy about him as a judge, but, then again, I haven't watched the thing for several years. (Los Angeles Times)

A writer from New York was never set foot in Mississippi wrote a novel set in 1927 Mississippi. People in the south were immediately suspicious. But it turns out that they love it. How can somebody write a book that's authentic when he's never been to the place he's writing about? I guess you can research anything these days, and he must've done a good job. (New York Times)

After the FDA announced that it was going to do an investigation of caffeinated foods, Wrigley has announced that it will pull its new caffeinated gum off the market temporarily, "out of respect" for the agency and its investigation. A stick of the gum gives you the caffeine of a half cup of coffee. You're disappointed, I can tell. (AP via USA Today)

Add this to the Everything You Know is Wrong file: some scientists say that the benefits of exposing your skin to the sun outweigh the melanoma risk. Sunlight can reduce heart attack and stroke risks by lowering your blood pressure. So... I really don't know what to do about this. (BBC)

Here's a selection of movies that the writer feels didn't need to be in 3-D, prompted by the fact that "The Great Gatsby" is, indeed, in 3-D, even though it's hard to imagine how 3-D would enhance the already ornate visuals. Anybody else terribly underwhelmed by 3-D? I mean, even in movies where it's arguably appropriate, it doesn't do much for me. (Today Show/NBC News)

It took a 17-year-old to come up with the browser plug-in that will block tweets with TV spoilers. All you have to do is tell it what shows you want to set, then turn it on when the show is about to start. Any spoilers that get tweeted will be blocked. You can block tweets with the show's name, characters names, actors names, whatever works. There are other ways to do it, but this one makes it easy. Nice additional note: the programmer in question is female. It's not a bad thing for girls to get involved in programming and text. (Los Angeles Times)

The government has released information that shows hospitals charging Medicare wildly different amounts for the same procedures. And those numbers tend to be way, way more than Medicare will typically reimburse. They think that the upshot of all of this is that people with little or no insurance will end up paying more than they should, but I think that it doesn't matter whether you have insurance or not, because somehow, they're going to make you pay. They'll say that certain things aren't covered, and they won't back down. I have experience with this. It could be a nightmare. (New York Times)

It really sucks to live in a bad neighborhood, like this guy, who took his trash out and got shot in the ass. apparently, bullets were flying all over the place that evening. There shouldn't be anywhere in America where you can't leave your house because you might get shot, but, sadly, there are plenty of places like that. (WKMG-TV/Orlando)

What these guys are charged with doing is stealing contractors' vans and tools from worksites. They'd allegedly take the vans, strip them of all the tools, and abandon the vehicles. Actually, I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often. Really, when you think about how many contractors just leave their vans and trucks open while they're working on a house, you think that there'd be more theft. Also interesting: neighbors said that they saw one of the guys unloading tons of tools and equipment into his house but never thought anything of it. If you saw somebody constantly bringing in more tools and equipment, would you say anything? (WTXF-TV/Philadelphia)

A Texas judge has ruled that cheerleaders at a high school there can quote scripture on banners at football games, because banning it would infringe on their right to free speech. That's fine, but would those teams get support if those banners supported Satan? Or if they were Jewish? Or Muslim? Something tells me that there are no Jewish people there, or Muslims, but I could be wrong. (AP via NBC News)

This article is about how correctly to pronounce town and neighborhood names in Los Angeles, but it's not the usual quirky-pronunciation story. In this one, it's the conflict between the way locals say the names and the Spanish language. That's because a lot of the terms in question are pronounced as they were Anglicized when English-speaking people moved into the area. I happen to live in one example: Rancho Palos Verdes is pronounced by people who live here as "RAN-cho PAL-is VER-deez," which is decidedly not how it's supposed to be pronounced in Spanish. Next town over? San Pedro. Locals say "san PEE-dro." Los Feliz is "lohs FEEL-iz" to locals. None of that is correct in Spanish. But it's the way people talk 'round these parts. There are those who insist on pronouncing at the correct way according to the language, and it's become more of a cultural flashpoint for some people than it used to be. (Los Angeles Times)

An AARP survey (so you might question its impartiality) says that most older workers say they've seen or experienced age discrimination in the workplace. And we think it starts in your 50s. And corroborating that are statistics that show that older workers are out of work longer and younger workers. The problem is that it's very hard to prove that you weren't hired because of your age, or you didn't get the promotion because you're older. It's also that you're perceived to make too much, and they can hire somebody younger who will take less money for the same job. If you're over 55, have you experienced job discrimination? (New York Times)

Maybe justice delayed isn't always justice denied, at least not in the case of a woman who's been arrested and charged with the murder of her husband... in 1979. They now say she was having marital problems, had an affair, and told someone she wanted to kill him. She allegedly made it look like a burglary; after the murder, her boyfriend moved into the house days later, and they were married four months later, so she didn't even try to hide that. Yet it took 34 years to bring charges. (Chicago Tribune)

Maybe this is a problem: Among students throughout the world, America's are the most sleep deprived. Since experts say that sleep deprivation is a factor in lowering achievement in school, maybe we should figure out how to address this. The problem is that there are so many things competing for kids attention, including television, video games, and the Internet, plus school work and homework, there really isn't enough time in the day to do everything and sleep. I think I know how that feels. (BBC)

Parsons The New School of Design thought it would be a good idea to hire John Galliano to teach a master class in fashion. That little anti-Semitic rant problem? Well, they figured it would be covered by having him hold a "frank discussion of his career" that would include how he got fired from Christian Dior for his big mouth. He refused to do it. Now, he won't be teaching the class. Why they thought this was going to work, I don't know. It's not like there was any evidence that he learned from the incident. (Today Show/NBC News)

Imagine growing up as one of 32 children in a fundamentalist polygamous Mormon family in which dad married two sisters. And then imagine breaking away, as these brothers did. They were so sheltered and indoctrinated that life in regular American society was practically alien to them. They had to learn how to swim in the ocean, this every for the first time that there is such a thing as salt water. They had to learn how to talk to girls, and how women are treated outside the confines of the church. This article likens them to refugees, often without birth certificate and Social Security numbers. How is this going on in the 21st-century, in America? (Los Angeles Times)

Microsoft admits that, while sales of Windows 8 are strong, people don't like it. Most of the criticism comes from the interface that layers on tiles and is hard to use unless you're using a touch screen. Once you modify it to go directly to the Windows 7 style screen, it's okay. Trouble is that it's not immediately apparent how to do that. These are problems that were pretty obvious from the start, which makes you wonder why they couldn't figure this out before you put this on the market. (New York Times)

How the hell did Little Leaguers end up in the middle of a gun-control debate? It turns out that competing rallies at a park in Bucks County debating the gun-control issue for leading Little League officials to consider canceling all games on that day. They're worried that there will be people packing heat, and that there could be trouble. Couldn't both sides find a place that wouldn't interfere with kids? (WCAU-TV-WPHT/Philadelphia)

His friend and curator of his foundation says that the late, great Ray Harryhausen was, basically, a hoarder. In this case, that's a great thing. He kept everything. Every model, all the artwork, all the original stuff from all of his movies was stuffed into his garage, and that means it's going to be available for the rest of us. (BBC)

The ACLU says that documents it has obtained show that the FBI and some US attorneys offices are reading e-mails without a warrant. This is after a federal appeals court said that doing this violates the fourth amendment. Different US attorneys offices treat the matter very different. Does this concerning? (NBC News)

Finally, a study says something I've said for years: while it's good for a lot of people, college is not for everybody. If you go to one of the top schools, and you major in a high-paying field, college is a good day. But for everybody else, it's kind of pointless. Which raises the question of why the administration seems insistent on making it easier for everybody to get a college education, whether they can afford it or not. (Los Angeles Times)

Once again, everything you know was wrong: if you listen to the politicians, you would think that most of the added sugar in our diets is coming from soda and other sugary drinks. But the truth is that most of that extra sugar comes from food. There's tons of sugar in processed foods, including breads and desserts but also crackers, cereals, salad dressings, all sorts of stuff. Soda probably adds some but not nearly as much sugar to the total is everything else you eat. Can they ban food? (New York Times)

Oh, cool, they've come up with a promising treatment for Peyronie's disease. You know what that is, right? Curved penis. Hey, apparently, that's accompanied by a lot of pain, and if YOU have it, you'd want a cure, too. But there is no cure, and some guys use a "straightening machine," which sounds rough. Two drugs that are showing promise are being tested; let's hope for the sake of the guys in question that they work. (HealthDay via WebMD)

Should this high school senior have been suspended for posing his principal's mug shot to Instagram with a note saying that he thought she'd been arrested for DUI? She hadn't been arrested for DUI, she was arrested for missing a court date for a speeding ticket. That's all the pretense she needed to call in the cops and demand that the teen be arrested, but the cops refused, so she suspended him instead. Other students say they were threatened with suspension for having the mugshot in their phones. But, hey, mugshots are public, so you can't punish anyone for having it. (WSB-TV/Atlanta)

Residents of west Houston and Katy, Texas, stand down. Repeat, no need to panic. Turns out that the snails you were warned to stay away from are not deadly African snails after all but garden-variety homegrown Texas snails. Whew. You can get rat lungworm -- a form of meningitis -- from the African kind. So carry on. (KPRC-TV/Houston)

Because why not, here's the Smithsonian website's history of ballpark nachos, and YES THERE IS A HISTORY. Really. Someone -- Frank Liberto, to be precise -- invented the pumpable, non-perishable "cheese" that enabled what you get at the stadium. 1976, Arlington Stadium. YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS. (Smithsonian Magazine; Thanks to Ray Steele at WIBC/Indianapolis for the link)

Arias verdict: guilty. Discuss.

Dead: Jeanne Cooper, soap opera legend. She was since 1973, and at the time of her death still remained, the star of "The Young and the Restless." In fact, they recently gave her a storyline in which her character survived the brain tumor. But in real life, she's gone. Her son is Corbin Bernsen, in case you didn't know that. She was also a pioneer in that she had her real-life facelift written into the script of the show, which was unheard of. (Entertainment Weekly)

Welp, now they're selling Charles Ramsey T-shirts, honoring the guy in Cleveland. Proceeds will go to help the kidnapped women, but, really, if you buy one of these things, can you imagine wearing it after a month or so? Can you even imagine wearing it right now? (WEWS-TV/Cleveland)

It is, surely, not a good sign for the Facebook phone that AT&T is cutting the price of people willing to sign a two-year contract from $99 to99 cents. AT&T contends that they do this with phones all the time it doesn't mean that a phone isn't selling, but that kind of price drop this early in the game indicates that they're having a hard time moving that thing. Which goes to what I said when distinguishing on the market: does anybody really want a Facebook phone? (Wall Street Journal All Things D)

Can the news media, for once, back off and not swarm the kidnapped women as they return home? In fact, can they just go away and wait for any official statements? The coverage of this is getting embarrassing, with all of the reporters and cameras camping out at the women's homes. It's like they're victimizing women all over again. Back off and wait. (WKYC-TV/Cleveland)

Next year, the Miss America Pageant is regaining some of the tradition it lost when it moved to Vegas by coming back to Atlantic City, but it will be without another key tradition: They won't play the Miss America song. Blasphemy! But it's not the pageant's fault, and it's not the first time it's been missing. It's about the songwriter's widow and a lawsuit she filed saying that the pageant didn't have the right license to use the song. Last year, instead of "There she is...," they used an instrumental. Little Known Fact: The same songwriter, Bernie Wayne, wrote "Blue Velvet" and the Chock Full O' Nuts jingle (all together now, "Chock Full O' Nuts is the heavenly coffee..."). (Press of Atlantic City)

With Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement after winning 13 Premier League titles with Manchester United, you have to wonder how anyone can follow that kind of act. He's been manager of ManU for 27 years, meaning that he's been the only coach a lot of fans there have known. If you were one of the guys tipped to take that job next, would you do it? Or would you wait and be the NEXT coach, there to pick up the pieces after the disappointment of the first one in? (The Sun)

A genetic survey says that all Europeans are related to each other, and you don't have to go back more than 1.000 years to find the connections. This explains a lot. (NBC News)

More than four in 10 Americans say they think they'll have to work into their 70s or 80s because they can't afford to retire. Sadly, yes. Do you think you'll be able to retire at a typical age, like 65? (Los Angeles Times)

Whether they're planted by a public relations firm for the result of a reporter desperate for an angle on a story, things like this drive me crazy: this story is about an alleged uptick in sales for 1920s-style clothes attributed at least in part to the release of "The Great Gatsby." Do you think that there's a single person rushing out to buy spats because that movie is coming out? (KYW-TV/Philadelphia)

Best state for retirement? Tennessee. That, at least, is the result of a survey at Bankrate.com. Number two is Louisiana. Not in the top 10? Florida. Arizona isn't there, either. Nor is Nevada. South Dakota, on the other hand, is number three, so I'm not sure about this list, to be honest with you. (Knoxville News Sentinel; Thanks to Frank Murphy at WWST (Star 102.1)/Knoxville for the link)

A diabetic high school student alleges that when she fell asleep in study hall, the school police officer slammed her face into a filing cabinet before arresting her. Based on the kind of stuff I've heard about school police, I wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened. They think they're on "COPS." There's also the race issue, specifically the "school to jail" contention that some say targets minority students for minor infractions. Whatever happened, falling asleep in detention is hardly an arrestable offense, is it? (Courthouse News Service)

A Chevy Suburban was impounded and spent almost a month in a lot in Kansas City before anyone noticed that there was a puppy inside. And the puppy survived, although they have no idea how; there was little food and no water there. They named her Kia because neither Chevy or Suburban seemed appropriate. (Kansas City Star)

The wholesale price of beef hit an all-time high, And you won't be seeing relief anytime soon. So maybe you'll want to barbecue chicken instead of burgers this summer. (NBC News)

Another high school suicide, and this time, a 14-year-old girl walked out of class, went to the bleachers, and hung herself. There's no indication why, but she wanted her classmates to know she did it, judging by when and where she hung herself. How do you think kids will react? I can tell you wnat I remember when a classmate committed suicide in my high school: gallows humor. Kids joked about it, because nobody wanted to THINK about it. It's one way to cope. (WISH-TV/Indianapolis)

When does concern for public health become not allowing adults to make decisions for themselves? A bill in the California Assembly would ban "junk food" and sugary drinks from vending machines in state office buildings and on government property. Why? Can't someone working in a state office building decide for himself or herself what to eat or drink? (Los Angeles Times)

How bad is it in Miami for the Marlins? One year -- ONE YEAR -- after opening a taxpayer-financed palace, they're going to close the upper deck for some games, because they aren't selling tickets. I saw a few games at the old place -- Sun Life Dolphins Joe Robbie Landshark Whatever Stadium -- when they closed the upper deck, and it was embarrassing even there; there would be, like, two concession stands open in the lower level, nobody in the upper deck, no programs printed, and the stands a sea of empty seats. The new park wasn't supposed to be the same, but, then, the team wasn't supposed to be this bad. You can't blame the fans for this. Why would you pay to see that team? (Miami Herald)

Careful with the "Reply All." In this case, an employer wrote an email to the company lawyers asking if they could fire an employee... and copied the employee on the email. She took it as constructive dismissal, walked out, and is suing. Everyone has sent an email they'd like to have back; what were yours? (Toronto Star)

The guy who the Internet for a year says that, far from curing all of his problems, he discovered that the same things that make him overwhelmed on the Internet making overwhelmed in real life. It's not the Internet, it's the person. It's always the person. (Today Show/NBC News)

The lead singer of the metal band As I Lay Dying has been arrested for allegedly trying to hire a hitman to kill his wife. This is a guy who would talking interviews about being a devout Christian. Apparently, he has a different interpretation of the Bible than most people. You don't get too many Grammy nominees accused of something like this, but I suppose they're people just like everybody else. Assuming that everybody else tries to have their spouses murdered. (U-T San Diego)

Tip: if the cops are interviewing you about the syringe in your pocketbook, make sure that the bottle of pee in your bedroom is hidden rather than sitting there visible to everybody. The pee in question was, this woman says, provided by her aunt so she could pass a drug test. The article helpfully notes of the cop, "The report doesn't say what he did with the bottle." Maybe he took it home for personal use. (Knoxville News Sentinel; Thanks to Frank Murphy at WWST (Star 102.1)/Knoxville for the link)

Has our society finally, irrevocably, totally lost any semblance of common sense? To seven-year-olds have been suspended from school for pointing pencils and making shooting noises while pretending they were in the military. The school says that what they did was "intimidating and threatening," because, you know, pencils. Yes, this is silly. But it's teaching a valuable lesson to the children about how stupid adults can be. (Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk)

Here's a helpful compilation of eight instances where people followed their GPS instructions into trouble, and, yes, they mention Michael Scott right in the first paragraph. It's stuff you may have seen before, but the bottom line is that you can't always listen to the machine. I find that GPS information is best if you already know where you're going. Come to think of it, that's not so helpful, is it? (The Week)