When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.
Let fresh air and the wind in your face be pure ecstasy.
When it's in your best interest, practice obedience.
Let others know when they've invaded your territory.
Take naps.
Stretch before rising.
Run, romp, and play daily.
Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass.
On hot days, drink lots of water, and lie under a shady tree.
When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
No matter how often you're scolded, never hold a grudge! Run right back and make friends.
Delight in the joy of a long walk.
Eat with gusto and enthusiasm. Stop when you have had enough.
Be loyal. Never pretend to be something you're not.
If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently.

The Sheriff of Nottingham usually has to work pretty hard to find Robin Hood... But not today... Today he found 1,116 of them! In fact, all the Robin Hoods (or is that Robins Hood?) converged on Nottingham Castle to beat the world record for people dressed as Robin Hood! And for once, the Sheriff of Nottingham didn't try to arrest any of them... He just counted them...

It all started when the current Nottingham Castle manager, Dave Green, decided to see if he could break the old record of 606 people and also show off the town and its history... "It was all about bringing people together and we have certainly done that," he said... "Nottingham is obviously very proud of Robin Hood and we wanted to show how proud."

Very proud, in fact... The opportunity to be Robin Hood for a day - the only rules were you had to wear hat with a feather, a green or brown tunic and trousers and leather footwear - was enough to attract merry men and women from as far away as Canada and Australia!

"The thing about the Robin Hood record is that anyone can take part," Green added, "everyone is welcome, as long as you are prepared to make a bit of a fool of yourself..."

This is the Year of the Rat on the Chinese calendar... So naturally, in Vietnam, this means hamsters are popular... No, I don't know why either... But they are...

To make it even more interesting, the BBC (because they are the stylish news outlet of choice) says they are popular because of "a combination of factors including growing incomes"... So apparently all there are lots of middle to lower class kids who have a hamster as a goal when they really make it in the world...

And then it gets weird...

Because apparently there is this whole black market on hamsters and the Vietnamese government is cracking down on illegal imports of the creatures... In fact, it is now illegal to own one... So illegal, they are fining people 30 million dong (about $1,900 US) - equivalent to 2 years salary for the average person...

All of which raises the question: If its the year of the rat, wouldn't a rat be more appropriate, cheaper and less likely to put you in jail?

Mmmmmmmmmmm bacon... Luckily, there is a simple process to cook it... (Read More)

People say working the late shift is slow and boring... And for Dustin Hoffmann (No, not that one - this one has 2 n's), who works at the Dunkin Donuts in Elmwood Park, New Jersey, it usually is... Except for this last Monday...

A guy came in and ordered a blueberry cake doughnut - normal enough... He also paid with cash... But when Dustin went to give him his change, the guy started grabbing money out of the cash drawer! Dunkin's was being robbed!

Did Dustin fear for his life? No... Did he worry about the money being stolen? Not exactly... What did he fear? YouTube!

"What was going through my mind at this point was that the security tape is either going to show me run away and hide in the office or whack this guy in the head. So I just grabbed the cup and clocked the guy pretty hard", Dunkin said... And it mostly worked: the guy only got away with $290 but left his hat behind with enough DNA to convict him when he's caught...

And the security tape? Police are still converting the tape to a digital format, but once it's available, Dustin says he'll upload it to YouTube himself... "There are only a few videos like that on YouTube now, so mine's going to be the best," Hoffmann said.... "That’ll teach this guy!"

David Letterman is famous for his top 10 list every night on the Late Show... Ever wonder why? And almost every news show or magazine puts out a top 10 list every once and a while... Why? What is it about Top 10 lists that makes everyone keep using or reading them?

Someone decided to ask psychology professor Dr. Monica Basco at the University of Arlington... And naturally, he gave the top 10 reasons why:

10. Lists Organize Items In A Social Way - Sometimes it is confirmation of public opinion, sometimes it drives public opinion (helping to determine what to buy or where to buy it)...
9. Lists Allow Love It Or Leave It Decisions - If people don't agree with each choice, they tend to ignore it, only remembering the ones that apply to them...
8. Lists Give Guidelines - People know exactly how long the article will be, and the subject matter is constrained to one specific subject... No big surprises...
7. Lists Inspire Discovery Of Other Listed Items - You may only know one or two items on the list, but seeing the others encourages you to visit, try, watch or listen to one or more of the others...
6. Lists Provide Topics For Discussion - the American Film Institute lists this as a primary reason for every list they make... Doesn't matter whether you agree with the list or not, every list promotes conversation (or leaving comments on a web site)...
5. Lists Provide Arbitrary Ranks - Every list has a bottom (10) and a top (1)... People like hierarchy and order - Top 10 lists provide that...
4. Lists Give The Impression Of A Survey - Even though many lists are created by editors, computers, or whatever, people like the idea that qualitative lists like "most popular" or "most liked" could be or were created by a group of people such as themselve...
3. Lists Give The Impression Of Credibility - Putting items in a Top 10 implies they are the best of whatever the list is about... Sometimes that is true, sometime not... But the implication is there...
2. Lists Provide Commonality - A good list will share a certain commonality between everything on it... As long as nothing seems out of place, the list gains a better sense of credibility...
1. Lists Require Little Effort On The Reader - Lists are simple... Quick and easy to read, they take a lot of info and summarize it in a way normal prose could not...

Global warming... True or not, it seems every time you turn around there's another story on the news or in a magazine about how global warming is contributing to or causing some horrible something or other... In fact, it seems most everything is linked to global warming these days... And if you don't believe it, just ask Dr. John Brignell, a British engineering professor!

Dr Brignell maintains Numberwatch.co.uk, a web site devoted to monitoring the misuse of numbers in the media and politics... He's even written a couple of books on the subject (Sorry, wrong number! and The Epidemiologists: have they got scares for you!)...

And lately, he's been tracking global warming... Not with a thermometer, mind you, but with a web browser... He's compiled a list of over 600 things (and growing) either caused by or linked to global warming! Some are good, some are bad, and some are just ludicrous... They include:

• The melting and eventual loss of the snow and ice in the Alps
• The increase in snowfall near the Great Lakes
• An increase in the U.S death rate
• Fading fall foliage
• The collapse of Swedish gingerbread houses
• A shortage of maple syrup
• An increase in land suitable for agriculture
• The loss of agricultural land to deserts
• Teenage drinking
• and more!

So go check out the list... It's interesting when you see everything put together...

(And if you've seen a story he's missed, feel free to submit it and he's add it!)

Are you from the United States? Then there is a 1 in 25 chance your last name is Smith, Johnson, Williams, Brown, Jones, Miller or Davis! The U.S Census Bureau has released its second ever list of frequently occurring surnames and these 7 topped the list, accounting for 4% of the entire population of the United States... Pretty good when you consider of 6 million last names were identified...

The full top 10 included:

• Smith - 2,376,206 people
• Johnson - 1,857,160 people
• Williams - 1,534,042 people
• Brown - 1,380,145 people
• Jones - 1,362,755 people
• Miller - 1,127,803 people
• Davis - 1,072,335 people
• Garcia - 858,289 people
• Rodriguez - 804,240 people
• Wilson - 783,051 people

And apparently the common names are pretty common... The top 275 names (out of 6 million, remember) accounted for the 26.2% of the last names! On the other end of the spectrum, the lease common 5.09 million last names only accounts for 2.5% of the population!

So where is your last name on the list? If there are at least 100 people with it (how big is your family?), you can find out where it ranks in the great scheme of things... Or, if you are of a more trivial bent, you can check out the "Technical Documentation" and find out why Mickey Mouse was accepted as a valid name...

There are certain characteristics that go along with being the first born child in a family... You're usually the first one to do stuff: first to go to school, first to learn to drive, first to go to college... And you're always going to have younger siblings either looking to emulate you or looking to surpass you...

Things get a little dicey when your younger sibling is your twin...

Things get even more confusing when your younger sibling is 26 minutes older than you are!

Which is something Peter Sullivan Cirioli is going to have to deal with... He was born at WakeMed Cary hospital in Cary, North Carolina, at 1:32 AM this last Sunday morning...

Allison Raye Cirioli was born 34 minutes later... But due to Daylight Savings Time - clocks were turned back an hour at 2AM this last Sunday - her official birth time is 1:06 AM!!!

"We just never even thought about it until after [Peter] was born and then we realized it was going to happen... It was really kind of amazing," mother Laura Cirioli said... But they aren't getting caught up in any debates over first born rights - they're just glad both kids are healthy and home... "We'll let them work that out between themselves," father Jason Cirioli said... "I don't want to get into the middle of it..."

There are two types of science: the kind that discovers a way to make the world a better place and the kind that makes you wonder what they were thinking when they did it... Tomorrow, Alex Boase shares his list of the 10 weirdest of the latter in this week's New Scientist...
"I started collecting examples of bizarre experiments years ago while in graduate school studying the history of science. I confess I had no profound intellectual motive; I simply found them fascinating," Boase said...
"These experiments are not the work of cranks... All were performed by honest, hardworking scientists who were not prepared to accept common-sense explanations of how the world works... Sometimes such single-mindedness leads to brilliant discoveries... At other times it can end up closer to madness..."

So, what qualifies as weird and strange in the realm of scientific experiments? (Read More)

Most people know how to convert a yard to a meter (1 yard = 0.9144 meters)... Many know how to convert pounds to kilograms (1lb = 0.4536kg)... Fewer know how to convert teaspoons to tablespoons (1 teaspoon = 0.3333 tablespoon)... But I bet only a few know how many chickens equal the weight of a blue whale!

But now, for those who need to know, there is WeirdConverter.com - the premier web site for non-traditional conversions! It all started when Eric Peterson was watching the Discovery Channel and the narrator mentioned how many dump trucks it would take to equal a blue whale... Naturally, he wondered if there was a converter out there for that sort of conversion... And just as naturally, there wasn't...

So he made one! Working just like a currency converter, it allows you to convert one thing into something totally unrelated using either length, weight, or volume... So now you can discover:

• how many spider monkeys an African elephant weighs...
• How many giraffe necks equal the length of the great wall of China...
• How many cans of beer it would take to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool...

And more! And if they don't have quite the conversion you're looking for, there's even a way to suggest one so it can be added!

Oh, and the blue whale? It equals the weight of 79,379.479 chickens!

Squirrels... Cute, furry animals known to hang out in trees and eat nuts... How dangerous could one little squirrel be?

Dangerous enough to blow up a car!

In this case, it was a 2006 Toyota Camry belonging to Lindsey Millar of Bayonne, New Jersey... She and her brother Tony were hanging out at home Wednesday afternoon when their car suddenly burst into frames and blew up!

Once the fire department got the fire out, they were able to piece together what happened... That was the easy part... The hard part was Lindsey and Tony believing what happened... "The squirrel chewed through the wire, was set on fire, fell down directly to where the car was," Tony Millar said... "The squirrel, on fire, slid into the engine compartment and blew up the car!"

Luckily, police records report there were no injuries... Except for the squirrel...

Few pastors find their reputation enhanced by helping their parishioners with their underwear... But Gary Husband, resident Priest of the small town of Inglewood, New Zealand, has his parishioners full support for his activities... You see, he's been the only source for women's undergarments for almost a year!

It all started when the only store in town to sell these required articles of clothing stopped doing so... Which left the women of the town with a 20 kilometer plus trip to New Plymouth... Most inconvenient!

So after hearing several complaints from parishioners about the issue, Reverend Husband decided to see what he could do to help out... "We get all the essentials here - apart from the ladies' essentials," he said... He found some volunteers willing to contribute vehicles to the endeavor and started providing a monthly run to New Plymouth to help members of his parish stay decently clothed... Good news: His work was a complete success... Bad news: he now has the internationally know nickname of "the knicker vicar"...

Luckily, all the attention has convinced the Taranaki Regional Council and Land Transport New Zealand to work together on subsidizing a weekly bus run to provide townspeople easy access to everything they need... If all goes well, Reverend Husband will soon become known once again for his more traditional outreach programs...

Ever been out on the highway and seen a motorcycle zoom by going way to fast and paying way too little attention? Ever wonder what happens if the rider keeps doing that sort of thing?

Wonder no more... A woman was driving along in her car last night on I-35 in San Antonio, Texas... Suddenly, she was hit from behind... And before she could react, she ran over the other driver! How, you ask? Because the other drive rwas a motorcycle rider who was going over 120 mph when he ran into her car! Not only did he crash - he was thrown off his bike, over her car, and landed in front of her... Where she ran over him!

Luckily, the driver survived... But he is in serious condition at the hospital and hopefully by the time he recovers he'll be one less motorcycle racer on the road...

Usually, when you travel to another country, you need to change your money to the local currency... But what happens when you don't go to another country... What happens when you go to another planet? Or just to Earth orbit? What currency do you use?

And before you reach for your credit/debit card, you probably won't be taking it with you on the rocket: If the cosmic radiation doesn't destroy the magnetic strip and security chip, the lag time of communicating back to your bank from off-planet would make it infeasible to process the charge...

Enter the Quid - the Quasi Universal Intergalactic Denomination... Its a new currency created specifically for interstellar travelers by scientists from the National Space Centre and the University of Leicester at the request of Travelex, a foreign exchange company... The "coins" are made from a clear polymer with smooth molded edges...

"With an inflatable space hotel from Bigelow Aerospace under development in the US, and Virgin Galactic developing SpaceShipTwo, there will be better access to space than there has been," said Professor George Fraser from the University of Leicester... "It's only a matter of time before people will be walking up to our shops and asking for Quids for their two weeks in a space hotel..."

Stop signs... Pretty ubiquitous... And that may be part of the problem, because people keep ignoring them... What to do, what to do...

So Mayor Dave Heilmann of Oak Lawn, Illinois, came up with a way to make them more interesting: Make each stop sign the beginning of a message! "I was trying to get people's attention," said Heilmann... "And I'm a little sarcastic by nature, so I thought, let's give this a shot... I think people in government are so serious... I think we need to laugh once in a while..."

Consisting of a smaller red sign below each stop sign, each forms a message like:

• STOP - In the Naame of Love
• STOP - And Smell the Roses
• STOP - Really. You Gotta Stop
• STOP - Right There Pilgrim
• STOP - Or We'll Hunt You Down
• STOP - Hold it Right There Buster
• STOP - Then You Can Go
• STOP - Whoa Whoa Wait a Minute
• STOP - Stop Stop Stop Stop Stop Pleeeease
• STOP - Or the Police Will Yell at You
• STOP - Not an Optional Sign
• STOP - It's Really Self-Explanatory
• STOP - Means That You Aren't Moving
• STOP - Even When No One's Looking
• STOP - Whoa
• STOP - Billion Dollar Fine

Right now, the signs are mostly around the city's schools, but if they work they will be expanded across the city... And so far the feedback has been positive - which means people are stopping to read the signs!

(So STOP - and suggest this to your city council!!!)

Just when you thought medical researchers had already found all the benefits of chocolate, a new study comes out with another new discovery... In this case, researchers from Hull York Medical School found dark chocolate helps fight chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS - also known as ME)!!!

It all started when Professor Steve Atkin had a patient mention that they felt better after they stopped eating milk chocolate and started eating dark chocolate... So he put together a study of patients with CFS where they each had a daily dose of chocolate - 45g of either dark chocolate or white chocolate dyed brown...

The results surprised even Professor Atkin: patients eating the dark chocolate reported significantly less fatigue... "Although it was a small study," he said, "two patients went back to work after being off for six months..." He reasons the results are due to the hight levels of polyphenols in dark chocolate... Polyphenols have been linked to any number of health benefits, including an increase in the levels of serotonin in the brain - an increase that might just help people with CFS...

Plus, he said that while more research was needed, people would not hurt themselves by eating small amounts of dark chocolate each day, adding that with the small amounts in his study, no one put on any weight... "If you derive benefit, then it's a no-harm, no-risk situation," he said...

When asked about the study, Heather Walker - Communications Manager of Action for ME, a CFS group - summed it up best, saying "Wouldn't it be wonderful if eating chocolate every day could alleviate the symptoms of chronic illness?"

(Well... Doctor's orders, eh?)