a house flooded by sewage

This is when you're having a bad day!  A couple in Charlotte, North Carolina, just had 3,000 gallons of raw sewage forced into their house by utility workers.  Of course it was an accident, and fortunately the city has agreed to pay the cost of cleaning (replacing) and for their temporary place of residence.

Here's the news article.

And something kinda alarming — in the "related stories" section, there are 5 articles about sewage spills, and the headlines include words like "catastrophic" and "millions of gallons".  That kind of thing should not be happening anywhere!

Get your super-powers here

This subject has arisen in conversations before, but I thought i'd present it here for your perusal & contemplation.   If you could wake up one day and have any superpower you wanted what would it be and how woudld you use it?  and what would you call yourself? and how would you dress? Lets use our imagination here… I think i'd be 'Gravity Man' with the power to increase or decrease the power of gravity affecting everying (except me) in my immediate surroundings… so if some punk is mouthing at you… WHAM! he's flat out on the floor feeling the effects of 20 times that of normal gravity… THAT would be cool… alternatly you could lessen gravity & watch people/stuff begin to float away… another nickname I might use would be Heavy G! & i'd wear a mohawk & dress in a manner reminiscient of Mr. T… I pity th' FOOL!

how would you like a job testing toilets?

One of my friends is doing some toilet research and showed me an excerpt he found, which describes how an engineer tests toilets at a particular company :

Every manufacturer tests toilets coming off the line. However, many manufacturers have created their own tests in addition to the ASME/ANSI requirements. One company that has its own set of standards is Toto, the world's largest plumbing-products manufacturer. At the Toto toilet factory in Morrow, Georgia, an engineer tests toilets in a remarkably real way. He doesn't actually defecate in them, but it's close. Using a proprietary ingredient that closely resembles human feces, the engineer measures out up to 400g of this faux waste and then molds it into its familiar tubular shape.

After plopping the artificial waste into the toilet, the engineer wads up toilet-paper balls and drops them in on top of the bogus poop. Standing there in the factory watching him do this, I felt like asking if he wanted to be left alone. The purpose of this realism is to ensure that the toilets meet or exceed ASME flush standards.

Imagine this guy telling people what he does for a living : "I make fake poop, then put it in a toilet with wads of toilet paper, to test toilets." I reckon somebody has to do it… but I wouldn't want to put it on my resume…

Man-Eating Hamsters!!!

check out this article… its' a game that pits man against pet. read about it here.

this got me to thinking… if you were innocently strolling down the street and suddenly began to be chased by a giant-man eating hamster what would you do? no this ISN'T the same as the 'diffuse a ninja' post… I dont think flinging dung would have much effect… except to possibly tick him off more.