I don’t know how to feel about it…

Anyway, I came across a story about a couple here in China who recently had a baby and they decided to take the path less traveled and to name their kid “@”. Yes, you read that right, they’ve named their precious little baby with the same symbol that is in every Email address all over the world. Man, I’d hate to get that kid’s SPAM!

BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese couple tried to name their baby “@,” claiming the character used in e-mail addresses echoed their love for the child, an official trying to whip the national language into line said Thursday.

The unusual name stands out especially in Chinese, which has no alphabet and instead uses tens of thousands of multi-stroke characters to represent words.

“The whole world uses it to write e-mail, and translated into Chinese it means ‘love him’,” the father explained, according to the deputy chief of the State Language Commission Li Yuming.

While “@” is familiar to Chinese e-mail users, they often use the English word “at” to sound it out — which with a drawn out “T” sounds something like “ai ta,” or “love him,” to Mandarin speakers.

Li told a news conference on the state of the language that the name was an extreme example of people’s increasingly adventurous approach to Chinese, as commercialization and the Internet break down conventions.

Considering 90% of the country’s 1.3 billion people share just 129 surnames, it’s no surprise that this is happening. It sorta reminds me of some of the names American actors burden their innocent children with (ie. Apple, Phinnaeus, “Rumer Glenn”, “Scout LaRue”, “Tallulah Belle”, “Sage Moonblood”, “Sistine Rose”, Puma, Jett, Sailor, and “Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily” just to name a few.) all in the effort to be different.

Well, different strokes for different folks! I’m pretty sure Erica will NOT sign off on naming our little one “@” – I wonder if she’ll go for “Starbuck”? That’s kinda a cool name for a little guy!?

What do you think?

DALLAS — There have been more than a few athletes accused of doping over the years — but the competitors at the “Texas Redneck Games” might just be dopes.

These competitors forgo the shotput for the “Mattress Chuck” — where teams of two slam a 12-pack of beer, get in a pickup truck and start driving, then climb into the bed and throw the mattress as far as possible. And if you aren’t planning on heading to Beijing for the next Olympic Games, there’s always the ugly “butt-crack contest.”

By the time the latest event ended Sunday, more than 54 arrests and citations had been issued on charges ranging from public intoxication to speeding, according to the Henderson County Sheriff’s Department. Officials are considering charges against the organizer and landowners where the event was held.

Of course, I did use to live in a place called “Alert” (pronounced “Ay-Lurt”) in rural North Carolina… so maybe I’ll fit in just fine!

YeeeHaaaw!

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You can read more about it here:

I just hope the Darwin Awards had a representative on the grounds.

Authorities not amused by Texas Redneck Games

Texas ’Redneck Games’ draw several thousand

How do you distinguish the rednecks from the white trash?

Olympics beware, rednecks going for gold

Spice used in India to cure stomach ills is named world’s hottest pepper

CHANGPOOL, India – The farmer, a quiet man with an easy smile, has spent a lifetime eating a chili pepper with a strange name and a vicious bite. His mother stirred them into sauces. His wife puts them out for dinner raw, blood-red morsels of pain to be nibbled — carefully, very carefully — with whatever she’s serving.

Around here, in the hills of northeastern India, it’s called the “bhut jolokia” — the “ghost chili.” Anyone who has tried it, they say, could end up an apparition.

“It is so hot you can’t even imagine,” said the farmer, Digonta Saikia, working in his fields in the midday sun, his face nearly invisible behind an enormous straw hat. “When you eat it, it’s like dying.”

Outsiders, he insisted, shouldn’t even try it. “If you eat one,” he told a visitor, “you will not be able to leave this place.”

The rest of the world, though, should prepare itself.

One for the record books

Because in this remote Indian region facing bloody insurgencies, widespread poverty and a major industry — tea farming — in deep decline, hope has come in the form of this thumb-sized chili pepper with frightening potency and a superlative rating: the spiciest chili in the world. A few months ago, Guinness World Records made it official.

If you think you’ve had a hotter chili pepper, you’re wrong.

The smallest morsels can flavor a sauce so intensely it’s barely edible. Eating a raw sliver causes watering eyes and a runny nose. An entire chili is an all-out assault on the senses, akin to swigging a cocktail of battery acid and glass shards.

For generations, though, it’s been loved in India’s northeast, eaten as a spice, a cure for stomach troubles and, seemingly paradoxically, a way to fight the crippling summer heat.

Now, though, with scientific proof that barreled the bhut jolokia into the record books — it has more than 1,000,000 Scoville units, the scientific measurement of a chili’s spiciness — northeast India is taking its chili to the outside world.

“This cat really seems to know when patients are about to die,” says Dr David Dosa, a geriatrician at Rhode Island hospital who also attends patients at Steere House.“We started to see something was happening about 18 months ago and at first I think we were all very sceptical. But it’s not an unusual occurrence for patients to die here, so we’ve had plenty of opportunities to witness and observe the phenomenon.     

“The first signals come as early as two days beforehand, when Oscar leaves his usual favourite solitary spots under a doctor’s desk or sunbathing in the windows of an empty office and begins doing his rounds, padding round the corridors of the unit, visiting patients but never lingering.

“When somebody’s not ready to die, he leaves,” says Dr Dosa. “He doesn’t settle in their room until the day they die. Sometimes it can be as much as four hours beforehand, but he’s universally there, curled up on their bed, two hours before they take their last breath.”

  All I’ve got to say it, next time a cat snuggles up to me – I’m gonna get a little nervous!

This video is in Chinese, but I think you get the idea… there is a “Mouse Invasion” consisting of 2 BILLION mice in Yueyang, China right now!

These Ravenous Rodents are eating everything in sight, completely destroying farmers’ entire harvests of rice in mere hours!

I hear it’s a new Guiness World Record for the largest Plague of Munching Mice in history.

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