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Bulb

Jobless Woman Headed For Texas On Horseback

Brian Reed
NPR
Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:06 UTC
Donna Byrne - Cowgirl_01
© Tampa Tribune via News Channel 8/APDonna Byrne rides her horse Jay as Tonto carries her belongings, on her trip along U.S. Route 301 in Riverview, Fla.
On roads teeming with motorcycles, pickup trucks and 18-wheelers, it isn't too hard to spot a woman on horseback.

So Donna Byrne is attracting a lot of attention. After she lost her job as a ranch hand in Arcadia, Fla., the 44-year-old couldn't afford her rent, so she decided to ride her horses, Jay and Tonto, to Texas - maybe even Montana - in search of work as a cowgirl.

In the first few weeks of her journey, Byrne has already received a large showing of goodwill. She says every day people stop to ask about her journey and offer a hand.
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Family

Flashback A child called Ikea: Myth or reality?

Tom Geoghegan
BBC News
Wed, 09 Nov 2005 11:44 UTC
Bizarre Names Newspaper
Wrong impression
Newspapers gleefully claimed this week that Ikea was the latest example of barmy parents calling their newborn children after brand names. Er, not quite.

Loved though it is by many, the world's favourite Swedish furniture store does not inspire happy emotions in everyone - stress, crowds and flatpack-inspired frustration to name a few.

Given this, Ikea is not an obvious name to give a baby.

Hence it was no surprise that, with the news that baby names seem to be getting stranger, some papers pounced on the example of Ikea as evidence.

"After Janet and John, Moet and Ikea," was a typical headline.

The source appeared to be baby information firm Bounty, which distributes Bounty packs including disposable nappies to mothers in hospital.

Its research was based on 600,000 mothers, which the company claims covers 98% of new mums.
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Passport

'Most unfortunate names' revealed


BBC News
Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:04 UTC
Baby Cradle
Imagine growing up as Annette Curtain or Tim Burr
What do you call some of the most unlucky people in Britain?

Justin Case, Barb Dwyer and Stan Still.

It sounds like a bad joke, but a study has revealed that there really are unfortunate people with those names in the UK.

Joining them on the list are Terry Bull, Paige Turner, Mary Christmas and Anna Sasin.

And just imagine having to introduce yourself to a crowd as Doug Hole or Hazel Nutt.
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Briefcase

10 Reasons Why We Love Making Lists

Linton Weeks
National Public Radio
Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:39 UTC
list
One of countless 25 Random Things About Me lists on Facebook.
Why is it that everywhere you turn there's a list for this or that?

On Facebook, friends recently began posting 25 Random Things About Me - which bloggers have been doing for years. Now some people are lambasting the listiness while others are shortening it to a more manageable 3 Random Things (3 Places I Have Lived or 3 TV Shows I Watch).

Other Facebook and MySpace lists abound: 6 Great Books. 8 Favorite Songs. 7 Reasons to Hate...whatever.

David Letterman's Top 10 List has become a bona fide art form. And there's a list of Top 5 Musicians on Twitter floating around.

Everyday parlance is littered with lists: laundry, grocery, honey-do. When Dick Cheney was asked by then-presidential candidate George W. Bush to find him a suitable running mate, Cheney did what all pols would do: He drew up a short list. (And then he wound up as the VP pick.)

"Enough organization, enough lists and we think we can control the uncontrollable," observed a character on the TV show House. By now you would think there are enough lists. But still we keep jotting things down in an orderly fashion.
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Sherlock

'Superbrain' stuns Britain with genius quiz show run

Luke Baker
Reuters
Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:17 UTC
She's being hailed as Britain's cleverest student, a shy, bespectacled and amazingly quick-minded Latin scholar who has romped away to win Britain's hardest quiz show almost single-handedly.

Gail Trimble, 26, is playing down the excitement surrounding her team's victory in the annual University Challenge on Monday, but the nation is abuzz at her polymath performance on the quiz, a favorite on British TV for nearly 40 years.

Coming from behind, Trimble's four-person team from Corpus Christi college at Oxford University raced away to beat sharp rivals from Manchester by 275-190, with Trimble answering most of the dauntingly difficult questions without hesitation.

It was a typically barnstorming performance from the team captain, who has a tendency to laugh excitedly when she knows the answer, even if she seemed nervous at the start as Manchester moved into the lead and the pressure was on.
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Bug

Computer Crashed by Real Earthworm


United Press International
Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:51 UTC
Yeovil, England - A British man said the worm that caused his computer to crash turned out not to be a form of computer virus but an actual 5-inch earthworm.

Mark Taylor, 45, of Yeovil, England, said repairmen told him that the worm had crawled into his laptop through an air vent and coiled itself around a cooling fan, causing the computer to overheat and break down, The Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday.

Taylor said the worm itself had been "cooked" by the overheated computer.
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Smiley

Stranded by Ryanair: the rant that became a book

Paul Kilduff
The Sunday Times
Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:39 UTC
Ryanair
© UnknownRuinair
The first sign of terminal trouble is the subtle inactivity at the Malaga departure gate.

Our scheduled boarding time passes quite uneventfully. Growing mumblings of discontent and half-truths circulate like gossip. There is an aircraft outside so there's hope, but it has technical problems. The screens show "Retrasado". This is Spanish for "Your aircraft is broken". We wait in a void of customer service.

One brave passenger walks up to the desk and comes back holding up 10 fingers. We will board in 10 minutes? He announces: "Delayed until 10 o'clock tonight." Eight hours late. An engineer is flying out.
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Smiley

50 Jobs, 50 States in a Year? Man Gives It a Try


The Assoicated Press
Tue, 24 Feb 2009 01:30 UTC
Theresa, Wisconsin - At a time when some people are having trouble finding one job, Daniel Seddiqui is lining up 50 - one in every state. Each job symbolizes the state's most famous industry, and each lasts one week - just long enough for the 26-year-old to appreciate the labor and explore the region.

He's been a park ranger in Wyoming, a corn farmer in Nebraska and a wedding coordinator in Las Vegas.

Last week, in Week 23 of his yearlong saga, he was a cheese-maker in southeast Wisconsin. He mixed ingredients, hoisted slabs of cheddar - and tasted plenty of his work.
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Laptop

Florida Man tries to steal laptop to check Facebook


Associated Press
Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:59 UTC
Bradenton - Sheriff's officers said a 19-year-old man snatched a Starbucks customers laptop after being told he could not use it to check his Facebook account. According to officers, the man then grabbed the customer's laptop and ran out of the coffee shop, located in an outlet mall.
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Mr. Potato

The slow death of Slow Food UK


The Guardian
Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:54 UTC
There seems to be an inherent contradiction between the local and international aims of the Slow Food movement. What do you think such an organisation ought to be doing?
Carlo Petrini - Slow Food
© Barry Lewis-CorbisCarlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food movement.

Slow Food UK is in crisis. Slow Food itself is a weird organisation. It has a charismatic founder/leader, Carlo Petrini, who presides over and directs the movement from Italy. It purports to be a grassroots movement, inherently democratic because the only thing you have to do to qualify for membership and join is to pay your sub - the £35 fee goes to Slow Food UK and the new member is assigned to a local convivium.

(The vocabulary of Slow Food is its most peculiar feature - there are convivia, presidia, arks and terra madre - an apparent lexical cross between Stalinism and religion, though in fact, I think it reflects the Italian anarcho-syndicalist origins of the movement.)
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