Don't Panic! Lighten Up!S

Coffee

Spiders in my ear

A 9-year-old boy who complained of an earache was a little surprised when the doctor told him that a pair of spiders had tried to make a home out of him.

Coffee

Canadian poppy quarter triggered U.S. spy alert



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Canada's harmless poppy quarter has given some suspicious U.S. army contractors red faces after it was revealed they filed espionage accounts on the world's first coloured coin.

Snowman

Beijing's pandas work overtime for holiday crowds

BEIJING - The pandas in Beijing's zoo have been working overtime to allow a flood of holiday visitors a glimpse of the country's favourite animal, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.

©Reuters
A file photo of a panda munching on bamboo shoots at the Beijing zoo June...

HAL9000

Jail term cut for "neighbor from hell" granny

LONDON - An 81-year-old British grandmother branded by a judge as "the original neighbor from hell" had her jail term cut Wednesday but lost a bid for freedom because she wouldn't apologize for her actions.

Dorothy Evans, a widow from Wales, was jailed two weeks ago for harassment and breaching an Anti-Social Behavior Order after repeatedly shouting at her neighbors and hitting them with her walking stick.

Calculator

Record bid for Dukes of Hazzard car

A version of the General Lee - a 1969 Dodge Charger made famous in the television show The Dukes of Hazzard - fetched a winning bid of nearly 10 million dollars (GBP 5 million) in an online auction.

Calculator

Mom's 2007 salary: $138K

The work of a stay-at-home mother has an annual monetary value of $138,095, up 3 percent from last year, according to a survey out today.

Those are some findings from the seventh annual Mom Salary Survey issued by Salary.com, a Waltham compensation software and consulting firm.

If paid the salary of the equivalent work that a stay-at-home mother performs, a woman would earn $138,095, the company said.

And if a working mother regarded parenting as a second job, that second job would command an annual salary of $85,939; that's on top of the money she earns in the work place, Salary.com said.

Black Cat

3,500 lbs. of bat guano found in attic

An upstate New York couple didn't think a few bats in the attic were much of a problem when they were buying a house last summer.

Months later, they found out how wrong they were when they discovered more than a ton and a half of bat droppings up there.

Nick LaBoda and Jenna Caputo say a home inspector informed them about the bats. They called an exterminator, who told them to wait a while before removing the bats because the babies were too young to fly.

Then they forgot about the bats until they smelled a foul odor in January. When they checked the attic, they found dead bats and piles of guano.

Evil Rays

Blame Stockholm syndrome for our love affair with old Blighty

A friend recently explained her lexical issues with "British" Columbia. "I was born in New Westminster," she told me. "I went to school in Surrey and attended Queen Elizabeth Senior Secondary which was located on King George Highway. I played field hockey and Princess Margaret was our arch rival. The final tournament was at Prince Charles. I once went on vacation to Victoria, and on the way to Prince Rupert, the ferry passed the Queen Charlottes. I drove through Prince George, on my way back to Surrey."

Wine

Bigfoot risks extinction, says Canadian MP

Bigfoot, the legendary hairy man-like beast said to roam the wildernesses of North America, is not shy, merely so rare it risks extinction and should be protected as an endangered species.

Question

Abandoned Boeing 737 'disappears'

A disused Indian Boeing 737 that was abandoned in a busy road in Mumbai (Bombay) last weekend has been moved.

The plane was taken overnight from the Chembur district where it had been left by a driver who was taking it by trailer to Delhi.

It is not clear who has moved it or where it has been taken.

The decommissioned Boeing had become the centre of attraction in the city. But some people complained that it was disrupting business.