The Daytona Beach News-Journal has a story about a moron.

ORMOND BEACH -- Publix has determined that a "bullet" found in a customer's pork loin was actually the casing from a meat thermometer, supermarket spokesman Dwaine Stevens said Tuesday.

Publix Supermarkets made the finding after examining the metal piece at its company lab in Lakeland. The supermarket chain assumes the thermometer piece fell in the meat when the customer, Diane Johnson, Ormond Beach, checked the meat's temperature. She discovered it during a family meal Oct. 18.

But Johnson, who got a new thermometer from Publix, disagreed. "I still think it's a bullet," she said. Johnson has no plans to sue Publix over the incident because nobody was hurt, she said earlier.

"They sent me a new thermometer I won't use," she said. "That's fine."

The supermarket has also reimbursed her for the meat and gave her a new pork loin.

Clearly, if someone had gotten hurt by biting down on the metal, you should of course sue immediately, but you shouldn't sue the maker of the crappy product that fell apart. Instead, you should sue a separate product that you shoved your disintegrating and crappy device into. It's like breaking a glass bottle on the steering wheel of your car and then suing the car maker because it hurt you when you sat on the shards of glass. But it's ok, because the glass bottle was defective! So clearly the car maker is to blame. Idiot.

Yahoo's got a story about a guy who was burglarizing a pizza parlor at 2 in the morning.

The suspect entered the restaurant about 2 a.m. and rummaged around for a cook's apron, trying on several until he found one that fit, then began preparing a pepperoni pizza with all the fixings, said sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino.

The employee arrived at about 3 a.m., found the pizza smoldering in the oven and the safe missing with an undisclosed amount of cash.

A surveillance camera captured the entire incident, and the Orange County Sheriff's Department plans on publicizing the videotape to aid their search for the thief.

No joke. This is the best headline. Even better is the additional joke in the coach's name mentioned within the article. You gotta read it to believe it.

dave submitted a story (with a pic of the fool) on ESPN about a fan who ran out onto the field and disrupted the Bengals-Packers game yesterday.

The Packers, trailing 21-14, reached the Bengals' 28 with 23 seconds left. Brett Favre took the ensuing snap, but whistles quickly blew after the fan came onto the field. The unidentified man took the football out of Favre's hand and ran about 50 yards before being tackled by security guards and removed from the field.

Favre was sacked on the next play, and on the final snap, he completed an illegal pass beyond the line of scrimmage that came up short.

Neither Favre nor Packers coach Mike Sherman blamed Green Bay's loss on the fan.

Favre said he didn't see the fan until the man had taken the ball from him. The veteran quarterback said he didn't think the fan helped the Packers, "but I'm definitely not going to sit here and make excuses."

"The feeling has been that the height of the walls is sufficient to discourage fans from jumping out of the stands all the way onto the field," Brennan said. "Our security has video of the incident. It will be fully reviewed, and a determination will be made on whether changes are needed in our policies and procedures in this area."

Video (including the takedown by security) is here. A wider shot video (without takedown) can be seen here.

dave submitted an article in the Washington Post about a fight in the Senate over the construction of certain bridges under the highway spending plan just passed by Bush. Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma is trying "to eliminate some $450 million in federal funds for Alaskan bridges and shift $75 million to a Louisiana bridge damaged by Hurricane Katrina." On the other hand, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska "is renowned for winning projects for his state" and the two have clashed over the Alaska projects Stevens had initially gotten passed. One of the notable controversies:

One [example of unwarranted spending], called by critics the "bridge to nowhere," would connect Ketchikan, Alaska, to an island where there is an airport and about 50 people. The highway bill allotted $223 million for that project and $229 million for another bridge near Anchorage.

...37-year Senate veteran Ted Stevens of Alaska told a freshman colleague that he would resign and "be taken out of here on a stretcher" if the Senate killed funding for two Alaskan bridges.

dave submitted a link to a Comedy Central press release about a new internet video channel they're starting.

More interactivity, more irreverence, more fun! COMEDY CENTRAL launched its first broadband-optimized video channel "COMEDY CENTRAL MotherLoad," on Tuesday, November 1, 2005. For the launch, new original series and content from classic COMEDY CENTRAL shows such as Robert Smigel's "TV Funhouse," "Strangers with Candy" and "Viva Variety" will be available exclusively on "MotherLoad."

"COMEDY CENTRAL MotherLoad" is a video player designed and optimized to take advantage of Broadband speed and features exclusive and dedicated content including video clips from current and classic COMEDY CENTRAL shows, stand-up performances, sneak previews, behind-the-scenes exclusives, original content and newly created series specific to "MotherLoad" such as "I Love The Thirties," "Odd Todd," "Meet The Creeps" and much more.

dave submitted 3 articles related to the World Series.

In the first, a Houston attorney is suing MLB for mandating the roof remain open and not providing adequate notice to fans, causing some to get sick because they did not prepare for the cold since the dome was open. In other news, the same attorney will be suing the sun for creating heat which causes diseases, and the wind for spreading germs and just making people feel generally cold.

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The second story is about how some fans paid exorbitant amounts of money, only to find they were scammed and bought stolen tickets, meaning they couldn't get into the game.

Taylor Jordan is one of several people who fell victim to a scam artist. He paid $1,400 on eBay for World Series tickets and picked them up at a broker here in Houston. But when he went to the game, he found out the tickets were stolen.

"We don't need people like that on the street. It's just bad," said victim Taylor Jordan.

Eyewitness News spoke to Tickets of America, the broker that sold Jordan the tickets. The company said it would do everything it could to get Jordan into Minute Maid Park.

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The third story is about the Sox parade taking place downtown tomorrow.

The Chicago White Sox will tip their hats to their fans Friday with a victory parade in traditionally Sox-friendly neighborhoods. Then, they’ll head downtown for a rally Friday afternoon. Times were to be announced later today.

The 2005 World Series champions’ motorcade is set to begin at U.S. Cellular Field and will proceed to various neighborhoods including Bridgeport, Chinatown, Bronzeville, Pilsen, Greektown and the University of Illinois at Chicago campus, Mayor Daley said.

The ticker tape parade will continue down LaSalle Street and will stop at Wacker Drive and the Chicago River, where hundreds are expected to cheer the team for a massive afternoon rally. “This is a special moment for the city of Chicago,” Daley said. “We waited a long time.”

Daley had considered holding a rally at the Petrillo Music Shell in Grant Park but said the lighting and sound system had been removed for the winter. And plans to hold a parade on Monday also were scrapped to make things easier for players hoping to leave Chicago and head to their homes around the country.

“We don’t want to miss any of the ballplayers at all,” Daley said.

AOL recently made available their new version of AIM, called AIM Triton, as a beta test product (ver 0.8.8). It has a much different look than the AIM you're used to. The notable changes:

• A merging of IM, EMail, Voice Chat, Text Messaging, and Video Chat
• Chat window has tabs for conversations (like more recent AIM versions)
• Longer away message capacity (finally)
• More friends can be added (up to 500)
• Better file transferring, including large files
• Desktop and web search
• 2 gigs of email with the ability to tell if someone read the message (for all you creeps out there) and also to unsend a message that hasn't been read (only if you sent to another AOL/AIM user. Email also allows 16MB attachments.

See a demo here and download it here.

Since yesterday, a new Google service called Google Base leaked and has since been off and back online repeatedly. The service is similar to craigslist.org in that you can put up things like items for sale and other people can search for them. From their page:

Google Base is Google's database into which you can add all types of content. We'll host your content and make it searchable online for free.

Examples of items you can find in Google Base:

• Description of your party planning service
• Articles on current events from your website
• Listing of your used car for sale
• Database of protein structures

You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle and Google Local.

The current categories of things you can post are: Course Schedules, Events and Activities, Housing, Jobs, News and Articles, People Profiles, Products, Reference Articles, Reviews, Services, Travel, Vehicles, and Wanted Ads.

dave reports on a story about a proposed 2,000 foot TV tower to be built in Chicago, between the Sears Tower and the John Hancock.

Imagine this addition to Chicago's fabled skyline: a futuristic, tweezer-shaped broadcast tower looming 2,000 feet over the lakefront as one of the world's tallest structures.

The digital age may soon bring this sleek, scissors-like conversation piece to the city, within clear view of the tourists at Navy Pier who will either ooh with awe or laugh with disbelief.

To be designed by prominent architect Cesar Pelli, the tower would help redefine Chicago's horizon. Rising above the skyline between the John Hancock Center and the Sears Tower, it would usher in a new era of daring, ultramodern architecture for the city. Another sensation would be a proposed Santiago Calatrava-designed skyscraper shaped like a drill bit.

The $300 million Pelli tower would function as a platform for local television stations to mount their new high-definition broadcasting antennas.

Instead of building a conventional building that reserves roof space for antennas, the developers--J. Paul Beitler and LR Development Co.--are proposing the lower-cost option of a needle-thin, triple-spired tripod. At the top would be several floors for restaurants and an observation deck, and at the base would be a 400-car garage. The tapered space in between would be largely open, except for six large beams connecting the spires.

...the structure could not lay claim to becoming one of the world's tallest buildings because it isn't technically a building--its structure would not be filled with floors as in a conventional skyscraper.