Ok, fine, it's only the beginning of October, but you're going to want to save up for some of these gifts! What gifts, you ask? Why the ones in the Neiman Marcus 2005 Christmas Book catalog, of course! This is the premiere Christmas catalog for people with big dreams and - in some cases - big wallets... What are some of the more interesting ones this year?

• Felin De Cartier Limited-Edition Watch Pendant - One of 6 (in the U.S.), this watch pendant has 18-karat gold and diamonds... Yours for only $26,900!
• Tree Sculpture - a custom treehouse built by Roderick Romero... Think of it as a mini-mansion in a tree! Starting at $50,000!
• Grand Empire Railroad - Big enough for you to ride on! Includes a steam-style 2-6-2 locomotive replica from RMI Railworks with internal combustion engine, Stock car, a flat car, a riveted steelwork caboose, plus 1,000 feet of track, a passenger station, switches, and eight signs, including two crossing signs with flashing lights... Yours for only $200,000!
• Private Concert By Sir Elton John - Only one being sold, this would be the ultimate concert for your and 500 of your closest friends! Only $1,500,000!
• The M400 Skycar prototype - a personal vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft by Moller that gets 21 miles to the gallon! Yours for only $3,500,000!

Have you ever found yourself searching for just the right word to express how you feel? Maybe this will help! Adam Jacot de Boinod has collected some of the best from all around the world into The Meaning Of Tingo, both a book and a web site... "What I'm really trying to do is celebrate the joy of foreign words and say that while English is a great language, one shouldn't be surprised there are many others having, as they do, words with no English equivalent," he says...

For example:

• Gigi rongak - Malay for the space between the teeth
• Bakku-shan - Japanese for a girl who appears pretty from behind but not from the front
• Nakkele - From India for a man who licks whatever the food has been served on
• Kummerspeck - A German word that describes the excess weight gained from emotion-related overeating
• Drachenfutter - German for the peace offerings made by guilty husbands to their wives
• Backpfeifengesicht - German for a face that cries out for a fist in it
• Uitwaaien - Dutch for walking in windy weather for fun
• Toto - Maori for the shout given in a game of hide-and-seek to show readiness
• Posht - Albanian for a moustache hanging down at the ends
• Fshes - Albanian for a long broom-like moustache with bristly hairs
• Geshtenjapjeks - Albanian for one who sells roast chestnuts on the street
• Koshatnik - Russian for a dealer of stolen cats
• Kualanapuhi - Hawaiian for an officer who keeps the flies away from the sleeping king by waving a brush made of feathers
• Cigerci - turkish for a seller of liver and lungs
• Aviador - Spanish (in Central America) for a government employee who only shows up on payday
• Nakhur - Persian for a camel that won’t give milk until her nostrils are tickled
• Areodjarekput - Inuit meaning to exchange wives for a few days only
• Tingo - Pascuense meaning to borrow objects from a friend's house, one by one, until there's nothing left

A publicity stunt to announce Sky TV's new sudoku game show resulted in red faces all round, when it was discovered that a giant sudoku carved into a hillside is invalid.

Overnight a team of Sky TV people cut what was meant to be a giant sudoku into a chalk hillside at Chipping Sodbury near Bristol, England. But their efforts turned into a nightmare for the show's producers when it was discovered that the sudoku is invalid and has 1,905 solutions.

Sky have offered a prize of £5,000 for solving the puzzle, but now have to judge a competition where there are numerous solutions, all of which will be correct.

Described as "a significant piece of public art", the non-sudoku measures 275 ft by 275 ft and has been cut into the turf of a chalk hillside. The ancient artform is typified in the nearby 180ft Cerne Abbas Giant that was probably created during the reign of the Emperor Commodus between 180-193AD. There will be no way of hiding the embarrassing blunder, as up to a million cars are expected to pass by the giant puzzle each week.

Sky have claimed a world record for the world's biggest sudoku with Guinness World Records, but this may now have to be revised to be the world's largest blunder.

Trivia time: Name the only human character associated with a major Internet search engine... If you guessed Jeeves from Ask.com, you were right! The character of Jeeves has been part of Ask Jeeves since it was founded in 1996... Unfortunately, there is apparently some "user confusion" as to exactly what he does or what he represents... Even though Jeeves is named after the extraordinarily knowledgeable and helpful valet character created by comic novelist P.G. Wodehouse, Ask.com has been investigating user perceptions of the Jeeves character for almost a year... The research indicated that Jeeves was somehow confusing people and that they were not realising that the search site had changed and can now handle more types of queries than just straightforward questions... "As a result," owner Barry Diller said at a Goldman Sachs investor conference, "the character may be phased out as the prominent icon of the brand, although no timeline or details have been determined..."

Is that any way to reward someone who has worked for the company good for over 9 years? No marketing to educate people on Jeeves many skills? No retraining or transfer to another position? Just pushed to the side and eventually let out to pasture?

I say we don't stand for it! Help save Jeeves! Contact Ask.com and tell them how much you appreciate Jeeves' efforts and that you want him to remain the premiere image for the company!

Squid Labs of Emeryville, California, have a philosophy... "We think of the world as programmable," said Saul Griffith, one of he 5 founders... Take their latest product to market: Electronically Sensed Rope! Now before you wonder how anyone can get excited over rope, consider tha this rope can tell you if it is fraying, how much load it's carrying, and other items of interest! And it still feels, cuts, ties, and acts like regular rope! Home Depot likes it so much they plan to start carrying it in about 6 months...

Most of the time, when a city wins a bid to host the Olympics, all you ever hear about are the plans for new buildings and sports arenas... Ever since Beijing, China, won their bid to host the 2008 Olympics, a lot of what you hear about is the new toilets! Over 1,100 public toilets across the city have now been upgraded, according to the Beijing Times, in "the largest toilet revolution in its history..." And the revolution comes with a rating system! The new toilets are ranked from 1 to 4 stars using criteria including granite rock floors, remote-sensor flushes, automatic hand driers, a rest area, and piped-in music...

Now the city's Xicheng District has introduced what local officials are calling "the first public toilet management standard in Beijing's history" and have hired 400 new environmental workers to enforce it... "This is a move to change the image of Beijing's toilets and make a better impression," a Xicheng sanitation official said... And the rules are strict... A good example: No more than two flies or two pieces of discarded trash or waste are allowed in Beijing's public toilets at any given time!

(I wonder... If other flies arrive and the bathroom is full, do they take a number or go seeking another toilet?)

Shiver me timbers... Today is September 19th! And that, me matey, means today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day!!! So if you've ever wanted to pillage, plunder, or bury money in your back yard, today is your day! And if you can't think of what to do, check out the original Talk Like A Pirate Day web site! Apparently the treasures of the Spanish Main can now be had places all over the world - and there are pictures to prove it... Besides, once you learn a little Pirate lingo, you'll be surprised how often you can work it into your every day vocabulary!

Never let it be said that Keith Locke, MP of the Green Party in New Zealand, is not a man of his word... While many New Zealanders are still waiting to see how the close results of this weekends elections play out in the formation of a new government, residents of Epsom and members of the Newmarket Business Association are already planning on helping MP Locke keep one of his campaign promises: he promised to run naked through the streets of Epsom if Act MP Rodney Hide won the Parliament seat there!

At the time Locke made the promise, he probably didn't figure he'd have anything to lose... The National party had control of the seat, Locke was also campaigning for it, and the Act party was struggling to get 2% of the vote and was on the verge of losing all their seats in Parliament nationally... However, as the polls closed, Rodney Hide had won the seat by over 3,000 votes!

"We don't want our electorate to be the home of the first broken campaign promise... Hence the local business association is prepared to make it very easy for Mr Locke to deliver his promised goods," said Cameron Brewer, General Manager of the Newmarket Business Association... "When Mr Locke is ready, the Newmarket Business Association will warn the faint-hearted, clear the footpath on Broadway from Two Double Seven to Khyber Pass Road, ensure there are the necessary officials, and provide a much-needed loincloth," says Brewer...

And Locke is going to deliver! He said he was disappointed Mr Hide had won Epsom "but I accept the voters' judgement..." Asked when it would happen, he said, "We haven't set a date, we've got preparations to do in terms of choreography ... it will be a colourful political event... It will be artistic and it will involve body paint..."

Happy Birthday to the United States Constitution! The document was signed 218 years ago today in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania... And what better way to celebrate than with a little Constitutional trivia!

• The Constitution was written by the Constitutional Convention... The Constitutional Convention was called for by a resolution passed by the U.S. Congress on the 21st of February, 1787...
• The Constitutional Convention was officially convened on May 25th, 1787, when delegates from 7 states had arrived... In fact, only 12 states even elected delegates to attend! Rhode Island never participated...
• George Washington wasn't just the first President of the United States, he was also unanimously elected President of the Constitutional Convention...
• James Madison kept the most complete record of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and is known the "Father of the Constitution"...
• Gouveneur Morris of Pennsylvania is credited with writing the preamble and the final draft of the Constitution...
• The philosophy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights is mostly derived from 4 documents: the Magna Carta (England, 1215), the Petition of Rights (England, 1628), Writ of Habeas Corpus (England, 1679), and the English Bill of Rights (1689)...
• Of the 55 delegates attending the Constitutional Convention, only 39 signed the finished document... Three didn't sign because they wanted a Bill of Rights included... The rest weren't there on September 17th when the document was signed!
• The first state to Ratify the Constitution was Delaware on December 7, 1787...
• The Constitution was fully ratified and became effective on June 21, 1788, when New Hampshire ratified it...
• The last of the original 13 states to ratify the Constitution was Rhode Island on May 29, 1790...
• The Constitution is now composed of the preamble, 7 articles, and 27 amendments...
• The first 10 amendments are known collectively as the Bill of Rights and were fully ratified on December 15, 1791 when Virginia ratified the last one...
• Since the Bill of Rights was signed, over 11,000 amendments have been introduced in Congress... Only 33 have ever gone to the states for ratification... Only 27 have ever been ratified and added to the Constitution...
• The Constitution wasn't even celebrated in the U.S. until 1952 when President Harry Truman moved a holiday in May for celebrating being a citizen to September and renamed it Citizenship day... Then in 1956 the day became part of Constitution Week... It didn't officially become Constitution Day until 2004!

Ever wonder why one song becomes a hit when another doesn't? Or why the top songs on the radio now seem different than they did several years ago? So did Terry Pettijohn of Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pennsylvania... So he went back and studied Billboard's No. 1 hits from 1955 through 2003... He compared them to statistics such as unemployment rates, births and deaths, marriages and divorces, as well as changes to personal income... He concluded that in troubled social and economic times, people prefer mature and meaningful songs... His "Environmental Security Hypothesis" suggests that in threatening social and economic times "individuals show a greater preference for mature characteristics, content and themes" because they "convey attributions of independence and security..." So when times are good, they want "mindless fun songs that they can dance to" like Elvis Presley's All Shook Up and The Beatles' I Want To Hold You Hand of the late 1950s and early 1960s... And when the Vietnam War escalated and political leaders were assassinated in the late 1960s and early 1970s, songs like Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkel or The Beatles' Hey Jude were big... In fact, there is only one hit song he can't explain: The Macarena...

(That's OK... No one else can explain The Macarena either!

So there you are, you and 14 of your friends, and each of you have a separate opinion on something... What to do? Why play Rock, Paper, Scissors of course! Don't laugh! Rock, Paper, Scissors is actually a well respected means of resolving business issues in Japan and elsewhere!

"But wait," you say... "There are 15 of us and Rock, Paper, Scissors only allows 3 to play at once!" Ah, but that is only the most simple form of Rock, Paper, Scissors... David C. Lovelace has been working out larger variations over at http://www.umop.com/rps.htm... The largest is Rock, Paper, Scissors 15 (RPS-15)... Now you and your 14 friends can play one round and solve the issue once and for all!

So check out the new gestures and learn which ones beat what other ones... You never know when you'll need it!

Apparently the Hatfields and McCoys had nothing on the Baca and Bettale families! Take a simple dinner at Olive Garden in Westminster, Colorado, for example... While others enjoyed the ambiance, the Baca and Bettale families were noticing that they were seated to closely to each other... While others finished their meal and left a tip for the waiter, one of these families decided to end their meal with a snide comment and gesture to the other family... The result was one of, if not the, worst food fight ever at an Olive Garden! Food flew all over... And when the food ran low, they threw furniture! In fact, according to police stateswoman Stephanie Topkoff, an off-duty police officer at the restaurant had to use his stun gun to separate the two families! And then 6 people went to jail on charges of assault, disorderly conduct and criminal mischief...

(They'll also want to add a really, really big tip to their bill when they pay it!)

Contestants from all over the world gathered at the Royal Oak pub in the village of Ramsbottom, England (near Bury) today for the opportunity to throw pudding! But this was not just any group of pub-goers throwing pudding... No - This was the annual World Black Pudding Throwing Championship! The tradition dates back to the 1850s many believe it to be a revival of the Lancashire-Yorkshire rivalry... One legend says the event is based on a battle during the War of the Roses where both armies ran out of ammunition and instead threw food an each other! Today, all they threw was black pudding (a Lancashire delicacy of cooked pigs' blood) at a group of Yorkshire puddings (a more common milk, eggs and flour variety) on a ledge 6 meters (20 feet) up the side of the pub... Each contestant had three 6 ounce puddings and they could only throw underhanded... The goal was to knock the most Yorkshire puddings to the ground... "This is a uniquely Lancastrian event, a unique feature of the area’s events calendar, a boost for tourism and great showcase for one of Bury’s most famous products." said local councillor Tim Chamberlain...

A 21-year-old Berlin, Germany, man decided to start adulthood with a life of crime and try to turn a quick buck... So he broke into another man's car and stole his in-car navigation system... Now in possession of stolen goods, he decided to sell them on at auction to reap the rewards...

Well, as they say, you reap what you sow... In this case, the victim of the crime was on the Internet and saw his own navigation system up for sale! So he placed the winning bid and then told the police... The police went to the thief posing as the buyer and promptly arrested him... "I think the thief got a bit of a surprise," a Berlin police spokesman said, adding the man confessed to the theft.

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it absolutely amazing that the U.S government can track a cow born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she sleeps in the state of Washington, and determine exactly what that cow ate. They can also track her calves right to their stalls, and tell you what kind of feed they ate.

But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around in the country, including people that are trying to blow up important structures in the U.S.

Maybe we should give every illegal alien a cow as soon as they enter the country.

The old saying is that kids should be seen, not heard... Mostly because they ask some of the most embarrassing questions in the most public places... Which, of course, embarrasses the parents more than the kids!

Now, a new study on age-related changes in brain function finds the tables get reversed as people get older... Researchers at the University of New South Wales discovered people aged 65 to 93 were more likely to ask people personal questions in public than people aged 18 to 25, even though when asked they agreed that doing so was usually inappropriate! "The key for this study is that we found first of all older adults are less sensitive and are less able to gauge when it is appropriate and when it is not to talk in public about certain issues," Professor Hippel said... "It seems that young adults have a greater ability to hold their tongues than older adults in contexts where it is about something personal."

(No word on whether there is a link between how often their kids embarrassed them growing up and how inquisitive the older adult is around them now! :) )

In the continuous battle among Science Fiction fans as to which series is the best or which starship could beat what other starships in a space battle, you have to know your facts... Not knowing your facts, especially about the series or ships whose relative prowess you are demeaning, can lead to embarrassment or worse... So be prepared! For starters, check out this Starship Size Comparison Chart...

So the next time you say the Enterprise D (from Star Trek) could whip a Star Destroyer (from Star Wars), better be sure you're not tricked into talking about an Executor class Super Star Destroyer! And while it may not be readily apparent, a Centauri Republic Vorchan class ship (from Babylon 5) is actually about the same length as a Peacekeeper Command Vigilante Frigate (from Farscape)...

Of course, a real Sci-Fi Geek is going to be able to tell what popular ships from what TV shows and movies aren't included on the chart... For example, nowhere on the chart is Serenity from Firefly! Quiz Time: How many others can you name that aren't included?

It seems like there is nothing worth watching on TV any more... Cable is expensive, and the channels usually offered are ones they couldn't pay me to watch... While satellite TV services may not always be better, they are at least more imaginative... For example, check out the latest commercials from Dish Network... They've got one thing right: my TV Sucks! If only it were so easy to tell in real life! You really should watch... The baby pacifier being sucked out of the kids mouth and the cat digging his claws into the carpet while the TV sucks away are priceless! I can't wait to see what comes next...

1. A bicycle can't stand alone because it is two-tired.
2. What's the definition of a will? (It's a dead giveaway).
3. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
4. A backward poet writes inverse.
5. In democracy it's your vote that counts; In feudalism, it's your count that votes.
7. A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
8. If you don't pay your exorcist you get repossessed.
9. With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.
10. Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show you A-flat minor.
11. When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
12. The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
13. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.
14. You feel stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.
15. Local Area Network in Australia: the L AN down under.
16. He often broke into song because he couldn't find the key.
17. Every calendar's days are numbered.
18. A lot of money is tainted. 'Taint yours and 'taint mine.
19. A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.
20. He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
21. A plateau is a high form of flattery.
22. The short fortuneteller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
23. Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
24. When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.
25. Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine.
26. When an actress saw her first strands of gray hair she thought she'd dye.
27. Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead to know basis.
28. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.
29. Acupuncture is a jab well done.
30. Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat

A woman in Zuelpich, Germany, had a problem with spiders in the garage of her family home... Not having any bug spray, she decided to see if aerosol hair spray would kill them... Unfortunately, it did not... Not to be deterred, the woman attempted to burn the spiders using a lighter... Which set the hair spray on fire! The entire area she had just sprayed went up in flames... Then the fire spread to a hedge the adjacent house! "It was a series of unfortunate events which led to the damage," a police spokesman said Thursday... "She tried to put the fire out with a garden hose, but couldn't... Instead her semi-detached house next to the hedge caught fire... It's now uninhabitable..." The spokesman estimated the total cost of the damage at well over 100,000 Euros (~$125,000 U.S)... "The family have had to look for somewhere else to stay," he said... "The spiders are gone though - that problem was solved..."

Comedians occasionally joke that golf is so boring its just a bunch of people in funny clothes, walking... The funniest part is not how boring it is (or isn't) but how people can get hurt so bad playing it!

• Loren Roberts quit the 1998 Masters after breaking two ribs while sneezing! The sneeze "sent me to my knees and I kind of felt something pop," he said... Golf Magazine columnist David Feherty added insult to injury by saying, "He was lucky... If it had been a fart, he might have shattered his pelvis..."
• Colin Montgomerie was knocked out of the 2003 British Open because he was too interested in the weather! He was on his way to the tee off for the first round but kept staring up with disappointment at a gray sky... "I couldn't believe it was raining and, as I looked up, I tripped over a step and fell nastily..."
• Rocco Mediate had just won a PGA Tour event and was getting ready to play in the 2000 PGA Championship when his chair collapsed outside the clubhouse at the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky! He actually sued the manufacturer of the chair, saying "Guys might be saying behind my back, 'Oh, he shouldn't sue, it was an accident...' Oh really? What if it happened to you? What would you do? That cost me a lot..."
• Jose Maria Olazabal had already won the Masters and was disappointed with his first round 75 in the 1999 U.S. Open... He was so upset he punched the wall of his hotel room and broke a bone in his right hand!
• Ernie Els attempted to improve his game by improving his fitness with twice-daily workouts... And his game did improve... Until he hurt his right wrist in 2003 walloping a boxing heavy bag! "I was thinking of taking out a little frustration on the punching bag, but I'm not a pro," he said...

It seems every day the situation in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama gets worse rather than better - Especially in New Orleans... Having been through the Florida Hurricanes of 2004 (and still having a tarp on our house from Charley) I am both happy Katrina did not give us more than tropical storm winds when it came through and also deeply empathetic with the situations others are going through now... There is so much damage so many places, what can any one person do?

It may not seem like much, but a little bit from everyone adds up to a lot when it all goes to the affected area... We recommend donating to or contacting one of the following:

• Your local church - many church groups have and are sending relief efforts to affected areas and most churches give 100% of money and goods donated directly to victims of the hurricane... (If you do not have a church but would like to donate through a church, I recommend the United Methodist Church)
• The Salvation Army - They may not get as much press as the Red Cross, but they did more to help the average person last year in Florida than any other group... They not only help provide relief (both directly and by helping coordinate with private companies (like Home Depot)), they also help relieve recovery workers (cold drinks, supplies, etc)
• The American Red Cross - They are usually the group that manages the numerous shelters that open when disaster stikes...