Recently eaten: oatmeal...original flavor...blech
Recent annoyance: pudge
Why do I always get into trouble for suggesting ideas like this that completely abuse the postakl system. Then this guy even puts his idea on eBay for money. Wouldn't it be ironic if I won the auction and the mark was...the guy who is sending the postcards? Dunh dunh dunh!
Auction: "I will send maddening postcards from Poland to the person of your choosing"
Recently eaten: potato leek soup
Recent annoyance: people on the bus that do not know how to exit or stand properly
Poor, Tomislav. I guess he finally gave up the ghost on the tram. It's not a bad way to die. I always fall asleep when riding public transportation, it seems kind of peaceful. Although, I wonder how many people have died in the seat I am sitting on in the metro or on the bus. Probably best not to think about it. Although, based on some of the mutants who ride the bus with me, I would prefer a dead mutant to any other mutant activities in my seat.
Dead man rides on tram all night
A Croatian man who boarded a night tram and died in his seat rode through the city for more than six hours before the driver discovered he was dead, a Croatian daily reported Monday.
The 61-year old, identified as Tomislav K., boarded a tram shortly before midnight Friday. He soon fell asleep and died as the tram rolled on through the night and most passengers trickled out, the Jutarnji List said.
Toward the morning, he remained the only traveler.
The driver, separated by a glass partition from the rest of the tram, tried to wake him up at the end of his shift and realized he was dead, the daily said.
The police put the death down to natural causes but are still awaiting post-mortem results, it said.
Recently eaten: roast chicken, rice pilaf, beet salad
Recent annoyance: cramps
I knew I was feeling a bit weak recently. They have discovered a mine in Serbia full of kryptonite. It's apparently a mineral made of boron and lithium -- exactly the stuff given to me to keep me on the up and up. They will probably find Marlon Brando trapped in a big glacier full of magic crystals next week.
Kryptonite discovered in mine
Kryptonite is no longer just the stuff of fiction feared by caped superheroes.
A new mineral matching its unique chemistry - as described in the film Superman Returns - has been identified in a mine in Serbia.
According to movie and comic-book storylines, kryptonite is supposed to sap Superman's powers whenever he is exposed to its large green crystals.
The real mineral is white and harmless, says Dr Chris Stanley, a mineralogist at London's Natural History Museum.
"I'm afraid it's not green and it doesn't glow either - although it will react to ultraviolet light by fluorescing a pinkish-orange," he told BBC News.
Rock heist
Researchers from mining group Rio Tinto discovered the unusual mineral and enlisted the help of Dr Stanley when they could not match it with anything known previously to science.
Once the London expert had unravelled the mineral's chemical make-up, he was shocked to discover this formula was already referenced in literature - albeit fictional literature.
"Towards the end of my research I searched the web using the mineral's chemical formula - sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide - and was amazed to discover that same scientific name, written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luthor from a museum in the film Superman Returns.
"The new mineral does not contain fluorine (which it does in the film) and is white rather than green but, in all other respects, the chemistry matches that for the rock containing kryptonite."
The mineral is relatively hard but is very small grained. Each individual crystal is less than five microns (millionths of a metre) across.
Elementary clash
Identifying its atomic structure required sophisticated analytical facilities at Canada's National Research Council and the assistance and expertise of its researchers, Dr Pamela Whitfield and Dr Yvon Le Page.
"'Knowing a material's crystal structure means scientists can calculate other physical properties of the material, such as its elasticity or thermochemical properties," explained Dr Le Page.
"Being able to analyse all the properties of a mineral, both chemical and physical, brings us closer to confirming that it is indeed unique."
Finding out that the chemical composition of a material was an exact match to an invented formula for the fictitious kryptonite "was the coincidence of a lifetime," he added.
The mineral cannot be called kryptonite under international nomenclature rules because it has nothing to do with krypton - a real element in the Periodic Table that takes the form of a gas.
Power possibilities
Instead, it will be formally named Jadarite when it is described in the European Journal of Mineralogy later this year.
Jadar is the name of the place where the Serbian mine is located.
Dr Stanley said that if deposits occurred in sufficient quantity it could have some commercial value.
It contains boron and lithium - two valuable elements with many applications, he explained.
"It's one 'Jor-El' of a discovery!"Recently eaten: turkey chili
Recent annoyance: a beautiful snowfall ruined by ugly rain
If anyone thought the fake doctors fighting on Grey's Anatomy were bad, peep this story from Belgrade. Also, note to self: don't get appendicitis in Belgrade.
Fighting surgeons leave patient in the lurch
A routine appendix operation in Belgrade went badly wrong when two surgeons started fighting and stormed from the operating theater to settle their dispute outside, the daily Politika reported Wednesday.
Surgeon Spasoje Radulovic was operating when his colleague Dragan Vukanic entered and made a remark that started a quarrel, said the anesthesiologist on duty.
"At one moment Vukanic pulled the ear of the operating doctor, slapped him in the face and walked out," she said.
Radulovic followed and an all-out fight ensued, resulting in bruises, a split lip, loose teeth and a fractured finger.
The operation was completed successfully by the attending assistant doctor.
Recently eaten: lo mein, other half of an avocado (I know this is suppoed to be day 1 of the low-cholesterol diet, but I can't let lo mein go bad)
Recent annoyance: scratching my mosquito bites feels really good
As if the Poles aren't already the butt of so many jokes. Maybe the priests will also read out the names of people who steal post-it notes from work, eat a grape from a bunch at the supermarket, or read magazines then put them back without buying them.
Priests asked to shame drunk drivers
"WARSAW - Prosecutors in overwhelmingly Catholic Poland have asked priests to read out the names of drink-drivers from the pulpit as part of efforts to reduce the country's high road death rate.
Church leaders have not said yet whether they will support the scheme, aimed to shame drivers into sobriety.
"We post the names of convicted drunk drivers at town halls," said Rafal Grabia, a prosecutor in the mountain town of Zywiec in southern Poland. "But who reads that? The information is not reaching family, friends and neighbors."
More than 98,000 have died on Polish roads since 1991, making Poles 2.5 times more likely to die in road accidents than Swedes or U.K. citizens, European Union figures show."
Recently eaten: poppyseed bagel and cheddar
Recent annoyance: those big fat flies that end up in your house and can nenver be killed, or die off on their own
People in Eastern Europe really, really like Chuck Norris. I wonder why Steven Seagal does not enjoy the same popularity in areas like Alaska, or Japan?
Chuck Norris leads vote for Budapest bridge name
A new bridge in Hungary could be named after Hollywood action movie actor Chuck Norris unless the trend turns in an Internet vote organised by the Economy Ministry.
Votes for the "Chuck Norris Bridge" had attracted 8,725 votes or 11 percent by Tuesday morning, just ahead of those cast in favour of naming it after Hungarian humorist Geza Hofi and three times more than for Szent Istvan, founder of the state.
People have put forward more than 500 nominations including Bud Spencer and Bob Marley, as well as names referring to construction delays such as "It Will Never Happen Bridge".
A government committee will review the three winning names, as well as other proposals put forward by local governments, cartographers, linguists and other experts. The bridge over the Danube north of Budapest is due to open in 2008.
Recently eaten: chicken cordon bleu, pumpkin pie
Recent annoyance: secondhand smoke
Not only are jellyfish destroying coastal communities, they are being used destroy one another. Can't we just pee on them or something?
We can take comfort in the fact that these aquatic nemeses are confined to the oceans, the giant, expansive oceans that make up our home planet. Maybe you didn't care about global warming before. Let those gas-guzzling SUV owners choke in their own crude oil. So what if some old people in Europe died during a heat wave? But by God, don't let the polar ice caps melt because if they do, the jellyfish will inherit the earth.
Jellyfish cause caviar crisis
"The fishermen delivering their catches to the Taza bazaar in Baku call it simply "the monster".
The mnemiopsis jellyfish is not much to look at - a colourless, translucent blob about the size of a hand. But the creature, usually found only off the east coast of the US, has devastated fish stocks in the Caspian Sea since it was accidentally brought to the region in a ship's ballast water.
Fishermen and government experts fear that it could destroy the lucrative caviar industry, which has already been crippled by over-fishing and pollution.
It is not just that mnemiopsis feeds on the same plankton that nourish the kilka sprats on which larger fish, such as the caviar-producing beluga sturgeon, live. The voracious stowaway, Mnemiopsis leidyi, can also produce 8000 eggs a day and eat so much plankton that its bodyweight can double in 24 hours. And, crucially, not a single local predator feeds on it.
"It is a monster," said Rufat, who has fished for Caspian sturgeon for more than 20 years. "If it carries on feeding like this, there will be no fish left."
Since mnemiopsis was first discovered in the Caspian in 1999, its population has risen by an estimated 5000 per cent. In the same period, kilka stocks have dropped by 50-80 per cent. Starved of their main food source, beluga sturgeon are becoming smaller and producing fewer eggs by the year, Mehman Akhundov, of the Azerbaijan Fishery Research Institute, said.
"You can imagine how hard it is for the beluga to feed now that the kilka have gone," Dr Akhundov said. "When we catch them, we see that their stomachs are empty."
A recent study found an average of 37 mnemiopses in every square metre of water in the southern Caspian, he said. The plague has affected millions of people in fishing communities in the five countries that surround the sea - Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russia.
But now Iran has come up with a secret weapon to wage biological war on the invader. Iranian scientists have proposed introducing another kind of American jellyfish, Beroe ovata, which feeds on only one thing - the mnemiopsis. They have been breeding the gelatinous assassins in special tanks to adapt it to Caspian waters, which are less salty than its normal habitat. Since the beroe feeds only on the mnemiopsis, they say, it will simply die out once it has consumed them."
Giant jellyfish menace Japan
"Huge echizen jellyfish, which can weigh up to 200kg and have an umbrella measuring 2m across, have been causing serious damage to the fishing industry off Japan's east coast.
Thousands of the jellyfish have damaged fixed fishing nets while also degrading the freshness of fish by flicking them with their poisonous tentacles.
The population of the jellyfish, the largest variety found in the Japan Sea, has skyrocketed recently."
This thing will eat you alive!