Random

"No, I can't make 8. How about 9:30? I'm taking a walk on the pier right now. It's really long. LOL."

That's what I imagine that Bonnie Miller from Benton Harbor, Mich., wanted to text while walking -- just before toppling into the deep, cold beyond off the pier in St. Joseph, Mich.

This incident seems to have been even more unfortunate because Miller doesn't appear to be much of a swimmer. At least that is the evidence presented to ABC57 News by Rebecca Van Zant, who happened to be on the … Read more

When you are a man who has everything--and has had everything for some time--how many pleasures are left upon this planet?

It is, therefore, with a vast thrust of uplift that I report that Ashton Kutcher, he of CBS' "Two And A Half Men," a huge but fragile Twitter account, and a smile that floats many a romcom, is being taken into space.

Time magazine reports that Kutcher has become the 500th human being to sign up for a suborbital Virgin Galactic flight.

Virgin's Sir Richard Branson was so heartily chuffed by this increase in his revenue … Read more

In these Facebook days, our obsession with what others think of us can only increase.

We want them to want us. We want them to love us. We want them to love themselves for loving us.

Which leads us to wondering what aliens might think of us. Stephen Hawking, for his part, worried that they might actually hate us with a fervor last experienced when Mike Tyson espied Evander Holyfield's ear.

However, the experts on a two-part Science Channel series called "Alien Encounters" speculate with a rather more positive spirit.

I am grateful to The New York Times … Read more

The beating of breasts could surely be heard even by penguins on melting ice caps.

Perhaps the two most important names in contemporary business were, this week, being criticized by their employees for losing their ethos, for sacrificing their soul, for, dare one utter it, selling out.

When Google's James Whittaker and Goldman Sachs' Greg Smith penned their respective lack-of-respect farewells, strange shivers wafted about the world of business.

Had these people lost their minds? Were they both experiencing some form of cranial trauma brought on by excessive stress? Had their lovers recently left them for, well, impoverished sculptors?… Read more

Once upon a time, fathers and sons hid their Playboys beneath their mattresses. But what did women do with their Playgirls?

Somehow, this is less well recorded, though society--or whatever is left of it--surely frowned more strongly on the notion that women openly read books of steamy intent.

Then along came the iPad and the Kindle. Suddenly, it seems, sales of erotic books aimed at women are looking highly perky.

I find myself excited by an in-depth analysis from the Daily Mail, which offered that sales of erotic novels aimed at women have soared 30 percent.

It cites Mills and … Read more

No one ever said that human beings should be consistent. No one ever said that they should even make sense.

Life is a struggle and the way bosses sometimes treat their workers can be beyond any pale--beyond even the moral code of Vlad the Impaler.

Who can be surprised, therefore, that harassed workers take home confidential files in order to complete their tasks? Indeed, a survey performed by Harris Interactive on behalf of a company called FileTrek shows that 90 percent of people believe that, um, other people take confidential files home with them.

I have managed to obtain an … Read more

Cable companies--like cell phone companies--aren't always keen to explain all the little nickels and dimes that they sweetly extract from your account.

There are so many little charges on your bill that their names mesmerize. You know, like the "Oops, We Made A Mistake, But We'll Charge You To Fix It" charge.

You might not have heard of this one, because it might masquerade under the name "payment reversal." At least this is the claim made by one pseudonymous Comcast customer, who noticed a $25 line item that seemed out of line.

Consumerist reports … Read more

Aw, kids.

Sometimes they struggle to keep themselves occupied. Those little brains of theirs are so active. Those not yet fully-formed emotional avenues of theirs are not quite fully paved.

So they like to play pranks. Like, for example, sending random texts to people saying they've hidden a dead body.

One 15-year-old girl in Northern Arkansas tried this little jape and the random number happened to belong to someone whose sense of humor was occupationally impaired.

For this person happened to be a police detective.

The Associated Press arrested this tale and said that the girl, from Rogers, Ark., … Read more

Perhaps it is unreasonable to accuse the police of being sad virtual beings, when the rest of society is already that way.

The temptation is great, though, when I tell you the story, via The Daily Mail, of the police force that located a missing 12-year-old girl.

You might think that the police in the U.K.'s Bolton East immediately called her mom, in order to soothe her concerns. You might think that raccoons enjoy a fine pinot noir with their trash.

For the first thing the police did was send a tweet. It read: "CHOLE (sic) HAS … Read more