Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

From BBC NEWS:

Men who use laptop computers could be unwittingly damaging their fertility, experts believe.

Balancing it on the lap increases the temperature of the scrotum which is known to have a negative effect on sperm production, researchers found.
…

Just sitting with the thighs together, a posture needed to balance a laptop, caused scrotal temperatures to rise by 2.1C.

When the men used a laptop in this position the average temperatures increased by 2.6C on the left of the scrotum and 2.8C on the right.

Article continues with more information than I needed.

Miracle foods

First it was the loaves — a grilled cheese with Mary’s face — and then it was the fishes — a fish stick with Jesus’ face — so here from The Edge in The Oregonian are the Top 10 Lesser Known Food Miracles:

10. Fats Domino’s Pizza.

9. Meatloaf Meatloaf.

8. Bag of tiny colorful chocolate-coated candies with Mary Magdalene’s initials inscribed on each one.

7. The Edvard Munch “I Scream” Sandwich.

6. The Abe Vigoda/Erik Estrada plate of fish & chips.

5. Indiana Pacers’ knuckle sandwich and a glass of Ron Artest’s sucker punch.

4. The falafel sandwich bearing the image of Bill O’Reilly.

3. The visage of Elvis on black Velveeta.

2. The image of Dennis Franz’s buttocks in a Moon Pie.

And the number one lesser known food miracle: The 23rd Psalami on Rye.

All I Want for Christmas Is …

From Wired News: Furthermore:

Santa Claus can add this kid to his “naughty” list: An Arkansas boy who got wind of the Christmas gift his mother bought him allegedly assaulted her and threatened her with decapitation. The 13-year-old demanded that the present be returned and the cash handed over to him, then backed up his demands by picking up a butcher knife with an 8-inch blade and threatening to use it to cut off his mom’s head, police said. “He said that all would have been well if she had just bought him the correct present,” said the officer who arrested the troubled teenager. Somebody’s getting a stocking full of coal.

Also from ‘America’s Finest News Source’

Peterson Given Lifetime Channel Sentence

REDWOOD CITY, CA—Scott Peterson, convicted in November of murdering his wife Laci and their unborn child, was issued a Lifetime Channel sentence during the penalty phase of his trial Monday. “Mr. Peterson’s story shall be re-enacted in Lifetime movies and miniseries for a period of no less than 10 years,” Judge Alfred Delucci told a packed courtroom Monday. “His story shall be remanded to Lifetime’s custody until the network determines that public interest has waned sufficiently to allow airings on Oxygen.” Delucci ordered that Peterson’s team of lawyers be present for the casting.

The Onion

I heard the Christmas season had started slowly at Wal-Mart, but …

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest discount retailer, announced its biggest-ever rollback Monday, with employee pay cuts of up to 35 percent.

From The Onion

The failure of Microsoft to cope adequately with the security crisis

Walt Mossberg sums up the sad state of Windows-based PCs.

But for the vast part of the public whose computers aren’t bought and deployed by corporate computer departments, things have gotten much worse lately. For these consumers and small businesses, the burden of using personal computers has grown dramatically heavier in the past couple of years because of the plague of viruses, spyware and other security problems that now afflict the dominant Windows platform.

To cope with this assault from an international criminal class of virus and spyware writers, hackers and sleazy businesses, average users have had to buy and monitor an arsenal of add-on programs. They have been forced to learn far too much about the workings of their PCs. And too many users have had to take drastic steps, like wiping out their hard disks and starting all over.

So instead of being able to view their computers as tools for productivity, research, communication and entertainment, consumers have been forced to devote rising amounts of time and money just to keeping the machines safe. The PC has, in many cases, gone from being a solution to being, at least in part, a problem.

Read more.

Speaking of grieving animals

Thomas D. Mangelsen photo

Gorillas hold wake for group’s leader

From CNN.com:

After Babs the gorilla died at age 30, keepers at Brookfield Zoo decided to allow surviving gorillas to mourn the most influential female in their social family.

One by one Tuesday, the gorillas filed into the Tropic World building where Babs’ body lay, arms outstretched. Curator Melinda Pruett Jones called it a “gorilla wake.”

Babs’ 9-year-old daughter, Bana, was the first to approach the body, followed by Babs’ mother, Alpha, 43. Bana sat down, held Babs’ hand and stroked her mother’s stomach. Then she sat down and laid her head on Babs’ arm.

Read more.

Cheap seats

Morning Briefing:

So what Christmas gift do you give someone who has everything? How about two courtside seats to the Lakers’ Christmas Day game against the Miami Heat?

They’re available through StubHub.com. And the asking price? Only $17,648 each. But the asking price for a courtside seat has been as high as $29,413.

That’s the Shaq-Kobe meeting, but …

Talking the talk

From Sideline Chatter:

Broadcaster Dick Enberg, in his new autobiography, recalling his first television assignment in L.A. in 1963 — a USC-UCLA water-polo match: “I didn’t know one thing about the sport. I used to wonder how they got the horses in the pool.” [Oh, my!]

NBC’s Jay Leno, on the Lakers’ loss to the Chicago Bulls: “That’s like losing to Jessica Simpson in ‘Jeopardy!’”

Headline at borowitzreport.com: “Fearing attacks by athletes, fans take steroids.”