Every family has one. He's the jokey uncle who shows up at annual reunions wearing something ridiculous, like a beer bomb hat or strap-on boobs.

How did Uncle Bob get to be so dumb, anyway?

The answer just may be in those fake teeth he sports at every Halloween party. Because, as it happens, they're covered in paint that's got 100 times the amount of the IQ-robbing stuff allowed by law.

Poor Uncle Bob.

Throw away the Ugly Teeth. They're stupid, and they'll make you stupid, too.

Fake Teeth Recalled for Too Much Lead [San Francisco Chronicle]

We interrupt our regularly scheduled program of useless trivia to bring you this important public service announcement:

Don't Play With Matches!!!

Well, you can play with matches, if you must, but please remind your kid(s) that it's a really bad idea. Because he could end up starting a wildfire that burns down 21 houses like that boy in California. Who could face criminal charges over what he did and, at the very least, is grounded for the rest of his life.

Boy Admits to Starting One of the Wildfires [New York Times]

The principal of a New York suburban high school has banned all Halloween costumes at his school after 3 girls showed up dressed as

1. Sen. Larry Craig (including potty seat and wide stance);
2. Fired mom Britney Spears (panty-challenged version);
3. Glambo the Hello Kitty gun-toting femme-bot; or
4. The hero of a series of best-selling children's books.

If you guessed #4, you're correct! Last year, 3 girls at the school dressed as Captain Underpants, wearing beige leotards and nude stockings under white briefs and red capes to portray the superhero, who has battled such foes as talking toilets.

The principal, Nicholas Restivo, who sent the three girls home to change, said the episode solidified his sense that the school's costume tradition was disruptive.

I'm being a principal. I'm not being an ogre.

Students beg to differ. They're circulating a petition opposing the costume crackdown.

I suggest that Restivo move to Moscow. He'd feel right at home.

Captain Underpants ruins Halloween in NY [USA Today]

Add the "Cult of Death" to the list of dangerous cultural influences the United States has exported to Mother Russia.

Moscow schools have been ordered to ban students from celebrating Halloween. A spokesman for the city's education czar explains that

Halloween is being forced underground because it "includes religious elements, the cult of death, the mockery of death."

Despite the efforts of the Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church to kill enthusiasm for non-native (read: U.S.) festivities, Russians love Halloween. With good reason. Costumes, candy, jack o'lanterns, spooky scary fun and games -- What's not to love?

(With apologies to the Kremlin) Happy Halloween!

Schools ban cult of death Halloween [Reuters]

Every mom may think her kid is a genius, but the truth is, there are genuises and there are geniuses.

Meet Arpan Sharma, a British kid who speaks a language for every year of his age, plus one. He's 10 years old and he speaks English, Hindi, Italian, German, Spanish, French, Thai, Swahili, Polish, Chinese Mandarin and Lugandan, the language of Uganda.

Arpan learned two languages at home, five from CD-roms and the rest at school.

Arpan wants to be a surgeon who travels around the world so he can speak to his unconscious patients in their native tongues while he slices them open with a scalpel.

He says Swahili and Chinese Mandarin were the hardest. I agree. I had a tough time with those two myself.

Language genius boy who speaks 11 tongues [telegraph.co.uk]

A Michigan couple gets First Feeding's coveted Parents of the Week award for driving under the influence of collective stupidity. After the husband ran a red light, the police pulled him over and did a breath test, which showed him to be legally drunk. The guy had his 12-year-old son with him.

The cops told the boy to call his mom to pick him up. She showed up with her 9-year-old daughter in the car, even drunker than her husband. Hic!

Drunken dad called drunken mom to pick up son [Detroit News]

If you want any peace in your life, I suggest you keep your kids away from this website. Because kids have notoriously bad taste, which means they will definitely find a costume on this site that they just have to have, which (1) will be hideous; (2) will require you to spend $29.99 extra for overnight shipping; and (3) could quite possibly cause child protective services to come knocking on your door.

I am not going to describe all 284 kids costumes, just give you some of the highlights. For instance, the pink and silver diva costume, featuring an ass-baring micro-skirt, tank top and dildo-esque microphone. Perfect for the 4-year-old  pole dancer in your family.

Or the pink mummy fairy costume, which looks like it was sewn together by kittens. In case your kid can't decide between being a pink mummy or a pink fairy, with this costume, she can be both!

Is your kid a fan of the Doodlebops? She can be DeeDee, which isn't as scary as it may sound (if you are as creeped out by the Doodlebops as I am) except for the FREAKISHLY HUGE FROG HANDS.

For boys, there's a bad boy biker costume (photo on right) that would fit in perfectly in any leather bar, including pleather choker, vest, fingerless gloves and crotch baring chaps. Guaranteed to "rev up any rebel!" Fortunately, should your 4-year-old decide that this is the costume for him, you can say without lying, (for once), that his size is sold out.

Happy costuming!

In my search for everything Hello Kitty, I recently came across GlamGuns.com, which features the HK-AK-47 and a whole stockpile of other guns and military paraphernalia glammed up for girls like us tired of the princesses and Susie Homemaker sets and other plastic chick-anery the Barbie Industrial Complex forcefeeds our daughters:

At GlamGuns.com, we've combined the girliness of glamour with the practicality of military expertise and have created a collection that will make your child shriek with joy! From the My Little M4 Carbine to the Hello Kitty "HK-AK-47", you'll find something for the little girl in everyone!

The site is the brain-daughter of someone known only as Glambo, who's pictured there on the right.

There's lots of good stuff, but personally, I'm a fan of Martha's Mines, land mines that come in Martha's signature colors of celadon, seafoam, egg yolk, key lime and aubergine. And I'm looking forward to the release of the Disney Princess poison ring. Just in time for Christmas! 

(Though it's too late for my little girl, it may not be for yours. Sadly, despite my best efforts to tomboyize her, my pinkalicious daughter is already a goner. She does enjoy the occasional water pistol war, though.)

Read about me and Pinkerella here (I'm the one behind the rock).

A weekly roundup of news in parentville, including the good, the bad, and the utterly trivial.

Let's pretend you're Chinese (if you are, then you don't have to pretend, just be). And you're getting married in 2008. And you're loving the fact that the Olympics will be in Beijing the same year. And you want to get in the Guinness Book of World Records and/or on this blog. And you've got some extra cash. And you're kinda wacky. What to do?

How about having a 200.8 meter long train made for your dress? (That would be 695 feet for the metric-impaired.) Then posing in a garden with your arms flung up in the air in triumph and the train -- all 220 pounds of it -- spread around you like a bad Christo installation.

Speaking of weddings, somebody just sent me this totally inappropriate NSFW photo. Here's the caption (which won't give it away, I promise):

Wedding Gown $2,500

Photographer $2,000

Having "the twins" pop out and say CHEESE in front of your family and friends ...

PRICELESS!

Kudos to the photog for having it together enough to capture this special moment for all eternity and the entire Internet community.

Are you back? Let's talk about the girls some more, shall we? A barmaid in Australia has been fined $1,000 for crushing beer cans between her bare breasts. From now on, for entertainment, bar patrons in Perth will have to make do with mindless binge drinking and darts. Too bad for them.

Anyway, I'd like to take a moment to give you some actual, useful parenting information. Just this once. Without further fanfare (Although, admittedly, this is a big moment):

Five Easy Ways To Go Organic

 Too lazy to click thru? Here's what it says: Buy organic milk, apples, potatoes, peanut butter and ketchup. Because these are all kid cuisine staples and are all traditionally laden with pesticides, antibiotics, artificial hormones and other nasty stuff. I also buy organic chicken fingers, for the same reasons.

Ahh, the lure of the chicken finger (Which, in case you were wondering, is a shortening of chicken finger food, and does not refer in any way to the fact that chicken fingers are actually made from actual chicken fingers. Which they are.)

When the chicken finger calls, it's hard to say no. What to do? Drive to Applebees. Whoops, you can't reach the steering wheel. So, get your booster from the back seat and sit on that. Then back up the car 75 feet out of the driveway, across the street and into a transformer, knocking out electricity and phone service to dozens of townhouses in this suburb north of Denver.

Because, after all, you're only 6 years old.

Okay, let's change the story around a bit. This time, you're only 3 years old. You're with a friend, but he's only 2 years old. You wanna go for a cruise. But there's no way you can reach the steering wheel, even with car seats, phone books, etc. Fortunately, you've got a sweet battery-operated ride, a candy apple red Mustang GT with all the extras, and it's just your size. So the two of you take the car for a spin down a busy highway, until the cops pull you over for driving under the influence of being a toddler and Daddy Takes the T-Bird Away.

Here's more useful advice. When you serve your kids their organic foodstuff, do so in a family meal setting. New research shows that kids who eat with their parents tend to eat more healthily. The good news is, it doesn't matter if you eat in front of the TV while you're chowing down en famille so you don't actually have to talk to your children for them to reap the health benefits.

Phew. That useful advice stuff is taking a lot out of me. I'm exhausted. Time for my post-post nap.

Wondering who to blame for wasting your precious time? Here's my bio! (I'm the one hiding behind the rock.)

If you're looking for useful insight into the important parenting news of the day, like say, the massive fluff-up over children's cough and cold meds, you've come to the wrong blog. Go to CrabMommy's blog instead. She'll give you the skinny and straight, and make you giggle to boot.

I'd rather talk about haunted swings. Halloween's only a week off, after all.

The swing, in an Argentinian playground, started its terror campaign four months ago, swinging wildly on its own while its fellow swings on either side sit quietly. It's done its spooky thing for up to 10 days in a row. Physics types have ruled out wind and magnetic and electrical fields, and have called in Dan Akroyd.

I didn't believe it either. But then I saw the video. Super spooktastic!

Ghost Haunts Kids' Playground [The Sun]

Women whose moms sport a J-Lo are up to 7 times more likely to develop breast cancer, according to a new U.K. study.

Here's how it works:

1.     Big ass = more estrogen
2.     More estrogen = more exposure to the stuff in utero
3.     More exposure = higher chance of breast cancer

That is so unfair, because those of us with big bottomed moms are probably also cursed with our own double-wide. And now we've got extra worries about breast cancer on top of that!

Hormone replacement therapy, DES, bad genes, birth control pills, drinking, smoking, a fat slovenly lifestyle ... and now wide hips.  So what doesn't give you breast cancer, anyway?

Hip size gives cancer risk clue [BBC]

Tis the season for carving up oversized orange fruits (yeah, pumpkins are fruits, like tomatoes). I was a good mommy this year and actually took knife in unsteady hand, and got medieval on one of those suckers. The experiment was a success (I didn't chop off any of my fingers), and the results were, as they say, good enough for my 4-year-old.

Next year, maybe I'll step it up a notch and go for some extreme pumpkin carving. Like the tiki torch pumpkin, with flames shooting out of its head, the cannibal pumpkin, chowing down viciously on a baby pumpkin -- perhaps its own spawn -- or the pumpzilla, the webmaster's "favorite pumpkin submission ever." Or the mooning pumpkins on right, a display that is just so totally awesome I may have to flagrantly plagiarize it for my lawn next year.

Extreme pumpkins

Free breast implants for female sailors, pole dancing lessons for 6-year-olds -- what will those wacky Aussies think of next?

How about  sex lessons for coal miners?

Managers at a coal mine north of Sydney say that new tool -- ahem -- toolbox talks on foreplay and menopause help workers get laid more, which in turn makes them happy, productive workers.

Mining firm XXXstrata says the scheme has been so successful that it wants to extend it to other pits.

Course co-ordinator Tammy Farrell told the Sydney Morning Herald that the miners  "snapped up all the flyers after the talk so we've obviously got some cranky men with cranky wives out there who want some help."

Tammy advised the men to

start exploring their wives like they did when they were 18 .

Paradise by the dashboard light, indeed. Vroom vroom.

Sex lessons for 'cranky' miners [BBC]

Here's a great solution to that age-old problem -- the wet baby bottom.

The baby bottom fan gently, effectively and safely dries your baby's butt, eliminating the need to actually touch the butt by patting it dry with a soft cloth, or blow on the butt yourself, creating the danger of hyperventilating.

As "Dr. Alfred Lane" attests, Dry Skin is Healthy Skin !!!

Other features of this exciting breakthrough in diaper change technology:

• Absolutely Safe For Touch!
        Foamed sponge fan blades are absolutely safe for touch
• Reduce Noise!
        We reduced air frictional noise to minimum with aerodynamic design.

(And the piece de resistance)

• Perfume Dispensing Function!
        Anti-microbial fragrance (such as lavender) protects your
        baby from skin ailments and it also sooths your baby from
        any agony.
        Contains soothing essences of lavender, sweet smells to bring
        sweet dreams.
        It is very good for a peaceful transition from little dynamo
        to sleeping angel.

A dry-bottomed, sweet smelling baby peacefully transitioned from little dynamo to sleeping angel. Does it get any better than that?

Baby Bottom Fan [New Idea Technology Corporation]

Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter's headmaster at Hogwarts, is gay.

That come straight from the horse's mouth. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling outed Dumbledore in Carnegie Hall on Friday night, in response to one young reader's question. She said Dumbledore was in love with Grindewald, a "golden-haired, merry-faced" lad who became bad, really bad.

"Falling in love can blind us to an extent," Rowling said Friday of Dumbledore's feelings about Grindelwald, adding that Dumbledore was "horribly, terribly let down."

Most of the Potter blogs were supportive of Dumbledore and Jo Rowling. The  Christian right, on the other hand, no doubt will be appalled. But they've already written off Harry Potter as promoting witchcraft anyway. They also think Pokemon is witchcraft, because its "laced with eastern mysticism" like Buddhism and Hinduism. (Last I checked Buddhism and Hinduism counted as 2 of the 5 major religions of the world. But let's not nitpick.)

In "Deathly Hallows," we are fed some tantalizing tidbits about Dumbledore's mysterious past:

 There can be no doubt that Dumbledore delayed, for some five years of turmoil, fatalities, and disappearances, his attack upon Gellert Grindelwald. Was it lingering affection for the man or fear of exposure as his once best friend that caused Dumbledore to hesitate?

As we now know, the answer is "All of the above."
 

Fans Ponder Dumbledore Gay Revelation [CNN]

While an Oregon teacher fights for the right to pack a gun at school, on the other coast, even a water pistol -- in fact, a drawing of a water pistol -- draws fire.

A New Jersey grade school suspended a second-grade boy for drawing a stick figure shooting a water pistol.

Seven-year-old Kyle Walker gave the offending picture to another kid, whose parents complained to the school.

Kyle should have known better, because when it comes to enforcing its zero-tolerance policy on guns in schools, New Jersey doesn't fool around. In 2000, four kindergarten boys were suspended for playing cops and robbers, even though they were using their fingers as guns.

7-year-old suspended for stick-figure drawing [MSNBC]

There's such a fine line between genius and incredible stupidity bordering on illegality.

A Japanese junior high school teacher tripped over that line. In his attempt to get his female students to improve their swimming skills, he threw about 40 golf balls in a pool and told them to go fetch. He then asked the girls to read out the questions on the balls and provide answers for them. Questions like

• How many centimeters is your bust?
• Do you want to have sex?
• What's the name of your lover?

By way of lame explanation, here's what the teacher says he was thinking:

I wanted to get the kids interested in water, so decided to make my classes as much fun as possible.

Yeah, because 13-year-old girls just love to talk about their bust size in front of an entire classroom of kids (and one leering, drooling, nasty-minded  teacher).

I'd give him an A for creativity but an F for execution.

Fore! Teacher Hits OB Over Sexy Messages for Schoolgirls Written on Balls [Gaijinpot.com]

A weekly roundup of news in parentville, including the good, the bad, and the utterly trivial.

As Chris Rock put it so well, a father's only real job is to keep his daughter off the pole.

They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you f*cked up.

But what do you do when your 7 year old daughter tells you, "Daddy, I want to take a pole dancing class." And you say sorry not on my watch, and your daughter says, but Katelyn's taking it, and you say what are you talking about and then you do a little poking around and you find that yes indeedy, pole dancing classes are being offered for girls as young as 7. Because you live Down Under, land of koalas and wombats and ruddy faced crocodile wranglers and pole dancing as "healthy exercise."

Speaking of pole dancers, Twit-ney won't be seeing her kids anytime soon, since she gave 555-whatever as the contact number to the people who are supposed to conduct her random drug tests. She's really too busy for the kids these days any way, what with sessions in the tanning booth and getting her lips plumped up and other reasons requiring the avoidance of the drug cops assigned to her.

Another celebrity of questionable parenting skills provides my headline of the week:

Pamela Anderson says poker led to marriage

The story really begins and ends there. Details aren't worth going into, although in case you're wondering, Pam says she's not pregnant, so you can stop spreading that rumor around, thank you.

But my Parent of the Week prize goes to the unnamed New Hampshire mom who let her 9-year-old boy go to school in handcuffs. The boy was playing with them at home when they locked up. The quick thinking mom put him on the bus, figuring the school would be able to get them off easier than she could. And she was right! They had bolt cutters! So much easier than rummaging around the nightstand for the key.

I also have a candidate for my Teacher of the Month award -- an unnamed 4th grade teacher's aide (what's up with the anonymity? I want names!) who stapled a Post-It note to a girl's forehead. That is just so stupid. Everyone knows Post-It notes are self sticking.

And while we're at it, I've got a Neighbor of the Week award going to John Odee of Lloyd, NY, for viciously attacking an inflatable Halloween lawn display of three ghosts and a pumpkin. The owner of the display says she heard "hollering and swearing and looked outside to see Odee struggling with the giant pumpkin."

He was enraged. I could see that.

And justifiably so. Inflatable lawn ornaments are the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it. OTOH, in the event any space aliens happen to be eying Planet Earth, they're sure to make them think twice about whether this is a world worth conquering.

One more award, to you, my faithful reader. You are my Reader of the Week! Because you read all the way to the bottom! I love you!

What Bridezilla wants, she gets. And if she doesn't get it, watch out.

NYC lawyer and bridezilla Elana Glatt is breathing fire -- in the form of court papers -- over the flowers in her wedding.

Elana says that by substituting pastel pink and green hydrangeas for the dark rust and green hydrangeas she had specified, the florist basically ruined everything:

The use of predominantly pastel centerpieces had a significant impact on the look of the room and was entirely inconsistent with the vision the plaintiffs had bargained for.

The switcheroo, she says, caused her "extreme disappointment, distress and embarrassment." She's suing the florist for $400,000. The flowers cost $27,435.14. The remaining $372,564.86 is for the lingering damage to Elana's reputation, psyche and vision.

The florist says Elana is being a "Bridezilla, (Nooooo!) He says Elana would order elaborate arrangements that her future mother-in-law, who was footing the bill, would then trim down. 

They sent us 200, 250 e-mails changing things up until the last minute. We did everything they wanted.

I say, why fight about it? Even if the flowers had been perfect, this marriage is obviously going to fall apart in five years, anyway.

Bridal Bloom and Doom [NY Post]

Park Slope may pride itself on being the kid-friendliest nabe in the nation, but even Slopers have their limits.

A 6-year-old resident of the Slope is in deep doo-doo over a chalk doodle of a blue flower drawn on the family's stoop.

Mom to first grader Natalie Shea got a ticket for graffiti after a neighbor filed a complaint. She was given 45 days to clean off the flower, which was already gone by the time she got the complaint, erased by a heavy rain.

Natalie was indignant, saying the flower wasn't even graffiti:

It was art, very nice art!

Natalie's mom said the flower drawing "wasn't Nattie's best work" and promised to wipe down any future scrawlings more promptly. But for all we know, Natalie could have been the next Marla Olmstead. Now, thanks to her philistine art-phobic neighbor, we will never know.

City calls girl's chalk drawing 'graffiti,' issues $300 warning [NY Daily News]

A warning to women wearing underwire bras -- you may pose a risk to our nation's security.

That's how U.S. marshals guarding a federal court in Idaho feel about it. They told Lori Plato that she would have to take off her bra for examination after it set off the metal detector.

Lori said she asked if she could go to the bathroom, but the guards said no, so she took her bra off in the lobby, while her husband shielded her with his coat.

Patrick McDonald, the U.S. Marshal in Boise, said the guards were just following protocol:

She's inflating it. All of a sudden she just took it off. It wasn't anything we wanted to happen and it wasn't anything we asked for her to do. She did it so fast.

He admitted, though, that unlike lactating breasts, bras aren't really considered a threat to security:

I don't think they're considered a weapon, really, the last time I looked.

McDonald declined to offer specifics on the last time he looked.

Woman Told To Ditch Bra To Enter Court [AP]

Call her Kindergarten Cop. Shirley Katz, a Portland, Oregon, English teacher is suing her school for the right to bring her gun to school.

Shirley claims she needs her 9 mm Glock to protect herself from her ex-husband. She also argues it would come in handy in case she comes up against any Columbine copycats.

So, let me get this straight, Shirley. Students aren't even allowed to bring so much as a pair of scissors to school, but you should be allowed to pack a loaded semi-automatic handgun in the event you have to interrupt a discussion of "The Sun Also Rises" to engage in a shootout with your crazed ex-husband.

If Shirley gets her gun, I know what I'd do if I had a kid in her class. I'd grab a curriculum, buy the books, and home school my kids in my gun-free house.

Oregon teacher sues district over gun ban [MSNBC]

Lisa Moore died last week from breast cancer.

For those of you who -- like me -- stopped reading comics in 1989, Lisa Moore, wife, mother and lawyer, was a character in the popular "Funky Winkerbean" comic strip by Tom Batiuk.

Not surprisingly, Lisa's death has pissed a lot of people off. On TheCancerBlog.com, one woman wrote:

I just can't stand [this] story line.... Comics are suppose to be interesting, funny and relieve some sadness. It is really awful that you would take up such a story in [the] comics section.

Other people, like Greg Donaldson at the American Cancer Society, were thrilled by Batiuk's willingness to take a taboo subject public:

It has prompted vigorous discussion, which I would argue is empowering, raises awareness and ultimately will save lives.

Personally, I've never been a fan of the "real life" cartoons, preferring the gag-a-day variety. But the real lifers obviously have their fans. And, last I checked, real life does involve sickness and death.

So I guess that, personally, I'm okay with Lisa's death. But if Bart ever graduates from 4th grade? Now that would upset me.

Breast cancer takes life of cartoon character [ABC News]

Dave Warwak, a middle school art teacher in Illinois, was fired for an art display involving marshmallow Peeps. Dave, a recent convert to veganism, distributed Peeps to his students, telling them to keep the little guys safe for three days. He then put the Peeps into an art display showing what people do to animals. Some were in cages, some between slices of bread. A few had their heads mounted like trophies and some were mashed on the grilles of toy trucks.

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with veganism or using art as food for thought, but Dave took things a bit further. He probably didn't win too many friends at the school by saying he wouldn't teach until the cafeteria went vegan and that he plans to file child endangerment charges against it for serving meat and milk.

On the other hand, have you seen what school cafeterias pass off as food these days? Anything, including a vegan menu, would probably be an improvement.

BTW, Dave, peeps may be chick-free, but they are hardly vegan. Put it this way: If Peeps could speak, they would oink.

Vegan teacher appeals firing [chicagotribune.com]

In my virtual travels, I come across all kinds of absofreakin' creepy stuff, most of which doesn't make it onto the blog, because, well, creepitude is just not my thing.

But I am making an exception to my no-yeesh rule for miniature palm babies, teeny weeny lifelike newborn dolls. The Doll Coven, apparently, can't get enough of these little plastic bundles of joy. Perhaps you have an aunt who's a member of the Coven and you've been to her house of horrors -- dead glass eyes everywhere, staring at you wherever you turn. So you know what I'm talking about.

Teeny babies come in many shapes and (small) sizes. They have names like Heavenly Handfuls and Tiny Miracles Celebration of Life, "a petite charmer" featuring

RealTouch vinyl skin, micro-rooted hair and hand-painted fingernails and toenails. Enjoy hour after hour of cuddle time with this Christmas baby doll, available exclusively from The Ashton-Drake Galleries.

Other petite charmers ready for hour after hour of cuddle time include a preemie series, called Early Arrivals, complete with "hospital bracelet on her tiny ankle," and "Our First Ever So Truly Real Breathing Newborn Ashley," and her two sisters (due in nine months or so) all of which -- you guessed it -- breathe:

Pick them up - they feel just like real babies in your arms! Truly, every breath is a little blessing!

Yeesh.   

Ashton-Drake Galleries
Camille Allen

What the hell is this? It's a giant pumpkin. Actually, it's the giantest pumpkin ever. It weighs 1,689 pounds. It was grown by Joe Jutras of Rhode Island. That's him, chest swelling with pride, behind his baby.

Some pumpkin-related lore you need to know:

• Giant pumpkins can grow as much as 35 or more pounds a day
• Pumpkin "bloodlines" are traced like thoroughbreds. The seeds are named for the total poundage of the stud pumpkin and the farmer who grew it. Joe's record pumpkin was grown from a 998 Pukas. Seeds can fetch up $1,000 each. So if your stud pumpkin has, say, 200 seeds, we're talking 200 times 1,000 dollars, whatever that is.
• Raising a giant pumpkin from seed involves way more explanation than I am inclined to give you. Suffice it to say that mousetraps are involved.
• Joe also grows ultra-long gourds. We're talking 10 feet long. Images that come to mind are inappropriate for a family magazine.

So how does one dispose of a 1,700 pound pumpkin, anyway? Well, you could drop it on a bus.
 

Remember the 61-year-old Sicilian man whose mama took away his house keys, cut off his allowance and hauled him off to the police station by his ear because he stayed out past his curfew? Well, soon, he won't be needing his measly allowance anymore because he and other Italian men who've outlived their welcome will be able to apply for a government grant.

Italian Economy Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa says the government plans to hand out two billion euros in grants to help mamas' boys move out of family homes:

Let's get these big babies out of the home. We're encouraging young people to leave home.

The idea came after economists warned that Italians were not becoming independent, getting married, and having kids. EU figures show that 56% of Italian 25 to 29 year-olds still live with their parents, compared to 21% of Germans and just five per cent of Swedes.

Help for mummys' boys [Ananova]

Did you know that more than 2 billion people live without a proper potty? They have a hole in the ground or do "nature peeing" (like my 4-year-old, whenever she gets the chance) or otherwise make do making doo-doo.

The World Toilet Association wants to change that. They want to populate the world with potties. This newly launched South Korean group conducts its business in a toilet-shaped house (no, not the Guggenheim Museum, although that's a good guess) made of steel, white concrete and glass, with a symbolic opening in the roof.

Inside -- a whole lotta toilets.

The building is named Haewoojae, which signifies in Korean "a place of sanctuary where one can solve one's worries." Or read Cookie Magazine.    

I would like you to know that this will be my last potty-related post. Yes, my love affair with the potty has ended. I am officially over being the appreciative audience to my 4-year-old daughter's peeing and pooping. I'm glad the kid uses the toilet; now can we move on?

Toilet-shaped house offers relief to the WC-needy [Reuters]