tomhudson writes "The Walkato Times in New Zealand is reporting that someone forgot to tell the computer not to unlock the supermarket on the Friday holiday. 'About half of the 24 people who came into the supermarket paid for their groceries using the self-scan service. The service stopped working after alcohol was scanned, requiring a staff member to check a customer's age before the system is unlocked.' The owner, Mr Miller, was quoted as saying 'I can certainly see the funny side of it... but I'd rather not have the publicity to be honest. It makes me look a bit of a dickhead.' Rather than take legal action, Mr Miller is hoping that the people who didn't pay will do the right thing."

People are willing to do some crazy things to lose weight: immersing themselves in ice-water baths to increase the metabolism, for example. But the people of Hong Kong have upped the ante with the rising popularity of parasite dieting. The practice has become so popular that the Hong Kong Health Department has issued a warning that parasitic worms can cause abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea and even death.

The first rule of murder club is: you don't talk about murder club. The second rule of murder club is: you don't get a chest tattoo about murder club. From the article: "Anthony Garcia, a member of the Rivera-13 gang, had a tattoo that resembled the scene of the liquor store killing of 23-year-old John Juarez in Pico Rivera on Jan. 23, 2004, reports the Los Angeles Times. There were numerous details the murder inked on the gang member. The paper reports that the tattoo included the Christmas lights that lined the roof of the liquor store where Juarez was shot and killed, the direction his body fell, the bowed street lamp across the way and the street sign. Above everything read the title, 'RIVERA KILLS,' a reference to the gang. A helicopter was also placed above the scene raining down bullets, a nod to Garcia's alias 'Chopper.'"

If a new cost-cutting measure from Michigan State Sen. Bruce Casswell passes, only clothes from used clothing stores could be purchased for children in the foster care system. Casswell told Michigan Public Radio: "I never had anything new. I got all the hand-me-downs. And my dad, he did a lot of shopping at the Salvation Army, and his comment was — and quite frankly it’s true — once you’re out of the store and you walk down the street, nobody knows where you bought your clothes.” Gilda Jacobs executive director of he Michigan League for Human Services disagrees. She thinks poor kids are too good to wear Dukes of Hazzard shirts or parachute pants. Jacob says: "Honestly, I was flabbergasted. I really couldn’t believe this. Because I think, gosh, is this where we’ve gone in this state? I think that there’s the whole issue of dignity. You’re saying to somebody, you don’t deserve to go in and buy a new pair of gym shoes. You know, for a lot of foster kids, they already have so much stacked against them.”

theodp writes "Some artists work in oils, some in pastels, some in acrylics. Photographer Jamie Beck and motion graphics artist Kevin Burg? Their medium of choice is animated GIFs. 'We wanted to tell more of a story than a single still frame photograph but didn't want the high maintenance aspect of a video,' said the two of their unusual collaboration. Needless to say, these are not your father's GeoCities 'Under Construction' GIFs — it can take several hours of manual editing for Beck and Burg to breathe the whisper of life into each image."

autospa writes "With fuel prices rising like crazy, a man from Kentucky came up with a solution to high gas prices. 62-year-old Mickey Nilsson, of Bardstown, Kentucky, made a bourbon-powered junk car. He got the idea from the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Nilsson said that his inspiration came from a character played by Dick Van Dyke in the classic Disney movie."

You may have no trouble smelling like an orc after 12 straight hours of raiding, but if you do, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is here for you. The company has come out with a line of RPG inspired perfumes. Choose from: Dwarf, Elf, Half-elf, Hafling, Orc, Cleric, Fighter, or Mage and people will not only see that you're a geek, they'll smell it too.

Some bugs are worse than others, but when a bug eats over $200,000 it's time to call an exterminator. Indian Police are investigating the claim that termites ate over 10 million rupees from a branch of The State Bank of India. From the article: "The notes had been kept in a ‘currency chest’ at the branch in Barabanki district, Uttar Pradesh, and officials were reported to be ‘horrified’ to have found most of them reduced to dust by termites when they inspected the contents."

For six months, 17-year-old Gaby Rodriguez endured stares, gossip and ridicule, all for a school project. As part of a presentation called "Stereotypes, Rumors and Statistics," Gaby pretended to be pregnant for most of her senior year. From the article: "Only a handful of people — her mother, boyfriend and principal among them — knew Gaby was pretending to be pregnant for her senior project, a culminating assignment required for graduation. Her teachers and fellow students, except for her best friend, didn't realize they were part of a social experiment."

An anonymous reader writes "Amazon has officially denied that the recent outage of its EC2 and Elastic Block Storage cloud platforms was the result of an attack from Cyberdyne Systems' Skynet sentient computer system, declaring humanity safe after all. 'From the information I have and to answer your questions,' a spokesperson explained, 'Skynet did not have anything to do with the service event at this time.'"

kkleiner writes "In his continuing obsession with all things Lego, robotic, and awesome, Chris Shepherd recently constructed the Lego Quad Delta Robot System, a full working model of an industrial robotics line in a factory. The Lego Quad Delta Robot System has four flexing arms that can move in three dimensions, each equipped with a pneumatically driven gripper. Those arms pick up blocks moving on two conveyor belts marked with special light sensors that detect the block's position and color. The system can move 48 of these blocks per minute. Oh, and the whole darn thing, including the impressive support frame, is made out of Lego!"

Not understanding that the attack button only works while playing a game, not real life, Cameron Pittman tried to rob a Subway restaurant with a Playstation controller. Pittman was arrested by police who happened to walk in during the robbery, and was forced to start the level over.

Spurred on by Utah's love of the Browning M1911, the Arizona legislature has named the Colt Single Action Army Revolver the state's official gun. The 32-25 vote approving the measure makes Arizona only the second state to officially recognize a state firearm. From the article: "'Anytime you see a Western movie, the revolver in John Wayne's hand is a Colt single action,' Arizona state Sen. Ron Gould (R) told Reuters. 'This is a historic firearm and it fits well with the story of Arizona.'"

With 244 steps The Time Machine, built by by members of the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers and Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, took first place and broke a world record at the 24th Annual National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest. From the article: "It starts with the Big Bang, re-creates the extinction of the dinosaurs, holds a jousting competition, flips over an album, and simulates World War II, a shuttle launch, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and even the alleged apocalypse in 2012. In its precisely executed review of history, 'The Time Machine,' a Rube Goldberg contraption built by members of the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers and Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, incorporates a record-breaking 244 steps—all to water a single flower."

Bayoudegradeable writes "It seems that Photoshop skills that not-so-cleverly hide the bones of a rack of ribs are not enough to change meat into acceptable vegan dishes. The NYTimes reports that readers of VegNews are horrified to learn that images used to portray vegetarian images are none other than meat and dairy images manipulated to hide their animal origins. One commenter noted, 'vegan food must turn out so unappetizing that even the leading vegan magazine will not show legitimate photos of it.'"

An anonymous reader writes "The latest in bizarre copyright battles, involves a guy named Bobby Kent who is suing ASCAP and plans to sue every single professional sports team in the US (with the exception of the LA Lakers who already wrote him a check for $3,000), because he claims he came up with the famous 'da da da DA da DA... CHARGE!' jingle. Of course, the actual origins of the jingle are disputed, with evidence pointing back many years before Kent wrote his version, including suggestions of a USC drum major coming up with it, as well as evidence from an old German army music playbook."

In celebration of the upcoming royal wedding, a British brewer has crafted Royal Virility Performance beer. Just three of these stiff brews is equal to taking a Viagra pill. From the article: "Just 40 bottles of the £10 tipple will be produced initially, and will go on sale on April 29 at BrewDog.com. All the proceeds go to the charity Centrepoint, which Wills supports. But buyers will be limited to one bottle each due to the powerful effects."

After what must have been an epic marketing meeting, a Florida unemployment agency decided to give 6,000 red capes to the jobless as part of its "Cape-A-Bility Challenge" public relations campaign. The capes cost $14,000 (not a bad price for 6k capes actually) and featured a cartoon character named "Dr. Evil Unemployment." As one might imagine, officials are calling for an investigation to be launched. It's a good thing there are an abundance of caped do-gooders without jobs in the area who should be able to help.

polyp2000 writes with an Engadget excerpt to inspire instant toy envy: "A pair of Spanish engineers have recently unveiled the dAlH2Orean (see what they did there?), a R/C car that runs on aluminum. Dropping a few soda can tabs into a tank of sodium hydroxide produces enough hydrogen to power the little speedster for 40 minutes — at almost 20mph."

The good news is not all air traffic controllers are sleeping on the job. The bad news is that some of them are watching movies instead. From the article: "In the latest incident, the controller was watching a movie on a DVD player early Sunday morning while on duty at a regional radar center near Cleveland, Ohio that handles high-altitude air traffic, the FAA said in a statement Monday. The controller's microphone was inadvertently activated, transmitting the soundtrack of the movie — the 2007 crime thriller Cleaner, starring Samuel L. Jackson — for more than three minutes to all the planes in the airspace that the controller was supposed to be monitoring, the agency said."