The Entrepreneurial Spirit!

In addition to its 50 standard flavors, the Jelly Belly company added surprise flavors in BeanBoozled boxes as part of this year’s Easter promotion. Although garlic beans, buttered-toast beans and cheese pizza beans are no longer available, connoisseurs can still sample jelly beans made to taste like pencil shavings, ear wax, moldy cheese and vomit. A Jelly Belly spokeswoman told Newhouse News Service in March, "There are 20 flavors in each little box, and there are two flavors of the same color, so [for example] you don't know what flavor you are tasting when you taste a white one: coconut or baby wipe."

Nickelodeon is now offering a SpongeBob SquarePants musical rectal thermometer, which plays the SpongeBob theme song. Presumably, the designer imagines that this will make the temperature-taking process less unpleasant.

You Lucky Rat

While many lab mice get selected for the unfortunate work involved in cancer research, one group of male rodents at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston has been given constant erections, as researchers try to develop a biochemical treatment for priapism. (The condition, which plagues men with certain blood disorders, is named for the Greek god Priapus, who, to be punished for sexual misbehavior, supposedly received an enormous but useless wooden penis.)

Charity on the Cutting Edge

"Obviously, this is not as important as helping starving kids in Africa, but it's the same basis," Karla Rae Morris told Canada's Sun newspapers in February. "They want to help us out," Morris added, referring to benefactors who had donated money so that she could afford breast implants. The donations were arranged through the Web site MyFreeImplants.com, which facilitates e-mail exchanges and chats for prospective contributors and collects the money until the goal is reached. "It's like donating to any charity," Morris said of her donors. "You feel like you're doing good."

Least Competent Criminals

Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) Based on DNA evidence, Ahmed Jalloul, 20, was convicted in April of robbing a post office in Adelaide, Australia. Witnesses said Jalloul seemed unsteady and unsure of himself during the crime and later vomited on the floor before fleeing the scene. (2) In March, Eric Hardin, 32, was charged in St. Louis with possession of child pornography on compact discs, which his former roommates turned over to police after cleaning his room. They had kicked Hardin out for his unbearably poor hygiene.

Now, Which One Is the Brake?

Here are some more recent examples of elderly drivers who confused the brake pedal with the gas pedal: A Citrus Heights, Calif., woman, 81, drove into the ATM lobby of a Wells Fargo bank, injuring a customer (March). A Chicago Heights, Ill., woman in her 80s drove through a Dairy Queen (April). A Burbank, Calif., woman, 88, drove into a post office, injuring two (March). An Indianapolis woman, 90, backed into a McDonald's restaurant, injuring two (April). A Springfield, Ill., woman described as "elderly," drove through a delicatessen (March). And, in a variation, a Mount Pleasant, Pa., funeral home attendant, 73, mistakenly shifted into reverse and fatally struck the owner of the car, who had just turned it over to the man to park (March).

And They’re Off…

At a March soccer match in Britain, greyhound owner Jane Holland was escorting her retired dog Fool's Mile for a presentation when the crowd noise evidently energized the champion racer, who broke away. "(W)hen she heard the crowd, she was off," said Holland. Fool's Mile circled the track four times before being restrained. According to London's Sunday Telegraph, the dog appeared to be reliving her glory days.

Copyright 2008 Chuck Shepherd