Kathy and Rich Nelson are still a little shell shocked after a stray 102-pound artillery shell narrowly missed their house and plowed a path through their woods. The shell fired from Camp Ripley, Minn., was one of eight inert wax-filled rounds fired during a test by BAE Systems. The shell streaked over the Nelson home, startling three remodelers, two of whom were outside sawing cabinetry materials. "I was upstairs and had the window open and I heard this loud ppsshh, like a giant bottle rocket being set off, and it wasn't three seconds and it was right over us," said Loren Patnode of Patnode Custom Cabinets.

I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.

IS4110 writes "A new racing car made with potatoes and carrots and powered with chocolate waste has been developed by the Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre of the University of Warwicks in the UK. The university's vehicle, called WorldFirst F3 project, has a steering wheel made of curran, a material derived from carrots, that is expected to replace glass fiber and carbon fiber. It also has a racing seat made of SoyFoam, a soybean oil-based, flexible foam material. Wing mirrors incorporate materials derived from potato starch, a bib made from flax fiber, and lubricants based on plant oils."

Maybe he didn't have enough for everyone, or maybe it was just incredibly poor judgement on his teacher's part, but a 5-year-old boy was sent home with a bag of poo in his backpack. The bag came with a note from the teacher that read, "This little turd was on the floor in my room." "I'm still kind of in shock over this, because why would somebody do this? It's disgusting!" said the boy's father. The school's superintendent said the boy's teacher and the school principal are being questioned.

Police say 33-year-old Terrence Croskery was fresh out of bludgeoning weapons when he tried to scare off deputies with a battle axe, a knife and a broad sword. The Bay County Sheriff's Office says that deputies responded to the Sting Ray Motel after management called 911 to complain that a guest was acting strange. When officers arrived Croskery threw a battle ax and a 6-inch knife through the window, pulled a broad sword, and locked himself inside the bathroom.

Jagshemash! Kazakhstan is in the process of building the world's first alien embassy with attached UFO landing pad and checkpoint. A large plot of land in the city of Almaty has been allocated for the project. The embassy will include a guesthouse, theater, and translation service. The government believes open contact with aliens will happen soon and by being the first nation to specifically create such facilities they will reap economic rewards. The Kazakhstan Government also see this as a chance to demonstrate their nation's forward-thinking policies. Nice!

AlHunt writes "Two central Pennsylvania friends spent most of March in a text-messaging record attempt — for a total of 217,000. For one of the two, that meant an inches-thick itemized bill for $26,000. Nick Andes, 29, and Doug Klinger, 30, were relying on their unlimited text messaging plans to get them through the escapade, so Andes didn't expect such a big bill. 'It came in a box that cost $27.55 to send to me,' Andes said. After a 'panicked' call, Andes says his cell phone company assures him he won't have to pay it."

I can't say much for the game play, but at least it's only a quarter.

Corporate Troll writes "Robotic penguins were unveiled by German engineering firm Festo this week. Using their flippers, the mechanical penguins (video) can paddle through water just like real ones, while larger helium-filled designs can "swim" through the air. The penguins are on show at the Hannover Messe Trade Exhibition in Germany. Each penguin carries 3D sonar which is used to monitor its surroundings and avoid collisions with walls or other penguins."

61-year-old William J. Fell (not from Sunnyvale Trailer Park), is accused of stealing more than $170,000 from parking meters in the City of Alexandria, Virginia. Police say William, who worked as a meter repairman, took a few coins every time he fixed a meter for over a year. Police spokesman Jody Donaldson told the Washington Post the city suspected something was up because revenue from the meters was falling short. "He'd take a little bit each time," Donaldson told the Post.

Andrea Wachner, like many other people, was dreading her high school reunion, so she decided to have some fun and hire a stripper to impersonate her. Wachner, a freelance comedy writer, made a documentary about it called, "I Remember Andrea." Some of her classmates didn't think the prank/film was funny, and when she posted clips on YouTube from her 40-minute documentary, there was an outcry from '95 alums. "There's definitely a contingency of people who hate me because of this," she said, adding, "I can't think of one thing you could do there where you weren't competing against hundreds of other kids. I didn't really relate to a lot of what the others accepted as the norm, and I was OK with that — it just didn't make it great. Most of the girls I knew had eating disorders. A huge percentage. I'm not scarred by it. It wasn't torture. It was not a miserable experience. But I think high school in and of itself is kind of awful."

Jihadis who can't seem to get rid of those love handles no matter how long they fast finally got some help thanks to a new pro al-Qaeda magazine, Jihad Recollections. The first edition offers workout tips with the aim "to train as hard as possible in order to damage the enemies of Allah as much as possible." Pull-ups, walking on your hands and crawling long distances are just some of the suggested exercises.

It's every Viking's worst nightmare.

Anonymous Swine writes "Monsanto, a US based multinational biotech company, is causing a stir by its plan to patent pig-breeding techniques including the claim on animals born by the techniques. 'Agricultural experts are scrambling to assess how these patents might affect the market, while consumer activists warn that if the company is granted pig-related patents, on top of its tight rein on key feed and food crops, its control over agriculture could be unprecedented. "We're afraid that Monsanto and other big companies are getting control of the world's genetic resources," said Christoph Then, a patent expert with Greenpeace in Germany. The patent applications, filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization, are broad in scope, and are expected to take several years and numerous rewrites before approval.'"

It turns out that space tastes like raspberries and not Tang or freeze-dried ice cream as one might suspect. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy were searching for evidence of amino acids in space when they found ethyl formate, the chemical used in to make raspberry flavoring. The astronomers used the IRAM telescope in Spain to analyze electromagnetic radiation emitted by a hot and dense region of Sagittarius B2 that surrounds a newborn star. Astronomer Arnaud Belloche said, "It [ethyl formate] does happen to give raspberries their flavour, but there are many other molecules that are needed to make space raspberries."

Enjoy a meal and get your feet rubbed.

It's important to memorize the levels at a young age.

eldavojohn writes "The sweet sweet melodies of Queen and the late Freddie Mercury are reproduced by hardware almost as old as the song is. 'There are millions of computers sitting idle at home consuming fantom electricity. Let's see where all that power is going. This is dedicated to all fans of Queen and hey let's not forget about Mike Myers and Dana Carvey of Wayne's World. Please note no effects or sampling was used. What you see is what you hear (does that even make sense?) Atari 800XL was used for the lead piano/organ sound, Texas Instruments TI-99/4a as lead guitar, 8 Inch Floppy Disk as Bass, 3.5 inch Hard drive as the gong, HP ScanJet 3C was used for all vocals. Please note I had to record the HP scanner 4 separate times for each voice. I tried to buy 4 HP scanners but for some reason sellers on E-Bay expect you to pay $80-$100, I got mine for $30.'"

The Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology has put the server from The Pirate Bay on display. The server was confiscated in a police raid last year. The museum bought the server for 2,000 kronor ($240) from a member of the Bureau of Piracy, a Swedish group seeking the decriminalization of filesharing. "This is an object of contemporary society and a museum collects such items, and it is a part of our mission as a museum not to avoid complicated questions," curator Nils Olander said. The display is 98% complete and the museum staff has been waiting on a seeder since Thursday.

linuxwrangler writes "Janina Valiente was robbed by a purse snatcher while waiting for a bus in San Francisco. But she remembered that she had recently downloaded Google Latitude as a joke so she and her sisters could 'stalk each other.' Using a bystander's phone, she called her sister who told her the phone was at Fell and Ashbury which is exactly where police located and arrested the robber."