Dozens of unemployed people got the chance to show off their skills at "Pin the blame on the boss," "Office-Phone Skee-Ball," and other games at the Unemployment Olympics in Manhattan. The organizer, Nick Goddard, said that a light-hearted attitude towards being unemployed was pretty much his aim, "Just to get unemployed people psyched that they're unemployed," he said. Prizes were offered by merchants from the surrounding Lower East Side neighborhood.

Fishing like this may be unusual, but it's the only way to get the really big ones to come up.

A JetBlue employee was discovered by baggage handlers at Boston's Logan International Airport after falling asleep in a plane's cargo bin while in New York. He said he'd been accidentally locked inside the pressurized luggage compartment while taking a nap and called JetBlue officials when he realized he was in the air. The man wasn't charged with any crime and was returned to New York when it was determined he wasn't dangerous. The impromptu flight has led some JetBlue officials to consider a new ultra-cheap "roll around with the luggage" travel option for more adventurous passengers.

Liam Hoekstra is only 19 months old but he already has washboard abs and amazing strength. Liam suffers from a rare genetic condition called myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy. The condition promotes above-normal growth of the skeletal muscles; it doesn't affect the heart and has no known negative side effects, according to experts. Liam has about 40 percent more muscle mass than normal and needs a lot of food because of his increased metabolism. "He's hungry for a full meal about every hour because of his rapid metabolism," said his adoptive mother, Dana Hoekstra. "He's already eating me out of house and home." When Liam wants a toy, Liam gets a toy.

If you think that's bad, you should see the other car.

An anonymous reader writes "A woman in Bushton, Wilts, has been told by the Performing Rights Society (PRS for Music) that she needs to pay an annual fee in order to play classical music from the radio to the horses in her stable, something that she has been doing for the past 20 years. The PRS claims that it's not about the horses — rather, it's about her staff of over two people, which puts Mrs. Greenway in the same category as shops, bars and cafes. 'The staff are not bothered whether they have the radio on or not, in fact they don't particularly like my music and turn if off when I'm not around,' said Mrs. Greenway, 62. 'Especially on windy days I try to play it — it gives [the horses] a nice quiet atmosphere, you can only exercise one horse at a time so it helps the others to stay calm. We are right next to the RAF Lyneham air base so it dulls the noise from the aircraft as well.'"

jamie dubs writes "Find yourself spending all day on Slashdot? Facebook? Gmail? Getting clean can be hard, but thankfully Steve Lambert is here to help. "SelfControl" is an open-source Mac application that will completely block access to a list of websites for a specified period of time."

Kofi, a Gambian pouched rat, is being trained to sniff out explosive devices. Gambian pouched rats have one of the best senses of smell in the animal kingdom and are used to hunt for land mines in Africa. Kofi spends 20 minutes a day training by staff at the Porfell Wildlife Park and Sanctuary near Liskeard, Cornwall. His handler Wendy Winstanley now plans to contact the Army and the police anti-terror unit to offer her rats' services for use both home and abroad. She said, "Kofi is amazing, his sniff ability is really incredible. People think of rats as vermin but they are highly intelligent creatures. They have a more heightened sense of smell than dogs and because they are so much lighter they have less chance of setting off an explosive." Isn't this how NIMH started?

For $7, Lujan Zoo, in Argentina, will let you play with lions and tigers and bears! Oh my! Tourists who have never watched a lion, bear, or tiger catch and kill prey on TV can ride, wrestle and pet them. Animal protection charity The Born Free Foundation has condemned the zoo and issued a statement to urge tourists not to visit the zoo. CEO Will Travers said, "Based on what I have seen displayed on the Lujan Zoo website, I am fearful that a terrible accident is going to happen."

Making life easier, one upgrade at a time.

tritonman writes "A new scientific study suggests that crabs can feel and remember pain. From the article: '"More research is needed in this area where a potentially very large problem is being ignored," said Elwood. Legislation to protect crustaceans has been proposed but it is likely to cover only scientific research. Millions of crustacean are caught or reared in aquaculture for the food industry. There is no protection for these animals (with the possible exception of certain states in Australia) as the presumption is that they cannot experience pain.' Perhaps soon there will be a study to determine that vegetables feel pain as well, then all of the vegans will only be allowed to eat rocks."

Paul and Deborah Rees have been given government funding to teach people how to "communicate with the dead." The couple, from Bridgend, south Wales, got £4,500 under the Government's Want2Work job creation program. The mediums insist the "mere £4,500" of public money will be put to good use at their center, the Accolade Academy of Psychic and Mediumistic Studies. Mr Rees said, "People who have lost mums and dads or a child deserve all the respect in the world in their grieving, and they deserve a medium who can give them respect. Our job is to provide substantial evidence to bring ease to people's grieving — and that's what I would say to people who query the award." Wait, it's coming to me....I see a queue of Alchemists waiting at the Want2Work grant office.

A Texas woman has sparked controversy with her use of a seeing-eye horse. Tabitha Darling is legally blind and has a bone condition that makes walking painful. She uses her seeing-eye pony, Trixie, to help her get around and shop, but not everyone agrees that a horse is the right animal for the job. Personally, I'm glad that service animals are finally breaking out of their stereotypes. I see the patient diligence of the bomb-sniffing sloth, and the soothing aquatic environment of the cancer-detecting manatee, as a plus.

"The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais," by Professor Philip M Parker, won The Diagram Prize for oddest book title of the year. "Baboon Metaphysics," by Dorothy L Cheney and Robert M Seyfarth took second, and "Curbside Consultation of the Colon" by Brooks D Cash came in third. Past winners include such gems as: "Bombproof Your Horse," "People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves To Unsuspecting Bystanders And What To Do About It," and the classic "How to S**t In The Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art." Strangely absent from the running this year was the thought-provoking "Everything is really wet, even dry stuff."

An inmate's attempt to cook sausage in his toilet filled his unit with smoke, and caused an evacuation at a Washington prison. 130 inmates were evacuated when smoke was spotted coming from a sewer vent pipe. The smoke was traced back to the inmate's cell and he admitted to trying to heat up sausage in the stainless steel toilet. Toilet sausage? And I thought Pruno was disgusting.

It's like having a mobile refrigerator with a giant metal arm in my house. Best of all, she makes slightly less noise than a lawnmower.

Legislation may by 2016 restrict the paint color options for California residents looking for a new car. Black and all dark hues are currently on the banned list. The California Air Resources Board says that the climate control systems of dark-colored cars need to work harder than their lighter siblings — especially after sitting in the sun for a few hours.

Earlier this month, an expedition fertilized 300 square kilometers of the Atlantic Ocean with six metric tons of dissolved iron. This triggered a bloom of phytoplankton, which doubled their biomass within two weeks by taking in carbon dioxide from the seawater. The dead phytoplankton were then expected to sink to the ocean bed, dragging carbon along with them. Instead, the experiment turned into an example of how the food chain works, as the bloom was eaten by a swarm of hungry copepods. The huge swarm of copepods were in turn eaten by larger crustaceans called amphipods, which are often eaten by squid and whales. "I think we are seeing the last gasps of ocean iron fertilization as a carbon storage strategy," says Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University. While the experiment failed to show ocean fertilization as a viable carbon storage strategy, it has pushed the old "My dog ate my homework" excuse to an unprecedented level.

Scrapping ideas such as constructing a mile-long plastic ball for containment or building a million cardboard "Mr. Slave" scarecrows, China has decided to battle their fiercely cute gerbil hordes with contraception-abortion pills. The exploding gerbil population is threatening the local desert ecosystem, forcing forestry officials in the city of Changji to start distributing the contraceptive pellets. "Besides pregnancy prevention, the drug can induce abortions and thus largely reduce their breeding rate," said Du Yuefei, head of the epidemic prevention section of the city's forestry bureau.

Sean Hodgson was convicted of murder in 1982. A recent DNA test proved he was innocent so he was released after spending 27 years in jail. His joy was short-lived however as he was struck by a taxi and needed to go to the hospital to get stitches in his face. His solicitor, Julian Young, said the accident was just one example of how hard it was for Mr Hodgson to adjust to life on the outside after 27 years of prison. "He's OK but I think he's struggling with life on the outside, and particularly in London. He's been in to see us and his spirits are up," he said. They must hail cabs with their faces in British prisons.