As part of a team building exercise, Chad Hudgens agreed to be waterboarded. "He lay on his back with his head downhill, co-workers knelt on either side of him, pinning the young sales rep down while their supervisor poured water from a gallon jug over his nose and mouth." His boss told the employees present, "You saw how hard Chad fought for air right there. I want you to go back inside and fight that hard to make sales." Chad thought about it for a few days and is now suing. General counsel for the company, George Brunt says, "We're not the mean waterboarding company that people think we are. I don't know if this would even be an issue if it weren't for Guantanamo Bay." He added that the company has seen great success with other torture themed training such as "The Iron Boot of Productivity" and "Drawn and Quarterly Reports."

Ant points out a story spotted on Boing Boing in which NASA "shares a story that turns back the clock 36 years to reveal the "key roll of duct tape in the Apollo program." The quality of the photographs from the moon always grabs me, and the duct-taped fender here is no exception.

If you think cinema reached it's pinnacle when "BloodRayne" was released or the actors in "Street Fighter" were robbed when the Oscar nominations were announced, then maybe, just maybe, Tetris the Movie is for you.

With so many reasons to hate this video it's hard to write them all, so I'll narrow it done to my top three: First, they used a white Clarence Clemons and their Courtney Cox looks more like my aunt Gloria than the second most desirable friend, (David Schwimmer ranks number one of course). Second, if you're going to make the mistake of trying to parody the Boss, the least you can do is equally half-ass a parody of one of his songs. If you fail, fail spectacularly. Third and most importantly, this is an internal video. Someone actually thought this would inspire employee greatness and lift morale. I wonder if the head of Microsoft's HR department has ever met real people.

Firmly cementing himself as the Don Juan of all nerdom, Bernie Peng reprogrammed his girlfriend's copy of Bejeweled so that a marriage proposal popped up when she reached a certain score. She giggle-snorted, pushed up her broken glasses and said yes.

Retired engineer, William Lyttle is like any other 77 year old except for one thing. He likes to dig tunnels. For the past 40 years he has dug a network of tunnels beneath his 20-room Victorian property in Hackney, East London. The city council made him stop after inspectors discovered that parts of the house were supported by nothing more than household appliances and that he had chipped away parts of the foundation of the neighboring property. The borough of Hackney had Mr Lyttle evicted in 2006 and has presented him with a bill for around $600,000 to repair the damage he caused, Sloth removal and other One Eyed Willy related charges.

Writing a book can be hard. You have to pick a title, cover art and compile a table of contents. If you want it in a Library it has to be assigned a numerical code (ISBN) not to mention the weeks, months or even years of actual writing. Philip M. Parker has found an easier way. He has generated over 200,000 books making him, "The most published author in the history of the planet." He has created computer algorithms that collect publicly available information on a subject and works with a team of programmers and 60-70 computers to produce such page turners as "The 2007-2012 Outlook for Tufted Washable Scatter Rugs, Bathmats and Sets That Measure 6-Feet by 9-Feet or Smaller in India." (144 pages at a very reasonable price of $495). Philip admits that many of his "books" are only printed when a customer buys one. I can't wait for "Samzenpus's Email correspondence with his mother from 2007-2008". I hear she figured out how to change her background image all by herself.

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks many industries have been hit hard but none as hard as the dubious container industry. Many family owned providers of heavily taped and strangely leaning packages are facing a dire financial future.

Fat, slightly disturbed, fantasy role playing geeks have been without a rap role model for too long. Now they have a hulking bard named 'Baby Cakes'.

In a bid to save children from frosting and fun, a New Zealand school has banned bringing birthday cake to school. Principal Megan Bowden says, "Oteha Valley has a large number of pupils born in September and October, and there can be up to four cakes a week in some classes. It had gotten to the point where parents thought they were required to provide a cake for their child's birthday." She adds that since they have defeated cake so easily, the school board plans on tackling the mirth problem next and god willing, smiles by the end of the year.

In a blatant attempt to become the next Iron Chef UK, a Kent man has vowed to eat nothing but wild food he can forage, including road kill, for a year. Fergus Drennan will gather his food within a 10 mile radius of his home. Starters on his menu include such things as mushrooms, berries, nuts and acorn coffee. Dead squirrels, foxes, badgers and rabbits he comes across make up his main courses and he plans on using their skins for clothing. Lets hope he's purchased a lot of Altoids.

Will Foster, a Kettering University student, has built his own half sized Panzer tank. It took Will 2 years and around $10,000 to build his mini-tank and he says the process has been "a lot of trial and error...I'd buy a $200 part that didn't work, then go to a $300 part that didn't work before finding a $50 part that did." The tank is about as big as a small car, and can reach speeds of around 20 mph with its three-cylinder diesel engine. It runs on treads, has a cannon powered by compressed air from a scuba tank and parks wherever the hell it wants.

GnomeIllusionist writes "In their continuing tribute to Gary Gygax, Wired has created character sheets for nine celebrities. Apparently, Stephen Hawking can do 10D6 radiation damage to his enemies and Rick Astley is a 20th-Level bard. Steve Jobs' black turtleneck is actually magical armor with +6 against edged attacks." Most of them are kinda cheesy and obvious- I wonder if you can do better.

It's early evening. You've just finished a large double cheese, pepperoni and sausage pizza and washed it down with a 2 liter of Mountain Dew. The tingling in your arm a reminder that it will take much more than an astounding 10,000 calorie dump to defeat your body and fuel it through the next 5 hours of Warcraft raiding. Too full of sauce, spiced meats and sugar to move, you manage to turn your head and look at the meager half bag of Doritos, in your clogged heart of hearts you know that this is not enough. You need more. You need donuts. How are you going to find them? Call someone? Don't be ridiculous you haven't talked to a real person in months. Search for donuts on Google? Do you have any idea how many hits you'd get? (actually you do, it's around 13,300,000.) Tired, frustrated and not completely stuffed you let the dream of donuts slip through your greasy fingers once again. We've all been there but now there is a solution. Someone has finally made a Krispy Kreme finder with a clock that determines if the store is open. Simply type in your zip code, rub on some sun block to protect your pale skin, put on pants and follow the directions.

A lucky group of 20 teenagers will be taking a 3 day tour of Amsterdam with stops in the red light district and a cannabis college. I'm sure this happens all the time. What makes this trip different is that it has been organized by the Essex County Council's youth service to help children discover how the Dutch tackle drugs, alcohol and sexual health issues. That's right, it's a field trip. I know the candy factory I toured in 5th grade would have been much better if we went to the cannabis college first.

How do you know that you live in a dangerous place? One sign might be that your country is holding a Miss Landmine pageant. The contestants come from Angola's various provinces and are between 19 and 33. Each woman has a profile that lists not only their ages and favorite colors but also when they were injured and what kind of mine claimed their limbs. All the contestants get help to go back to school or to start a small business and best of all the winner gets a new prosthetic limb. Nike, who is sponsoring the event, says that the pageant proves people with disabilities can still be beautiful and that they would be happy to sponsor next year as well since it only cost half as much as usual.

alphadogg writes "Every day is something like April Fools' Day at the University of California, Berkeley joke recommendation site, dubbed Jester. Now on Version 4.0, the site tosses visitors a handful of jokes to rate on a scale of "less funny" to "more funny." It then recommends jokes based on the user's taste (or lack thereof), dynamically making recommendations based on the user's most recent ratings. Jester's more than a joke jukebox though. Underlying it is a Berkeley-patented "collaborative filtering algorithm" dubbed Eigentaste , now on Version 5.0. The more people who use the system and rate jokes, the more data Berkeley researchers have to advance their understanding of recommendation systems, like those used by Amazon.com and other Web sites."

praps writes "Last summer a 75-year-old woman from central Sweden became the envy of the IT world with her scorching 40Gbps internet connection. 1,500 simultaneous HDTV channels or a whole high definition DVD downloaded in two seconds were hers for the taking. Now Sigbritt Löthberg could soon be treated to an incredible 100 Gbps link — but it may not be put to great use. According to the head of the ultra-fast fiber connection project, Sigbritt mostly used the gear 'to dry her laundry.'"

Celestis Inc., has pioneered the sending of cremated remains into suborbital space on rockets and now it wants to start a service that would send your ashes to the surface of the moon. The new service starts at $10,000 for a small amount of ashes from one person and could begin as early as next year. The Company currently offers a service that will spread your ashes on the sound stage where the original moon landing was shot for $100.

A barber in Grand Rapids Michigan who had been forced to stop offering beer after authorities told him he was breaking the law, hopes to convince lawmakers to change their minds. He feels that a beer with your haircut is simply old-fashioned service. When will the Nanny State learn that nothing goes as well with a foamy mug of beer as straight razors, scissors and loose hair.