• now this is some seriously awesome technology: a brazilian man on business in germany got an alert on his cell phone that his home security cameras (that is, home in brazil) detected something amiss. so he logged on to his laptop and witnessed LIVE a man robbing his house! he called his wife, who wasn't at the house but was in his hometown in brazil, and she called the cops. they were able to tell the police where exactly in the house the man was and what he looked like, and they caught him! i am usually a little freaked out by the whole big brother/cameras everywhere thing, but, man, that's cool!
• breast cancer rates are dropping! in 2003, they decreased by 7.2%. while that's not a gigantic decrease, that equals 14,000 fewer people diagnosed with breast cancer. and that's awesome! they say it's because fewer women are using hormone replacement therapy. while it is a far cry from a cure, it is exciting when doctors and researchers begin finding ways to have an impact on awful diseases like this.
• see this picture? it's cute, right? kinda funny? what's even funnier is the article it accompanied. the article, from ecanadanews.com, discusses recent findings that circumcision can reduce a heterosexual man's risk of contracting HIV or AIDS by up to 50%. and that perhaps circumcising all newborn boys is a great HIV prevention strategy. an interesting scientific study. i just find it hillarious that the people who posted this story on this site decided to put this picture with it. ha! i guess canadians aren't too big on circumcision. :)
• ha! okay, i might have to start making google news my primary news source. i also found this article (accompanied by the equally hillarious photo to the left) there. we all know texans are a little loopy (no offense texans, god bless ya), but allowing blind people to hunt? say wha?! well, they'd have to use a laser scope and a spotter (which, as a non-hunter i'm not positive, but i assume a "spotter" is another person). and the most ridiculous part of it is that there are 15 other states that allow blind people to hunt with these regulations. now i'm all about some equal opportunity-ness, but, uh, blind people honestly shouldn't be given weapons. that said, there are PLENTY of sighted people who shouldn't be given weapons, too. aw, hell, let's just take all the weapons away. that'll fix it. ;-) by the way, the representative who introduced this bill in texas says something along the lines of, "blind people can get a drivers license, so they can drive themselves there, but then they can't hunt." um.... is that true? can blind people get drivers licenses? 'cause that seems pretty odd, too..... again, i must reinforce the fact that i love all people, whether you can see or not. but there are just some things that some people shouldn't be able to do........
  
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• the story of this father in oregon who set out in the bitter cold to find help for his stranded wife and two daughters is so sad. i don't even know what to say about it, except that i felt like i needed to acknowledge the story because it is touching and, in some ways, inspiring. officials say he walked over 10 miles before finally succumbing to the elements and dying. in street clothes. i just envision this man so determined to save his family, yet so miserable, yet he kept going until he could absolutely not go any more. the worst part to me is that he was found just about half a mile from his car. he had sort of made a circle. it doesn't seem he was headed back to the car, but, had he been, there probably wouldn't have been much that could have been done for him anyway, since they were still stranded. it's just so sad. my heart goes out to his wife and daughters... :(
• britney apologizes for being a little out of control. on her website, she said this about her recent partying and hoo-hoo flashing: "It's also been 2 years since I've even celebrated my birthday. Every move I make at this point has been magnified more than I expected, and I probably did take my newfound freedom a little too far. Anyway, thank God for Victoria's Secrets' new underwear line! I look forward to a new year, new music and a new me." hey, at least she can make fun of herself... now get your act together, girl, and go be a mother to your sons!
• seriously, do we really need chewable birth control pills? they say this will help women who sometimes forget to take their pills. how exactly?? this little sucker can either be chewed up and tastes like peppermint, or you can just swallow it like a regular pill. i find this incredibly odd. and would like to place a bet with anyone willing to go in on it with me that this will not be on the market within a maximum of 2 years. if they made it gum that might be different. but a chewable pill? that you still have to drink 8 oz. of water with? dumb.
  
• hey this is cool, they found some evidence of water on mars! my husband and i went to this astronomy night at penn state last year (we are complete and utter dorks and proud of it) where they did a virtual tour of mars. i am so fascinated by space and other planets and all that. and i'm of the school of thought that believes there must be something else out there. not necessarily little green men, but something. so anyway, i just think it would be cool if in my lifetime they found some evidence somewhere else of some kind of life, and water on a planet apparently is the first clue that it could be there......

• in case you were concerned, kevin federline says he is doing just fine in spite of the fact that britney's divorcing him. 'cause i know everyone was concerned...
• glad my mom wasn't big on extreme punishment. a 12-year-old kid in columbia, sc was arrested after his mom found out he went in some stuff at his great-grandma's and opened up his christmas present early--a gameboy--and started playing with it. mom called the cops and they came and arrested the kid and took him to the police station in handcuffs! he was charged with petty larceny. mom said she wanted to teach him a lesson, that he's always just done stuff and gotten away with it. but no more! this reminds me of the time when i was about 9 that my mom had pre-wrapped every single one of my christmas presents and put them all in a bag on top of her closet. well, i was a latch-key kid, so one day after school when she was at work, i went in there, took the bag down, and carefully unwrapped enough of each present to see what it was (i mean every single one!) and then re-wrapped it. except this one barbie outfit. i tore the paper accidentally, so i decided i'd tuck that outfit away in my room until christmas morning, then once i got all the new toys in my room i would just sneak that in there and hope she didn't notice that she never saw me unwrap it. you know, she would just think that she had forgotten seeing me open that one. well, smart as i thought i was, my mom was smarter. when she saw me playing with that outfit she knew exactly what i had done! :) i need to ask her if she knew i had done that BEFORE she saw the outfit or not. i think the outfit was what gave me away. so probably the better plan would have been to never bring that outfit out again at all and then she would have just thought it got lost somewhere or something... oh well, i was 9... i was deceitful, but not masterfully so. :) i would also like to note that knowing what i was getting kinda took all the fun out of christmas morning and i have insisted ever since then that my parents not even show me the packages of my presents until christmas morning. even when i was still spending christmas eve night at my dad's house well into my twenties, i would make him keep all my presents in his room until i went to bed. retarded? perhaps. but man does it make christmas fun! (i make my husband do this too. i guess you could stay i still believe in santa claus. :) )

• E-A-G-L-E-S Eagles! Can you believe it? My boys actually won a game last night, without fearless leader Donovan McNabb! Hallelujah! I certainly don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but we're back tied with Atlanta, the Giants and Carolina... the playoffs aren't TOTALLY out of our future, although I gotta be a bit of a negative nancy and say I don't really see another Eagles superbowl in my near future...
  
• Grey's Anatomy: possibly my favorite show right now. God, it is just SO GOOD! Apparently I get no more until January, but that's alright. This is the time of year when I need to be doing things besides watching TV anyway, so the little "winter hiatus" is good for me.
  
• What a screwy world we live in where Play Station 3 is causing such a commotion. Some kid in North Carolina was killed by police yesterday when they went to arrest him for stealing 2 PS3s from a fellow student. His dog was shot to death by police, too. Say what? No evidence the kid was armed, and, from the article, no freaking clue why they had to kill the kid. Arg. Can't we all just get along? I feel like I am living in some weird world where it's going to turn Brave New World or 1984 on me at any second... or at least where it is inching closer and closer to that every day...
  
• Another reason to eat at Chipotle: 22 people were sickened by e. coli linked to several Taco Bell restaurants in New Jersey. Such a shame. First of all that people got so sick, because e. coli ain't no joke, but second of all because I still do like Taco Bell, even though I eat Chipotle twice a week and Taco Bell now maybe once every two months. Hopefully this won't hurt Taco Bell even more, because I am sure they're suffering in areas where Chipotle has brought its wonderousness. Now I'm hungry.
  
• Some people can come up with really good excuses for doing really bad things. Like this one from a man in Easton, PA who pleaded guilty to molesting two little girls: "My wife's bingo habit made me do it." I throw the BS flag on that one! He says if his wife had been home more he wouldn't have had to molest those two girls... people are so freaking dumb. And the thing that got me the most is he tried to use this excuse on a female judge. Her response is priceless: "Some people, when their wives are not home, decide to do other things, like clean their living rooms." Amen, sistah!
  
• So there's this guy, Percy Walton, on death row in Virginia. His execution has been postponed several times because they are trying to decide if he's mentally capable of understanding his punishment, i.e. that he killed some folks and so he is going to die for it and will then be dead, forever. (I am not making this up, this is how they decide if someone is mentally capable of being executed.) I have been blessed with no situations in my life that make me truly reflect on what I think about the death penalty, so I won't get into that debate. What I found interesting, and--while the situation isn't funny--somewhat amusing, is that his fellow inmates on death row are writing letters to the Associated Press on his behalf. Now, I don't know, I've never heard of it happening before, but maybe it's common practice for fellow death row inmates to write letters in support of not killing another inmate. But this time, they are writing to say how wacky he is. Some of the ways they describe him: "nuttier than a fruitcake," "crazy as a bed bug," and "a walking talking cukoo (sic) bird." To me, if the crazy bastards on death row think you're that crazy, then you probably are. The part that sort of amuses me is that I can just picture these dudes sitting in their cells writing these letters and getting to the part where they want to say how crazy he is and they write, "Percy is..." and sit up and think about how they can say it best, shake their heads a little, then write "nuttier than a fruitcake." Because you know in this situation, plain ol' "crazy" just doesn't cut it. I don't know... maybe you have to be in my head to see the humor in it... so enough of my craziness. :)
• Well, that's all the news I got for now. Back to work.