No. 454 - May 22, 2008
Is 2:42 the Perfect Length for the Perfect Song?

POP PERFECTION
Some nut on the web has declared that the perfect length for a pop tune is two minutes and 42 seconds. Songs under two minutes are definitely too short, writes Joshua Allen, calling them “songs that just take up space there on the LP, a fragment that no one bothered to make work.” Songs over three minutes have even bigger problems: “Three minutes is where bloat starts to set in. Where the band thinks: Hey, let’s do the chorus seven times. Hey, let’s give the saxophone guy a real moment to shine on this one.” So what clocks in at the perfect length of 2:42? “There She Goes” by the La’s, “Don’t Do Me Like That” by Tom Petty, “Divine Hammer” by the Breeders, “Helplessly Hoping” by Crosby, Stills & Nash, “Get Up” by R.E.M., “California Dreamin’” by the Mamas & the Papas, “This Charming Man” by the Smiths, and “Lovely Rita” by the Beatles. Descent, but not convincing... cool thing is you can download the mix tape of his 12 perfect 2:42 songs at TheMorningNews.org.

MONEY FOR NOTHING, LITERALLY
If you’ve ever wished you could get paid for doing absolutely nothing get your lazy ass down to the NASA Human Test Subject Facility in Houston, Texas, where they will pay you a big fat payday of $17,000 to lie in bed for 90 straight days. This torturously dull experiment will allow scientists to study the effects of microgravity on the human body and will require you to lie down with your head slightly tilted downward 24 hours a day except for very brief breaks in some of the tests. (Wired Blog)

MORE TOYS FOR THE RICH AND BORED
While the American company Thunderbolt Aerosystems gets ready to sell the first personal jet pack next month (get yours for $90,000 at Thunderman.net) the Mexican firm Technologia Aeroespacial Mexicana has almost perfected the world’s first strap-on helicopter. Billed as the lightest helicopter in the world, the Libelula is powered by two tiny hydrogen rockets and can be strapped onto a person with a carbon fiber corset. Check it out at Tecaeromex.com

WHILE SINGLE-HANDEDLY SOLVING UNEMPLOYMENT IN NIGERIA
According to the technodorks, this month marks the 30th anniversary of the very first spam e-mail ever sent, a sales letter from a marketer named Gary Thuerk to promote a product presentation given by his company Digital Equipment Corporation. These days Gary helps out companies who fight spammers, but he doesn’t accept the blame for the modern plague of junk e-mail. "If the airline loses your luggage do you blame the Wright brothers?" he asks. (Tech.Yahoo.com)

YOU HAVE SPAM!
Speaking of spam, here’s one from the usually empty "poetic justice" department: According to Microsoft executive Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates is probably the most spammed person in the world, receiving over 4 million emails every day, a good 3.9 million of them probably promising to make his MicroSoft MegaHard.

THE REAL REASON MEN LOVE STUPID WOMEN
A survey of 2000 women between the ages of 18 and 49 found that the more educated a woman is the harder it is for her to have an orgasm. The German researchers concluded that smart women are too busy thinking to relax long enough to really enjoy sex. According to the stats 62 per cent of university-educated women said they often have problems achieving orgasm compared to only 38 per cent of less educated women. (TheSun.co.uk)

SO DROP OUT OF COLLEGE AND START BANGING AWAY
On the other hand, another German researcher from the Hamburg Medical Research Institute claims that regular sex makes people more intelligent. According to his research increased amounts of adrenaline and cortisol hormones stimulate your brain during sex, potentially increasing your intelligence, while an added injection of endorphins and serotonin during an orgasm helps strengthens your self confidence. (Iol.co.za)

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE NAPALM
If you read enough Japanese you can now order the “Dangerbomb” alarm clock which looks like a ticking time bomb and gives you about three minutes to get your ass out of bed and deactivate it before it really rattles your brain with a disturbingly loud fake explosion to get you going in the morning. Get yours at www.To-conne.co.jp/trd/

IT’S WAAAY PAST THIS KID’S BEDTIME
If you’ve ever been a new parent suffering from sleep deprivation you’ll sympathize with a couple in Florida whose 3-year-old son has never slept in his entire life. The boy is suffering from an extremely rare medical condition called chiari malformation which puts pressure on this brain in such a way that he is unable to sleep at night. "(My husband) has the day shift and I kind of have the afternoon shift," said his mom. "We share the night shift because no one can sleep in the house when he is up anyway." The boy is scheduled for experimental surgery to try to relieve the condition. (Local6.com)

HEY, YOU SAID YOU WANTED A BAD GIRL
A Romanian man has filed a complaint with his local consumer protection agency after receiving an unsatisfactory blowjob from a prostitute. In his complaint, Adrian Craciunoiu said that "She didn’t do her best and even scratched me because she missed some of her teeth...I was honest with her and paid my debts but what did I get? Bad services and even lesions." (Ananova)

I-READ-IT-ON-THE-INTERNET-SO-IT-MUST-BE-TRUE FACT OF THE WEEK
The smell of cat urine acts as an aphrodisiac for mice.

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