It sounds like it doesn't do what I want "smellophone" to do. It doesn't transmit the smells it's exposed to, just sprays the smell you instruct it to. I can't use it to send my sister the smell of my mother's hot rolls baking while she's away from home during the holidays. I can't use it to send a friend the smell of the pool and the margaritas waiting for them to arrive. I can't use it to receive the smell of my grandmother's house while she's talking to me on the phone or share the smell of the state fair while I'm calling someone from there.

I hope this is the wake up call the school needs to stop the popularity contests all together. They don't add anything to the educational experience or to the festivities. Homecoming would be just as fun, and for some more fun, if they did away with having a Homecoming Court at all. With a high-profile ugly prank like that, the time is perfect to make this year the last year for voting in a Court. If a few boosters or former Kings and Queens or whatever wanted to complain about discontinuing the tradition, the school could quickly silence those complaints by reminding them of what happened this year. If the kids today don't enjoy and respect the tradition enough that they abused it this year for a mean joke, there's no good reason to keep the tradition alive.

I can remember several schools and teachers that did silly things like that regarding bathroom passes to try and discourage kids from leaving class. One teacher made her bathroom pass out of a genuine full size toilet seat. But in reality, it didn't make a lot of difference. The kids that were going to ask to be excused needlessly and meander around in the hall still did and not any more or less so than in classes where the bathroom policy was less theatrical.
If a kid needs to be excused, they should simply excuse them. If a kid is being excused more than is ordinary, it should be addressed with just that student. Maybe there's a health issue. Maybe there's a time management issue. Maybe they're just wanting to skip out for a minute. The teacher is missing a "super important opportunity" to be a responsible adult.

How rude to the other diners! No one should have to sit at a table next to someone relieving themselves in a porta potty. If you're paying to dine out, you should be able to expect that the other diners will be living up to our culture's standards for table ettiquette, and that generally means not being naked and most certainly means not using the bathroom at the table. Why on earth did management allow this to go on? If the restaurant didn't have the basic decency to tell the mother that her kids needed to be in appropriate dress and couldn't potty in the dining room, I hope they at least comped the rest of the patrons' meals.

Creepy. There's no way I would have accepted a proposal from someone willing to pull that kind of sick prank. And shame on the folks like the actors and make-up people and writers and such that went along with it. I wouldn't have accepted a job to do something that twisted.

Moderation is almost always the best solution. Seems parenting is no exception.

Ifiscal- I agree with you! If junk mailers had to pay a reasonable rate for their mailing, they'd have to put a lot more thought into what they sent and to whom they mailed it. That would really reduce postal workload and costs. I'm for bulk mailers getting a reduced rate, that makes sense, encouraging bulk customers with discounts is just good business practice, but really the junk mail rate must be way too low.

I agree that there is probably a lot of abuse and if catching some of the willful abusers helps keep mailing rates low, I'm for it. However, it sounds like some stuff like girlalive mentioned is excessive. They shouldn't be inspecting and differentiating to that extent. The folks that are including a sheet of paper in with a book aren't the abusers that are deliberately scamming the system and costing us all money. It's the people doing lots of online auction items that aren't media and shipping them all media mail that are probably the main real issue.

Plus, I don't like that the one who RECEIVES the mail gets charged the extra postage. It should be the one who SENT the mail who gets billed if anyone. Especially in situations like online auctions, you didn't have any control over how the shipper shipped the package. You just saw their shipping rate listed, saw that as acceptable, bid accordingly with that rate in mind, and paid them for your purchase. You didn't ask them to ship fraudulently. You didn't plan to pay extra. Sure, on some things you could just refuse it and let it be shipped back, but some times, it's something you really wanted/needed and can't send back now. Plus, that would be MORE drain on the postal service, to ship things, and then have them refused and have to ship them back to the sender. It would have been cheaper and easier to just deliver the package.

I don't think weird is bad at all. Weird is just that something is outside of the majority or expected norm. It's not saying that whatever the weird people or doing is even bad, just that it's different. And there's nothing inherently wrong with being different and nothing wrong with pointing out when things are different.

Where's the level for the folks that post "first"? I'm thinking somewhere in the 8th circle?

I had these little colored chicks as a kid. Mine were a pink one and a blue one and they grew up to be two white chickens.

Zhoen- They're not disposable. They're a much longer lasting present than candy or eggs or such. The chickens grow up and you get to raise them and harvest their eggs or meat. It's a great experience for kids. Kids should have more contact with animals, especially food producing animals. Too many kids today are too disconnected from where their food comes from. You should see first hand as a youngster that a chicken nugget wasn't always a chicken nugget, but rather was once a little fluffy chick and a big warm feathery chicken. You build responsibility that way, not just in the learning to care for the chickens, but in learning the value of responsible farming and eating,too. The chickens are Easter fun and a real learning experience.

Hairspray works wonderfully well. It's the alcohol in the hairspray that does the job. But it's diluted enough that you won't bleach or dry out or otherwise damage the dog's hair or gentle skin with it.

The guy who did it just to see who came to his funeral and only had one mourner got exactly what he deserved. If you're heartless enough to stage your own death and cause grief to your loved ones to satisfy your own curiosity, you don't deserve to have any loved ones. He shouldn't have been surprised in the slightest that no one came to pay respects to such a cruel and selfish man. Hopefully, not even his mom shows up when it's not a hoax.