Since 1975, twelve people have hosted Saturday Night Live five times or more. Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss challenges you to name them. How many can you think of in three minutes? I named six, but I also wasted a lot of time entering names that weren't in "the club." http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/21900

Two Dutch students, Omar Kbiri and Lennard Hulsbos, found themselves on a last-minute trip to Washington, DC to watch the inauguration, thanks to Virgin founder Richard Branson! Branson was at a conference Tuesday in Amsterdam and mentioned he was flying back to the States for the inauguration. The original story in Dutch is available here. An English translation provided by b°b (the full version is in the comments):

To make his speech more interactive, the attendees were allowed to send their questions to the Englishman to a big screen via text-messages. On the question "Can you take 2 broke students to Washington DC?" Branson answered "Yes" immediately. After his speech, the two students stepped inside Bransons’ limousine and drove to the airport where Branson’s private jet was already waiting.

The two ‘poor’ students didn’t even have to pay for their hotel. A sponsor spontaneously offered to pay the bill.

Link to English translation by Google. -Thanks, b°b!

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Mark Winkler spent six months building a machine to fling watermelons and fireballs, just for kicks. Link

We know that men have an easier time losing weight than women do. Why this is so is the subject of a recent study. Nuclear-medicine specialist Dr. Gene-Jack Wang of the Brookhaven National Laboratory conducted a rather sadistic experiment using 23 male and female volunteers. First, they fasted for 17 hours. Then they were presented with a large amount of their favorite food and told to think about something else to reduce their cravings. Meanwhile, they had been injected with a dye and scanned to see what areas of the brain were most active.

When the scans were studied and the results were tallied, it appeared that both sexes were actually able to lower the overall sensation of hunger. In most people, the brain may grow partially habituated to an empty belly over time, and all of Wang's volunteers did a good job of hastening that desensitization. What the men could do that the women couldn't was quit ruminating on food, successfully suppressing — if only temporarily — the conscious desire to eat. The women continued experiencing emotional cravings even if their hunger had subsided.

Wang suspects hormone may play a part in the difference. Link -Thanks, Freshome!

(image credit: Ansgar/zefa/Corbis)

Ochre Jelly recreated Gaius Baltar, Six, Starbuck, and Morbo from Battlestar Galactica in Lego! I looked up pictures of these characters, and found they are pretty much dead-on. Link -Thanks, Ochre Jelly!

Alberto Ocampo was paragliding from San Felix to Antioquia, Colombia when he became entangled in power lines 350 meters above ground.

Fog and cold temperatures hampered the rescue mission, but civil defence forces eventually lowered Ocampo back onto the ground where his family were there to greet him.

Ocampo was hanging for ten hours. Link (with video) -via Arbroath

We’ve all seen them in busy shopping streets and parks, or in front of monuments and tourist attractions: street performers posing as statues. Some whistle when you pass by, some move when you give them money. Some do it as a career, others between jobs. But whatever the case, being a living statue takes guts, strength, creativity and yes, a good deal of exhibitionism.

Environmental Graffiti has photos of 15 living statues, some you'd never know until they moved! Link -via Unique Daily

Two Burmese men were rescued from the waters off Horn Island, in the Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea. They had been floating in a fish cooler for about 25 days! They were survivors from a crew of about 20 Thai and Burmese fishermen whose boat had broken up.

They told rescuers they were forced to crew a 10m-long Thai fishing boat that broke up about 200 nautical miles north of Australia, sources told The Courier-Mail.

As the wooden boat splintered into the ocean, the crew sent out distress signals but were ignored, the men told authorities.

The two survivors climbed into the icebox as other crew searched desperately for something to grab from the wreck.

They saw a Thai man floating past them in the ocean but were unable to help, they said.

It is understood the men managed to survive by drinking rain water that gathered at the bottom of the box and by eating pieces of fish that were also in the container.

http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/01/20/50631_todays-news.html -Thanks, Vit Peyr!

(image credit: Channel 7)

The Flickr photoset of people recreating Gary Larson's Far Side cartoons was a hoot -and so is this competition from Worth 1000. The challenge: recreate a Far Side cartoon using your Photoshop skills. http://www.worth1000.com/contest.asp?contest_id=22649&display=photoshop#entries -via Geek Like Me

While everyone is watching the inauguration events in Washington, a crew of workers will be busy behind the scenes making sure that president Bush is moved out of the White House, and president Obama and his family are moved in. Former chief White House usher Gary Walterstells CNN how it is done.

In the morning, after the Bushes and Obamas depart the executive mansion for the Capitol Hill swearing-in ceremony, moving trucks will roll up to the south side of the White House, Walters said.

The drivers put down their tailgates, allowing most of the White House's 93 staff members to begin unloading Obama family items, he said.

"Staff members all have been given very specific jobs on that day, almost down to the minute as to what their responsibilities are," Walters said.

The move is designed to be seamless, painless and invisible while millions of Washington visitors -- and millions more watching on TV -- follow the inauguration ceremonies and the parade that follows.

By about 5 p.m., before the Obamas move from the parade viewing stand to their new home, the presidential move must be complete.

Link -via Digg

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Released only a couple of weeks ago, Microsoft Songsmith takes your singing and creates a somewhat workable tune around it. YouTube users have fun with it by entering a cappella versions of hit songs to see what music Songsmith comes up with. The results are hilarious, like this cruise ship version of Roxanne by The Police. Pitchfork has a collection of precious Songsmith remixes, with songs by The Cars, Radiohead, The Doobie Brothers, Van Halen, and Oasis. Link -Thanks, Ron!

With all the hoopla surrounding a new president, we sometimes forget what was said in the farewell address of the outgoing president. In today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, test your recall of the last official words from various presidents. Can you match the president with the words of wisdom he dropped on the way out? I couldn't; I got only one right and scored a measly 14%! http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/21828

Datamancer was commissioned to build a computer keyboard for some friends who are Scrabble fans. Most of the keys are actual Scrabble tiles, and the ones that had to be custom-made look just like the real thing. Link -via Gizmodo

Marko Calasan of Skopje, Macedonia is the world's youngest certified computer system administrator at the age of eight. He could get a high-paying job, but he hasn't yet completed third grade!

Marko learnt to read and write at the age of 2 and started working on computers immediately. The news of his extraordinary achievement turned him into a local celebrity and he has even had an audience with the Macedonian Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski, who presented him with an IT lab with 15 computers to practise on.

His parents, who are IT experts and run a computer school for children, are considering sending Marko abroad to a specialised institute of learning for gifted children, as none exists in Macedonia.

Marko passed Microsoft's tests for IT professionals. He says he wants to create a new operational system for computers ...when he grows up. Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Bojan Pancevski)

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Directed by Michelle Lehman, last year's Tropfest Australia winning film, Marry Me, tells a little love story about "a little girl who likes a little boy and a little boy who likes his BMX bike". The film was inspired by a true story when director, Michelle, at 5 years of age, would chase Jason Mahooney around the school in a pretend wedding dress (her mother's nightie).

You go, girl! -via I Am Bored