Steve Valdez of Tampa, Florida had a check written to him from his wife. He took a check to her bank to cash it. Bank of America requires a thumbprint to cash a check from anyone who does not hold an account there. The problem is that Valdez was born without arms. The bank refused to cash the check.

According to Valdez, when he gave the teller the check, she said "Obviously you can't give a thumbprint." But Valdez says the manager refused to cash the check unless he did.

When Valdez told the manager giving a thumbprint would be impossible, she suggested he either bring in his wife or open an account. Valdez says that's not the way the bank would treat someone without prosthetic arms, and he refused.

A spokesman for Bank of America said that the bank should have made accommodations for Valdez. Link -via J-Walk Blog

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It was a simple slip of the tongue, but the bride’s and groom’s nerves turned the ceremony into a real hoot! -via Buzzfeed

Denise Woodage of Reading, England told a court that the sight of her neighbor naked put her off men and sausages for life. 53-year old Paul Darlow was arrested for indecent exposure after Woodage saw him naked in his garden.

The 54-year-old, who is mum to Hazel, 26, told the Post she was now anti-men as a result of seeing Darlow’s “pale and hairy” body in the November chill and is now on anti-depressants.Mrs Woodage, who does not work, first saw the 53-year-old flashing in March 2008. She complained to police and they installed CCTV.

In November 2008 – after capturing Darlow on film flashing his bits yet again – he was arrested and charged with indecent exposure.

He initially denied the incidents but during his trial, before Judge Zoë Smith, he confessed to touching himself outdoors

Darlow was sentenced to six weeks jail time. Link -via Arbroath

Italian artist Lyle Rowell rides slowly on a 1,900 pound mechanical animal that breathes fire! It walks on two front legs and rolls on two back wheels. He calls it Lrry.

The contraption is the product of four months of Rowell “crawling around in the scrap and dirt” to gather parts that he liked. He took an engine from an old Volkswagen Bug–like Citroën and stuffed it into two chopped-up and welded-together motorcycle frames. Aside from propane for Lrry’s fire breath, Rowell was able to scrounge up nearly every part, all the way down to the linkages and sprockets.

The beast spits fire from the back end, too. http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2009-08/fire-breathing-robo-beast (with video) -via Metafilter

(image credit: Elle Dunn)

Research shows that playing the video game Tetris can improve your brain’s efficiency and will thicken some areas of the cortex. Neuroscientist Richard Haier had adolescent girls play Tetris for three months and looked for changes in their brain scans.

Three months of Tetris playing had two distinct effects on the brains of research subjects: Some areas in the brain showed greater efficiency (the blue areas in the diagram above), and different areas showed thicker cortexes, which is a sign of more grey matter (red). This, says the doctors who undertook the study, shows that focusing on a “challenging visuospatial task” like a videogame can actually alter the structure of the brain, not just increase brain activity [Wired.com]. But surprisingly, there was no overlap between the regions that became more efficient and those that thickened. Haier says more research must be done to determine how different areas of the brain interact during game playing

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How do you get a family of duckling out of the pool? All they need are the right tools! -via Arbroath

There have been many studies about what body part attracts the opposite sex, but few studies that compare the importance of body parts to each other. A new study suggests that people assign more importance to faces than bodies when they are looking for a long-term relationship. For a potential short-term relationship, men assigned slightly more importance to the appearance of a woman’s body, while women cared more about a man’s face.

Statistical analysis of men rating women indicated that, even though both the body and face ratings were significant positive predictors of the ratings given to the combined images, the face ratings were stronger predictors of the combined ratings. It was also observed that the ratings for combined images was slightly higher for short term relationships as compared to long term relationships. One other significant observation – when the short term and long term relationship data were analyzed separately, the body ratings stood as more significant predictors to the combined ratings than face ratings, for short term relationships. In the case of females rating men, similar to men – the body and face ratings were both significant predictors with the face ratings being very strong predictors as compared to the body ratings. However, females ratings for men did not show any difference under the short term and long term decisions.

This only makes sense, as we tend to cover our bodies most of the time, but you have to look at that face a lot. http://www.scitechbits.com/2009/08/31/what-makes-them-hot-body-or-face/ -via Digg

It was 40 years ago today, September 2, 1969 that scientists connected two computers at UCLA with a 15-foot cable and the machines were able to communicate with each other. The test data was meaningless, but the breakthrough eventually led to the formation of the internet, but there were plenty of other milestones. Which date is the birthday of the internet?

September 2, 1969: First time two computers communicated with each other.

Oct 29, 1969: Message sent from computer to computer in different locations.

1971: The first email was sent.

Jan 1, 1983: ARPANET adopted the standard TCP/IP protocol.

March 1989: Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web.

April 22, 1993: Mosaic became the first web browser.

Which date should we designate as the birthday of the internet? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/6125925/Internet-celebrates-40th-birthday-but-what-date-should-we-be-marking.html -via Buzzfeed

(image credit: Flickr user lemonfridge)

A 65-year-old amateur pilot was arrested for flying drunk after a rescue helicopter had to guide him to the airfield in Schoengleida, Germany. He had drunk wine and beer before taking off, and continued to drink while flying.

''Come on, I know you're down there,'' he radioed. ''Where the bloody hell have you hidden yourself?''

Control tower staff say he also sang a few songs, cracked a mother-in-law joke and told them to ''pull their fingers out as I've got a party to go to''.

Fearing instrument failure, the tower scrambled a rescue helicopter, which homed in on the man in clear-blue skies west of the airport, and gave instructions for the pilot to follow it back.

The unnamed man was able to land the Cessna, and “wobbled” to his car. Airfield authorities called police, who arrested the man on his way home. He tested over four times the legal limit for driving. Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Flickr user jon gos)

You would probably recognize the voices of the announcers on National Public Radio, but how well do you know their faces? Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss might be an exercise in futility, but you’ll soon find out what face goes with which name. I only got one right out of the 12, which just shows that I didn’t go to the NPR website and cheat! Link

This morning, Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar announced they are expecting their 19th child in March. 42-year-old Michelle Dugger was surprised to find she is pregnant only eight months after the birth of her 18th child. The Duggars have a show on The Learning Channel (TLC) called “18 Kids and Counting”. Their first grandchild is due in October. Link -via J-Walk Blog

72-year-old Dawn Fraser confronted two teenage home intruders at her daughter’s home in Noosaville, Australia. One attacked her, thinking a little old lady wouldn’t resist much. What he didn’t realize was that Frazer has always been a tough lady.

"Out came this guy who then grabbed me around the throat and said 'I will kill you', and with that I grabbed him around the ear and hair and kneed him in the groin," she told Channel Seven television late Monday.

"I was threatened by the way he spoke to me and I'd never been spoken to like what he called me ... I think I lost it. I have got a titanium knee so it must have hurt him," she said.

The two youths were referred to child services. Fraser {wiki} won eight Olympic medals for swimming in 1956, 1960, and 1964, including four gold medals for Australia. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gy8dawMRBGvB2bk1VtWL7HjObs9w

Last year, the state of Utah mandated a four-day work week for state employees. The salaries and number of hours each worker put in remained the same as the workday became longer, but offices were closed on Fridays.

After 12 months, Utah's experiment has been deemed so successful that a new acronym could catch on: TGIT (thank God it's Thursday). The state found that its compressed workweek resulted in a 13% reduction in energy use and estimated that employees saved as much as $6 million in gasoline costs. Altogether, the initiative will cut the state's greenhouse-gas emissions by more than 12,000 metric tons a year. And perhaps not surprisingly, 82% of state workers say they want to keep the new schedule.

Even those who do not work for the state have benefitted since offices are open later Monday through Thursday. Other states and businesses are looking at the results and may possibly try the schedule out. Link -via Digg

Iraq’s missing Air Force jets have been traced to Serbia, where they are mostly in pieces. They have been cannibalized, parted out, or left to deteriorate over he past twenty years.

Iraqi officials said they found the planes in the process of trying to trace what Saddam, the former dictator, did with the country's military assets. The 19 planes, all Soviet-built, were sent in 1989 to a Yugoslav maintenance plant in Zagreb, in what is now Croatia, but never got the overhauls they needed.

In 1991, when the Croatian war for independence broke out, the jets were transported to Serbia in parts. And there they remained.

A delegation from Iraq will go to Belgrade to negotiate the return of the jets, but they are unlikely to help Iraq rebuild its air defenses. The Iraqi Air Force currently has no jets. Link -via Fark

Rambo, Mr. Spock, The Joker. One thing they all have in common is that the characters were almost discarded before they had a chance. Read the stories of 7 Iconic Characters They Saved from The Cutting Room Floor and the people who believed in them. This article from Cracked is worth a read just for the early concept drawing of Batman, but all the stories are interesting. Link -via Gorilla Mask