The clash between Chinese and Swedish table manners highlights how different cultures define politeness and intimacy. Dr. Martin Rundkvist of Aardvarchaeology is married to a Chinese immigrant to Sweden. Her life entails switching back and forth between being polite to those with whom you are familiar and reserving formal manners to those to whom you are not particularly close. This shows how much more there is to learn about a culture than just the language! Commenters at the post add their experiences in how other cultures would react. Link

53-year-old Eddie House of San Carlos, California recycles, composts, and finds homes for his discarded items. He reduced his household waste to the point that he cancelled his garbage pickup service last year. His reward is a lawsuit from the city!

The lawsuit, filed by San Carlos Deputy City Attorney Linda Noeske in San Mateo Superior Court on Jan. 22, seeks a permanent injunction forcing House to maintain garbage service. City officials are also seeking to recoup from House the costs of the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims House broke the city’s municipal code requiring all residential, commercial and industrial properties to contract with Allied Waste for pickup at least once a week — a standard requirement in most cities, San Carlos Deputy City Manager Brian Moura said.

Moura said the suit was the result of complaints from neighbors about House burning garbage. House says he only burns wood. http://www.examiner.com/a-1187195~City_sues_man_for_canceling_trash_service.html -via Geek Like Me

(image credit: Juan Carlos Pometta Betancourt/The Examiner)

The annual Edwardian Ball in San Francisco pays homage to author Edward Gorey. SF Weekly has photos from the ball held Saturday, with commentary in rhyming alphabet, Gorey-style! Link -Thanks, Janine Kahn!

Police are investigating how a 14-year old boy passed himself off as a Chicago police officer for an entire shift. When he showed up for work in uniform, the teen was assigned a patrol in a squad car. He never drove or handled a gun, but the deception was not noticed until his shift was over.

Assistant Superintendent James Jackson said the ruse was discovered only after the boy's patrol with an actual officer ended Saturday. Officers noticed his uniform lacked a star that is part of the regulation uniform.

Police said they were investigating how the deception went undetected for so long in what they described as a serious security breach.

Police didn't identify the boy because of his age. He has been charged as a juvenile with impersonating an officer.

Link -via J-Walk Blog

Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss deals with a character from The Simpsons.

Of all the brilliant characters the writers of The Simpsons have gifted to popular culture over the years, Ralph Wiggum is one of the few who make me giddily happy to the point of embarrassment. Something about his absurdist oddballism speaks to everything fundamentally great about inspired comedy writing.

How much do you know about Ralph Wiggum? Since I don't watch TV, I didn't even try the quiz. You, no doubt, will do better. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/22058

The Uros people of Lake Titicaca along the border of Bolivia and Peru live on man-made floating islands constructed of reeds! The group developed this system to protect themselves from invaders, and now it protects their culture from unwanted contact and assimilation. The thick layers of reeds must be replenished several times a year. Link -Thanks, RJ Evans!

(image credit: Flickr user Yan-Di Chang)

Scriball is a simple physics game that will suck up your day. Guide one ball to the other ball with a line you draw. Easy to understand once you get started, but you'll drive yourself crazy trying to figure out what strategy to use, especially once you get past the first level. Link -via Metafilter

A vigilante group in Ilorin, Nigeria apprehended a group of would-be car thieves, including one man who turned himself into a goat!

It was a shocking sight yesterday as men of the Kwara State Police Command paraded a goat as an armed robbery suspect.

The goat "suspect" is being detained over an alleged attempt to snatch a Mazda car. The mysterious goat, according to the Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Tunde Mohammed, while briefing bewildered journalists at the Force headquarters, is an armed robber who attempted to snatch the said car, Wednesday night, and later transformed into the goat in a bid to escape arrest.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/content/view/27049/42/ -Thanks Geekazoid!

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The Eyebrow Dance is an appropriate followup to the Moustache Dance, don't you think? It's the latest ad for Cadbury. -via Viral Video Chart

These modular shoes can convert to several different styles just by using the zippers! Hey, you never know when you'll have to stop at a beach on the way to a basketball game. They were noticed at a fashion show in Barcelona on Thursday. Link -Thanks, robert basler!

In a story reminiscent of the Great Boston Molasses Flood, 10,000 gallons of cattle feed, consisting mostly of molasses, spilled out of a tank owned by Performance Plus, a business in Twin Falls, Idaho.

The molasses substance seeped into an auto repair business and an adjoining trailer park after leaking from a storage tank.

General manager of Performance Plus Matt Beed says the company has hired a backhoe contractor to clean up the molasses. Clean up could take up to two weeks.

Link -via Fark

Check out this marvelous Barack Obama action figure that makes him look like a cross between Chuck Norris and James Bond! The site (with lots more pictures) is in Japanese, so I don't know if this is for sale or not. Link -Thanks, Steve Temkin, James, and McKenzie Kerman!

The Big Picture at The Boston Globe has an awesome collection of large photographs that give a glimpse of the pageantry, pathos, and the enormous crowd at Tuesday's inauguration events. Over a million people were in attendance, with millions more following the festivities by TV and internet all over the world. This collection has pictures of both. Shown are attendees taking footage by phone at one of the inaugural balls. Link -via Cynical-C

(image credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

In a new book, an Argentine historian asserts that Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele is responsible for the astonishing rate of twins in Candido Godoi, Brazil. Jorge Camarasa makes the claim that Mengele ministered to both humans and livestock of the town during the 1960s under the name Rudolph Weiss in the book Mengele: the Angel of Death in South America.

For years scientists have failed to discover why as many as one in five pregnancies in a small Brazilian town have resulted in twins – most of them blond haired and blue eyed.

But residents of Candido Godoi now claim that Mengele made repeated visits there in the early 1960s, posing at first as a vet but then offering medical treatment to the women of the town.

The normal rate of twin births is one out of every 80 pregnancies. Link -via Reddit

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Alexandra and Lizz encourage YouTube commenters to learn proper grammar and spelling, and scale back on the hate talk. -via Everlasting Blort