Sideswipe

Mike Lahood writes: "AUT is running a course for people whose first language is not English. The course is called "Improve and Understand English Pronunciation". The publicity flyer for the course includes the words prosodic, phonemes, allophones, phonotactics. Meaningless to most of us, but I expect new immigrants will understand." 

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Things that only happen in movies:

* Finding a park directly outside or opposite the building you are visiting.

* If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps.

* Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to learn to speak German. Simply speaking English with a German accent will do. Similarly, when they are alone, all German soldiers prefer to speak English to each other.

* The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window of any building in Paris.

* If you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts, your opponents will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around you in a threatening manner until it is their turn.

* The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place. Nobody will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building undetected.

* A single match is usually sufficient to light up a room the size of a football stadium.

* One man shooting at 20 men has a better chance of killing them all than 20 men firing at once (it's called Stallone's Law).

* Plain girls can become movie star pretty simply by removing their glasses and rearranging their hair.

* All beds have special L-shaped sheets that reach to armpit level on a woman but only up to the waist of the man lying beside her.

* During all police investigations it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.

* Any police officer about to retire from the force will more often than not die on their last day (especially if their family have planned a party). Also: Detectives can only solve a case after they have been suspended from duty.

(Source: nostalgiacentral.com)

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Dennis Phillips doesn't like garage doors on the front of houses. He says they belong on the side or even the rear. His opinion wouldn't matter much, except he's a city councillor in Franklin, Tennessee. And he has convinced a majority of his fellow council members to back a ban on front garage doors on new houses, even though developers say it will require larger sections and hurt the city's push for more-affordable housing. (Source: reason.com)

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A personal ad - unlikely to be successful: "Does anyone want to come over and cuddle with me while we watch my videotape of Princess Diana's funeral? I also have extensive news footage of both the wreck in Paris and the weeping crowds in London. Then of course I have the entire funeral service itself, followed by the hearse's drive to her final resting place at Althorp. I'd love to watch this again while cuddling with a cute boy on the couch, eating popcorn and maybe having a little fun if the chemistry is right. Send me a clear face pic and please be under 28. Thanks!"