KEY POINTS:
Doug Humby, who snapped this sign on the 100K Flyer cycle race course from Rotorua to Taupo, says, "Cyclists go too fast sometimes".
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Eight-year-old Eathan Harris was originally suspended from Harris Park Elementary School in Colorado for three days for sniffing a felt pen, but principal Chris Benisch reduced the suspension to one day after complaints from the boy's parents. Harris used a black Sharpie marker to colour a small area on the sleeve of his sweatshirt. A teacher sent him to the principal when she noticed him smelling the marker and his clothing. "It smelled good," Harris said. "They told me that's wrong." Benisch told 9 News.com: "Principals make hundreds of decisions every day based on our best judgment. And in that time, smelling that marker, I felt like, 'Wow, that's a very serious marker'." A toxicologist said while pungent-smelling, pens like this cannot be used to get high.
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A tape by many different names: Evan writes: "If your background is in media (TV, movies etc.) you call it "gaffer tape". If your background is in building or DIY you call it "duct tape". Motor racing crews and fans call it "speed tape" or "panel tape". If you came through the Jedi temple you call it "Force tape". Why "Force tape"? Because it has a light side, a dark side and it binds the universe together."
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Soon after police in Texas arrested Christopher McCuin on suspicion of killing and eating parts of his girlfriend (an ear was found on the stove), animal rights organisation PETA sent a fax demanding that McCuin receive only a vegetarian diet, suggesting that too much meat-eating had already occurred in the case. (Source: News of the Weird)
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Fourteen years ago, Maryland man Chris Clark paid US$20 ($25.37) to register the domain name pizza.com. Last week, he sold it in an online auction for US$2.6 million. Clark bought the name in 1994, when the web was just beginning to commercialise. Back then, he had launched an internet consulting firm and thought the domain would help him score a contract with a pizza company. (Source: BaltimoreSun.com)
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Sideswipe has been part of the Herald landscape for six years today. In that time, more than 1600 columns, 3000 pictures and 800,000 words have been published. The column, generated largely by readers, is one of the best-read parts of the paper and one of its longest-running features. Thanks to the readers who send in contributions (some daily). Keep 'em coming!
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Today's Webpick: Remember W3? The kid's quiz show hosted by Selwyn Toogood? We wonder if NZ First's Peter Brown would've got this question wrong too. Watch it here.
These are the very best online videos from Ana's online magazine Spare Room.
