37 posts tagged “thursday”

clipped from www.wtop.com

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) - Firefighters had to tear though a wall to rescue an intoxicated man who became stuck while trying to climb down a chimney into the residence of his former girlfriend.

Alejandro Valencio said he was drunk when he got into the chimney about 3:30 a.m. Tuesday.

"Everyone do stupid things sometimes when they're drunk," he said.

Firefighters requested assistance from police after arriving because they said Connie Deweese was hampering the rescue effort by blocking the fireplace.

"I told them to leave him in the chimney and let him die," said Deweese, who received misdemeanor citations for disorderly conduct and interfering with a firefighter.

Deweese said she had known Valencio for about eight months but had told him to stay away from her residence. She said she locked the doors but "somehow he got to the roof."

"I've dated a lot of psychos in my life, but nobody like that," Deweese said.

clipped from www.npr.org

"We wondered ourselves, you know, what's the best way to be washing an apple, or the best way to be washing a pear," said Jack Bishop, editor at Cook's Illustrated.

So the magazine did some comparative testing, by cleaning apples and pears in four different ways. They washed one batch with an antibacterial soap. (That, by the way, is not recommended by food safety experts — nobody thinks swallowing soap is a good idea.)

They washed other pieces of fruit with a solution of diluted vinegar (one part vinegar to three parts water), rinsing afterward with pure water. They scrubbed the third group with a brush, and simply rinsed the fourth group with clean water.

But the cleaning method that worked the best was the dilute vinegar rinse. It removed 98 percent of the bacteria.

clipped from www.denverpost.com

The resin shoes invented in Boulder and worn internationally - universally known as Crocs - are the talk of the industry again, though not for their comfort or appeal.

The growing chatter is from parents complaining that the shoes - not just Crocs, but other look-alike rubbery foam footwear and flip-flips - are getting caught in the teeth and sides of escalators, at times pulling the toes of their screaming children into the mechanism.

The most recent incident is that of a 4-year-old Crocs wearer in Tysons

Corner, Va., whose small shoe snagged in a mall escalator Aug. 31. Though the boy's mother insists that he was "standing still" and that "his foot wasn't near this edge," the left shoe was somehow pulled into the moving stairs, nearly tearing off his big toenail.

The phenomenon of rubbery shoes getting caught on escalators isn't new. The same issue arose in the 1960s when English-traditional Wellington Boots - which reach a wearer's knees - became snagged.