From The Telegraph (the complete article is here).

Teenage boy blows up the house with deodorant
By David Sapsted
(Filed: 01/06/2006)

A teenager left at home while his parents were on holiday decided to do some washing - and ended up blowing the roof off and causing £35,000 of damage.

In a freak string of mishaps, Sean Davey, 18, left a washing basket full of clothes on top of the electric cooker [stove]. He then accidentally knocked one of the hob controls, turning on one of the rings, before going out to meet friends.

The heated ring set fire to the basket of clothes which, in turn, heated a nearby bag of shopping that his sister Nicky, 20, had left for her brother earlier in the day.

And that caused a can of Sure deodorant to explode with such force that it not only blew out windows but cracked a wall and even, briefly, lifted the roof off the bungalow.

Alan Jaye, the watch manager with Norfolk Fire Service, said: "We would advise families never to expose aerosol cans to any heat."

Excerpted from AP News (the complete article):

Despite his 12 years as an undergraduate student, Johnny Lechner realized something was missing from his academic record: he'd never studied abroad.

And so, the 29-year-old perpetual student who was expected to finally graduate from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater withdrew his application for graduation Monday, five days before commencement.

By this spring he had completed 234 college credits, or about 100 more than needed to graduate, and was taking seven more.

That qualified him for the so-called "slacker tax" [i.e., double tuition], instituted this school year by the UW Board of Regents to help cover the state subsidy for students who stay long past the usual four of five years to earn an undergraduate degree.

Lechner said he didn't start out to be a long-term student, but it just developed once he realized how much fun he was having at college.

To all of my children: enjoy your college years, but keep the goal in view--GRADUATION.  (Congratulations to Adam and Daniel!)

A recently read statistic to ponder: "Fully HALF of all children who grow up in households where a television is on more than four hours a day score below average on standardized tests."

A cause for worry?  Not if I am reading it correctly...

The average squirrel brain is about the size of a walnut and is considered a delicacy in the south.  However, when doctors in Kentucky recently warned squirrel eaters that squirrels may carry a strain of "mad cow disease,"  one Kentucky journalist stated, "When you think about it, squirrels seem a lot crazier than cows."

"To adore God in truth is to admit that our nature is just the opposite of His. Yet, He is willing to make us like Him, if we desire it. Who would be so rash as to neglect, even for a moment, the respect, the love, the service, and the continual adoration that we owe Him?" 

--from The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence