Squeeze Jr.

X-Files fans may recall the character nicknamed Squeeze from the early episodes. He could fit into impossibly small areas. As  it happens a Russian prisoner, suspected of robbery put the same talent to work to escape his cell. The suspect nicknamed "snake man" fit his body through a tiny window used for food delivery to the cell, then put his clothes on and disappeared. It was all caught on their security cameras. He then put his clothes back on and fled. I'm not sure if he has been recaptured and I wonder how he got out of the complex once he escaped his cell but so far haven't had any luck with the rest of the story.

No-tel

For the ones amongst us who may be looking for a new and seemingly unique place to stay (maybe for a Father's Day gift next year) this is your lucky day! The Henna-na Hotel in Nagasaki, Japan opened about a year ago. At this point you're probably wondering what makes this hotel different, how about it is staffed with robots? A staff of robots check you in at the front desk, a robotic porter handles your bags, the cleaning staff are also robots and if you need concierge service a robot will assist you. Robots are already found in stores and restaurant in Japan, so it isn't all that unusual for the next step to be staffing a hotel with them. Personally I find it a little creepy and would miss the interaction with a human staff, but maybe I'm just old fashioned that way.

Bugging Out

Since I've been known to complain about the waste of tax dollars I feel it is only fair to give the government an atta boy when one is due.  The Department of Defense appealed to white-hat hackers to participate in a "bug bounty" in order to identify potential weaknesses in the security of the Pentagon's five public websites. An 18 year old recent high school graduate identified the most weak areas out of the 1,400 hackers who participated. 138 total faults with the sites were found. The cost of the bounty hunt was $150,000 compared to the over 1 million dollars the same results would have cost from a private firm.

Tipsy Toms

Some of you long term readers may recall a post about a non-alcoholic beer made for dogs, well now there is a non-alcoholic wine drink made for cats. I wouldn't dare give it to my Blondie as she has a sensitive stomach and since it is made with beets it would have the same ability as real wine to stain, of course most everything around here has already been stained so maybe it isn't really an issue. The wine comes in two varieties, red  "Pinot Meow" and white "Moscato". In addition to beet juice the wines also contain all natural organically grown catnip and natural preservatives and are safe for dogs as well as humans. When ingested catnip has a mellowing action rather than the hyper effects caused by the cats snorting it.
 

Bacteriophobes Rejoice!

Germaphobes, bacillophobes and all the other names (there are many) for those of you who are overly concerned with cleanliness your lives will soon be made easier. I heard a teaser on the noon news about self cleaning sheets and since I avoid the news in the evening I had to find out for myself what these sheets were all about. I assumed it was just another toxic chemical cocktail infused item which in turn would be worse for your health than the bacteria they were designed to kill, but that isn't the case. Other than the fact that they still need to be washed every 10-14 days and regular sheets should be washed once a week they are a nice item to have in your cleaning arsenal. They work by using silver fibers in  cotton fabric. The silver has a positive charge where bacteria is negative so when the bacteria is attracted to the positive ions it is zapped and killed before it can reproduce. The sheets aren't on the market quite yet but should be available by July and the price isn't bad compared to other high quality sheets, $150 for a queen set.

Charades

The idea for today's post came to me as I was driving this morning and glanced at the car next to me and in that glance I thought I saw the word charade. This caused me to do a double take as I was fairly certain there wasn't a car model named Charade (actually there was for a short time, made by Daihatsu  but it sold poorly in the US). At that point the wheels in the old brain started spinning...I thought what a perfect name for a car designed for those who think they have to always drive the latest model. The Charade would come with a changeable body so it would appear brand new every time you changed out the old body for the new. I had a watch that the rim around the face and band could be changed to several different colors when I was in high school, and no it wasn't a Swatch it was pre Swatch days. If nothing else the Charade might ruin the car leasing market since people wouldn't need to lease in order to appear to be driving a new car. Never mind, it was just a thought.

Why the Chicken Crossed the Road

At this point in time my first guess about why the chicken crossed the road would be it was suicidal over Trump's campaign, but I digress. There is an actual answer to the age old question this time, the chicken was avoiding the police. I'm not certain why the Freeport, TX police were trying to capture the chicken maybe to insure it didn't get hit in traffic? The last time the police officer saw chicken it was hiding underneath the patrol car but disappeared shortly after that. It's not clear why it was mentioned that a Church's Chicken Restaurant was nearby...did they think the chicken had escaped from there, or  that that was where it ended up?