Two German designers have invented a computer game with hand sensors that administer shocks and burns to opponents, Wired magazine reports. The winner is the player who can stand it longer. Painstation (not affiliated with Sony) is based on the old game of Pong. If a player misses the ball, it will hit randomly arranged "Pain Inflictor Symbols," including heat, jolts and shocks of varying degrees. The game ends when one player takes his hand off the "Pain Endurance Unit."
The hurl? Can't help it
Some formerly heroin-addicted female inmates at the Pine Grove Correctional Centre in Canada so desperately crave methadone that they routinely consume the fresh vomit of other inmates who are on methadone. According to a report in the Saskatchewan StarPhoenix,there is still enough methadone present in regurgitation to make the practice desirable. The newspaper uncovered the practice while interviewing witnesses to the death of an inmate in February. Said a source, "The whole building knows [that she choked on vomit]. That's how she died."
You had to be there (and British)
A University of Hertfordshire professor, working with the British Association for the Advancement of Science, has announced the result of his search for the world's funniest joke. According to said yuck, Sherlock Holmes' pal Watson attributes profound worldly significance to campground star-gazing. Replies Holmes, "If I look up and see stars, it means only that someone has stolen my tent."
Urine the money
In Wollongong, Australia, Paul Andrew Jackson has been awarded about $31,000 (U.S.) in his lawsuit against the provincial Roads and Traffic Authority after hurting his back at a bicycle bridge. Jackson, a 35-year-old surfer, had stepped over a guardrail in the dark to relieve himself but underestimated the drop-off (after a self-reported six-beer night). He fell 40 feet and momentarily knocked himself unconscious.
Wake-up call for justice
In March, a Canadian federal judge refused to quash convicted murderer David Wild's $2 million (U.S.) lawsuit against the Mission Medium Security Institution in British Columbia. Wild claims the guards aren't quiet enough when they do nighttime bed checks and thus make getting a good night's sleep impossible. As a result, Wild says he suffers headaches, loss of balance, blurred vision, irritability and depression -- and he has become too weary to play in the prison's soccer tournaments.
God's credit goes sour
Kaziah Hancock and Cindy Stewart won almost $300,000 in damages in January from a breakaway Mormon sect in Manti, Utah, based on their lawsuit for fraud. The suit charged self-proclaimed prophet Jim Harmston of failing to keep several promises, including one to produce Jesus Christ in the flesh. Hancock also claimed that Harmston had persuaded her to donate 67 acres of land to the church, promising that it would give her a new place to live. The church did make one payment toward a new home for Hancock, but then Harmston informed her that God had told him to stop paying.
Cold feet
Until recently a fugitive, convicted sex offender Harvey Taylor, 48, told reporters from his hospital bed in Bangor, Maine, that he would sue the sheriff's deputy who failed to arrest him fast enough -- a delay that resulted in Taylor's spending three nights in the woods and losing two toes to frostbite. Taylor said that after fleeing a pursuing squad car, he got lost in the woods in hip-deep snow. "Nobody looked for me," he complained, "not even the detective that I'm going to sue as soon as I can find me an attorney that will take the case."
Slime time live
In a joint federal-state child-protection announcement in December, the German government proposed that pornographic websites could transmit only between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. Of course, that translates to 5 p.m. to midnight in New York and 2 p.m. to 9 p.m. in California.
It's a bootyful day
A man and woman, both 24, were arrested in Pennsylvania after they pulled off a highway into a private driveway at 7 a.m. to have ostentatious sex, even though there was $11,000 worth of marijuana in their car. ... London's Archbishop of Canterbury recently suggested that financially faltering parishes should rent out their buildings part-time as "disco" clubs. ... Veterinarians in Jerusalem find that more dogs are suffering panic attacks due to increased gunfire, so the pet docs are prescribing lots of Valium for canines.
