Rest in peace, Rod Roddy.

American Idol, Russian style: the contestants are prisoners, singing to win their freedom.

Want to feel really old? Read this article from Electronic Gaming Monthly in which they make a bunch of 10-13 year-olds play classic videogames from the late '70s to early '80s. Here's a few highlights:

Kirk: What is this? [Picks up and twists the paddle controller] Am I controlling the volume?

Sheldon: Hey, why does it say Sears on the controller?
EGM: Sears sold it for Atari.
Andrew: Isn't Sears, like, a clothing company?

Tim: It's strange that fire moves in this and has eyes. Oh no, the fire's coming. It's going to eat you. Are these barrels alive, too? Everything's alive. And Donkey Kong's mouth is made of pluses. Look: Plus, plus, plus, minus. They're trying to teach you math by brainwashing you.

For those of you who have been searching for a Latin translation of "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot (and really, who among us hasn't), here you go, complete with literal interlinear translation back into English. A sample:

magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri.
(Large buttocks are pleasing to me, nor am I able to lie concerning this matter.)

Update (10/22): It's now available in Greek also.

Here's one more for weird science (yes, I'm on a bit of a science kick this week): England's Royal Society of Chemistry has nothing better to do than testing a 34 year-old jar of chutney to see if it's still edible. And they seem quite excited about it.

And while we're on the subject of weird science, here's a roundup of the worst jobs in science.

The winners of the 2003 Ig Nobel Prize were announced this week. The Ig Nobels honour people whose achievements "cannot or should not be reproduced." Most disturbing was the Biology Prize, which went to C.W. Moeliker for documenting the first scientifically recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck. Other winners include: for Engineering, the men who conceived of Murphy's Law in 1949; for Economics, Karl Schwärzler and the nation of Liechtenstein for making it possible to rent the entire country for corporate conventions, weddings, bar mitzvahs, and other gatherings; and for Peace, Lal Bihari of India for his 18-year effort to prove he is alive after greedy relatives bribed corrupt officials to declare him dead so his property could be "inherited," and for forming the Association of Dead People to help the thousands of other Indians in the same plight.

The Ig Nobels are given out annually by the Annals of Improbable Research, who also brought you such projects as The Luxuriant and Flowing Hair Club for Scientists and a study of feline reactions to bearded men.

Show your tits for charity! In honour of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Blogger Boobie-Thon invites both women and men to submit rack shots, with the bare-breasted photos only accessible on the "pay-per-boobie" site for donors of $50 or more. Proceeds go to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. They've raised over $3000 so far.

Have you ever found yourself in a foreign country with an axe in your head and no way to express your distress to the locals because you don't speak their language? Fret no more, thanks to this handy guide to saying "Oh my God! There's an axe in my head" in various languages. Oh mein Gott! Ich habe eine Axt im Kopf!