Entertaining laundry
A New York writer has brought poetry to the Laundromat. Emily Rubin created a series of poetry and short story readings titled “Dirty Laundry: Loads of Prose” to combat the boredom of doing laundry.
Rubin said the venue is a perfect fit, and is much less stuffy and artificial than other venues. She says everyone has real and metaphorical dirty laundry.
Rubin plans to take her prose and poetry readings to Laundromats across the state.
Beer that’s good for your bones
After hearing about a surplus of milk, a Tokyo liquor shop has created “Bilk,” a combination of milk and beer.
The drink contains hops and is 30 percent milk. It has a milky smell, but tastes and looks just like beer.
The liquor shop spent six months developing the beverage with a local brewer. It debuted on Feb. 1 and is currently out of stock because of all the media attention the product has been receiving. It is available for sale at six local shops or by mail order.
Japan has experienced a steady decline in milk consumption in recent years. The northern island of Hokkaido disposed of almost 900 tons of milk in March 2006 because of overproduction.
Nap for your heart
Napping regularly is good for your heart. Research from a six-year study of about 24,000 Greek adults showed that regular napping lowered the risk of dying from heart disease by more than a third.
Napping three times a week for at least 30 minutes lowered the risk of dying from heart disease by 37 percent compared to non-nappers.
Regular naps proved especially health-improving for employed people, possibly because of its stress-releasing potential.
Near-death experience videoed
A parachutist who survived a 15,000-foot fall has released the footage of his near-death experience. The New Zealander’s parachute failed to open, and his helmet-mounted camera caught the whole experience on tape.
At 4,000 feet the man realizes neither his main chute nor reserve will open. At the end of the tape the man waves and yells goodbye and the screen goes black. Thorn bushes breaking his fall saved him.
Fatten up already!
A trendy London restaurant is offering models free meals. In town for London Fashion Week, models have come under attack recently for promoting a waiflike body image.
So if you’re a model with a Body Mass Index of less than 18, Bumpkin restaurant in Notting Hill will feed you all you can eat for free.
Last year, Madrid banned models with an 18 or less BMI from taking part in fashion shows. The modeling industry has been under extreme scrutiny after two anorexic Latin American models died last year.
Cake talks back
The fight against drunk driving has a new weapon in New Mexico: talking urinal cakes.
The state ordered 500 of the cakes that give recorded anti-DWI messages. They will be placed in bars and restaurants in hopes of deterring patrons from getting behind the wheel after drinking.
The female-voiced, motion-censored recordings cost the state $21 a cake. It is a pilot program to target the male population, who commit about three times as many drunk-driving offenses as women.
The cakes have enough battery power to last for about three months.