Watercooler Stories

Stolen bike turns up 12 years later

GAVLE, Sweden, Aug. 22 (UPI) -- A mountain bike stolen 12 years ago has turned up in a town hundreds of miles away, Swedish police say.

The bicycle belonging to Fredrik Sandqvist, 35, was stolen in 1998 from the tiny town of Overkalix, close to the Arctic Circle, not long after he purchased it for about $335, Sweden's news agency TT said Sunday.

Police in Gavle, in eastern Sweden, found the bicycle in a lost-and-found, and were able to trace it to Sandqvist through a personal identification number engraved on its frame.

Sandqvist, now living in Oskarshamn, was surprised when police contacted him, but he said doesn't want the bicycle back, the report said.

"I was really astonished when they called," he said. "I've decided to donate it to a charitable organization in the town."

NASA announces shuttle songwriting contest

MELBOURNE, Fla., Aug. 21 (UPI) -- Would-be songwriters will get a chance at fame by penning a wake-up song for NASA's last space shuttle mission, officials said.

Wake-up songs, beamed up to astronauts when designated sleep periods end, are a longstanding space tradition dating back to the Apollo program.

Traditionally, the wake-up songs are selected by friends and family of the crews, but for the last two scheduled missions, NASA is inviting the public to take part in a "Wake-up Song Contest" to select songs from a list of the Top 40 previous wake-up calls for the penultimate mission or to submit original tunes for consideration for the final shuttle flight, a NASA release said Friday.

The two songs receivingg the most votes from the Top 40 list will be played as crew wake-up calls on the final scheduled flight of space shuttle Discovery, set to launch Nov. 1.

"We're looking forward to hearing which songs the public wants played for us," Mission Commander Steve Lindsey said. "It's going to be a difficult choice, because there have been so many great songs played over the years."

Songwriters have until Jan. 10 to submit an original tune related to or suggesting human spaceflight for consideration for the final shuttle mission by Endeavour, scheduled for Feb. 26.

After screening by NASA, selections will be posted online for a public vote beginning Feb. 8.

The top two songs will be played for the Endeavour crew.

Bedbugs invade a New York icon

NEW YORK, Aug. 21 (UPI) -- Officials say a bedbug infestation in New York has even reached the city's most iconic building, as bedbugs were found in an area of the Empire State Building.

The pests were found in an employee changing room, prompting building officials to call in exterminators, the New York Daily News reported Saturday.

"There were guys there last night, spraying down the place," a source told the News.

An Empire State Building official said the bedbugs, discovered last week, probably hitched a ride into the building on an employee's clothes.

"Like so many other buildings in New York City, the Empire State Building had a small incident of bedbugs," the building said in a statement. "The occurrence was specific to a uniform storage area in the basement of the building. The area has been treated and fully cleared."

The building is just the latest in the city to report an assault by the pests.

Among other locations reporting recent infestations were an AMC movie theater in Times Square, the Brooklyn district attorney's office, a Victoria's Secret store in Lenox Hill and the Time Warner Center, the Daily News said.

Winnipeg hipsters asked to curb butts

WINNIPEG, Saskatchewan, Aug. 21 (UPI) -- Folks in a hip part of Winnipeg are launching a full-court press on cigarette butts in a campaign to reduce litter, Canadians say.

Residents of the Osborne Village district spent $2,000 on special receptacles for spent smokes that have been set up at seven locations around town and have also been issuing small pouches that people can use to stash their butts until they can dispose of them properly.

The new containers seemed to catch on quickly. Resident Marcel Goulet told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that he planned to toss the cigarette he was nearly finished with "and just keep going."

"It takes about 2 seconds," Goulet said.

The campaign stems from a long history of butts being tossed at will around Osborne Village, a riverfront area known for its vibrant nightlife, shopping and arts community. More than 10,000 butts were picked up in one day last summer by volunteers during a litter pick-up.

"People don't understand that cigarette butts do not biodegrade," Tom Ethans of Take Pride Winnipeg told the CBC. "They end up in our sewer systems, in our rivers and in our lakes."