Watercooler Stories

Boy's yard sale gives father gravestone

KINGSTON, Ontario, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- A Canadian boy's yard sale to pay for a stone on his father's grave drew hundreds of buyers this weekend.

Rick Lees, who died last year of a stomach aneurysm, is buried at the Wilmer Cemetery just outside Kingston, Ontario, but his family could not afford a headstone, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported.

His 9-year-old son, Blake McGinness, held the sale Saturday to raise the money to change that.

As news of the sale spread, hundreds of people came to buy merchandise, meet Blake and donate money. One man drove from Montreal to donate a hockey stick signed by the NHL's Canadiens.

Thousands of dollars were raised Saturday and thousands more were donated to a trust fund.

"It's awesome, it's amazing. We've heard from people, as far away as soldiers in Afghanistan. A company even in Texas offered to donate the gravestone," said Blake's mother, Linda McGinness.

With the cost of the gravestone covered, Blake told the Kingston Whig Standard he will donate proceeds from the yard sale to Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.

'Octomom' tries a yard sale to raise cash

LA HABRA, Calif., Sept. 26 (UPI) -- Nadya Suleman, the famous mother of octuplets, had a weekend yard sale in La Habra, Calif., to stave off foreclosure.

Suleman offered baby clothes, bikinis and other goods Saturday to make enough money to pay her mortgage, the Los Angeles Times reported. The sale was the latest in her efforts to support her 14 children, which have included allowing cameras into her home.

The Orange County Register reported Suleman charged $10 for a picture with her, and $100 to pose with her and her octuplets. A Lakers jersey signed by Suleman fetched $125, and eight devil costumes worn by her children for Halloween brought in $50; a refrigerator that once stored baby formula sold for $85, the newspaper said.

Suleman, a single mother on public assistance who already had six children when she had octuplets last year, is behind about $7,500 on her mortgage payments. She also has a $450,000 balloon payment due Oct. 9, TMZ.com reported.

Canadian motorists get a moose warning

SASKATOON, Saskatchewan, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- A moose prowling the roads of Saskatoon set off a police alert, Canadian officials said.

Police said the moose was spotted within city limits just north of 14th Street and Circle Drive. The area is along Highway 16, a major traffic route, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Sunday.

Officers in the area were to warn drivers if the moose tried to cross the road or otherwise became a hazard. Police hoped to watch from a distance to make sure the animal gets safely out of the city.

Woman wants to be contact for aliens

LONDON, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- A Malaysian woman says she wants the United Nations to pick her as the first point of contact for aliens trying to communicate with Earth.

If she has her way, astrophysicist Mazlan Othman will be the person space aliens are referred to when they say "take me to your leader," The Guardian reported.

Othman is presently head of the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs, or Unoosa, and was expected to tell delegates about her plans at a Royal Society Conference in Buckinghamshire, England, next week, the report said.

In a recent talk Othman said, "The continued search for extraterrestrial communication, by several entities, sustains the hope that some day humankind will receive signals from extraterrestrials.

"When we do, we should have in place a coordinated response that takes into account all the sensitivities related to the subject," she said.

Her plan is to make Unoosa the coordinating body for alien encounters; U.N. scientific advisory committees will debate the proposal before it reaches the body's general assembly, the newspaper said.