Watercooler Stories

Festival to hold 'Piss-Off' seminar

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- Officials of Denmark's largest outdoor summer music festival said they'll seek ways to keep patrons from urinating anywhere except in the provided toilets.

The organizers of the Roskilde Festival, which attracts 75,000 attendees annually in the city of the same name, said they will hold a seminar titled, "Backstage: Piss-Off," starting on March 3, to try to encourage festival-goers to use the toilets, the Copenhagen Post reported.

"We're preparing female urinals and other alternative solutions for women.We're also looking at ways of encouraging people not to urinate on the fences," said project coordinator Signe Brink.

Cute kitten squeezes into glass jar

LONDON, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- The video of a playful Himalayan kitten named Ksyusha who likes to squeeze into a glass jar has made a hit on the Internet, the cat's British owner said.

Yuriy Korotun, 37, said Ksyusha also hides by jumping into the washing machine and plant pots, the Sun of London reported Sunday.

The kitten began her hiding habits a few weeks after she was born in her Moscow home, the Sun reported.

The newspaper did not say how the kitten was moved from Moscow to Britain.

"She was a special kitten from the beginning -- always very playful. I came into the kitchen one day to find her in the jar. I couldn't believe my eyes," said Korotun.

"She likes hiding in different places and was full of character. It looks like she would have trouble getting out of the jar but actually her body is not as big as it looks because of her large amount of fur," he said.

"I took a few photos of her at the start of last year and put them on the Internet and have recently had a lot of comments about how cute she is," he said.

SoCal truants monitored by GPS devices

ANAHEIM, Calif., Feb. 20 (UPI) -- A technology company says a pilot program using the Global Positioning System to monitor truants in Southern California isn't a punishment.

The Anaheim Union High School District is issuing kids who are chronically late for school a handheld GPS device that requires them to check in at regular intervals and ensures they are where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there.

"The idea is for this not to feel like a punishment, but an intervention to help them develop better habits and get to school," Miller Sylvan of AIM Truancy Solutions told The Orange County Register.

The GPS device is being field tested on middle-school kids with four or more unexcused absences in lieu of detention or other traditional remedies.

PC Magazine said Sunday the devices, which cost as much as $400 each, require the user to check in when leaving for school in the morning and then four more times into the early evening.

As an added incentive to get to school on time, each kid gets a morning wake-up call telling them to hit the deck and get to class.

PC Magazine said similar pilot programs in the U.S. boosted daily school attendance rates from 77 percent up to 95 percent.

Real underdog takes over Md. association

ANNANDALE, Md., Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Residents of a Maryland neighborhood admit they should have paid more attention before they unwittingly elected a dog as president of their civic association.

A show of hands at the annual meeting sealed the election as president of the Hillbrook-Tall Oaks Civic Association of one Bethea Lee, who turns out to be a Wheaten terrier who belongs to former president Mark Crawford.

"She had a name," resident Robin Klein Browder told The Washington Post. "It wasn't Spot or Rover. Everyone thought she was human."

The vote was held last summer, but Bethea's true identity wasn't revealed until recently in the association newsletter. The shaggy dog doesn't talk much but was hailed as a good delegator, and Hillbrook has a strong canine community of some 90 resident mutts, the Post noted Saturday.

Crawford said there were a lot of good-natured responses to the election, although not all residents were amused.

"This isn't a power trip," said Crawford, who now serves as vice president of the pup regime. "We wanted to send a message to the neighborhood that they needed to get involved and get engaged."