Yet Another Saturday Smorgasbord

All the news that's fit to link:

• In the "scientific studies that make you go, 'Huh?' department, a new one tries to discover whether the length of your ring and index fingers (relative to each other) can predict your success on the SAT.


• In the "government actions that waste people's time and money" department, some Ohio residents are being issued tickets for parking in their own driveways.


• Over in the U.K., there's a strange thing causing a minor revolt among some of the locals: Those big plastic garbage bins are being called a blight on the neighborhood. (As noted in the article, there's a lot less space between the average front door and the sidewalk over there, and some households have been given three of the things.) I'm not sure which is more amusing--that the receptacles are called "wheelie bins" over there, or that the most common protest sign is "NIMFY"--not in my front yard.


• Pizza Hut, looking to spice up (*rim shot*) its image, is not exactly changing its name, but it is shortening it on all of its boxes and some of its stores, which will now simply read "The Hut." Is this a good idea? It seems like the last chain to do this was Circuit City, which branded some of its newer stores as "the City." And look where they ended up. (Actually, I meant to mention this a week or two ago: Circuit CIty has been reborn, kinda sorta, as a Web-only store.)


• Two cows on a Massachusetts farm decided to just "get away for a while" by walking to New Hampshire, five miles away.


• And finally, you've probably heard of the duct tape prom dress. Now a student in Missouri has gotten even more creative, by making her dress completely out of coffee filters.

It sure is easier to find these weird news stories in the summer, when I have more of this strange thing called "time." Tomorrow, I have the feeling that we'll talk about dads for a while.