Being a sex offender is perfectly okay and doesn't violate the constitution of the Associated Students at Riverside City College, according to a statement quoted in The Indian Express

The Indian Express reports, via the Associated Press:

When flyers appeared at Riverside City College this week saying the student body president is a sex offender, students thought it was a cruel prank. They were stunned when they learned it's true.

Doug Robert Figueroa, 40, who was elected to a one-year term at the California college in May, pleaded guilty in 2005 to kidnapping and lewd and lascivious acts with a boy under 14, the Riverside Press Enterprise newspaper reported Wednesday. His five-year prison term was suspended, and he's serving 10 years' probation.

Figueroa told the newspaper in an e-mail that he has not tried to hide his past.

Why administration didn't step in when Figueroa was running for student body president is beyond me. Maybe they just didn't want to, but they definitely knew about Figueroa's criminal background. According to the statement quoted in the Express, administration had asked Figueroa "not to engage in activities that violate his probation," so he stayed away from Halloween and Easter celebrations on campus.

Figueroa said that the school believes in rehab and that he's dedicated to changing his life.

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A firefighter is taking the City of Phoenix to court because of a pasta-related prank gone too far, that he felt led him to be sent to an undesirable gig:

[Frank] Cheatham, a deputy chief shift commander with 24 years on the job, claims he "admonished" supervisors for "specifically, two depictions of a penis and testicles-openly displayed in the workplace at Fire Station 1." This was in November 2009.
Cheatham says the graffiti created a sexually hostile workplace and he "admonished the supervisors at Fire Station 1 that such drawings were inappropriate and would not be tolerated in the future."
Then came the retaliation, Cheatham says in the complaint.
"Soon thereafter, Chief Cheatham received a large brown envelope in interoffice mail containing two small pieces of pasta, one of which resembled a penis and the other of which resembled a vagina.
"The piece of pasta resembling a vagina had Chief Cheatham's first name ('Frank') written on it.
"Soon thereafter, in February of 2010, Chief Cheatham began hearing rumors in the Department that he would be removed from his position as Deputy Chief Shift Commander of South Shift Command.
"In March of 2010, Chief Cheatham was officially informed by telephone by his supervisors at the Phoenix Fire Department that the Department had in fact decided to remove him from his position of Deputy Chief Shift Commander of South Shift Command and involuntarily transfer him to the Department's 'Safety Division.'
"Chief Cheatham's job duties at the Fire Department's 'Safety Division' are undefined, do not involve the supervision of firefighters, do not require him to exercise his management skills, and leave him with little to do all day."

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A woman from North Carolina bought a billboard ad to let everyone know her husband is a cheater.

The punishment is unusual, especially in a society where relationship problems typically lead to a break-up or sleeping on the couch.

Nonetheless I'm sure she made her point, and apparently spent the ex-couple's investments doing so. Thank you, Jennifer, for the fair warning. Hopefully the ladies in North Carolina know to stay away from Michael!

Gawker Media's video game culture blog Kotaku has a tendency to go very, very broad with their coverage from time to time, stretching away from video gaming news, rumors, previews and reviews to deliver the occasional feature piece, such as a lengthy interview with an industry personality, an opinion regarding the role of video gaming within our lives, or (occasionally) something from way, way out of left field.

This is one of those left-field pieces.

One of the largest trends in video gaming as of late has been customization: the arenas you play in, the character you play as, or the items you use, with some games going as narrow as a character's emblem, and some going as broad as being able to create entire planets in your desired image.

The thing is, for a lot of people, that image tends to be a phallus. From Kotaku (note: the images in the link are NSFW):

There are, truth be told, better things a reporter can do with their time than to keep asking why people seem to love drawing dicks.

Nevertheless, I did inquire. A bunch.

"There are many different possible explanatory frameworks for considering this question: Freudian, Marxist, Feminist, Deconstructionist, Evolutionary-Psychologist, Existentialist, etc," game designer and head of New York University's game studies program, Frank Lantz, told me last fall when I began to interrogate the matter.

"You might as well use the question ‘Why do people draw dongs?' as a proxy for ‘Why are we here?' 'What is the good life?' ‘Why is there something instead of nothing?' or any other Big Philosophical Question."

We probably all have good guesses, right? People draw penises because they think it'll shock people or because it's one of society's few visual taboos and because they're not that hard to draw.

...

"Every time we've given people the ability to arrange things of their own-bread, ships-inevitably people want to leave a mark that people recognize," Ultima's lead creator Richard Garriott recently told me when he recently visited our offices in New York. That mark they leave, he said, is "not just something like ‘Killroy was here,' but something that was purposefully shocking or affronting. And if you're going to draw a purposefully affronting and shocking thing, a stick and balls is a pretty good easy basis to create a reaction."

The best part of the article isn't that it's about, well, dicks. It's that it makes an attempt to understand why people, from seemingly all walks of life, attempt to draw penises whenever they're afforded the opportunity to create images in a game, and looks at the topic from cultural, psychological and anthropological perspectives.

It's an interesting read covering an incredibly immature topic. Check it out, if you're so inclined. Just be warned: beyond that link, there are penises EVERYWHERE.

The ad is two weeks old, so you might not want to get too excited over the prospect of picking up this "collectors 1982 Toyota Celica GT liftback" for the low price of $1400, but at very least, we can enjoy the effort these two ladies put into trying to sell this fine vehicle with a title, 150,000 miles and a working AC. They're moving, so they need to get it off their yard after all.

Vice Magazine's UK arm recently published a fascinating Q&A interview with a man who has come up with a fairly revolutionary way to live without actually, uh, eating anything.

Rob Rhinehart is a 24-year-old software programmer from San Francisco who apparently feels that food was just too damn inefficient, and took it upon himself to streamline the nutrient-obtaining process — "hacking the body," as he says — by mixing nutrients, in their most basic reasonable forms, into a nutrient shake he calls Soylent. Yes, as in Soylent Green.

From Vice.com:

So what’s in Soylent, exactly?
Everything the body needs — that we know of, anyway — vitamins, minerals and macronutrients like essential amino acids, carbohydrates and fat. For the fat, I just use olive oil and add fish oil. The carbs are an oligosaccharide, which is like sugar, but the molecules are longer, meaning it takes longer to metabolise and gives you a steady flow of energy for a longer period of time, rather than a sugar rush from something like fructose or table sugar. I also add some non-essentials like antioxidants and probiotics and lately have been experimenting with nootropics.

And that tastes as good as a burger?
It tastes very good. I haven't got tired of the taste in six weeks. It's a very "complete" sensation, more sweet than anything. Eating to me is a leisure activity, like going to the movies, but I don't want to go to the movies three times a day.

What are some of the benefits to the food-free lifestyle? Any drawbacks?
Not having to worry about food is fantastic. No groceries, dishes, deciding what to eat, no endless conversations weighing the relative merits of gluten-free, keto, paleo or vegan. Power and water bills are lower. I save hours a day and hundreds of dollars a month. I feel liberated from a crushing amount of repetitive drudgery. Soylent might also be good for people having trouble managing their weight. I find it very easy to lose and gain precise amounts of weight by varying the proportions in my drink.

There are drawbacks: It doesn't keep long after mixing with water, so I still have to make it every day. If I make a mistake with the amount of an ingredient it can make me sick, but that hasn't happened in a while. Also, some people really enjoy food a lot more than I do, so they may not like the idea.

How could Soylent affect the world's eating habits?
Consumer behaviour has a lot to do with cost and convenience. There are plenty of ways to be healthy, but Americans are more likely to be overweight simply because the food that's cheap and convenient is unhealthy. I think it's possible to use technology to make healthy food very cheap and easy, but we'll have to give up many traditional foodstuffs like fresh fruits and veggies, which are incompatible with food processing and scale.

Rhinehart has fascinating ideas here, but I'm still not sold — mostly because I'm a big fan of tasting different things from time to time. Either way, you can find out more about Rhinehart's Soylent shake (which, he promises, has absolutely zero human in it) at Vice, or at his blog, where he's chronicled his experiences.

This really puts all of those "Save the Boobies" bracelets to shame.

Adventurer Geoff Wilson is currently training for a journey, code-named the Pink Polar Expedition, in which he plans to challenge a world record by traveling through Antarctica on foot, raising money for Australian breast cancer-awareness charity, the McGrath Foundation.

And he'll be dragging a giant, breast-shaped sled filled with 80 kilograms worth of supplies the entire way.

• 5th Element Expenditions
• Geoff Wilson, Kate Carlyle and the Boob Sled

No, really. From the expedition's Facebook page (emphasis ours):

The PINK POLAR Expedition (November 2013) will see Geoff set out on a grueling crossing of Antarctica, one of the planet’s toughest environments. Geoff is no stranger to extremes, having completed crossings of the Sahara and Simpson Deserts and the first kite crossing of the Torres Strait. In support of friend and former radio colleague Kate, Geoff will once again push his body to the limit. The challenges of completing this journey solo and unassisted may be as tough as some of the challenges faced by those like Kate, who have been diagnosed with breast cancer and must conquer their own solo trek.

Geoff will use skis and kite power to traverse the ice, while hauling a ‘boob sled’ of supplies for the journey. The pink sled is distinctive, as it has a cover moulded in the shape of Geoff’s wife’s bust. Yes, you read correctly. A giant pair of bright pink, kevlar ‘breasts’ with the Antarctic ice as a stunning backdrop!

Best of luck to you, Geoff. To keep up with the Pink Polar Expedition, head over to 5th Element Expeditions.

Tweets about "tucson boom"

Apparently, there was some sort of loud boom heard on the Northwest side of town tonight. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base says they weren't responsible and there wasn't an earthquake, so clearly social media panic has ensued and every local TV station will be leading the 10 pm news with live coverage in the dark saying basically nothing.

Of course, we have no real news either, but we are trying to get in touch with our boom correspondents, Tigra and Bunny. We'll let you know what they are able to contribute when they get back to us.

That's right, Tucson. Thanks to #TucsonBlizzard 2013 (Never Forget!), we've actually eclipsed snowfall totals experienced by the folks in Seattle, Washington.

From KOMOnews.com's Scott Sistek:

Not only has Mother Nature essentially blanked Seattle in the snow department this winter, she's rubbing it in by bringing real winter to places that aren't supposed to have it.

...

The Tucson airport reported a drop from 50 degrees to 34 degrees in an hour with a switch from rain to snow.

A former long-time resident (my wife) tells me it does snow in Tucson from time to time. But number of years Tucson > Seattle in the snow department? Likely close to zero, if not zero.

The official tally at Tucson Airport was just a trace — technically tying Seattle for 2013 as Seattle had a 14-minute snow shower that registered a trace on Jan. 10. But Tucson's snow lasted nearly an hour and a half and unlike Seattle's, actually accumulated in areas around the city, with an official spotter report giving a full 1.0" of accumulation in town.

A check through the National Weather Service's records confirms it: Tucson, 1" of snow; Seattle, nothing.

We're coming for you, Emerald City.

Step aside, Ralph Lauren and Versace — the United States Postal Service has announced that it will release its own line of all-weather clothing in 2014.

Announced in a press release on the Postal Service's website, the future line of products, branded "Rain, Heat & Snow," is based on the USPS's unofficial creed: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

This seems like a rather unconventional and bizarre way for the USPS to stay afloat after experiencing some hard financial hits over the past year, including a loss of more than $15 billion in 2012. The service also announced plans to drop its Saturday delivery service later this year.

But who knows, maybe the line will prove to be more popular than some of us expect. The brand will be produced under Wahconah Group, Inc., a fashion apparel company based in Cleveland that employs rather creepy-looking male models to display its products. As of now, the brand will carry only men's products, but the Postal Service said there are plans to add a women's line in the future. Additionally, the line will feature a new technology coined "wearable electronics," allowing its wearers to plug iPods and other accessories right into the garment and control them from the sleeve.

The company will make its debut in a showroom in New York City's clothing district, and said they'll be distributing through "premier department and specialty stores." Not sure what that means, but maybe we'll start seeing Postal Service products at Forever 21 or H&M. What I'm really hoping for sometime down the line is a "Dusty Mailroom"-scented USPS cologne.

I won't hold my breath.