Exploding hot dogs averted. Fire ants take the mound. Pumpkin pummeling and pitching. Elvis has (not) bought the building. This lil’ piggy goes to jail. Tow trucks heart New York (see the photo)! Bragging rights. Runaway runway. Droopy drawers. Calling all hogs. Record ristra. Meow to mouth. Where’d it go? Bald Men R Us. Dad be trippin’. Fish face. Phunky physicists bust a rhyme (see the video).

————

Hot dogs outside Philly ballpark cause bomb scare

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — After a bomb scare at the Philadelphia Phillies’ ballpark, authorities pointed the finger at a fuzzy green suspect — The Phillie Phanatic.

Hours before the Phillies-Atlanta Braves’ game on Wednesday night, a film crew shot a commercial of the mascot shooting heavily wrapped hot dogs from a launcher.

But someone inadvertently left three of the duct taped hot dogs outside the ballpark, sparking security fears. Stadium employees were evacuated and the bomb squad was called in.

Only after the packages were blown up did authorities realize they’d just exploded some sausages.

“We saw something that looked suspicious,” said Michael Stiles, Phillies senior vice president, administration and operations. “We did the right thing. It turned out to be nothing. We could have gone over and picked it up and thrown it in the trash and been done with it. But if we had been wrong, somebody might have lost an arm.”

After the detonation, the game went on as scheduled.

“I’d rather them blow up some hot dogs or some ketchup and mustard and relish than have it be a real bomb,” reliever Chad Durbin said. “Better safe than sorry.”

————

High school’s main rivals are fire ants — They’re burnin’ up the mound!

RIALTO, Calif. (AP) — They’re a relentless force on the gridiron, with a stinging defense. But don’t expect anyone to cheer for the Rialto High School fire ants.

Discovered by a groundskeeper last week, the venomous red pests have set up several mound-like colonies on the football and baseball fields. The Southern California school canceled a freshman football game, moved practices and called the state Department of Agriculture.

“They’re from South America,” said Syeda Jafri, spokeswoman for the Rialto Unified School District. “How they got here, we have no idea.”

The school called in exterminators, and Jafri said the fields are expected to be clear of the unwanted guests by Friday, ready for next week’s football game.

The infestation is not to be taken lightly, said Les Greenberg, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside.

“A small percentage of the population is allergic to the venom, just as with bees or wasps,” Greenberg said. “This could range anywhere from a nuisance to a health threat.”

————

Farmer flings pumpkins with giant catapult

NEWTON, N.J. (AP) — One New Jersey farm has a special attraction to go with the season’s hay rides and corn mazes: giant pumpkin catapult.

A group of middle school students who became obsessed with the medieval weapon asked northern New Jersey farmers Anthony and Heidi Lentini if they could use physics to fling the big orange squash.

The couple, who have corn mazes on their Newton farm to attract customers, agreed.

The half dozen boys, farmers and a technology teacher from Halsted Middle School began work in August and finished building the giant catapult this weekend.

It cost about $1,200. The Lentinis paid for construction.

The farmers say the device is up and running and covering the farm with the smashed remains of damaged pumpkins.

————

It ain’t no Heartbreak Hotel. Elvis Is Alive Museum up for sale again on eBay.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Elvis Is Alive Museum is once again for sale on eBay.

The museum’s owner, Andy Key of Mississippi, says military duties will keep him away from home for at least five months.

The 39-year-old Key set a minimum starting bid of $15,000 on the listing, which ends Friday. He bought the museum on eBay last year for $8,300.

Key told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he hopes someone local buys the contents of the museum and continues running it in Hattiesburg, Miss.

The collection includes photographs, books, FBI files, DNA reports and other memorabilia that aim to support the theory that Elvis never died.

Bill Beeny, a Baptist minister who founded the museum in 1990 in Missouri, says he has no plans to buy it back.

————

This little piggy went to jail: Man convicted of robbing toddler’s piggy bank

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. (AP) — A man convicted of stealing $20 from a toddler’s piggy bank has been sentenced to six years in prison.

Four-time convicted burglar Ryan Mueller was convicted Thursday of felony burglary as a repeat offender in a Sheboygan, Wis., court.

Prosecutors say the 31-year-old Mueller broke into a home in August 2007 and stole money from a 2-year-old girl’s piggy bank while she slept. They say the girl’s mother walked into the room and caught Mueller in the act.

Mueller also was sentenced to five years’ probation. His is to serve his sentence consecutively to a six-year prison sentence he was handed in June for a separate burglary conviction.

————-

Pumpkin Hurl now has more than half-mile of room

MOUNT VERNON, Wash. (AP) — This year’s Pumpkin Hurl in Washington state now has more than a half-mile of space after a squash was tossed 1,866 feet last year.

The Northwest Agriculture Business Center has moved the event from Burlington to a Snohomish County farm with a 3,000-foot gourd firing range.

The sky will rain pumpkins Oct. 4. The center says at least seven teams from the West Coast and Canada will compete this year for prizes and bragging rights.

Defending champion TreBarbaric with be there with its 78-foot-tall pumpkin-pitching machine.

The pumpkin hurler is a war machine from the Middle Ages known as a trebuchet (treh-byoo-SHAY’) — a combination catapult and sling.

——————

Tow trucks parade through NYC sets world record

NEW YORK (AP) — Talk about towing the line.

Nearly 300 tow trucks rumbled through New York City on Saturday in an attempt to smash the world record for the largest parade of its kind.

Organizers think they hit the mark, with 292 trucks participating. The procession included flatbeds, wreckers and 50-ton rotators.

The trucks departed from Shea Stadium in Queens and cruised down a couple of highways before finishing at an abandoned airport tarmac to spell out “New York.”

The previous world record was a parade of 83 tow trucks in August 2004 in Washington state.

—————-

Bragging costs college students $320,000

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Be careful when you boast.

Oklahoma college students who bragged on MySpace that their party business had served thousands of revelers have been hit with a state tax bill of $320,000.

The Oklahoman reported Sunday that 2007 tax documents indicate that the party business Kegheadz hosted more than 100 events over nearly five years.

But co-founder Julius Baroi estimates his business hosted just over 20 parties in 1 1/2 years, netting less than $2,000. Another co-founder, Jordan Glover, says tax officials were misled by “hype” on the business’ MySpace site that was designed to attract more partiers.

The site boasts that Kegheadz has “over 1 billion served.”

Tax Commission spokeswoman Paula Ross says she cannot comment.

————-

As if air travel wasn’t tedious enough. Now pilots have to wait for racers to clear the runways!

CHICAGO (AP) — More than 2,000 people lined up on O’Hare Airport’s newest runway Sunday, but they weren’t boarding a flight. They were running a 5K.

But try telling them that.

Several participants in the “5K on the Runway” race made mock jet sounds and threw out their arms to pantomime an airplane. Some even ran with floppy plastic jets on their heads.

Real jets using adjacent runways screamed just hundreds of feet overhead during the race, and bright red signs along the route warned they were in an area where aircraft were moving.

The event was designed as a community outreach effort to unveil the airport’s newest runway since 1971. Proceeds will support a $750,000 sculpture called “Runners” that will be installed at O’Hare.

———-

Hog caller named Jolee Bacon — yes indeed, that is her real name — wins top sooey title.

LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — Jolee Bacon really sizzles when it comes to hog-calling.

The northern Idaho woman took first place Saturday in the competition at the Nez Perce County Fair.

She has raised several champion pigs for 4-H contests. Bacon says she calls pigs every morning and night with her 9-year-old daughter, Jacey.

Bacon won the crown over as she started her hog call with a few loud snorts and a long, drawn-out “sooey.”

————-

Droopy drawers cool with judge

RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A judge has decided a law banning sagging pants in this town is unconstitutional after a teenager spent a night in jail on accusations he exposed too much underwear.

Julius Hart, 17, was charged last week after an officer said he spotted the teenager riding his bicycle with 4 to 5 inches of blue-and-black boxer shorts revealed.

Hart’s public defender, Carol Bickerstaff, urged a judge Monday to strike down the sagging pants law, telling him: “Your honor, we now have the fashion police.”

Circuit Judge Paul Moyle ruled that the law was unconstitutional based on “the limited facts” of the case. Technically, however, the charge hasn’t been dropped yet: a new arraignment awaits Hart on Oct. 5.

Voters in Riviera Beach approved the law in March. A first offense for sagging pants carries a $150 fine or community service, and habitual offenders face the possibility of jail time.

Bickerstaff said she wants the city to drop the law — regardless of whether anyone dislikes low-riding pants.

“The first time I saw this particular fashion, I disliked it,” she told the judge. “And then I realized I’m getting old.”

————-

It’s a hot time in Albuquerque tonight!

By MELANIE DABOVICH
Associated Press Writer

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Men, women and children of all ages stepped right up and twirled together twine and chile pods at the New Mexico State Fair, trying to create the world’s largest chile ristra.

Now they hope Londoners appreciate the chiles as much as they do.

In five hours and 45 minutes, the participants used a whopping 3,250 pounds of red chile pods to create a ristra spanning 157.7 feet, said New Mexico Department of Agriculture spokesman Doug Rains.

The New Mexico Chile Commission and the Agricultural Department followed Guinness World Record guidelines in creating the ristra and will submit their documentation to Guinness headquarters in London for record consideration. Rains said he did not know how long it would take for Guinness to respond.

“God only knows. When you’re dealing with people in London that don’t have a clue what a ristra is, it’s an uphill battle,” Rains said with a laugh.

A ristra is the traditional method for drying red chile peppers. The pods are tied with string in an overlapping design and hung to dry before being used in sauces and dishes.

Guinness doesn’t have a category for a chile ristra, but state agriculture and chile commission officials are asking Guinness to establish one.

—————

Mouth to Meow-th: Firefighter revives cat

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (AP) — A lucky cat owes one of its nine lives to a firefighter who revived it with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Al Machado rescued the cat from a burning apartment Tuesday, telling The Standard Times of New Bedford that he saw immediately that it needed air.

Machado began performing mouth to mouth on the animal as he carried it outside.

Video shot at the scene shows Machado bent over, breathing into the cat’s mouth several times. The cat, a tiger angora, was revived and resting comfortably soon after.

No humans were injured in the fire. A man and woman who had lived in the building were arrested and charged with arson.

Two other cats died in the second-floor apartment, but two dogs there were saved with the help of oxygen from paramedics and animal rescue personnel. Pets on the other two floors — including a ferret and even some frogs on the first floor — were all saved.

Asked what it tasted like to give mouth-to-mouth to a cat, Machado laughed, grimaced and said: “Like fur.”

—————-

City officials can’t remember where they buried time capsule

ELKHART, Ind. (AP) — Call it the time capsule that time forgot.

A city committee voted recently to open a time capsule buried in 1958, when the city was celebrating its centennial. The plan was to display the items, then add modern ones and rebury it until 2058.

Trouble is, no one seems to know exactly where the capsule is.

Several committee members thought the capsule was buried in a park — but the capsule there was buried in the 1970s to commemorate the U.S. bicentennial celebration.

Committee member Paul Thomas doubts the 1958 capsule exists since it wasn’t mentioned in detailed committee meeting minutes from that year or an extensive centennial brochure.

Mary Jo Weyrick, the city council’s administrative assistant, tracked down one resident who remembers the celebration 50 years ago and said the capsule may be buried on the corner of Main and High streets.

If it’s there, it may not be dug up any time soon because that stretch of sidewalk was recently replaced as part of a streetscaping project.

Meanwhile, the city is still planning to create a 2008 time capsule. Weyrick said she will note the new capsule’s location in city council records, the public library and anywhere else people might look for that information in the future.

“If there’s intelligent life on this planet in 2058, they won’t have to go through this same exercise,” she said.

—————-

Airline seeks bald men as walking billboards

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand’s national airline is offering to pay bald travelers to use their heads — literally — in a new advertising campaign.

Air New Zealand said it wants 70 recruits to stand in lines in three airports — while wearing temporary tattoos on the back of their heads so the displays can be seen by people lining up behind them.

The airline would pay 1,000 New Zealand dollars ($660) for each walking billboard, a company official said.

The tattoos will promote a new system that is meant to reduce check-in waiting times.

Air New Zealand marketing manager Steve Bayliss described the campaign as “a bit of fun.”

“It’s a … tattoo on the back of someone’s head, so they have to have their head shaved or be bald already,” he told National Radio on Wednesday. “It will be an advantage for them to be bald already.”

The tattoos would fade or wash off after about two weeks, he said.

Bayliss added that he won’t be part of the program since he was “doing OK” in the hair department.

————-

Bizarre coincidence or an acid flashback, dad not sure!

EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Following in your father’s footsteps by attending the same university is one thing. But moving into the same dorm room as your dad?

Mike Robell has found himself in B310 in Emmons Hall at Michigan State University — the very same room occupied by his father in 1978.

What are the odds? The East Lansing university has about 8,000 rooms.

The freshman’s father, Rich Robell, 50, said he suspected it was his old room. It has the same floor and same wall color. The phone number is the same, too. The same broken window latch offered some key evidence.

The proof came from a university archivist, who located a 1978 student directory.

Housing complex manager Tim Knight says it’s the first time in his 37-year tenure that he’s aware of a parent and child having the same room by chance.
“I guess it was meant to be,” said Rich Robell.

—————

YUK! Fish flies out of lake, breaks Arkansas teen’s jaw

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — It’s a fishing tale that packs a wallop so strong it broke the jaw of a southeastern Arkansas teen and covered him in fish blood and guts.

Seth Russell, 15, of Crossett, was cruising Lake Chicot on a large inner tube towed by a boat when a Silver Asian carp leaped from the water and smacked him in the face. Seth was knocked unconscious.

“He doesn’t remember anything at all,” the boy’s mother, Linda Russell, said last week. “He was laughing, and the next thing he remembers, he is waking in a hospital.”

The teen has had oral surgery to wire several teeth together and still experiences back pain that doctors attribute to whiplash from the high-speed collision, his mother said.

He’s not the only one who’s has a run-in with the “flying” Silver Asian carp.

“They do not fly, but they are quite good jumpers,” said Carole Engle, director of aquaculture and the fisheries center at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. “Over the past year, we have had some calls about fish jumping and causing injuries on Lake Chicot.

“Their jumping behavior is a problem, and their population appears to be growing there,” Engle said.

Silver Asian carp were first imported to the United States in the 1970s. Catfish farmers brought them here to remove algae and other suspended matter from their ponds. The Environmental Protection Agency started a program allowing cities to use the fish to help clean the water in sewer treatment plant ponds.

—————-

This ain’t no jive, particle physics rap is a hit

The Large Hadron Rap

EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Who says science doesn’t turn people on? Kate McAlpine is a rising star on YouTube for her rap performance — about high-energy particle physics.

Her performance has drawn a half-million views so far on YouTube.

The 23-year-old Michigan State University graduate and science writer raps about the Large Hadron Collider, the groundbreaking particle accelerator that has been built in a 17-mile circular tunnel at the CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland.

McAlpine raps that when the collider goes into operation on Sept. 10, “the things that it discovers will rock you in the head.”

The $3.8 billion machine will collide two beams of protons moving at close to the speed of light so scientists can see what particles appear in the resulting debris.

“Rap and physics are culturally miles apart,” McAlpine, a science writer at CERN, wrote to the Lansing State Journal in an e-mail last week, “and I find it amusing to try and throw them together.”

Others, including physicists, also find it amusing.

“We love the rap, and the science is spot on,” said CERN spokesman James Gillies.

McAlpine received permission to film herself and friends dancing in the caverns and tunnels where the experiments will take place.

“I have to confess that I was skeptical when Katie said she wanted to do this, but when I saw her previous science rapping and the lyrics, I was convinced,” Gillies said. “I think you’ll find pretty close to unanimity among physicists that it’s great.”

McAlpine honed her physics rapping skills at Michigan State’s National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, where she was part of a student research program two years ago.