I am particularly fond of the IKEA-like illustrated instructions with the guy just zapping his eyeball with the laser.

In fact, I think this should be a new trend: Do-it-yourself brain surgeries, heart transplants, quadruple bypasses are just around the corner (or in your basement).

We were getting ready to go out of town for the weekend, so I thought I would plan ahead and get a full tank of gas after picking up my son from daycare. Trying to be a Supermom and entertain him while I was filling up the car, I left the music on, leaving keys in the ignition. As I was swiping the credit card I thought better of leaving the keys in the car as I am always paranoid about someone jumping in and driving off with the kid in the car. But it was too late! For some reason my car decided to flip out an lock up! No cell phone, no AAA card, just a credit card and head full of panic!

Thankfully, the gas station attendant agreed to call 911 and in 5 minutes the gas station was swarming with firefighters trying to break into my car. To add to the confusion of the moment, my son, who has been obsessed with fire engines for most of his life, decided that he now was scared of fire engines and fire fighters!

We both took some time to settled down and in a few hours we were on our way.

After an hour of driving I decided that all the excitement of the day made me very tired and I decided to switch with Mike. I pull over to the side of the freeway to make a quick switch, jump out of the car, slam the door, run to the passenger door and realize that he just did the same. We both pull at the doors and confirm that they are locked. Panic attack again! Now we are in even deeper shit - busy freeway in the middle of nowhere, engine running, rain pouring, no cell phone, inside: sleeping child and a dog, who is very amused by all the running around.

Luckily, Mike had a second set of keys in his pocket. I was almost in tears. Could not help thinking what would happen if the firefighters had to pry the doors open again. My son would probably think this is the way it will always be from now on and would refuse to get in the car with me.

A Dutch designer Wendy Rameckers came up with a rather creative solution to this problem. She is providing male shoppers with a wall of fake breasts. Now they just only need a row of fake butts so that guys can get their wives or girlfriends complete sets of undies.

Yes, that’s right, you can now pay someone in China to play your computer games while you are busy working. Somehow I thought it should be another way around - I should be outsourcing my work to someone who can do it cheaper while I am busy playing computer games.

What’s next? I am thinking we should get ready to outsource our partying, drinking and smoking because it is too bad for us, but someone just has to do it while we are running on treadmills, meditating and growing organic lavender.

Want to know what’s cooking at Yahoo? Check out Yahoo! Next where you can test-drive the newest and coolest projects. Personally, I am quite fond of the new Yahoo! Maps with awesome navigation flexibility and the live traffic reports.

Of course, you would have to put up with occasional bugs typical for Beta releases.

Most of all, it made me think about how terrible and useless all the wars are in the long run! The only thing they tend to accomplish is to kill a bunch of people on either side and produce a huge number of physically and/or mentally disabled people. I can not think of a single war where the initiating country successfully accomplished its mission (looking from the historical perspective).

The stats for our current “operations” are just the tip of the iceberg. The official fatalities count does not include the civilian deaths and the number of people permanently disabled. We are already seeing the impact of the post-war stress syndrome, we will see more of this as the troops return.

And for each fatality there are devastated Mothers and Fathers. Over 1000 of coalition casualties are soldiers under the age of 25. I can not even imagine what it would feel like to lose a child. Each time I read about yet another fatality in Iraq or Afghanistan, I have an uncontrollable urge to pick up my son, hug him really tight and never let go.

I am thinking there ought to be a better way of dealing with govenments set on invading other countries for religious, political, economic or delusional reasons. One idea comes from Pink Floyd in “The Fletcher Memorial Home”:

take all your overgrown infants away somewhere
and build them a home a little place of their own
the fletcher memorial
home for incurable tyrants and kings
and they can appear to themselves every day
on closed circuit t.v.
to make sure they’re still real
it’s the only connection they feel
…
did they expect us to treat them with any respect
they can polish their medals and sharpen their
smiles, and amuse themselves playing games for a while
boom boom, bang bang, lie down you’re dead
safe in the permanent gaze of a cold glass eye
with their favourite toys
they’ll be good girls and boys
in the fletcher memorial home for colonial
wasters of life and limb
…

My idea is to require the top government officials (including the President, his cabinet and the Congress) to enlist their children and send them in to the front lines. If the war is really worth fighting, that would be the proof. If they do not think it is worth risking the lives of their children, they should not be putting other people’s children in the harm’s way.

What really puzzles me is why can we learn to explore space and other planets, harness nuclear energy, instantly communicate with people across the planet and so on, but we can not learn to resolve conflicts peacefully?

I have to admit that during cretain parts of the year our family does consume Sudafed and other over-the-counter cold remedies in rather large quantities. I have been known to buy charcoal, coffee filters, Kitty Litter and aluminum foil all in one shopping trip and in rather large quantities from Costco. I guess next time I do this, I better have a note from the doctor, camping reservations and a cat’s hairball sample to present to the sales clerk who will question my purchase to cover his own butt. Better yet, he just may call the FBI!

It is pretty interesting that the sting seems to target Indian owners. I wonder if that does have to do with cultural differences and limited language, or with the fact that immigrants are less likely to have fair representation in court and can be easily be made into “examples”. The policy that is being enforced seems to be pretty vague and it does not sound like they actually broke any laws.

Now I understand the need for the sales clerk to have some responsibility for selling a keg to a drunk teenager, but do we really want to leave the drug policy enforcement up to the guy in 7eleven?