As a hater of gnomes I read this article with some disbelief. It appears some people actually spend time stealing the things. The article is about a French man who was arrested in Brittany suspected of stealing over 170 gnomes. Apparently thefts of gnomes are becoming quite a problem along the French German border where people liberate the gnomes from German gardens and release them in France. The question still remains, why would you want to steal a gnome?

This is quite interesting, its an advert for Doritos that was made for just £6.50. The advert was the winner in a competition to find a "consumer generated" TV advert for the brand. It was made by two 25 years old using stop motion filming and cost just the price of two packets of Doritos, two pots of salsa and some Blu-Tack. The advert will run in a peak advertising slot during the Euro 2008 coverage on Sunday and the makers of the ad are splitting the prize money of £20,000 between them. You can see it here, it just goes to show that you don't need a huge budget to create a TV advert.

I read this article with amusement. Its about a small boy who on a holiday to Skegness spent his time trying to win a cuddly animal from the crane machines. After finding that the crane was rather ineffective at picking up the cuddly toys he crawled in through the hatch to claim his prize another way, and of course got stuck. I can sympathise here, as a child I wasted most of my pocket money trying to win cuddly toys from these things. I eventually did the sums and realised that based on the price to play the machine and the amount of goes it took to win a toy, I was better off just buying the toy and saving myself a bit of time and money.

This is an interesting idea, its a greetings card that has seeds impregnated into the paper. When you have read the card instead of throwing it away, you plant it. The card should then grow and you should be rewarded with some flowers. The cards start at just £1.99 each so are about the same price as a normal greetings card. I might get my Christmas cards from here next time.

A cane toad managed to survive despite being eaten by a dog. The dog ate the toad which can release a poison known to kill a dog within minutes. The dogs owner immediately called a vet who gave the dog an injection to induce vomiting. After 40 minutes the dog then vomited a live cane toad. Dog and toad are both doing well.

Researchers have found that a chemical derived from red wine can help keep the heart "genetically young". The chemical called resveratrol appears to stop age related changes in the function of heart genes producing an effect similar to eating a very calorie diet. Unfortunately the chemical does not stay in the blood for very long and a researcher said "In order to have any effect, you would have to drink literally gallons of wine, and that is not recommended."

I am slightly happier today after my bad day yesterday. My laptop is alive once more, for how long I'm not sure, but for now it works. I might still look into purchasing a new one soon, as the problems appear to be caused by it simply overheating.

I have had a really bad day. It started when I turned my laptop on this morning, only to get a blue screen of death moments later. The laptop appears to have died completely and I'm not sure whether it will live another day, it depends on whether my husband can do anything to fix it. In the meantime I have been using a really old really slow computer. It doesn't have most of the software on it that I need to complete my day to day work and I am also unable to access most of my email. It has been a very frustrating day. My only consolation is that I don't store any work locally so whilst I am inconvenienced I have not lost any data. If my laptop is dead though, I might have several more frustrating days ahead whilst I wait for a new one to be delivered. Watch this space, will the laptop live again? Who knows?

I have just found another reason (excuse) to drink wine. According to this article drinking five or more glasses of wine or beer a week can halve your chance of developing rheumatoid arthritis. It is thought that alcohol helps to suppresses the inflammatory process behind the condition.

When a kitten became stuck in a drain it was rescued by firefighters using just a vacuum cleaner. They put a sock on the end of the nozzle and this little guy was soon freed from his hiding place.

A slightly odd topic for my blog but I came across this article about a porn star called Maxi Mounds ( obviously not her real name). She holds the world record for having the largest breast implants in the world and has a 36MMM bust. My first thought was where does she finds clothes that fit?

I have a grow your own venus fly trap kit. It all looks very easy from the instructions. You simply soak the compost in a little warm water, put it in the pot and plant the seeds. Then cover it with a plastic bag and wait for your little fly traps to grow. I have done all that and three days later, no little fly traps. Perhaps I am being impatient or perhaps I have done something wrong. Anyway, I will keep checking every few days to see if anything happens.