Apparently the student population at Connecticut College have way too much free time on their hands. Two students and a faculty adviser conducted studies to determine the length of time needed for harmful bacteria to infest a dropped piece of food. “Results of their research showed that people can wait as long as 30 seconds to pick up wet foods and even longer for dry foods.”

Honestly, the only segments of the population that this research benefits are slobs and homeless people. The more I read about these odd research projects the better I understand why we can’t cure cancer, stop global warming or create a bacon that’s good for your heart.

I know I rarely give bad reviews and I’m not going to start now. Say Anything’s first major release “…is a Real Boy” is a refreshing departure from everything that is traditional “pop” music. With rebellious Offspring-like lyrics (i.e. “I called her on the phone and she touched herself. She touched herself. She touched herself”) and original beats, Say Anything has found itself in constant rotation on my iPod.

A couple of the songs (”Alive with the Glory of Love” & “Wow, I can get sexual too”) are getting more and more radio play and its only a matter of time until the larger stations start to pick it up. While the singles are great, the double-disc set of 20 songs is a quality listen from start to finish and at just $6.99 on iTunes (for those of you playing at home, that’s less than $0.35/song) you can’t afford not to buy this album.

The band is currently touring North America and you can follow their progress through their video diary (I know, it sounds gay, but its actually pretty entertaining). Also, unlike typical stuffy bands, you can listen to their full album (not just 10 second clips) on their website.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked, “hey, Tom, remember the NES and that crazy Duck Hunt game? How the hell did that work anyway?” My typical response was, “Duh, it’s a ‘LIGHT’ gun.” Apparently, I’m a moron. According to the Straight Dope, the gun isn’t actually shooting the TV, rather the TV is shooting the gun, “in short, the TV emits the light pulse and the gun detects it, not the other way around.” Interesting.

I can’t think of a better thing to wake up to than the smell of bacon and this bacon alarm clock could be the greatest human invention since porn. The “Wake n’ Bacon” is simply a wooden box with a clock. 10 minutes before your desired wake-up time, the alarm turns on a couple of light bulbs which heats a frozen piece of bacon (placed the night before) for 10 minutes until you wake up to bacony bliss. If you’re not excited by this you may want to check for a pulse.

I don’t know how ethical it is to post tricks to beat sobriety tests and if you need them you may want to rethink your priorities, but they could be potentially useful nonetheless.

1. Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus – “indicate that you drank coffee, an energy drink or smoked cigarettes [and] the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus test is compromised”
2. Walk and Turn – “focus on a point on the ground 10 feet in front of you… and concentrate on your center of mass.”
3. Standing on One Leg – “Don’t talk to the officer… and focus on a spot on the ground ten feet in front of you.
4. Finger to Nose – “Balance yourself before closing your eyes”
5. Rhomberg Balance Test – “you should use a trick to maintain your tempo, like ‘one one thousand, two one thousand’”