Now There's a Kick In the Teeth...

Joseph in IL sends in this delicious little "oopsie"...

Australian hospital accidentally declares 200 patients dead

An Australian hospital apologized on Thursday after mistakenly sending out death notices for 200 of its - very much alive - patients.

Austin Hospital, in Australia's second most populous city of Melbourne, erroneously killed off the patients when it faxed death notices to their family doctors.

Now, it sounds like this only went to the primary care physician, and not to the newspapers, state, etc., so it really does sound like it was just embarrassing. It's not like 200 people were legally declared dead so they've got a legalistic nightmare to contend with. It's not even all that hard to see what happened: there was a change in the software that sent out notices when a patient was discharged. I'd wager someone clicked the wrong box so that when [patient] is discharged, sent notice to [doctor] changed the word "discharged" to "deceased"...

I wonder, though... How many of those people thought, even for a second, "hey, this could be a good thing"? That does depend on whether the doctor told them about the mistake, more than likely after a rather embarrassing phone call. "I'm so sorry to hear of your loved one's passing". "What do you mean, he's sitting right here!" After a laugh - or perhaps uncomfortable silence, once the doctor explained what happened I wonder how many folks asked if this meant they were legally deceased...

Mental note, though, to avoid getting sick if I travel to Oz...

That is all.

LITERAL People of WalMart...

Shakin' my head here, boss, at this story sent in by #1 blogdaughter...

Teen lived in Texas Walmart for four days without notice, report says

Employees at a 24-hour Walmart in Texas were shocked to find a teenage boy who apparently called the store home for four days without being noticed.

The 14-year-old built two campsites inside the store using boxes of strollers and stacks of paper towels and toilet paper, MyFoxNY.com reported.

Boy, howdy, but that's got to be embarrassing, eh? I mean, I hope store officials have a long, hard talk with their loss prevention folks about this. How on earth do you miss something like that? I mean, it'd be one thing to miss someone hiding in a corner or the restroom or something overnight. It happens. But four days? "Gee, Bob, that pile of refuse over in 'Infants' keeps getting bigger. Maybe we oughta look into that?"

Also of note is that this kid - who, at 14 years old, is only a little bit younger than TheBoy - was missing for four days and the family he was supposed to be staying with apparently didn't notice. Either that or they didn't want to get the authorities involved; in which case, well, whatever. Maybe the kid had a valid reason for preferring the company of WalMart to his own flesh and blood...

I know I won't be able to look at a stack of boxes in the aisle the same way again...

That is all.

Now Starting for the Celtics: Chilly Willy!

In the words of the immortal Hank Hill, what the hell?

Researchers discover fossils of penguins the size of NBA players

Researchers have discovered fossils of a 250-pound penguin on Antarctica's Seymour Island, Phys.org reports. Palaeeudyptes klekowskii lived some 37 million to 40 million years ago.

That period was "a wonderful time for penguins, when 10 to 14 species lived together along the Antarctic coast," a researcher tells New Scientist. Researchers put the penguins' length at about 6-feet-7, New Scientist reports, or "tall enough to play in the NBA," as Discovery puts it.

A 250-pound, 6-and-a-half foot tall penguin? It's bad luck even seeing a thing like that... Of course, the article has to link to a ZOMG GLOBAL WARMING WILL KILL ALL TEH PENGUINZ!!!!111 scaremonger piece, but the fossil part is cool. It's really amazing how much has changed since this mudball got started.

Dinosaurs and fossils always fascinated me growing up. I'd probably have gone into archaeology if I'd grown up somewhere cool, like the Dakotas or the southwest, and had access to the possibility of fossils. Reconstructing history from the fragments left behind? Yeah, that's cool as heck.

I'm just trying to figure out who would be the Celtics' starting center if there were a giant 7-foot tall penguin to draft...

That is all.

Conspiracies on Top of Conspiracies...

Oh, we got plenty. Just not here. This is just plain weird. Thanks to #1 blogdaughter for the link...

Kenyan who offered 40 goats and 20 cows to Clinton as dowry for Chelsea killed by elephant

The editor of a weekly magazine says a Kenyan man who once offered former U.S. President Bill Clinton 40 goats and 20 cows for his daughter's hand in marriage has been killed by an elephant.

Dorothy Jebet, editor of the Kass Weekly, said Wednesday journalist Godwin Chepkurgor was attacked by an elephant herd while on assignment for the magazine.

Okay then. Apparently that is considered an occupational hazard for journalists in Kenya. Mental note made. Don't sign up for assignments in Kenya without consulting a PH and talking to the guys from Norma...

Now, honestly, other than the WTF angle I got nothing. I have no idea why this dude wanted Chelsea's hand in marriage (and, yes, FTR I thought the "Chelsea is a dog" jokes were in poor taste when she was 12. No matter how much I may have disliked her father-intensely, for those who were curious-as a child she was not fair game). Regardless of her lineage, what some whackadoodle half a continent away does is no reflection on her.

Now, you want to talk about gnarly ways to die, though. "Attacked by elephant" has got to one of the top five (right up there with "blow up space asteroid to save Earth" or "run over by a stampede of angry beavers"). Although I would imagine it would lead to a closed casket. Or perhaps being buried in a baggy.

Should have offered more goats, man...

That is all.