Launched Jokes

South Korea is gearing up for the World Cup by giving its toilets an urgent makeover. Officials are thinking big about the smallest room, lavishing expensive decor on lavatories and designing' themed' toilets in a bid to win the title of "Finest Rest Room in Seoul". Korea's "outhouse experience" has long been panned by visiting Westerners.

But the country has now launched the Rest Room movement and is determined visitors will be bowled over by the standard of its lavatories during World Cup 2002. Art shows have even been thrown in lavs, and there is now a guided tour of the city's top 50 conveniences. One top toilet is said to have an "urbane image of high class", with dressing tables, aromatic toilet paper and hair dryers.

Another has an art show, while a government-run loo is designed with a medieval theme and a "castle motif". Plants, colored lighting, ultra-high ceilings, cigarette machines and heavy steel ashtrays are more...

Editor's note: I've gotten more than one 1999 Darwin Awards posting this year (that don't match), but I figure the gene pool is a big place...

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The true high point of the year has arrived. Yes, it is the 1999 Darwin Awards. For those sheltered few of you who are not fully aware of the Darwin Awards; these awards are given annually (and posthumously) to those individuals who did the most for the human gene pool by removing themselves from it.

GRAVITY KILLS

A 22-year-old Reston, Va., man was found dead after he tried to use luggage straps (the stretchy little ropes with hooks on each end) to bungee jump off a 70-foot railroad trestle, police said. Fairfax County, Va., police said Eric A. Barcia, a fast-food worker, taped a bunch of these straps together, wrapped an end around one foot, anchored the other end to the trestle at Lake Accotink Park, jumped... and hit the pavement. Warren Carmichael, a police spokesman, said investigators think Barcia more...