Beau and his product

Spark in the dark

Don?t shade your eyes. It does tend to dazzle you a bit, but then it?s called a GloThong. And if you buy one for $49.95, you can put a shine on your nether regions for two hours. And the bizarre idea is not the brainchild of some misguided geek. The GloThong has been designed by Beau Carpenter, a worker at NASA and an MBA student. Beau started out with the idea of glowing jogging clothes, but then switched to thongs when he saw their popularity on the Net. The straps come in lurid neon colours and are worked by rechargeable batteries. Next in the assembly line are swimsuits for both men and women. The thongs go on sale in mid-December. So go ahead, light up your beau?s Christmas.

bet you didn’t know what Christina Aguilera was doing in Mumbai a few days back. The singer had reportedly come to Amby Valley looking for — what else — spiritual inspiration. She sure could do with some.

Slam the spammers

And you thought your e-mail account was going bust because of those damned spam mails. Well, hope?s just round the corner. The device that will ring in Doomsday for spammers is just a simple screensaver launched by the Internet portal Lycos. Called ?Make Love Not Spam?, the screensaver requests data from spam servers ceaselessly, making them slow down. And if thousands sign up for the service, it increases the load even more, making the monthly bandwidth bills of the spammers hit the roof. The idea is to identify hardcore spammers through spamguards like Spamcop, and then reduce their traffic by at least 95 per cent. The lovely screensaver, already tested in Sweden, is ready for an all-Europe release.

Not all white

This is a fairy tale in which they don?t live happily ever after. The ancient German town of Dresden has been in flux after a 22-year-old, who plays Snow White in the annual Christmas market, posed for a few naughty snaps in Germany?s leading newspaper Bild. As a result, she was chucked from her role. But now the seven dwarfs as well as the wicked queen have threatened to go on strike if she is not brought back. The story continues...

Ritchie Blackmore

Rock of ages

For three generations, it?s been the perfect riff to go with the reefer. And now, those meaty notes belted out by Ritchie Blackmore in Smoke on the Water, Deep Purple?s epic single, have been voted the greatest rock ?? roll riff of all times in a poll conducted by Australian Music. Which just goes to show that Blackmore may have left the band, but his music still continues to rock. Fewer cheers for Kirk Hammett of Metallica and Angus Young of AC/DC ? Enter Sandman and Back in Black take second and third spots respectively.

AWARD OF THE WEEK

Goes to the physically challenged students of New Delhi who participated in drama productions and art exhibitions organised by the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People to celebrate World Disability Day on December 3.