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Hands-free tomato server

-- A good example of why I might be inveigled to move to Canada arrived this morning with the story of a Canadian member of parliament who made a hasty exit when he found that the bargain-basement underpants he had bought were too tight ... and later admitted it. Politicians with the ability to laugh at themselves strike me as a rare and desirable breed, especially here in the U.S. where the mummified solemnities of a John Boehner or the unrelenting viciousness of a Dick Cheney can be exhausting.

-- More magnetic, somehow, than the Academy Awards that are to be passed out tonight were yesterday's Golden Raspberry Awards. Maybe I'm just grouchy, but the Academy Awards seldom seem to celebrate quality, daring and imagination ... something to make the tears flow, whether in laughter or sorrow. I guess majority-rules creativity is easier than creativity. Anyway, there are the Razzies to lighten the load a bit.

A faith-based comedy about the true meaning of Christmas was the big winner at the annual Razzie Awards. Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas won four awards, including worst picture and worst actor, at Saturday night's 35th Golden Raspberry Awards ceremony. The tongue-in-cheek show, which celebrates movie-making mediocrity, took place a short walk from the venue for Sunday's Academy Awards. Razzie winners, who rarely turn up, get a $4.79 gold-spray-painted trophy.

--  And then there are the curses that have kept the Chambal River region in India a wild and polluted and austere and bandit-strewn place. Perhaps because it seemed to depict a 'simpler' way of life, I read this longish story from start to finish. I haven't a clue what drew me in and I'm not sure that I learned anything 'useful,' but it carried me. Sometimes the predictable cruelties and bloodshed need a little down time.

-- And for off-the-wall possibilities, "dig in to this list of light-and-geeky links that Data Dive has compiled from the week that was." From the greatest class pranks in all of history to the quietest places in America to the hands-free, tomato-serving machine ... there is something refreshing here.