There's been talk about how video games aren't so bad for kids after all, and now here's a case in point: MyWebTimes (via GayGamer) reports that eleven-year-old Audrey Plique saved her family from a car crash because of what she'd learned from Grand Theft Auto:

Karen Norris, of Streator, will say no such thing. Not after her quick-witted 11-year-old daughter, Audrey Plique, sprung to the rescue of their family because a popular video game showed a potential danger of a vehicle rollover.

We were making the news rounds when this article on MSNBC.com caught our eye: Best hotels for an affair: Get bewitched, savor the food of love and more in these cheat suites. Ha-ha, we thought. This must be about catered Halloween poker parties.

But nope, it's full-on trying to help you get away with cheating on your spouse. And it's an exercise in dropping as many double entendres per sentence as humanly possible ("Just don't be alarmed at the things that go bump in the night").

It's important to speak the truth about the dead, but maybe not the whole truth, and especially not in an obituary. Strollerderby has the full text of a scathing obit that ran recently in the Napa/Sonoma Times-Herald.

An excerpt: Dolores had no hobbies, made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life. I speak for the majority of her family when I say her presence will not be missed by many, very few tears will be shed and there will be no lamenting over her passing.

Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, says it's fine for teachers to bring concealed handguns to school, the AP reports. His justification: in the case of a school shooting, it might save lives. Texas isn't the only state struggling with the question of whether or not to let teachers bring guns to school.

Oregon, Nevada, Utah and other states have wrestled with the question of whether arming teachers would pose a risk to students or increase the likelihood that a Columbine-style shooter could be stopped more quickly, saving lives.

The Times Online describes what may be the low point in television history: a British reality TV star, Jade Goody, is told by her doctor that she has cervical cancer - on the show, which is broadcasting today in India. The show, Bigg Boss, is the Indian version of Big Brother.

She quit she show after the revelation to be with her children. Apparently, she gave permission for the footage of her getting her diagnosis to air, but it still seems pretty grotesque, doesn't it? We're not talking about a Lifetime movie. Here's a real woman, a mother, learning that she's very sick. Who wants to watch that?

This is a Plum TV video of the girls who photographed the "Montauk Monster," the corpse of indeterminate species that washed ashore in the posh Hamptons. The ladies are clearly gunning for a movie of the week, or at least their very own Cardiff Giant. Gawker has been keeping up a breathless commentary from the start. So, assuming it's a real beast, what do you think it is: racoon, dog, cat, or chupacabra? Here's the photo:

The New York Sun has an article today about a New York writer, Stephanie Lerner (Kids Who Think Outside the Box), who is suing her estranged husband for $25 million because he gave her an STD that forced her to cancel her book tour. According to the lawsuit, Mr. Lerner had unprotected sex with prostitutes in Asia and then knowingly passed along HPV to his wife.

On the one hand, good for her. The only truly satisfying revenge in such a situation is to bankrupt the callous spouse. On the other, it sounds like Mr. Lerner had a history of skeevy behavior, and so Mrs. Lerner should maybe have known enough to use protection when sleeping with her husband after his extended business trips to the Far East.

If you were the judge, would you award her the money?

Drudge had this item from WCBS TV of a 44-pound cat who was rescued from the street by an animal shelter. There are indications (like the fact that she weighs FORTY-FOUR POUNDS) that she had a home until recently, but there was no collar.

That owner is going to be mighty surprised when she starts making the talk show rounds with the shelter staff, as she's scheduled to do this week. Her caretakers have nicknamed her "Princess Chunk" and put her on a diet.

Meanwhile, in Indiana, a family has found Jesus . . . in their cat's fur. Check out the video and be the judge of whether or not the cat's fur pattern is a sign from God. (Although isn't finding patterns in a TABBY's fur cheating? They're like furry, walking Rorschach tests.)

According to the Canadian Press, a British Columbia woman, age 44, just gave birth to her 18th child, a girl who weighed almost eight pounds. Her oldest is twenty-three.

Her husband, Alexandru Ionce, said he wouldn't say no to more children: "We never planned how many children to have. We just let God guide our lives, you know, because we strongly believe life comes from God and that's the reason we did not stop the life. We let life come."

The large family is out of fashion these days, but maybe it's making a comeback.

Mother of four Katie Allison Granju writes on Babble.com about wanting six kids, and about how she doesn't feel her choice is widely respected:

Have you seen this (insane? brilliant?) reality show "The Baby Borrowers"? In order to give teenagers a simulation of life as a young parent, they are set up in a house with jobs and a real, live baby, borrowed from another family, for three days. Then they get children of progressively older ages for three days each too. The real parents watch from across the street on monitors and only intervene if they get really, really mad, as when the teen "dad" suggests letting the six-month old cry it out.

In case you didn't know this already: some people are insane when it comes to their coffee preferences. Dueling coffee snobs have recently taken it to the internet.

The blog And I Am Not Lying posted a rant on July 13th about his battle with a barista over the iced triple espresso he wanted:

I just ordered my usual summertime pick-me-up: a triple shot of espresso dumped over ice. And the guy at the counter looked me in the eye with a straight face and said "I'm sorry, we can't serve iced espresso here. It's against our policy."

According to The New York Post, nudism - including nude dining, yoga and stand-up comedy - is all the rage. One such club discussed in the article:

About 50 diners - whose motto is "no hot soup" - regularly turn up for Ordover's monthly meals held at venues including the Mercantile Grill on Pearl Street and Pete's Downtown in Brooklyn. They're served by regular restaurant staff - forced by city laws to keep their clothes on.

Here's the answer to our first question: the naked diners bring their own sheets and towels to sit on. Our second question, though, remains unanswered: Sure it's hot, but what's wrong with air conditioning?

Reborn baby dolls have been in the news a lot this week. Police broke into a car in Australia to get to one they thought was a passed out real baby in the backseat.

Then, presumably to redeem their reputation as police-time-wasters, all this comes out about them being used for "cuddle therapy" for parents who have lost a child and for Alzheimer's patients.

Last week, we interviewed the World Champion Chessboxer, a 19-year-old Russian math student, for TIME magazine, and remembered why we love our job: we get to research things like chessboxing.

The matches work like this: competitors alternate between three-minute rounds of boxing and four-minute rounds of speed chess with one-minute breaks in between to get the gloves off and hunker down at the chess table. The winner is determined by knockout, checkmate, or referee decision.

Here's an excerpt from our conversation with the winner, Nikolaj Sazhin: