Hasbro has updated the classic game, Clue. For starters, the characters have been given first names and bios. Miss Scarlet is an actress named Kasandra, Mr. Green is Jacob (and now African-American), and both Colonel Mustard and Professor Plum have been demoted to plain old Jack and Victor. Poor guys. Not only that, each character now has a special power to help them discover clues quicker. Don’t bother guessing that someone did it with the lead pipe, revolver, or wrench, they’re history. Nowadays murders are done with dumbbells, trophies, and poison. Oh, and it can happen in the theater, spa, or guest house now. Somehow “Kasandra in the hot tub with the New Age crystals” just doesn’t have the right ring.

The city council of Birmingham, England, sent 720,000 pamphlets to city residents thanking them for doing so well with their recycling. In big red letters it said “Thank You Birmingham!” splashed across the city’s skyline. Okay, some city’s skyline. It turns out they used a photo of Birmingham, Alabama, by mistake. You’d think they’d know better since it’s not the first time this mix-up has happened. This past January three lawmakers who represent Birmingham—the English one—used a photo of the U.S. counterpart on their website. And just the other day the mayor asked the residents of nearby West Bromwich how they liked living in Mississippi.

If you’re an engineer you might want to move to Poland. They could use you. A train tunnel that was recently completed in Warsaw, Poland, turned out to be too short for trains to fit in it. This follows on the heels of a truck bypass tunnel which was too low the trucks to fit in and the plans the Polish road authority made public in which two sections of major highway would have missed each other by five miles, each coming to its own dead end. Feel free to insert your favorite ’70s Polack joke here: __________________.

You know the girl who captured everyone’s heart when she sang Ode to the Motherland during the opening ceremony of the Olympics? It turns out she was lip syncing. Authorities who attended rehearsals and saw the 7-year-old girl whose voice was actually heard thought she wasn’t cute enough to be on camera. Next, Chinese officials admitted that some of the fireworks TV viewers saw during the opening ceremony were actually computer generated graphics and previously shot footage which they used to augment the real thing. The next thing you know we’ll find out the badminton matches are being played using a Wii instead of rackets, Michael Phelps hasn’t actually been in the water at all and is really Fab Morvan of Milli Vanilli, and the games are being held on a movie lot in Burbank.

According to findings to be released later this week in the journals Science and Nature, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have created metamaterials that bend light around three-dimensional objects, making them invisible. The research was funded in part by the U.S. Army Research Office, the National Science Foundation’s Nano-Scale Science and Engineering Center, the International Brotherhood of Magicians, and the American Optometry Association.

In case you thought electroshock therapy went the way of Randle McMurphy and Nurse Ratched, be warned that it’s making a comeback. According to the National Mental Health Association, the number of people who underwent electroconvulsive therapy last year tripled to 100,000 a year. Of that, 127 weren’t do-it-yourselfers who said, “Don’t worry honey, I don’t need to turn off the circuit breaker.”

A Microsoft researcher found that the famous six degrees of separation is pretty darned on target. By sorting through the records of 30 billion electronic conversations among 180 million people they found that on average any two people are separated by 6.6 degrees. That means the researchers had the pleasure of reading 1,667 conversations per person. Was this mentioned in Microsoft Messenger’s privacy policy?

Darrell Alexander, Midwest co-chair of the Pray at the Pump movement, held two prayer services at St. Louis gas stations on Monday asking God to lower fuel prices. As if he doesn’t have enough other things to worry about. On Thursday though, the average national gas price fell to $3.90. Meanwhile, Exxon reported it earned $11.7 billion (yes, that’s billion with a “B”) in the second quarter, the highest quarterly operating profit in U.S. corporate history. Coincidentally, the other spots in the top ten list of quarterly earnings are also taken by Exxon. Sounds like Pray at the Pump was at the wrong gas station.

In Zimbabwe, where inflation is running between 2.2 million and 12.5 million percent a year depending on whether you believe the government or independent analysts, they issued a 100 billion-dollar bank note last week. By Sunday you couldn’t even buy a loaf of bread with it. So yesterday the government announced that it’s knocking 10 zeros off its currency, meaning 10 billion dollars will become one. The government plans to issue Sharpies so it can save money by letting citizens convert their own bills and let them add the unused zeros to the end of their nonexistent paychecks.

When asked by the San Francisco Chronicle how he could be a 21st century president without using email, the Internet, or even computers, John McCain said it’s enough that he’s familiar with the technologies.”It doesn’t mean that I have to email people. I read emails,” he said, explaining that his staff is “constantly showing them to me as the news breaks during the day.” Then he picked up a piece of chalk and went back to writing the next day’s speech on his slate.

Need a boost to get you through the summer heat? How about a can of Unagi Nobori, a new drink that recently debuted in Japan which the manufacturer claims will boost stamina in hot weather. Oh yeah, in case your Japanese is rusty, Unagi Nobori means “Surging Eel.” And yes, the fizzy yellow drink is actually made from eel heads and bones. Drinking it is probably like pounding your head against the wall, it’s painful while you do it but you feel so much better when you stop.

A funeral home in Australia reports that while Amazing Grace, My Way, and What a Wonderful World are still the most popular songs at funerals, they’re getting more requests for rock songs, including Highway to Hell, Another One Bites the Dust, and Ding Dong the Witch is Dead. Meanwhile, on the other side they’re playing Get Back, I Hear You Knocking, and The Bitch is Back.

It’s enough to make Sunday Rose Kidman Urban and Knox Pitt-Jolie feel good about their names. A judge in New Zealand made a 9-year-old girl a ward of the court so he could change her name. I mean, so what if her parents named her Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii? The girl was glad to have a new name since even her closest friends didn’t know the old one, they simply called her “K.” As in, uh, Kidman or Knox. The judge won’t say what her new name is to protect the girl’s privacy, but hopefully he didn’t shorten it to Tallulah Willis. Or Scout. Or Rumor.

Yesterday President Bush explained the housing market mess by saying, “Wall Street got drunk…and now it’s got a hangover.” Adam Smith couldn’t have explained it better. Neither could White House spokesman Scott Stanzel who the other day referred to the timetable to get out of Iraq as “our joint aspirational time horizons.” Even Noah Webster couldn’t have explained that one.

How bad is the economy? One day Paulson says it’s okay, the next Bernanke claims it’s tanking, and all the while Bush thinks it’s peachy keen. But according to the Roadside Attraction Economic Index, it’s mixed. The Mystery Spot was packed this past Sunday, all tours through 7:00 pm being sold out by 1:00. On the other hand, two roadside attractions are up for grabs. First is White’s City, New Mexico, which is for sale. Yes, the whole town, which includes two motels, an RV park, a post office, a grocery store, two restaurants, a gas station, an opera house, and the Million Dollar Museum with its statue of a Woolly Mammoth, barbed wire collection, two-headed animal freaks, human skulls, and mummies. Too much real estate for you? Maybe you should bid on H.G. “Ben” Hartman’s house in Springfield, Ohio, which comes with two lots across the street and his popular folk art rock garden in the back yard, complete with miniature buildings, a castle, and cool sculptures, all for about $57,900. Two attractions for sale. It doesn’t bode well for the S&P Index this week.

Four months ago, Yvonne Hair and Nails, a salon in Alexandria, Virginia, starting offering customers an alternative to using razors to get rid of dead skin on their feet—fish. Garra rufa, which are also known as doctor fish, are tiny carp that nibble the skin off your feet as you soak them in warm water. So far 5,000 people have paid up to $50 to let 100 fish eat their skin and toe jam. But whatever you do, don’t try this at home. Especially if you keep piranhas in your fish tank.

The world chess boxing championship was recently held in Berlin and Nikolay Sazhin of Russia took the crown when Frank Stoldt of Germany left his queen vulnerable and Sazhin forced him to concede. Kind of an intellectual knockout. Chess boxing is a new sport that alternates a round of chess with a round of boxing until one person either beats the other at chess or beats him senseless. Not that hybrid sports are anything new. The Olympics has the biathlon, which combines cross-country skiing and shooting a rifle, and the pentathlon, which includes fencing, shooting a handgun, swimming, horseback riding, and running. If chess boxing catches on it’s only a matter of time until more hybrid sports pop up, like checkers kayaking, poker golf, and Candyland UFC, which will alternate rounds of the board game with an Ultimate Fighting cage match.

Iraq is holding a competition to design a new national flag. It’s not just for Iraqis, but is open to anyone who wants to enter a design. A committee will pick three designs, after which members of the parliament will vote for their favorite. The deadline for submissions is the end of September, with the final vote expected to come before the end of the year, the end of the war, or the end of the world, whichever comes first.

So much uproar over the New Yorker magazine cover with Barack and Michelle Obama on it. Sheesh! It’s satire. It’s humor. Besides, who cares if Obama wears muslin and held some corn when he took the oath of office for the Senate?

The price of oil is $138 a barrel. The cost of popcorn to movie theaters has gone up 50% in the last few months, meaning it costs more per barrel than oil. Yet according to the EPA, the “statistical” value of an American’s life has dropped over the past five years from $7.8 million to $6.9 million. It doesn’t take a financial genius to know it’s time to move your 401(k) money out of human life funds and into popcorn futures.