Vuvuzelas now in dictionary

The ever-present hum of the vuvuzela during this year's soccer World Cup catapulted the plastic trumpet to prominence and now it has earned a place in the Oxford Dictionary of English.

Vuvuzela is among 2,000 new words and phrases added to the third edition of the dictionary, published on Thursday.

Other new words include:

"Staycation," a holiday spent in one's home country, and "bargainous," costing less than usual, also reflect the hot topic of belt-tightening among consumers during the economic downturn.

The rise of "social media," itself a new term, has spawned several additions, including "defriend," removing someone from a list of friends or contacts on a social networking site, and "tweetup," a meeting organized via posts on Twitter. Other words include:

Bromance: a close but non-sexual relationship between two men

Buzzkill: something that has a depressing or dispiriting effect

Cheeseball: lacking taste, style or originality

Chillax: calm down and relax

Frenemy: a person with whom one is friendly despite a fundamental dislike or rivalry

Interweb: the internet

Wardrobe malfunction: an instance of a person accidentally exposing an intimate part of their body as result of an article of clothing slipping out of position

Check Your Eggs

In case you didn't know, there is a massive egg recall going on now.  The reason: Salmonella on egg shells.

The recall is affecting 13 different brands of eggs.  Lucerne, Albertson, Mountain Dairy, Ralph’s, Boomsma’s, Sunshine, Hillandale, Trafficanda, Shoreland, Lund, Dutch Farms, Kemps, and Farm Fresh are the brands to look out for.

Eggs are packed in 6- 12- or 18-egg cartons with Julian dates ranging from 136 to 225 and plant numbers 1026, 1413, and 1946.

Consumers should not eat the eggs and should return recalled eggs to the store where they were purchased for a full refund.

Another Bullfight Tragedy

Some unbelievable video from a bull fight in Northern Spain.  This is a very athletic bull.  Some 40 people were injured, it could've been worse than that.

The 1100 lb bull had twice tried to enter the 3,500 person crowd before his successful third attempt.

The bull was killed once it was brought under control.

iPad Free App of the Week: Fwix

With Fwix you can read news articles and blog posts that are relevant to a certain region.  So far about 200 cities in the U.S.,Canada. Ireland, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand are available. 

Fwix selects news sources and blogs that it thinks are related to each city, and also uses automated algorithms to determine when other content might also be relevant. Fwix has also recently tweaked its algorithm and offerings to include “nearby” local content features. So content on Fwix displays relationships between both topics and nearby location.  Very handy and easy to use.

The app is sort of like reading your local newspaper, when it was good.  A couple more features.  Fwix’s app allows you to view news stories in a map format, showing you the exact geographic location of news. You can access news by your location and then filter stories by subject (i.e. sports, arts, politics, crime). And you can share all content on Facebook, Twitter or via email.

It's news, it's local, and it's free.  What more can you ask for? 

Bees Trap Sheriff's Deputy in Car for Hours

I guess I'd have to call this a "sting" operation.

A sheriff's deputy in North Carolina ended up in a sticky situation after honeybees swarmed his patrol car.

It started before dawn when a truck hauling bees broke down. When the sun came up, the bees became active.

The deputy took refuge in his car and called for backup. He admitted using deadly force when a few bees got inside.

Beekeepers were called in to corral the insects. They sprayed sugar water to get the bees to return to their boxes.