Well he’s won the top award for the most sexist public comment of the year.

Mayor John Moloney was chosen by the volume of boos, jeers and stamping of feet that greeted his nomination at the annual women-only Ernie Awards in the New South Wales parliament on Thursday night.

He won the Golden Ernie for telling a newspaper that his town, where men vastly outnumber women, was a place for “ugly ducklings to flourish into beautiful swans.”

He called on large and “beauty-disadvantaged” women to flock there, saying he often saw unattractive women in Mount Isa who looked like they were enjoying life in the northwestern Queensland town.

“Quite often you will see walking down the street a lass who is not so attractive with a wide smile on her face,” he said.

“Whether it is recollection of something previous or anticipation for the next evening, there is a degree of happiness.”

He later told national radio that large women could even lose weight under the gaze of Mount Isa males.

“There’s a great incentive because there’s that much attention focused on them and they become interested in looking better — and in no time they just shed it,” he said.

Confronted by a protest by scores of insulted Mount Isa women, he said: “The protesters are blaming me for their looks.”

Hmm … what do you think this otter is up to? I think he’s working on the community recycling program? The only other possible thing I can think that it’s doing is collecting cans so he can cash them in for money … I’m sure the recession is hurting the animals too, you know.

What a life, just sitting around on the lounge chair? Ah, to be a cat. I think life would be a heck of a lot easier, wouldn’t it. (shorter too of course.)

It kind of looks like the cat is praying or meditating.

Amy Taylor, 28, met her husband David Pollard within the game “Second Life” in May 2003, and six months later, she moved into his home in Cornwall.

The couple married in July 2005, while their “Second Life” avatars Dave Barmy and Laura Skye — younger, slimmer versions of their real-life selves — also held an online ceremony for their virtual friends.

After a rare break from the computer, however, Taylor returned to find her 40-year-old husband in an intimate, albeit virtual, position with an online prostitute within “Second Life”, which she said was the “ultimate betrayal”.

“I was so hurt,” she was quoted as saying in The Times, adding that theirs was a “very serious marriage”.

“I just couldn’t believe what he’d done. It’s cheating as far as I’m concerned, but he didn’t see it as a problem and couldn’t see why I was so upset.

“He said I was just making a big fuss and tried to make out it was my fault for not giving him enough attention.”

Second Life is an online role-playing game with more than 15 million users, in which players can create virtual avatars and interact with other gamers, or the environment.

The game has its own virtual economy, in which online currency can be exchanged for real-world US dollars, and several major businesses have set up “branches” within the game, while others operate entirely within it.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Taylor claims that Pollard is now engaged to the woman he was having an online tryst with, despite never having met her.

She has, meanwhile, found a new love, through fantasy online role-playing game “World of Warcraft”.

It sounds like both of these people live more in the Virtual world than the real world and that’s the main problem!

I don’t know where these ladies got all of their colorful balloons. Perhaps they’re setting up for a massive party … but it’s easy to imagine that they are coming home from the local fair after winning a ton of prizes isn’t it?  I’ll bet their kids loved it!

Actually, the balloons look like they might be filled with helium … I wonder if they had any trouble keeping their children’s strollers from floating away?

Oswald, 45, has said that he didn’t expect to be reimbursed after billing the west Michigan tourist town of Grand Rapids for the work that he did to clean up a disgusting public washroom. He does appreciate the award that city officials bestowed on him for his work though! He was given a toilet plunger - “The Golden Plunger Award” - that was spray painted gold and set in an oak stand.

The city has now replaced some of the fixtures in the bathroom and they will hire a cleaning company to keep it tidy from now on.

Mayor Tony Vettori was quoted by The Grand Rapids Press as saying he was glad Oswald “lifted the lid on this problem.”

Well I guess this is one way to save your life and eliminate the competition at the same time, isn’t it?

Over the last few years there’s been a few commercials with animals telling people to eat other types of meat. One that I can think of is with Chickens telling people to eat cows … maybe this is a big conspiracy against cows?

Apparently the holder of the winning ticket in the raffle - held in the town of San Marco in Lamis - is entitled to a free lined coffin, a tombstone, copper candlesticks and a grave site, Il Corriere del Mezzogiorno reported.

There is no deadline for claiming the prize and the winner can give it to somebody else, raffle organisers stated.

Strange … to give away a funeral in the first place and also to purchase a ticket for the raffle … at least in my opinion! It’s kind of morbid, although it would save some expenses for your family once you did kick the bucket.

Jieqin is a retired Beijing art professor and he recently married Jiang Xiaohui, 58, after meeting her online and falling in love.

“The Internet doesn’t belong to the young alone,” he told the Beijing newspaper. He said he had been using the Internet since 1998.

“There are no rules against old people seeking love online.”

Oddly enough, before he was able to marry his new bride he had to overcome the objections of Jiang’s parents (aged 85 and 86) who feared he was too old to marry. Lucky for him the bride won them over!

“His voice is very youthful. Not like an 80-year-old,” Jiang told the paper. “He’s very romantic.”

Wu, lonely after divorcing a decade ago put a lonely hearts notice on a Chinese website last year and that’s how he came to find Jiang.

“As internet mates of his own age did not suit him, he set his sights on a woman in her forties or fifties,” the report said.

Wu said over 50 women responded positively to his ad, including prospects from the United States, Australia and the Ukraine. Wu met several, but things clicked only when with Jiang, a retired railway worker from southwest China’s Sichuan province.

Whoever set up this wall of pumpkins must be a true Halloween lover!

I’ve never seen so many carved pumpkins in one place.

Then there’s this carved pumpkin. It’s a true work of art.

Looks like the alien from the movie Predator. Pretty creepy isn’t it?