//What would you do with over 12,000 cups of pudding?//

Most people have a junk drawer, but I'm proud to say that I have a junk closet.  The only time it's ever cleaned out is when I move.  Since that doesn't happen too often, you can imagine the mess in there.  This closet just happens to be the place where I store all of those things that I have purchased, but never found a use for.  These were deals that just seemed to good to be true when I first came across them.

A Davis, California civil engineer named David Phillips found himself in a similar boat in May of 1999.  While cruising the aisles of his local supermarket one day, a promotion for Healthy Choice foods caught his eye.    The deal was quite simple: For every ten Universal Price Codes that were sent in to the company, the customer would receive 500 frequent flyer miles.  And, if the UPC codes were mailed out by May 31, the value of the labels would be doubled. 

Phillips did some quick math in his head and was sure that he had stumbled across a deal that was too hard to resist.  He had been considering taking his family to Europe that summer, so why not eat their way there? 

Clearly, the cheaper he could get the Healthy Choice products, the lower the cost of the family's vacation.  His first discovery was cans of Healthy Choice soup at about ninety cents each.  He loaded his cart with the cans and proceeded to the checkout. 

His next step was to drive over to the local Grocery Store Outlet, a chain of warehouse-style supermarkets that specialize in overstock and discontinued merchandise.  The store was selling Healthy Choice chocolate pudding at twenty-five cents apiece.  And, to top that off, each container had its own UPC code.  He quickly purchased the store's entire inventory. 

Having hit the mother lode, David then continued on to the remaining ten Grocery Store Outlet stores in his area.  When they all ran out of pudding, David requested that the store manager bring in an additional sixty cases.  His final take was 12,150 containers of pudding.  Do a little bit of math and you will quickly realize that he was eligible for 1,215,000 frequent flyer miles!

Now, can you imagine what your neighbors would think if you carried over 12,000 containers of pudding into your home.  First, they would probably conclude that you were either crazy or perverted.  Then they would think up all kinds of strange uses for the pudding.  Could they be using it for pudding wrestling?  Pudding baths?  Could they actually be eating it?  David's answer was perfect: They were stocking up for Y2K. 

But, there was one hitch.  The May 31st deadline was quickly approaching.  His family could not peel the labels and fill out the required reimbursement forms fast enough.

What to do?  What to do?

David had the perfect answer.  He donated the remaining pudding to local food banks and the Salvation Army.  In exchange, their volunteers would peel off all of the UPC codes and give them back to him.

Once all of the coupons were ready to go, they were mailed off to Healthy Choice.  David wasn't sure that the company would honor the deal, and when they didn't send him the airline miles in a reasonable amount of time, he began to get nervous.  He called the company and they claimed that they had never received the package.  Luckily, David had sent the package by registered mail and had photographs to prove his purchases.  Shortly thereafter, the company mailed him his certificates.

In the end, David and his family collected 1, 253,000 miles from his puddings and soups.   He split 216,000 of the miles among Delta, United, and Northwest airlines.   The remaining 1,037,000 miles were posted to his American Airlines account.  And since he topped the million mile mark, he automatically became a lifelong member of American Airlines AAdvantage Gold club.   David now has lifetime access to a priority reservation number, priority boarding, and additional perks. 

Healthy Choice's cost for David's travel bonanza is estimated to be around two cents per mile or a little over $25,000.  David's cost, however, was only $3,140. 

I guess that sometimes deals that sound too good to be true can actually be true!

Useless?  Useful?  I’ll leave that for you to decide.

Currently Watching The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Widescreen Edition) By Warwick Davis, Mos Def see related

//Feds try to seize suspect's fancy teeth//

TACOMA, Washington (AP) -- Talk about taking a bite out of crime...

Government lawyers tried to remove and confiscate the gold dental work known as "grills" or "grillz" from the mouths of two men facing drug charges.

"I've been doing this for over 30 years and I have never heard of anything like this," said Richard J. Troberman, a forfeiture specialist and past president of the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

"It sounds like Nazi Germany when they were removing the gold teeth from the bodies, but at least then they waited until they were dead," he added

Flenard T. Neal Jr. and Donald Jamar Lewis, charged with several drug and weapon violations, were taken on Tuesday from the Federal Detention Center to the U.S. Marshal's office, where they were told the government had a warrant to seize their grills.

Before being put into a vehicle to be taken to a dentist in Seattle, they called their lawyers, who were able to halt the seizure, said Miriam Schwartz, Neal's public defender. A permanent stay of the seizure order was signed Tuesday by U.S. Magistrate J. Kelley Arnold, court documents show.

Grills, popularized by rappers such as Nelly, are customized tooth caps made of precious metals and jewels and can cost thousands of dollars for a full set. Some can be snapped onto the teeth like an orthodontic retainer, and others are permanently bonded to the teeth.

Neal and Lewis have permanently bonded grills, their lawyers said, declining to provide more description.

Government lawyers who asked a federal judge on March 29 to order confiscation of the grills said they did not know the caps had been bonded to the defendants' teeth.

"Asset forfeiture is a fairly routine procedure, and our attorneys were under the impression that these snapped out like a retainer," said Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Seattle.

Once the government understood that removal of the grills could damage the defendants' teeth, they abandoned the seizure attempt, she said.

Schwartz and Zenon Peter Olbertz, Lewis' lawyer, criticized what they said was a clandestine attempt to have the grills removed.

"It's shocking that this kind of action by the federal government could be sought and accomplished in secret, without anyone being notified," said Schwartz. "It reminds me of the secret detentions" in terrorist cases.

Seizure warrants are typically sealed to prevent defendants from trying to move or hide valuables and evidence, Langlie and court clerks said. They become public with the filing of a return that shows what has been seized.

Currently Watching The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Widescreen Edition) By Warwick Davis, Mos Def see related

//Study claims ice, not water, kept Jesus afloat//

MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) -- The New Testament says that Jesus walked on water, but a Florida university professor believes there could be a less miraculous explanation -- he walked on a floating piece of ice.

Professor Doron Nof also theorized in the early 1990s that Moses's parting of the Red Sea had solid science behind it.

Nof, a professor of oceanography at Florida State University, said on Tuesday that his study found an unusual combination of water and atmospheric conditions in what is now northern Israel could have led to ice formation on the Sea of Galilee.

Nof used records of the Mediterranean Sea's surface temperatures and statistical models to examine the dynamics of the Sea of Galilee, which Israelis know now as Lake Kinneret.

The study found that a period of cooler temperatures in the area between 1,500 and 2,600 years ago could have included the decades in which Jesus lived.

A drop in temperature below freezing could have caused ice -- thick enough to support a human -- to form on the surface of the freshwater lake near the western shore, Nof said. It might have been nearly impossible for distant observers to see a piece of floating ice surrounded by water.

Nof said he offered his study -- published in the April edition of the Journal of Paleolimnology -- as a "possible explanation" for Jesus' walk on water.

"If you ask me if I believe someone walked on water, no, I don't," Nof said. "Maybe somebody walked on the ice, I don't know. I believe that something natural was there that explains it."

"We leave to others the question of whether or not our research explains the biblical account."

When he offered his theory 14 years ago that wind and sea conditions could explain the parting of the Red Sea, Nof said he received some hate mail, even though he noted that the idea could support the biblical description of the event.

And as his theory of Jesus' walk on ice began to circulate, he had more hate mail in his e-mail inbox.

"They asked me if I'm going to try next to explain the resurrection," he said.

Currently Reading Keeping Faith : A Novel By Jodi Picoult see related

//I thought it was just me...//

Recently, PepsiCo introduced a reformulated version of Diet Mountain Dew with "Tuned Up Taste" to consumers. As loyal customers who avidly enjoy the original flavor of Diet Mountain Dew, this sudden change has come as a great shock and disappointment. We find the new flavor of Diet Mountain Dew to be unpalatable and far prefer the original formula. We demand that PepsiCo either revert to the original flavor of Diet Mountain Dew or introduce a companion "classic" Diet Mountain Dew product that uses the original formula.

Sign the petition here.

Currently Listening The Everglow By Mae Anything see related

//I think this is beautiful//

VATICAN CITY (CNN) -- While tens of thousands crowded St. Peter's Square for the ailing Pope John Paul II this time last year, those closest to the pope gathered around his bedside, bidding farewell to their mentor and leader of the church. They all say he was conscious to the end, and that among his last requests was, "Read me the Bible."

Pope John Paul II died a year ago Sunday, after 26 years as the spiritual leader of the Roman Catholic Church and its one billion followers. As the anniversary of the death of this much beloved figure approached, CNN obtained rare access to the Vatican and those closest to the pope during his final hours. They offered insight into the final moments of John Paul II and his living legacy.

The pope was heartened by the crowds of people praying for him outside and across the world, giving him strength on his final journey: "He knew he wasn't alone. He was going to meet God with this great crowd behind him," said Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the pope's personal secretary and friend of nearly 40 years.

It was Dziwisz (pronounced: G-vich) who called the pope's closest friends the day before he died, telling them to come pay their final respects. Mother Tekla Famiglietti, the head of the Brigidine nuns in Rome, had known John Paul II since 1979, and was among those notified. It was around 10 a.m.

"I put on my coat and ran," Mother Tekla said.

When she arrived, there were others gathered around the pope praying, and a priest reading from an enormous Bible. Household staff were weeping in the halls outside the room.

"I knelt down and the pope was on my right with his head on a pillow, and he was praying. I would call it the prayer of the soul," Mother Tekla said.

It was a prayer he often gave in his private chapel, and she saw the pope in this instant recite the prayer 10 times. Dziwisz told the pontiff that Mother Tekla was at his side.

"Two eyes as his, they were like the eyes of Jesus upon me. They were like two stars. He talked, but I couldn't understand anything besides, 'Thank you' -- it was like he was saying we will see each other again. Such a beautiful thing, so joyous," she said.

'On the eve of his death'

Cardinal Edmund Szoka, the governor of Vatican City and the pope's friend of 30 years, also paid his respects. "I went right over and I went right into his bedroom," he said. "I went on the other side of the bed and knelt down and kissed his hand, and I said to him in Polish, 'Holy Father, the whole world is praying for you.'"

He too remembers the pope's eyes in those moments, as he clung to life between hard, laborious breaths. "It was hard for him to breathe. But his eyes were wide open, and he looked right at me, and he nodded to indicate he knew who I was," Szoka said.

"I stayed there, and I held his hand for a while. And then Cardinal Dziwisz motioned, time now, better go."

Archbishop Renato Boccardo, who had for years planned the pope's trips, was there as well.

"The pope was in bed, like any person on the eve of his death. Around him were his doctors and his household staff," said Boccardo. "I got on my knees near the bed. I kissed his hand, and ... certainly it was a moment of great emotion."

Boccardo said his mind was racing.

"In these moments, lots of images, lots of words, meetings come back to your mind," Boccardo said.

Going 'to meet God'

For Szoka, as he knelt next to the pope, it was clear the end was near. The pope's breathing was becoming more and more difficult. "That's what I remember. That's the last time I saw him, and it was painful to see him that way."

"What's going through my mind is that here's a pope, a person that I knew and that I loved very much. And I saw that he was dying."

But as April 1 came to a close, it was clear that the pope's mind was still working. He was weak and frail, but still conscious.

The next day, in the pope's final few hours, one of his last requests was simple. "He asked, 'Read me the Bible,'" said Dziwisz. "A priest read nine chapters of the gospel of St. John."

And the pope could still feel the presence of the thousands of pilgrims in St. Peter's Square and the millions from across the globe praying for him.

"He felt it, because all of his life he had been with the people -- the shepherd with his sheep," Dziwisz said.

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said, "Through his inevitable suffering through his last moments, he was teaching something, something very important. This pope who had taught (so) many people around the world how to live was also teaching in those moments how a person can die."

On a table next to the pope, according to Dziwisz, sat a photograph of John Paul II's parents. In the room, there also was a painting of the Virgin Mary, and on the wall in front of his bed there was an image of the suffering Christ.

Dziwisz said the pope asked for the Mass of Divine Mercy, and it was celebrated during his last hour. "We prayed, 'Jesus, come down because we need you on the side of the Holy Father.'"

A single lit candle was placed in the pope's hand, a Polish tradition.

"He was next to us, at the altar. I don't know if he followed everything, because his eyes were closed," Dziwisz said.

Finally, at 9:37 p.m., Pope John Paul II -- surrounded by those who loved him most -- took his last breath.

"Death is sad," Dziwisz said. "But his death was beautiful, because he believed in where he was going -- to meet God."

For those in the bedroom, it was not a time of grief. Instead, they sang a hymn of thanksgiving.

"When we saw that his heart wasn't beating anymore, we didn't cry," said Dziwisz. "We sang, 'Te Deum laudamus,' thanking God for his life, for his accomplishments and for being able to stay with him until the end."