WhiteBoard News for Friday, February 16, 2001

Bangkok, Thailand (Reuters):

Thailand's biggest mobile phone network crashed on Valentine's Day as thousands of young lovers sent romantic messages to their sweethearts, officials said on Thursday. 

Advanced Info Service (AIS) said the company's GSM network was flooded with more than 100,000 text messages sent within an hour via mobile phones Wednesday. 

The deluge of messages paralyzed the short message service (SMS) network, blocking all voice calls. 

AIS has a capacity for just 72,000 SMS messages per hour. 

"The volume of messages sent from mobile phones this Valentine's Day was the highest volume ever -- twice as big as the message traffic sent on New Year's Eve," Wichian Mektrakarn, vice president of AIS's engineering operation, told Reuters. 

Wichian said many young Thais preferred to send Valentines by SMS because they were too shy to voice their feelings. 

"Clicking out sweet nothings on the phone is much easier than uttering words, which some still find it difficult to do," he said 

AIS, with 1.9 million subscribers, has a 52 percent share of the Thai mobile phone market. 
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Bellevue, Washington (Seattle Times):

The Spirit of Washington Dinner Train isn't your usual back-alley crime scene. You expect a lot of things, but not a fight. 

But after the train left the Renton station last Thursday, bound for Woodinville, riders found themselves watching just that as the night's entertainment, a murder mystery, began. 

A woman entered the dining car carrying a gun. She was playing an assassin about to claim her victim. That's when a passenger stepped in and grabbed for the gun. 

The woman, in her mid-50s and surrounded by husband and kids, grabbed the actress, Jessica Matthis, 18, of Seattle. As Matthis tried to get away, the woman kicked her in the knee. 

Matthis limped off to the actors' "safe room" with a partly dislocated shoulder and a strained rotator cuff. Passengers weren't quite sure what to do. 

During "murder mystery" dinners, passengers get to interact - within normal human reason - with the actors. The woman apparently went a little too far trying to participate. 

When the train arrived at the Columbia Winery in Woodinville, the misguided passenger stepped off. She was handcuffed by an officer she also thought was an actor - until he read her her Miranda rights. She was not allowed back on the train and called a cab. 

That's when she began to weep. 

The officer began his report, "It was a dark and mildly stormy night." 

Daryl Strandlien is president of "It's a Mystery," which has put on the whodunits for years. He'd never seen anything quite like it. 

"We've always thought the people to be careful of are the ones who have been drinking too much (at the winery), Strandlien said. "The poor lady was just mortified and contrite." 

Matthis hasn't decided whether to press charges. Till then, the passenger, who lives in Seattle, is humiliated but anonymous. 
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Tbilisi, Russia (Independent Online News):

Surgeons in the Caucasus republic of Georgia have made medical history by replacing the amputated penis of a cancer patient with what they call a "fully-functioning" substitute organ made from skin grafts and a finger. 

In the 17-hour operation, doctors at the Tbilisi Institute of Aesthetic and Reconstructive Plastic Surgery removed the man's left middle finger and used skin taken from his other arm to shape and bind it in place, clinic director Dr Ivan Kuzanov said on Thursday. 

The finger was first "turned inside out" to create a channel which allows conventional urination, and the bone was left "to provide rigidity when needed", he said. 

Twelve days after the operation in December, the man aged "50 to 60" was able to pass water and has since resumed a full sex life. 

"He is not married but has two girlfriends who are very satisfied with the results," Kuzanov said. 

The clinic has twice before used a finger for the same purpose but this was the first "fully-functioning" organ built. 

In future the operation will cost Georgians about $5 000 dollars - "a huge sum for them" - but foreign patients will likely pay far more. - Sapa-DPA 
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Devizes, England (Ananova.com):

Three prisoners who found a ladder propped against a wall and a car with its engine running still failed to escape.

The men crashed the car into a ditch in thick fog just a few miles from Erlestoke prison in Devizes, and had to give themselves up.

The prisoners say their escape was not planned and they were too embarrassed to turn back once they had got over the wall.

A prison spokesman says an investigation into how the ladder came to be left against the wall has been carried out and lessons learned.

After the crash the prisoners handed themselves over to a woman out walking and asked her to call the police.

Robert Denvey, Frank Riorden and Samuel Kerrigan have landed an extra 15 months in jail for their escape.
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Kagel, Germany (Ananova.com):

A drummer was practicing so loudly in his bedroom that he did not notice burglars break into his house, empty it of valuables and drive off in his car.

The man from Kagel, near Berlin, did not even hear the thieves smashing a window downstairs.

They took his credit cards, all the cash they could find as well as his car keys and drove off in his car.
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Edenbridge, England (Ananova.com):

The owner of a parrot says she is baffled by the response of her pet whenever her doorbell is rung.

June Croft, of Edenbridge, Kent, says she cannot understand why the bird shrieks the words quick and hide when the bell sounds.

Ms Croft is keen to find out who the original owner of the parrot was, to find out why the bell triggers such a response from the bird.
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Sydney, Australia (Nandotimes):

The horrors of war take many forms, but for one ex-soldier in Australia too much cheap beer in the army was enough to earn him a disability pension. 

Frederick Somerfield, 79, was awarded the pension after arguing that his heart was damaged by excessive drinking, a habit he says he picked up in the military during World War II. He served in New Guinea as an ambulance officer during fighting against Japanese forces. 

"It was not until I entered the army in 1941 that I commenced the consumption of alcohol on a regular basis due to its availability, low cost and the necessity of mateship (friendship) and subsequently the stress of overseas service," he was quoted as saying in Friday's edition of The Australian newspaper, which reported on the retired lawyer's case. 

Somerfield's request for a pension initially was turned down by the Department of Veterans Affairs. He appealed to the government's Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which ruled that he drank heavily during his military service and his heart condition was "war caused." 

Somerfield said when soldiers couldn't get beer, they drank "jungle juice" -- a potent blend of dried fruit juice and surgical alcohol. 
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