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A few years ago, a very funny film came out called "The Cooler," in which a casino operator noticed that whenever a certain guy stood near gamblers, they always began to lose. He had the bright idea of hiring this fellow in order to increase his profits.

I’ve known "coolers" over the years. Whitley has a period of time when he had only to enter someone’s home and stand near the TV or expensive stereo–not even use it–to have the equipment break down. This got so bad that people stopped inviting us to their apartments.
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When we could purchase something just as good for much less money? It’s a good question to ask ourselves as Valentine’s Day approaches.

Part of this has to do with how it makes us feel. There was a joke going around in newly-rich, post-Soviet Russia that went like this: One man shows another man his watch and brags about how much he paid for it. The other man replies, "I know where you can get the same thing for even MORE money!"
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If the world ends, will it be water (again) or fire? When volcanoes erupt, the devastation is short-lived, but violent. Magma creeps up through a crack in the Earth’s crust and mixes with water, setting off a series of explosions–as many as a few each hour for several weeks. When the action stops, a crater-topped, rock-filled fracture called a diatreme is left behind.

If volcanologists could understand how to predict these volcanoes, they could not only save lives, they could find DIAMONDS.
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