I'm not about to give my spare change to someone in a cocktail dress

SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) -- Some South Korean homeless are dressing in style after the government gave away thousands of fake designer garments confiscated by customs agents.

The Korea Customs Service distributed more than 3,500 fake pieces in the southern city of Pusan this month with the permission of the fashion houses whose designs had been pirated.

A customs official declined to name the designers whose ripped-off creations are now being worn by the homeless but said both they and the state prosecutors had approved giving away the jackets, blouses, shirts and pants.

"We hope this will be of some help to the poor who need practical assistance in such hard times," the official said.
Customs agents removed the labels from the clothes before giving them to a welfare agency for distribution

Finally a beer for Spongebob and Tinky-Winky

Queer Beer launched for gays
A trio of Swiss businessmen have launched a new drink for gay people called Queer Beer.
Michael Hutmacher, 32, came up with the idea with two friends and has now founded a company, Lemonhead, to market it.
He said: "My business partner, who is gay, and I were talking about how to corner the homosexual market and came up with the idea for a drink aimed specifically at gay men and women.

"It really was just a crazy idea at first, but we've now come up with a product."
Hutmacher, from Zug. added: "Our beer is a humorous attempt to identify with the gay scene and we hope it will help people to feel relaxed with their sexuality and not hide away."

And he added despite its provocative name the lager wasn't just aimed at homosexuals but also straight people.
Moel Volken, from gay rights organization Pink Cross, said the beer was an excellent idea.
"I'm happy to see that homosexuals are being taken seriously as consumers. I just hope that the beer tastes good," he said.

...d@mmmmn...

GLENDALE, California (AP) -- A jury has awarded $15.6 million to a man whose image was used for years without his permission on Taster's Choice coffee labels.

Russell Christoff, a former model from Northern California, posed for a two-hour Nestle photo shoot in 1986 but figured it was a bust -- until he stumbled across his likeness on a coffee jar while shopping at a drug store in 2002.

A legal dispute with Nestle USA ensued, during which Christoff, 58, declined the company's $100,000 settlement offer, and Nestle USA turned down his offer to settle for $8.5 million.

Last week, a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury ordered Nestle USA to pay Christoff $15.6 million for using his likeness without his permission and profiting from it. The award includes 5 percent of the Glendale-based company's profit from Taster's Choice sales from 1997 to 2003.

During that time, Nestle sold the freeze-dried coffee with labels featuring Christoff's face in the United States, Mexico, South Korea, Japan, Israel and Kuwait. The company's Canadian arm started using his image in 1986.

Nestle USA attorney Lawrence Heller said the company would appeal the verdict.
"The employee that pulled the photo thought they had consent to use the picture," Heller said.
Eric Stockel, an attorney for Christoff, said he hadn't expected such a large verdict.
Christoff, who while working as a model had appeared in corporate training videos and hosted his own public television show, is now a kindergarten teacher in the Bay Area community of Antioch.

He first came across his picture while shopping for bloody mary mix, and says there's a good reason he didn't spot it sooner.

"I don't buy Taster's Choice," he said. "I do beans."

Lesson learned - 30L of beer should be part of every roadside survival kit

...Although quite honestly I'm not sure I believe this story...
Man peed way out of avalanche
A Slovak man trapped in his car under an avalanche freed himself by drinking 60 bottles of beer and urinating on the snow to melt it.

Rescue teams found Richard Kral drunk and staggering along a mountain path four days after his Audi car was buried in the Slovak Tatra mountains.

He told them that after the avalanche, he had opened his car window and tried to dig his way out.
But as he dug with his hands, he realized the snow would fill his car before he managed to break through.
He had 60 half-litre bottles of beer in his car as he was going on holiday, and after cracking one open to think about the problem he realized he could urinate on the snow to melt it, local media reported.

He said: "I was scooping the snow from above me and packing it down below the window, and then I peed on it to melt it. It was hard and now my kidneys and liver hurt. But I'm glad the beer I took on holiday turned out to be useful and I managed to get out of there."

Parts of Europe have this week been hit by the heaviest snowfalls since 1941, with some places registering more than ten feet of snow in 24 hours.