Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

Every morning, I waste time bloghopping and reading the news. I never watch the news anymore because of my daughter, so everything I know, I get online...

The past few days have been truly strange in the world of online news, and it does make the writer in me sit up and take notice.

Check it out:

Pop a Pill to Forget -- Scientists are developing a pill (egads, there really is a pill for everything) to erase bad memories. I thought about it, and decided that I want to keep my memories, good and bad. They are part of what makes me who I am. But I guess that's not so true for everyone.

Parrot Tells Owner: Your Gal's Cheating -- A blabbermouth parrot named Ziggy squawked "I love you, Gary" — spilling the beans to his owner on his girlfriend's affair.

But this one tops them all (you have to scroll down a bit to find this story): News of the Weird -- With an Oakland Tribune reporter and 20 people looking on in November in a parking lot in Fremont, Calif., Tu Jin-Sheng, 50, "grandmaster" in one of the Chinese arts of Qigong, pulled a rental truck several yards using only a piece of fabric tied to the base of his genitals. Jin-Sheng is supposedly a leader of the branch of Qigong known as "Iron Crotch," whose 60,000 adherents worldwide believe that strengthening the genitals increases energy. To warm up for the pull, Jin-Sheng had an assistant kick him hard between the legs. [Oakland Tribune, 11-23-05]

So... where do writers get their ideas? Good grief... they're all around us!