This is gonna be the hottest new series on TV, and we’ve got it! It’s called Segway Squad, about an elite force that fights crime using those Segway personal transporters. Is that cool, or what?

The squad is led by Pop, a hardened veteran who’s been riding Segways since the old days of  2001. He’s in charge of a bunch of  wisecracking young hotshots. When a crime is in progress they streak there at the lightning speed of 10 miles per hour, and we zoom along with them, bumping over curbs and scattering pedestrians.

Their Segways are customized - bullet-proof handlebars, built-in flame-throwers, so the marketing toy tie-ins are enormous.

In the pilot episode, they race after a gang of bank robbers who ride tractors; meanwhile, Pop resists having a brassy young blonde chick join the squad, but it turns out…

Related: Laws of Physics 101…

Paramilitary policemen on assault vehicles take part in an anti-terrorism drill in Jinan, China, July 2, 2008. REUTERS/Stringer

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Memo to fashion design staff: Okay, I take full blame for this. When I asked you to design “a slinky dress” for the fashion show, see, I didn’t mean to use a real Slinky.

I think we have a real safety issue here. Do you know how much effort this poor model is exerting to fully extend the Slinky and stand upright? Do you know what’s going to happen when she snaps backward? It is NOT going to be a pretty sight!

You guys take a big net, and be prepared to run after her when she starts going boing boing boing down the runway - if she bounces out the door, we’ll NEVER catch her!

Related: No! Haven’t you ever seen velvet art?

A model presents a creation by French designer Jean-Paul Gaultier as part of his Autumn/Winter 2008-2009 Haute Couture fashion show in Paris July 2, 2008. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard

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Quick quiz: which of these are really great homemade?

a) fresh peach ice cream
b) blueberry pie
c) buttermilk biscuits
d) submarines

Exactly. Not the subs. Submarines just seem better when they’re made in a shipyard, not some bozo’s hobby shop. Yet despite my warnings in posts like Gosh, this sub really dives fast!, there is now a whole frickin’ FLEET of homemade subs smuggling cocaine from Colombia. They found nine last year alone! 

I’m talking to you recent college grads now. No matter how glamorous a career in the Homemade Submarine Service may sound, don’t go for it. If you’re gonna be submerged for weeks at a time, you want a better propulsion system than just shouting “Go-Go-Gadget,” don’t you? 

Related posts: This bathroom door is just painted on! 

Submersibles used to smuggle cocaine under water to avoid detection, in Buenaventura, Colombia. Photos taken in June, 2008. REUTERS/Jaime Saldarriaga

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With firearms being in the news, we visited a gun shop in Texas to talk to shoppers like this raccoon-hunting 16-year-old girl. She was buying a holster for her dad, I guess so he can stop lugging his gun around in his hand and have someplace to stick it.

What caught my eye in our photo series was that people were pushing big shopping carts, like they were at Kroger or something. Is it just me, or does that sound like, pardon the expression, overkill?

How much weaponry do you have to be buying to need a CART? Are they like shopping for a small army or an entire post office, or what? Is this where General Santa Anna shopped on his way to the Alamo?

All I know is, this is NOT a store where I’d try cutting in front of anybody at the check-out line.

Cliff Sherrod browses for guns at Cabela’s store in Fort Worth, Texas, June 26, 2008.

Stella Richardson, 16, shops for a holster at Cabela’s.

REUTERS photos by Jessica Rinaldi

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Quick quiz: you can tell if a woman has class if you offer to buy her a glass of wine and she says…

a) Thank you, I’ll have a supple Margaux
b) Thank you, I’ll have an earthy Syrah
c) Thank you, I’ll have an overpriced Pinot Grigio
d) No thanks, hot-shot, I got me a brassiere full of cheap sweet red, right here!

Yes, female wine drinkers no longer have to bother with bottles and corks, they can just strap on this wine bra. And for guys, there is a wearable beer belly. It holds brew, and it also helps attract the kind of chicks that find a beer gut really attractive!

Of course, there may be that lingering notion that if you’re actually strapping alcohol onto your body maybe you have a little problem…

Belly/Bra Slideshow Other posts about drinks

A couple poses with the wearable beer belly (Bierbauch) for men and the wearable wine bra (Getraenke-BH) for women in Ismaning, Germany, June 19, 2008. REUTERS/Michaela Rehle

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Blog Guy, I just don’t see how candidates pay for campaigns these days. It’s so expensive!

Well, as you know I get most of my news from seeing photos and guessing what’s going on. But it looks to me like they’re getting into product endorsements.

This scene has the feel of a classic infomercial, where the woman tells Barack Obama this gizmo can prevent decay. At first he’s like skeptical, but then he caves in and says he’s going to brush every day now andby the way, you can get the Ginsu Knives if you act quickly. Operators are standing by.

Coming tomorrow: John McCain demonstrates his George Foreman Grill…

Presumptive U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is presented with a dental hygiene kit by dental hygienist student Holly Siemens at a campaign stop in Taylor, Michigan June 17, 2008. REUTERS/ Rebecca Cook

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If you’re aboard the International Space Station, the very last thing you want to see - maybe except for alien life forms seeping through the vents - is an “out of order” sign on the only toilet. Sadly, that’s pretty much the situation. They are up to their astronauts in plumbing problems.

Not to get indelicate, but crew members reportedly have been fumbling with plastic bags since their zero-gravity toilet made “a loud noise” and stopped working properly last week. Ewwwwwwww!

I’m guessing there’s more they aren’t telling us about. Like maybe an increase in ”space walks,” as crew members grab a tattered copy of NASA Magazine, scurry out the hatch, and give new meaning to “moon shot.” Anyway, new parts just arrived and they’re fixing the thing tomorrow. Or sooner, if the crew gets to vote.

More posts about toilets

Help is on the way. At Cape Canaveral, Florida, technicians load toilet replacement parts aboard space shuttle Discovery, May 28, 2008. (NASA photos)

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Blog Guy,

Please settle a bet I have with my sister. Can the Pope fly? I say no, but Sis is sure she remembers something about that.

Well, no, not exactly, although his attire is quite aerodynamic. Sometimes it takes on a life of its own, as these pictures show. But I think your sister is confusing the Pope with Sally Field’s character in The Flying Nun, which went off the air, so to speak, some time ago.

Related, sort of: Your Holiness! We’re MELTING!

TV publicity photo

Pope: REUTERS/ Giampiero Sposito

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I’m as surprised as anybody, but not a single item about Victoria’s Secret made it into the top five postings for this blog in May!

Oh sure, everybody will have a theory on that, but personally I think it was because we didn’t have a single post that even mentioned Victoria’s Secret.

Apart from that, the most-visited items had absolutely nothing in common. A mango-eating contest, a dead writer’s skull, a bra with a difference, and so on. See for yourselves:

5. The whole mango fandango!

4. Stupid story gets much stupider

3. Take off your blouse, babe, I need to charge my laptop!

2. Sir, that carry-on bag is too large! Sir!

1. Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you…Oh, it is?

Models from Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, 2007. REUTERS photos by Mario Anzuoni

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We have a video report about how auto designers are shifting into neuteral, so to speak, fighting for the pet owner market by adding Fido-friendly features. I have a list of the options my own dogs are demanding:

- deluxe hamburger dispenser

- giant window control buttons 

- peanut butter dispenser

- big fans aimed at their face

- toast and jelly dispenser

- indoor tennis ball flinger

Come to think of it, that doesn’t sound like such a bad car, does it?

Video report:

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