We have a photo slideshow of leech therapy at some hospital. Now, I know leeches have been used in medicine for centuries, but I keep wondering who was the first guy to try them? And how drunk was he?

Ernie: I’ve got an awful pain in my mouth that just won’t go away!

Pete: Maybe you should hang one of these vile, disgusting,  blood-sucking leeches in your mouth! That might do some good!

Ernie! Ya know, I think I’m just hammered enough to try that! What could it hurt?

I made up that little exchange, but it probably isn’t far from the truth. Historians say many things we take for granted were first discovered by really dumb drunk guys with nothing to lose. Watch this, and thank Ernie and Pete. They took chances, so you don’t have to.

A leech hangs from the face of a Kashmiri patient Abdul Ahad, who suffers partial blindness, during a leech therapy session inside a hospital in Srinagar May 2, 2008. REUTERS/Fayaz Kabli

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Blog Guy, I want to travel abroad this summer, but one small problem is I have head lice. Will I have trouble?

Nah, you’ll just have to spin it the right way. Now listen. You’re not just some filthy foreigner carrying a head full of blood-sucking insects that are the stuff of grotesque urban legends.

Rather, your hair is ART. You are exploring the complex subject of guests and hosts. That should work. If you can, thrown in the word paradigm. Watch and learn:

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We’re starting to get more and more photos of events like this, where you eat lunch at a table that is suspended by a crane, four miles up in the air.

Okay, maybe not exactly four whole miles, but still pretty high up. I believe a 1960s rock group said it most eloquently: “Kicks just keep getting harder to find.”

I’ll be candid about this. It isn’t natural. If I’m going to eat at this altitude, I expect to be surrounded on all sides by a commercial airliner. And if I’m ever drugged and kidnapped and I wake up dangling like this, well, they’d better be feeding me something like pea soup, that looks about the same no matter how many times it ends up on my plate, if you catch my meaning.

Suspension slideshow, and more thoughts on heights

Hungarian journalists have lunch at a new event venue which offers dinners “in the sky”, for guests seated around a table lifted by a crane above Heroes Square in Budapest, April 23, 2008. REUTERS/ Karoly Arvai

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My personal policy is I don’t drink booze with anything floating in it that I wouldn’t eat. I’ve missed out on some good tequila, but rules are rules.

That brings us to Bayou Bob, of Bayou Bob’s Brazos River Rattlesnake Ranch. Texas authorities say he was selling bottles of vodka with dead baby rattlesnakes.

Now, you’d think it would be pretty hard to GIVE that stuff away, but it seems Bob found folks who would pay $23 a bottle. These must be guys who fail to grasp the concept of displacement; once you cram a 10-inch snake in a bottle, there’s not much room left for vodka.

If you DID buy a bottle, how should you serve Bob’s stuff? My bartender’s guide suggests cocktails such as a “Death Rattle,” a “Fang ‘n’ Tang,” or a refreshing summer drink called “Venom ‘n’ Lemon.”

Related post: Which end of the snake goes in my mouth?

Not the same guy: Heart of Texas Snake Handler Jack Bibby dangles rattlesnakes from his mouth in a 2007 file photo REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi

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About 400 people were trapped for more than an hour yesterday by a “mechanical fault” on that huge Ferris wheel, The London Eye. Our story says staffers were in touch with the victims, who were stuck as high as 450 feet in the air, via intercoms.

The stalled passengers were offered water, blankets and glucose tablets.

That’s good to know. Given my attitude toward heights, if that ever happens to me they can cover me with the blanket and pound me with water bottles until I stop screaming. Some fully charged tasers, a portable toilet and a parachute might also come in handy.

Here’s the thing. When these poor people finally got back to Earth they were given refunds. Refunds! No thanks, pal, you just hang on to that refund and add it to my generous settlement, okay?

Related post: Your whole stomach came out your mouth?

Woman’s hair is blown back by winds as she passes the London Eye in a 2007 file photo. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor

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Welcome back to Great Challenges in Advertising. A woman in South Korea says she found a rat head in some shrimp cracker snacks, and we’re wondering how they could reposition that product in the marketplace. Your suggestions so far:

• Rat head shrimp crackers, the snack that can’t go bad!
• They’re skull-crunchingly yummy!
• Rat head: when you just don’t feel like a whole rat
• Rat head, like the shrimp flavor isn’t bad enough…
• Rat head crackers - they’re plague-o-licious!

Related post: What happens in Rat Island stays in…

A woman selects grilled rats in Thailand in a 2007 file photo. REUTERS/Sukree Sukplang

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These folks are on a WOODEN South Korean roller coaster boasting the world’s largest drop.

That means if you ride it, at some point your cheeks will be flapping like Dumbo’s ears, and your eyes will be so far back in your skull you can scan your own brain.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. Speaking of WOODEN rides and Korea, did you see the recent BBC story saying termites are destroying many of that country’s WOODEN heritage sites? They were training dogs to sniff out the insects.

I’m just saying, if you’re riding this thing at the speed of sound and you pass a nice dog with a concerned look, hit the brake. Oh, there isn’t one?

Related post: Your whole stomach came out your mouth?

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Near the top of my list of folks not to lend my iPod to is a guy who holds the record for the longest tufts of hair growing from his ears. I’ve not seen the Guinness entry, but it may be next to the one for the biggest bucket of phlegm.

Anyway, he complains that society has been “apathetic,” and says things would be better if authorities had commended the feat. “Dear Sir, you are hereby awarded the Nobel Prize for Ear-Hair…”

Still, his family is proud, and his son tells a story about going with dad to get into college. Where? Oh, I suppose Tufts University. Susan Flory reports

Related posts: It kept them off the streets for a day
and I’ll keep you deformed…I mean informed…

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You know how 10-year-old boys have competitions to see who can come up with the grossest thing? Well, watch and learn, kids.

It turns out people visiting a health resort got kind of a rude shock when a nurse giving them enemas failed to use water. Instead, she used hydrogen peroxide. Well, yes, the stuff you can bleach your hair with. Seventeen of them had to be treated in a hospital after the mix-up, according to our story.

I am not going to say anything else about this; you can just use your imagination for the rest. Or better still, ask a 10-year-old.

No, no, this is just healing oil, and this is a 2007 file photo of somebody at a petroleum spa in Azerbaijan. REUTERS/David Mdzinarishvili

A frequent topic here is “Stuff you Wouldn’t Put in your Mouth for a Million Dollars.” This brings us to a Reuters story about haggis, a Scottish dish which is basically a sheep’s heart, liver and lungs wrapped inside its stomach lining. In other words, sort of like a turducken gone terribly wrong.

The U.S. has banned imports of haggis. Scotland wants to get the ban lifted, because supposedly Scottish people living here really want to buy the stuff. If you live in heavily Scottish areas of the U.S., this will explain the long lines at the butcher counters in Piggly Wiggly, as shrill bagpipers demand a haggis fix.

My opinion is, Scotland got it exactly right with single malt Scotch, but really blew it when they started stuffing internal organs into each other and calling it food. My solution is, the U.S. should allow haggis to be imported, ONE AT A TIME. When one sells, they get to bring in another one. I’m guessing that first one will be around for a long time.  

More blog posts on bizarre food:

A 2000 file photo shows Darren McCarty competing in the throwing of the haggis competition during Highland Games in Livonia, Michigan. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

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