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The skinny

By TIMES WIRES
Published February 9, 2007

No worldwide audience, but she said yes

Rand Fishkin's intent was to ask Geraldine DeRuiter to marry him in front of all 93-million people watching the Super Bowl on Sunday. But that plan fell through when he couldn't raise the money it was going to take to buy an ad. So instead, the Seattle man got the local CW affilliate to film a commercial for him and show it during Veronica Mars, which pulls a way smaller rating than the Super Bowl, but is a big hit among the demographic that Fishkin was targeting: 27-year-old DeRuiters in Seattle named Geraldine. After hyperventilating, she said yes. Fishkin tried to raise the money on his Web site, mysuperproposal.com, but only got about $10,000, which is way less than the $2.5-million or so that CBS was charging for Super Bowl spots. That money was donated to a children's hospital.

You can't save them too many times

Swedish firefighters rushed to the scene of a car accident in Lulea. They worked feverishly to extricate the three people who had been in a car accident. They grabbed the hydraulic metal cutters and cut off the side of the car and safely pulled them out, according to Britain's Metro.com. Thing is, they had already been rescued. They were just sitting in a taxi because the cabbie wanted to get them out of the cold. "(The injured) looked worse than they were," said Peter Andersson. "(The firefighters) didn't realize they only had to open the door." The driver is now in a dispute with his insurance company, which doesn't believe the story.

Surviving this ordeal took guts

Milkman Andrew Creed, 43, was dropping off some milk in Wakefield, England. While he was out of his truck dropping off a couple of pints, a thief jumped into the truck and took off. Creed was close enough to the vehicle to grab onto an open window. The thief zig-zagged, trying to throw Creed off the truck, and finally did. The Sun of London reports that Creed broke a couple of fingers and got some cuts and the truck left tire marks across his legs and his voluminous stomach. That was his key to survival, he surmises. "I reckon my beer belly saved me from being hurt a lot worse," Creed said.

Beijing cracks down on spitting

Right on the heels of working to get unfortunate translations out of their public signs, Beijing is taking more steps in preparation for the 2008 Olympics. A new law is aimed at getting people to stop spitting. People caught spitting could be fined up to $6.50. In Beijing, that is the daily income of a college graduate. "(That's) a fairly hefty warning for spitters," said Zhang Huiguang, director of the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau. "The amount of money is not the most important, the most important is to warn people." There is also a campaign to convince people to line up, because jumping ahead is common in the city of 15-million.

Compiled from Times wires and other sources by staff writer Jim Webster.

[Last modified February 9, 2007, 01:05:35]