Exploding Pudding Truck Sends Driver Running

There's always room for Jell-O, but 60 tons of exploding pudding turned out to be too much for a bewildered British truck driver. The driver had to flee after the 60,000 cans of custard and rice pudding started exploding "like fireworks" when a fire broke out on his truck.

The cans were said to be exploding "like thousands of gunshots." The driver was apparently unaware that his truck was on fire until passersby flagged him down. He eventually stopped the truck and hightailed it away from the Pudding Truck from Hell before it started exploding like a pudding lover's 4th of July dream.

Got any vanilla wafers?

The Montauk Monster - Just the Thing for a Slow Summer!

Things can get kind of slow in the news business during the summer in New York, so writers and bloggers must have been cheered by the mysterious appearance (and apparent disappearance) of what's being called The Montauk Monster, which was seen lying on its side on a Montauk, Long Island beach.

What... the... frack?!

The creature looks like a hairless dog, with an eagle-type beak for a nose. Gawker published a photo of the Montauk Monster along with a story, with some of their classic commentary. It notes that one person has claimed that this might be an escapee from a government animal testing lab that's supposedly nearby, but Gawker disagrees:

"... unless the government is trying to design horrible Montauk monsters that will eat IEDs and fart fire at bad Iraqis, we're not sure why they would create such an unthinkable beast. Our guess is that it's viral marketing for something. Ali Lohan's new album perhaps."

Ali Lohan and her famous sister (and father, and mother) were apparently unavailable for comment.

So is this a viral marketing scam, as Gawker suggests? We may never know, because liberal blog The Huffington Post has wasted no time in jumping on the Montauk Monster bandwagon, giving the creature his (her?) own column, entitled The Montauk Monster.

In the current column, the Monster says that he (she?) came to the beach for sun and surf: "The sun was very hot and I took a nap, naked. And then it turns out a picture of this very nap was posted on the Internet, paparazzi or some such thing, I'd imagine."

There you go, straight from the Montauk Monster's mouth. Now that the Monster is working for HuffPo, I guess its job will be to blog about New York nightlife and write puff pieces on Barack Obama.

The Much-Maligned Fruitcake is Celebrated at California Festival

Here's an audio story that profiles the Independence Fruitcake Festival, which takes place tomorrow in Independence, California.

This is a fun holiday story to listen to if you love fruitcake... or if you hate fruitcake, for that matter.

When I was a kid my grandparents used to give fruitcakes to our family (and just about everyone else they knew, apparently). I hated those rock-hard cakes with the unnaturally colored Maraschino cherries, but I have to confess that I now like fruitcake. Maybe the quality of fruitcakes has gotten better over the years, or maybe my changing taste just reflects creeping middle age. Fortunately, I have yet to develop a liking for playing shuffleboard or wearing my pants hiked up to my rib cage.

So where do you stand... fruitcake lover, fruitcake hater, or somewhere in between?

How Many Indian Guitarists Does it Take to Play "Knockin' On Heaven's Door"?

That headline may sound like one of those ubiquitous "lightbulb" jokes ("How many __ does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"), but there's a real story behind it.

More than a thousand guitarists gathered in a remote town in India Friday to try to set a Guinness world record for the largest guitar ensemble.

Supposedly upwards of 1,700 guitarists played Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" in Shilong; they were seeking to top the current Guinness record. That occurred last year, when 1,721 guitarists met in Kansas City to perform Deep Purple's 1970s rock anthem, "Smoke on the Water." The Indians seemed to have more than 1,721 guitarists strumming. (Wonder if Slash of Guns 'n' Roses was there?)

A story about the Indian event says there were no Guinness judges at today's proceedings, but the organizers of the Dylan fest claim their feat will be recognized because they have witnesses as required by the Guinness Book of World Records.

Rock on, dudes...