This week's Slightly Off Center (via USA Today) Enjoy, Brian --------------------------------- Mayor's message temporarily rated X ROUND ROCK, Texas - Mayor Charlie Culpepper learned an important digital age lesson: Change your pager's password often! Somebody managed to hack hizhonnor's pager and replace otherwise standard ''leave a message'' to a rap song graphically describing a sex act. Says one councilman who got the new message: "It was pretty vulger." Says the mayor: ''I'm just glad my mother or my wife didn't try to page me.'' *********************************************************************** Maybe he looked like a bank robber BUFFALO, N.Y. - Bank robbery suspect Timothy Hough had the cash but couldn't get a cab. Police say Hough robbed the downtown branch of M&T Bank - netting less than $2,000 in the process. Trouble was, when he tried to get in two taxicabs, the drivers threw him out. Finally, the desperate man jumped on a Metro Rail train. It had barely started rolling when police stopped it and arrested Hough. No word from the cabbies on why they wouldn't take his tainted money. *********************************************************************** It takes 'guts' to take a pay raise JACKSON, Miss. - Call it a political gut check. A legislative pay plan that cleared the House would require bill opponents to admit they were gutless to get their share of the money. The bill - that also gives pay raises to hundreds of state and county officeholders - had been rejected last week. House members and senators voting against the bill could get extra money only if they sign a form saying, ''I was for the legislative pay raise but did not have the guts to vote for it.'' Lawmakers would receive $6,300 more each year in expense money immediately under the bill. Their base pay would increase from $10,000 to $15,000 in the year 2000. Lawmakers now receive about $25,000 yearly, including expenses. *********************************************************************** A kiss is (more than) just a kiss EVANSVILLE, Ind. - Professor Michael Christian is making the perfect kiss academic -- so much so he's written two books on the topic. The Boston College professor says there's about 25 different kinds of lip-locks, from the lip-o-suction kiss to the upside-down kiss. The smooch expert says that most Americans kiss for less than a minute, but the longest kiss on record lasted more than 200 hours. His interest turned academic after a girlfriend complained that he kissed with his eyes open. He now knows he was just kissing the wrong girl. One-third of the population likes to kiss 'n' peep. ''Women's expectations are too high and they always say things like, 'You've got to be kidding. You wrote the book on The Art of Kissing and this is the best you can do?''' *********************************************************************** President Coolidge was one cool rider FREMONT, Ohio - So where will you find an 800-pound electric hobby horse? Well, at one time it would have been under President Calvin Coolidge. That's just one of the 200 exhibits at "Presidential Potpourri" stopping in the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center through July. Other items on display: a lock of George Washington's hair, the life mask that Abraham Lincoln made four months before his death, a tape recorder used by Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal, William Howard Taft's giant bathtub and Teddy Roosevelt's teddy bear will be on display. ''You can see the power and the glory of the presidents. But you can also see the fun and downright silliness,'' Jay Snider, curator of the Hayes Center. *********************************************************************** 'Motherhood' prevails on California ballot REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - Call her Candidate Mom, or formally ''Businesswoman-Mother.'' That's how Denise de Ville will be identified on the ballot in an April 8 election to fill a vacancy on the San Mateo County board of supervisors, south of San Francisco. The county elections chief agreed to de Ville's desired designation. The state maintains that parenthood is not an occupation, and shouldn't be listed on the ballot. But authorities in Sacramento concede they don't have the power to change a ballot already approved by local officials. *********************************************************************** Mom couldn't 'bear' to let go of beagle PERKINS TOWNSHIP, Maine - Dodger the beagle had a new mother for a few days: a mama bear the dog had rousted out of hibernation. Every time Dodger tried to leave, the groggy bear thought she was preventing one of her cubs from leaving the den, according to biologists. ''She had adopted the dog. There was no question in their minds,'' said owner Butch McCormick. The owner and biologists finally yanked Dodger free by its dog collar after a four-day standoff at the bear's burrow in this remote town. ''He's not hurt at all. There's just a few teeth marks in his ear,'' McCormick said. Maternal love bites, no doubt. *********************************************************************** Where the heck did all these kids come from? SACRAMENTO, Calif. - In 1916, George Couron met a girl named Gaynel at a carnival and said to himself, ''That was the girl for me. And he's had her for almost 81 years. The score since then: Fourteen children, 43 grandchildren, 75 great-grandchildren and at least 30 great-great-grandchildren. George and Gaynel are surprised as anyone at their long life and marriage. ''I could say we behaved ourselves, but that just wouldn't go down very well with some people,'' he said. The couple, who live here with their daughter, will celebrate their 81st anniversary April 10. It is the nation's longest-lasting marriage. Said Couron, who is 100. ''I got the woman I wanted.''