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As soaring gas prices deflate family budgets, Americans are coming up with unique ways to cut their gas costs.
Today the nationwide average price for gas hit another record high today at $3.22 per gallon, according to the Energy Information Administration.
In Jacksonville, Fla., a 69-year-old inventor designed a tiny gadget he attaches to his engine to improve his mileage.
“I’ve been getting about 42 [miles per gallon] with this car. On a previous car I had it on, I got 60!” said Fred Crane.
He calls the device the Mileage Master. According to Crane, when you’re going more than 35 mph, you can just flip a switch to cut off fuel to half of the cylinders in your engine.
“I’d like the American public be able to save gas. That’s what I want. I don’t want the oil companies to buy it off from me. They’ll just throw it away,” said Crane.
With the Mileage Master, he claims someone who gets 20 mpg, spending $100 per month, could reduce that bill to as little as $35 a month.
Note: The Mileage Master is not yet patented and not available for sale.
Outside a Silicon Valley diner you’ll find a hybrid, a Ferrari and a $150,000 prototype of the world’s fastest electric car. It’s an example of a society where dreams and technology are fueled by money.
Ian Wright is the entrepreneur whose dream it was to take electric car technology to the next level.
“Public perception, the investors’ perception, is that electric cars are golf carts, that they’re ugly little things that nobody really wants,” said Wright.
“We can build something that beats all of the Ferraris, all of the Porsches. And that gets people’s attention.”
Even though he’s created an electric car that can bypass gas stations and do 170 mph, he knows the economics aren’t there yet for mass production.

abcnews.go.com

One of the thoughts that enters my mind is, what happened when he had the urge to use the bathroom? Did they have a 2nd one or did he have to knock on the neighbor's door umpteen times? And if he did I bet that that put a definate strain on his friendship with his neighbors, no pun intended. Another thought is if she had literally grown to the toilet seat, how did she perform all the normal tasks involved with everyday sanitary bathroom functions? That is as graphic as I want to get about this subject and I will let you each use your imagines. All in all I guess that this is one more case for those who write the stories of weird events and believe it or not oddities.
The news said that the couple had two bathrooms so the boyfriend could use the other. Also, one news story said the woman moved around in the bathroom, changed clothes, and bathed or somehow cleaned up. I wondered how she could do that if her flesh had grown to the toilet seat. I think there is more to this story that what we are hearing. It would be interesting to hear the entire story from when the problem first started until after she was rescued from a prison of her own making. Also, did the man work? If so, did she just sit in the bathroom until he got home if he did? It must have been a very boring life. I guess they must not have had any kids.

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A 19-storey crane alongside a New York skyscraper has toppled like a tree, crashing into apartment buildings, killing four people and setting off a scramble for survivors.
The crane split into pieces as it fell on top of a four-storey townhouse and demolished parts of three other buildings. One man was pulled from the townhouse three-and-a-half hours after the building was crushed.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at least four people, all of them believed to be construction workers, had died and at least 10 people had been injured in one of the city’s worst construction accidents in recent memory.
The collapse happened on Manhattan’s East Side. Cars were overturned and crushed.
A huge dust cloud rose over the neighbourhood. Rubble was piled several storeys high.
“It’s a horrible situation, very gory. There’s blood in the street,” said Lieutenant Governor David Paterson.
An intensive rescue operation was under way to find anyone possibly trapped in the rubble on 51st Street near 2nd Avenue.
Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said the rescue was “a painstaking hand operation, as we try to remove the rubble so we don’t cause further collapse or injure anyone who may still be in that building.”

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