NOTE: I will be on vacation next week, so feel free to read half of this column this week and half the next.

It's all about terminology, really. If I walk along the beach looking for detritus (driftwood) and empty containers (shells), I'm a vacationer engaging in the time-honored activity known as beachcombing. If, however, I do the same thing on a downtown street, I'm a bum doing some trashpicking.

This week, we'll explore some new terminology, some selectively applied verbiage, and a matter of perspective.

Bear in mind, though, that stupid is still stupid, and freaky is still freaky. These are immutable truths of the universe, engraved in the DNA of creatures since time began. When Og gave himself a concussion playing "Catch the Club," he was showing the same brainpower as our first candidate this week.

Fried In The Friendly Skies

Normally, one would think that an "extreme" activity such as skydiving would be a big enough rush to keep even the most hardcore of adrenaline junkies happy and content. For two instructors at Skydive Chicago, however, it apparently wasn't quite enough.

In the most recent incident, LaSalle County Coroner Jody Bernard released a toxicology report saying that Ronald Passmore Jr. had twice the amount of marijuana considered an impairment in his system when he attempted to do a trick involving skimming across a pond surface. He smacked the pond hard, severing his aorta.

In a previous fatal incident, instructor Bruce Greig was found to have not only marijuana, but Ecstasy and cocaine in his system as well postmortem.

Does this sound like a good idea to ANYONE? Personally, I don't understand the impulse to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. I can't imagine doing so without a stranglehold grip on my mental faculties.

Intergalactic Vocabulary

Once upon a time, the Oxford English Dictionary was the stern arbiter of what was and was not "proper" English. Nary an "ain't" or "gonzo" was to be found in its pages. Then, it gave birth to a smaller, more user-friendly version of itself, called appropriately enough the "Shorter Oxford English Dictionary." It all went to heck from there.

The latest edition of this short-form guide to our language includes the term Jedi, from "Star Wars," as well as new addition Klingon, from the "Star Trek" franchise. Also, environmentalists will be pleased to see "bunny-hugger" has made the book.

Those cute and cuddly additions are joined by the disturbing term "bunny boiler," inspired by the movie "Fatal Attraction" and used to describe a vindictive woman.

Do you have a word you'd like to see in the next OED? Drop me a line and we'll see if we can't get the publishers to take notice.

Check The Address

Westonia Reyes and her family had just settled down for dinner in their rented Hollywood, Fla., home when all heck broke loose. A bulldozer began tearing apart their backyard shed, then headed for the house proper.

Ms. Reyes tried to get the 'dozer to stop, but to no avail. She and her family watched as the bulldozer ripped into the walls and roof of the house.

The 'dozer driver blames his boss, who he said indicated the Reyes' house as one of several in the neighborhood slated for demolition.

The home's now been deemed unfit for habitation (surprise!) and the Reyes family is seeking new digs. I say they move in with the bulldozer boss while he fixes their house.

Finders Keepers?

Back to our beachcombing/trashpicking theme: sanitation workers in New York City were attempting to load a discarded couch into their trash truck when they noticed a white powder leaking from it. On further investigation, they found 182 kilograms of cocaine, worth about $8 million, stuffed in the couch.

The felonious furniture was eventually traced to an El Paso, Texas, couple who'd allegedly left it in an abandoned U-Haul trailer, which had then been emptied by U-Haul employees retreiving their company property.

I guess all Rudy Giuliani's years of working on New Yawkers, trying to make them more civilized, must have paid off. Years ago, when I lived in the Northeast, that couch would have been sacked and emptied so fast it'd make your head spin.

This just goes to show you: before you buy any used furniture, check the cushions. Take a buck knife with you to the garage sale and slash open the couch cushions. I'm sure the purveyors won't mind.

Urban Legend Of The Week

In our October effort to bring you the spookiest of Urban Legends, this week we've got two variants of Lover's Lane horror.

In both versions, a man and woman are parked on a "local" Lover's Lane, and the boyfriend leaves the vehicle to attend to a call of nature.

In the first version, the girlfriend waits and waits for the boyfriend to return, but hears strange noises from the woods outside and decides to leave and get help. She starts the car, but when she tries to drive off discovers that someone has tied a rope from the car's bumper to a tree. She revs the engine and hears her boyfriend let out a strangling scream. She jumps from the vehicle to discover her boyfriend, with the other end of the rope in a noose around his neck, hanging dead from the tree.

In the second version, the girlfriend waits in the car until she hears screams and sounds of struggle from the woods. She tries to drive away, only to discover that her boyfriend took the keys with him when he left the car. Then, to her horror, she sees a horribly disfigured man outside the driver's side door. He holds up his right hand, in which he clutches her boyfriend's severed head. From his left hand dangle the car keys. You can invent your own ending, although I prefer to leave it at that.

Find this and zillions of other creepy Urban Legends at the About.com Urban Legend site, operated by my own personal idol, David Emery.

As ever, if you've got a rant, a rave, or a weird happening to report, I look forward to hearing from you! Just drop me a line.