My Ashtray Heart

In what's apparently a move to display the message "I play safe," some Chinese kids are attaching condoms to their cell phones. Instead of keeping their jimmy hats in their pockets or wallets like us puritan Westerners, the young and hip of the Far East are just putting it out there, saying, "Look, I use condoms." Good for you, proactive Chinese teens!

The phone charms are called "Interesting Imported Condoms," and the wrappers feature zodiac signs or popular cartoon characters such as Astroboy. This, it seems, helps the phone charms appeal to teens, a demographic for whom condoms can be important.

You have, perhaps, occasionally had your ear bitten off over the phone. However, fewer are the people who have experienced their phone actually exploding into their ear, causing bleeding and a strange sensation of surprise.However, such is the claim being made by one Aron Embry of Cedar Hills, Texas, who told Fox4 in Dallas Fort-Worth that his two-day-old Motorola Droid 2 blew up on him without reason as he was getting into his car. His description to Fox4 offers an atmosphere redolent of David Cronenberg: "I heard a pop. I didn't feel any pain initially. I pulled the phone down. I felt something dripping. I realized that it was probably was blood."