And now, from the "If Ya Got 'Em, Lick 'Em" files and Yahoo! News...

(Sudiegirl sez: No animals were harmed in the writing of this entry. However, the billiard ball industry might suffer as a result. OK...enough with the warnings...when I read this, I was simply flabbergasted. I mean, who in their right mind would actually pay for this procedure for a DOG!? I loved the dogs I had, but they were neutered for a REASON, and I figured if the organs in question were taken away, they don't need to worry about having them back. 'Nuff said by me on this...I'll go ahead and comment on the rest.)

The Winner Is... Fake Dog Testicle Creator

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press Writer Fri Oct 7, 9:04 AM ET

BOSTON - Gregg Miller mortgaged his home and maxed out his credit cards to mass produce his invention — prosthetic testicles for neutered dogs. (OK...here's one of the next candidates for "The Bachelor". Can you imagine having to explain to your parents what this guy did for a living? I'd lie and say he was an undertaker or an axe murderer. Then again, money is money and it all spends the same.)

What started 10 years ago with an experiment on an unwitting Rottweiler named Max (unwitting or unwilling?) has turned into a thriving mail-order business. And on Thursday night Miller's efforts earned him a dubious yet strangely coveted honor: the Ig Nobel Prize for medicine. (How would you explain that charge on a credit card? "Yes, honey, I ordered artificial dog testicles for Rover...he just looked so...DISTRAUGHT!")

"Considering my parents thought I was an idiot when I was a kid, this is a great honor," he said. "I wish they were alive to see it." (Maybe they're just in the Idiot's Protection Program, and they've changed their names and moved to Bermuda.)

The Ig Nobels, given at Harvard University by Annals of Improbable Research magazine, celebrate the humorous, creative and odd side of science.

Miller has sold more than 150,000 of his Neuticles, more than doubling his $500,000 investment. The silicone implants come in different sizes, shapes, weights and degrees of firmness. (What the sexy retriever is wearing this season...)

The product's Web site says Neuticles allow a pet "to retain his natural look" and "self esteem." (OK...let me explain something to you. Any creature that considers rolling on some other dead animal to further absorb its scent and thinks skunk stink smells GOOD deserves to deal with low-self-esteem when his BALLS are REMOVED. This is not the same as rebuilding a woman's breat after breast cancer surgery. Far from it!)

Although the Ig Nobels are not exactly prestigious, many recipients are, like Miller, happy to win. (Just another thing to brag about at the class reunion, huh?)

"Most scientists — no matter what they're doing, good or bad — never get any attention at all," said Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals of Improbable Research. (Well, we'll just forget about the artifical heart, the polio vaccine and the theory of relativity and just concentrate on ARTIFICIAL DOG BALLS!)

Some, like Benjamin Smith of the University of Adelaide in Australia, who won the biology prize, actually nominated their own work. "I've been a fan of the Ig Nobels for a while," he said. (So the nomination process is TAINTED? That's supposed to make me feel better?)

Smith's team studied and catalogued different scents emitted by more than 100 species of frogs under stress. Some smelled like cashews, while others smelled like licorice, mint or rotting fish. He recalled getting strange looks when he'd show up at zoos asking to smell the frogs. "I've been turned away at the gate," he said. (How the HELL can you tell when a frog is stressed? I know you can tell how Kermit the Frog is stressed...he shakes and screams at Miss Piggy that she's fired or something. But how about an ordinary, run-of-the-mill frog?)

This year's other Ig Nobel winners include:
• PHYSICS: Since 1927, researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia have been tracking a glob of congealed black tar as it drips through a funnel — at a rate of one drop every nine years.
• PEACE: Two researchers at Newcastle University in England monitored the brain activity of locusts as they watched clips from the movie "Star Wars."
• CHEMISTRY: An experiment at the University of Minnesota was designed to prove whether people can swim faster or slower in syrup than in water.

(And people think creative types are flakes?!)

The Ig Nobel for literature went to the Nigerians who introduced millions of e-mail users to a "cast of rich characters ... each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled." (Ah, so THIS is the committee that encourages such behavior. Thanks a lot folks...remind me to cross you off my Christmas list.)

Sudiegirl's final word?

1. Spay and neuter your pets.

2. Don't buy them artifical testicles.

3. Disband this committee...it only encourages goofball behavior.

God. I have trouble finding a job, and these weirdos get attention for this? Then again, people stop by and read my blog so who's to say who's the bigger crackpot?

Sudiegirl the practical (and undesirous of a set of artificial dog testicles too, so don't even think about it!)