ASYLUM - For all mankind

(Our happy hour fact to amaze the drunks in the pub.)

Thieves are increasingly targeting empty kegs of beer as the price of stainless steel scrap metal has doubled.

An 1.2 stone keg now fetches between £7 and £15 on the scrap market. The Beer Institute in America (we call it the "Happiness Institute") estimates that in 2007, approximately 300,000 kegs were stolen in the U.S., leading to a loss of £26million. For that reason, the industry group has pushed for governments to consider new metal-theft legislation.

"It's been terribly frustrating," said Sierra Nevada beer founder Ken Grossman, who estimates about 8 percent of his company's kegs were lost or stolen in the past year. "This will increase the price of beer."

Asylum encourages its readers to support legislation creating harsher penalties, -- possibly even corporal punishment -- for these most foul scavengers whose actions threaten the very existence of happy hour.

Most people look at a playground and see a wonderland of fun and games. But then there are those who look at a playground and see a stage set for porn stars.

The latter decided to film a pornographic video on a sweet, innocent suburban playground in Tenessee recently, and while we should stress that no kids were present at the time, the community is up in arms.

Video clips were discovered on a model's Web site showing her enjoying the swings in an empty Bartlett Grove Park, and then exposing herself on the slide. The buxom blonde's X-rated antics have angered community members.

"She's definitely a tramp -- just nasty," parent Barbara Taylor said in reaction to the video. "I think I'm not letting my kids go down that slide anymore." Police are considering pressing public indecency charges against the playground bandita before she strikes again, as she threatens on her site.

We can't say how much we admire the young cub reporter who broke this troubling story by somehow stumbling upon a video clip on an erotic Web site. Not only that, he also located and visited the perpetrator's house. Check out the local news video after the jump to pay tribute to his dedication.

Everyone knows that you have to do three things to be officially clever:

1) Claim Citizen Kane is your favourite movie.
2) Tell people that you never watch TV.
3) Play chess.

Now the first two are easy -- they require no effort on your part except some minor lies. But the third is risky -- you could easily be challenged to chessboard combat, and if you don't know your knights from your bishops you could be in for a bruised ego.

What you need is a way to make chess more fun. Enter Lego Chess. An enormous, elaborate, expensive, strictly adults-only Lego set, the giant board features four dungeons for captured pieces, castle turrets, ogres and dwarves, and looks absolutely amazing.

Still, it's pricey at £139.99, you'll probably also spend more time building it than playing it, and regressing into the world of Lego might not help you in the cleverness stakes. But when the board looks this much fun, who really cares? Click here for a close-up look.

In the 1980s, Fatal Attraction was a pop-culture phenomenon that led men to second guess whether they should be getting a little on the side.

But while Glenn Close's woman scorned went somewhat overboard with the bunny boiling and homicidal rage, she never broke out the spray paint and let the world know her true feelings.

Sienna Miller recently got that sort of message from someone calling her out for her relationship with married actor Balthazar Getty. Though we're not sure if it was from Balthazar's lady, it recalled images we've seen over the years that are seething with scorn.

Below are a few of these not-so-subtle messages.

What happens when you attack your computer with a phone, only to realise you live in a parallel universe filled with furious robots hungry for revenge? You get hurt, of course. Also, you remember to watch The Wrong Door, a new sketch show set in said parallel universe, which starts tonight on BBC3.

(Incidentally, best comment on this video's YouTube page? "Freetoken4u" writes "i think it is fake"... No? Really?)

Some see the process of parturition (defined) as a beautiful thing, while others look at it as a sloppy, stomach-churning mess. Either way, people in the American state of Minnesota can now get a front-row seat.

At this year's Minnesota State Fair, currently taking place in the town of St. Paul, visitors have the opportunity to watch barnyard animals giving birth in an 18,000 square-foot "maternity pen".

Parents are encouraged to bring their kids to watch the daily shows of labouring mother cows releasing calves via the uterus -- though they are warned that snares, hooks and calf jacks are sometimes required. Meanwhile, those at the hog-calling tent -- another insane American practice recently featured here on Asylum -- when the big event happens can watch video replays of deliveries displayed on large monitors.

We're city people over here at Asylum UK, so the idea of live birthing as a spectator sport seems a bit strange. We can't actually imagine anywhere on this side of the Atlantic where people would want to watch that. Then again, what Rebecca Loos did to that pig was probably worse.

We've often wondered what goes on behind the scenes at a magazine photoshoot. Usually we imagine lots of inexplicably gorgeous women wandering around, drinking vodka straight from the bottle, while another gorgeous woman takes photos with a polaroid camera. Or was that just the plot of "Horny Photoshoot 4: Cameras and Candid Cuties"?

Anyway, Asylum Australia has pointed us to a behind-the-scenes video from a recent Megan Fox shoot -- and, to be honest, it's dented our hopes a little. Sure, Megan Fox is hot. But watch this with the sound off, and her strange, bobbing head-movements make her look a little bit like a robot. Oh well.

When we last checked in with Dede -- an Indonesian man infected by a virus that causes his limbs to grow bark-like protrusions -- he was hoping a new medical proceedure might be able to improve his condition.

Now it seems that a battery of treatments have indeed helped, by allowing over ten pounds of gnarled warts to be surgically removed from his body.

Called the "Tree Man," Dede first began getting the warts after scraping his knee as a teen, when he contracted what doctors think is a rare form of Human Papilloma Virus. Having undergone nine operations to remove 95 percent of the growths, Dede's life is finally returning to some semblance of normalcy.

"He cannot be 100 percent cured, but his life quality has improved. If once he depended on others to do his activities, now he can eat by himself, use his hand to write, use the cell phone," said his doctor.

Question Raised: Could you handle this kind of physical abnormality?