Urinal game banned in Belgium

This past summer, a line of urinal-based games began cropping up in Europe, where you were required to pee on a sensor to guide a car on a screen in front of you. If you did badly, a warning popped up asking you not to drive home that night. Well, bad news if you were hoping to be the next champion of the urination-powered video games circuit in Belgium. Police there just banned the urinal games in the GamePower Expo in Gent, citing them as indecent. So, you heard it here first, peeing in a bathroom is illegal in Belgium. The street corner though? Perfectly fine.

Woman sues Kmart for collecting tax on toilet paper

MONROEVILLE, Pa. — A western Pennsylvania woman won $100 plus court costs after she sued Kmart for twice collecting sales tax on a nontaxable necessity: toilet paper.

Mary Bach, of Murrysville, said Kmart offered to settle the case out of court before a Thursday hearing at which a Monroeville district judge sided with her. But the settlement required her to sign a confidentiality agreement, which would have defeated the purpose of her suit, Bach said.

"I want consumers as they shop during the important holiday to be aware of what is and what isn't taxable," Bach said after the verdict. "I would lose my ability to spread that message if I were gagged."

Bach sued in October after a Kmart store in Monroeville twice collected a 7 percent tax when she bought a 12-roll package of toilet paper for $3.99.

Using text messages to find nearest toilet in London

LONDON: A new service promises Londoners they'll never have to spend much time looking for the loo.

Westminster City Council, which covers London's bustling Oxford Street, the West End, and the Houses of Parliament, on Thursday launched "SatLav" — a toilet-finding service for mobile phone users.

Harried theatergoers, distressed shoppers and hard-pressed bar patrons in London's West End can now text the word "toilet" — and receive a text back giving the address of the nearest public facility.

The system, which covers 40 public toilets, triangulates a user's position by measuring the strength of the phone signal. The texts cost 25 pence (US$0.52, €0.35), while most of Westminster's toilets are free.


Texting your way to a toilet in London

Urinal stencils from Italy

Toilet restaurant in Taipei

This Taipei restaurant might consider it a compliment to be called an outhouse as the Modern Toilet diner is one of chain of themed eateries appealing to largely young clientele with a toilet humor.

All 100 seats in the crowded diner are made from toilet bowls, not chairs. Sink faucets and gender-coded “WC” signs appear throughout the three-storey facility, one of 12 in an island-wide chain of eateries with a toilet theme.

Toilet-themed restaurant on Unusual Life.