Strange But True
BY SAMANTHAWEAVER

. Do you suffer from ephebophobia? It's not likely; in today's youth-obsessed culture, it's not a common affliction. Ephebophobia is a fear of young people or adolescents.

. Summer is upon us, which means it's time for the quintessentially American tradition of the road trip. (That is, if you can afford to buy gas for the family station wagon.) Well, if you're heading to Illinois in August, be sure to stop off in Champaign-Urbana during the weekend of the Insect Film Fear Festival, an event the organizers describe as "a celebration of giant rubber bugs, low production budgets, and an underhanded attempt to educate non-entomologists about the joys of insects." A must-see, to be sure.

. It's been reported that the final words of Conrad N. Hilton, the man who founded the famous chain of hotels (and, incidentally, the greatgrandfather of infamous heiress Paris Hilton), were "Leave the shower curtain on the inside of the tub."

. If you're a butcher by trade, you might be interested in knowing that your profession, too, has a patron saint: Saint Luke.

. Do you dread seeing the black ink turn gray, continuing to print until the text on your documents becomes ghostly? When you leave the office-supply store with a new ink cartridge, does your wallet feel significantly lighter? Well, you're not imagining things, printer ink really is expensive. In fact, by volume, it costs seven times as much as Dom Perignon champagne.

. Think the arts and sciences don't mix? You may want to think again: All the craters on the planet Mercury are named for artists, writers and musicians, and the moons of Uranus have names from characters and places found in the plays of William Shakespeare.

Thought for the Day: "I don't know anything about music. In my line, you don't have to." -- Elvis Presley

(c) 2007 King Features Synd., Inc.