COLLINSVILLE, Ill. (AP) — First came the world’s largest ketchup bottle.

Now citizens of this southern Illinois community are after the record for the world’s largest ketchup packet.

Collinsville has partnered with the H.J. Heinz Co. to fill an 8-foot tall, 4-foot wide plastic pouch with 1,500 pounds of the tomato goop for a school fundraiser.

“That’s a lot of ketchup,” said Tracey Parsons, a Heinz spokeswoman.

The company donated 4,000 glass bottles of the condiment that people can buy for $1 and pour into the packet.

Hundreds in the city, which is the home of a 170-foot-tall water tower shaped like a giant ketchup bottle, showed up Saturday to participate in the ketchup filling and other fundraising activities.

Organizers expected the packet to be filled to capacity with 130 gallons by Saturday evening.

The feat is being submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records. If accepted, it will be the world’s largest ketchup packet, Parsons said.

The proceeds will go to the Collinsville Christian Academy, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary. Part of the school was destroyed by a fire earlier this week.

After it’s filled with ketchup, the giant packet will be sealed and kept in Collinsville for a few days before being transported to the Pittsburgh-based company’s headquarters.

Parsons said the ketchup won’t ever be eaten.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2007-07-28-ketchup-record_N.htm

Parents who pay hundreds of dollars just to find the coolest name for their kid.

Parents who pay hundreds of dollars just to find the coolest name for their kid.

Plus a lower class in India fights to get even lower, Japanese restaurants prepare for horse sushi, the Lord turns amalgam dental fillings into gold, those incompetent suicide bombers, and more in this week’s News of the Weird.

Some parents feel “unprecedented levels of angst” to pick cool enough names for their kids, with some even hiring consultants, according to a June Wall Street Journal report. Baby-book authors charge clients $50 for a list of “special” names, and half-hour phone consultations go for $95. Another adviser charges $350 for three calls plus a comprehensive linguistic history of the selected name, and one California mother paid $475 to a numerologist to “test” the name Leah Marie for “positive associations.” The Journal blames the problem on too much information about names (from the Internet), as well as parents’ fear of dooming their child for life by insufficiently distinguishing their kid from others. [Wall Street Journal, 6-22-07]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20070727/od_notw/nwx070729xml