Kathy Landin

The housing market has been in a very well-publicized slump for several years now, but there are still some very high priced homes listed for sale. From penthouses and mansions to ranches and beach front properties, there is something for everyone, as long as you can dig deep enough in your wallet.

There are so many things about this prototype of a weapon of the future for a dude to love. It’s guided by a remote control, has all kinds of moving parts and, when fully operational, will shoot people.

When we were kids, not only did we have to walk uphill to and from school, our field trips were to boring places like museums, weird historical reenactments and planetariums. Kids these days have all the fun, especially when they get to spend the afternoon at Boston’s favorite adult video store.

Traditionally, the first day of April is a perfect time to get your kicks by playing jokes and setting up pranks for your friends, family and coworkers. Some people like to prepare for this day by pulling pranks all year long for practice. Thank goodness we now have YouTube so jokesters can record these pranks and the reactions they cause and then post them for our enjoyment.

It doesn’t get a lot of press coverage and the banks are still open, but March 23 is National Puppy Day. For the seventh year, we will spend this day reflecting on what it is that we love so much about puppies. Perhaps this is a day we should have more than once a year.

It’s been a series of best selling teen novels and a much anticipated movie release, and now ‘The Hunger Games’ has achieved legendary status because it has been spoofed and spoofed and spoofed again on the Web. And, this seems like a trend that isn’t going to stop any time soon.

Everyone knows that St. Patrick’s Day is the one day out of the year when we’re all Irish. And, apparently that translates into wearing anything green and silly we can get our hands on and having as much to drink as we can carry at one time. But, there’s another strange tradition that has developed in celebration of this day. We can’t explain it. Are Irish people really that into unnaturally green

If you’re in the market for a new place and wouldn’t mind relocating to the Midwest, we have found a sweet deal for you. Baird & Warner Realty in the Chicago metro appears to be selling Michael Jordan’s house. The listing doesn’t say it’s Jordan’s house, but it has a basketball court and the entrance gate says 23. We did the math.

You may not be able to search for your own Tweets on Twitter after a week, but a marketing research company in the UK can now search all the Tweets Tweeted since January of 2010. This is possible because Twitter just sold Datasift the right to sort through them.

In the Arabian Sea, the Italian coast guard is reporting that the Costa Allegra, an Italian cruise ship, is adrift near the Seychelles islands after a fire broke out and caused the motors to stop working. They say the passengers are safe, but the ship cannot travel anywhere.

We don’t know where he got the ring, but we do know he gave it to his girlfriend, Deanna Burditt. Rick Harrison, the owner of the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas and star of History’s ‘Pawn Stars,’ got engaged on Valentine’s Day.

The king cake is a traditional Mardi Gras food. It is usually a ring-shaped pastry, sometimes filled with cheese or jelly and sprinkled with the colors of Mardi Gras. It began as an Epiphany treat, celebrating the arrival of the Three Wise Men to the stable where Jesus was born. Oh, and it’s delicious.