John Kelly: Cabbie's Plea, a Tale of Foreign Circuitry And a Battle of the Brows

"I get the feeling that in their desire to liquidate, they kind of grabbed anything and everything they had and started sending it out," said Keith.

Samer said Circuit City told him it's all out of that particular laptop in English. He's shipping it back and hoping for the promised refund.

Eyebrow Raised at Guinness

Brian Peterkin-Vertanesian has seen his dreams cruelly dashed before. It looks like they've been dashed again. I wrote about the Mount Pleasant man in May, when I was a witness to his attempt to set a Guinness record for the world's longest eyebrow hair. A hair above his left eye measured 6.375 inches, enough to beat the old record of 5.53 inches held by Japan's Toshie Kawakami. He sent documentation off to Guinness headquarters in London.

Then word came last week that Kawakami's eyebrow hair had reached a staggering 7.01 inches. Brian had not set a world record after all. He described himself as "crestfallen and disillusioned."

Luckily, he hasn't trimmed Wally, the name he gave his eyebrow hair. Brian holds out hope that he might be able to catch the plucky Japanese woman. After all, he rebounded after losing an earlier eyebrow hair in a freak pool accident. Keep your eyebrow on the prize, Brian!

There was better record-breaking news for Deborah Gist, who on Feb. 14 survived an onslaught of 112 people kissing her in one minute. I was among the judges at that attempt, too. Two weeks ago, Deborah received official confirmation from Guinness that she had set a most-kisses-in-a-minute world record.

At the time, Deborah was state commissioner of education for the District. She's since moved to Rhode Island to be that state's education commissioner. But as far as the record goes, it was set here in D.C., a place not often associated with kisses.

Check out my blog today for a profile of P.M. Forni, the man behind Howard County's "Choose Civility" movement. Go to http://voices.washingtonpost.com/commons.