Etc...

Aw, no, not another one

It's not known whether Chen Bing was a huge fan of the TV series "Chinese Police: September Storm." But even though the cop show recently went off the air after a two-year run, it's about to play a significant role in his life – and not just because boxed sets of the DVDs are now available. Can you guess why? Here's a hint: According to news reports, a court has just ordered that Chen be paid more than $250 (presumably for emotional distress) because of a phone number that factored into one of the early episodes. It was dictated by one of the characters to another, slowly, so that it could be written on a piece of paper. By now you may have figured out that the number is Chen's ... and that the second character wasn't alone in recording it. Result: Since July 2004, the hapless cellphone user has received thousands of text messages from people he has never met but who obviously saw the show. "It was annoying," he told reporters. "For a long time, I wondered why." Well, now he knows and he has taken his plight to court. A judge ruled that the producer should have made sure the number wasn't in use before writing it into the script. The latter's defense: It's purely coincidental; the digits were those of an employee's birth date.