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Sex Museum Suffers Performance Anxiety

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The museum features about 1,500 dolls, puppets and other items from places like the New York home that served as the basis for the film The Amityville Horror. Signs that say "Danger! Do Not Touch!" are posted throughout the museum.

The Warrens have been hailed as "America's top ghost hunters," and have written nine books on the occult. For decades they have provided their "ghost-hunting" services to thousands of homes free of charge — except for travel expenses.

Mr. Warren became ill last year, forcing the couple to curtail their services. But he claims to have been present at more than 200 exorcisms, and has maintained in speeches that "God is more powerful than any demon." Ms. Warren says they are still chasing the truth. If you believe your home is haunted, don't try to contact a spirit with a Ouija board. "That can only make matters worse," she says.

Junk Food? I Think Not

SPAM Museum — SPAM is a lunchmeat legend, and some folks take the spiced ham concoction very seriously.

In fact, Gov. Jesse Ventura was on hand in Austin, Minn., when the SPAM Museum opened last year — and it's not because he fancies himself the biggest ham in American politics.

Hormel, based in Ventura's state, boasts $4.1 billion in annual sales, and the blue-and-yellow SPAM logo is now is trademarked in more than 100 countries.

Here's a sobering thought: Americans purchase 3.6 cans of SPAM every second. That adds up to 216 cans a minute, 12,960 cans every hour.

The SPAM saga began around World War II, when GI's tucked away the canned pig meat. President Eisenhower and even Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev each expounded upon SPAM's effectiveness in beating the Nazis. "Without SPAM, we wouldn't have been able to feed our army," Khrushchev said in his autobiography.

Inside the SPAM Museum, fans will find plenty to absorb. A 430-foot conveyor belt rattles around the ceiling, carrying about 850 cans of SPAM. Visitors can take a SPAM exam or can their own SPAM (not the real stuff). There's also a radio station — KSPAM — and a video screen that shows classic Monty Python skits slamming SPAM. Salad Museum — Do you need to revisit your salad days? Then check out New York's Dole Museum of Salad. Did you know that salad dates back to the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe, and was very similar then to what we eat today?

A video walk-through of the harvesting and packaging processes shows how salads are triple-washed, inspected and trimmed. Exhibits feature the history of the Caesar, Cobb and Waldorf salads. You might consider all this a bit of industry propaganda, but salad insiders say they account for $2 billion in the U.S. economy. That's a lot of lettuce. And we haven't even started to talk about dressing.

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