Long and short of it: A Eugene writer creates a Web site to deliver his shortest stories - The Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, USA: "Attention 'deficit' and the writer

As a boy, Rogers had so much trouble paying attention in school that his father devised a mechanical remedy for what today would be called Attention Deficit Disorder.

'He took apart a kitchen timer and stuffed the bell full of cotton, so that it just made a little `tink!' instead of ringing,' recalls the 45-year-old writer, who works in a book-filled house near Maury Jacobs Park."