The Consumer Products Safety Commission has levied a fine which may bode well for The Home Depot, Inc.'s (NYSE:HD) sales of Charmglow grills this coming summer. It has been reported that Nexgrill Industries has agreed to settle a claim that they allegedly failed to inform officials of a potentially dangerous gas grill defect in a timely manner. The CPSC has provisionally accepted Nexgrills agreement to pay a $300,000 fine in the matter.

Nexgrill had received reports of gas grill fires, including reports of minor injuries, and allegedly failed to report the possible defect to the CPSC for 10 months. The news release states that Nexgrill had sufficient reason to believe they were dealing with a product defect. Finally, in June of 2006, Nexgrill did announce a recall of about 16,000 of the potentially offending grills. The possible defect exists in the placement of a fuel hose which may be situated too close to the heat source and thereby may potentially separate from the burner unit and create a fire hazard.

Nexgrill has made available a retrofit heat shield which eliminates the potential hazard. You may contact them regarding this corrective measure at this web address: http://nexgrill0025.serorder.com/. With this now behind them, both companies have the coming summer to look forward to.

Next time you have a hankering to listen to your iPod during a thunderstorm, you may want to do that inside. Jason Bunch could tell you that from first-hand experience. The Colorado 17-year-old was listening to his iPod when lightning struck on his lawn.

The earbuds conducted the eletricity right into Bunch's ears, rupturing his eardrums, singing his hair and burning him from his ears to his feet. Experts say that any electronic device held up to a person's ear (including cell phones and, we're certain, Microsoft's new iPod "killer") could direct the current from a lightning bolt similarly.

[Photo ocean yamaha]