Tag Archives: news

Blackout

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If Congress censors the web, this is all you’ll read online.

Sign the Google petition and urge them to vote NO on SOPA and PIPA on January 24th.

So proud

I often jokingly refer to Facebook as ‘brag book’ since we all use it to share favorite photos and stories.

But there is such a thing as oversharing.

Ask Isaiah Cutler.

Cutler and two teens robbed a local Pittsburgh market of $8,000 worth of cash, cigarettes, candy and checks.  An hour later, he felt compelled to share pics of them proudly displaying their stash on his Facebook page.

Now Cutler is in jail, and his friends have been charged in juvenile court.

Cutler’s family, meanwhile, is changing his Facebook privacy settings.

Here’s a tip

MBA students at Boston University recommended brands for purchase and revitalization in team presentations Monday and today.

I’d like to add another to the list:

The felt tip pen

One such pen swallowed by a woman in Great Britain 25 years ago was recovered by doctors from her stomach intact and ready to write. Stomach acids had eaten off the pen’s brand name — darn the luck — but not the ink inside. In fact, upon removal, doctors wrote ‘hello’ with the pen.

Find that hard to believe?

The woman supposedly swallowed the pen using it to check spots on her tonsils in a mirror while standing on a ladder when she fell, leading to the accidental ingestion.

Heck — forget the pen company.  Buy the movie rights!

Spray say

With all the talk of late about pepper spray — meme, ecards, Bella toting it in Twilight (yes, I watched it again on FX) — I found myself wondering:

Is there a difference between pepper spray and mace?

Yes. Yes, there is.

Turns out they are two very different self defense products.

Mace is the brand name for an irritant similar to tear gas and usually has no effect on criminals under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Pepper spray is an inflammatory agent that will immediately take down and cause temporary pain to an assailant. It inflames the capillaries of the eyes and skin causing temporary blindness, nausea, breathing difficulties and an intense burning sensation.

Wow.

Makes you wonder why pepper spray was the self defense product ‘of choice’ at places like Walmart and Occupy Wall Street.  Wouldn’t a simple irritant have been good enough?

(And wouldn’t nothing have been the best choice?)

Plus, this seems less funny now.  And way more painful.

Toys gone wild

I’ve heard of baby dolls that go potty…

…but dolls with potty mouths?

Some customers are demanding Toys R Us pull the “You & Me Interactive Play & Giggle Triplet Dolls” from their shelves because one of the dolls says “you crazy bitch.”

Triplet’s got ‘tude.

The dolls are sold exclusively at Toys R Us and are intended for children 2 years and up.  The store says the complaints have been scattered and they will stand behind the product.

Listen for yourself.

Personally?  I think the doll did it.  And I think parents are crazy not to want to keep it around.

Your kids start cursing?  You would never talk that way in front of them.  Must be that darn baby doll the children wanted so badly.

Not your fault.  Nope, you’re good parents.

Warp speed

I know celebrities and regular people live in different worlds…

But do their clocks work differently, too?

Case in point: Lindsay Lohan.

She was recently sentenced to 30 days in jail for violating the terms of her probation. Last night at nine she checked into the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynnwood, California…and promptly checked right back out at 1:30am.

Turns out 30 days in the real world is only 4.5 hours to the celebrity set.

I wonder if it works that way for everything.

On talk shows and interviews, actors are always bemoaning their long days on the set — sometimes 14-16 hours for some television shows and movies.  If they are using ‘regular people time’ (so we will be able to understand, bless our hearts), in celebrity terms they may actually only be working about….10 minutes.

Good work if you can get it.

Geek alert

Have you heard?

An aircraft carrier-sized asteroid is coming within 200,000 miles of Earth next week.  That’s closer than the moon.  But not close enough to hit us or change the tides or make our skin hang funny.

Or so they say.

Is this really an asteroid?  Or is that story merely a cover?  Could we be in danger of attack by an alien life form?

It’s happened before. On film.

If you know anything about Star Trek – and I do — that chunk of rock bears a striking resemble to the probe sent to Earth in 1986 to communicate with humpback whales in…

Anyone?

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

That is correct.

Perhaps this asteroid that scientists are so ready to dismiss is really an example of life imitating art.

Well…it could happen. (If you hear whale song, make a run for it!)

If the shoe fits

Businesses of the world:

If you pride yourself on providing outstanding customer service, prepare to be schooled.

A company in China that manufactures custom-fit slippers didn’t even blink when customer Todd Boddingham ordered a special slipper to fit his over-sized left foot.

Perhaps if they had, they would have read his instructions more clearly.

Todd requested a size 13 right slipper and a size 14.50 left slipper.  But the Chinese company — eager to please and not to question, it appears — mistook the special order to read a size 1450.

That’s a seven-foot long slipper, people.  And that’s what they manufactured and shipped.

Now, you could ding their product fulfillment…their communication, too.  But you can’t deny their commitment to give the customer exactly what they thought he wanted.

Can your company fill those shoes?

Dough boy

Today we ponder the cupcake.

Take a close look.  What do you see?

A child’s party favorite, certainly.  A dessert small enough to eat without much guilt.  A treat that’s often pretty enough to do double-duty as decor.

But a weapon — a legitimate ‘book ‘em Dano’ weapon?

Police in Chicago fell for it.

They charged a local woman with misdemeanor domestic battery Sunday after she allegedly threw cupcakes at her husband during an argument.  When officers arrived on the scene, his head and shirt were smeared with icing.

Excuse me, but — so what?

According to the Chicago Tribune, the ‘cupcake war’ victim had been arrested three times in the last eight years on domestic battery or battery charges himself.  Wonder if his weapon of choice was something as soft and cushy as a cupcake?

I’m guessing no.

Note — his charges were all dropped.  Wonder if they will be as lenient with our cupcake criminal?

Jury is in

After spending almost four years in an Italian prison, Amanda Knox is free, her murder conviction overturned.  Amanda’s happy.  Her family is overjoyed.

And the producers of Homeland are thrilled.

Didn’t connect those dots?  Let me do it for you, because it was my first TV-obsessed thought after hearing the verdict.

Homeland premiered last night on Showtime.  It follows the story of Marine Sgt. Nicholas Brody, who returns home after being held eight years in enemy territory.  He’s given a hero’s welcome by everyone except rogue CIA agent Carrie Mathison, who believes Brody was turned and is now working for Al Qaeda.

That’s just the first episode, guys.

Now, Amanda Knox is no American hero.  Her lawyers contend she is just a young woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time (although she was found guilty of slander against police and a barman she falsely accused in the crime).

But I’m more concerned about her time in jail.  Like the Marine hero of Homeland, Amanda spent years confined in a foreign prison.  What did that do to her spirit?  To her loyalties?

She may not have been turned by a foreign country — Italy and the US were pretty friendly the last time I checked — but other forces could have ‘turned’ this impressionable, imprisoned youth.

Okay…not likely. But these are just the kind of comparisons that Showtime executives are hoping viewers will make to keep their series timely and top-of-mind.

At least, until the next Amanda Knox movie is produced.