News for 01/25/2008

This has to be a joke! The British tabloid The Sun ran this article a few days ago about the latest crime scam: criminals putting midgets in suitcases, then checking them in for long-distance bus rides. Once stowed in the luggage compartment, the midgets get out of the suitcase, then rifle through the rest of the bags looking for money, jewels and electronics. Once they’ve looted to their heart’s content, they put the stolen goods in the suitcase and zip themselves in. When the bus arrives at its destination, the criminal then picks up the bag and exits the terminal. Come on… this is a joke, right?

Speaking of the UK, their march to complete submission to Islam continued this week when a government agency decided that the story of the Three Little Pigs was offensive to Muslims. Basically, a digital version of the book was submitted to the panel for the Bett Award (apparently an award for childrens’ books, similar to America’s Newbery Medal). The judges decided that a story about pigs would offend Muslims, so they rejected the book completely. And the Brits wonder why some people call their capital “Londonistan”!

The first commercial fax machine was sold in 1861. For real.

According to this Ripley’s Believe It Or Not comic, there are only two people left in the entire world that speak Ayapan Zoque, the indigenous language of the Olmecas people in Mexico. And the thing is, the two men are 70 year-old brothers… that refuse to speak to each other!

Want to save some money? If you’re a coupon clipper, you might want to wait four weeks after clipping the coupons before using them. Apparently, grocery stores have predetermined cycles for which items go one sale, and you’ll often see items on sale four weeks after their coupons appear in your local newspaper. A blogger at the Simple Dollar site says that “around 40%” of the items should be on sale, so just hold off and you can save some money!!

Best Buy gets our “Classy Retailer of the Month” award this month. Apparently one of their stores put up this display within hours of Heath Ledger’s death:

Best Buy - Heath Ledger

Niiiiiiccce. Nothing like a tragedy to move a few DVDs, huh? Coming in second place in our new “Classy Retailer of the Month” competition is British retailer John Lewis. John Lewis stores sell electronics, including Apple computers. A Neowin reader went inside to check out the new Macs when he spotted this display:

Apple Piracy Display

He then noticed that the movie playing on the computer was a pirated version of Pirates of the Caribbean:

Apple Piracy Detail

aXXo is one of the most famous DVD rippers in the Internet underground. He is famous for his high quality rips of DVDs that haven’t hit the market yet (most speculate that aXXo either works in a facility that manufactures or packages DVDs or has a good friend that does). In any case, you’d think that the sales weasels at John Lewis would think to at least rename the file… but no. Instead they simply show the entire world that someone at the store is a pirate! Classy! I bet Steve Jobs is happy to hear this story!

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