It’s been a long, long time since I’ve… DONE THE NEWS! (/cue “The Daily Show” theme)
Popular music trading site OiNK was shut down by British authorities today; rather than feel sadness at the loss of the site, or fear that other sites might be next, I’m actually feeling a bit of schadenfreude about it, since I could never get an invite to the site… hehehehe!
Joey Bishop died last Thursday at 89. He was the last of the original Rat Pack, and was my least favorite member. How could poor Joey compete with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Peter Lawford? Bishop will be missed – just like an “artist” in Providence, Rhode Island that built a secret apartment in an unused storage space at Providence Place Mall. He lived there off and on for four years before mall security finally noticed the apartment… which included “a sectional sofa and love seat, coffee and breakfast tables, chairs, lamps, rugs, paintings, a hutch filled with china, a waffle iron, TV and Sony Playstation 2”. Check out the artist’s website and wonder how lame mall security was to miss this for four years!
Boring old landline phones don’t get much love these days, so check this out: Priestman Goode has created an ultra-thin telephone which can be made out of made out of cardboard or plastic… and even mailed using a standard first-class stamp! At 4mm thick and around the size of an A5 envelope, the phone looks more like a greeting card than… well, a phone!
Speaking of neat stuff, some bright person got the idea of selling “rust stickers” that make your car or bike look like a rusted piece of junk, in hopes of deterring thieves. The stickers actually look pretty real (click the link for pics), and one satisfied user says that he’s used them on his “shiny new bike” for 13 days in London and it hasn’t been stolen yet!
Hey, speaking of thieves… check out this post at The Consumerist… Apparently one Best Buy store is charging $9.99 for an “open box” 3ft. component video cable. The only problem with that? The regular price is $7.99! I hate that store!
To finish out the “thieves” train of thought… Mona Shaw is an elderly, law-abiding American. But she got so angry with cable company Comcast that she went to her local office and started smashing a CSR’s computer with a hammer. Shaw was quoted as saying that “I scared the tar out of some people, at least…It had never occurred to me to take a hammer to a phone company before, but I was just so upset. . . . After I hit the keyboard, I turned to this blonde who had been there the previous Friday, the one who told me to wait for the manager, and I said, ‘ Now do I have your attention?”“. The incident received so much attention that Comcast issued a press release asking customers not to rebel against their evil authority. Of course, Comcast is the same company that’s blocking Bittorrent, Gnutella… even Lotus Notes! Jackasses! All I know is that I’m glad that Time Warner is my cable company… and that Mona Shaw is my new hero!
Some dudes are using pumpkins as beer kegs!
And lastly… (you didn’t think I’d NOT post this, did you?) the deputy mayor of New Delhi, India was killed last Saturday, in an attack blamed on… MONKEYS! It seems that poor Mr. Bajwa was reading the newspaper on the first floor terrace of his home when he was attacked by a band of wild monkeys. Whilst fighting them off, Bajwa slipped and fell off the terrace, which apparently broke his neck. Oh – and the local exterminators’ solution to the problem??? More monkeys! Yep, city officials have hired people using langurs to fight off macaques, which are the species of monkey that apparently terrorize New Delhi.