Thursday, September 2nd, 2010
Recently, anti-virus software maker McAfee agreed to be bought by microprocessing hardware maker Intel. Following this news, McAfee sent an incredibly content-less email to customers, describing how this partnership was going to improve network security, cure cancer, and help us attain world peace so that beauty pageant contestants will finally be satisfied. If you recently murdered a puppy or something, you can punish yourself by reading the email in its entirety. Most people won’t get past the third paragraph, and I don’t think I’ve yet managed to finish the whole thing, so nobody spoil the ending for me.
McAfee’s email got me recognizing a pattern of bullshit communiques from various corporations, and I found a couple worth sharing. First, American Express recently emailed to let me know that they don’t use the words “today” or “tomorrow” in a literal sense:
Apparently, American Express wants to connect with cardmembers on Facebook and Twitter. Meanwhile, cardmembers want a serious credit card company, one which doesn’t try to connect with them on Facebook and Twitter.
Second is a letter from part of the healthcare industry, so you know it’s going to be good. Or bad. Whichever.
Earlier this year, the state of Massachusetts was negotiating with my HMO, who wanted to raise insurance rates. For a couple of months, a state-mandated reduced rate was temporarily charged, which seems like a nice “screw you” for them trying to jack up the prices. Ultimately, however, a compromise was reached and prices are now up 6.4% from last year. The spin for this?
Ah, yes. Thanks so much for pointing out that silver lining. I have to go collect change by the highway off-ramp so I can pay my bills now, but I’ll take with me that good “certainty” feeling.
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
Bedbugs are back in America. Disgusting though they are, they may not be the grossest thing about this article.
The classic bedbug strain that all newly caught bugs are compared against is a colony originally from Fort Dix, N.J., that a researcher kept alive for 30 years by letting it feed on him.
Apparently, a scientist let bedbugs feed on him for thirty years. A day or two, ok, fine, but thirty years?! Other biologists, like Steven A. Kells, are not quite so giving of themselves. Kells feeds his bed bugs with expired blood-bank blood wrapped in parafilm.
Coby Schal of North Carolina State said he formerly used condoms filled with rabbit blood, but switched to parafilm because his condom budget raised eyebrows with university auditors.
I know one thing. I would love to have been a part of that particular conversation.
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
Apparently, it’s common practice for medical students to perform pelvic exams on anesthetized patients, without ever obtaining consent. A 2003 interview with Dr. Michael Greger has been republished, and talks in-depth about the practice. Here’s the topper:
Women can write on their bikini line, “I do not give consent for medical students to practice pelvic exams on me” in marker. Then as soon as the clothes come off or the robe is lifted and all the medical students are getting on their latex gloves they can see that message. And that will stop them.
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
The headline for the linked article reads “Fidel Castro claims Osama bin Laden is a US spy“. It’s all downhill from there.
Monday, August 30th, 2010
After a recent trade with Texas, Jarrod Saltalamacchia was added to the Boston Red Sox roster. While reading a RedSox.com article about the new addition, I spotted a confusing picture:
What on earth kind of a bat is he holding? Or, where is the rest of his bat? What the hell is going on? After staring at this for quite awhile, I finally watched the video it was linking to, and saw this frame:
Apparently, it’s a Photoshop disaster from removing the score overlay from the video.
While he has yet to reach his potential in the big leagues (and he played just three games with the Sox before being sidelined with a bizarre leg infection), Saltalamacchia does hold one record: longest last name in baseball history, at 14 letters. The record was previously held by 5 players who had 13-letter last names, including the ridiculously-named Tim Spooneybarger. Take a moment to chuckle at his ridiculous jersey:
180° worth of name
Friday, August 27th, 2010
In other vagina-related news, a rather obscene tree in Thailand has “predicted” a winning lottery number. According to the Phuket Gazette, villagers from the tree’s home used numerology to “find” the number 008 in the tree’s trunk, and bought lottery tickets based off this. It’s not clear if that’s the whole winning number, 0-0-8, or if they literally just used “8″ to somehow hit the jackpot. Either way, they won and they’re crediting the vagina tree.
It’s no Paul the Octopus, but that’s pretty good for a tree.
Friday, August 27th, 2010
It can be difficult to ask your boss for a raise. If you’re a woman, Summer’s Eve is here to help, with some helpful advice. No wait, not helpful, the other thing…
Oh, right, right. “Truly bizarre”. Summer’s Even is here to help with some truly bizarre advice.
Thursday, August 26th, 2010
I only know enough about Jersey Shore to know I couldn’t care less about the show and its cast of Oompa-Loompas. It seems that the fashion world, however, is very attuned to it. It’s not for the reasons you might expect though.
Apparently, after one of the shows cast members Snooki was seen constant with a Coach bag, Coach sent her a free bag. It wasn’t one of their bags, however – it was a Gucci bag, one of Coach’s competitors.
Allegedly, the anxious folks at these various luxury houses are all aggressively gifting our gal Snookums with free bags. No surprise, right? But here’s the shocker: They are not sending her their own bags. They are sending her each other’s bags! Competitors’ bags!
If you’re so reviled that it actually nets you free stuff, does that count as a win?
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010
This fascinating article from The Atlantic details how author Mitch Moxley became a rentable white guy in China.
“I call these things ‘White Guy in a Tie’ events,” a Canadian friend of a friend named Jake told me during the recruitment pitch he gave me in Beijing, where I live. “Basically, you put on a suit, shake some hands, and make some money. We’ll be in ‘quality control,’ but nobody’s gonna be doing any quality control. You in?”
I only wish the article were longer, because this whole idea is very interesting.
Tuesday, August 24th, 2010
Having recently seen a Double-A baseball game, I was fascinated to read this (quite long) article on the realities of playing minor league ball. While big leaguers make a minimum of $400,000 a year, and generally much, much more, minor leaguers average between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars a month, for just five months of the year.
This can lead to all manner of difficulties for the men pursuing their dream of playing in the big leagues. In fact, the Double-A minimum salary is just $1700, just below the average monthly unemployment payout is $1703.20. Players would make slightly more if they simply didn’t work at all.
With this in mind, it’s not hard to see why my fellow Tufts alumnus Randy Newsom attempted to sell futures in himself. Unfortunately, that plan was shut down and subsequently quite watered down.
