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?

• We know the uncertainty over rates has made it hard for you to plan and budget. Although rates are now going up, we now have certainty regarding rates for the remainder of your plan year.

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.

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.

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.

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

It’s no Paul the Octopus, but that’s pretty good for a tree.

Oh, right, right. “Truly bizarre”. Summer’s Even is here to help with some truly bizarre advice.

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?

“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.

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.

That’s quite a chorus.

If you’ve already heard the song, however, you know it’s also NSFW in a different way – Not Safe For Whites, at least those of us who don’t want to toss out the N-word. After much thought, I’ve hit upon a solution for the “golddigger problem”:

• Oh shit, she’s a gold lover.
  Just thought you should know, brother.

Use it when you inevitably find yourself singing this song in the car, belting it out in the shower, or serenading the mailman while flipping a magnificent double bird.

In the AT&T universe where her download finished faster, a pair of ballet producers take notice of the woman. She joins them, auditions, and gets a part. How very fortunate that she had that AT&T phone!

On the left is the AT&T universe. On the right is a depressing world of unfulfilled promise and crushing despair.

In the non-AT&T universe, the ballet producers pass our protagonist by without noticing her, leaving her to continue her sad and unfulfilling existence. Ultimately, she watches someone else perform in the ballet and contemplates taking her own life.

Of course, the two outcomes have no real relation to AT&T or its supposedly faster network. They’re simple chance. If the producers had left their office 5 seconds later, AT&T’s network would have had the woman dropping her slippers too early, while the slow network would have led to the fulfillment of all her dreams.

Here’s a tip for the thousands of advertising executives out there among my faithful readers: if the meaning of your ad depends on a coin flip, you probably don’t have a very good ad. Also, a follow-up tip, a quick look at the numbers says that you probably don’t have a very good ad anyway.

The most galling bit is that it would be so easy to fix this dreck. Instead of a chance meeting on the street caused by dropped ballet slippers, the woman could be downloading directions to a ballet audition. The faster AT&T network would get her the directions sooner, so she could set off and get the part. The slower network could delay her enough that by the time she got to the audition, the part has gone to someone else. Everything else could remain the same, and the entire premise would no longer revolve around happenstance.

AT&T advertisers, you’re welcome to this idea free of charge. It’s all yours, because avoiding the mental drain caused by your brainlessness is worth far more than money.

Footnotes:

1. I’ve also archived the commercial in all its 720p wretchedness here.   ↩

After acting on a tip reporting an outdoor marijuana grow-op, RCMP officers descended on the remote site, about 700 km southwest of Calgary, only to be greeted by up to 14 black bears that Sgt. Fred Mansveld is convinced were there to ward off pot bandits.

Apparently, the bears were quite docile, as seen in the ridiculous photos. Even armed officers should be a bit more frightened than this:

“Maybe they mixed some pot into the food — it’s possible it’s why they were so laid-back…they were just lolligagging around,” he said, adding the bears had made friends with a raccoon and pot bellied pig also found on the property.

Friends with a raccoon and pot-bellied pig, eh? It’s possible someone mixed something into your food too, Sgt. Fred Mansveld.

Painting your house like a can of 7-Up, out of spite? Yeah, I can get behind that.

Fabian Brunsing’s PAY & SIT bench

The only problem? Park officials in China ignored the artistic statement and decided to put the idea into practice. Parks in China suffer from chronic overcrowding, and officials at the Yantai Park have apparently implemented the idea. Ouch.

“Almost there…so close…so close! Yes! YES! YES!!! WE DID IT!”¹

I do wish I also had picture from before the fundraising efforts had climaxed. Either way though, wow indeed.²

Footnotes:

1. If you really want to make this caption creepy and disgusting, add the word “kids” anywhere you like.   ↩

2. This sign was first spotted by one Ms. Steciuk, who happens to be celebrating a birthday today. Happy birthday!    ↩

Now, a real estate developer has won a court case which will allow them to take over the land where the center is currently housed. Such a move will destroy this incredible resource, as the delicate nature of the plants means moving them is painstaking and slow, if not impossible.

The linked article, written before the case was decided, describes how the property developers argued that because the station contains a “priceless collection”, no monetary value can be assigned to it and so it is in actuality worthless. Twisted as this is, they further argued that because the collection was never registered, it does not officially exist.

Sorry, future generations. Perhaps you can invent a way to derive sustenance from bitter Kafkaesque humor.

Now, Foreign Policy has a fascinating article describing the many ways these maps have been used around the globe.

That’s certainly an unfortunate story. But what exactly happened? According to Cawley, he’d tied the ring to a sand dollar and left it on the beach. Shortly after, on an early morning walk, he pointed the sand dollar out to Scanlon. When she picked it up, the ring’s weight pulled the knot apart and the ring fell into the rocks, never to be seen again. Or seen at all, actually.

Scanlon said she wasn’t able to catch a glimpse of the ring, which was set with a diamond passed down from a relative of Cawley’s, before it slid down through the jetty.

So a man wishes to marry his girlfriend, but the engagement ring is sadly lost just before his proposal. In fact, the girlfriend never even sees the ring before it’s swept into the sea. Instead of a tale of tragedy, this sounds more like a clever man hoodwinking his girlfriend. To prudent spenders everywhere, this may well be worthy of applause. After all, going into debt by spending thousands of dollars on an overpriced hunk of rock is a bad way to begin a marriage. Of course, the benefits to the marriage obtained by avoiding debt are probably cancelled out if you get them by starting your new life together with a massive lie.

It’s possible there’s even more going on here. The story indicates the diamond was passed down from a relative, so there’s no paper trail on this ring. Further, upon giving up after hours of searching, Cawley’s cousin just happened to drive by in time to picked up the couple. But the most damning piece of evidence, indicating that perhaps this is a massive fraud, wherein an entire family conspires against both an unsuspecting girlfriend and an industry which seeks to indemnify against loss?

Only later did the couple find out that, unbeknownst to them, Cawley’s mother had insured the ring in full.

How convenient.

“I spoke with Nathan this morning and let him know that I endorse his candidacy.”

Karen Handel, previously a Republican candidate for Georgia governor, conceding to her Republican rival Nathan Deal one day after she called him a “corrupt relic of Washington.” [Link]

and:

“Drop dead. Your days are over, they’re numbered, we’re not going to take it anymore, we’re sick and tired.”

New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, shouting at the city’s bedbugs from the steps of City Hall. [Link]

Be sure to ingest all site contents with a liberal dose of cynicism.

The maze is now nearly done, and set to open in 2012, fulfilling Ricci’s long-time dream of creating the world’s largest. However, when Ricci first told a friend about his plans, decades ago, he did not exactly receive a supportive response.

The former publisher said he first confided his ambition to Jorge Luis Borges, who characteristically told him the world’s largest maze already existed and was called a desert.

Jorge Luis Borges was kind of a dick.

After their flight from Pittsburgh landed at JFK, an unnamed passenger struck 38-year-old JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater in the head while unloading his luggage from the overhead compartment, before the plane had stopped taxiing. Slater demanded an apology, but the passenger refused. An argument ensued, with the passenger ultimately suggesting that Slater “fuck off”.

At this point, Slater got on the plane’s PA system and used it to vent his frustrations. As part of his verbal onslaught, he is reported to have said “To the passenger who called me a motherfucker, fuck you. I’ve been in the business 28 years¹. I’ve had it. That’s it”.

Slater then proceeded to activate the plane’s inflatable emergency slide. He grabbed two beers from the galley, then slid down the chute to freedom and unemployment, to perhaps be followed by jail time.

That may be the pinnacle of the story, but it doesn’t end there. However, after sliding down, Slater reportedly returned to pick up his bag – it’s not clear from where exactly it was retrieved. After getting his bag, he rode the AirTrain, creating another spectacle at the Terminal Five stop by removing his company tie and flinging it off the train, much to the amusement of his fellow passengers.

Slater made his way to his car and drove to his home in Belle Harbor, Queens. Jetblue officials, presumably not yet believing that what they’d witnessed was real, waited 25 minutes before notifying Port Authority Police of the incident. This wait enabled Slater to make his ridiculous getaway.

Shortly after, police collected Slater from his home station and returned him to the Port Authority police station at JFK airport for questioning. He was reported to have been calm, as he was questioned and ultimately charged with reckless endangerment and criminal mischief.

It’s just too good. Fed up with his job, the man activated the emergency chute, then grabbed two beers and slid down the chute! Can you picture it? I can. Can you stop laughing? I can not.

Footnotes:

1. Was he a flight attendant at the age of 10? Has he been lying about his age? Is he just bad at math? We may never know.   ↩

The story begins with Frederick Gilmer Bonfils, a scandal-steeped publisher who made the Denver Post a major newspaper, and who reportedly once took hush-money to stop reporting on the Teapot Dome oil scandal. When he passed away in 1933, his daughter Helen took over the paper. She later married George Somnes¹. Somnes died in 1956, but by the end of the 50s and at the ripe old age of 69, Helen married her former-chauffeur, 28-year-old Edward “Tiger Mike” Davis.

After the nearly-inevitable divorce, Tiger Mike suddenly had the means to dabble in oil. He purchased drilling rigs and was later bought out, making him richer. Eventually, he drilled 49 dry holes (possibly not all in a row), and went broke, at least for a time.

Tiger Mike’s trail goes fairly dark, except for his memos slowly spreading around the world, and eventually landing online. He finally popped back up in 2008, when he helped broker a $684 million dollar deal between Denver-based Delta Petroleum and Las Vegas billionaire Kirk Kerkorian. By then, Tiger Mike was known as “an oil and gas veteran living in Las Vegas” and had sold properties to Delta in 2003. As part of this 2008 sale, Tiger Mike received 263,158 shares in Delta as a “finder’s fee”, worth around $6 million dollars.

And the newspaper which reported on that 2008 sale? The Bonfils’ own Denver Post.

Footnotes:

1. Somnes is reported to have looked like a twin of Helen’s father, which is not at all disturbing or creepy.   ↩

The Tiger Oil Memos, however, are simply incredible in their own right. Tiger Oil CEO Edward ‘Tiger Mike’ Davis sent the linked memos to his employees over the course over several years. May you never have a boss like Tiger Mike.

One of my favorite bits was this:

No one will ride in our vehicles other than company employees…What I am trying to say is no hitchhikers or free rides for family members or non-employees. They will be terminated if caught.

When read as written, Tiger Mike seems to be indicating that any non-employees found in company vehicles will be killed. It’s probable that even he wasn’t that crazy, but one never knows.

I am surprised to learn that Glenn Beck, or the person who runs his Twitter account, was dumb enough to mark such a tweet as a favorite, though. Apparently, he didn’t know that favorites on Twitter are visible to anyone who cares to look.