post

California Citrus Frozen

No, this has not turned into an agricultural blog, but the photo of frozen Oranges in California was too shocking not to sharesmile_sad

About 70% of the crop is expected to be frozen, so we can expect a price hike in a few weeks. smile_sadsmile_sad

(full story at the SF Chronicle)

 

 

post

MIG-21 for Sale on eBay

Current bid is $21,000 and you can arrange for low monthly payments… what a deal!   Not necessarily risk-free, the seller only has one feedback, and wants 50% of the price transferred upon closing the auction.

Bonus: buyer is promised a magic transformation:

“We speak you the number of transport, you becomes the aircraft etc.”

 

Tags: , ,
post

Not the Father? Who Cares? Ordered to Pay Child Support Anyway.

Court orders alleged father to pay child support.  Alleged father does not respond.  Clock ticking, “debt” accumulates. “Father” gets arrested.   Surprise: DNA proves he is NOT the father, which is what he said all along.  Court decision: he has to pay “debt” anyway.

Where?  In the great state of Arkansas.  Full story on AP.

 

post

"Money Talks" Gets New Meaning – James Bond Style

“Canadian coins containing tiny transmitters have mysteriously turned up in the pockets of at least three American contractors who visited Canada, says a branch of the U.S. Department of Defence…

…The counter-intelligence office of the U.S. Defence Security Service cites the currency caper as an example of the methods international spies have recently tried to illicitly acquire military technology.”

Read the full story on CBC News.

 

post

Russian Rocket Falls on Denver, but it’s not WWIII

In this tv report they still wonder if it’s a meteor shower, but now we now it was the remains of a Russian SL-4 rocket disintegrating as it re-entered the atmosphere.

 

post

The Face of Tomorrow

“What is the face of London, New York, Paris? What does a Londoner, a New Yorker, a Parisian look like?
The Face of Tomorrow is a concept for a series of photographs that addresses the effects of globalization on identity.
The large metropolises of the world are magnets for migrants from all parts of the planet resulting in new mixtures of peoples. What might a typical inhabitant of this new metropolis look like in one or two hundred years if they were to become more integrated?

The Face of Tomorrow attempts to find this face by taking photographs of the current inhabitants and compositing their faces to create a typical face. What we get is a new person – a mix of all the people in that city.”

The above example is from Amsterdam. Click on the pic to see all the 100 individual photos that made up the composites.  What’s striking to me is the resemblance between composites of Amsterdam, Sydney, Buenos Aires, London ..etc.   Instead of different national characteristic, I see a lot more commonality.  The Composite World Citizen smile_wink.  

Of course it has a lot to do with picking the location: Sydney, for example (not this one) has two sub-location, one being Sydney University, which, in the artist’s words is “a veritable United Nations. Out of about one hundred people I photographed there must have been over 30 nationalities including Ugandan, Chinese, Malaysian, Indian, American, Canadian, Bangladeshi, Egyptian, Greek, Italian, German and English.”

Here are the cities covered so far.  If you have a camera and a little time, you can get your city included, just contact Mike, the artist.

 

post

Selling Snow & Warm Air on eBay

Colorado woman selling snow on eBay – reports the AP:

“Starting bids were holding steady Friday at 99 cents for snow from “Blizzard I and Blizzard II” being offered by Mary Walker. She and husband, Jim, got the idea for selling snow after shoveling mounds from two storms a week apart that together dumped more than 4 feet along the Front Range.”

This is hilarious – and it’s not even April 1stsmile_tongue.  I looked up the actual eBay bid – low and behold, the current bid amount is $56, $77 $102.50 and the bid was viewed 8968 times. 

This gave me the idea: so many people are unfortunate, stuck in cold climate, while I’m walking around in spring-like sunny California.  I think I’m gonna put up a few bags of warm air for sale on eBay.

Note: despite rumors, the Golden Gate Bridge is not for sale.

Update (12/31):  Here’s another interesting item to buy: dehydrated water.  smile_eyeroll

 

post

Typo Cost $600 and $8K Miles

(Updated) 

German student wants to see his girlfriend in Sydney (of course the one in Australia) and finds himself on route to Sidney, Montana.  Unbelievable… read it on CNN.

Update (12/31)… Wow, I guess this is becoming the last “meme” of the year

smile_party 

I’ve just warned Ben Casnocha (comment) to make sure he does not end up in the wrong Boulder, and now I’m reading about Vinnie flying over Buda, TX.

Vinnie, what are you doing there?  You’re in the wrong Buda!

Here’s the real thing

smile_wink:

 

Happy New Year! 

martini 

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

post

Yahoo Falling Behind – Literally

And I thought getting 3-4-day-old news was bad enough.  Naive me … today my.yahoo.com is serving up 3-week-old “news” from various sources:

According to  Yahoo the Fiji military coup just happened, Saddam probably has a few more weeks to live, and we won’t be ringing in 2007 for a few more weeks.

Or is this already the “2006 in retrospect” site? smile_baringteeth

 

post

RIAA Sues Russian Company for More then Entire Country’s GDP

A TechCrunch commenter pointed out that the amount the RIAA sued Russia-based AllofMP3, $1.65 trillion (!) is actually more than Russia’s GDP.    Isn’t that outrageous?