Happy 23rd birthday, Jaucelynn
Reply
Category Archives: Wacky and Weird
Real Housewives of Whereverville rejoice; premium water’s what ‘trendy higher-income’ women need
Nestle’s Resource will, according to the Huffington Post, citing the The New York Times, join other bottled-water brands like Fiji Water and Evian trying to 
capitalize on the “ladies who lunch” demographic.
According to Resource’s group marketing manager, Larry Cooper, the ideal consumer of Resource water is “a woman who is a little more on the trendy side and higher-income side, and the bull’s-eye is 35 years old.” To promote the water’s status, the brand will be featured on “America’s Next Top Model” and endorsed by Bobbie Thomas on the “Today” show.
If we’re going to be subjected to absurd ad campaigns that feature interpretive dancer yogis, let’s have them for products that female consumers need and can afford. There’s nothing new about marketing high end, “healthy” food and drink to women. Treating them like they make the major purchasing decisions they do? That would be near revolutionary.
Still writing, still (not really) tired
Doug and Madelynn, 1987, first newspaper column.
Doug and Sorenne, 2013. This morning.
Madelynn, 1988, favorite pic I took and developed myself. Ol’ timey.
It’s barfblog; watch a fighter vomit during his post-fight interview
Yahoo! Sports reports that Cliff Thompson is 2-0 in UFC, won his split decision over Doug Usher, but will still be remembered as the guy who puked before he could say a word in his post-fight interview.
Apparent Wendy’s employee probably loves ice cream too much
Electronic stuff stays somewhere forever.
Even if the Frosty’s are delicious.
According to Huffington Post, a photo has surfaced on Reddit of what appears 
to be a Wendy’s employee taking some Frosty ice cream straight to the mouth.
Bob Bertini, a spokesperson for Wendy’s, told The Huffington Post that if the photo is real, it is “totally inexcusable,” adding, “We’re investigating and will take action.”
3 dead; Queensland men drank biodiesel ingredient
The grappa can be good, but not when it’s made with biodiesel.
Three young Queensland men who died of suspected methanol poisoning drank a batch of alcohol that was meant to be used in biodiesel, not for 
human consumption, a neighbour says.
Joel Lynam and Vincent Summers, both 21, and 30-year-old Bryan Wilmot all died.
Media reports say they drank a dodgy batch of home-brewed Italian spirit grappa at Mr Lynam’s parent’s Ballandean property.
But neighbour and winemaker Angelo Puglisi says the reports are wrong and the alcohol had been brewed by Joel Lynam’s father for use in biofuel, not for human consumption.
“This ‘grappa’ that everyone is talking about was being produced to make diesel and somehow these young fellas got hold of it,” he told AAP.
“They just made a mistake and whole thing’s been blown out of proportion.”
The doctor treating sole survivor Josh Lynam, 26, who is in a serious but stable condition, said he may escape with minor eye damage.
Ariz town bans animals as prizes
Jennifer Aniston may let chickens roam at her newly refurbished, $21 million Bel Air mansion, but Fountain Hills, Arizona, has unanimously amended the town code to prohibit the practice of giving away as game prizes live animals, reptiles, fish, fowl and insects.
The Republic reports that state law already prohibits giving away live animals as prizes in games of chance. However, animals can still be given away as 
prizes in games of skill, such as hitting a target with either a ball or a dart, or the ring toss.
The loophole in state law allowed Scottsdale-based Frazier Shows to give away rabbits, turtles and fish at its carnival in Fountain Hills last November, Kavanagh said.
When alerted by residents that live animals were being given as prizes, the mayor said she was “shocked and appalled” that any organization in today’s society would do this and called the practice “cruel and inhumane.”
The mayor said she received numerous calls from parents panicked about having to care for the animals and the potential for contracting diseases. Many of them didn’t want to just let the rabbits go in the wash, she said.
Soy sauce overdose sends man into coma
A young man who drank a quart of soy sauce went into a coma and nearly died from an excess of salt in his body, according to a recent case report.
The 19-year-old, who drank the soy sauce after being dared by friends, is the first person known to have deliberately overdosed on such a high amount of salt and survived with no lasting neurological problems, according to the 
doctors in Virginia who reported his case. The case report was published online June 4 in the Journal of Emergency Medicine.
Huffington Post reports too much salt in the blood, a condition called hypernatremia, is usually seen in people with psychiatric conditions who develop a strong appetite for the condiment, said Dr. David J. Carlberg, who treated the young man and works as an emergency medicine physician at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C.
Hypernatremia is dangerous because it causes the brain to lose water. When there is too much salt in the bloodstream, water moves out of the body tissues and into the blood by the process of osmosis, to try to equalize the salt concentration between the two. As water the leaves the brain, the organ can shrink and bleed, Carlberg said.
After the man drank the soy sauce, he began twitching and having seizures, and the friends took him to an emergency room. That hospital administered anti-seizure medication, and he was already in a coma when he was taken to the hospital where Carlberg was working, the University of Virginia Medical Center, nearly four hours after the event.
The team immediately began flushing the salt out of his system by administering a solution of water and the sugar dextrose through a nasal tube. When they placed the tube, streaks of brown material came out. Within a half hour, they pumped 1.5 gallons (6 liters) of sugar water into the man’s body.
The man’s sodium levels returned to normal after about five hours. He remained in a coma for three days, but woke up on his own.
A typical quart of soy sauce has more than 0.35 pounds (0.16 kilograms) of salt, the researchers said.
Pubic hair in meal means I’m not paying; except it’s mine; caught on video
Forty-year-old UK man Lee Tyers was recently sentenced to 14 days in jail for trying to get out of paying the check at Jamal’s Indian Restaurant by putting his own pubic hair in his food.
According to The Mirror and summarized by Eater, Tyers and a friend worked their way through a £39.55 meal of two lamb bhunas, pilau rice, naan, drinks, a chapati and a shish kebab before complaining to a waiter about finding hair 
in his lamb bhuna. Unfortunately for Tyers, it’s 2013 and video recording technology is a very real thing.
The Guardian reports that the restaurant’s cameras caught him “adding the extra ingredient to his meal” before getting up to talk to staff. Since Tyers already owed owner Jamal Chowdhuryfor £110 in previously unpaid meals, the law got involved.
Once at Teesside Magistrates’ Court, Tyers fully denied the incident. According to Chowdury, “[Tyers] showed me his plate and I said: ‘I gave you a clean plate.’ He had eaten everything, but then on the side of the plate there was some brown hair. It was separate and not mixed into the food.” In the end, his point was simple: “I told him all the staff have black hair and this is brown, it’s not our hair.” The court decided in Chowdhury’s favor, finding Tyers guilty of fraud by false representation. He was sentenced to 14 days in prison and ordered to pay for the full amount of the meal.
irony can be ironic; taco licker axed
Taco Bell, the largest U.S. Mexican fast food chain and host of several E. coli O157:H7 outbreaks via lettuce, said that a franchisee has suspended — and “is in the process of terminating” — the restaurant employee whose photo 
showing him licking a stack of empty taco shells went viral earlier this week. The person who took the photo no longer works for Taco Bell.
According to USA Today, red-faced Taco Bell executives had to try to explain to a skeptical public the circumstances behind the embarrassing photo. On Monday, the franchisee informed Taco Bell corporate that both employees were no longer with Taco Bell.
Never mind that the shells were never sold, but were only provided for workers to practice making the new line of Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos. The shells were thrown out after use. “This is standard operating procedure and our franchisee confirmed this protocol,” says Taco Bell’s statement.
But many consumers viewing the photo had to think otherwise. So Taco Bell had to act quickly. “One of the smartest things a brand can do is to respond as quickly and intelligently as possible,” says Erika Napoletano, a brand strategy consultant.
The photo was taken way back in March at a Taco Bell restaurant in Ridgecrest, Calif., north of Los Angeles It was taken for an internal contest to supposedly show employees enjoying their first bite of the new product. Things went haywire when the photo, which was never submitted for the contest, ending up being posted on the employee’s Facebook page.
Not only was this a violation of company policy, but the worker also violated Taco Bell’s food handling procedures, the company says.