iDiot

Getting fake iPads are the new "white vans selling stereos" in a parking lot.

Ashley McDowell has already packed a lot of stupid into her scant 22 years, having fallen for this amazingly obvious scam. She was approached by two men in a South Carolina McDonald's parking lot, where they offered to sell her an iPad for $300. Apparently, these legitimate salesmen who "drove a white Impala with no rims and no tint", and one of which she'd noted "had a gold tooth", were selling iPads they bought them in bulk and were selling them at a discount. Poor Ashley only had $180, but those nice gentlemen gave it to her anyway.

Imagine her surprise when she got home, opened up the Fed Ex box she was given, and found out it was really just a block of wood with an Apple logo painted on the back.

It is a bit of a surprise they bothered to painted a screen and some fake icons on their wood block to make it look like the real deal, considering their scam only held together if suckers like Ashley didn't check the box before forking over their dough.

Hold Your Boners

An adult film performer A porn actor has tested HIV positive, prompting the temporary shutdown of adult film productions across Los Angeles until further testing can confirm the results. Because you're not having sex with just your partner, you're having sex with everyone they've had sex with, and everybody else in the business they haven't.

The Free Speech Coalition became aware of the possible HIV case Saturday, and notified adult film production companies across the San Fernando Valley, urging them to temporarily halt productions until further tests were completed. The performer’s name, age and gender were not released, though further testing would take about a week. The group would then notify performers who had sex with the potentially infected person so they could get tested.

However, the performer tested positive at an out-of-state facility "that does not appear to have protocols or procedures in place for medical follow-up (including generational testing)." You see, retesting and confirmation is done to identify and check first and second generation partners who had sex with the person who tested HIV positive or with one of that person's sex partners - and that is proving to be difficult.

Adult film performers must be tested every 30 days and show proof of a clean test before they perform according to voluntary industry standards, though there is an effort by Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation to get a measure placed on the June 2012 ballot to require adult film performers to use condoms in porn productions that seek Los Angeles city film permits. I don't think that's going to matter much to films like Street Blowjobs 3, who give the impression that permits are the last think they're looking to secure before shooting. A petition with at least 41,138 signatures would be needed by December 23 to place the proposal on the ballot.

If they ever require condoms by law, you can kiss the industry goodbye...from Los Angeles. Nobody is going to want to watch condo-prons, so they'll move the industry out of town. In the meantime, there'll be lots of unused lube waiting for action. At least there's some suggestions for what to do in the meantime while the adult industry takes their Labor Day vacation early.

Fire Surf

Puerto Resignito

Only an anti-gay policy leaning Republican could offer such an awesomely absurd non-denial when his nude, ass-spread photos started appearing on gay cruising sites...

Puerto Rico's head senator and 2004 Bush booster (ironic pun?) Roberto Arango told news outlets, "You know I've been losing weight. As I shed that weight, I've been taking pictures. I don't remember taking this particular picture but I'm not gonna say I didn't take it. I'd tell you if I remembered taking the picture, but I don't." Well, then I guess you shouldn't have resigned your position either, but you probably didn't remember posting that to Grindr, so that's just playing it safe, eh? Or maybe not wearing the same iconic necklace is playing it safer.

Adding to the sweet hypocrisy is that Arango previously voted in favor of Resolution 99, a proposal to block any attempt to permit same-sex marriages in Puerto Rico. In the past he has also opposed adoption rights for gay people. Let this be a lesson to those on the Beltway who need to document all the pounds they've been dropping from their inner ass.

Fret The Hardwood

Your Gibson guitar may be a collector's item soon.

Federal agents raided the guitar manufacturer's factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Fish and Wildlife Service believe there may be illegally harvested Madagascar ebony and other woods from protected forests being used, and nobody wants to support the lumber equivalent of blood diamonds! Here's your blockquote:

“The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India.”

Back in 2009, Gibson was raided, resulting in several seized guitars and pallets of wood, and the pedestrian named United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms, which questioned if the company had been buying illegally harvested hardwoods from protected forests - and if they did so knowingly. In this new raid, the government is trying to determine whether some wood sourced from India met every regulatory stipulation.

But rare materials are not only a problem for new instruments. Recent revisions to 1900's Lacey Act that require anyone crossing the U.S. border to declare all manner of flora or fauna entering the country. If your vintage guitar was made with a now-restricted wood, and you better have correct and complete documentation proving the age of the instrument or an overzealous customs agent could start you down the road of fines and prosecution.

I've dealt with the Fish and Wildlife Service for work issues before - a client was sending some feather pom-poms to attach to a shoe, and because they put our company on the handbill, we had to register for an importer's license, even though we were just the third party recipient.  God forbid they send 1 pound of ostrich feather from China to our country without holding the goods in quarantine for an extra 10 days! I think their self-aggrandizing hunt of Gibson is another study in bureaucracy .

Snarkbots (Who Are Unicorns)

Johnny Deppth

We've posted Derek Eads movie-centric work before, and we'll do it again!

My God, That's A Huge Porn Trove

We can compare about hard drive space and archives, but with close to a dozen terabytes of externals, I'm still dwarfed by the nasty set up at IBM. You just know they've got some dirty videos in a little partition there...

The new storrage array is 120 petabytes, which is 120 million gigabytes. For you laymen that's 24 billion MP3s or 1 trillion average files, and it could store 60 copies of the biggest backup of the web - roughly the 150 billion pages that make up the "Internet Archive's WayBack Machine". Boy, reformatting is going to be a bitch.

It is 200,000 traditional hard drives they chained together, operating on a proprietary filing system called GPFS, which spreads a file across multiple drives. Their benchmark for accessing 10 billion files was a blazing fast 43 minutes, four times faster than the previous three-hour record. To keep from losing data if a drive fails, the system will automatically migrate files from the dead drive.

Though it was built for an unnamed client, IBM noted the technology would allow for "detailed weather system simulations, seismic activity monitoring, cloud storage infrastructure" and other data-heavy projects. Like the full filmography of Harry Reams and Seka.

Hurricane Skyrene

A timelapse from the NSKYC New York camera durring Hurricane Irene (the bottom bar is the average color of the sky at that moment).

Face Down In A Pool Of Cherry Pie

In the most spectacularly cliché fashion, Jani Lane (47), former lead singer of Warrant and poor-man's Bret Michaels, was found dead in a Los Angeles-area motel last night. Somewhere, there's a treatment for a VH-1 program that's headed for the trash bin.

Lane, born most unfortunately John Kennedy Oswald, had a history of alcohol-related arrests, the most recent in June 2009 for reportedly crashing into a parked car, which landed him three years of probation.

He joined shitty hair metal rockers Warrant in 1986, and left three times - finally leaving for good in 2008. Until now, only 36 people knew that the band released a new album in May. His most recent credit were "Celebrity Fit Club 2" and touring with Great White in 2010, filling in for singer Jack Russell.

His legacy will be sappy power ballads like "Heaven" (featuring fringe-sleeved jackets), homo-erotic synchronized dance moves from  "Down Boys" , and the three-minute fuck double-entendre "Cherry Pie". He may be dead, but he totally banged that chick...those few years of fame before Nirvana crushed that weak music may not have made up for the two decades since of failure, but they were good enough for you not to feel bad he's dead.  But seriously, what a drag to live all that time knowing your mediocre best was behind you.


UPDATE: A half-empty bottle of vodka and prescription medication were found in his room - shocker.  A public memorial with performances by other forgotten bands including Great White and L.A. Guns will be held in Hollywood on August 24 - mark your calendar!

Pool Party

Colors Are Free

The problem with designers is they think they're fucking geniuses for coming up with banal ideas. Why else would French footwear scion Christian Louboutin think he should have the exclusive right to put red soles on shoes.

The legal battle in pitted Louboutin against Yves Saint Laurent for the right to color their outsole red. And while Louboutin was recognized for trailblazing use of red under the shoe, there was no legal reason to stop competitors from doing the same.

"Because in the fashion industry color serves ornamental and aesthetic functions vital to robust competition, the court finds that Louboutin is unlikely to be able to prove that its red outsole brand is entitled to trademark protection," said the judge.

It's nice to know that even designers who sell 240,000 pairs annually to the tune of $135 million of revenue have time to indulgently think they alone have a monopoly on the concept of color. If you can rip folks off to the tune of $1,095 (for the Maggie Leopard-Toe Pump at Neiman Marcus), you should just be thankful they're not smart enough to know what level of suckers they are.

Minister Of Awesome

Leaders spend their time politicking and making speeches, but in Russia, they're more like action heroes.

Like a Cyrillic Chuck Norris, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin does all kinds of baller things, from battling wildfires to internationally owning in judo. Even his vacations are epic .

Diving for only his third time, he came upon two sixth century urns in the Black Sea. And the ancient treasures were discovered in full view of the media. Putin started spouting off facts about Ancient Greek pottery after the discovery, and theorized the broken jars may have been thrown from ships, hence their convenient resting place.

Perhaps it was a publicity stunt, but if that crying mangina John Boehner ever did anything 1/100 as butch, he'd be called the second coming of Teddy Roosevelt. Our government officials needs some lessons in badassery.

Subverting The Conventional Use Of A Machine

Skates With Cleats

The iconic jerseys of ice hockey re-imagined in the style of soccer uniforms, complete with arena sponsorships logos.

Nopez Notever

If you're looking to set up a recording of Ice Road Truckers repeats and syndicated episodes of Family Guy, you and your DVR are in luck! TBS has given the hook to "Lopez Tonight".

Lopez's Thursday show at midnight (tomorrow) will be the final one, the cable network said in a statement that added they were proud to have worked with the "immensely talented comedian and entertainer." I'm sorry, they're talking about George Lopez, right?

The kill order came not only based not only on declining ratings but the cost of the show, according to the famed "person familiar with the production", who "spoke on condition of anonymity".

Though he's about as funny as a basic cable infomercial, it does suck that he graciously got forced moved to the later time for Conan O'Brien's show - who'd ironically left NBC when Jay Leno retook his airtime.

Lopez's total viewership dropped over 40% in its second year, from an average of 910,000 nightly viewers in the 11 p.m. slot to 543,000 at midnight. So far this month his audience has dropped to 391,000. Conan has been drawing slightly more than 1 million viewers for his first season - just 13% higher than Lopez did in his debut year, but the lead in program is still taking in more than 700,000 nightly viewers.

So it's a good news / bad news thing - George Lopez is off the air, but he's bound to be working on another project to try to get back on TV. Enjoy it while it lasts...

Remember The Fifth Of November

In 1605, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the English Parliament.  This year, the Guy Fawkes mask-adopting Anonymous plan to destroy Facebook. I await the launch of the all-out assault that they say will bring down the social network with equal parts morbid curiousity and excitement.


UPDATE:  Apparently, there is no war on social media - unless it get carried out by a splinter cell. The Anonymous Twitter feed confirmed this, and an IRC member added, "Anonymous is a mindset not a group. Mindsets do not have leaders. With any given operation there are always some who agree and some who disagree. Anyone is allowed to create an op. Annoymous allows each person individually to vote on each operation, a yes vote means they participate, a no vote means they do not."

Saving You 16 Hours Of Movie Watching

(click pic to enlarge)

The National Post made this awesome infographic showing how each of Jason’s victims died, from Friday the 13th Part II through Freddy vs. Jason.

Senna's Return

Ayrton Senna lives on!

His 1991 F1 championship-winning McLaren MP4/6 was transformed into a larger-than-life wall sculpture back in the '90s and was mothballed for more than 15 years - but now the art piece is up for auction.

UK artist Jay Burridge was was just a student when he was endorsed by McLaren's Ron Dennis in 1992 to create a sculpture out of one of its race cars.  The model-kit themed art went into storage when Senna was killed in 1994, and hadn't been seen since the 2004 Goodwood Festival of Speed used it as a tribute to the racer.

International auctioneers COYS expect the piece to bring in between $50,000 and $60,000 at auction on August 13th.

1st Place Yo-Yos

Earth Antimatters

Data from a cosmic ray satellite is giving strength to the theory that the Earth is encircled by a thin band of antimatter.  No, it's not a galactic lap-band.

PAMELA - Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics, was launched in 2006 to study the high-energy particles ejected from the Sun (and beyond) that bombard the Earth.  When cosmic rays smash into Earth’s upper atmosphere, some of the resulting particles are short-lived anti-protons. Most are annihilated instantly when in contact with ordinary matter, but those that don’t collide are trapped in the planet's Van Allen radiation belt, forming a layer of antimatter in the Earth’s atmosphere.  One of PAMELA’s goals was to detect and separate these antimatter particles from the mass of protons and the nuclei of helium atoms in the atmosphere...success!

For 850 days starting in July 2006, the satellite moved through the South Atlantic Anomaly, where it detected 28 anti-protons, which is three times more than a random sample of the solar wind.  What has theoretical physicists giddy is the potential to use anti-protons for rocket-propelling applications.  Like, "tens of nanograms to micrograms of anti-protons can be used to catalyze nuclear reactions and propel spacecraft to velocities up to 100 km/sec.” applications.  Okay, for those who don't speak geek, that's an antimatter engine. Y'know, Star Trek type stuff? Oh, now this sounds interesting, eh?

Super Rookie

Real Madrid has just signed a 7-year-old soccer prodigy from Argentina...man, that kid is going to be self conscious in the locker room.

Leonel Angel Coira signed with the Spanish club and will begin training September 6th, a team spokesman said, though he did not elaborate what can a 7-year-old possibly train for. As good as he may be, he's not going to see field time for another decade, so basically this is a publicity stunt, right? Well, basically yes. He signed a one-year renewable deal and won't receive any salary, plus he'll only be eligible to play for the pro squad once he turns 16.

Coira's idol is Lionel Messi, a Barcelona forward who is also Argentine shares the nickname Leo. The team reportedly made the push to sign Coira because Spanish league rival Atletico Madrid was also pursuing him. Barcelona signed Messi as a teenager, and he has won the World Player of the Year award twice, as well as helped Barcelona win 15 trophies, including three Champions League titles and five Spanish league championships. Apparently they feel Coira could one day reach Messi's talent.

It all just reminds me of that hilarious Mr. Show sketch about child recruiters, which now has become frighteningly prophetic. I'm sure the kid is good, even better than his peers, but good enough to sign with a pro team?  Can you tell at age seven? He'll be playing against eight and nine year olds, which doesn't sound like a a real challenge for his skills...if he's that good, let him play 12-year-olds!

By Your Side, Slow Dancing