I’ve never had a problem eating food from a gas station.  Just two weeks ago, I ate a couple of hot dogs purchased from a gas station.  They were delicious.  That’s not the first time I’ve eaten gas station food, and I doubt it will be the last.  There’s nothing like a fun food novelty.  However, I might make sure to microwave my food a little longer than normal after hearing about one unlucky woman in California.  Lavinia Kelly, 33, is now paralyzed after eating gas station nachos.

The nachos were purchased at the Valley Oak Food and Fuel in Walnut Grove, California.  She’s one of five people who have been made sick by the food at that gas station, with four other probable cases waiting to be determined.  Amazingly, food-borne botulism is rare in the United States; only 15 cases of the 161 cases in 2014 was caused by food.

That’s small comfort for Lavinia and her family.  She’s in intensive care, paralyzed, unable to speak or breathe on her own.  All because she added cheese to a bag of Doritos on April 21.

Tags: botulism, botulism toxin, nachos, gas station nachos give woman botulism, botulism caused by gas station nachos, lavinia kelly, Valley Oak Food and Fuel, Walnut Grove, California, food poisoning, unusual foods, food-borne illnesses, woman gets botulism from nachos, botulism nachos

McDonald’s is a company in transition.  The old favorites seem to be losing popularity; kids these days just don’t want Big Macs anymore.  That means time for a new invention, and it appears that McDonald’s is taking some cues from Japan by getting creative with their hamburgers.  McDonald’s is adding three new sandwiches to their menu, a Pico Guacamole sandwich, a Sweet BBQ Bacon sandwich, and a Maple Bacon Dijon sandwich.  But it’s not the burgers that are getting people talking, it’s the new McDonald’s frork.  What’s a frork?  It’s a silicon tool that turns french fries into topping-soppers.

“When savoring these recipes, there’s a hitch you just can’t ditch: The topping dropping,” says famous infomercial pitchman Anthony Sullivan, recruited to help sell the frork to consumers. “This is a real problem. Wait, sorry is this a real problem?  Probably not, but good news we solved it anyway.”

Good news, if you’re looking for more information on the frork, McDonald’s has a way to educate you.  Call McDonald’s frork hotline at 1-844-MCD-FRORK, where you can find out information about how to get a frork and coupons to try the new sandwiches.  The silicon utensils will come free with every purchase of a new Signature Crafted Recipes sandwich while supplies left on May 5.  The sandwiches can be purchased as burgers, grilled chicken, or fried chicken options.

Tags: mcdonalds, mcdonald’s, frork, mcdonald’s frork, anthony sullivan, mcdonald’s fork-fry utensil, mcdonald’s Signature Crafted Recipes, Signature Crafted Recipes, pico guacamole, sweet bbq bacon, maple bacon dijon, new mcdonald’s sandwiches, new mcdonald’s burgers, mcdonald’s launches three new hamburgers, mcdonald’s new burgers

Commissioner Roger Goodell gathered 32 NFL owners for one big question.  One of the league’s most wanderlust-stricken franchises is looking to move again.  The Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland Raiders, tired of gutting it out in a run-down stadium, were once again looking for greener pastures.  Only the Miami Dolphins refused to cooperate.  With a vote of 31-1, the Oakland Raiders have been given permission to move to Las Vegas in 2020.  So much for a tradition of excellence.

The move is one of many made by Las Vegas and Nevada governor Brian Sandoval, who have already recruited a NHL team to Vegas (to be dubbed the Golden Knights).  Now, for the low cost of $750 million dollars in public funding, the Raiders are going to Vegas, too.  They’ll be sharing a new domed stadium with the University of Nevada Las Vegas.  Until 2020, the Raiders will remain in Oakland, with a possible shared stadium with the San Francisco 49ers in 2019, depending on if they renew their lease on the Coliseum.

“My father (Raiders founder and legend Al Davis) always said, ‘the greatness of the Raiders is in its future,’ and the opportunity to build a world-class stadium in the entertainment capital of the world is a significant step toward achieving that greatness,” reads a statement from Raiders owner Mark Davis.  “I would like to thank Commissioner Goodell, the National Football League and my 31 partners. I would also like to thank Governor Brian Sandoval and the Nevada Legislature for their commitment. Finally, I would like to thank Sheldon Adelson for his vision and leadership, without which this project never would have become a reality.”

Tags: football, nfl football, national football league, raiders, oakland raiders, las vegas raiders, oakland raiders moving to las vegas, raiders moving to las vegas, professional football, mark davis, al davis, sports franchise moves, brian sandoval, unlv, university of nevada las vegas

It’s not every day that a Twitter account dedicated to promoting McDonald’s as a business, but now it’s made a statement that will either increase business or cause a boycott and hashtag frenzy.  It’s all based on how you feel about President Donald Trump.  If you’re a fan, you’re booing.  If you’re not a fan, you’re probably eating a bag of Big Macs.  McDonald’s Corporate tweeted a highly negative statement about President Donald Trump.

Of course, the tweet was only up for about 20 minutes, but that was long enough for everyone to jump on it.  Trump supporters immediately started to #boycottmcdonalds while the anti-Trump side immediately started making plans to grab some burgers and fries for breakfast.  Twitter immediately informed McDonald’s of the possible breach, and the tweet from 9:16AM disappeared into the Internet ether, to live on in posts like this one.  To the shock of no one, McDonald’s says that the tweet was the result of a security breach.

Said McDonald’s, “We deleted the tweet, secured our account and are now investigating this.”

No doubt, someone at McDonald’s was not “lovin’ it” this morning when they got to work.

Tags: mcdonald’s, mcdonald’s twitter, mcdonald’s versus donald trump, donald trump, mcdonalds donald trump, mcdonald’s donald trump, donald trump twitter, mcdonald’s twitter hacked, mcdonald’s donald trump tweet, twitter, social media, mcdonald’s donald trump social media feud

This is what it looks like when your headphones burst into flames.

Usually, when someone talks about hot beats, it’s just because they really like the music.  However, one unnamed woman on a flight from Beijing, China, to Melbourne, Australia, got exposed to some really hot beats.  A woman’s headphone burst into flames while she was wearing them!

It’s just not safe to enjoy yourself anymore, between phones bursting into flames and e-cigarettes blowing up in your mouth like dynamite.  Much like the previous two exploding items, the culprit is believed to be the battery, according to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB).  The ATSB places the blame carefully at the feet of the lithium-ion battery that may have powered the headphones.

“As I went to turn around I felt burning on my face. I just grabbed my face which caused the headphones to go around my neck,” said the woman with the burning headphones. “I continued to feel burning so I grabbed them off and threw them on the floor. They were sparking and had small amounts of fire.”

Fortunately for her, the cabin crew were ready to respond.  Before she could even start stepping on the burning headphones, the staff was there with water to douse the flames almost immediately.  Unfortunately, you can’t wash away the smell of melting plastic; the passengers spent the rest of the flight coughing and complaining of the smell.  But at least that poor woman’s face looks relatively intact and undamaged, which is a small miracle.

Tags: technology, melbourne, australia, beijing, china, exploding headphones, headphones explode, headphones catch fire on flight, headphones explode on someone’s face, woman’s headphones explode, exploding headphones, music, atsb, australian transport safety bureau, unusual accidents

In 2006, an injury to Dallas Cowboys starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe opened the door for an undrafted free agent by the name of Tony Romo to take the helm of America’s Team and lead the Dallas Cowboys to an early playoff exit.  Bledsoe went from starter to afterthought in a season.  Now, the circle continues and the NFL has apparently chewed up and spat out another quarterback.  Tony Romo is going to be released by the Dallas Cowboys.

Romo, who has been a good regular season quarterback, never had much in the way of playoff success.  He’s only won two games in the playoffs, in spite of his good regular season performances.  The closest he’s gotten to the Super Bowl is via commercials. He’s also proven to be injury prone, particularly the last two seasons.  After all, he’s broken his back on the field, broken his clavicle, injured his shoulder… Tony Romo is lucky to make it through a season standing, and after this latest season, in which Dak Prescott took over and impressed fans and team staff alike, the writing was on the wall.

Romo, if he wants to continue to play, will find people interested in his services, perhaps as a backup, or maybe as a win-now option for a team like the Denver Broncos.

Tags: tony romo, dak prescott, dallas, dallas cowboys, tony romo dallas cowboys, dallas releases tony romo, dallas cowboys release tony romo, dallas cowboys to release tony romo, tony romo to be released, nfl, national football league, professional football, nfl news, celebrities

There’s a certain charm to having streaming services at your beck and call.  I don’t get to watch as much as I want, but when I get a chance to watch something on demand, I usually take it.  I love Netflix, and I’ve watched more bad movies on Netflix than I have any right to do, simply because it’s there and I gotta watch something.  That’s one thing that the increase in digital video games has done.  It was only a matter of time for someone to start a streaming video game service, and that’s the kings of online gaming.  Microsoft has announced the Xbox Game Pass, 100 or so Xbox One and Xbox 360 games available for only $9.99 per month.

It’s not just a bunch of scrub games, either.  We’re talking Halo 5: Guardians, NBA 2K16, Fable III, Tekken, Mad Max, and a whole lot more.  Best of all, you don’t need Xbox Live to join up with the Xbox Game Pass service, so you don’t have to pay the extra price.  Of course,  you do need to have Xbox Live Gold to play multi-player games online, but… at least you’ll get to play single-player games without the extra expense.

I’d like to see a full line-up of games once the service gets launched, as well as availability of games and how long they’ll stay up to play before they get swapped out for new games, but… on the surface, this is a really cool idea and I’m definitely considering it.

Tags: microsoft, microsoft xbox one, xbox one, xbox game pass, xbox 360, microsoft announces xbox game pass, game pass for xbox 360 and xbox one games, xbox game pass announced, xbox game pass subscription for .99, xbox game pass with 100 games announced

For 89 years, Oscars has never had a major mistake.  The last few Oscars might have had a few flubs, but at least they never got the most important category of the night wrong.  Well, that’s now changed, all thanks to OG Bonnie and Clyde legends Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.  When Faye Dunaway called the producers of La La Land onto the stage, it was a major mistake.  The wrong move was announced as the winner of Best Picture.

The producers of La La Land were on stage, giving their speeches, when a crowd of producers and set personnel stormed onto stage and started frantically trying to correct the mistake.  La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz, still holding Oscars, had to announce that the real Best Picture winner was actually Moonlight, and that the Moonlight people should come up onto stage and take the Oscars.  Seriously.  Warren Beatty then took the mic to announce how the mistake had been made.

“I want to tell you what happened. I opened the envelope and it said Emma Stone, La La Land.  That’s why I took such a long look at Faye and at you.  I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

As it turns out, eagle-eyed viewers like Neil Patrick Harris spotted that the envelope Warren Beatty opened said “Best Actress” not “Best Picture”, so it looks like someone gave him the wrong envelope to open on stage.  For their part, PricewaterhouseCoopers has sincerely apologized and will be conducting an investigation.

Tags: moonlight, la la land, moonlight wins best picture, moonlight la la land best picture, warren beatty, faye dunaway, wrong best picture winner read, wrong best picture, 89th academy awards, oscars, 2017 oscars, oscars mistake, warren beatty wrong oscar, unusual mistakes, hollywood, pricewaterhousecoopers, jordan horowitz

There’s the concrete jungle.  There’s the urban cowboy.  There’s all kinds of farm and animal metaphors that concern New York City, but none of them actually reflect the actual animals.  The bull market on Wall Street has little to nothing to do with actual bulls, so any time you see a strange animal loose on the streets of New York or any major city, it’s kind of a big deal.  For over an hour today, New Yorkers were transfixed by the story of the Jamaica Bull.  That’s right; a live bull was loose on the streets of Queens, rampaging through the Jamaica neighborhood.

You’d think this is a one-time thing, some kind of fluke like a cow escaping from a trailer, but not quite.  This is the third case of an escaped cow in New York City, courtesy of a slaughterhouse in Queens that must have some sort of hole in the fence.  This particular bull is believed to have gotten out during a transfer of animals, using the noise of the cows moving around to slip through a gap in the pen and make a run for freedom.  He’s known to be a particularly slick bull; he squeezed through cars several times to escape capture by authorities before tranquilizers and the exhaustion of his merry chase got the better of him.

“From where you’re at to right here, I was face-to-face with the live bull, and then I shift to the left, he went to the right,” said startled Jamaica resident Jimmy King to CBS2 New York.

Authorities have the bull in custody and have taken him to a safe place.

Image: Vladimir Vilsaint

Tags: Jamaica, Queens, New York City, New York, Jamaica Queens, bull on the loose, runaway bull, unusual animal, Jamaica bull, queens bull, bull running through queens streets, bull loose in queens, bull loose in new york city, new york bull escape, cbs2 new york

Tom Brady has been wildly successful, if controversial.  He’s the first quarterback ever to win five Super Bowls and only the second player to do so after Charles Haley.  Unlike Haley, Brady won all his Super Bowls with the same team, the New England Patriots.  The only thing that seems to be able to stop Brady is Eli Manning, and that’s been rare.  Another Super Bowl for the Pats, and another Super Bowl title for the Patriots, as New England beat the Atlanta Falcons 34-28 in the first overtime game in Super Bowl history.  Pretty cool, right?

Unfortunately, there won’t be a Tom Brady jersey in the NFL Hall of Fame to commemorate the Super Bowl milestone; Tom Brady’s jersey was stolen out of the New England Patriots locker room after the Super Bowl.  His fifth Super Bowl title, his fourth Super Bowl MVP, and no jersey to remember it by.  Brady called security to his locker at Houston’s NRG Stadium, and a search by stadium staff, teammates, and team staff revealed nothing.

“It was right here. I know exactly where I put it,” said Brady shortly after alerting the authorities.  After failing to find the jersey before leaving the locker room, Brady told the press, “It is going to be on eBay soon, I guess.”

Tags: tom brady, super bowl, tom brady super bowl, super bowl jersey stolen, tom brady jersey stolen, tom brady jersey stolen from locker room, tom brady’s super bowl jersey stolen from the locker room, super bowl li, super bowl 51, jersey stolen from locker room, super bowl jersey stolen, unusual crimes, nrg stadium

As of right now, the United States Department of Agriculture has 17.8 million pounds of pork belly in storage.  Pork belly is the delicious part of the pig that turns into bacon when cured and fried.  It tastes good, smells better, and is even good for you!  It seems like a lot, but it’s actually slim piggings.  The US bacon reserves are at their lowest point in 50 years.

So that’s kind of a bacon storage, right?  Apparently, not to the US Department of Agriculture, which says that consumers don’t need to be worried.  This is just bacon in storage; there are still plenty of pigs to go around.  The US currently exports about 26 percent of its pork products to other countries, so an uptick in demand around the world plus continued US bacon obsession means lower stores and potentially higher prices. (So stock up now.)

In 1988, there were 113.1 million pounds of pork in our nation’s valuable pork belly reserves.  Those were the good old days. Hopefully, it won’t be long before the US once again leads the world in porcine deliciousness!

Tags: bacon, bacon reserves, pork belly, pork belly reserves, pork belly reserves hits 50 year low, bacon reserves hit low, bacon reserves hit 50 year low, food, us department of agriculture, department of agriculture, food, food news, bacon news, bacon and pork belly reserves

A very sweaty real-life Batman.

Ben Affleck, no matter what you might think of him, is a talented actor and director.  He’s got the goods, but he’s smart enough to know when he’s in over his head.  All along, since he took on the mantle of Batman, he’s had his eyes on writing, directing, and starring as the Caped Crusader.  With Justice League in the can, it was time for Batfleck to take on his next project, but with a change.  Ben Affleck is out of the director’s chair on The Batman.

Apparently, the idea of wearing the cowl and running the show was too much for Ben Affleck, which makes total sense considering the average Batman suit doesn’t allow the person inside to look to the left or right, let alone run a hundred-million-dollar production.  So now Batman is going to focus on being the Batman, and leave the directing to someone else.  Perhaps Matt Reeves or Zack Snyder?  Either way, the script Affleck wrote with Geoff Johns is apparently the one they’ll go with, no matter who is in the big chair.

“There are certain characters who hold a special place in the hearts of millions,” Affleck said in a statement. “Performing this role demands focus, passion and the very best performance I can give.  It has become clear that I cannot do both jobs to the level they require.  Together with the studio, I have decided to find a partner in a director who will collaborate with me on this massive film.  I am still in this, and we are making it, but we are currently looking for a director.  I remain extremely committed to this project, and look forward to bringing this to life for fans around the world.”

Tags: the batman, batman, ben affleck, batfleck, ben affleck will not direct batman, ben affleck batman, zack snyder, wb, warner brothers, dc, matt reeves, Geoff Johns, movies, hollywood, entertainment, comic book movies, the batman director, the batman ben affleck

There’s a new game genre out there.  Part simulation, part social game, part physical challenge, escape rooms are really popular.  You wander through a scenario, stuff happens, and you have to try to figure your way out in a certain amount of time.  I’ve done similar things, but I haven’t done a full-fledged escape room yet, though I’m interested.  They have a lot of the usual horror themes:  zombies, killers, monsters, and the Holocaust?  A company in the Czech Republic announced and retracted a Holocaust-themed escape room.

The room was called ‘Escape from Auschwitz,” and while game company Dostan Se Ven says that their game was respectful and researched about the real problems of Auschwitz, the Auschwitz memorial and many other groups have protested.  In particular, having a deal on the “Escape” game on International Holocaust Memorial Day.  No matter how respectful and well-researched, something like that won’t be taken well.  After all, WW2-era weapons kill people to this very day.

“A game that preys on the suffering of millions of people for commercial gain, reflects on not only the bad taste of the authors, but also on their cynicism and their unawareness of the history,” said Petr Papousek, the president of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Prague.

Tags: auschwitz, auschwitz concentration camp, concentration camp, nazi germany, auschwitz escape room, escape room game, prague, czech republic, dostan se ven, dostan se ven concentration camp escape room, escape room based on concentration camp, Escape from Auschwitz, Petr Papousek

In May, students for the for-profit American College of Education were running into some problems.  Their access to email accounts and course information was locked down by Google, who had disabled their accounts.  The reason why?  A fired IT worker for the American College of Education locked the school out of their Google cloud account.  Then, after locking the college out, he refused to help them get back into the accounts and Google was no help since the worker, Triano Williams, was the sole administrator for the account.

For his part, Triano Williams maintains that he didn’t deliberately lock the college out of their accounts; the information was stored on the school laptop and college administrators wiped it out by mistake.  The college says Triano Williams wiped the computer and installed a new operating system to ensure that the college couldn’t access it.  Google, like most cloud computing services, wasn’t willing to help out since the administrator wasn’t the one contacting them.  Cue the dueling lawsuits, theirs over the lock out and his over discrimination and unpaid consultancy fees!

“In order to amicably settle this dispute, Mr. Williams requires a clean letter of reference and payment of $200,000,” said a letter from Williams’ lawyer, Calvita J. Frederick.  “The reality is the college created this problem over the course of the last several years as a result of certain business decisions followed by the termination of certain key employees.”

Tags: college, online college, for-profit college, american college of education, chicago, illinois, Triano Williams, Calvita J. Frederick, college held for ransom by fired employee, former IT employee holds college for ransom, lawsuits, law and order, unusual lawsuits, discrimination

There’s just a constant state of flux in one of the web’s biggest companies and the pre-Google version of Google.  Yahoo, limping along while its former corporate child Alibaba has become a major player in the online world.  Yet poor old Yahoo keeps struggling along, but maybe a new name will yield new fortunes?  Yahoo will be changing its name to Altaba.

Of course, the change will only take place after the Verizon deal closes.  However, the other changes at the board meeting will be permanent.  Marissa Mayer will step down as CEO and company co-founder David Filo will also be leaving the company. (Other co-founder Jerry Yang departed in 2012.)  That merger, announced way back in 2016, is still supposed to be happening, but who knows just how long it will actually take for that to happen, because there’s still a lot of time for it to fall through.

Given everything else has gone wrong, there’s still plenty of room to fail.

Tags: yahoo, altaba, yahoo to become altaba, altaba yahoo, verizon, verizon yahoo, marissa mayer, david filo, yahoo to change its name to altaba, verizon to buy altaba, technology, corporate mergers, verizon yahoo news, yahoo to change name, yahoo’s new name, eric brandt

When Victor Collins was murdered, sometime between the hours of 1 and 3 AM, it is believed to have happened in the home of one James Andrew Bates, of Bentonville, Arkansas.  Police have arrested Bates for the murder, and are actively looking to put together a criminal case, and there’s believed to be only one possible witness.  That witness is an Internet of Things (IOT) device and media server called the Amazon Echo.  Police are trying to get Amazon Echo records in a murder trial.

“You have an expectation of privacy in your home, and I have a big problem that law enforcement can use the technology that advances our quality of life against us,” argues Bates’ lawyer, who is seeking to keep police from accessing the Echo’s records.

That’s the issue with the Amazon Echo.  It records sounds when cued to do something like stream entertainment, and sometimes the device can be triggered to record accidentally.  Police want to access the Echo’s records on Amazon’s servers, but Amazon isn’t currently cooperating with the authorities, citing privacy issues and a need for a warrant.  Police have already accessed the records of several other smart devices in the Bates home, including the hot water heater, which may have been used to wash away murder evidence.

Image:  The Information

Tags: internet of things, amazon, amazon echo, amazon echo subpoena, subpoena for amazon echo, james andrew bates, victor collins, victor collins murder trial, bentonville, arkansas, james andrew bates murder trial, james andrew bates amazon echo, law and order, unusual crimes, murder trial witnesses, unusual murder trials

The story of this election has been the divided country we live in.  Just because the election has been decided that doesn’t mean that the election story is over.  Oh no.  The United States uses something called the Electoral College, which basically means that every state is worth a certain number of electoral college votes.  If you win that state, in most cases, you win that state’s electoral votes.  Donald Trump has been awarded the electoral college victory after a day of interesting voting.

The idea of a faithless elector–that is, an elector who votes against the will of the state they represent–has been a big talking point.  Campaigns have been launched to try and convince electors to vote with their conscience, in defiance of state laws and at risk of fines and jail time in some cases.  It worked, in some cases… but weirdly enough, Hillary Clinton lost more votes than Donald Trump.

Of the attempted faithless electors, nine attempted to change their votes.  Three tried to vote for Bernie Sanders but couldn’t due to state laws, three from Washington state voted for Colin Powell, one Washington state elector voted for Faith Spotted Eagle (a Dakota pipeline protest leader), one Texan voted for Ron Paul, and one Texan voted for John Kasich.  One Texan resigned rather than vote for Trump.

Either way, it’s just about over.  After the Electoral College results are ratified by Congress on January 6, Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States.

Tags: electoral college, faithless elector, donald trump, hillary clinton, bernie sanders, faith spotted eagle, colin powell, john kasich, electoral college chooses trump, trump electoral college, trump electoral college victory, washington state, faithless electors leave trump, faithless electors leave clinton

Synthetic marijuana is nothing to sneeze at.  In fact, it’s nothing to even try smoking, either, because it’s dangerous, dangerous stuff.  A street corner in Brooklyn, where Bushwick meets Bedford-Stuyvesant, has become known as “zombie corner” because of the massive amount of K2 addicts gathering there.  During one weekend day, 33 people passed out in the same neighborhood due to drug overdoses, turning Brooklyn into a George Romero movie.

It’s been dubbed the Walking Dead outbreak, and unlike the face-eating spice zombie from Miami, these zombies were slurring their words, stumbling around, and unable to walk or stand.  At least they weren’t violent, right?  Still, that’s a huge drain on resources, and dozens of people throwing up, urinating, and passing out in the middle of the street is bad.

The drug is known on the streets as AK-47 24 Karat Gold, and it is 85 times as powerful as traditional marijuana and 50 times more powerful than K2, the most common fake pot sold.  The drug, patented by Pfizer as amb-fubinaca, is made by chemists in China and distributed via the Internet and, apparently, local stores in Brooklyn.

Tags: k2, synthetic marijuana, zombies, zombie outbreak, synthetic marijuana zombies, brooklyn, new york, new york zombie outbreak, brooklyn zombie outbreak, brooklyn k2 zombies, bushwick, bedford-stuyvesant, ak-47 24 karat gold, Amb-fubinaca, pfizer

It wasn’t all that long ago that Yahoo suffered the largest single hacking attack on record.  At that time, 500 million user accounts were compromised.  Turns out, that’s just the tip of the iceberg for the flailing online giant.  Yahoo announced today that one billion Yahoo accounts have been compromised.  No, not one billion total; that’s a billion on top of 500 million previously hacked.

Yahoo was informed in November that user data was possibly compromised, and an investigation revealed that was indeed the case.  Hackers got access to user names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords, and some security questions and answers, both encrypted and not encrypted.  So yeah, all in all, that’s a really bad security breach for a company who is trying to keep from becoming the next MySpace.

“As we’ve said all along, we will evaluate the situation as Yahoo continues its investigation.  We will review the impact of this new development before reaching any final conclusions,” said a statement issued by Verizon, who are apparently still interested in buying Yahoo (or parts of Yahoo).

Tags: hacks, yahoo hack, yahoo hacked, one billion user accounts hacked, one billion yahoo users hacked, yahoo user hack, online security, internet security, verizon, yahoo, yahoo hacking, largest hack ever, largest online hack ever, one billion yahoo users compromised, yahoo user names and information hacked

People spend a lot of money on games on their phone.  Even a free game like Pokemon Go can rack up hundreds of dollars in fees if you decide to become a pay to win player (which is what most game companies are counting on)  For example, the biggest money-making game of the last two years, Game of War, has taken in tens of millions of dollars in profits, which is amazing when you consider how much of it came from one guy.  A man spent $1 million in stolen money on Game of War.  Game of War is a freemium game from Machine Zone, best known for a series of commercials starring Kate Upton.

The man, Kevin Lee Co, stole $5 million dollars from his employer, Holt of California.  He took the cash between 2008 and 2015 from the Caterpillar sales company, and lived it up.  In addition to the $1 million he spent on Game of War, he also spent money on plastic surgery and season tickets to the San Francisco 49ers (which means he spent a LOT of money).  Holt plead guilty to wire fraud and money laundering, both of which carry up to 20 years in jail and a $750,000 fine.

He can also be forced to pay back the full amount he stole from his employers, and I mean in cash, not Game of War store credit.

Tags: game of war, mobile games, freemium games, man spends

[tags]game of war, mobile games, freemium games, man spends $1 million on game of war, man spends embezzled money on game of war, embezzlement, unusual crimes, law and order, machine zone, holt of california, caterpillar, Kevin Lee Co, san francisco 49ers[/tags]

For over 150 years, New York City has ushered in the holiday season with a uniquely New York tradition.  Every big retailer in New York’s iconic Fifth Avenue does window displays.  Basically, the front window of Macy’s or Saks becomes a mini holiday panorama, and as you walk down the street, every store tries to out-Christmas the others.  It’s supposedly pretty cool, but I wouldn’t know; like most of the world, I’ve never even been to Manhattan.  However, like most of the world, I have access to Google.  Google has created a virtual reality trip through New York City’s iconic holiday displays.

It’s called Window Wonderland, and it’s all part of Google’s efforts to provide for virtual reality headsets, either powered by Google Cardboard or Google View (Google’s VR headset).  Google’s Art, Copy, and Code team went to the city and took hundreds of high-resolution photos of 18 window displays, and the Window Wonderland mini-site has links to stores and items available for purchase right in the display pictures.

“With all of the artistry and time that goes into creating these holiday windows, we want to open them up to the whole world,” said Google’s head of the Art, Copy, & Code team, Aman Govil.

Tags: google, google christmas lights, christmas lights, holiday windows, holiday window decorations, macys, window wonderland, new york city, new york, google holiday window tour, google window wonderland, window wonderland google, christmas displays, holiday displays, google view, art copy and code, google art copy and code, Aman Govil

The old days of “smoke ’em if you got ’em” have been gone for a long time, and it seems that every day, more people kick the smoking habit.  Even in the state I live, where cigarettes keep people employed and where a quarter of the population still smokes, smoking is on the downswing.  Too many health concerns, too expensive, increasingly difficult to find, or just out of style, it seems like the glory days of smoking are on the way out.  Philip Morris International is looking forward to quitting the cigarette business according to their CEO.

Now, Philip Morris isn’t going to quit making tobacco products, they’re just looking to possibly phase out smoked cigarettes in favor of a brand new products.  It’s called IQOS, and it’s basically a smokeless cigarette.  A little base heats tobacco enough to create inhaled vapor, but it doesn’t burn the tobacco completely.  The company believes that the heated tobacco is less harmful than the cancer-causing burned tobacco in traditional cigarettes.

“I believe there will come a moment in time where I would say we have sufficient adoption of these alternative products … to start envisaging, together with governments, a phase-out period for cigarettes.  I hope this time will come soon,”said Philip Morris International CEO Andre Calantzopoulos.

Philip Morris International is a different company from Philip Morris USA (which is a subsidiary of Altria), but I’d imagine if the IQOS product is successful, the USA won’t be too far behind when it comes to butting out Marlboros.

Tags: cigarettes, smoking, cigarette smoking, public health, smoking alternatives, philip morris, philip morris usa, marlboro, IQOS, IQOS smokeless cigarette, altria, philip morris international, Andre Calantzopoulos, unusual news, unusual statements, philip morris smokeless cigarettes, philip morris looking to quit cigarette business

Donald Trump is back in the news again.  Stop me if you’ve heard that before.  However, it’s not his policies that are drawing attention this time; if anything, he’s getting attention paid to him thanks to the one thing he can do well:  draw crowds.  Donald Trump somehow transferred his reality show popularity and media control into the position of President of the United States, and now he’s ready to put the cherry on that cake.  Donald Trump is going to be launching a victory tour.

Pretty crazy, but if you’ll think back to last year, Trump’s campaign stops were what launched him as a viable candidate before the first primary vote was ever cast and before he won the white supremacist endorsement.  Sure, he’s got people protesting in the streets, but that’s attention, and he loves attention–even negative attention.  I think that Donald Trump would be thrilled to know that people are already giving odds on his impeachment (he’s currently got a 35% chance of being impeached according to this site).  Given his general disregard for the Constitution and the Supreme Court when it comes to issues like taking citizenship away from flag burners, nothing’s out of the realm of possibility.

The only thing you can say about Donald Trump with any certainty is that he’s going to get reactions, and the positive responses are going to be almost as loud as the negative responses.

Tags: president, presidential election, 2016 presidential election, donald trump, president trump, president donald trump, donald trump tour, donald trump victory tour, president trump victory tour, donald trump going on celebratory tour, unusual news, politics, political news

A video from The Verge shows the iPhone crash video in action.

The modern electronic is a far cry from the old days of tubes and transistors.  These days, things are way more delicate than they used to be, and the funniest things can become big problems for smartphone owners.  Every time an operating system gets updated, problems arise.  Even something as simple as watching a video clip sent by a friend can make one of the most expensive and popular phones on the market choke up and die.  Opening a specific video file in iMessage causes the iPhone to glitch and crash.  The video plays, and 10 seconds later, the phone crashes.  A hard reboot brings it back to life, with no apparent damage to the phone.

Of course, this isn’t the first bug with iMessage.  Only last year, if a user was sent a string of jibberish letters, it would cause the iPhone to crash.  There were also issues with Safari crashing.  Now, apparently, a video sent to iPhone users will crash their phones, and according to Reddit, it’s not just via iMessage, but other text apps like WhatsApp.

Granted, it just make the phone crash, not catch on fire, but… who knows what else it might do?  If a video file can cause those kind of problems, there’s no telling what you could get a properly coded video file to do to a phone.

Tags: video crashes iphones, corrupted video crashes iphone, iphone, apple, apple iphone crashes after watching video, unusual videos, iphone crashing video, smart phones, smartphones, smartphone bugs, bug causes video to crash iphones, iphone crashing video links, imessage

Donald Trump has a way about him that makes people go crazy.  Take your pick of how he makes people go crazy.  Either he’s leading huge rallies of people or he’s driving people to destroy their cell phones and smash up public monuments.  There seems to be no difference.  Now, because of a statement that’s been misinterpreted as pro-Trump by people online, New Balance shoes are being burned in protest on one hand and praised as “the official shoe of white people” on the other hand.

It’s actually pretty remarkable.  During the various campaigns, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders spoke out against TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that would function as a trans-oceanic NAFTA agreement.  New Balance, the only company that makes athletic shoes in the United States, has been protesting this deal to the Obama administration to no avail, because it would make US-based shoe manufacturing a thing of the past due to cost issues.  After saying that Trump was a move in the right direction, the company is now backing off that statement and scrambling to explain while people Tweet pictures of burnt shoes.

“As the only major company that still makes athletic shoes in the US, New Balance has a unique perspective on trade in that we want to make more shoes in the US, not less.  New Balance publicly supported the trade positions of Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump prior to election day that focused on American manufacturing job creation and we continue to support them today.”

Meanwhile, white supremacist alt-right website The Stormer published an article by Andrew Anglin declaring New Balance to be the new ‘official shoe of white people’ thanks to the company’s pro-Trump statement (if you can call protesting a trade agreement as pro-Trump.

Said Anglin, “I’m a Nike guy. Or rather, I was.  It’s time to get on-board with New Balance now.  Their brave act has just made them the official brand of the Trump Revolution.”

New Balance, for their part, has vehemently denied any pro-Trump or pro-white supremacy views.  They’re just a company trying to make shoes in Boston.

Tags: shoes, clothing, new balance, the stormer, new balance protests, donald trump, white supremacists, unusual news, unusual business news, andrew anglin, the official shoe of white people, new balance white people shoes, unusual shoes, tpp, trans-pacific partnership, Boston, Massachusetts, new balance trump support, politics, republican party

Gawker has been completely destroyed by their own actions.  Terry Bollea, AKA Hulk Hogan, was publicly humiliated by Gawker when the media company essentially published a stolen sex tape and refused to take it down even after a court order was issued against the company.  Judges hate it when you ignore court orders.  Judges also hate it when you laugh at the idea of taking down court orders, too.  Gawker was hit with a $140 million dollar judgement by the Florida courts, making Hulk Hogan a very rich man.  Now he’ll be less rich, but still pretty well off.  Gawker has settled with Hulk Hogan for $31 million dollars.

Gawker, as a company, no longer exists, thanks to Hogan’s lawsuit, which was funded by tech billionaire and PayPal investor Peter Thiel.  Most of Gawker’s properties that weren’t directly implicated in the lawsuit were sold to TV network Univision, which has turned the blogs into something called Gizmodo Media Group.  They also paid $131 million for the collective, including Gawker, which they shut down almost immediately.  So, don’t weep for Nick Denton, Gawker founder and original owner.

“Yes, we were confident the appeals court would reduce or eliminate the runaway Florida judgment against Gawker, the writer of the Hogan story and myself personally.  And we expected to prevail in those other two lawsuits by clients of Charles Harder, the lawyer backed by Peter Thiel,” reads Denton’s blog post on what he termed ‘a hard peace’.  “But all-out legal war with Thiel would have cost too much, and hurt too many people, and there was no end in sight.”

Tags: gawker, gizmodo media group, univision, nick denton, hulk hogan, terry bollea, terry hulk hogan, peter thiel, gawker lawsuit, gawker lawsuit settled, hulk hogan and gawker settle lawsuit, gawker settles with hulk hogan for million, lawsuit settlements, entertainment, lawsuits, unusual lawsuits, hulk hogan gawker

This will be the last Samsung Galaxy Note 7 to ever be on an airplane.  After all, the phone has been pulled from shelves and pockets all around the world, because the phones tend to, uh… catch fire and/or explode.  It’s not a laughing matter if you’re flying over the Rocky Mountains with one in a pressurized environment, but now that the it’s safe to board a plane with your phone again, maybe it’s okay for people to smile and chuckle about it again.  See, for example, this brilliant costume of a flaming Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phone worn by a flight attendant.

Fittingly, the flight attendant was about to board a flight from Utah’s Salt Lake City International Airport to San Francisco.  She also works for Southwest Airlines, which has had flights detoured and called off due to problems with flaming Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones.  Before boarding her flight, she joked with waiting passengers about her flight possibly being cancelled due to her costume.

The great photo above was captured on Halloween by Twitter user Heath W. Black.  The costumes is both a funny costume and a warning:  the Southwest flight crew used the phone costume as an example in their pre-flight warning routine to remind customers carrying non-recalled Note phones that they’d have to leave them behind.  Even with special precautions in place, it’s still a bad idea to carry an exploding phone around.

Tags: halloween, halloween costumes, halloween costume, funny costumes, funny halloween costumes, flight attendant costume, flight attendant halloween costume, flight attendant samsung galaxy costume, costume of samsung galaxy on fire, flaming samsung galaxy costume, salt lake city, san francisco international airport, Salt Lake City International Airport

Donald Trump is a very public figure, and he was a very public figure even before he decided to run for President of the United States of America.  No, The Donald turned his TV fame into political infamy, and it seems like every time he opens his mouth or makes a speech, he wins fewer voters and more enemies, who are responding pretty viciously in response to some of his statements.  As it turns out, Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is a convenient place to express displeasure with the Republican candidate’s policy.  First, someone built a border wall around his star.  Now, someone a little less eloquent is protesting Trump.  Someone smashed Donald Trump’s star with a pickaxe.

Here’s a video of the smashy-smashing.

Unfortunately for the protesting party, the incident will soon be forgotten by everyone except for the Los Angeles Police Department, who are investigating the vandalism.  The star itself is already in the process of being replaced.  Don’t call it favoritism; the folks behind the Walk of Fame replace any damaged star, for whatever reason it gets damaged.

“The star will be repaired immediately, but requires several days of seasoning before it is polished. During that time, it will be covered to protect it,” said Leron Gubler, president and CEO of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Tags: hollywood, hollywood walk of fame, walk of fame, donald trump, donald trump walk of fame star smashed, donald trump star smashed, hollywood walk of fame vandalism, donald trump hollywood star, donald trump hollywood star vandalized, videos, unusual videos, protests, political protests, leron gubler, hollywood chamber of commerce

AT&T: Buy All The Things!

It’s time to buy, if you’re a major corporation.  No one’s been trying to buy more things than AT&T, and nobody’s been trying to get bought up more than Time Warner.  Charter tried to buy Time Warner and failed.  Comcast tried to buy Time Warner and failed.  AT&T tried and failed to buy T-Mobile, but AT&T was successful at buying DirecTV.  Now, it looks like Time Warner has found the perfect partner to dance with in the former American Telephone and Telegraph.  AT&T is going to buy Time Warner for $80 billion dollars.

That’s a pretty big deal for both companies, particularly AT&T.  After all, they already have DirecTV, who they are working on a streaming-only television service with, and now they have a whole lot of television networks to bring on board with their offering.  Time Warner owns HBO, Cinemax, CNN, HLN, TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network, Turner Classic Movies, truTV, Turner Sports, and The CW, among other stations.  They also own Warner Brothers movies, DC Comics and Entertainment, New Line, Hanna-Barbera, a chunk of Hulu, and a whole bunch of other online properties.

Of course, there’s still a big regulatory hurdle to clear, and the US government tends to take very close looks at these sorts of mergers.  I guess we’ll all find out if this will be approved or if it will go the way of all the other failed mergers AT&T and Time Warner have been part of.

Tags: at&t, att, time warner, time warner cable, hbo, at&t time warner, AT&T to buy Time Warner, AT&T Time Warner merger, AT&T to buy Time Warner for billion dollars, television, internet, cable television, CNN, corporate purchases, business news

There are a lot of music streaming services out there.  Apple, Spotify, Google Play Music, and any number of others.  that’s a pretty crowded field, and yet, Amazon has spotted a softness in the marketplace, and a good way to add some value to Amazon’s Echo home entertainment/concierge system.  To that end, Amazon is ready to strike up the band and play the music.  Amazon is rolling out a streaming music service to compete with all the other streaming music services.

The service is called Amazon Music Unlimited.  It’s not exactly unlimited, but Amazon has signed agreements with hundreds of music labels and will be offering tens of millions of songs for listeners.  Amazon Prime members will continue to receive Prime Music, as well as a discount on Amazon Music Unlimited should they wish to subscribe.  Prime Music only has a library of one to two million songs, which is lower, but still pretty good for a throw-in alongside movies and TV shows and free e-books.

If you’re an interested customer, Amazon Music Unlimited can be had for $9.99 a month.  If you’re a Prime Member, you can have it for $79 a year or $7.99 a month.  If you have an Echo, a streaming offering for that is available for only $3.99.  There are also apps for iOS, Android, Sonos, desktop computers, and Amazon’s own Fire line of products.

Tags: amazon, amazon prime, amazon music unlimited, amazon streaming music, amazon music, streaming music, streaming music services, amazon streaming, amazon prime music streaming, music, amazon adds music streaming service for .99, amazon music streaming plan, amazon echo, side-by-side

At age 28, Greg Hardy should be lining up on Sunday afternoon for a professional football team.  He was an All Pro player in 2013, and his performance on the field cannot be questioned.  However, his behavior off the field is the problem.  Hardy can’t stay out of trouble, whether it’s being arrested for domestic violence or failing NFL drug tests due to cocaine use.  Fortunately for him, he’s an elite athlete, the likes of which can be successful in a lot of fields, and he’s choosing to move from a collision sport to a contact sport.  Greg Hardy is going to try his hand at MMA fighting.

“I’m very focused and excited to start my MMA career,” Hardy told MMAFighting.com.  “I’m going to do this the right way, I can assure you of that.”

Hardy, who played defensive end in the NFL, has been training for his MMA debut in Dallas, Texas.  Hardy played for the Carolina Panthers for five seasons, then after returning from his domestic violence suspension, he played a season with the Dallas Cowboys before being released last year.  It is unknown whether his failed drug test for cocaine will affect his MMA fighting chances, but so far, Hardy has not signed with a fighting organization.

Then again, it seems like anyone from church pastors to former actors can fight in MMA events, so I’m sure someone will sign Hardy to a contract.

Tags: carolina panthers, dallas cowboys, greg hardy, mma, mixed martial arts, nfl, national football league, greg hardy mma, nfl to mma, football, professional football, professional fighting, greg hardy to become mma fighter, greg hardy mixed martial arts, greg hardy leaves nfl for fighting, professional sports

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but Samsung is recalling their defective Galaxy Note 7 phones.  They’ve already announced one recall, but it looks as though the replacement phones are just as dangerous as the original versions.  Samsung is recalling every Galaxy Note 7 phone it has produced.  If you have a Galaxy Note 7 phone, don’t power it up.  If it’s on, turn it off.  If it’s off, leave it off and take it back immediately.  Also, I’d recommend not carrying it in your pocket, just in case it decides to catch fire on its own.

“Samsung will ask all carrier and retail partners globally to stop sales and exchanges of the Galaxy Note 7 … Consumers with an original Galaxy Note 7 or replacement Galaxy Note 7 should power down and take advantage of the remedies available, including a refund at their place of purchase,” said a statement emailed to The Verge by Samsung.

Typically, you only see a recall like this when you’re dealing with something really dangerous, like a Toyota with defective brakes.  However, these phones are dangerous; Samsung is working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to take care of the recall.  Five of the refurbished phones have caught fire in the last week, with one of them forcing an airplane to land while the phone burned.  That’s really unsafe, so please… just put your phone in something fireproof and get it out of your house.

Tags: samsung, samsung recall, samsung galaxy recall, samsung galaxy note 7, samsung recalls all galaxy note 7 phones, galaxy note 7 recall, phones, smartphones, product recalls, samsung phone recall, Consumer Product Safety Commission, CPSC

McDonald’s has tried valiantly to change its business around, to keep growth happening and to keep their place at the top of the fast food world, but it’s not happening quite as easily as it might have.  Mickey D’s attempt at all-day breakfasts hasn’t sparked the way it was expected, and while they’re still changing stores and trying new things, it’s not reaching out to the young people like it once did.  Only one in five millennials has eaten a Big Mac.  Not this month, not this year, ever.

Of course, people are still eating at McDonald’s, because it’s incredibly convenient and takes almost no time to pick up hot, relatively fresh food from the drive-through.  That’s the linchpin of McDonald’s business, with 70 percent of the average restaurant’s business going out the window, because the food itself isn’t very good.  It’s satisfying, and it fills a very specific urge, but these days, the kids are more likely to spend their money eating elsewhere at fast-casual restaurants with better ingredients and slightly longer wait times.  Millennials are eating out more often, and eating less McDonald’s than ever.

Now it’s McDonald’s trying to play catch-up from the top.  Fresh meat, better ingredients, more attention paid to sourcing… but still to get food out the door in less than 90 seconds.

Tags: big mac, mcdonald’s, mcdonald’s big mac, millennials, millennials don’t eat big macs, millennials and mcdonald’s, fast food, food trends, unusual food trends, mcdonald’s slumping sales, one in five millennials has eaten a big mac, only one in five millennials has eaten a big mac, millennial eating trends, food news

The political system in America, by and large, works pretty good.  Sure, there are occasionally disagreements between various political factions, but most of the time things don’t go past the argument stage.  There are occasional issues with Donald Trump’s more ardent supporters, but even those pale in comparison to what goes in in some other places in the world.  There’s not real political violence here, just the occasional depictions of it in entertainment.  A parade float in Indiana depicted Hillary Clinton being executed in an electric chair with Donald Trump pulling the switch.

The float was in a parade sponsored by the Aurora Lions Club.  The club, for their part say that they didn’t have any input into the parade floats, nor did they screen any of the parade entries.  The city of Aurora itself has gone out of its way to distance themselves from the content, saying that it doesn’t reflect the values of any of townsfolk.  However, the float’s creator says that the placement of the politicians is clearly coincidental, and not some sort of artsy political statement.

“I could have taken and put Donald Trump in that float and had Hillary pull the handle,” said the float’s creator, Frank Linkemeyer.  “Nevertheless, I would have never pleased everybody.  It definitely was all for laughter.”

Tags: parades, unusual parade floats, parade float, politics, hillary clinton, donald trump, hillary clinton electric chair, hillary electric chair, hillary clinton electric chair float, political float features hillary clinton execution, hillary clinton float, hillary clinton parade float, aurora, indiana, Frank Linkemeyer, aurora lions club

When someone owns most of your company, it’s pretty hard to tell him no.  Sumner Redstone is a huge player in the media world, thanks to his company National Amusements.  National Amusements is a movie theater chain that also happens to own 80 percent of two massive media companies, CBS and Viacom.  So, in effect, Sumner Redstone (and daughter Shari) own National Amusements, CBS, and Viacom, and yet all three are separate companies.  Apparently, that might be changing.  Sumner Redstone is trying to talk CBS and Viacom into merging.

Redstone, who is an ailing 93-year-old media mogul, would like to see the struggling Viacom get folded under CBS and the leadership of Les Moonves, who has CBS running like a well-oiled entertainment machine.  He’d also like to get Paramount Pictures hooked into a more stable corporate partner.  Viacom has about $12 billion in debt, which makes it a difficult proposition for a merger with a company that isn’t already under the same ownership group.

For his part, Moonves is hesitant to create another Comcast NBC Universal-type corporate monolith.  “We are never going to do something that is bad for CBS shareholders,” he told investors at a Bank of America Merrill Lynch conference.

Tags: sumner redstone, viacom, cbs, national amusements, cbs viacom, cbs and viacom merger, les moonves, cbs and viacom considering merger, corporate mergers, broadcast television, cable television, media, paramount, shari redstone

Just when it looked like things were turning around for Yahoo, no such luck.  It wasn’t that long ago that Marissa Mayer left Google and successfully orchestrated the sale of Yahoo to Verizon for $4.8 billion dollars.  Well, that silver lining is now tarnished, because Yahoo is facing one of the biggest security problems of any company ever.  Over 500 million accounts were breached in a hacking attack.  It’s the largest single hack of an email provider ever.

“A recent investigation by Yahoo has confirmed that a copy of certain user account information was stolen from the company’s network in late 2014 by what it believes is a state-sponsored actor. The account information may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords (the vast majority with bcrypt) and, in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers. The ongoing investigation suggests that stolen information did not include unprotected passwords, payment card data, or bank account information; payment card data and bank account information are not stored in the system that the investigation has found to be affected,” reads a statement from Yahoo CISO Bob Lord.

Yahoo blames “state-sponsored actors” for the breach, which means China or Russia.  The company is working with the FBI and law enforcement officials to trace down the hacking.  Officials first became aware of the breach when a hacker named Peace tried to sell 200 million accounts on the black market.  Turns out, it was a whole lot bigger than Yahoo’s last massive security breach in 2012.

Tags: yahoo, yahoo hack, yahoo hacked, 500 million yahoo accounts hacked, largest email hack ever, yahoo victim of massive hack, verizon, marissa mayer, yahoo accounts hacked, yahoo victim of largest email hack ever, peace, bob lord, peace

Fall is my favorite season.  The leaves change color, and food all takes on different properties.  That doughnut?  Now a pumpkin spice doughnut.  That latte?  Now it’s every white girl’s favorite drink, the pumpkin spice latte.  Pumpkin spice everything is out there, ready for the taking, so enjoy it while it lasts.  (Next is peppermint everything season.)  It’s not surprising that McDonald’s is jumping on the bandwagon, but a way in which McDonald’s Japan is celebrating fall is pretty weird, even by Japanese standards.  McDonald’s Japan has pumpkin chocolate french fries.

As you can see above, it’s exactly what you think it might be.  Standard McDonald’s fries form the base.  Top them with a drizzle of chocolate sauce.  Top that with a drizzle of pumpkin sauce.  Orange, black, and deep fried to perfection, McDonald’s Japan’s unique take on American food is what makes it fascinating, but these are just… well, these are just probably the most delicious looking thing on the menu for my money.

The pumpkin chocolate fries go on sale on September 28, and they’re out of the stores as of October 31, so if you’re interested, you’d best book your flight to Japan.  These babies aren’t coming to America any time soon.

Tags: weird food, unusual foods, pumpkin season, fall foods, special food for fall, pumpkin chocolate french fries, pumpkin fries, pumpkin chocolate fries, mcdonald’s, mcdonald’s japan, japan has pumpkin chocolate fries, fast food, mcdonald’s japan pumpkin fries, mcdonald’s japan fries

People live in fear of clowns.  Not me, but there’s just something about clowns that makes a lot of people very uncomfortable.  A trio of Alabama kids used that fear of clowns to prey on the fears of some classmates and associates in the town of Flomaton, and they’ve landed not in a puddle of seltzer but in a heap of hot water.  After several schools were locked down due to threat of clowns, 22-year-old Makayla Smith and two juveniles were arrested.

The three apparently made a couple of Facebook accounts with the names “FLOMO KLOWN” and “Shoota Cllown” and warned that clowns were going to show up at local schools.  Unsurprisingly, officials with the Calhoun County and Escambria County sheriff’s departments weren’t amused.  The three were arrested and charged with felony terroristic threatening; Smith faces a $200,000 bond and, if she pays, will be banned from using the Internet, presumably until trial.  No word on what the juveniles face, but local officials have been quick to tamp down copy-cat clowners.

“The Sheriff’s Office has received numerous reports of social media posts of individuals making threats under the auspice of being clowns.  These threats under Alabama Law could result in arrest for ‘Making a Terroristic Threat’ which is a felony,” reads a Facebook post from the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Department.  “School resource officers have identified several suspects that were making the posts and an investigation is currently ongoing.”

Tags: killer clown, killer clowns from alabama, flomaton, alabama, alabama killer clown, killer clown hoax, clown hoax alabama, calhoun county sheriff’s department, calhoun county, Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, FLOMO KLOWN, Shoota Cllown, makayla smith, three arrested after murder clown hoax, unusual crimes

The streets of Dhaka are running red with blood.  We’re not talking little trickles of blood, either; we’re talking full-on blood flood filling the city, turning the capital of Bangladesh into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.  There have been lots of horrible flooding events, like a flood of toxic sludge and street-clogging floods of frogs, but a flood of blood has to be the worst possible kind of flood I can imagine.

As it turns out, the blood isn’t from some sort of The Shining elevator situation.  It’s related to one of the holiest events of the Islamic calendar.  The blood comes from the so-called Feast of Sacrifice, Eid al-Adha.  Adherents take animals, like goats and bulls, and sacrifice them in the streets, giving the meat of the dead animals to the poor and mimicking the blood sacrifice made by Abraham (Ibrahim in the Koran) after God tested him with the order to sacrifice his son.

Dhaka has over 1000 designated sacrifice points, but some people clearly just took animals out into the street and started hacking, and when you combine lots of animal blood, flooding rains, and poor drainage, you end up with some pretty horrifying scenes of people wading through knee-deep ichor.

Tags: islam, islamic ceremonies, dhaka, bangladesh, rivers of blood, blood sacrifice, Eid al-Adha, feast of sacrifice, unusual rituals, unusual religious practices, islam blood sacrifice, animal sacrifice, blood floods streets of bangladesh, bangladesh blood flood, unusual images

When John Muir laid out the plans for Yosemite National Park in 1890, one of the things he’d included in the massive park was an area called Ackerson Meadows, which is a meadow and wetland area some 400 acres near the park’s Big Oak Flat entrance.  For whatever reason, that never happened, while other parks came into being.  Since then, Yosemite has become one of the nation’s most beloved parks, and the National Park Service hasn’t taken their eyes of Ackerson Meadow.  Yosemite National Park is now 400 acres larger thanks to the addition of Ackerson Meadow.

The purchase was arranged by The Trust For Public Land, who payed $2.3 million for the 400 acres of land.  It’s a relatively small plot, but it’s full of some incredible biodiversity, with a third of all of the plant species found in the park in the area.  The purchase was organized by private donors and a variety of public land trusts, and it comes just a month after the National Park Service celebrated its 100th birthday.  It’s the park’s largest acquisition since 1949.

“It’s a stunning open meadow surrounded by forest habitat, which supports a wide variety of flora and fauna species and offers new meadow experiences for park visitors,” said Yosemite National Park Superintendent Don Neubacher of the park’s new edition.  “This meadow is a remarkable gift to the American people, coming at a historic time as we celebrate the Centennial of the National Park Service.”

Tags: yosemite national park, yosemite, yosemite adds 400 acres, ackerson meadow, yosemite adds ackerson meadow, 400 acres added to yosemite national park, yosemite adds ackerson meadow, the trust for public land, don neubacher, john muir, ackerson meadow added to yosemite national park, national parks service