Torn from yesterday's headlines

The Onion: Increasingly horrified man listens to self explain what he does for a living

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:58:09 -0500

The Onion: Increasingly horrified man listens to self explain what he does for a living:

“Mostly what I do is I seek out discrepancies in the property appraisal versus the claimant’s estimate of worth and then I…then I defer outpays…with…oh, God…,” Pettlebaum said as shadows of unspeakable self-realization flickered across his increasingly desperate eyes. “Wait, no, that can’t be right. I don’t…do I?”

"I'm just going through a tough time right now. I'm sorry." — Jason Rodríguez

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:35:00 -0500

"I'm just going through a tough time right now. I'm sorry." — Jason Rodríguez:

Jason Rodríguez, 40, is the engineer accused of fatally shooting one employee, Otis Beckford, 26, and wounding five others, all of whom are expected to survive, at Reynolds, Smith and Hills, the firm where he once worked as an entry-level engineer for 11 months, before being fired in June of 2007. Mr. Beckford is survived by a young daughter and his fiancée.

Employees recognised their former co-worker when he drew a handgun from a holster under his shirt, police said, and killed Mr. Beckford next to a receptionist’s desk in an office at a downtown Orlando tower. He then walked into the common working area and opened fire, wounding five other employees of the firm he had been fired from two years ago.

Hours after the shootings, police tracked Mr. Rodríguez to his mother’s home and ordered him to come out. He surrendered peacefully, apologising as officers handcuffed him. His mother apologised Saturday, saying, “so sorry for everything that has happened. Sorry for the families involved. I’m really very sorry, it is very hurtful.”

Mr. Rodríguez told detectives he blamed the firm for recent trouble he had receiving unemployment benefits. A reporter asked why he had attacked his former colleagues. “Because they left me to rot,” said Mr. Rodríguez, who worked on drawings in the firm’s transportation group. His supervisors said his performance was not up to their standards, and when he did not improve, he was sacked, after which the firm did not hear from him again. “This is really a mystery to us,” said Ken Jacobson, the firm’s general legal counsel and chief financial officer. “There was nothing to indicate any hard feelings.”

Contrary to Mr. Jacobson, Mr. Rodríguez said that the company had fired him without cause and made him look incompetent.

At a recent bankruptcy hearing, Mr. Rodríguez told a judge he was making less than $30,000 a year at a Subway sandwich shop, after being unemployed for 1½ years, and had debts of nearly $90,000. He explained that the shop could not give him enough working hours, and thus filed for unemployment. When a cheque did not arrive, he blamed Reynolds, Smith and Hills, believing they had harmed his effort to qualify for benefits.

Les Winograd, a spokesman for Subway, said that Mr. Rodríguez had worked for one of the sandwich shops in the Orlando area until six weeks ago. He would not say whether Mr. Rodríguez was sacked.

His bankruptcy attorney, Charles Price, said that he had not seen Mr. Rodríguez since the summer.

Mr. Rodríguez’s former mother-in-law, America Holloway, gave an interview to the Associated Press. During the interview, Mrs. Holloway said that her daughter, Neshby, had been married to Jason Rodríguez for 6½ years, before divorcing several years ago, and that the family had lived with her in Orlando for several years. Mrs. Holloway accused Mr. Rodríguez of abusing her daughter, once throwing all of her clothing into the street. The Rodríguez family have an eight-year-old son, who he has seldom seen.

Last week, Mr. Rodríguez telephoned Mrs. Holloway’s home, speaking to his son, who asked why he would not come join them. He replied, “Because I don’t have any money. I don’t have a job. I don’t have anything to eat. When things get better, I’ll come see you.”

“I used to tell my daughter he was crazy,” Mrs. Holloway said.

News of the World: This 11-year-old schoolgirl had a baby ... on her wedding day

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:21:35 -0500

News of the World: This 11-year-old schoolgirl had a baby ... on her wedding day:

Bride giving interview to news paper makes me sceptical. Quotation from interview, “I’m not going to play with toys any more — I have a new toy now.” makes me wish we could spray Ortho-Novum from planes.

How do you say, "We're intrigued, but we'll believe all this when we see it" in Japanese?

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:17:52 -0500

How do you say, "We're intrigued, but we'll believe all this when we see it" in Japanese?

A laser-beam-powered robot ascended a half-mile cable dangling...

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:07:31 -0500

A laser-beam-powered robot ascended a half-mile cable dangling from a helicopter as part of the Space Elevator Power Beaming Games, in competition for U.S. $2 million (England £1.2 thousand million or €1.3 milliard).

"It’s a fantastic business. Because it’s digital, the marginal cost for every one you sell is zero,..."

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:44:37 -0500

“It’s a fantastic business. Because it’s digital, the marginal cost for every one you sell is zero, so you have 100 percent margins.”

- Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners discussing the US$5 billion (English £3 thousand million or €3 milliard) world-wide “virtual goods” market, which includes items such as “gifts” on Facebook and costumes for avatars

Spokane, Wash.: Van stolen here 35 years ago turns up in shipping container

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:31:00 -0500

Spokane, Wash.: Van stolen here 35 years ago turns up in shipping container:

“Customs agents in Los Angeles got a surprise last month when they opened a shipping container headed for the Netherlands: a restored 1965 Volkswagen van reported stolen in Spokane more than 35 years ago.”

The agents came across the van 19 October, in a shipping container at the Los Angeles/Long Beach seaport complex. When they ran the vehicle identification number they discovered it was still listed as stolen.

Michael Maleta, an auto theft investigator with the California Highway Patrol, said that federal officials at the border check vehicles against the National Insurance Crime Bureau database, which includes all old stolen-car cases. Most police databases remove stolen cars from “active” status after five years — after which stolen cars may be sold and resold to buyers who can register the vehicles with state agencies.

The legal owner of the van is Allstate Insurance, which paid off the owner back in 1974, and the highway patrol turned over the van to the company this week. Megan Brunet, a spokeswoman for Allstate, said the company has been digging through old records trying to find the original policy and theft claim. “We’ve been looking through our files to find the original policy. Trying to find paper files from that far back can be pretty challenging.”

British Broadcasting Corporation: South Korean woman passes 950th driving test

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:19:33 -0500

British Broadcasting Corporation: South Korean woman passes 950th driving test:

Whereas were she a Bostonian, she would have had her driving licence on her 1^st try in 2005.

"It’s good that we have a term limit. Otherwise I would have stayed until I was carried away in..."

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:12:45 -0500

“It’s good that we have a term limit. Otherwise I would have stayed until I was carried away in a coffin. Or defeated in an election.”

- William J. Clinton, 42^nd President of the United States

"The Republican renaissance has begun! If you don’t think last night was sweet, you need to go..."

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:09:21 -0500

“The Republican renaissance has begun! If you don’t think last night was sweet, you need to go see a doctor!”

- Michael Steele on Republicans’ victory in two gubernatorial races and loss of one House seat

"Here in the age of Internet porn it’s hard to know exactly what percentage of male orgasms..."

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:36:01 -0500

“Here in the age of Internet porn it’s hard to know exactly what percentage of male orgasms occur in front of a computer monitor, but we’re going to guess it’s more than half.”

- Cracked

Victim in fatal car accident tragically not Glenn Beck

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:00:47 -0500

Victim in fatal car accident tragically not Glenn Beck

Become a PowerPoint "power user"

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:49:00 -0500

Become a PowerPoint "power user":

Don’t use PowerPoint. Try writing an actual outline of what you want to say instead.

Well-a-day, that was easy!

The Torygraph: Vikings preferred male grooming to pillaging

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:14:13 -0400

The Torygraph: Vikings preferred male grooming to pillaging:

Please, just tell me it’s a lie. I don’t care how valid it is. Just tell me it’s a lie.

1 of 7 sex tips that could end up with a trip to the casualty ward

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:30:55 -0400

“Make two fists around my shaft and twist them in opposite directions, as fast as you can.”

— Jamie, age 30

For those of you who never had older brothers, this technique, when applied to the forearm, is called an “Indian rug burn”. We’re not sure if the politically correct version would be an “indigenous American rug burn” or a “south-east Asian rug burn”, but that’s irrelevant because when done to your manhood it would need a new term completely. Something like, “a crime a million times worse than genocide”.

— Christian Madera, writing for Cracked

"A North Carolina man had surgery to remove a plastic spoon that had been in his lung for two years. ..."

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:58:00 -0400

“A North Carolina man had surgery to remove a plastic spoon that had been in his lung for two years. “There was an object down there, and it had writing on it,” the man said. “It spelled out ‘Wendy’s’ on one side and ‘hamburgers’ on the other.””

- “Doctors remove plastic spoon from Wilmington man’s lung”. Reported by Casey Roman on 18 September, 2009, for WECT, (Wilmington, N.C.).

"A new, less-redacted version of a 2004 C.I.A. report on interrogation methods was released. ..."

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:17:00 -0400

“A new, less-redacted version of a 2004 C.I.A. report on interrogation methods was released. “I’m very proud of what we did,” said Dick Cheney of the torture program, which involved guns, shackles, mock executions, and drills.”

- The Washington Post — “Prosecutor to probe C.I.A. interrogations, Attorney General parts with White House in approving preliminary investigation”

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Microsoft Entourage.

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 22:55:00 -0400

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Microsoft Entourage.:

BOOT UP:
INT. SEATTLE CONDOMINIUM − DAY EXCEL, WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER, and WINDOWS DRIVER KIT are lounging in the home office. WINDOWS MOVIEMAKER waltzes in with a beautiful but vapid 3-D MODELING SOFTWARE APPLICATION FOR VISUAL BASIC clad only in a men’s dress shirt. MOVIEMAKER: Hey, fellas, meet Dora. MODELING SOFTWARE: It’s Eudora. MOVIEMAKER (smiles impishly): Sorry − Eudora, I-Dora, we all Dora. (Slaps USB cables with Driver Kit) What are you guys up to? MEDIA PLAYER: We’re in the middle of some serious defragmenting and recharging, bro. MOVIEMAKER: Wild night Minesweeping for the ladies, huh? DRIVER KIT: Not for Media Player; everyone was incompatible with him, so he spent all night jerking off to porno .wmas. MEDIA PLAYER: At least I don’t have a 3.5’ floppy disk. EXCEL: Guys, shut the hell down, I’m on Live Messenger with Microsoft Agent.

Infoworld: 33% offended by language in work emails — Brits misinterpret tone of messages

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:16:32 -0400

Infoworld: 33% offended by language in work emails — Brits misinterpret tone of messages:

Entirely too cute, especially as they do rather like to get rather in a tiff about aluminium and tomatoes, and point out, “The language was invented here.”

These appear next to each other in my RSS reader. I do not know how, or why.

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:28:00 -0400

American Voices: Plan B To Be Available As Generic

A generic version of Plan B, also known as the morning-after pill, was approved by the FDA and will be available in August. What do you think?

“When will they come out with something for men who have had unplanned, unprotected sex? Oh, yeah, I guess that’s called ‘not calling’.” — Chad Johnson, big rig mechanic

The Sun: Dad-it-yourself — £30 DNA paternity tests over chemist counter

Medical ethics experts warned that the tests — a regular item on Jeremy Kyle’s ITV daytime talk show — could foster a “culture of suspicion” and cause marriages to break up.

Really, you think that people who want to perform clandestine paternity tests might be part of a “culture of suspicion”? Whatever gave you that idea?