According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is in discussions to integrate data from Foursquare, a popular mobile app that lets your friends know when you’re at bars and restaurants, into their iPhone mapping app. It will be a nice touch to be able to know where your friends are even if you can’t get the right directions to find them.
A study published in Nature Methods by Chinese stem-cell biologists claims the scientists have been able to convert human urine into brain cells. Since they’ve only created precursors of brain cells so far, and not the actual things, the scientists don’t know if there will be any side effects, such as the person receiving the new cells being permanently pissed off. Apparently the procedure only works with urine so you don’t have to worry about the creation of more people with shit for brains.
It started as a joke on Pizza Hut’s Facebook page but became real when the company that puts pizza-like substances on America’s dinner table released a limited edition Pizza Hut Perfume they claim smells like freshly baked dough with a little bit of seasoning mixed in. In related news, Chanel is introducing a Chanel No. 5-scented thin crust pizza hand tossed by Brad Pitt at perfume counters nationwide.
While Mitt Romney has to be bummed about having spent six years and a gazillion dollars trying to be elected and losing, at least he lost to a live guy. In Alabama, Republican nominee for the Bibb County Commission Charles Beasley defeated Democrat Walter Sansing despite his having died on October 12. And in Florida, Democrat Earl K. Wood was re-elected to a 12th term as Orange County Tax Collector in Orlando even though he died on October 15. We take solace wherever we can get it, Mr. Romney.
A study published in the journal Current Biology finds that Korean eunuchs — testicularly challenged men who were castrated as boys — lived between 14 to 19 years longer than intact men. They suspect this could be because male sex hormones play a role in life span. Or perhaps life just feels longer when you don’t have sex.
After his wife’s airplane had to make an emergency landing Friday because of an electrical malfunction, prospective head of our country Mitt Romney bemoaned something all pre-schoolers have thought about: Windows in airplanes don’t roll down, dammit! “When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that,” Romney told the Los Angeles Times. Besides, what if you want to talk to your dog who’s strapped to the roof?
A Harvard University professor says she’s translated a fourth-century copy of the Gospel in which Jesus refers to “my wife.” The piece of papyrus goes on to call his wife Mary, says “she can be my disciple,” and quotes Jesus as telling his followers, “Take my wife, please.” If proven to be genuine, the Coptic text may prove not only that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, but that Henny Youngman did, in fact, steal his famous line from one of his contemporaries.
In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Google’s Sergey Brin said his favorite feature of the Google Glasses is the voice-activated time-lapse capability that lets him take photos of his kids every 10 seconds when he is playing with them. “I never think about taking out my phone,” he said. “That would really be disruptive to my play time.” It’s so much less disruptive to have the kids wondering why Dad’s wearing some goofy glasses and they have to keep asking, “Are you talking to me, Daddy, or your glasses?”
The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure set a movie opening record this Labor Day weekend. Unfortunately it’s the record for the all-time worst box office opening in history, having taken in a whopping $448,131 in its first three days. Total. On 2,160 screens. That comes to about $207 per screen…for the whole weekend. This is whole $69 a day per screen. If they had, say, as few as three shows per day, that’s $23 per show. Considering they’re all matinees, this means on average they probably had two adults and one child at each showing of the movie over the weekend. Somewhere in Hollywood, Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty, and everyone else involved in Ishtar is happy they weren’t involved in this one.
While trying to get at a stray kitten that was hiding in the engine compartment of a minivan in Palm Springs, California, four pit bulls managed to flatten one of the car’s tires and chew off big chunks of the fender and bumper. Not to worry, the kitten was okay and is up for adoption. And please, don’t blame the dogs. Remember, “Pit bulls don’t eat kittens, their owners do.”
If you need to find a local Ghostbuster on eBay you’d better do it soon. According to eBay’s Fall Seller Update, as of August 30 they’ll be banning the sale of supernatural services, including: “advice; spells; curses; hexing; conjuring; magic services; prayers; blessings; Psychic, Tarot, Reiki, and other metaphysical readings & services; magic potions; healing sessions.” This shouldn’t come as any surprise to the sellers of these services who should have seen it coming.
According to the security company F-Secure, a cyberattack shut down the automation network at two of Iran’s uranium-enrichment plants, then in the middle of the night the computers started playing AC/DC’s Thunderstruck at maximum volume. Apparently the hackers couldn’t secure the rights for Flock of Seagull’s I Ran.
Actor Fred Willard was arrested for lewd conduct at the Tiki Theater, an adult movie theater in Los Angeles last night. At least Willard, known for his roles in Fernwoody 2 Night, Everybody Loves My Raymond, and Idle Hands, wasn’t sitting next to Pee Wee Herman when the undercover cops, uh, grabbed him. In the immortal words of Mike LaFontaine, the character he played in A Mighty Wind, “Wha’ happened?”
No sooner did Ralph Lauren show off the uniforms he created for the U.S. Olympic team than people started screaming because it turns out the uniforms are being made entirely in China. Never mind that the athletes will be mistaken for flight attendants should they foolishly wear them on the airplane on the way to London. Nor that it makes them look like they’re on the cover of Devo’s Greatest Hit Or Two. On the positive side, at least Lauren won’t have to worry about the Chinese counterfeiting them. They only do that if there’s a market for them.
On Thursday night, 14 women who survived the horrors of World War II walked down a pageant runway in Israel hoping to win the title as the first “Miss Holocaust Survivor.” The entrants were judged on their account of surviving Nazi ghettos and concentration camps, their later contributions to their communities, and yes, physical appearance, though promoters said that only accounted for “10 percent” of the scoring. Seventy-eight year-old Hava Hershkovitz won, receiving flowers and a sparkling tiara. She hopes to do well when she competes against Miss Bosnian Serb Ethnic Cleansing and Miss Rwanda Genocide at the upcoming Miss Ethnic Disaster Pageant.
When CNN asked contestants in this past weekend’s Miss USA Pageant who is the vice president of the United States, a number of them drew a blank, including one who humorously responded, “World Peace?” Now you know why it’s called the Miss USA Pageant and not Jeopardy. [Hint: His first name’s Joe and his last name rhymes with “ridin'”.]
Researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville Forensic Anthropology Center report that between the mid-1800s and the mid-1980s, the skulls of White Americans have become larger. They’re not sure why we’re looking more like Charlie Brown but place the blame on either evolution, lifestyle changes, or Charles M. Schultz.
The National Hurricane Center announced the second named tropical storm of the East Pacific this season. It’s a Category 2 storm off the southwestern coast of Mexico named Hurricane Bud. Those hoping for Hurricane Bubba will have to wait until next year, but there’s still hope for Hurricane Dude, Hurricane Gaga, and Hurricane Sup.
Police in Newtown Township, Pennsylvania, are searching for a man who exposed himself to a woman inside the Bucks County Association for the Blind bookstore. The suspect was described as a skinny, black, clueless male between the age of 35 and 45 years old who probably has a prior record of creating noisy disturbances at the Bucks County School for the Deaf.
Beginning this month, 7-Eleven will start selling sugar-free Slurpees, starting with Fanta Mango flavor. The sugar-free version will have 20 calories vs. 66 calories for a normal Slurpee. That’s if you get it in an 8-ounce cup, a cute little size no one knows exists since it looks like a thimbleful next to the usual 44-ounce cup. Not to mention that each store only gets three 8-ounce cups a year and they usually use them to practice cup stacking.
