There's a story about how a guy snuck a monkey onto a plane from Peru to New York, but the best part is he did it by hiding the monkey under his hat.
It began Monday when the man boarded a flight from Peru to Fort Lauderdale, Florida with the tiny monkey tucked under his hat. He then spent several hours at the Fort Lauderdale airport before catching a connecting flight to New York's La Guardia airport.
During that flight the monkey crawled out from under the man's hat and onto his shoulder, where it was spotted by other passengers. Police were waiting for the man when the plane arrived at La Guardia. It's still unclear what charges he could face.
The tiny marmoset is now under quarantine. Michael Pastore of New York City Animal Care and Control says that monkeys that appear to be healthy can still carry a variety of diseases, and that they'll be watching this one closely.
So the guy actually got onto 2 different flights with the monkey. I'm surprised that he didn't arouse any suspicion at security, though if the monkey was small enough and quiet enough, I guess he could get through security if he never had to remove his hat. Why he would ever let the monkey come out in plain view of other passengers is a mystery. Obviously that means trouble. Also I was immediately reminded of this:
Timo Kaukonen won the male championship for the third year in a row, staying in a sauna heated to 110 degrees Celsius (230 Fahrenheit) for 12 minutes and 26 seconds. Among the women, Leila Kulin endured the incredible heat for 10 minutes and 31 seconds, almost two minutes better than [t]he closest rival, another Finn.
The contest is one of number of bizarre Finnish championships including wife-carrying and cellphone throwing.
On a sidenote, I censored the title. I don't know if anyone would care, but I figure when there's people from all over the web reading stories, it's good to keep things PG-13, at least in the titles of stories.
This is pretty hilarious and awesome. Apparently a train taking soccer fans to Hamburg stopped for nearly a half hour because the beer tap malfunctioned.
Federal police said Monday that the beer tap failed aboard a special train carrying Bayer Leverkusen fans to Hamburg on Saturday. The fault was discovered half an hour into the journey.
"In order not to endanger the good mood" of the passengers, railway officials halted the train in Wuppertal for 25 minutes and had a replacement part delivered by taxi, a police statement said. It added that there was no trouble among the fans.
This week's episode was pretty great. And a large part of that was due to the fact that we had no T&D adventure. There were basically four storylines that were plenty of material on their own. The twists with the desk being purchased by Gary and not fitting the new office were pretty funny. Ari got to go completely crazy and that's always great. Seeing the Sklar brothers playing their characters was great too. But most importantly we got back to the overall plot with E starting to advance his career. But this is going to get dangerous. With talk of him getting an assistant, is there a chance Ari will eventually go away? I don't think that can happen for the sake of the show, but I don't know how they can stop it from going there eventually.
Gary Busey proves he is, in fact, crazy
Things are definitely getting interesting now though. Either Eric's going to get successful through the Peter Jackson story (in which case can we finally be done with Walsh?!? Please!) or he's going to fail (to me this is more likely, as it allows Ari to stay in the picture, and Entourage loves conflict).
Sidenote: I love how they used "Damn it Feels Good To Be a Gangsta" when introducing E's "Office Space". From the description on the music credits page, it's apparent that was intentional.
As you've probably heard, a bridge in Minneapolis collapsed during late-rush hour on Wednesday, causing numerous injuries and a few deaths. The story quickly circulated through the news, and now a couple of days have passed and they're trying to determine the cause.
But the media seems to have taken this story and run with it, starting to question what other bridges may be unsafe around the country. On the local news last night, the brief headline was about the bridge collapse and whether there was a danger of something similar happening in Chicago, with shots of several bridges downtown. It's not like 3 bridges collapsed in a week, so why are they trying to imply this is going to happen elsewhere? Sure, it doesn't hurt to be safe, but stop trying to instill fear for no reason. Bad things happen everyday...that doesn't mean you should start fearing it's all going to happen to you.
And yeah, the media has a history of fear mongering with their headlines, but this one seems more over the top than usual. For instance, CNN's got 12 links in just the top section of their homepage related to the bridge incident:
(Click to enlarge)
12 links point to bridge-related stories
The line that's the best example of the fear mongering is the last link: "Collapsing bridges, exploding streets -- is America's infrastructure crumbling?"
This week's episode was really odd. And after letting it soak in for a bit, it also seems like it was nothing more than useless filler. It was all about the guys getting laid and Ari's quest to get his kid into school and the whole thing seemed totally detached from anything. Lloyd was in it for 5 seconds for no obvious reason. The T&D adventure was a little funnier than usual, but still just stupid antics. And actually, since Vince and E were basically on their own T&D adventure, that probably explains why this episode felt so weird and misguided.
A kid takes down Ari
To be fair, there was the usual hilarity with Ari, though the crying seemed pretty over the top. And I was relieved to see that Sloane won't be re-entering the picture. They've milked that storyline dry, and it had me on pins and needles when E was trying to get it going again.
Hopefully next week we'll get back to some stuff about Medellin and Vince's next project. I really hope they somehow write Billy out of the next project though. I'm pretty much tired of seeing him creating more chaos at this point.
Here's another screencap from this episode, a hilarious shot of Turtle. But I am just linking it because if you haven't seen the episode yet it'll ruin some of the fun if you see this pic beforehand.
dave submitted a story about some potential 24 changes for the upcoming season. None of this is particularly surprising considering the producers already acknowledged that fans were displeased with Season 6. This Chicago Tribune article sheds some light on what kinds of changes might be in store. If you're trying to stay completely spoiler-free, now's the time to stop reading, though there's nothing too revealing here:
When season 7 of "24" debuts on Fox in January, Kiefer Sutherland's driven agent will be hauled before a Congressional committee "to answer for what are perceived to be his crimes," executive producer Manny Coto said Friday at a "24" panel Comic-Con International in San Diego.
And with the action likely moving to Washington, D.C., the famous CTU set is gone, producers said. Really, truly gone. "I want people to know that, because I know they’re going to be asking," said director/producer Jon Cassar after the panel. Executive producer Evan Katz said the team is "98 percent sure" of the Beltway move.
In the panel presentation, producers confirmed the return of technology whiz Chloe O'Brien (Mary Lynn Rajskub), and broadly hinted at another possible return: Tony Almeida (Carlos Bernard). If he comes back (and it's a big if), it will come as a surprise to fans who remember the former agent dying in Jack’s arms in season 5. But producers said Friday that they weren't especially happy with how Tony's death was handled. "Tony's death wasn't satisfying," executive producer David Fury said after the session.
But was it a death? Judging by how often his name came up on Friday, you never know. When asked if characters from past season -- other than Chloe -- might reappear in season 7, Katz said that was a definite possibility.
While I thought that Tony's acting was pretty ridiculous, I'd be happy to see him back. Of course with a show like 24 a lot of characters will come and go (bring back David Palmer too!), but it'd be nice to have a larger number of people carrying over from season to season.
Aquafina is about to change their labeling to stop misleading people into thinking their water is something other than tap water. Currently the way they market it and their "purity guaranteed" line make it seem like it's coming from a different source.
The label on Aquafina water bottles will soon be changed to spell out that the drink comes from the same source as tap water, the brand's owner said Friday.
A group called Corporate Accountability International has been pressuring bottled water sellers to curb what it calls misleading marketing practices.
Aquafina is the single biggest bottled water brand, and its bottles are now labeled "P.W.S." The new labels will spell out "public water source." "If this helps clarify the fact that the water originates from public sources, then it's a reasonable thing to do," PepsiCo spokeswoman Michelle Naughton said Friday.
The corporate accountability group is also pressing for similar concessions from The Coca-Cola Co., which owns the Dasani water brand. Dasani's Web site says that Dasani comes from local water supplies and is then filtered.
"We don't believe that consumers are confused about the source of Dasani water," Coca-Cola spokeswoman Diana Garza Ciarlante said. "The label clearly states that it is purified water."
I think there's plenty of people that don't know what "purified water" is supposed to mean, and certainly there's plenty who wouldn't know what P.W.S. stands for. Then again, I wonder how many people are getting bottled water because they think it's purer or better than tap water versus those who get bottled water for the convenience. To me, bottled water always seemed like an obvious ripoff.
This rant is the 11th installment of the Rant On... series, which will be featured regularly - by which I mean whenever I feel like ranting. Post any suggestions for future rants in the comments.
This rant was inspired by the showing of The Italian Job last night on FX. Specifically the part where they're going through a montage about how they're setting up. The camera zooms in on a blueprint and suddenly you hear a "Woosh!" and flames come shooting out of it. Was someone on the otherside taking a blowtorch to the blueprint? Oh, no, it's just an ad for Rescue Me on FX and the fire is blazing around the bottom of the screen.
For what it's worth, I think TNT is much worse about this practice, but I still can't understand who in their right minds thought it was a good idea. I can see why it's being done...with increased DVR usage people are skipping the standard commercial breaks. If an ad plays while your program plays, you can't skip it! Nevermind that it might detract from the show. Or in the case of some of TNT's ads, completely distract from it to the point of annoyance. For example, they pick a drama-filled moment of Minority Report to do the following:
Popup the Nascar logo where the TNT watermark usually is positioned.
Have 3 little guys come running out from the side of the screen to the logo.
Proceed to have them act like this is a pit stop and they are servicing the Nascar logo.
Complete with OBNOXIOUS SOUNDS that are much louder than the program being watched. I really want to miss key names and plot points so I can hear the non-existent NASCAR logo tires getting changed.
In case it wasn't enough distraction, have one of the guys leave by leaping over the logo and landing behind it.
Fade the logo back to TNT.
What would be equally effective is the following:
Have a little guy come and walk out from the side.
Mute whatever program I'm watching, regardless of what is going on. But try to do it when there's crucial dialog going on
For extra effect, have the guy set off fireworks that fill the screen so I can just barely still see what's going on in the program I thought I was watching.
Have him scream at a volume much louder than the program I'm now pseudo-watching, "HEY! OVER HERE!! LOOK AT ME!! I'M AT THE BOTTOM OF YOUR SCREEN!! HEY!!! WATCH SAVING GRACE!!! IT MIGHT LOOK CRAPPY FROM THE PREVIEWS, BUT I ASSSURE YOU IT'S MUCH CRAPPIER THAN THEY MADE IT LOOK!! SERIOUSLY, WATCH IT!!! IF YOU DO YOU WILL SUPPORT MORE ADS LIKE THESE, AND I CAN TELL THAT'S WHAT YOU REALLY WANT!!!"
Once his shouting is finished he can start running laps around the perimeter of my TV screen for the rest of the program shouting "WHEEEE!"
For added effect, never unmute the program I was watching.
For bonus added effect, fade the program I was watching to black so I can only see the ad.
For double bonus effect, get a fist to come flying out of the screen and punch me in the face.
Finally, for ultimate effect, put the name of a TV show on the fist.
A funny but sad example of how it's all going to end up
Originally when I made the comment system here, I wanted just registered users to be able to post in order to prevent spam. Eventually I decided to allow anonymous comments because someone might have something to add to the discussion without wanting to either login or register in order to do so. Then the spam began, but eventually I found some good methods of stopping it. But I made sure to keep a clear separation between registered user comments and anonymous comments. Registered users got their own section above the anonymous commenters, so if some spam were to come through, it would be at the very bottom anyways, and wouldn't screw up any ongoing discussions.
But I found myself wanting to be able to respond directly to anonymous commenters without having to refer to them by a number, and also to allow anonymous commenters to leave comments where they are relevant in a discussion. I think between some automatic measures as well as my own policing of the comments, spam shouldn't become an issue.
To maintain a distinction though, registered users still have their comments highlighted more brightly/boldly than anonymous users, and I encourage registering if you comment often since then you will have a user page where you can track your comments and submissions.
See this week's Entourage review for a good example of what it looks like now. As usual, let me know if there's any bugs that got introduced during the change.
Aquafina is 
