So, usually when you sign up for a utility's automatic payment plan, you'd expect the bill to get paid automatically, right?

Well, apparently the gas company is retarded. They estimate your gas usage, and bill you according to the estimate. But they came out for a meter reading and found they hadn't charged enough, so they charged an additional amount to cover the difference. Except that since the additional charge appeared between bills, it didn't count in the auto payment plan. I caught it before they dinged a late fee, but what a dumbass system. If there's an additional charge, shouldn't it show up on my next bill?

Idiots.

What do you do when you get screwed over by tech support? This man took legal action, but with a twist. When Dell Support didn't resolve his problems, he decided to sue in a very unconventional way.

Pat Dori, a disgruntled Dell customer who found no resolution to the issue of a broken laptop after five long months and 19 wasted phone calls, decided to go legal and sue the company for failing to adequately address the problem. The method by which Mr. Dori initiated the claim is the juicy core of this story: instead of going through the normal process of sending the court papers to Dell's headquarters in Texas, Dori thought to have the papers delivered to a Dell shopping mall kiosk instead. Quite unsurprisingly, no-one from Dell turned up in court on the stipulated date, resulting in Dori winning a $3,000 default judgment and a ruling to allow bailiffs to close the kiosk and seize items if the judgment was not paid. Dell has now settled the case out of court for undisclosed terms, although the company would have appealed the decision -- had it actually turned up to court, that is. Mr. Dori, our latest hero for sticking it to the man in such a crafty manner, says that he thinks "any regular person can do this," as long as you "have the law on your side." Apparently the key is to "get their money" first, which will inevitably be followed by "[getting] their attention." It's gotta beat screaming down the phone, that's for sure.

What a fantastic idea! I'm guessing it won't take too many instances like this before companies catch on though.

This sounds like a pretty sweet idea. New Scientist is reporting on a uniform that displays stats on the uniforms of players in a basketball game, providing a way of displaying things like individual stats for the player as well as time remaining in the game.

Basketball vests (singlets) with electroluminescent displays that show a player's score, and number of fouls, are being trialled in Australia. The vests can also display more general information, like the amount of time left in a game. This gives players greater confidence in their team's tactics, say the researchers involved.

The simple, coloured display panels are attached to each vest and connected to a small computer, about the size of an iPod, strapped to each player's body. These computers communicate wirelessly with a central control system, installed at the side of the court, which keeps track of all relevant statistics as the game goes on.

"Team sports uniforms already communicate information visually," like a player's name, says Mitchell Page, who developed the system at the University of Sydney. "We wanted to augment the existing team sports uniform model to communicate more relevant information, such as a player’s stats and performance."

The uniform does look a little weird...

Luminescent bars running up the side of a vest indicate the points scored by each player, while lines on their shoulders show the number of fouls against them. Panels on each player's chest indicate when the game time or shot clock is running low, and panels on their back show which team is winning.

"Results were extremely positive," Page told New Scientist. "We found that spectators benefited the most – understanding and even enjoying the game a whole lot more than usual." He adds that players also enjoyed wearing the displays, using them to judge when to play aggressively or more conservatively. "They used the time limit displays to gauge when to pick up the pace of the game," Page says.

Apparently they picked basketball since "player-specific information changes rapidly during the sport and because no physical contact is involved." But basketball has a fair amount of contact both with other players and with the floor, so the lack of physical contact isn't that great. Now they're also looking at changing the system to be built into the vest, rather than having to strap on some unit.

This stuff is pretty awesome...instant snow!:


If it's just miniscule sponges, that means it won't melt either. Though it'd probably dry out in a day or two.

Yep, there's about to be a new show starring Rob Corddry, "The Winner." I accidentally stumbled upon it because Seth MacFarlane is an executive producer and co-writer on it, so they included an interview with him about it in the Family Guy Volume 4 DVD that just came out. It's on a bonus disc that I got with the "Target Exclusive Edition" of the Family Guy DVD.

The show is going to start mid-season next year, whatever the heck that means.



From a FOX affiliate:

THE WINNER (Day and Time TBD): A 43-and-a-half-year-old narrator, who is incredibly rich and successful, looks way back to 1994, when he lost his innocence and started to become a man - at the tender age of 32. In 1994, GLEN ABBOTT (Rob Corddry, "The Daily Show"), still living with his parents, finally steps out into the world and tries to make something of himself when the only girl he'd ever kissed, the radiant ALISON MILLER (Erinn Hayes, "Everwood," "Kitchen Confidential"), returns to town. Driven by the desire to become a success and win Alison's heart, Glen goes through his "wonder years" a mere 20 years older than, well, most everyone. But it's not in vain, as this unlikely underdog will eventually transform from fear-riddled underachiever to the richest man in Buffalo in a mere five years. Luckily, Glen doesn't have to go though this awkward period alone. He becomes best friends with the only person he can truly relate to: Alison's 13-year-old son JOSH (Keir Gilchrist, "A Lobster Tale"). Josh is a fellow hypochondriac, and they help each other survive "puberty." Glen also receives parental guidance from his absurdly enabling mother IRENE (Julie Hagerty, "Girlfriends," "Malcolm in the Middle") and his supportive but quasi-rage-aholic dad RON (Lenny Clarke, "Rescue Me," "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events").

PRODUCTION COMPANY: 20th Century Fox Television EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS/WRITERS: Seth MacFarlane, Ricky Blitt CREATED BY: Ricky Blitt DIRECTOR: Terry Hughes CAST: Rob Corddry as Glen, Keir Gilchrist as Josh, Erinn Hayes as Alison, Julie Hagerty as Irene, Lenny Clarke as Ron

How could they not list Airplane! in Julie Hagerty's credits?!? No matter, supposedly her role is being recast anyways.

Of course Corddry's been amazing on the Daily Show, so I hope this show turns out well. And this is setting a ridiculous trend of ex-Daily Show correspondents being 30+ year old virgins.

What's the best thing to do if you get away with murder and want to become famous again? How about trying to cash in by writing a hypothetical scenario of how you "would have" committed the murder if you had done it?



Yep, OJ is releasing a book called "If I Did It".

In an account his publisher considers a confession and some media executives call revolting, O.J. Simpson plans a book and TV interview to discuss how, hypothetically, he could have killed his ex-wife and her friend.

Two weeks before the book, "If I Did It," goes on sale, scorn was being heaped on Simpson, the publisher, and Fox, which plans to air the Simpson interview in two parts Nov. 27 and 29. Denise Brown, sister of Simpson's slain ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, lashed out at the publisher for "promoting the wrongdoing of criminals" and commercializing abuse.

Judith Regan, whose ReganBooks imprint is publishing the book, refused to say what Simpson is being paid but said he came to her with the idea. "This is an historic case, and I consider this his confession," Regan told the Associated Press.

The ex-football star was acquitted in 1995 of murdering his former wife and her friend Ron Goldman. He was later found liable for the deaths by in a wrongful-death suit filed by the Goldman family. Simpson has failed to pay the $33.5 million judgment against him in the civil case. His NFL pension and his Florida home cannot legally be seized.

Meanwhile, other publishers and publishing industry observers criticized ReganBooks and Simpson himself. "This is not about being heard. This is about trying to cash in, in a pathetic way, on some notoriety," said Sara Nelson, editor in chief of Publishers Weekly.

As mentioned above, OJ hasn't paid for the $33.5 million judgement against him for wrongful death because his house and NFL pension couldn't be seized. His lawyer was also arguing that he only makes a few thousand dollars at autograph signings, and literally doesn't have money to pay the judgement. So will the profits from this book and his FOX special have to go towards paying the Goldman family? Some other articles about the book have mentioned the book deal may be worth $3.5 million, and that's not counting the FOX special.

Yep, that's right. I'm following up the last movie mashup (Thank You for Smoking + fast food = Fast Food Nation) with another: Batman Begins + Bond franchise = Casino Royale?

All I've been seeing is comments on how the fact that this movie is much darker and grittier than the previous Bond movies makes it awesome, and more true to the character in the original books? Sounds a lot like the comments that were being made about Batman Begins when it first came out.

So what happens when you take Thank You for Smoking, and put a fast food twist on it instead? You get a new movie, Fast Food Nation.



From the trailer, it really does look like a complete parallel. An inside look at the fast food industry executives, secret things they may be putting in fast food,...sounds pretty similar to me.

Apparently a Panera in the White City Shopping Center in Shrewsbury is arguing that a burrito is a sandwich.

Panera has a clause in its lease that prevents the White City Shopping Center in Shrewsbury from renting to another sandwich shop. Panera tried to invoke that clause to stop the opening of an Qdoba Mexican Grill.

But Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Locke cited Webster's Dictionary as well as testimony from a chef and a former high-ranking federal agriculture official in ruling that Qdoba's burritos and other offerings are not sandwiches. The difference, the judge ruled, comes down to two slices of bread versus one tortilla.

"A sandwich is not commonly understood to include burritos, tacos and quesadillas, which are typically made with a single tortilla and stuffed with a choice filling of meat, rice, and beans," Locke wrote in a decision released last week.

In court papers, Panera, a St. Louis-based chain of more than 900 cafes, argued for a broad definition of a sandwich, saying that a flour tortilla is bread and that a food product with bread and a filling is a sandwich.

Qdoba, owned by San Diego-based Jack in the Box Inc., called food experts to testify on its behalf. Among them was Cambridge chef Chris Schlesinger, who said in an affidavit: "I know of no chef or culinary historian who would call a burrito a sandwich. Indeed, the notion would be absurd to any credible chef or culinary historian."

Is Qdoba really that big of a competitor for Panera? And who gets a job as a "food expert" that testifies about the differences between burritos and sandwiches? That sounds like a pretty sweet job.

Apparently Sacha Baron Cohen, who plays Borat, has become a big target of lawsuits by people in his movie.

The people in the "Kazaksthan village" are actually from Romania.

Residents of Glod, a poor hamlet in the Carpathian Mountains, told the (London) Daily Mail they thought Baron Cohen and his crew were making a documentary. They only found out recently that it was a fake documentary -- and a major box-office hit.

The villagers say Baron Cohen was "a bit weird and ugly" although friendly. They did not realize that Glod in the movie would be portrayed as incest-ridden and full of rapists and prostitutes.

Nicu Tudorache, a one-armed grandfather, was depicted in the film with a sex-toy prosthesis. He says he did not realize at the time what it was.

"Our region is very poor, and everyone is trying hard to get out of this misery," he told the Daily Mail. "It is outrageous to exploit people's misfortune like this to laugh at them."

And the college students that appeared are also talking about a lawsuit.

Two U.S. college students claim the filmmakers got them drunk and told them that the movie -- the No. 1 hit in the United States on its opening weekend -- would not be shown there.

Both cases sound like they're trying to grab a piece of the box office glory. Nobody got exploited by mocking a fictional premise.