Lisa Selin Davis has an interesting examination of Americans and their relationship to malls, told through the prism of Michael Townsend and Adriana Yoto.  The Providence couple squatted inside Providence Place back in 2003.  Intending to stay there for only a week, they ended up creating a makeshift apartment for themselves and lived in the mall for four years.  They insist they would have lived there indefinitely had they not been caught.  What’s interesting about the article, aside from their story, is how malls are evolving from simply gigantic collections of indoor stores to something more.  The city and the suburban are becoming interchangeable.  [Salon]

Actually it was Masayuki Ishikawa, a 20-year-old, dressed up like everyone’s favorite honey-eatin’ chubby bear.  I first heard this on NPR before I had coffee and thought it was a joke.  Nope.  His two friends were dressed up as a mouse and panther and then Ishikawa and his friends beat up the two victims and stole $160 from them. Apparantly they didn’t like being looked at.  The reason they were dressed up?  According to police, they donned the unusual garb because they had run out of clean clothes.  [Reuters]

Someday I’d like to start a column here that’s called “Real or The Onion” which would be nothing more than posting a stupid real news story or something from the Onion and have some fun in the process.

To wit:

Police are hunting a robber dressed in an Arab headdress who brandished a Samurai sword at a shopkeeper in Preston.

The man, who has been described as white, burst into the Mini Mart on Avenham Lane at 4.10pm on August 10 and demanded cash from the till.

The man, who wore a Keffiyah type Arab headdress concealing his identity, pulled a 12 inch Samurai from his tracksuit bottoms and pointed it at the shopkeeper’s face.

The shopkeeper, a 44-year-old man from Pakistan, placed hundreds of pounds of notes on the counter which the robber stole and walked out of the shop down Frenchwood Street.

One customer who had spotted the man stood outside witnessed the incident.

Det Insp Lee Halstead, investigating the incident, said: “He pulled out a 10 to 12 inch bladed sword, like a small Samurai sword.

“He asked the shopkeeper to empty the till, snatched the money and ran off.

“The man who owns the shop was really badly shaken. He had just recently bought it and was asking: ‘Does this always happen?’”

The man is described as white late 20s 6ft slim build with short scruffy brown hair.

He was wearing dark hooded top, and a white cotton scarf with triangular black patterns.

Obviously this one was real.

I like to joke about being a Furbush, it is a humorous last name, but one I’m proud of.  A name is your identity in many ways.  It’s caused me some grief, but at least I’m not Herman Libshitz.  The retired radiologist was denied DSL internet service from Verizon because, get this, his last name contains a swear word in it.

For real.  When you grow up with an even slightly amusing last name it hardens you, toughens your skin.  Verizon learned the hard way.  And it’s not like Libshitz is even that bad of a last name.  It’s actually kind of cool.

Dr. Libshitz wasn’t allowed to upgrade his internet online, because the online form repeatedly denied him access because his last name contained the word shit.  So he called Verizon and asked to speak to a supervisor.

What was Verizon’s respone?  Spell your name wrong buddy.  Seriously?  They told him to spell his name differently.  He went through several different supervisors, who all promised to help him out, and then finally told him no dice, doesn’t comply with company rules.

I should say here, that my sister works for Verizon and if she didn’t just have her second daughter last week (big ups for Aurore Bethany Bashford!!) I would demand that she defends her employer in the comments.  But we’ll let is slide seeing as how he daughters are too cute for school and I can’t wait to get home at Christmas and spoil them rotten.

Back to Lipshitz.  “These people have no trouble putting me in their phone book. They send me mail with that name, they send me a bill routinely, and they cash my checks with Libshitz on it. They just offended me,” he told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Thankfully, the Philly Inquirer intervened and Verizon relented and Dr. Lipshitz got his DSL.  I do sorta wish his last name was Lipshitz or Dipshitz, that would be aces.

Newspapers are littered with random articles about Beijing, all made relevant by the 2008 Olympics.  Reporters poke fun at sloppy English translations, filth in the streets and the general fuck-all attitude of city dwellers.  But The New York Times takes the cake this morning with by far the most prejudiced and badass article on Beijing I’ve ever read.

The article is about smoking, and how even after laws were passed and anti-smoking signs hung, Beijing remains a city of smokers. One in four people smoke. Doctors smoke in hospitals. “… a 2004 government survey of 3,600 doctors found that 30 percent did not know that smoking could lead to heart disease and circulation problems.”

Holy shit, right?  Still: coolest city ever, as evidenced by this headlining pic:

Look at that guy.  Leaning back, puffing on a cancer stick with no less than eight empty beer bottles in front of him.  Who knew Beijing was the Party Capital of the World?  I do, now.

The Times article also shows a mother smoking in front of her two-year-old, telling the reporter it’ll “make [him] stronger,” and people laughing in the face of a year-old ban on smoking in taxis, even after the taxi driver politely says something, even if the taxi driver is, himself, a non-smoker.

Okay, so a lot of the article is disgusting, and paints residents in a ghastly light.  But for all the stories you’ve heard about cancer, death, disfigurement, miscarriages and other light family fare, the mythos of badassery still surrounds smoking.  And because Beijing flaunts its hard-drinking, chain-smoking cowboy ways, you’ve gotta give respect where it’s due.

So what did you do yesterday?  Go to work, come home and crack open a beer, maybe sit outside and grab some rays?  Well, while you were doing that Jim Purol of Anaheim spent the past 48-hours sitting in 39,350 seats.

Purol began Monday morning and by Wednesday had broken a world record.  He hopes by the end of the week to sit in the Rose Bowl’s entire 92, 542 seats.  The 56-year-old has done this before, having sat in every single seat at Michagan Stadium’s “Big House.”  All 107, 501 seats.

[Boston Globe]

Remember when those girls from Gloucester, Mass. all got knocked up and decided to raise their babies together and everyone freaked out because it was some kind of club, but then it turned out that that wasn’t the case and it was totally random that like 17 girls got pregnant and everyone was like “schnap you fooled us!” And then everyone stopped paying attention because the story wasn’t so interesting anymore.

Good times.

Well, every year there is this thing called “The Horribles Parade” held on Beverly Farms, wherein people are shamed and made fun of all in the spirit of Independence Day.

And this year guess who got mocked? Yuppers. If you said those 17 pregnant sophomores you win! Not surprisingly everyone was sorta upset.  MORE »

Just as Germany was starting to get cool with the whole Nazi thing, Madame Tussauds of Berlin had to go and set up a wax figure of Adolph Hitler.

The statue, showing Mr. Hip Mustache standing gloomily in his bunker, hand on a map of Europe, bulging hard-on on his trousers, incited quite a stink.

Minutes after the exhibit opened, a 41-year-old German man strode in, pushed past security guards, and tore Hitler’s head off.  When police arrived, this unnamed vigilante of moral cleanliness did not resist arrest.

Madame Tussauds kind of expected this type of behavior.  They posted signs saying, “Do not feed the Hitler; he’ll get accustomed to human food and want to chomp your babies.”  They also installed security cameras so roughians wouldn’t get all … well, rough with this monstrosity, four months in the making.

Alas, all the signs and video cameras in the world couldn’t stop someone from tearing Hitler’s head off, and for that, I applaud.

Everybody except Madame Tussauds thought the exhibit was tasteless and insulting.  For a joint run on tourist dollars, they should’ve listened a bit closer to the rising tide of anger amongst their clientele.  Isn’t that how businesses are supposed to be run?

Oh, Florida.  Seems like the craziest of crazy news emanates from that humidity-drenched hellhole.  Let us briefly count the ways:

1) Mother cages 17-year-old son, gets 20 years in prison.

2) Middle school teacher enslaves Haitian girl.

3) Jack Thompson is from there.

And now, a 14-year-old boy was handed over to juvenile police officers for breaking into a Central Florida home and ordering $129 worth of porno movies on the family’s TV.

The Channel 6 article is a delightful romp in the garden of sin.  My favorite bleached quote:

Palm Bay police said the family had just returned from shopping when the boy was found watching television.

Yes, he was “watching television.”  He order $129 worth of porn to “watch.”  No, Channel 6, Little Jimmy was feverishly masturbating on the family’s couch, shedding a tear or two for his lost soul and hopeless, pathetic future.

The case of Little Jimmy leaves many unanswered questions.  Let us briefly explore these questions:

1) What kind of porn was he watching?  Gay?  Straight?  Bestiality?

2) How has he evaded the knowledge that the Internet features billions of websites devoted to free porn?

3) How much porn does $129 buy?

4) How did Little Jimmy expect to watch $129 worth of porn in one sitting?

5) Did he have lube?

Because he’s a minor, these questions may never be answered and we, as a nation, may never achieve spiritual peace.  Alas.

Leave it to those Scrantonians to have yet another tie in with the fictional office crew from The Office, when the host “The Office Games” at the Steamtown Mall on July 19th.

The competition won’t feature anything as awesome as the various ways to prevent boredom (a shame!), but it will feature a 2k run in office attire (great oogly moogly that would be hell running 1.5 miles in a suit on a July afternoon) and then conclude with a beet-eating contest.

The affair to remember is going to be hosted by Mindy Kaling, who plays krazy Kelly on the show.

And yes, this all has to do with some product tie-in.  The events were organized to mark the launch of Pressman Toy’s official NBC licensed games based on “The Office” — “The Office DVD Board Game” and “The Office Trivia Game,” representatives for Pressman Toy said Monday.

One of the things that surprised me about London was that you could drink openly on the Underground, which is their subway system.  Going to the bars, coming from the bars, or just out for an afternoon stroll, people would have open beers or booze and not even hide them.

Unfortunately, that policy is no more.  Yesterday marked the end of drinking on The Tube, but not before Londoners had a night dubbed “Last Round on the Underground.” Except, it ended very poorly as these things often do.

Police arrested 17 people and six Underground stations had to be closed after things turned ugly for the thousands of Londoners who showed up to celebrate.

The festivities were at first good-natured with partygoers wearing fancy dress as they swigged beer and wine, dancing and singing in the railway carriages.

But police moved in when the mood turned sour and fighting erupted, spoiling what officers had called “a fun event.”

The London transport ban on alcohol is designed to make buses, tubes and trains safer for the public but unions fear staff could be put in greater danger when they have to confront those breaking the ban.

The ban was a key manifesto pledge of new London Mayor Boris Johnson’s election campaign, and just days after his victory over Ken Livingstone, he announced plans to enact the measure.

“I’m determined to improve the safety and security of public transport in London and create a better environment for the millions of Londoners who rely on it,” Johnson said.

The best photos I could find of the evening were taken by a chap named Peter Cleghorn.  I’d post them here but rights were reserved and all.  Check them out it looks like this was a balls out good time.  Seriously.  I’m so upset I wasn’t there for this.