"We are looking at different options," Gary Severson, a Wal-Mart senior vice president, told MarketWatch during a store tour with media.

The Consumerist would like to take this opportunity to thank Wal-Mart for ensuring the continuing existence of this site. This is going to be fun!

Wal-Mart eyes expansion in electronics services [MarketWatch]

(Photo: Ryan McFarland )

From the Charleston Daily Mail:

The Milton Middle School student jerked her hand out of the produce box to find a stinger in her finger and a tan, 1-inch-long creature still attached, William said.

The girl turned to her father and said something he at first didn't believe.

"She said a scorpion stung her on the finger," William, 36, said. "I didn't believe her at first, but then I saw it run underneath (the box)."

William said he immediately called his wife, Paula, who is a paramedic, and told her what had happened.

Paula drove to the store, picked up Megan and rushed her to nearby Cabell-Huntington Hospital.

William said before his wife had even arrived, Wal-Mart employees were on the scene and helped scoop up the exotic arachnid so it could be taken to the hospital for identification purposes.

William said he also peeled a sticker off a watermelon showing the shipment was from Mexico, which he hoped could help hospital workers treat his daughter.

The sting was harmless, but it caused a stir at the West Virginia hospital where Megan was treated. No one had ever seen a scorpion sting before. "They had to look it up on the Internet because it is so unusual in the area," Megan's father said. "Everybody came down to look at it." Walmart says they'll be checking that watermelon shipment for more scorpions— just in case.

12-year-old W.Va. girl gets scorpion bite in the produce department [Charleston Daily Mail]
(Photo: babasteve )

John doesn't know how the account was opened without his permission, but the former bank manager did have the relevant information needed to open an account. John writes:

We are a startup company that is currently out doing a Series B raise in order to commercialize a product we have in-licensed. The bank manager from our current bank left to join Wachovia. We were always happy with his service and we were not surprised when he contacted us and tried to get us to switch our banking to Wachovia. We indicated that the current timing was not good due to our financing. What we did not know was that he took upon himself to open an account for the company "in order to ensure certain money rates". Boy were we surprised when we got a $12 fee for being below the minimum balance requirements. We joked that as a startup it was nice to know that our "future bank" would be more than happy to take our last $12 as a fee. We contacted our banker friend and he said he would close the account. We are now up to $24.05 in fees and a collection agency has called. Needless to say Wachovia will not be getting our business.

(Photo: epicharmus)

From NewTeeVee:

If you have some tinfoil handy, now might be a good time to fashion a hat. At the Digital Living Room conference today, Gerard Kunkel, Comcast's senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who's in your living room.

The idea being that if you turn on your cable box, it recognizes you and pulls up shows already in your profile or makes recommendations. If parents are watching TV with their children, for example, parental controls could appear to block certain content from appearing on the screen. Kunkel also said this type of monitoring is the "holy grail" because it could help serve up specifically tailored ads. Yikes.

Kunkel said the system wouldn't be based on facial recognition, so there wouldn't be a picture of you on file (we hope). Instead, it would distinguish between different members of your household by recognizing body forms. He stressed that the system is still in the experimental phase, that there hasn't been consumer testing, and that any rollout "must add value" to the viewing experience beyond serving ads.

Comcast Cameras to Start Watching You? [NewTeeVee] (Thanks, Graham!)
(Photo:cmorran123)

Crest Pro-Health Mouthwash turned my teeth brown! And on top of that, I can't taste anything! I can't believe this stuff is even on the market. My wisdom teeth are coming in painfully, and I am prepping to get them removed next week. So while at Rite Aid last night, I picked up a bottle of Crest Pro-Health mouthwash. I typically use Listerine, but as I said my wisdom teeth are killing me and this Crest CRAP advertises "No Alcohol". Cool.

Except that after using it for ONE day (in the am and then before bed) I woke up today with brown spots on and in between my teeth and I cannot taste anything at all. After being scared almost to the point of tears, I started googling these symptoms. You wouldn't believe how many website there are that are dedicated to this nonsense. Crest should be sued for this!

More people need to be informed about this. On top of that, if you read the comments on the site I am linking, Crest wont even reimburse you for the lousy 4 dollars you spend on this poison. Never mind the expensive dental bills I am going to face whitening and repairing my teeth. Spread the word Consumerist.

Here are some highlights from Amazon.com:

David Case from Flint, MI says:

At the beginning mouthwash was fine. Nice not having the alcohol burn and the breath, that my girlfriend hated. So that was nice.

But after extended use for a month it stained in between my teeth brown. It looked terrible and it cost me a one hundred dollar trip to the dentist to scrape that junk off. The dentist advised that it was my mouthwash after hearing it was this Crest mouthwash that I was using. I was surprised that a mouthwash that is suppose to help clean your teeth actually does the opposite.

This garbage put dingy yellow and brown stains on my teeth, especially near the gums. A dental cleaning failed to get them off. If I had known this mouthwash could cause stains, I would never have used it in the first place. If my next dental cleaning fails to remove the yellow on my teeth, P&G may have a lawsuit on their hands. It's to the point where I don't want to even talk or smile. These Pro Health products should be illegal.

The first thing I noticed was a buildup of white gunk on my tongue. I had just brushed my tongue until it was a nice pink before using the mouthwash, which annoyed me. But it wasn't just gunk — this stuff was solid. It was annoying, but I could live with gunk. I can't live with what else it did, though.

Let me put this as simply as possible: This mouthwash destroys your sense of taste. Not just immediately after you spit it out, (it ruins it then too, since water tasted strange when I had a drink before bed) but the next morning as well. I COVERED my eggs in ketchup, yet the normally puckering taste of a mouthful of ketchup was missing. I ate kiwis, pineapple, apple, tea, and nothing. It was like a mouthful of sawdust, or water, or watery sawdust.

About 12 hours after the rinsing, I finally started to regain some taste. I looked up the "active" ingredient in Crest Pro-Health online, called cetylpyridinium chloride. This is what the Materials Safety and Data Sheet has to say about this ingredient: "Toxic if swallowed. Very toxic by inhalation. May cause severe eye irritation. Respiratory and skin irritant," with a large TOXIC warning at the top of the page. I'm sure the concentration in this product is low enough to be harmless in a single dose, but imagine years of using this? Hopefully this won't be on the market long enough for that to be possible.

This is easily the most disturbing thing I've ever had happen to me. I've never had side-effects like this from ANY over the counter medicine, much less an oral product. My bottom teeth now have visible brown spots between them and I'm worried that they won't come off (or that it'll cost me a lot of money to remove them). I don't think I've ever felt so screwed over like this before... this is simply inexcusable. Crest should not be allowed to have a product like this on the market without a huge sticker warning you about its side-effects.

Sadly I don't think people will see this, and they too will get brown garbage in between their teeth. No one googles or looks up mouth wash on Amazon, though I sure wish I did now...

Crest Pro-Health Rinse [Amazon]
Healthy, Beautiful Smiles for Life [Ask Metafilter]
Top Oral Health Products Under $20: Crest Pro-Health Rinse (Read the comments) [Associated Content)

Gorton's said it ordered the recall as a precaution while a laboratory conducts tests to determine the nature of the pills. Those tests should be complete early next week.

"Obviously product alteration is a very serious matter," said Jud Reis, vice president of marketing for the Gloucester, Mass., company. "We are conducting a full investigation into the source of the problem."

The recall is for Gorton's Six Crispy Battered Fish Fillets weighing 11.4 ounces. The UPC is 44400157770, with a date code of 7289G1 and a best-if-used-by date of April 2009. The fish also was sent to Alabama, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Consumers who purchased the fish may call Gorton's at 800-896-9479.

Southern Regional Police Chief James Childs said that, on Friday, he received a call from the FBI and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"They have become the lead investigators," Childs said.

Childs forwarded them copies of his department's report on how Tracy Rowan and her daughter found items they believed were pills inside two Gorton's fish fillets they were eating on Feb. 24.

Rowan's son, who was also eating a fillet, tasted something hard and bitter and spit it out, Rowan said.

Fish recalled after Pa. woman finds pills in it [Philadelphia Inquirer]
Feds take pill-in-fillet case [Evening Sun]

Microsoft has been trying to make Google seem like a threat to privacy, when in fact it's both of them," says Jeff Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD). "We may now have two companies that will rival the National Security Agency in their ability to compile detailed profiles of users wherever they go online."

The House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee has already scheduled a hearing for this Friday on "The State of Competition on the Internet." If the deal goes through, the Senate's antitrust subcommittee would be likely to hold hearings as well

If Microsoft succeeded in acquiring Yahoo!, Chester argues, the software giant would be buying the e-mail, instant messaging and search information of hundreds of millions of Web users. Added to Microsoft's own Web properties, a "MicroHoo" merger would host 80.1% of the Web's traffic to e-mail services and 27.8% of users' Web searches according to the most recent data from the Web measurement firm, Hitwise.

That much information, says the Center for Democracy and Technology's (CDT) director Leslie Harris, raises the potential for detailed profiles that could fall into the hands of third parties. "When companies with all of these services merge, it dramatically increases the amount of data that can be brought together or shared," she says.

In an ACLU lawsuit seeking to overturn a child pornography law in January of last year, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! were subpoenaed to release search queries. Microsoft and Yahoo! both released some data to the government, while Google fought the court order based on trade secrecy claims and won. In 2004, Yahoo! also revealed the search data of dissident Chinese journalist Shi Tao to the Chinese government, a decision that resulted in Shi's being sentenced to 10 years in prison.

What 'MicroHoo' Would Know About You [Forbes]

The inspectors are the on-the-ground cops who ensure that engines fire up properly, that the wing flaps function, and that all of the other complex machinery in an aircraft is in good working order. They have broad discretion to halt and delay flights—power that often rankles the thinly stretched, financially strapped carriers. When an inspector launches a formal investigation into an apparent safety violation at a passenger airline, something that happened more than 200 times last year, it often triggers costly repairs. And when the bill exceeds $50,000, the FAA must issue a press release alerting the world to the problem.

The airlines sometimes fight back. Executives meet constantly with local FAA officials on a wide variety of issues and occasionally lodge informal complaints against tough inspectors. From time to time, the carriers bring their concerns directly to the agency's top official: the FAA administrator. "If the airline feels uncomfortable, management will call the FAA administrator," says Linda Goodrich, a former inspector who is now vice-president of the Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS) union, which represents inspectors and played no role in Lund's dispute with the agency. "The FAA administrator will immediately demand to know what we are doing to them. You can imagine an inspector trying to do his work when his local management is so fearful of the airline."

Several safety inspectors told BusinessWeek that they had also experienced or witnessed retaliation. (Most of the safety inspectors interviewed by BusinessWeek did not want to be identified by name in this article for that reason.)

On Aug. 21 Lund worked late into the night drafting a nine-page memo that described his observations of 10 separate maintenance mistakes. Besides advocating a cutback in Northwest's flight schedule, he proposed upgrading its mechanic-training program and increasing FAA surveillance of the carrier. The next day, Lund says, his direct supervisor got a call from a higher-level manager ordering Lund to be barred from inspecting Northwest planes. Then the carrier fired off the letter of complaint against Lund, according to the IG report. It said Northwest "would no longer permit [Lund] to have unescorted access to Northwest facilities." In response, the FAA decided to stop him from conducting on-site inspections altogether

Airline Safety: A Whistleblower's Tale [BusinessWeek]
(Photo:ZonaPhoto)

The Doctor Will See Your Credit Now [The Red Tape Chronicles]
Medical industry plans to rate payment history [Chicago Tribune]
(Photo: yosoyjulito)

Releasing the data and just removing the names does nothing for privacy," Shmatikov told SecurityFocus. "If you know their name and a few records, then you can identify that person in the other (private) database."

While Netflix's dataset did not include names, instead using an anonymous identifier for each user, the collection of movie ratings — combined with a public database of ratings — is enough to identify the people, the researchers argued in a paper published soon after Netflix released the data, but which only recently came to light. Narayanan and Shmatikov demonstrated the danger by using public reviews published by a "few dozen" people in the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) to identify movie ratings of two of the users in Netflix's data.

Exposing movie ratings that the reviewer thought were private could expose significant details about the person. For example, the researchers found that one of the people had strong — ostensibly private — opinions about some liberal and gay-themed films and also had ratings for some religious films.

More generally, the research demonstrated that information that a person believes to be benign could be used to identify them in other private databases.

From the research paper:

Does privacy of Netflix ratings matter? The privacy question is not "Does the average Netflix subscriber
care about the privacy of his movie viewing history?," but "Are there any Netflix subscribers whose privacy
can be compromised by analyzing the Netflix Prize dataset?" The answer to the latter question is, undoubtedly,
yes. As shown by our experiments with cross-correlating non-anonymous records from the Internet Movie Database with anonymized Netflix records (see below), it is possible to learn sensitive non-public information about a person's political or even sexual preferences. We assert that even if the vast majority of Netflix subscribers did not care about the privacy of their movie ratings (which is not obvious by any means), our analysis would still indicate serious privacy issues with the Netflix Prize dataset.

Researchers reverse Netflix anonymization [SecurityFocus] (Thanks, Scott!)
How To Break Anonymity Of Netflix Prize Dataset [ARXIV]
(Photo:Maulleigh)

From the Madison County Record:

Shandie Deaton filed the suit Sept. 18, 2007, one month after she made a purchase on Overstock.com. She alleged her receipt violated FCRA.

The act was passed in 2003 and provides that anyone accepting credit or debit cards may not print more than the last five digits of the card number or the expiration date upon any receipt provided to the cardholder at the point of sale or transaction.

Credit card machines put into use after Jan. 1, 2005, required immediate compliance with FCRA. Machines in use before Jan. 1, 2005, were required to be in compliance by Dec. 4, 2006.

Deaton claimed Overstock.com violated FCRA by printing the expiration date and/or printed more than the last five digits of class members' credit card or debit card numbers on the receipts provided at the point of a sale or transaction between Overstock.com and the class members.

"Overstock.com' violations were not the product of an accident or an isolated oversight," the complaint stated. "Rather, Overstock.com knowingly and intentionally continued to use Devices which were not programmed to, or otherwise did not, comply..."

According to Overstock, customers can freely access their website, however when placing an order, they must agree to the website's terms and conditions before they can continue.

"Any dispute relating in any way to your visit to the Site or to products you purchase through the Site shall be submitted to confidential arbitration in Salt Lake City, Utah," a portion of Overstock's terms and conditions reads.

"To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, no Arbitration under this agreement shall be joined to an arbitration involving any other party subject to this Agreement, whether through class arbitration proceedings or otherwise."

We took a look at this arbitration clause and noticed that there's an exception to it. If you even "threaten" to violate Overstock.com's intellectual property rights, they reserve the right to haul you into state or federal court in the state of Utah. What a piece of work.

Arbitration, not litigation: Judge dismisses federal class action v. Overstock.com [Madison County Record] (Thanks, Shelley!)
Overstock.com Terms & Conditions

Faced with foreclosure on her Russellville, Indiana home, Christina Snyder allegedly concocted the kind of plan that now has insurance executives on edge.

According to the county prosecutor, the 31-year-old Snyder allegedly offered to pay a neighbor $5,000 to help her burn down her house and make it look like a botched rape attempt - all in order to claim $80,000 in insurance money. Snyder wanted the neighbor to bind her hands in duct tape, write "whore" on her shirt, and then help her escape once the blaze was set, the prosecutor says. The neighbor demurred, instead reporting Snyder to police.

With the national foreclosure rate zooming and the real estate market in a two-year funk, the insurance industry fears more homeowners will see arson as a way out of their financial woes. A recent report by the industry-funded Coalition Against Insurance Fraud notes that with "untold thousands of homeowners struggling with ballooning subprime mortgage payments, fraud fighters are watching closely for a spike in arsons by desperate homeowners who can no longer afford their home payments."

And just because we can, here's a clip from Harold & Kumar. (NSFW, audio) We hope this Burger Shack employee doesn't have a ARM.

Will foreclosures spark an arson boom? [CNNMoney] (Thanks, Robert!)
(Photo:The Joy of the Mundane)

Notice this remarkable "offer" at the bottom of the receipt from Denny's Restaurant:

"If we forget to charge you for any item you received, we are sorry. Please notify the manager and that item will be free. Also, for your help, we will give you a $10.00 gift card to use on your next visit to Denny's. Thank you."

In other words, if some poor server forgot to list something you ate on your check, you can either let it go, or you can report the guilty party to management and still not have to pay for the food (and you get a ten-dollar reward for fingering the guilty party).

Feel free to enlighten us in the comments.

Other types of consumer debt, which have nothing to do with housing and nothing to do with subprime, are going bad, too. The Wall Street Journal reported today that "about 4.5% of auto loans made in 2006 to top-rated borrowers were at least 30 days delinquent as of the end of September, up from 2.9% the previous month, according to a Lehman Brothers survey of companies servicing these loans." In October, Fortune's Peter Gumble warned that a similar plague may soon afflict credit-card companies. In October, credit-card giant Capital One Financial reported that the delinquency rate on credit cards for the third quarter of 2007 was 4.46 percent, up from 3.53 percent in the third quarter of 2006. "Given current loan growth and delinquency trends," Capital One reported, it "expects the U.S. Card charge-off rate to be around 5.25 percent in the fourth quarter."

The stock of First Marblehead, which has enjoyed explosive growth making private (i.e., not federally guaranteed) student loans, has been hammered in recent days because Moody's, the ratings agency, concluded that loans it had made "appear to be defaulting at a significantly higher rate compared to loans originated through school financial aid offices." The Wall Street Journal reported that "seventeen months after First Marblehead arranged one 2005 package of student loans, 2% had defaulted, according to the company's monthly reports to note holders. But last month, a comparable 2006 package—also 17 months after issue—had a default rate of 3.98%."

Debt Be Not Proud [Slate]
FURTHER READING: The Grapes Of Wrath [Amazon]
(Photo: Wikipedia)

The discrepancy is raising a few eyebrows over at FlightStory. One passenger writes:

It was not during takeoff. There was alot of damage. There was no vibration. It doesnt say anything about an uncontained explosion at 25,000ft. I was sitting on that engine watching it happen with my own two eyes. The fan blades shot out towards the plane leaving holes on the engine cowlings and a huge hole on th other side.There was no vibration, but a huge explosion. That report is false and they should really clean it up! The blades could have easily penatrated the fusalage causing a crash, or went through and killed a passenger.

We all thought we were going to die! We said our goodbyes. There was an explosion and holes in the right engine with something sharp still sticking out of the engine. The plane started shaking so bad. The flight attendant was crying and one was getting oxygen because she was hyperventilating. They were able to turn the flight around and land with no incident but not before the longest 20 minutes back to the ground and the plane being surrounded by firetrucks. A big chunk of the engine flew off and luckily it went away from the aircraft because if it came toward us, we wouldn't be here. The chunk was on the outer side of the engine not seen from our view but could be seen while walking off the aircraft. There were smaller holes though in our view of the top of the engine. I saw the pilots taking photos when we made it to the ground so hopefully the FAA will do the right thing and investigate how this could happen.

Follow-up - Southwest Engine Failure [FlightStory]

From AMNewYork:

Albert Anastasia, the powerful leader of Murder Inc., a man believed to be have personally killed 36 people, stopped in what was then a barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel's lobby on West 57th Street. As he dozed in the chair, two gunmen walked in and fired a barrage of lead into the crime boss.

Meyer Berger, who covered the murder for the New York Times, wrote at the time, "Anastasia fell to the floor ... One pudgy hand was outstretched. The fluorescent lights kicked fire from the diamonds in his fat finger ring. He lay still."

The murderers were never caught.

It is difficult today to stand on tiled floor of the Starbucks and imagine the pool of blood where the man nicknamed "The Executioner" once lay.

"You think people care?" says one barista, out on a smoke break and checking her Sidekick, and who, as per company policy, would not give her name. "That was 50 years ago. Trust me. They just want their coffee and they want to get on their way."

Infamous mob murder site now a Starbucks [AMNY via Starbucks Gossip]

According to the Union-Tribune in San Diego, a man tried to return shotgun ammunition to his local Walmart. After he was refused he became enraged and told the employees he would be back to kill them all.

Then the man fired off some shots in the Walmart parking lot. No one was hurt, but witnesses were able to write down the man's license plate number and police located him at his home.

The San Diego SWAT team surrounded the man's mobile home and eventually had to use tear gas to get him to surrender after an 8 hour standoff.

Sorry, scary gun guy. Walmart's return policy on guns and ammo is clear: All sales are final. It pays to read the signs.

Santee SWAT standoff ends with arrest [Union-Tribune] (Thanks, jpac!)
(Photo:crawfishpie)

Twin Cities Foreclosures [Star Tribune via Caveat Emptor]

FROM: KEVIN HUNSAKER

Hi guys, If/when we put the tracer in an email to the reporter, is there any chance it will be discovered? Is it something a firewall could pick up, or antivirus software? Would it make it through HP's security and get to, say, my email? If CNET knows something like that was sent to them, we could end up with some seriously bad publicity.

FROM: RON DELIA

Team, Surveillance teams were in place from 9 a.m. to noon, and no activity was observed at either residence. It appears DK has not returned from vacation. We waited in the event the family was sleeping in. However, by noon the newspapers were not picked up from the driveway. A pretext call to the residence was not answered. Surveillance activity at GK's residence revealed no movement as well.

Every Word You Say [Harper's]
(Photo: Sister72)

Then, one day, Max read the provisions of the Fair Credit in Reporting Act (FCRA). The FCRA (in so many words) dictates that every person has the right to dispute the accuracy or validity of any item on their credit report with the three credit reporting bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and Transunion). From the date that each bureau receives notice of the dispute, the bureau has 30 days to investigate the dispute. If, at the conclusion of 30 days, if the bureau cannot verify the accuracy of the information in that person's credit report, or the investigation just doesn't get completed in time, the offending item is automatically deleted. Gone. Done. Case closed.
...
Max started his journey with a credit score in the low 500s, and now, in a matter of months, it had crested above 600. Eventually, and through great discipline, Max managed to eliminate every negative item on his credit report, simply by asking for proof that they belonged there in the first place.

As a result, Max's credit score improved to the point where he was able to buy a new car and move into his first house. Before losing contact with Max, I could tell that he had learned from the foolish mistakes of his youth and appreciated the opportunity to reboot his credit history.

How to Lawfully Reset Your Credit History [Make Your Nut]
(Photo: metavariable)

"The RIAA has sent out a letter to the ISPs telling them to stop making mistakes in identifying subscribers, and offering a 'Pre-Doe settlement option' — with a discount of '$1000 or more' — to their subscribers, if and only if the ISP agrees to preserve its logs for 180 days. Other interesting points in the letter (PDF): the RIAA will be launching a web site for 'early settlements,' www.p2plawsuits.com"

RIAA Admits ISPs Have Misidentified "John Does" [Slashdot via Gizmodo]

Brain scans predict shoppers' purchasing choices [Yahoo! via BoingBoing]

"All of the studies indicate that the composition of meat and milk from clones is within the compositional ranges of meat and milk consumed in the U.S.," the FDA scientists concluded in a report published in the Jan. 1 issue of the journal Theriogenology." Farmers have cloned animals for meat and milk, but voluntarily kept them off the shelves. —MEGHANN MARCO

FDA expected to OK cloned products [Seattle Times]

Cingular to offer MySpace on cellphones [Reuters]

Blood substitute too risky to test, panel says [MSNBC]

Without benefit of CGI.

• ConsumerAvenger (going in the comments as The Cultural Icon) reports that she did finally receive a NEW motorola RAZR, just as she asked for. "I'm still planning on turning over creation because of what I've been through but at least people can call me," she says.

• We wanted to know whatever happened with Andrew W and the creepy Comcast tech but he hasn't responded to our followup inquest. Don't leave us hanging!

• Dan says TWC has continued to be helpful and the next step is to get his roommate to give a description of the tech who showed up to his house unannounced. That's proving difficult because his roommate is never home, never answers his phone or responds to his messages, and is in general, a useless schmuck.

His turboed executive customer service call (which we helped him achieve, thank you very much), went from Terri (customer care advocate), to Barry Rosenblum (Executive Vice President, Operations, Northeast Region) to Tom Allen (V.P. of TWC security of NY and NJ).

Allen said he's opening a case on the situation. More than just looking at job numbers, he can cross reference assigned techs and territory and see if someone was out of place. Edelman say Allen gave him his personal line and "was really nice and helpful."

Adding, "I think at that level they realize the seriousness of it...the possible lawsuitiness."

Dan had to run off to a lunch meeting and promises more details later. While we wait for him to finish his pastrami, read our full IM convo inside.

When Edelman (pictured) heard about this, he raced home to find out if anything was stolen. Upon inspection, nothing seemed amiss, but the mystery remained. What was this guy doing there?

There's two possibilities we can think of:
1) A TWC tech has gone buckwild.
2) Someone in Park Slope is impersonating a TWC tech and casing people's joints.

To find out, Edelman began questioning Time Warner customer service. They were no help, so he started IMing us with advice for how to conduct his calls. We walk him through, live...

Follow along our exciting IM journey, inside!

Stay tuned for the next installment in this scintillating true customer service crime!

Once the plane is over the ocean, very discreetly bring all of your gear into the toilet...put a beaker containing the peroxide / acetone mixture into the ice water bath, and start adding the acid, drop by drop, while stirring constantly.

After a few hours - assuming, by some miracle, that the fumes haven't overcome you or alerted passengers or the flight crew to your activities - you'll have a quantity of TATP with which to carry out your mission. Now all you need to do is dry it for an hour or two.

Just don't accidentally bump the call button while you're puttering around.

"Mass murder in the skies: was the plot feasible?" [The Register]

• On average, a patient is subject to one medication gaffe every day.
• 1.5 million Americans get sick, hurt or are killed by prescription errors.
• 25% of these are preventable.

The study advised hospitals to switching to electronically written prescriptions, use bar codes and develop integrated, compatible prescription systems between hospitals, doctors and pharmacies.

Furthermore, patients need to be proactive in learning about the drugs they're prescribed, why, and the recommended dosage.

You don't want your obituary to read, "Killed By Bad Handwriting."

"Medication Errors Injure More Than 1.5 million Yearly, Study Finds" [CNN]