You may want to write your own letter from Santa to the kids this year. Canada Post has temporarily shut down their popular “Write to Santa” program, which delivers over a million letters to kids in Canada and elsewhere, while they track down the volunteer who’s been sending out obscene letters to kids.
offbeat
By 12.7.07
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Riot police had to be called to quell 120 angry Chinese tourists in the Vegas-like resort territory of Macau. The tourists complained they were being forced to shop even though they were on vacation to gamble, and they began rioting after their tour guides took them to a cold beach and locked them out of their tour busses. [Reuters]
Family Tries To Pull Off $7 Million Black Friday Heist
By 12.4.07
A young man, his girlfriend, and his mother were arrested on Saturday for stealing $7.4 million from an armored car company last Monday in Cleveland, Ohio. They timed the robbery to occur after Black Friday and the ensuing weekend because they knew the company would be chock full of retailers’ profits. Then they loaded a newly bought getaway van with the cash and hid away in Pipestem, West Virginia. The FBI tracked them down using old shopping receipts found in the girlfriend’s abandoned pickup truck.
Drinking And Shopping Probably Not A Good Mix
By 11.23.07
We can’t imagine getting through the crowds today without doing a shot of something first, but both the Houston Chronicle and the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas say it’s probably not a good idea—you end up doing things like buying a massage chair from Sharper Image and not remembering anything about it when it shows up at your front door the next day.
By 11.14.07
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The Norwegian food safety authority suprise-inspected Norway’s “largest erotic chain store” and determined it was violating food labeling laws by not including nutritional info on things like penis-shaped pasta and edible panties. [Reuters]
"Hide Your Old Pills In Poop"
By 11.7.07
The Reuters headline is so perfect, we can’t improve upon it. Hide your old pills in poop, folks, before you discard them, especially ones that are frequently abused like the painkillers oxycodone, morphine, and fentanyl, and the stimulant methylphenidate.
You look very scary this morning. Here is a candy post for you.
By 10.31.07
Wired has a user-submitted list of the top gross-out candies now available for sale wherever gross-out candies are sold. Readers can submit candies and vote the least appealing ones to the top of the list. Our favorite seems to be everyone else’s favorite, too: the bandages with edible candy scabs—although the slimy gummi octopus candy also looks pretty revolting.
By 10.23.07
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This past Saturday, police spent four hours booking 210 people for trespassing at a shopping center in York, Pennsylvania, where they’ve been gathering for over a year to engage in illegal drag racing after-hours. One of the drag racers got away in his car. [York Daily Record]
Man Builds Secret Apartment At Mall, Gets Away With It For Four Years
By 10.3.07
An artist in Providence, Rhode Island was apprehended the other day by mall security as he left the secret apartment he’d built almost four years ago, in an unused utility space in the mall’s parking garage. The apartment had no running water (they used mall bathrooms), but it did include “a sectional sofa and love seat, coffee and breakfast tables, chairs, lamps, rugs, paintings, a hutch filled with china, a waffle iron, TV and Sony Playstation 2,” according to the Boston Globe.
By 9.26.07
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Add “barmaid” to your list of toxic things to avoid in Australia. The woman, a 23-year-old former employee of a Melbourne nightclub, and someone police say is “known for her prankster-style behavior,” served a patron a shot of Pine-O-Cleen disinfectant during a 6 a.m. “drinking bout.” The victim survived but developed ulcers on his skin. The ex-barmaid now faces “four charges of intentionally causing injury.” Man, everything cool happens in Australia. [Reuters]
By 9.22.07
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A small plane carrying four passengers clipped a pole, skipped across several cars—including one that had people in it—and crashed into an empty car Wednesday night in a Tennessee shopping center parking lot. All four airplane passengers survived. [CNN]
By 9.21.07
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Zara, a Spanish fashion chain, pulled a $79 bicycle-and-flowers themed handbag from shelves because of a customer complaint that it also had green swastikas embroidered on it. The bags were made in India and the swastika is a commonly used Hindu symbol. Zara claims the design it originally approved did not have the swastikas. [Reuters]
