Good for a laugh, here’s a sketch from the BBC “The One Ronnie” show with a man seeking tech support from a fruit vendor for his “blackberry” which is “frozen.” A series of fruit and gadget puns ensue and it’s worth sticking around for when it gets a little saucy. One thing that you should know before watching the clip is that “Orange” is a cellular network in Great Britain. Yes, you can see where this is going… [More]
videos
What Is The Most Efficient Checkout Line?
By 12.22.10
This quick video shows how the research by a 19th century German telephone engineer gave us the best checkout line system. As popularized by banks and Whole Foods, that’s the one where one line feeds all the checkout counters instead of people queuing for individual registers. It also goes into why the other lane always seems to be moving faster. It’s not just your perception; in a strange paradox, it is just mathematically more likely that the line you are in is more likely to be moving slower than the others. [More]
Pick The Right HDMI Cables Without Getting Ripped Off
By 12.21.10
Savvy Consumerist reader know that you don’t need to shell out big bucks for the monstrously expensive HDMI cables some blue-shirted guy is pushing on you in order to get a good hi-def video signal. In fact, as long as you need less than 50 ft, cheap cables you can get at places like Monoprice, Newegg, PCH Cables, or Blue Jeans Cable will do the job just great. But for those friends and loved ones who don’t quite get it, you might want to show this them clip done in cheezy instructional video style to help drive the message home. [More]
Sunny Seat Is A Suction Cup Cat Seat That Sticks To Windows
By 12.15.10
The Sunny Seat is a cat seat that sticks to windows with suction cups so you can create a horizontal raised surface for your feline without even having to know how to use a power drill. [More]
"Quatro Zany" Is Like "Four Loko" But Really For Adults This Time. Honest.
By 12.8.10
UCB’s The Brig sticks a key in Four Loko’s can with this new parody ad for Quatro Zany, “The new alcoholic energy drink totally not targeted toward kids.” It’s got everything adults want, like vodka, sugar, espresso, Adderall, and pixie sticks. And for when you’re on-the go, a convenient no-drip baby nipple! [More]
Traffic Camera Enters Drivers Who Obey Speed Limit Into Lottery
By 12.7.10
The winning entry in “The Fun Theory” contest is a traffic camera that instead of just ticketing speeders, it also enters people who drive the speed limit into a lottery. Randomly selected winners get paid out of a portion of the tickets paid by the scofflaws. [More]
DHL Pays Urban Denizens With Coupons To Deliver Packages
By 12.3.10
DHL is trying out a new program called bring.Buddy where regular people can pick up and deliver packages along their daily route that they’d be traveling anyway. In return, the recruits earn free train tickets, coupons and carbon offset credits. And, of course, badges. The goal is to reduce costs and carbon emissions within dense urban environments. [More]
Parody: TSA's New List of Banned Carryon Items
By 12.1.10
The holidays are here so that means it’s time for the TSA to release a new list of items that you think would bring holiday cheer but actually need to be banned to protect national security. UCBComedy’s The Brig parodies TSA policies in this new sketch that is probably more disturbing (warning: blood n’ candy canes) than uproarious. [More]
Animated Pig Bunnies Explain Quantitative Easing
By 11.23.10
Still don’t understand quantitative easing? Is it really just “printing money” or something more subtle? These animated xtranormal pig bunnies seem to have a grasp, at least judging by the millions of hits this movie of them explaining it has gotten. “The only thing deflating is the Fed’s credibility,” says one pig bunny to the other. [More]
Domino's Booger Woman Gets Sentenced
By 11.22.10
On Friday the woman who narrated the Domino’s booger video that made national headlines plead guilty and received sentencing. [More]
SNL's Black Friday Stampede Sketch
By 11.22.10
SNL this week did a pretty good parody of Black Friday madness with this madcap fake ad for “Mega-Mart.” “Your shopping gorge can only be stopped by one thing: boxes! So everyone in our Mega-Mart 12 minute frenzy will get a free boxcutter at the door!” [More]
Man Holds Bikini Bacon Contest For Charity. Except Charity Doesn't Exist.
By 11.18.10
A restaurant owner had a sizzling idea: a bikini bacon contest. Women were judged based on patron hoots and hollers in their ability to wear bikinis made out of woven bacon. The proceeds from the night and from the raffle tickets were all to go to a foundation for juvenile diabetes. Sounds great, except the charity doesn’t exist. CBS Sacramento’s Call Kurtis investigates. [More]
Forget The Double Down, This Is The Double Kill
By 11.16.10
Every time I look at a KFC Double Down, I think to myself, you know what this is missing? Onion rings, mac and cheese, beef patties, and of course, buns. Thankfully the boys of “Epic Meal Time” have rectified this significant oversight. And then they ate it. [More]
How Gadgets Designed For The Dump Are Killing The Planet
By 11.12.10
Annie Leonard is back with another engaging and frightening look at how our disposable electronics are trashing the earth. The concept is that our favorite gadgets are “designed for the dump,” because they’re “hard to upgrade, easy to break, and impracticable to repair.” For instance, her DVD player broke and the fix-it guy wanted $50 just to look at it. Why bother when you can get a new one at Target for $39? Something about this system has got to change. [More]
Debt Collector Threatens To Shoot And Eat Your Dog
By 11.12.10
A woman says a funeral home’s debt collector threatened to dig her deceased daughter’s body up and hang it from a tree unless she paid what she owed for the funeral service. That’s when she started recording the calls, capturing such things as, “We’re going to have your dog arrested, we’re going to shoot him, and we’re going to eat him,” and, “Are you going to pay this bill or not or am I going to have to kill you?” [More]
Man Forced To Eat Own Beard In Botched Lawnmower Sale
By 11.12.10
Two men are being sentenced for cutting off another man’s beard and demanding at knife and gunpoint that he eat it because they thought he was cheating them in a used lawnmower sale. [More]
Woman Says She Was Cuffed And Booted From Airport For Questioning Body Scanners
By 11.11.10
Meg McLain claims that the TSA ripped up her US Airways plane ticket and called police who restrained her in a chair, cuffed her, and escorted her out of the airport after she opted out of the backscatter can. Her radio interview describing the incident is at 390,000 hits and growing, and the TSA has posted CCTV of the incident on their blog. [More]
It Took 13 Months To Get My Incredibly Crappy Wedding Video – What Should I Do?
By 11.11.10
What’s more precious: money or memories? A bad wedding videographer can leave you with with neither. Autumn writes that she and her husband hired a videographer for their wedding, assuming that when you pay $1,000 for a videographer, you receive a video of highlights of the wedding and reception in a timely manner. Instead, Autumn had to hound the company to actually get her video, finally receiving it in August 2010 after a July 2009 wedding. Oh, and the video is also missing most of the moments from the reception that people actually want to remember. Maybe the company assumed that after a year passed, the couple would forget that there had been a father-daughter dance. And speeches. [More]
