Google’s Street View feature is a generally helpful tool. You can use it to get a visual on a new neighborhood; see what’s on the ground outside an unfamiliar subway station; or catch a crime in progress.
Unfortunately, Google doesn’t have much of a sense of humor about Street View so when weird sights and crimes pop up, the search engine giant is quick to remove the questionable material. But what about blocked views?
Last week, my sister and I were getting together for lunch, and she Google Mapped the restaurant. When she plugged in the address, she found out that we were going to be dining inside an articulated New York City bus. I don’t think that’s quite what these folks would like to know about their restaurant.
RIP, Rufus.
You did not win the NBA Championships. The Celtics won the NBA Championship. Shockingly, there is a difference.
John McCain’s presidential campaign is running the above ad all over the Internet. While McCain thinks his opponent is a threat to common sense, it seems, John McCain is a bigger threat to something more important: the English language. So I’d like to pose a few questions to the senior Senator from Arizona.
- Is it OK to split an infinitive?
- Is it OK to capitalize randomly the first letters of some words but not others?
Elect a leader with good grammar.
Are we two or twenty-five? You decide. Initials are used to protect the innocent.
Ben: i just got a spam filter notification at my work e-mail address with the subject line “Update your Penis”
Ben: best spam subject line ever
Ben: i should have upgraded to penis 2.1 ages ago. what have i been waiting for
SR: lol
SR: new patch available
Ben: 2.1.1?
SR: security update
Ben: does it have a code name? like Leopard? Penis X
SR: lol
SR: ok thats too funny
SR: i’m still laughing
Ben: me too
Ben: i crack myself up.
SR: hehehe
Ben: perhaps this penis upgrade is still in beta
Ben: that’s a risky proposition
SR: yeah you don’t want to be a beta-tester of that upgrade
SR: don’t want the system to crash
And an old headline tip-o’-the-hat to a classic Celebrity Jeopardy.
Two men scaled the new New York Times building yesterday. How many reporters did it take to report on the story? Well, James Barron wrote it, but he needed some help:
Reporting was contributed by Charles V. Bagli, Russ Buettner, Sewell Chan, Glenn Collins, David W. Dunlap, Jason Grant, Christine Hauser, Corey Kilgannon, Eric Konigsberg, Jennifer 8. Lee, Trymaine Lee, Patrick McGeehan, Colin Moynihan, William K. Rashbaum and Paul von Zielbauer.
I guess they just stationed a reporter on every floor and watched Alain Robert and Renaldo Clarke climb. Good work, guys. It took only 16 of you to report this story!
(Hat tip to mom.)
So says The New York Times today. Sounds good to me. I don’t need any excuses to drink more red wine.
When American Airlines announced two weeks ago their plans to charge for any checked luggage on their flights, the public — as seen through the media — was outraged. How could the money-grubbing airline industry big wigs be looking to charge the poor, helpless wittle consumer yet again?
Gawker, however, wasn’t sold on that populist argument put forth by the American media. Hamilton Nolan sympathized with the PR flacks and airline reps who have and will continue to bear the brunt of the criticism:
As hard as it is to sympathize with the airline industry, they deserve a little sympathy. They were the victim of an easy cheap shot by the national media, which cried “Not another price increase!” while knowing full well that revenue needs to go up one way or another. American’s only mistake here was being the first one to put in this fee. Now that they’ve broken the cherry, watch as all their fellow airlines fall in line.
There is problem though with Nolan’s criticism and the media’s coverage in general. People writing about American Airlines’ plan have, by and large, neglected to touch upon key aspect of the $15 luggage fee: Due to ridiculous TSA measures, a lot of travelers have no choice but to check their luggage.
The TSA, as they are wont to remind us at every opportunity in every U.S. airport, will not allow travelers to take on any sort of container with liquid, gels or aerosols larger than three ounces. While there are prescription medication exceptions, anyone wishing to take a long trip with shampoo or toothpaste or mouthwash or after shave or cologne or perfume will be totally zapped by the American Airlines policies. Travelers can’t take these items on the plane, and while it’s possible to pack a small suitcase for a long trip, toiletries are, by and large a necessity.
So now travelers are faced with two choices. They can continually spend the money on the other end to buy new toiletries or they can pay the airlines a fee to manhandle check luggage. Either way, the traveler is the one getting bilked out of money, and I’m surprised only that it took so long for the airlines to figure out a way to exploit TSA’s so-called security measures for financial gain.
Movie buffs on the East Coast awoke to some bad news on Sunday morning when word of the Universal Studios fire broke out. The efforts to stop the fire, at first hampered by low water pressure, were eventually successful but not before a large swarth of movie history burned to the ground.
According to the L.A. Times, among the big-ticket items lost to the blaze were the King Kong exhibit, some street scapes used in countless films and movies and a 40,000-reel video vault. While the vault is recoverable, the rest of the damage is tragic, and one item stands out to me above all else: The iconic Courthouse Square from Back to the Future went up in flames.
While I know that the original set was lost to a 1990 fire, this latest blaze still strikes a deep chord with me. Like millions of other kids growing up in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I loved the Back to the Future trilogy, and I still watch those movies today on DVD. They’re timeless classics and hilarious sci-fi, time travel films. Christopher Lloyd is over the top as Doctor Emmett Brown and Michael J. Fox plays Marty McFly to a tee. From “Great Scott” to the Grey’s Sports Almanac, those movies are a wild ride.
When news of the burning courthouse struck, I feared for the clock tower itself. I’ve seen the clock tower once on a Universal Studios visit, and it seemed like I was looking at Hill Valley, California. The only thing missing was Dr. Brown swinging off the the top of that clock while a DeLorean hurtled down the street approaching 88 miles per hour. While little eight-year-old Ben was a bit disillusioned by the fact that the clock wasn’t stuck at 10:04 p.m. as it was in the movie following a 1.21-Jigawatt lightening bolt, it was still a pretty awesome site for a little kid.
Luckily, the fire didn’t knock out the Clock Tower, and all is well in Hill Valley. But had we lost that piece of pop culture and movie history, it would have been I sad day indeed.
The Internet Is Funny | Benjamin Kabak, June 24, 2008 4:11 pm | 
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