Martin World News

You think Bob would add me to the MWN shield?'

ITEM:  If you were here for last week's "Annoying" post, this will make sense:  My friend's blog post has received another 91 spam comments.  I guess if you're going to waste time spamming, it's good if you are only wasting your own.


ITEM: Speaking of scammers, I have to grudgingly admit that at least one is getting smarter.  I received for Laurie (whose last name is Easterday) an e-mail from "Barrister Peter Etuhu"- the typical "a long lost relative died in (Togo this time) and left ($9.5 million this time), and I am trying to find a relation to give the money to".  But the twist this time is the dead relative- one Mr. JC Easterday.  At least to us, since a cursory look at the internet shows that the scammer changes only the name each time.  I was going to ask if "Uncle JC" has a wife named Penney, but I think I'll wait until Laurie reads the post to let her in on it.

And here is one with a whole new angle:


 
Hi,

My name is Jennifer Whitehair and I’m the Content Director for Vegas.com. I am reaching out to let you know about our upcoming Las Vegas style challenge. While browsing your site, I noticed your knack for staying on top of the latest trends.

 Given your fashion sense, I was wondering if you would like to participate in our #MyVegasStyle blog challenge? We would love to see your take on a day at Aria Las Vegas, one of the premier hotel properties in the area. Whether it’s lunch at Lemongrass, dinner at Javier’s, or a night out at Haze Nightclub, show us how your outfit transitions throughout the day. To create your post and show off your style, we encourage you to use an image collage platform such as Polyvore.

 We’ve selected a limited number of bloggers who we think fit the profile and we are confident you will take the challenge on full force, expressing your own creative vision on Las Vegas style. If this interests you, get back to me and I will send along additional details. I look forward to hearing from you.

 

Cheers,

Jennifer

 

Jennifer Whitehair

Content Director

Vegas.com

 

 

Now Jennifer is apparently a legitimate (though not very choosy) "Vegas expert" at Vegas.com.

 

Which I found disappointing, after seeing Google's "Images for 'Jennifer Whitehair'", most of which were actually Jennifer Anniston.  Not as disappointed, though, as the fellow participants in the blog hop who want to get a glimpse of my "fashion sense":

That li'l ol' fashion plate, me.

ITEM: Well, let's get the sex items done and over with.  What are they learning at the University of Exeter?

Keeping your cellphone in your pants pocket may help you quickly answer a call, but new research suggests this habit may have some damaging health effects for men – notably wannabe fathers.
A new study, published in the journal Environmental International, suggests that men who keep their cellphones in their pants may inadvertently damage their sperm, decreasing their fertility.


Giving new meaning to a slightly modified phrase a friend's father always used- "Keep your (cell phone) in your pants and your mind on Jesus."


ITEM:  Sex is all in the name....

Since April 14^th, Ottawa Police had been receiving reports of a balding white male exposing himself at Mooney’s Bay Park, a Rideau River park just north of the Ottawa International Airport.
On Tuesday at around 9 a.m., police were again alerted by reports of the man exposing his genitalia to strangers along a park pathway.
Officers in the area were dispatched to the park, where they arrested Donald Popadick, 62. Charged with Indecent Act and Mischief, he is due for a Wednesday court appearance.
Fittingly, news of Thursday’s arrest was reported on Twitter by Ottawa Police Sgt. Iain Pidcock.



I suppose his apprehension at MOONEY's Bay Park was also appropriate.


ITEM:  Yet another body blow to global warming. 

Summer may have officially arrived, but not at Lake Superior. A Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources warden discovered some icebergs still afloat in Lake Superior near Madeline Island. Amie Egstad spotted the floating ice – which was covered in resting seagulls – while doing a routine check of commercial nets in the largest of the Great Lakes. The sight was at odds with data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) at the weekend, which declared all of the Great Lakes ice-free.  The announcement broke an unprecedented seven months of ice coverage, according to Policy Mic.

Seagulls on Lake Superior iceberg, June 6th.  NOAA declared that that whole big chunk of ice- and all the rest- were gone the next day.

ITEM:  Category- Adding insult to injury:

 Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, on a visit to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Friday, said the U.S. has to strengthen efforts to control the humanitarian crisis that both nations face with unaccompanied migrant children crossing the U.S. Southwest border.
At the end of his speech to the chamber, where the Honduran head of state discussed his nation’s short- and long-term investment projects with U.S. businesses, Hernández seemed to blame the U.S. for the crisis – saying a lack of immigration reform and weak drug laws has contributed to the problem.


Can we run him for president HERE?  I mean, we ignored residency requirements on the LAST guy....


ITEM:  You knew it was coming...

The EU's top court is considering a test case which could oblige employers to treat obesity as a disability.

Denmark has asked the European Court of Justice to rule on the case of a male childminder who says he was sacked for being too fat.

Karsten Kaltoft weighs about 160kg (25 stone; 350 pounds). He told the BBC that "bad habits" had made him fat but that his size was "no problem" at work.

The court's final ruling will be binding across the EU.

It is seen as especially significant because of rising obesity levels in Europe and elsewhere, including the US. A survey in England in 2012 found that more than half of adults were obese or overweight.

The Danish courts asked the ECJ judges in Luxembourg to clarify European law in Mr Kaltoft's case.


Apparently among the duties he could no longer perform was "bending over to tie children's shoes."  His workplace said he was let go because of "a drop in the number of children" being cared for.

I tried that as an excuse at work the other day.  My boss said she was filing for disability for being too skinny.  Everyone's a comedian.


ITEM:  A severe thunderstorm just took me down once, so I'm going to try and hurry this up before it happens again- or we get blown to Kansas, whichever comes first.

ITEM THE LAST:  Inspired by the article about famous miscalculations I featured a couple weeks ago, several BBC readers sent in their big miscalculations.  They included:

"While working as an accounts assistant for a large sportswear company in the UK, I paid a foreign supplier £300,000 ($500,000) instead of £3,000 ($5,000) for some samples. "

"While working as a hotel night porter, I miscalculated the adjustment of the automatic wake up system for British Summer Time, meaning some guests arrived for breakfast at four in the morning, instead of the 06:00 start they'd asked for!"

"A colleague of mine once ordered a metal cylinder that was to be used to extend a boiler chimney on the petrochemicals site where we worked. The diameter was 792mm but he ordered one with a 792-inch diameter. His suspicions were aroused when the procurement department told him they were having trouble getting the item but were pleased to have found a Japanese submarine manufacturer who could make it! "

 "I once had the task of installing a cat flap into a door between my garage and my house. I carefully measured and marked the hole required, and took the door off its hinges to cut the hole - but once the door was on the bench, I couldn't find the markings. I assumed they were on the reverse of the door, so I marked it up again and cut the hole. I brought the door back to the frame but the hinges were in the wrong place... then I noticed the scuff marks were at the top of the door... I'd put the cat flap in at the wrong end. Many helpful comments about trampolines and ladders were to follow!"

 "Many years ago our company issued a directive that the metric system was now to be used for everything. Drawings and production were to be in millimetres. I ordered a small plastic sign about the size of a credit card to be placed on some electronic equipment not to be moved, because it transmitted interference. After some weeks had passed I got concerned... So I rang our sign-making department to inquire about the delay. They said they there were having trouble finding a truck to deliver it. Very mysterious... until it eventually arrived. They had assumed millimetres were feet! It was about 80ft by 50ft (24m by 15m) and would not fit through the door."

Other stories included using a tape measure that had a one-foot "high precision strip" at the beginning (which shortly got snipped off), another tape measure that had been "damaged in a fire" and rejoined between the 34 and 40 inch marks, A guy who wanted to run 1 mile around a track and ended after figuring out he had confused feet and yards after three miles, and a father attempting to order food online and got weight and quantity mixed (result:  one carrot and one apple instead of 1 kg of each.


Okay, we survived the hurricane.  Hope you all did too.