Archive for November, 2011

Craigslist ad seeks girlfriend — only for the holidays

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Single ladies, weep no more: Your white knight has arrived to keep you safe and snuggled for the holidays — and he’s even considerate enough to let you know exactly when he’ll be dumping you.

That’s the premise of a Craigslist ad (spotted last week at SF Weekly) that’s seeking a San Francisco girlfriend from now until right after New Year’s Day.

“Deep down inside, you don’t want to be alone for the holidays,” the ad reads. “You want someone to do all of those cute snuggly things with, someone to get fat and keep warm next to … and someone to accompany you to your friends’ coupley holiday parties so they don’t keep thinking you’re a loser destined for permanent solo status.”

The next steps? Send in a pic and a bio (“250 words max”) and the original poster — who says he’s a 28-year-old “small business owner” who’s “easy on the eyes” — will set up a casual date.

“If that’s a success and we’re both feeling it, we’ll date until 11:59PM, January 2nd, 2012. After that we can still be friends (unless we hate each other, then we can downshift to the occasional drunken booty call).”

Modern chivalry.

We reached out to the man behind the ad and asked a bit about the responses flooding in. He asked to remain anonymous (“People who are really diligent can pretty easily find out who I am, but I see no need to just give it away to the trolls,” he wrote), but was more than willing to share that he has received between 200 and 300 emails and hopes to wrap up the last few “mini-dates” and pick a lady by the weekend.

Last call to send in your pictures and bios. As for the whole experience, the poster says he considers himself “lucky in being faced with making such a tough choice.”

By ELLEN HUET, SFGate.com

$2 subs available at Subway this December

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Six inches of sandwich for just $2. (Like_the_Grand_Canyon / Flickr)

What’s better than a $5 footlong? A $2 six-inch sub.

Subway plans to launch a deal making its meatball and cold-cut subs available for only two bucks during December, USA Today reported, joining a number of other fast food chains with cheap specials during a down economy.

From USA Today:

December is typically a slower month not just for Subway but for the entire fast-food industry. The Subway deal is the lowest-price 6-inch sandwich that the chain has offered in years, says Tony Pace, marketing chief at Subway’s franchisee advertising fund. “We’re just showing folks a little love when everyone is fretting about the economic future,” he says.

Unlike many items on some fast-food dollar menus, this $2 sub may have higher consumer quality perception — and it can almost pass as a small meal in itself. For the company widely known for promoting the $5 sub sandwich, this is upping the ante. Two of the six-inch subs would fetch $4 — lower than its bargain $5 foot-long.

For Subway, it could add up to a huge December, says Yarrow, in part because most consumers who come in for the deal will spend more than they intended. “The recent success of Black Friday is because retailers did an amazing job throwing out deals,”

Victoria’s Secret moms are called out for being too thin

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Miranda Kerr: a mom, not most moms. (AP Photo/Brad Barket, File)

Four of last night’s Victoria’s Secret Angels are moms. Miranda Kerr and Doutzen Kroes both gave birth in January, Adriana Lima has a 2-year-old at home and Alessandra Ambrosio had a daughter in 2008.

According to Ed Razek, chief marketing officer for Victoria’s Secret’s parent company, the fact that the women are moms is a good thing for their modeling careers.

“It’s true, a number of our models have come back from having a baby more beautiful than ever. I know that some of them have used the show date as a goal to get back in shape and, I think, having a baby has given them a sense of confidence, an ‘I can do anything’ attitude that is reflected on the runway,” he told the Associated Press.

Kroes goes on to tell the AP how “empowering” it was to “mold her new figure into shape.”

Well, good for her.

Janice D’Arcy at the Washington Post calls the whole story “unintentionally hilarious,” pulling out quotes such as:

“Motherhood hasn’t slowed them down at all: [Miranda] Kerr even got to wear the coveted diamond-covered bra. ‘I was asked to do it after I gave birth,’ said Kerr. ‘That was awesome. It’s such an honor.’ ”

But some bloggers are calling the women out for simply being too skinny.

Lima even admitted in the run-up to the show she works out twice a day, drinks only protein shakes for nine days and nothing at all for 12 hours beforehand.

“No liquids at all so you dry out, sometimes you can lose up to eight pounds just from that,” she told the Telegraph.

Um, that’s not healthy.

Chanel Iman countered by telling Modelina she had to bulk up by 15 pounds for the show. She did so by eating lots and lots of barbecue.

E! Online isn’t buying it that the models are all barbecue-filled curves though. The entertainment site is saying they’re just too skinny.

“(W)e can’t help but remember the days when models like Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum and Gisele Bündchen took over the catwalk with their curves. Don’t get us wrong, they still made us question our meal choices, but they were also voluptuous. And now, it seems like the wings on these newbies are literally going to whisk them away,” they wrote.

Entertainment Weekly agreed, but was not quite as nice about it calling the women out for “protruding clavicles” and mocking the choice of Lady Gaga’s Born This Way to accompany them.

Burger King announces new french fries

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Burger King is shaking up their french fry recipe for the first time since 1998 according to Reuters:

Burger King said it made the new fries thicker, reduced sodium and added a coating that makes them crisper and keeps them hotter longer. (Read more)

I’m all for less salt (not really, I love salt), but I’m a little nervous about the “coating,” which just sounds industrial.

In any case, you’ll have to wait until Dec. 5th to taste test the fries which are thicker and a direct response to increasing competition from the likes of In-N-Out,  Wendy’s, Five Guys and perennial consumer favorite, McDonald’s:

The new fries at BURGER KING® offer restaurant guests a high-quality, perfectly balanced product. A thicker cut of potato gives each bite more fluffy, potato flavor on the inside and crispy, golden-brown deliciousness on the outside. The new fries will be available at most BURGER KING® restaurants across North America by December 5th. (Read more at MiamiHerald.com)

Tech firm bans email

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Atos CEO Thierry Breton won’t be emailing you anytime soon. (Photo: Hannelore Foerster/Bloomberg)

Imagine your workplace without email. That fantasy (or nightmare) will soon be reality for thousands of people who work for information technology firm Atos.

The company, which has offices in the Houston area and in Norwalk, Conn., manages IT for the Olympics. Its clients include oil field services firms Schlumberger and Baker Hughes.

ABC news says Atos found that most email messages turn out to be a waste of time:

CEO Thierry Breton of the French information technology company said only 10 percent of the 200 messages employees receive per day are useful and 18 percent is spam. That’s why he hopes the company can eradicate internal emails in 18 months.

The rule would apply to 74,000 employees in 42 countries and will hit close to home for some Houstonians. In April, Atos unveiled plans to locate one of its U.S. headquarters in Sugar Land.

Breton, who served as French finance minister before heading up the IT company, told the Wall Street Journal he hasn’t sent a work email in the three years he’s led the firm; he expects employees to focus instead on communicating via instant message or through an internal social network akin to Facebook.

In a statement about the policy, Breton compared spam to smog:

“We are producing data on a massive scale that is fast polluting our working environments and also encroaching into our personal lives. At Atos we are taking action now to reverse this trend, just as organizations took measures to reduce environmental pollution after the industrial revolution.”

Arizona gun club offers a high-caliber Christmas

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scottsdalegunclub.com

scottsdalegunclub.com

An Arizona gun club is getting into the high-caliber Yuletide spirit, offering a photo opportunity with Santa with your choice of machine gun, MSNBC reports.

 Members of the Scottsdale Gun Club Gun pay just $5 and non-members pay $10, and get to pose with their choice of M60s, M249s, M240s and a modified AR15 amid more traditional props. Participants get a print and digital version of the shot.

 Club spokeswoman Brooke Rodda says about 500 people turned out for the first photo shoot on Nov. 26, and an even larger crowd is expected for the second “Santa and Machine Guns” event Dec. 10.

Kidnapper sues former hostages for breach of contract

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This undated photo released by the Kansas Attorney General’s Office shows Jesse Dennis Dimmick.

In a bizarre case, a Colorado man is suing the newlywed couple he kidnapped for breach of contract, claiming they agreed to hide him for money after he crashed a stolen vehicle into their yard, then held them at knifepoint.

From The Huffington Post:

In his lawsuit, 25-year-old Jessie Dimmick of Aurora, contends that after breaking into Jared and Lindsay Rowley’s Topeka-area home while fleeing police, he and the couple reached a legally binding, oral contract that they would hide him for an unspecified amount of money. Dimmick, who is representing himself, is seeking $235,000.

“As a result of the plaintiffs breech (sic) of contract, I, the defendant suffered a gunshot to my back, which almost killed me. The hospital bills alone are in excess of $160,000, which I have no way to pay,” Dimmick wrote in his civil suit filed last month in Shawnee County District Court.

Dimmick’s gunshot occurred after he fell asleep while eating Cheetos, drinking Dr Pepper and watching the movie Patch Adams, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal. Police were able to gain access to the house and when they woke up Dimmick, one officer’s rifle accidentally discharged.

Ann Coulter’s insults censored on MSNBC’s Morning Joe

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Fox News favorite Ann Counter ventured over to MSNBC this morning. It appears her comments were not welcome, judging by the hefty use of bleeping during her conversation on Morning Joe.

Politico decoded the early-morning clip and determined that Coulter was referring to Sen. John McCain:

Coulter appeared to call John McCain (R-Ariz) a “douche bag” on the morning show, in the context of a conversation where she said she preferred conservative principles to mere consistency.

While talking about the Arizona senator, Coulter’s audio was bleeped by the show, cutting in and out three separate times, for a total of about 13 seconds.

After the sound returned, Coulter paused, realized that something had happened, and then could be heard asking others on the show, “What did I say? Oh, douche bag.”

“Just blur it all out,” host Joe Scarborough responded, apparently talking to the control room.

“Okay, well they got the general drift of that,” Coulter said. “Consistency is not a great thing, and especially someone like John McCain who consistently annoyed conservatives, bragged about annoying conservatives, and would claim he was courageous by attacking conservatives and getting good press in the New York Times.”

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough tweeted hours after the interview defending Cain.

It’s not the first offense on Scarborough’s show, where Mark Halperin called President Obama “a dick” in June, and Coulter herself has been known to break out colorful language.

“Coulter of course has a history of vulgar remarks, “douche bag” being hardly the most offensive,” The Atlantic Wire wrote. “She’s called John Edwards a “faggot,” Al Gore a “total fag,”and Bill Clinton a “latent homosexual.”

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