[via core77: more at the his LJ page]

The Ann Arbor Observer has a contest every month where you scour their newspaper for a fake ad and then they randomly give away a $25 gift certificate for an Ann Arbor business to someone who got it right. So I was going through the pages and found this.

The claims were so lofty that I figured it had to be it. Anti aging? Fights cancer and HIV? And isn't "medical doctor" kinda redundant?

Sadly, this is not the fake ad.

The blogger over at Mila's daydreams takes her sleeping baby and makes little scenes of what she might be dreaming about




It reminds me of this set of engagement photos.

For more info, check out the post on MAKE

Most enhancements to armor are meant to inspire fear in their enemies. This one just adds a face and mustache.



[source]

My dad sent me a link to crapatmyparentshouse.com, a site of weird things that parents have ranging from far too many shoes to weird pillows. Thanks to Rachel, we actually have a hangar like that last picture at our place. When you hang dress shirts on it, it makes it look like the dog is dressed up for a fancy dinner.

[via CRAFT]

It's funny how when you give people something, their response is often to ask for more.

In winter we typically have some pretty amazing specials to try and capture the few people looking for apartments that time of year. I'll get people that are getting a full $180 off the regular price per month. Later, when the come in to apply they want me to still give them the additional special we give people off their first month if they apply within 24 hours despite the fact that they waited a week and a half to apply. "Oh come on" they say "you can do that"

We decided to start providing people with free wireless internet and I've had multiple people ask me if we plan to offer free cable soon too and suggest that it would be a great thing to draw people in.

Just before I started working here, the regular manager was gone on hiatus and the temp one basically permitted anything. Want to dig up the grass and plant flowers? Sure, go ahead, I don't see why not. I started not long after the manager came back. In walking the community, we discovered that residents had taken it a step further and now were growing watermelons whose vines were starting to climb onto the parking lot pavement. The watermelons were pretty good size for growing in such a short time too: like the size of a cantaloupe.

By the way, I know you can't tell from the photo, but it's supposed to look like that kid is scared because he's about to get hit by the car


[awkwardstockphotos.com (Yikes, if you go back too far: NSFW and NMS for dead deer) via bridget]

Jewel went in disguise to a karaoke bar, pretended to be in town for a frozen food convention, and then sang all her songs



In other hidden camera news, Improv Everywhere went on subway cars and reenacted the opening scene from episode IV of Star Wars. Maybe they have set the bar too high for themselves but I was disappointed that while they got the lines right, they didn't deliver them correctly. Nerds are so hard to please, aren't they?

http://improveverywhere.com/2010/07/14/star-wars-subway-car/

I had a resident come in yesterday evening who started out by saying "I heard a story on NPR today," which I assumed was a preface to something about how people these days negotiate rent with landlords at lease renewal (something that we don't mess with since you can run into perceived fair housing issues when you start offering different things to different people).

Anyhow, that's not what he was in to ask about: "They said that now that every resident is allowed to keep up to four chickens."

I tried to gauge if he was putting me on, but he seemed serious so I said "Well, not here. We've got pet policies and chickens are definitely not in there."

I knew he was serious when he said "Well is there a place outside that could be designated for them around here? Hens only--no roosters--and they don't crow."

"No," I said, "we just don't have anywhere they would go" and we went on to the next thing he had come in to ask about.

Can you imagine? We don't even allow dogs here, let alone chickens. Who would take care of them? Who would pay for the chicken coops? And, most importantly, who would clean up after them?

So this guy realized that the same prizes show up on the Price is Right all the time. He used this information to make a perfect bid on the first thing and then to make a perfect bid on his showcase ($23743), winning both showcases.

Esquire calls it TV's Crowning Moment of Awesome [NSFW]:
http://www.esquire.com/print-this/price-is-right-perfect-bid-0810

[Here's the video, though there's not much to it]

Yes, they've changed how they get products now to prevent this from happening again.

[Via Fark]

As you may have heard, Karen and I are having a girl in November (hooray!). This has opened my eyes up to new things in the world of baby things. For example, you've gotta carry your baby places and there are a million ways to affix a baby to your torso. Most of them are like 80 bucks (crazy), but if you really want to go nuts, you can spend over $250 here in town on a long piece of fabric. Maybe we can just take a Meijer reusable bag and cut leg holes in it instead. Those are like, what, a buck? Or how about a backpack: I bet those are on sale for back to school season. If it works for Yoda it can work for Baby Bus

But no matter what, you can't skimp on car seats since you've gotta keep baby safe while driving. Ok, well get this. Car seats have an expiration date. That's right. My boss at work said she bought an expensive $300 car seat for her kid and that her daughter said that she wouldn't use it if she had another kid now (less than 3 years that) because it expires.

Are these car seats made out of banana peels or something?

Let me quote one site: "If the car seat of your dreams is on sale for $175 instead of the regular $200 make sure you check it. It isn’t unusual to find that even the latest and greatest car seat has been sitting on the shelves for 6 months before you bring it home. [...] That $25 off sale price may not be such a savings after all. [...] You wouldn’t let your children drink milk that was 2 weeks past its expiration date, and you probably at least glance at the date on a bottle of medicine before you give your child a dose. Shouldn’t you take the same care with your child’s car seat?"

Yeah, ok, I get that safety advancements have been made and that it's worth your while to maybe buy a recent seat, but I'm not going to buy a new car for baby too just because that's more than six years old. I think I can be satisfied that sufficient technology existed a few years ago to keep Baby Bus safe. I mean come on.

Jeremy Wood of the University of Warwick drew this map by walking and having GPS plot out the path that he took. Every line on here is somewhere he walked. If you think that's impressive, check out his more detailed map here on Gizmodo. In total, he walked 238 miles.

(And by "play lemmings" I mean do a few levels and then give up to go play a different game that feels more rewarding.)

I've had this weird surge of people's parents basically renting an apartment for them.

I had a mom call me the other day to ask questions about the apartments. I would answer her questions and she would occasionally hand the phone to her son who didn't really seem to care, so he would hand the phone back to the mom whenever she, in the background, would instruct him what to say: "ask if they have a clubhouse" or "ask if they have break ins" and then he would hand the phone back to her and she would continue the conversation.

I had another person that same day whose mom called in because her daughter, a grad student, was busy at work and couldn't call me directly at that very moment. The mom wanted her daughter to come in for an appointment, so she set one up and said she would call back if the daughter couldn't make it. Also, when the daughter came in later, I was to tell her "your mom told me to tell you that she wants you to take this apartment" which felt weird saying a 24 year old.

----
p.s. I find it funny how the stock photo of the helicopter is meant to make it look like it's flying when really it's just a helicopter sitting on the ground

I cut this video right down to the good part. The owl picks how he wants to scarify himself to another owl based on the size of that owl.

Also, that music sounds like a remix of sandstorm from Joel's techno tape.

Yup, it's a map system from 1927 for getting place to place by winding a little scroll in your watch.



"When motorists wish to turn off the road, they have to pull over to replace the map with another map that corresponds to a number on the junction.

I saw this on MAKE but there's a whole article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-564133/Fancy-driving--earliest-wind-sat-nav.html#ixzz0tKA63xEB

I went to one of our seven local Jimmy John's today at lunch and was surprised to see the following. When you make a phone order at this one, everyone in line can see your credit card number as it is being entered. No, there were not asterisks displayed on the screen: We're talking actual credit card numbers and the security code on the back of the card. While I don't see the spot for "name on card" on this screen, I imagine that there must have been a previous screen in which they had to enter the order's name and address.

Shoot, who needs complicated ATM phishing equipment when you can sit and eat a sandwich while harvesting people's personal data?


[sorry, I only had my cellphone on me as a camera]

I had someone email me about apartments. When I emailed her back, I let her know that I only had 1 apartment available for the 1st of the following month and so she should make an appointment and come in soon. When she came in unannouced much later, she was sad to hear that that apartment was rented because her date was final.

I did, however, have two apartments of the same floor plan available for the middle of the month and they were still second floor apartments. She said she really needed the 1st but wanted to look anyway. So, after 45 minutes of questioning about things she could find out herself (what school would my kids go to, does the bus pick them up? where is the bus stop? what ages is the school for?) we went to go look at apartments.

I don't have many apartments to rent right now and so (since the current residents haven't moved out of the soon-to-be-available apartments) we went to look at an example apartment that a resident was going to move into.

We also went and visited where the available apartments were. As much as I explained the floor plans are the same and how we wouldn't have her sign a lease until she saw her actual apartment and how I got my apartment the same away, she couldn't believe I would ask her to pick an apartment without seeing it. But that's how it works when I'm full and don't have apartments just sitting around.

So she asked that, when she applied, that I hold both apartments for her and then when they move out 25 days later, she could look at both of them, and pick which one she liked the best.

"When we run your application it has to be on a specific apartment; we can't hold both," I said.

"How am I supposed to pick if I haven't seen it?"

"Imagine if you came in and I said 'I have an apartment available for you, but I can't tell you which one because someone else is picking which one she likes best weeks from now. You can rent the one that she likes the lease' "

"Ok, I guess you're right," she said, and she left basically all set to apply and so I figured the whole thing was worth my time.

After all that work, she emailed me the next day to say that she wouldn't be renting here: she needed an apartment by the 1st.

Directly quoting the article:

A six-year-old boy who nearly went blind in one eye can now see again after he was told to play on a Nintendo games console.
Ben Michaels suffered from amblyopia, or severe lazy eye syndrome in his right eye from the age of four.
His vision had decreased gradually in one eye and without treatment his sight loss could have become permanent.
[His mom] said: 'When he started he could not identify our faces with his weak eye. Now he can read with it although he is still a way off where he ought to be.'

Keep at it pal; eventually you'll not only be on target but also be able to make the mushroom shortcut on rainbow road.

Full article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1289186/Boys-eyesight-saved-prescribed-daily-dose-Nintendo-Mario-game.html#ixzz0sOnW4ZuW