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The big news in candy land is that JellyBelly has a new beer-flavored jelly bean. Which sure, is news, but only because we can’t believe it took this long. Because we Americans, when we like something, like cheese or bacon or beer? We just love bending it to our will and turning it into new foods. So beer candy? Yep, about time.

The company says it took some thinking to settle on which exact kind of beer to build a flavor on, finally deciding on a Hefeweizen-inspired ale flavor for its Draft Beer Jelly Belly jelly beans.

The new flavor as unleashed at the Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco this week and ISM in Cologne, Germany.

So why the wait, Jelly Belly or any other company that would decide to take on beer and candy? The company says they didn’t want to mess anything up for the rest of us.

“This took about three years to perfect,” says Ambrose Lee, research and development manager for Jelly Belly Candy Company. “The recipe includes top secret ingredients, but I can tell you it contains no alcohol.”

Instead, the “effervescent and crisp flavor is packed in a golden jelly bean with an iridescent finish.” So it tastes like beer, with a mildly bready aroma and a flavor profile that might remind you of beer, but it’s safe for anyone of any age to eat.

“Anyone who enjoys a good, cold beer will enjoy Draft Beer Jelly Belly beans for the simple fact that it tastes just as you’d imagine,” says Rob Swaigen, vice president of marketing for Jelly Belly Candy Company.

Except for the cold and liquidy and actual beer part, but hey, that’s what beer is for.

By the time we started covering the attempted sale of the Highland Park, IL, house made famous as the site of where Cameron kills his dad’s Ferrari in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off it had already been on sale for two years. That was in 2011. In those years, the price has dropped by more than a million dollars, but no one seemed interested in picking up this piece of ’80s cinema history, until now.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the 1953 A. James Speyer-designed home, complete with the glassed-in garage sticking out over a ravine that eats classic cars, is finally under contract.

The sale price is not yet known, but the house was most recently listed for $1.25 million. That’s more than a million dollars off the original 2009 asking price of $2.3 million.

In 2011, the price plunged to $1.65 million, but still couldn’t attract any buyers. As recently as last August, the sellers knocked off another $150,000 to get the asking price to $1.5 million. Even then, there were no takers.

Let’s just hope this is the final chapter in the Cameron’s house saga, and that the new owners don’t allow their mopey children anywhere near their expensive rides.

Speaking of which…

While we’ve all been sitting here worried about the coming zombie apocalypse, the truth is we’ve already been infected. But instead of rotting flesh and vacant eyes, we’ve been infected by Facebook (which also is known to cause vacant eyes and drooling if you stare at it too long). Researchers say the cure is coming, or at least this infectious disease will fade out in the coming years.

Researchers at Princeton University say that the social network is like an infectious disease, which has a hefty spike before plummeting to its death, reports the AFP. Or its decline, same thing.

The two doctoral candidates in mechanical and aerospace engineering say Facebook will shed 80% of its users by 2017. As things stand right now, if we set Facebook’s total users at about 1.1 billion (according to recent claims) that would mean 880,000,000 people jumping ship. Ooh, fewer baby pictures to sort through!

The researchers make these claims in a new paper published online, which incorporates the rise and fall of Facebook’s social network predecessor MySpace. The clock is ticking, say the authors.

“Ideas, like diseases, have been shown to spread infectiously between people before eventually dying out, and have been successfully described with epidemiological models,” they wrote.

Things have been going downhill in terms of data usage since 2012, the study adds, and things will only get worse.

“Facebook is expected to undergo rapid decline in the upcoming years, shrinking to 20 percent of its maximum size by December 2014,” said the report. “Extrapolating the best fit model into the future suggests that Facebook will undergo a rapid decline in the coming years, losing 80 percent of its peak user base between 2015 and 2017.”

The piece is still waiting to undergo the peer review process before it’s formally published. No doubt others will come out with a study saying Facebook will someday morph into an all-knowing robot being who can read our minds and control our every moves as part of some kind of hive-mind society.

Facebook could fade out like a disease [AFP]

You may remember the car ad from a couple years back in which a Nissan Frontier comes to the rescue of a stranded dune buggy, muscling up the mountain of sand and pushing the buggy over the top. The Federal Trade Commission believes that this sort of thing — showing off a feature of a vehicle that does not exist — is deceptive, and has slapped both the car company and the ad agency on the wrists over it.

The FTC announced today that it Nissan North America and ad agency TBWA Worldwide have both agreed to settle charges that the ad (which you can watch below, at least until Nissan probably has it pulled from YouTube) violated the FTC Act “by representing that the ad accurately showed the performance of an unaltered Nissan Frontier under the conditions that were depicted.”

The commercial, one of those ads that is obnoxiously shot as if to replicate a viral video posted to YouTube, starts by showing a dune buggy trying but failing to go over the crest of a steep sand dune. Then the Frontier comes speeding up from below and nudges both the buggy and itself over the top while people look on in disbelief.

The ad does begin with a microprint disclaimer reading “Fictionalization. Do Not Attempt,” but the FTC took issue with the fact that the ad makes a material misrepresentation of the truck’s capabilities.

“Special effects in ads can be entertaining, but advertisers can’t use them to misrepresent what a product can do,” explains Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “This ad made the Nissan Frontier appear capable of doing something it can’t do.”

The terms of the settlement prohibit Nissan and TBWA from using deceptive demonstrations in advertisements for pickup trucks, though really this is already against the law, so they aren’t really allowed to do it with or without the settlement.

Both companies are allowed to continue using special effects and other production techniques “as long as they do not misrepresent a material quality or feature of the pickup truck.”

For what it’s worth, here is the original ad:

While for most consumers an attempt to pay with fake money probably amounts to joking “Ha ha, you don’t accept old Blockbuster cards as payment, do you? (wink!)” there are others out there who’ll go to great lengths to pull a fast one on retailers with counterfeit bills. That being said, having Moe Money’s signature on your $100 bills isn’t going to convince anyone that thing is anything but a fakety fake fake.

The 19-year-old suspect was charged with uttering a forged instrument, forgery of instrument and obtaining property by false pretense, reports MyFox8.com, and one count of inducing giggles by using the name Moe Money in the first place.

Police accuse her of trying to buy a gift card at a local Walgreens with a counterfeit $100, which led to her arrest. Cops later found $12,882 in fake money after her arrest, but it’s unclear if she’d ever successfully spent any more of the Moe Money money before.

Side note: Even if Moe Money was believable as a real guy, giving him the job title under his signature of “Proprietor of the Commonwealth” instead of say, Secretary of the Treasury or something is a giant tipoff too. Because while maybe not everyone knows who Secretary of the Treasury or the Treasurer of the United States are in any given year — “Current events, so tough,” whatever you tell yourself — the Proprietor of the Commonwealth is straight fiction and is not signing any money. Sorry, Moe.

UNCG student arrested for counterfeit currency [MyFox8.com]

Words that you never want to see in close proximity to each other: “toilet,” “explosion,” and “shatter.” That’s why the Flushmate flush-assist system has been recalled, though: one of the welds in the system can break, shattering the toilet tank and posing an “impact and laceration hazards to consumers,” as the Consumer Product Safety Commission elegantly explains. 

The same model of the Flushmate was recalled in 2012. Technically, this is an expansion of the 2012 recall, affecting the same product: the series 503. The expansion covers units made between March 2008 and June 2009. Serial numbers for this product have a production date code as part of the serial number.

The flushing system cost about $110, and was sold at Home Depot, Lowe’s, and any specialty stores that sell toilets. If you have questions, you can call Flushmate at (800) 303-5123 or visit the company’s site.

Flushmate Expands Recall of Flushmate III Pressure-Assisted Flushing System Due to Impact and Laceration Hazards [CPSC]

Man who donated sperm to lesbian couple now liable for child support. Talk about a nightmare: he got the consequences of sex without ever getting the sex.

TSA screened 638,705,790 passengers in 2013, and as we learned last year, if you look deeply within the possessions of that many people, you're gonna find some weird stuff. Tons of weird stuff. Here's a rundown of the craziest objects TSA found in 2013.

Read more...

Somewhere 11,000 years ago, something weird happened to a dog. It got cancer—and the really damn freaky part is that the cancer could survive even outside of its canine host. That unknown dog is long dead now, but its tumor cells have improbably lived on, continuing to sprout on the genitalia of dogs all over the world.

Read more...

Newegg has the Warrior 100 Piece Security Bit Set for $11 with free shipping. A complete set of security bits contains everything you need to gain full access to protected components including most tamper proof type security bit sizes. Harbor Freight has it for $9 if you can find it in store.

Amazon has the Gerber 22-41614 Ripstop-I 5-3/4" Length Fine Edge Knife for $10 with free shipping on orders of $35 or more. Features dual thumb studs, 5.75" overall length, and a streamlined stainless steel handle for lower carry weight (2oz).

The Gerber 22-41613 Ripstop-I 5-3/4" Serrated Edge Knife is the same price.

Home Depot has the Commercial Electric 7821C 100-Watt Power Inverter for $5 with free in-store pickup or $6 shipping to home. Features a 0.5A USB output, swivel head, and LED indicator light.

Similar inverters normally go for $15+ online.

Ends 1/31. Groupon has the LG Optimus G E970 Unlocked GSM Android Cell Phone (Black) for $180 with free shipping.

Snapdragon 600 1.5GHz Quad-Core, 2GB RAM, 16GB storage

Android 4.0 (upgradeable to 4.1.2), 4.7", 8MP camera, BT 4.0

New Wonder Woman Gal Gadot takes a artsy selfie from the make-up chair.

(Credit: Gal Gadot)

Break out your Wonder Woman Underoos, the Amazonian superhero may finally be getting her own movie. Variety reports actress Gal Gadot has signed a three-picture deal with Warner Bros. to play the famous DC Comics character.

Gadot is an Israeli actress who was recently cast to sport the likely skin-tight costume in the upcoming Batman versus Superman movie. The multi-movie contract will also bring her on board for a Justice League movie, and (wait for it) a standalone Wonder Woman film.

While it will be nice to see Wonder Woman hanging with her superhero peers, the truly exciting news here is the standalone feature. Fans have been pining for a strong big-screen adaptation for years, especially as a parade of other superheroes have gotten the cinematic treatment.

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Over the years, we've seen various clamp designs that let you create impromptu tables out of any flat slab. So far though, I have yet to find one I can actually purchase. Well, that ends now with these Floyd Legs. The concept is simple: attach a clamp to a table leg, so it can be attached to one corner of a slab of wood, metal or some other material that can serve as a tabletop. That's it. As long as [...]

In this day and age, many of us would want to lead a wireless lifestyle – after all, it makes plenty of sense not being tethered by pesky cables and wires that tend to have a life of their own after office hours, getting all tangled up without touching it. Apart from that, cables are also a surefire breeding ground for dust bunnies. Why not take advantage of wireless connectivity instead? The $199.99 Kicker Amphitheater BT2 would cater for those who love Bluetooth technology, as this wireless speaker hails from car stereo experts, which means it ought to deliver some pretty decent audio quality to your ears.

The Kicker Amphitheater BT2 would be accompanied by 5″ drivers, a 0.75″ silk-dome tweeter, and a 6″ square reflex subwoofer, where it will play nice with the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, Android-powered devices, and basically any other music playback device that comes with Bluetooth connectivity. Sporting a 50-watt internal amplifier, this is one serious accessory which will be able to deliver serious audio quality without having you work up a storm in its setup.
[ Kicker Amphitheater BT2 is a portable Bluetooth speaker copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

There's been a lot of talk about 3D printing and 3D printers, but the actual adoption rate of the things is still a bit cloudy. It might not stay that way for long, though, due to what Dell just did.

According to Pawel Slusarczyk, co-owner of Centrum Druku 3D, Dell has ordered no fewer than 5,000 Zortrax M200 3D printers. Slusarczyk describes the order as the greatest ever made on the 3D printing market.

The order may just put Zortrax on the same level as MakerBot a... (read more)

Sometimes it’s just like food media outlets in other countries are playing a kind of flavor Mad Libs: [Ingredient not usually in American snacks] + [Another ingredient not usually in American snacks] + [Brand name] =  snack concoction the American will inevitably buzz about. Oh, hello, Shrimp Mayonnaise Doritos. Because we live in the U.S. it’s not like we’ll even come into contact with items like the S.M. Doritos or Mountain Dew Cheetos, but that won’t stop our stomachs from imagining what it would be like to eat them.

And our stomachs (and minds, sure, whatever) are often boggled.

The Shrimp Mayonnaise flavor is part of Frito-Lay’s gourmet line in Japan, and will only be available until March 17, reports UPI. That’s when leprechaun-and-sriracha-flavored chips hit the shelves. We’re kidding… OR ARE WE?

If seafood isn’t quite what you’re seeking in a chip, consider other entrants in the gourmet line: Corn potage, camembert cheese or mushrooms with butter and soy sauce. Dinner is served!

And since most of you reading this won’t actually go to Japan to eat any of those, just pick whichever one makes your stomach flip the most and tell everyone about it, because that’s about all we can do with these wacky flavors stateside.

*Thanks for the tip, David!

Japan welcomes Shrimp Mayonnaise Doritos to shelves as part of ‘gourmet’ line [UPI.com]

Earlier this week, Target announced that it would no longer offer health insurance to part-time employees (those who work fewer than 32 hours per week), while at the same time claiming that it would not be trimming employees’ schedules so that they no longer qualify as full-time workers. However, some Target employees tell Consumerist that company execs aren’t telling the truth.

In a Target blog post, Target’s Exec. VP for Human Resources Jodee Kozlak provided a vague denial to a question about whether employees’ hours would be trimmed because of this decision to no longer insure part-timers, but some Target insiders see things differently.

One employee, who has worked at the store for more than a decade, says that as 2013 came to an end, his store began revising its shifts in a way that cut many workers’ hours to fewer than 30 per week.

The employee says this is not just affecting sales floor staff but specialty teams — the price change team, planogram team, in-stock team — that had traditionally been full-time jobs (36-40 hours a week), but now qualify as part-time employment.

“Recently these teams have been having their hours cut below 30 and they have been supplementing them by having sales floor people help with their workloads during their normal shifts,” writes the Target vet.

He estimates that the recent changes have cut the number of insurance-eligible employees at his store by 80%. Additionally, he says that his store is now hiring primarily part-time workers, something it had never done after the holiday season.

When contacted by Consumerist about these claims from its employees, a rep for the retailer first sent a link to the Kozlak blog post — the very thing I had referenced in my query — and then provided the following statement:

Target is committed to staffing our stores to meet the needs of our guests and business. All of our hourly team members provide the hours they are available to work and Target builds schedules around their availability and the needs of the business. All team members looking for more hours are continually encouraged to consider opening their availability or cross-training in other areas to maximize their schedule availability. At any time, our team members can talk to their manager about their interest and availability to work more hours. In fact, during the holiday season we offered our year-round part time and full time team members the opportunity to take on additional hours or cross-train to work in other areas — at their request.

If you work for Target and want to share your insight into whether or not employees’ hours are being cut to below the 32-hour/week threshold, send us an e-mail at tips@consumerist.com with TARGET INSIDER in the subject line. We will never share your identity or which particular store you work at with the public or anyone at Target.

In other Target-related news, the company laid off 475 employees yesterday, most of them from its Minneapolis HQ. Additionally, it will not replace 700 currently vacant positions. This is the largest number of employees let go since the nadir of the great recession in 2009.

As recently as last summer, Pepsi was called out for continuing to use a controversial caramel coloring — one that is labeled a possible carcinogen and whose use is regulated in California — in spite of calls for an end to its use. New tests from our coworkers at Consumer Reports confirm that Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, and Pepsi One all contain significantly high levels of the ingredient.

The coloring agent has the mouthful name of 4-methylimidazole but is also known by 4-MEI. Under California law, beverages containing more than 29 micrograms of 4-MEI must come with a warning label.

CR tested various sodas, purchased in both California and New York, over two periods of time.

The first round of testing was done between April and September of 2013. During that time period, the California Pepsi drinks all showed high levels of 4-MEI with both Diet Pepsi and Pepsi One showing levels above the 29 microgram threshold.

For the New York Pepsi drinks tested during the April-September period, the 4-MEI levels were much, much higher. Tests on Pepsi in NY found 174.4 micrograms of the chemical. Diet Pepsi test turned up 182.7 micrograms, while Pepsi One had the highest level — 195.3 micrograms.

Testing again in December showed that the California Pepsi drinks were still hovering around the 29 microgram line. In that test, Diet Pepsi was below the threshold, but now regular Pepsi had surpassed it.

When CR tested the New York versions of these drinks again in December 2013, both Pepsi and Diet Pepsi had notably lower levels of 4-MEI, about in line with what had been found in California. However, the Pepsi One test still showed a significant level of 4-MEI — 160.8 micrograms.

Given that Pepsi can’t seem to consistently get its products under the 29 microgram line, Consumer Reports has asked the California Attorney General’s office to investigate to determine if the company is in violation of state law.

Pepsi’s explanation for the high levels of 4-MEI is typical corporate nonsense. From the CR article:

After we informed PepsiCo of our test results, the company issued a statement that said that Proposition 65 is based on per day exposure and not exposure per can. It also cited government consumption data that shows that the average amount of diet soda consumed by people who drink it is 100 milliliters per day, or less than a third of a 12-ounce can. For that reason, they believe that Pepsi One does not require cancer-risk warning labels—even if the amount of 4-MEI in a single can exceeds 29 micrograms.

Who in the world is only drinking 100 milliliters of diet soda a day? Most diet cola drinkers I know have recycling bins full of empties and consume the stuff compulsively.

In a statement to the L.A. Times, the company expressed some concern but was defensive, making a vague accusation about CR’s testing.

“We are extremely concerned about Consumer Reports’ allegation that one of our products exceeds the Prop. 65 standard and requires a warning label,” said Pepsi. “We believe their conclusion is factually incorrect and reflects a serious misunderstanding of Prop. 65’s requirements.”

Comparing Pepsi 4-MEI levels to its competitors, most of the other tested beverages were well below the 29 microgram threshold, regardless of location. For example, only around 4 micrograms of 4-MEI was found in Coke purchased on both coasts. Likewise, Coke Zero and Diet Coke turned up even lower levels and showed no real difference between samples from California or New York.

Tests on A&W Root Beer came in just below the 29 microgram level, but showed no difference in 4-MEI levels between California and New York samples.

If you really hunger for 4-MEI, Malta Goya showed through-the-roof levels of the chemical in all samples, regardless of location. The most recent tests found 316.1 micrograms of the chemical in California and 307.5 in New York.

As diabetics, people with diabetic loved ones, and anyone who has seen a TV commercial starring Wilford Brimley all know, keeping track of one’s blood glucose levels is an important part of staying healthy with diabetes. But what happens when you suddenly can’t get the supplies that you need for the brand of meter that you’ve chosen because your health insurer will only cover one brand of meter?

Some people who get their prescription coverage through ExpressScripts are upset because as of the first of the year, the company will only cover supplies for OneTouch meters. The customers have to buy new meters: that’s the only option. Reader Mike alerted us to this issue, noting the struggle from his point of view in the pharmacy line behind fellow customers taken by surprise.

“I’ve been in line at the pharmacy with many, many angry people, unaware that the change had even been made at the beginning of this year,” Mike writes. “Especially for those on a fixed income, this is an expense they did not need to incur.”

New glucose monitor systems usually have substantial rebates available, since buying a monitor locks the customer into buying that brand’s supplies. Not all consumers know this, though, and not all pharmacies will take the time to walk their customers through choosing a new meter.

We contacted Express Scripts to ask about the change, and they told us that the meter swap was sue to changes to preferred formulary that about 30% of their customers use. “Formulary” is health insurance-speak for “the drugs that we will cover.”

“[I]n the many instances when multiple products are clinically equivalent to one another, we – the nation, its employers, and its patients – are all better off when we choose the more affordable options,” an Express Scripts representative helpfully told Consumerist.