Unemployment benefits are no easy topic to get your head around. Some people say you can get them if you're fired, others say you have to be laid off. Others say you can "make them fire you" so you can get them. Reader Owen Landers explains the details.
If you have to decide between a carton of brown eggs and a carton of white, don't even bother considering the eggs' colors. Just look at the price tag, because the eggs are essentially the same.
Any project that brings a nice, cold beverage closer to your hand is a good thing, right? Here are three different ways to DIY a couch sleeve that provides a nice flat surface on the arm of your couch, perfect for setting down a drink.
Your vacation should be about relaxing, not wasting time getting there. Cut down on the stressful parts of relaxing and enjoying life with these time-saving tips.
Rust is always a pain to remove, but if you have a little bit of lemon juice and some salt, you can create a paste that pulls it out pretty well.
When you broil feoods, you hope for even browning and even cooking, but different rack positions don't always produce the same results. This parchment test from Cook's Illustrated will help you find the best zone in your broiler.
Whether you're planning to save money by cooking most of the meals during your trip or you just love to cook, Bon Appetit's Test Kitchen has a thorough list of kitchen supplies to bring along with you.
If your freezer is anything like mine, it includes several years of food in plastic bags piled on top of each other. This makes it hard to find anything and even tougher to organize it. Over at The Kitchn, they recommend organizing all those foods in large plastic containers.
I am an attorney specializing in "Lemon Law" and have personally spoken to thousands of people about automobile purchases, new and used. I can tell you the most important thing you can learn from the collective experience of all those people: UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PURCHASE AGREEMENT.
We would be shocked if there’s anyone in the world who actually wants 17 pounds’ worth of glossy Restoration Hardware catalogs. Since the doorstops first began hitting doorsteps back in May, though, more catalog recipients who value the environment and the lower backs of delivery personnel have been speaking out.
We learned from the New Yorker that a tiny anti-Restoration Hardware revolt has been slowly spreading. Most people sighed and tossed them out, and some people just tweeted about it before sending the catalogs off for recycling, but other responses were truly inspired.
Our favorite protest had to be the one in Palo Alto, California, where volunteers collected 2,000 pounds’ worth of the catalogs from the nearby towns of Woodside and Portola Valley and stacked them in front of the company’s store in Palo Alto. “They’re counting on people having really busy lives and not really thinking about it,” local environmental activist and new Consumerist hero Nancy Reyering told Palo Alto Weekly.
The magazine describes their delivery from the scene: store employees hauled off stacks of catalogs as quickly as they could, asking the volunteers to please deliver them to the back loading dock. What, and defeat the entire point of the protest? (Seriously, check out the photo slideshow of this protest. They built a catalog wall in front of the door.)
The catalogs were shipped via UPS. While Restoration Hardware boasted that it had purchased carbon offsets from UPS to make up for the miles driven to drop off the catalogs, it had failed to purchase back pain offsets and frustration offsets for employees stuck delivering the catalogs.
At least one nice thing came out of the catalog onslaight: people had a lot of fun finding ways to recycle the catalogs other than tossing them in the recycling bin, such as creating cat food stands and turning the glossy pages into pretty, glossy paper-bead jewelry.
Restoration Hardware’s Mail-Order Extravagance [New Yorker] (Thanks, Sylvia!)
10 Alternate Uses for the 17 Pound Restoration Hardware Catalog [Old Town Home]
The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning to tattoo parlors, their customers and those buying at-home tattoo kits after testing found certain inks could contain a bacteria that causes skin infections, the Associated Press reports.
The warning comes a month after California-based White and Blue Lion Inc. recalled the ink used in its in-home tattoo kits after it was determined that a bacterial combination known to cause infections was present in unopened bottles.
So far, the FDA says, one skin infection has been linked to that specific brand. The agency is also aware of infections related to similarly packaged inks.
Officials with the agency say they are concerned that consumers and tattoo artists may be in possession of the contaminated ink, which may have more distributors than just While and Blue Lion.
Labels on some of the recalled ink bottles contain a Chinese dragon with black-and-white lettering. Other bottles may be missing manufacturer information.
The FDA recommends that anyone planning to get a tattoo examine the ink bottle to make sure there is a brand name and location of the manufacturer included.
Skin infections related to tattoos aren’t uncommon, as the ink has been found to carry bacteria through the bloodstream, the AP reports. In the past, most health issues related to tattoos were the result of unsanitary parlor conditions and dirty needles.
Symptoms of an infection, which can occur years after the ink has dried, include fever, shaking chills and sweats, or in less severe cases bumps on the skin, discharge, redness and swelling may be present. People with pre-existing heart or circulatory conditions are most at-risk for infections.
FDA warns that tattoo inks can cause infections [The Associated Press]
That’s according to researchers at NPD Group, who recently concluded that 57% of all “eating occasions” are done without a partner.
Not surprisingly, non-meal eating — the snacking we do between meals — is when we’re most likely to be chowing down on our own, with nearly 3-in-4 snacking occasions being solo events.
In terms of meals, breakfast is the loneliest meal, with 60% of people getting their first meal of the day by themselves. Which makes sense, considering the number of people who pick up a bagel, donut, banana, whatever, on their way into work in the morning.
We were a bit surprised that 55% of lunches are enjoyed without anyone else around to nitpick your peculiar eating habits. But then we thought of all the sandwiches, to-go boxes, soups and other mid-day meals we’ve consumed on our own.
There’s a huge dip when it gets down to dinner time, where only about 1-in-3 meals are a one-person affair, with families finally coalescing into some sort of unit if only for the few minutes it takes to scarf down a meal and insult each other in ways that sting only slightly at the time but which will develop into lifelong grudges… Or so we’ve been told.
NPD explains that the growing number of solo meals is likely due to the record-high number of people living alone. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 27% of all U.S. households consist of just a single person.
When you’re reporting your results to investors, it’s good to focus on the good news. For example, AOL is now taking in more money per subscriber each month: $20.86 compared to $20.03 at the same time last year. What’s that? Yes, of course AOL still has subscribers.
2.3 million people remain who send AOL money every month because…well, maybe they need dial-up Internet service, or they forgot about the automatic charge, or maybe they’re afraid of facing the company’s retention department.
Sure, they’ve lost 250,000 subscribers in the last year, and about 84,000 since we last checked in with the company. Their “churn” rate is about 9%, and there aren’t new customers signing up to replace the ones who have left.
That extra 83 cents from the price increase is an additional $2.3 million in revenue, or two distressed babies!
Second Quarter Results [AOL] (via Quartz)
FROM MAY: AOL Still Has 2.4 Million Paying Subscribers
A suspected credit-card thief was caught thanks to the quick thinking of a cashier at a beauty-supply store in Florida. He didn’t quite feel comfortable with the purchase, and the customer didn’t have any photo identification on her that matched the name on the card. Instead of turning the customer away, he asked her to pose for a photo while holding up the card. She did.
No one could possibly be so clueless that they would pose, smiling, in the middle of committing credit card fraud, right? The woman did have a photo of herself with the name of the credit card holder written on it, but the real cardholder was 72 years old.
According to a police report obtained by The Smoking Gun, a woman’s wallet was stolen from a nearby Walmart. Police followed the trail of where the card had been used, which led to the beauty supply store. If the cashier had refused the sale, it would have been slightly more difficult to connect her to the stolen card.
The answer to the question that you’re about to ask is that yes, merchants are now allowed to ask for photo identification when someone uses a credit card.
The police have asked for the public’s help in identifying the suspect.
Dumb, Dumb, Dumb, Dumb, Dumb: Woman Posed For Photo With Stolen Credit Card She Was Using [The Smoking Gun]
We’ve all had to stand in line next to some insufferable brat of a child who won’t stop shouting out his desires for the entire world to hear. But most of us don’t have the gall to do what one Burger King customer claims to have done.
In a post on Reddit (cue the disclaimer that his entire story may be B.S., but it’s worth discussing anyway), a man claims that he was just trying to end his bad day on a good note by treating himself to some BK.
“When behind me comes this woman yapping on her cellphone with a little monster of a child,” he writes. “This kid was out of control, screaming, punching his mother throwing around a gameboy whenever something didn’t go right in the game.”
He says the mom paid more attention to her phone than to her kid, who was screaming about how much he wanted an apple pie.
The customer says his already bad headache got worse and so he asked the mother nicely to quiet her kid down.
“Immediately she gets up in my face telling me I can’t tell her nothing about raising her child and to mind my own business,” recalls the customer, who says the mom rubbed it in by calling her kid “sweety” and assuring him that he’d get his pie.
By the time the customer got to the front of the line, he says he could only think about how the loudmouthed brat and his mom had spoiled this little trip to BK.
“I then decide to ruin their day,” explains the customer who ordered all 23 pies the store had in stock.
“I take my order and walk towards the exit,” he recounts. “Moments later I hear the woman yelling, ‘What do you mean you don’t have any pies left, who bought them all?’ I turn around and see the cashier pointing me out with the woman shooting me a death glare.”
It’s one of those scenes that, were it in a movie (and it may be from a movie for all we know), you’d probably laugh and think the guy was an evil genius. But does the same hold true in real life?
Go ahead and vote on whether this man deserves a pat on the back or a kick in the rear:
Amazon’s explanation on how to find and order same-day delivery.
The markets added to the expansion are Baltimore, Dallas, Indianapolis, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. Same-day delivery was already being offered in the Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix areas. It’s also available in Chicago, but as you can see below, you need to get your order in before breakfast.
Eligibility is determined by ZIP codes. Amazon has two lists detailing all the ZIP codes in which it currently offers the service. The list for the East Coast and Midwest markets is HERE, while the info for the West Coast and Southwest ZIP codes is HERE.
You should check those lists before ordering, as not everyone in a market is eligible. For example, some New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia and NYC are included, but I noticed some missing ZIP codes for residential areas of NYC that are not included.
And not everything on sale at Amazon is available for same-day service. It all depends on whether it’s stocked by one of your local distribution centers.
In terms of cost, Amazon Prime members pay a fee of $5.99 that covers same-day delivery for all items ordered. Non-Prime members pay a $9.98 fee on the first item delivered and $.99 per item after that.
What about timing? Amazon says same-day orders will be delivered — presumably by local couriers or by Amazon’s own growing in-house delivery service — by 9 p.m. but you must get your order in by the deadline. These deadlines vary anywhere from 7:45 a.m. to 1 p.m., depending on the market.
As of now, it gives the following deadlines for placing same-day orders:
Baltimore – 1:00 PM
Boston – 1:00 PM (Same-Day Delivery not available on Saturdays)
Chicago – 7:45 AM
Dallas/Fort Worth – 12:15 PM
Indianapolis – 12:15 PM
Los Angeles – 12:15 PM
New York – 12:15 PM
Philadelphia – 12:15 PM
Phoenix – 12:15 PM
San Francisco – 12:15 PM
Seattle – 12:45 PM
Washington D.C. – 1:00 PM
The deliveries are available seven days a week, with the exception of Boston, where it does not fulfill orders on Saturdays.
Prime members pay only $5.99 for all the same-day delivery items they can order. Pricing for non-Prime customers remains unchanged, with a $9.98 fee for the first item and $0.99 for each additional item.
Money is money — but it’s a whole lot easier to receive a bunch of it with a check or even cash, than entirely in loose change. That’s how one California man said an insurance company paid him $21,000 in a legal settlement, dropping off more than 16 five-gallon buckets filled with coins.
The 73-year-old man filed a lawsuit in 2012 against an employee of the insurance company, claiming he’d been physically assaulted, reports NBC Los Angeles.
After the two parties reached a settlement, the insurance company paid up: The man’s attorney says eight employees of the insurance company showed up to his office in a van bearing five-gallon containers full of coins, and left them in the waiting room.
“There’s over 16 buckets of quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies. It’s going to take us at least, conservatively, one week to count that whole amount of money,” the attorney told CBS Los Angeles, with his client — who recently had a hernia operation and can’t lift much — adding, “It’s too heavy.”
“I am disappointed by the way [the insurance company] treats their customers and the elderly,” he said in a statement. “We might be poor, but we are people too.”
Insurance Company Settles Claim In $21K Of Loose Coins [CBS Los Angeles]
Insurance Company Delivers Settlement in Buckets of Loose Change [NBC Los Angeles]
Home sweet home?
The silos were mostly built in 1950, and a third of them were added in 1957, the Patriot-News reports. The current owners have removed all of the electric and industrial equipment, but are looking for an experienced developer to do the actual development part.
The new owners bought the site from Hershey for $100,000 two years ago, but they still don’t quite know what to do with it. There is a lot of space, including a cavernous top floor that would make a wonderful restaurant or penthouse. One idea proposed is a condominium development. The site could also work as a hotel (it’s near the Hersheypark amusement park, after all) or house a rock-climbing wall. One local group proposed an industrial museum. The silos are big enough to fit all of those things, really: they could hold ninety million pounds of cocoa beans.
Want to live in Hershey’s cocoa bean silos? Developer sought to transform chocolate-making icons [PennLive]
Do you like the idea of KFC’s Double Down in theory, but prefer beef to chicken? In California, Fatburger has your back. Well, your bun. Instead of the lettuce-wrapped patties that are what you normally get as low-carb/gluten-free options, Fatburger has gone ahead and sandwiched a burger between two more burgers.
The “protein burger” comes in sizes small through extra large, and you can get up to four patties on it for some reason. Also, you could get regular old toppings like guacamole, eggs, and you can even waste some space with lettuce. The “Protein Burger” ranges in price from $4.50 for a small to $7.50 for a large, and exponentially higher as you add exponentially larger numbers of burgers.
KFC Double Down? Fatburger protein burger doubles, triples, quadruples the meat [LA Times] (via Foodbeast)
Sold now by Hartz.
A Seattle artist who designed a line of plush pet toys called “Angry Birds” back in 2006 is now suing the company that sold them, claiming it cut her out of the process — and millions of dollars — when it licensed the design to the makers of the popular Angry Birds game.
The woman filed her complaint yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, claiming that the Hartz Corporation didn’t have the right to sell her trademarked pet toys to game company Rovio.
Her lawsuit says that in November 2006 she entered into a deal with Hartz to sell a line of pet toys called Angry Birds — featuring angry looking birds, what else? — which allowed the company to sell her toys in pet stores. But she says she kept the license for her intellectual property as part of the partnership, barring Hartz from licensing the trademark to anyone else.
When Angry Birds hit it big in 2009, the complaint says Hartz ended its partnership with her, citing “a licensing conflict.” Around that same time, it launched another line of Angry Birds pet toys in a licensing deal with Rovio, the complaint says:
After the launch of the popular Angry Birds video game in December 2009, Hartz used [the artist's] intellectual property and the trademarked “Angry Birds” name to leverage a deal with video game creator, Rovio, the suit states. The complaint adds that Hartz violated the agreement without [the plaintiff's] knowledge and permission, and without ownership of her intellectual property or trademark.
And while Rovio went after trademarks for a slew of other Angry Birds items, from clothes to board games, it didn’t even attempt to get a trademark for pet toys, likely because of its deal with Hartz, points out Joystiq.
As a result, the artist’s lawyer alleges that Hartz cut her out of any of the “tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars from sales of the Angry Birds pet toys.”
She’s seeking “disgorgement of all of Hartz’s ill-gotten gains, a reasonable royalty as owed to her under the Agreement, and an accounting, as well as a return of her Intellectual Property, including all associated trademarks and copyright registrations for ‘Angry Birds’ pet toys.”
Rovio is not named in the lawsuit.
Artist sues pet toy company over Angry Birds licensing profits [Joystiq]
(.sanden.)
A year after the Food and Drug Administration laid out the rules for food manufacturers who want to label their products gluten-free, the new labeling requirements will go kick in this week.
In order to bear the label “gluten-free,” products can’t contain more than 20 parts per million of gluten, says the FDA, because any higher than that and people with celiac could have trouble digesting the food and become sick.
Before now, anyone could slap the words gluten-free on something, but as for what that meant, there was no definition set with regulations. A food manufacturer could basically decide how much gluten was in a product, posing potential health problems for those with celiac disease.
Others simply choose to avoid gluten for their own perceived health benefits and reasons, so the label will be useful in those situations as well.
Food companies have had a year to prepare their products to be technically free of wheat, rye and barley, or just chuck the “gluten-free” label if they couldn’t make a product that meets the new definition.
And while restaurants won’t have to adhere to the requirements, the FDA is urging any who can to do so as well, using the same guideline set for packaging labels.
It’s the beginning of August, but maybe you like to plan ahead. You’ve already started to stock up on pumpkin spice snacks, and you even picked out your kid’s costume at Costco back in July. The logical next step? It’s time to start shopping for orange decorative lights, streamers, and pumpkin-shaped flashlights for trick-or-treating. At least, that’s what Dollar Tree thinks.
Brian sent along this picture from his local store. “And here it was I thought only Xmas was allowed to push ahead in line,” he wrote to Consumerist. Oh, if only.
Fairfax County Animal Watch Washington Post No incidents were reported by the Animal Control Division of the Fairfax County Police Department. For information, call 703-246-2253. FAIRFAX CITY. The following incidents were reported by the animal control section of the Fairfax City Police Department. and more » |
