You know what's better than knowing how to get rid ofstubborn underarm stains? Keeping those horrid yellow stains away in the first place. Real Simple tells us we can use baby powder as a stain guard for our clothing.

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It's not that hard to boil an egg, but along the way, things can (and often do) go wrong. Kitchen Konfidence offers solutions to two of the biggest challenges about making boiled eggs: Timing the water boiling exactly and getting peels off easily (without losing chunks of the egg).

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You’ve probably heard about slow cookers, and how they can save you time and money in the kitchen. Most people use them for slowly simmered soups, stews, and broths, which is great—but did you know you can make cheesecake in your slow cooker? What about barbecue ribs? Let's talk about some unexpected, delicious meals that are surprisingly slow cooker-friendly.

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Sorry, we have to. It's not the most exciting topic, but you can't call yourself fully protected if you don't have your critical paperwork done. Below are the six things you need to have under control.

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Have you ever wanted to make some delicious cupcakes or muffins, but found yourself without a muffin tin? Here's how to make sure that never stands in your way again.

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If you take bargain clothing finds home and neglect to treat them with care, you'll likely have to replace them again in no time flat. However, if you properly care for your clothes, they'll last longer, and that'll save you even more money in the long run.

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Making sure a suit fits right isn't terribly complicated, so it's surprising how many people you see walking around with badly-fitting suits. Make sure you're not one of them by employing these five fitting tricks.

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We at Consumerist remain fascinated with the 2012 theft of 10,000 barrels of maple syrup from the Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve in Quebec, Canada. We’re not the only ones: there’s even a movie about the heist starring Jason Segal in production. Yet some questions remained: Did authorities ever catch everyone involved? Was every drop of syrup recovered? More importantly, why is there a global strategic maple syrup reserve in the first place? Modern Farmer addressed this question in the form of a full-page comic.

The comic outlines the history of and controversy surrounding the existence of the reserve and the organization behind it. The Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers (French acronym: FPAQ) has existed since 1966, and regulates the production and marketing of maple syrup in Quebec. The FPAQ is a legal cartel that exists ostensibly to protect buyers and sellers from huge price fluctuations.

Syrup smugglers are an issue…and so are thefts. Like this one.

An Illustrated Account of the Great Maple Syrup Heist [Modern Farmer]
More Culinary Fare On Sony Menu: Studio Buys Maple Syrup Heist Pic For Jason Segel [Deadline Hollywood]

From a parent’s perspective, frequent changes in car seat regulations and standards can be daunting. Still, safety is paramount, and so the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is proposing a round of new safety standards for child car seats.

The changes would add side-impact crashes to the battery of tests that child safety seats currently undergo. The proposed new test would simulate a T-bone style crash: the striking vehicle, moving at 30 mph, strikes a smaller passenger vehicle moving at 15 mph. The specially designed sled test also simulates the vehicle door crushing inward, toward the car seat.

The new test will not only use the exiting crash test dummy that represents a one-year-old baby, but also a new crash test dummy that represents a three-year-old toddler. It will cover car seats used for children up to 40 pounds.

Testing car seats for safety in side-impact crashes was first suggested as far back as 2003; much of the intervening decade was spent researching what, very specifically, to test for. The NHTSA has proposed a three-year window for car seat manufacturers to make any needed changes to their designs when the rule becomes final.

The NHTSA is also revising its policy on the LATCH system for installing car seats, USA Today reports. LATCH was designed to make car seat installation easier for parents (although it’s not always as seamless as intended). The new rule, expected to go into effect in February or March, indicates that LATCH should not be used for a combination of car seat and kid weighing more than 65 pounds.

Car seat manufacturers will have to label their seats to indicate at what weight point parents should swap over to using a seat belt attachment instead. So for example, a seat that weighs 30 pounds would have to indicate that for use with children over 35 pounds, the seat should be hooked into the seat belt.

Seat weights are not currently generally labeled. When they are, many parents may find it hard to believe that the seat does not actually weigh a hundred pounds; it only feels like it on the interminable walk to the front door.

New regulations sought for child car seats [USA Today]

Buying in bulk might seem like a great idea, if you have the time and storage needed to deal such large quantities. But with more retailers offering coupons, in-store promotions and customer loyalty programs is buying in bulk really a good deal? And what items are even good in bulk?

Parade recently listed the top five items to buy in bulk. While the author makes some good points, we just don’t agree on some.

First of all, meat. Buying meat in bulk can be a huge saver, although a bit gross. I always cringed when my mom would bring home a huge tube of ground chuck. She would spend close to an hour dismembering the package and scooping out portions to be frozen.

That’s an hour of time she will never get back. Sure she saved 30 cents a pound, but she lost three shelves in the freezer that could have been used to hold popsicles. Not to mention you pretty much have to invest in a food saver or you’re going to have freezer burn all over that raw meat.

Moving on to paper products.

A 20-roll package of paper towels seems like a fabulous deal when you figure each roll costs about 70 cents. But where are you going to put them in your tiny one bedroom apartment? Do you stuff them under the bed with your reams of bulk printer paper that was such a good deal two years ago? How about strategically placing them throughout the kitchen cabinets? The paper might not expire but it’s taking up a lot of your living space and you’ll eventually start giving them out to your friends as party gifts.

Now something like toilet paper, I can get behind buying that in bulk. It’s always in demand. However, Forbes says that’s just not a good deal in bulk. Why? Because grocery stores or your local CVS probably have a better deal than what you’re paying for the 30 pack at Costco.

So while bulk buying seems like a great idea, especially if you have the space and time to make sure your actually getting a good deal, sometimes it’s just not worth it. Oh and don’t even get us started on the fuzzy math some companies use to promote bulk items.

Here are the top 5 things to buy in bulk, as described by Parade: paper towels, meat, diapers, coffee and bottled water.

Here are a few things you shouldn’t buy in bulk: nuts, toilet paper, pop (or soda – whichever you prefer), brown rice, chips and cooking oil.

Do you have a favorite item to buy in bulk or an item you bought in bulk that was totally not worth it? Let us know at tips@consumerist.com. Be sure to use “BULK BUYING” in the subject line.

The 5 Best Items to Buy in Bulk [Parade]

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]

For months, grocery business watchers have been waiting for the eventual opening of The Daily Table, a store created by former Trader Joe’s president Doug Rauch that will offer food items beyond their “sell by” dates. The problem, says Rauch, isn’t getting the food, it’s convincing consumers that it’s safe to eat.

Rauch recently told Salon.com that it’s often inaccurate to use to the term “expired” when talking about food that is beyond the sell-by date, since many items are perfectly safe for quite some time after the date stamped on the packaging.

A recent study from the Natural Resources Defense Council and Harvard Law’s Food Law and Policy Clinic backs up this idea, pointing out that proper storage of many food items can extend its usability for weeks, months, or years beyond that sell-by date. And yet, the overwhelming majority of American consumers still hold to those dates as point-of-no-return markers for the food in their pantries, fridges and freezers.

A co-author of that study applauds Rauch’s attempt to shatter this widely held illusion.

“Just the fact that he’s doing it, I think is a huge proof point to indicate that what we’re calling ‘expired food’ is in fact still good to eat,” says study co-author Dana Gunders.

Some have accused Rauch of trying to sell rich folks’ refuse to poor people, but he says there’s nothing wrong with offering people perfectly safe products at a reasonable price.

Last fall, he told the NY Times that “I’m interested in only recovering wholesome, healthy food and using that to bring affordable nutrition” to Daily Table customers.

Many families in financially strapped areas of the country end up spending their money on affordable junk food instead of more-expensive, healthier items. The idea behind Daily Table, says Rauch, is that this is one way to make these items more financially feasible for the people who need them, many of whom would eat better if they could.

“When I run down to meetings in the inner city in Boston, I’d say most families know that their kids need to eat better,” he explains to Salon. “Most families know that they’re not giving their kids the nutrition they need. But they just can’t afford it, they don’t have an option.”

And Daily Table won’t just have food that is past its sell-by date when it opens in Dorchester, Mass., this spring. For example, it will also have packaged food and produce that higher-end stores deemed unsellable because of cosmetic reasons that don’t impact taste.

Gunders takes exception with people who deem such food “trash.”

“It’s not trash,” she tells Salon. “That food’s good, and I would eat it and I do eat it. To throw it away, particularly the more nutritious stuff, is a shame.”

Daily Table will also have a café/restaurant aspect to it that uses the food it acquires and turns it into prepared dishes for customers. He told NPR in 2013 that this is something that other grocery stores are doing and just not telling their customers.

“I might say, without naming the names, one of the leading, best regarded brands in the large, national, food industry — they basically recover the food within their stores, cook it up and put it out on their hot trays the next day,” explained Rauch. “That’s the stuff that we’re going to be talking about. We’re talking about taking and recovering food. Most of what we offer will be fruits and vegetables that have a use-by date on it that’ll be several days out.”

Don’t like going to the bank? Aren’t interested in fees or maintaining a minimum balance? Not to worry, there’s a new service just for you. That is if you’re a T-Mobile customer. The company just announced it’s heading into the banking industry.

T-Mobile recently unveiled its latest venture – Mobile Money – a program that allows T-Mobile customers to manage their finances while skipping pesky fees from banks and cashier services.

Mobile Money uses a money management app and a prepaid T-Mobile Visa card at zero cost to existing T-Mobile customers, The Verge reports.

Much like a regular bank, Mobile Money users can deposit paychecks, pay for merchandise, withdraw cash from ATMs and pay bills. Just like current mobile banking apps customers can deposit checks by taking a photo with their phone’s camera.

T-Mobile touts the new program as a sensible and affordable alternative to checking fees for consumers without traditional banking accounts. The company says Mobile Money comes with no minimum balance requirements and no fees for in-network ATM withdrawals. However, the company is vague on what fees are incured for “non-typical” use.

There are fees for non-typical use. For example, if you want your personalized card shipped overnight, you’ll have to pay that fee. If you forgot to pay a bill and you need to get the funds there immediately, there is a charge for that. And if you choose to use an ATM that is outside of our partner network, then you will be charged a small fee. You can find a list in the terms and conditions. People who are not on a qualifying T-Mobile plan will incur additional fees.

Is Mobile Money truly a good deal for consumers, or is it like most prepaid cards and littered with hidden fees? It will take a bit more investigation before we can for sure.

Consumers interested in banking with T-Mobile can register for Mobile Money now, while cards will be available at Safeway stores starting in February.

Mobile Money is just the latest T-Mobile scheme to score new customers. Earlier this month, the company announced it would pay the termination fees for entire families to switch mobile phone providers.

T-Mobile wants to be your next bank [The Verge]

The proliferation of Oreo flavors is, depending on your point of view, either a global nightmare or a an exciting new source of awesomeness and variety. We’ve made it our mission to bring you the latest novelty Oreo flavor news, even when those flavors don’t make a whole lot of sense. Like the limited-edition Marshmallow Crispy flavor.

Of course, regular people would call this flavor “Rice Krispies Treats,” but Rice Krispies are a different product owned by a different company. Instead, they’re called Marshmallow Crispy, with a picture of a crisped-rice cereal/melted marshmallow treat on the package just to make sure that consumers get the message.

Everyone knows what a chocolate chip cookie looks like, though, so the “Cookie Dough” flavor of Oreos needs no vaguely similar names. Just cookies. Delicious, delicious cookies.

We haven’t tried either of these flavors yet, and the first we’ve learned of their existence were some quick photos posted in The Impulsive Buy’s Spotted On Shelves section. They’re available at Dollar General, but not listed on the official Oreo site. If you’ve tried them, please let us know what you thought!

Let’s get this straight: In no way is robbing a store ever something we would praise. But it does take a certain amount of chutzpah to actually call the location you’re intending to rob and ask employees to set aside the items you’d like to steal later. So in the box labeled “critical thinking skills,” one bad consumer in Nashville would at least get a check mark for thinking something like this might work. Because it did.

Police in Nashville say there’s surveillance video from outside the GameStop store that shows a man arriving in a parking lot one morning and circling for an hour before rolling up close to the store, reports UPI.com.

Cops say that’s when he got up the nerve to actually call the store and ask that a $499.99 Xbox One and about $200 in games as a gift. Oh, and could you please have those items ready to pick up on his way to work? Sure, say the workers, and go about collecting his items.

Then officials say the suspect entered the store with a blue mask over his face while holding a black semi-automatic handgun and approached the clerk to take the items he’d asked for — and about $600 in cash from the register while he was there — before fleeing.

He’s organized, to say the very least, and it sounds like the cops have yet to arrest him.

Police: Gamestop robber called ahead to have items set aside [UPI.com]

Along with McDonald’s, Sears is one of the biggest national brands most associated with the city of Chicago. Many people still refer to the soaring Willis Tower as the Sears Tower, even though the company fled the building for the suburbs nearly 20 years ago and gave up the naming rights in 2009. Now the once-great retailer is set to distance itself further from the Loop with news that it will shutter a flagship store in the city it once called home.

Sears announced yesterday that it will close its five-story location at 2 N. State St, which it opened in opened in 2001 after an 18-year absence in the area. The company had hoped at the time that it could cash in on the growing urban retail market, but in spite of the fact that other brands like Target have been able to make a go in the Loop, shoppers did not support Sears.

“(We) can no longer continue to support the store’s operating losses,” a company rep explains to Crain’s Chicago Business. “The State Street store’s operational performance has been poor through much of its existence.”

Liquidation of the store merchandise will begin on Jan. 26, with 160 employees set to lose their jobs because of the closing. Sears says it will allow these workers to apply for jobs at other Sears and Kmart locations.

[via Chicago Tribune]

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (better known as the people that get paid to smash cars into walls) recently put 11 mini cars — including well-known models like the Fiat 500, Honda Fit, Hyundai Accent, and Toyota Prius C — through its newest form of crash-testing. The results were not good, with only one of the tested vehicles earning an overall “Acceptable” rating.

The IIHS small overlap test looks at what happens when only the front corner of a vehicle is involved in a crash. This is one of the more common results of a vehicular accident — veering off the road into a tree, clipping the corner of a another car in traffic, hitting the side of a building or railing — but many car makers have not designed their vehicles to protect the driver in these cases.

The testers determine the crashworthiness in this particular test by crashing 25% of a vehicle’s front end into a rigid barrier at 40 mph.

During the first round of small overlap testing in 2012, only three of 11 luxury cars received passing marks from the IIHS. But the results of the mini car tests set a new low for small overlap testing.

“Small, lightweight vehicles have an inherent safety disadvantage. That’s why it’s even more important to choose one with the best occupant protection,” says Joe Nolan, IIHS senior vice president for vehicle research. “Unfortunately, as a group, mini cars aren’t performing as well as other vehicle categories in the small overlap crash.”

The only vehicle to earn an acceptable rating in the test was the Chevy Spark. The small overlap test only resulted in marginal damage to the electric vehicle’s structure, and the dummy placed inside the car appears to have made it out of the collision fully intact. The acceptable score on the overlap test, along with “good” ratings on the IIHS’s other crash tests earned the Spark the Institute’s Top Safety Pick honor.

In terms of structural damage to mini cars, not a single tested vehicle scored above a “marginal” rating.

“When a vehicle’s structure doesn’t hold up, injury risk is high,” explains IIHS. “Collapsing structures can knock frontal airbags and seats out of position, exacerbating the problem.”

One of the most common problems with the tested mini cars was the reaction of the vehicles’ restraint systems. Only two cars — the Spark and the Mazda 2 — earned “acceptable” scores in this category — with six of the 11 vehicles scoring “poor” for a variety of reasons. In some cases, the seat belt failed to effectively hold the crash test dummy in place during the collision. In others, the dummy’s head missed or slid off the airbag.

Speaking of airbags, the side curtain airbag could be a life saver in this sorts of accidents, but the IIHS says side curtain airbags in eight of the 11 cars tested failed to provide adequate coverage. In the Toyota Yaris, the side curtain airbag failed to deploy at all.

Other issues found during the side overlap test was the steering column moving sideways as a result of the collision and the car seats tipping forward.

Almost all of the dummies involved in mini car small overlap tests experienced some level of injury. Only the Spark dummy came out unscathed, in spite of some structural intrusion into the driver’s space. In all other cases, the dummies’ lower legs took the most damage, with seven of the 11 dummies receiving poor scores for protecting drivers below the knees. The dummies in the Hyundai Accent, Fiat 500, and Honda Fit also showed damage to the upper legs and hips.

This is probably why the Fit and the 500 received the two lowest ratings from IIHS.

“In both cases, intruding structure seriously compromised the driver’s space, and the steering column was pushed back toward the driver,” writes the IIHS. “In the case of the Fit, the dummy’s head barely contacted the frontal airbag before sliding off and hitting the instrument panel. During the test of the 500, the driver door opened after the hinges tore. An open door creates a risk that the driver could be partially or completely ejected.”

One might expect mini cars to have similar results to those vehicles in the small car category, but the slight size difference between the two classes appears to make a significant difference in terms of safety. Of the 17 small cars that have been through small overlap testing, five have received “good” ratings, while another five earned an “acceptable” score.

This page contains the full results for the entire mini car class. Click on any individual test result for more details.

Below is a summary of the results from the small overlap test:

Saying that part-time employees can now get health care coverage through recently launched online insurance exchanges, Target announced yesterday that, as of April 1, it will no longer offer insurance to its part-time staffers.

Instead, the retailer will provide each part-time worker currently enrolled in the store’s insurance plan with $500 cash that can be used to purchase coverage elsewhere. Employees can also arrange for one-on-one sessions with a benefits manager to talk about the transition.

“Our decision to discontinue this benefit comes after careful consideration of the impact to our stores’ part-time team members and to Target, the new options available for our part-time team, and the historically low number of team members who elected to enroll in the part-time plan,” writes Target’s head of Human Resource, Jodee Kozlak, in a blog post.

Kozlak claims that participation in the store health plan among part-time employees was not very high, representing only about 10% of Target’s entire 361,000-person workplace.

Target is just the latest large retailer to shift part-time employees off company-provided insurance plans and toward the online exchanges. Large businesses like Sears/Kmart, Petco, Home Depot and Darden Restaurants (Olive Garden, Red Lobster, LongHorn Steakhouse) have all recently announced similar changes in health care coverage.

Some of these employers have switched workers to private exchanges, operated by benefits providers and customized for these businesses and their employees. Others, like Target, are telling part-timers to look to public exchanges operated by the state and federal government.

One union organizer in Target’s home town of Minneapolis worries that retailers may deliberately limit workers’ hours to keep them below the full-time threshold set by the Affordable Care Act. Doing so would mean the business would not have to provide insurance.

“All of a sudden where you used to work 31 hours a week, it’ll be cut to 28 hours or less — and that’s a huge hit,” he tells the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “You’ll see a department that might have one or two real full-timers and the rest will be these perpetual part-time people who will never have a chance for full-time hours because Target is looking at everyone as a cost.”

In her blog post, Kozlak provides a vague denial to such accusations, saying that Target will not be limiting hours.

“At any time, our team members can talk to their manager about their interest and availability to work more hours,” she writes. “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.”

Target will drop health insurance for its part-time employees [StarTribune.com]

Target to stop health care coverage for part-time workers [Reuters]

Talking Health Care with EVP of Human Resources Jodee Kozlak [Target Blog]

Being a cable installer can be an exhausting job, with a day that is often overflowing with appointments you probably can’t make it to on time, figured out by some far-away computer that doesn’t care if you’re tired. Not to mention the fact that you’ll probably be put on hold for just as long as the customers who try to call in. With all that said, you still need to realize that if you’re going to fall asleep on a customer’s couch, your photo will probably end up on the Internet.

Earlier today, a Reddit user posted the above photo of what he claims is a TWC tech snoozing on the job.

According to the customer, the catnap occurred while the tech was on hold for about 20 to 30 minutes waiting to set up the modem:

The technician arrived around 12:30pm to replace our modem. I showed him where the existing one was and he got to work. I went back to my office to continue working, he replaced the modem and made a call to activate/register the modem… I could hear the hold music from his call because he had it on speaker and eventually after about 15 minutes of listening to it from the other room, I walked out to find him like that.

Before doing anything, I grabbed my phone and snapped the pic, and then said “Excuse me?”. He startled a little bit, pointed to his phone and said “Sorry man, still on hold.” So I went back and kept working, and 5-10 minutes later someone picked up and he registered the modem. My internet was working and he went on his way.

While the power-nap was over, the customer’s hellish TWC experience was not.

“About 10 minutes later, I turned on the TV in my room to see the ‘This cable box is not authorized’ message,” he writes. “I called Time Warner, eventually got a representative, who sent a signal to my box and got it working again.”

Then only two minutes after that, his Internet crapped out.

“I restarted the modem, and when I connected, it brought me to a ‘Automated Provisioning’ website, telling me that I had to register the MAC address of the modem,” writes the customer, who then called TWC… again. The rep took his info and promised a call back within 30 minutes. That did not come.

He called again, got a tech support rep who told him to do a hard reset on the modem. No luck. Try again. Double no luck.

“He then told me he had to transfer me to the local Time Warner to complete the registration,” recalls the customer. “He transferred me, but of course it wasn’t to the local Time Warner, it was back to the national Time Warner. However, the guy that I got this time saw that they had never deactivated the original modem that was replaced. So he did that, and then re-registered the new modem, and voila, internet!”

THE CONSUMERIST ROGUES GALLERY OF BAD CABLE INSTALLERS:
U-Verse Installer Uses Portable Urinal To Relieve Himself In My Bedroom, Leaves It Behind
DirecTV Apparently Thinks This Is An Acceptable Installation
Comcast Tech Tells Me He’ll Be Right Back… I’m Still Waiting
Comcast Installer Arrested For Exposing & Playing With His Cable In Front Of Customer
AT&T Needs To Come Pick Up Its Crap From My House
It Took Four Appointments And A Call To The Police To Get My Time Warner Cable Internet Installed

The CFPB last week unveiled a set of rules (PDF) to protect mortgage borrowers, especially those who are military servicemembers.

Part of the trouble for military families is that they simply have to move more often, and on timetables not of their choosing. That means dealing with more lenders, more houses, and more potential for problems.

The three new key areas the CFPB addresses are:

• Dual tracking: Lenders who move forward with foreclosure proceedings against a homeowner, while at the same time working with that borrower on a loan modification, are dual tracking–and that’s a big no-no, says the CFPB.
• Streamlining help for borrowers: Homeowners seeking loan modifications can get stuck in paperwork hell, having to submit a new package of documents (that goes who-knows-where) each time they pursue a new option or speak to a new service rep. The CFPB’s new rule requires lenders to consider all options for which borrower is eligible right off the bat, without countless repeated paperwork cycles.
• Better service: Loan sevicers are required to “train their people to answer your questions and, if you do run into trouble, the servicer has to assign people to help you.” Additionally, lenders are supposed to have policies in place to prevent losing paperwork.

Specifically to help members of the armed forces, as of 2011 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac consider Permanent Change of Station (PCS) orders to be hardships that qualify for assistance programs–meaning military families who have been ordered to pack up and move no longer have to miss a mortgage payment before qualifying for help.

Additionally, back in 2012 the CFPB issued guidance that all mortgage servicers should have a policy in place for dealing with borrowers who received PCS orders, and that they need to communicate those policies clearly.

In recent months, the CFPB has also addressed predatory lending and exorbitant bank fees targeted at military service members.

For those of us who don’t happen to be the heir to an oil fortune or a company executive with a paycheck showcasing a bunch of zeroes, becoming a billionaire is something that could only happen in our wildest, probably lottery-related dreams. Unless you’ve got crazy good March Madness skills, that is.

Super Very Rich Guy And CEO Warren Buffett’s investment firm Berkshire Hathaway is partnering up with Quicken Loans to dangle a $1 billion-bounty to anyone who can complete a totally perfect March Madness bracket, reports the Detroit Free Press.

That means calling the winner of all 63 games in the NCAA March Madness men’s college basketball tourna,ent correctly, something that appears to be pretty much impossible to do. The prize will be paid out in 40 annual installments of (gulp) $25 million. Or you can take $500 million in a lump sum payment if you’re really jonesing for that money.

Because the odds of someone actually winning the grand prize appear to be ridiculously small, the two companies will also split $2 million among the 20 most accurate predictions submitted, as well as a $1 million donation from Quicken to to educational charities in Detroit and Cleveland, the two cities that are the main focus of Quicken founder and Chairman Dan Gilbert’s activities.

“We’ve seen a lot of contests offering a million dollars for putting together a good bracket, which got us thinking, what is the perfect bracket worth? We decided a billion dollars seems right for such an impressive feat,” said Jay Farner, president and chief marketing officer of Quicken Loans.

And while Buffett seems like a firm believer in working hard to achieve a massive fortune, it sounds like he’s in the mood to throw a bone this time.

“Millions of people play brackets every March, so why not take a shot at becoming $1 billion richer for doing so,” Buffett explains (his company is insuring the prize). “While there is no simple path to success, it sure doesn’t get much easier than filling out a bracket online.”

Registration for the contest starts March 3 and runs through March 19. Participants will receive their brackets on March 16 if they’ve registered by then, and can start filling them out at that time. You’ll have to act quick, as you’ll need to be one of the first 10 million to register.

The odds of predicting all the winners in all the games with a flip of the coin is 1-in-100 million trillion, or 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000. So good luck!

Quicken Loans offering $1 billion for perfect March Madness bracket [Detroit Free Press]

Last week you might’ve had your mind blown clear open by the news that you’re probably reheating pizza wrong if you’re doing it in the microwave, toaster oven or like, a blowtorch, if that’s your method. But it isn’t just pizza that needs a special touch to bring it back to life.

Gawker’s Tom Socca admitted he had no idea that the best way to revive leftover pizza was in a skillet (medium heat, cover it so the cheese melts, then remove cover to crisp up the crust for a few minutes) and Bon Appétit has picked up on that potential gap in our collective knowledge with a bunch of other foods that need a special touch the next day.

Herewith then, six other foods you’re probably treated wrong in your attempt to make them palatable the next day. Check out the source link for more.

1. Eggs: This entry has the best advice, in our opinion, so it comes first and had to be included: “Do not reheat eggs. Repeat: DO NOT REHEAT THEM. If they’re in a frittata, just slice it and eat it cold.” Do people actually try to reheat eggs? Because eww, gross. On that note — anyone who’s successfully done so and not immediately vomited can feel free to let us know how at tips@consumerist.com.

On that note, here are a few readers’ suggestions:

Bev: “Make up a batch of scrambled or a big frittata and then reheat for a few days. The key is LOW heat and a short time period. Zap at power 3 or 4 (out of 10) for maybe 30 seconds for a powerful microwave or longer for a weaker one. Cheese mixed in with the eggs at original cook time really helps. And don’t try to reheat over-cooked eggs.”

Shanna: “Quiche can be reheated by wrapping it in foil and reheating it on the oven (or toaster oven) at about 300 for 20-25 minutes. It’s delicious (but I make a mean quiche).”

Suzanne: “I successfully reheat omelets and scrambled eggs by steaming them. Actually, steaming is a great way to reheat a lot of foods including meat! The food doesn’t get dried out that way!”

2. Steak and Chicken: A nicely seared cut of meat or a perfectly seasoned and not-to-dry bit of chicken can suffer in the microwave the next day. Try cutting meats into smaller bits and heating in a skillet over a medium-high heat with a bit of oil. Cook the meat until it’s warmed through, about 4-5 minutes.

3. Pancakes: If you’re like me, you don’t mind eating cold pancakes with some (freshly scrambled) eggs in the middle like some kind of genius breakfast sandwich. But they’re also easy to bring back to warm, delicious life: Pop them in the toaster oven or regular toaster to heat them through. Apparently “this works for chicken cutlets, too!” Cutlets and pancakes, more in common than previously thought.

4. Stews and soups: We know, we know — you just want to chuck that container in the microwave, zap it up on high and then wait for it to cool down from bubbling so you can eat it. But that makes the liquid evaporate, stealing precious bites from the very mouth you’re seeking to fill. Instead, learn some patience and heat soups and stews slowly in a pot over medium heat, Bon Appétit suggests.

5. Roasted potatoes: These also take a little time to reheat properly, but it’s worth it if you don’t want soggy, cold-in-the-middle potatoes. Heat your oven to 400 degrees, spread potatoes on a sheet pan and cover them in tin foil. Re-roast them until they’re warm all the way through, about 10-15 minutes. Remove the cover for another five to add crispiness.

6. Muffins and bread: What you don’t want is cold bread on the inside and weirdly warm on the outside. It’s a trap and you will fall into the middle of it and be mad when it happens to you. To get a thoroughly warmed muffin with a firmer exterior, pop those babies in an oven preheated to 350 degrees on a tray covered with tinfoil and heat for 15 minutes, then uncovered for another 3-5.

How to Reheat Leftovers, from Pizza to Pasta to Eggs [Bon Appetit]

While the dispute between an NYC McDonald’s and some loitering elderly customers comes to an end, there is another feud brewing a few hours to the northeast.

For two decades, a group of senior citizens have been meeting several times a year in the parking lot of a local Burger King before hopping on a rented van that takes them into Boston for the day. The ladies say they’ve never had a problem with the BK management, that is until last Friday when all eight of their vehicles were towed away.

The 14 women tell the New Hampshire Union Leader that they were returning from their most recent Boston trip last Friday just as a tow truck was taking away the last of their cars from the BK.

They admit that the fast food joint recently put up signs warning that non-customers would be towed, but said they had not previously been warned about their parking.

“Burger King should have put post-its under the windshield wipers (saying) don’t do it again,” said one of the women. “They couldn’t have been oblivious to the fact we’ve been doing this all these years… I think it was a dirty trick.”

Dirty trick or not, it cost the senior citizens a nice chunk of change. The towing company called by BK managers usually charges $165 for car owners to get their vehicles out of the pound, but the operator of the tow business decided to drop that to $100 after talking to the women.

“I felt horrible when they all showed up,” says the owner of the tow company. “They were sweet little old ladies.”

Sweet little old ladies who still needed to ante up $800 for the tows.

The Union Leader tried to get comments from various levels of BK management, but received no response. Workers at the restaurant in question claimed to not know the identity of the franchisee that owns the particular location.

The only person willing to talk to the paper was the tow-truck operator who said the BK recently began cracking down on non-customer parking in order to run out pesky teenagers who speed through the lot and act the way you’d expect obnoxious teenagers to act. We’re not quite sure how towing parked cars stops teens from speeding through the lot…

One of the women tells the Union Leader that some of the women in the group, who average 80 years of age, do purchase food at the BK before heading out on their excursions.

She also says that she feels like the cars in the lot are good for the BK’s business.

“We look like we’re customers,” she explains. “We thought we were doing Burger King a favor; their parking lot is never full.”

The mobile game hit du jour just got a new feature: extra trademark protection. The US Patent and Trademark office last week awarded King, makers of smash game Candy Crush Saga, a trademark on the word “candy.”

GameZebo reports that the trademark application, first filed in February of 2013, was approved on January 15.

The “candy” trademark applies not only to video games, but also to “over 100 fields, ranging from DVD players to baby monitors, exposed photographic film, educational services, amusement parks, gambling facilities, and practically every article of clothing you could name,” according to Ars Technica.

King is already moving to protect their brand-new asset. An independent developer of a slots-style game called All Candy Casino Slots – Jewels Craze Connect: Big Blast Mania Land told GameZebo about the takedown request he had received from Apple, and the response he got from King:

“Your use of CANDY SLOTS in your app icon uses our CANDY trade mark exactly, for identical goods, which amounts to trade mark infringement and is likely to lead to consumer confusion and damage to our brand. The addition of only the descriptive term “SLOTS” does nothing to lessen the likelihood of confusion.”

While it’s true that a game as hugely successful as Candy Crush Saga spawns an enormous legion of clones and knockoffs, a trademark on the word “candy” allows King to cast perhaps too wide a net. A search for “candy” on Google Play tops out at 250 results; on the iPhone’s app store, that search brings up about 2200 results. Some products are very clearly Candy Crush Saga clones, or using Candy Crush-like icons to draw potential players, but others are entirely unrelated.

King insists that “legitimate” uses of their now-trademarked term are fine by them. A representative said in a statement: “We have trademarked the word ‘CANDY’ in the EU, as our IP is constantly being infringed and we have to enforce our rights and to protect our players from confusion. We don’t enforce against all uses of CANDY – some are legitimate and of course, we would not ask App developers who use the term legitimately to stop doing so.”

In the US, the trademark has been published but not yet officially registered. That’s an important distinction: the trademark now enters a 30-day period where anyone can file an opposition. Companies that wish to demonstrate prior use of the term “candy” can file their objections with the USPTO during that time.

For the moment, though, legitimacy seems to be in the eye of the trademark holder–and that’s King.

King has trademarked the word CANDY (and you’re probably infringing) [GameZebo]
What’s in a common dictionary name: King’s tenuous “Candy” trademark [Ars Technica]

Okay, so it’s not exactly the shame-it-was-a-hoax hands-free Whopper holder, but we are intrigued by the potential (and the potential for disaster) of these prototype fast food containers that stack your entire meal into one calorific Voltron.

Posted over the weekend to the McDonald’s New Zealand Facebook page with the caption “McGenius?” the interlocking containers would put a sandwich on top of a beverage cup, covered by a fry bin that would have indentations on the top where you could store condiments.

So rather than walking down the street with a to-go bag, you’d have a tower of food.

We’re not quite sure it would be a good idea to stack a hot sandwich on top of a cold drink (the possibility for condensation, melting ice, and leakage scare us), the top fry layer seems destined to pop open and vomit fried potatoes all over the place, and it all seems rather top-heavy, so if you stub your toe on a curb or get jostled by a rude pedestrian, it seems like your whole lunch could go Jenga on the sidewalk.

That’s probably why McDonald’s NZ tells BurgerBusiness.com that it is not yet offering these containers to customers.

Prince William County and Stafford County home sales Washington Post Prince William County. These were among sales data provided to The Washington Post by Lender Processing Services. To find sale and assessment records for homes elsewhere in the Washington area, visit www.washingtonpost.com/homesales. BRISTOW ... and more »

Prince William County community calendar, Jan. 23 to 29, 2014 Washington Post Thursday, Jan. 23. “Off the Wall No. 10,” Prince William County student exhibition, sponsored by Lockheed Martin. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays through Wednesday, 1-5 p.m. Saturday, Center for the Arts, Caton Merchant Family Art Gallery, 9419 Battle St., ... and more »

- A Wisconsin man who became lodged in the windshield of a car that struck him said he turned to the driver and said, "Hello, I'm the guy you hit on the bicycle."

time staff -- defined as 30 hours a week or more -- health insurance. That could cause some employers to cut hours for some workers.

Pile of Viruses

What if every virus in the world were collected into one area? How much volume would they take up and what would they look like?

Dave

It would be a huge pile, but human viruses would make up only a tiny fraction of it.

HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has killed tens of millions of people worldwide, and over 30 million people are currently living with HIV. The number of copies of the virus carried in someone's blood can vary dramatically,[1]Data on viral load—the number of copies of the virus per mL of blood—can be found in this paper. but across all the people in the world, there probably exists about a spoonful worth of HIV.

The typical healthy human body contains about \(3 \times 10^{12}\) viruses. This is actually not as many as you might expect; by volume, humans are apparently a less friendly environment for viruses than, say, soil.[2]An area of wetlands in Delaware contains something like four billion viruses per mL of soil, in case you were looking for a fun vacation destination.

If you gathered together all the viruses in all the humans in the world, they would fill about ten oil drums:

These 10 barrels only represent a tiny portion of the global virus community. Most of the world's viruses aren't found in humans. They're found in the sea.

Seawater is full of microorganisms, and we've recently learned that those microorganisms are preyed on by viruses in a big way. Every day, about one in five living cells in the ocean is killed by a virus.[3]Marine viruses—major players in the global ecosystem These viruses are found from the surface of the ocean down to the depths.[4]Oddly, as you go further offshore and further down, the concentration of viruses doesn't decrease as much as the concentration of bacteria, so the virus-to-bacteria ratio is higher in the deep oceans than near the shore. Because the sea is so big,[5]Citation: Go and look at the sea. It's big. it contains a staggering number of viruses.

If you piled up all these viruses—more than 10³⁰ of them—in one place, they would be the size of a small mountain.

It's hard to say exactly what the virus mountain would look like, but it would probably resemble something in between pus and meat slurry.[6]Blame Dave—he's the one who asked. Regardless of its exact appearance, it would almost certainly be disgusting.

The pile wouldn't stay mountain-shaped for long, any more than a mountain of any organic secretion would.[7]If you don't believe me, try building a mountain of earwax or snot. You'll find you can't make it higher than a few inches before your friends and family show up and sit you down for a talk. To avoid a gigantic flood, it might be better to collect them into some kind of container.

MetLife Stadium, host of Super Bowl XLVIII, has a volume of about 1.5 million cubic meters. Earth's viruses could fill the stadium about 150 times over.

So if you watch the Super Bowl, take a moment to picture all the players floating, suspended, in a sea of yellowish-white secretions.

Enjoy the game!