pileofcrapola

Google has updated the browser version of Google Maps to include multiple destinations, a set of tools for reservations, and a new event manager.

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Guacamole is one of the easiest and tastiest dishes you can make, and especially great for entertaining a crowd. This guide from Serious Eats tells us how to make sure avocados are perfectly ripe the day you want to turn them into guacamole.

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Working from home is a great benefit, but it also has its challenges. Apartment Therapy offers a few tips for staying productive when your home is your office.

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As a car owner, you have two options: Find a good, honest and reliable car mechanic, or become one yourself. In the meantime, be careful when it comes to the following ten repairs.

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Everyone could stand to save a little money on groceries, but doing it while still eating good food is a challenge—to say the least. It doesn't have to be that way. Here are are a few simple steps you can go through each week to keep your diet under control and save money in the process.

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Dripping bottles and containers aren't super-common, but when you do run into that one that just doesn't seem to pour without leaking on itself (and the counter below it, once you put it down), here's a way to keep it clean. Just wrap a paper towel around it and secure with a rubber band to catch the drips.

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Generally speaking you don't want to rely on technology at all in your disaster toolkit, but that doesn't mean you can't make use of an old smartphone (or your current one for that matter). Before the cell networks are down, here's what you should load up on your smartphone.

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Great discussions are par for the course here on Lifehacker. Each day, we highlight a discussion that is particularly helpful or insightful, along with other great discussions and reader questions you may have missed. Check out these discussions and add your own thoughts to make them even more wonderful!

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Most of us waste a lot of time on email, leaving less room to handle actually important work tasks. As productivity and ideas blog the 99u points out, you can quickly minimize the number of emails you send by avoiding any responses that don't add value.

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If your fridge is starting to look a bit bloated you're probably looking for extra space anywhere you can get it. Apartment Therapy suggests that one thing you might not have thought of already is to remove the packaging to save some space.

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Maybe this “Nightmare Before Christmas” holiday mashup thing is becoming more popular in retail decor. It’s starting to grow on us, we have to admit. Maybe this should continue to be a thing, like Hobby Lobby’s Halloween trees.

Elyse sent along this holiday mashup that’s actually kind of amazing.

Of course, direct competitor Home Depot couldn’t let that stand. They offered this holiday mashup at their self-checkout, and Raymond sent us a photo. Well, it’s a holiday mashup, or the cobwebs are a tribute to spending Christmas at your hoarder aunt’s house.

I have two young nieces, and every year for Christmas they plead, “Dear Uncle Chrisso (yes, they call me that; shut up), don’t buy us toys or clothing! We crave illustrated books about the virtues of eating healthy!!” Well, McDonald’s has just made my holiday shopping a lot easier, as it plans to pack those kinds of books into future Happy Meal offerings.

AdAge reports that, for two weeks starting Nov. 1, McDonald’s will be putting four different books, each detailing all the reasons you should eat anywhere other than McDonald’s but presumably without saying so, inside Happy Meals.

Even though there are already books available on this topic, McDonald’s chose to create its own books to help educate youngsters on the topic of healthy eating. This allows the company to tailor the message so that kids don’t get the wrong idea that maybe fast food isn’t the best thing for them. Going in-house with the books also means they don’t have to pay a huge pile of cash to publishers for the rights.

The AdAge report has titles and details on two of the four books that some kids will probably never read and will try to rend once they realize there is no toy in their Happy Meals.

The first book is “The Goat Who Ate Everything,” which we had assumed was about a large-scale goat farm where farmers feed unnecessary antibiotics to the animals just to encourage muscle growth but end up causing a superbug that decimates the population. Alas, it’s apparently about a fat goat who learns to eat better.

“Deana’s Big Dreams,” is about some itty bitty dinosaur who grows tall after eating well (and, in an unpublished final chapter, grows ravenous and uncontrollable, devouring every living thing it passes). “Deana’s Big Dream” is also the title of a movie my friend Tom was accused of BitTorrenting via The Pirate Bay, but I’m pretty sure the two items are not related.

You’ll notice that while both books feature animals, neither animal will be found between a bun or battered and deep-fried at the Golden Arches.

“We think that this is a fun and engaging way to give a nutritional message to kids,” McDonald’s USA VP-marketing tells AdAge. “This is really the first step in a larger book strategy, and our intent is to continue over several years.”

In a statement that makes me wonder if the folks at Reading Is Fundamental actually believe in their organization’s title, the RIF CEO actually described McDonald’s as “a company that embraces the transformative power of books and is committed to helping families and communities thrive.”

The book push comes as there is growing criticism of Happy Meals and of McDonald’s marketing to children.

San Francisco has banned the sale of kids’ meals that include incentives like toys, which McDonald’s gets around by selling the toys for a few cents on the side.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest sued McDonald’s in 2010, alleging that the fast food company exploits children by using toys and other kid-centric marketing techniques to get them to want Happy Meals, but the case was dismissed in 2012 after McDonald’s argued that parents can always say no when their kids beg for Happy Meals and other treats.

Meanwhile, the folks at the Center for a Commercial-Free Childhood have started a petition calling for McDonald’s to shut down HappyMeal.com, calling it “a leading online destination for kids, featuring ads for the latest Happy Meal toys, photo opportunities with Ronald McDonald, and games — all designed to make children into devoted and lifelong McDonald’s customers.”

The kitchen can turn from a bastion of culinary hopes and dreams bursting to the seams with fresh food into a sad wasteland of ruined recipes and deflated expectations if you don’t eat your groceries quickly enough. But there’s no need to resign yourself to that fate, friends. You can save your food if you know how.

We often run into tips and tricks for keeping fruits and veggies fresh, but Lifehacker’s got a great list that also includes some other fare you might not know how to save. Check out the 5 tips below and the rest over on their great roundup.

1. Keep your bananas bangin’, not browning: You might already wrap the entire bunch of bananas in plastic wrap at the stem, but separating each piece of fruit and then wrapping the stems will keep them fresher. The wrap keeps the fruit’s ethylene gas from browning and ripening bananas and any other fruit nearby. This will slow down that process a wee bit.

2. Freezer burn no more aka The Moment Your Life Changed: Maybe you’re not like me and can keep yourself from consuming an entire tub of ice cream in one sitting. If you’re strong enough to put down the cardboard container sooner rather than later, trim the tub as the level of ice cream goes down. That will help keep freezer burn at bay, as it’s the extra air in the container that provides a nice place for the crystals to set up shop.

3. Talking tomatoes: Store tomatoes stem down at room temperature. This way, less air and moisture will enter the tomato’s scar and gives it a little extra stamina.

4. Potatoes and apples are BFFs: Keeping your potatoes with the apples will help prevent early sprouting — that same ethylene gas that ripens bananas will put a damper on potato sprouts.

5. Nobody likes brown guacamole: Feel free to argue with me, but brown guacamole looks gross even if it still tastes kind of okay. Drizzle a thin layer of water over leftover guacamole to provide a barrier against oxygen. I also keep the avocado pit in the container, a trick I learned that’s always done wonders for me.

10 Food Preservation Tips in 60 Seconds [LifeHacker]

Just when we think everyone has stacked every burger on top of every breakfast sandwich, or wrapped a waffle around every available form of meat, a whole new world of secret menu items is uncovered.

For their upcoming issue, on sale Oct. 23, Mad Magazine’s Scott Maiko and Mike Loew have compiled 21 heretofore hidden menu items into one graphic that exemplifies the magazine’s 60-year history of serious journalism.

You can click on the image at the top to see the items, along with actual photographs proving that these are 100% authentic secret menu items and not at all fictional.

Below are the full descriptions of each of the items, which range from the edible-but-why-would-you (Chicken McFlurry, Colonel’s Cheesy Discharge, Jacksonville Lube Job) to potential lawsuit territory (Sausage McMuffin with Sponge, Heimlich Delite, Trawler’s Haul) to ones some of us may have actually been served at some point (Ghost Taco Supreme, Extra Extra Extra Crispy chicken, Whopper Hyperdunk).

McDONALD’S
Grimace’s Lament: Equal parts creamy strawberry shake and Filet-o-Fish tartar sauce.

Sausage McMuffin with Sponge: Toasted English muffin, savory sausage hot off the griddle, a slice of melted American cheese and the sponge they use to wipe the griddle clean when breakfast service is over.

Chicken McFlurry: Reduced-fat soft serve vanilla ice cream with Chicken McNuggets swirled in, with caramel and barbecue sauce drizzled on top.

TACO BELL
Saucedilla: Six hot sauce packets folded into a freshly grilled tortilla.

Ghost Taco: Crunchy corn taco shell unfettered by seasoned beef, crisp shredded lettuce and real cheddar cheese.

Ghost Taco Supreme: Crunchy corn taco shell unfettered by seasoned beef, crisp shredded lettuce and real cheddar cheese, but loaded with sour cream.

LONG JOHN SILVER’S
Trawler’s Haul: Whitefish filet and eight shrimp served in an employee’s hair net.

Low Tide at Innsmouth: Platter of fish, shrimp and hushpuppy remnants that fell through the basket and settled on the bottom of the deep fryer. (Call ahead to find out when they drain the oil!)

Tropical Windstorm on the Farm: Salmon caesar salad dumped into a plastic grocery bag, then tossed and gently warmed by holding the bag under the hand dryer in the ladies’ room.

KFC
Colonel’s Cheesy Discharge: Fried chicken crumbs from the trays in the display warmer, swimming in a cup of mac & cheese sauce.

Mass Grave: Large bucket with chicken byproducts (left over from processing of new “Boneless Chicken”) buried in mashed potatoes.

Extra-Extra-Extra Crispy: Chicken pieces that have been left in the fryer overnight. (Order the night before.)

SUBWAY
Six-Inch Cleanup: Sub made entirely with items that have fallen into the wrong ingredient receptacles, garnished with the bits and crumbs that accumulate on that long white cutting board.

Heimlich Delite: Avocado pits drenched in marinara sauce, served on your choice of bread.

Lapsed Veggie: A sub piled high with peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce, hiding the wads of roast beef, black forest ham, salami and bacon crammed underneath.

ARBY’S
Arby-LGBTQ: Standard Arby-Q sandwich prepared specifically by a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender employee.

Potato Cake, Trapezoid Style: Shredded potato fried to a crispy golden brown, custom formed before frying from their regular triangular shape into a convex quadrilateral with at least one pair of parallel sides.

Atlanta Dip: French Dip sandwich served with a cup of heated Coca-Cola syrup in place of au jus.

BURGER KING
Jacksonville Lube Job: Unwrapped Triple Whopper sliding around on a heavily-mayonnaised Whopper Jr. bun with extra mayo between each patty. (Available at drive-thru only and served without napkins.)

Crispy Prince Albert: Chicken wrap with an onion ring attached to one end.

Whopper Hyperdunk: 1/4 pound beef patty stepped on by the grill cook and embossed with the tread from the bottom of his $200 basketball sneakers.

When someone Tweets that they’re watching The Voice and you just HAVE to see what some contestant is wearing (which is counter to the whole point of The Voice, but I digress), do you wish that you could just magically change the channel without having to fumble for your remote and then remember which of your 32,981 channels is NBC? Then the new alliance between Comcast and Twitter is apparently for you.

The new partnership, dubbed See It — which is a heck of a lot better than the horrid NBCEE It pun used during replays on Sunday Night Football — will let Comcast subscribers pair their Twitter and Xfinity accounts so that certain Tweets from the broadcaster will allow the user to press a button and watch the related content on their TV, or set their DVRs to record the program.

It can also bring up certain live programming right on the user’s mobile device, which is admittedly kinda cool.

According to Comcast, shows on the following networks will start using the new service this season:
NBC, NBC Sports Network, CNBC, MSNBC, USA, Syfy, Bravo, Oxygen, E!, Esquire Network and The Golf Channel.

Specific NBC shows expected to take advantage of See It are The Voice, The Blacklist, Chicago Fire, The Michael J. Fox Show, Sunday Night Football, and The Today Show, along with Psych and Suits on USA. NBC also plans to make use See It during the upcoming Olympics in Sochi.

For many people, having a Chipotle restaurant move in next door would mean infinite joy and probably infinite weight gain. One couple in Hershey, Pennsylvania is very unhappy that the fast-casual eatery has a restaurant under construction next door to their home.

They had already filed a lawsuit attempting to stop construction of some of the planned parking spaces and an outdoor seating area before a scary incident one afternoon this week when construction work made their house shake as if there were an extremely small but intense earthquake concentrated on the Chipotle build site. Everyone in the house hit the ground, assuming that there was a massive earthquake. That doesn’t happen very often in Pennsylvania, but is theoretically possible. Or something even worse might have happened: one of the homeowners told a local newspaper that “[e]verything was shaking, like a big bomb went off.”

The couple now claim that there are cracks in their foundation, walls, and ceilings that didn’t exist before the ground-pounding incident. Engineers are now investigating and hope to determine whether that’s really the case, or whether the cracks already existed before the new restaurant was even a guacamole glimmer in the chain’s eye.

Apart from the noise and possible cracks, the couple are concerned about parking, traffic, and their quality of life once the restaurant opens. They have lived in their home for 35 years and aren’t keen to pick up and move.

Chipotle construction may have damaged her Hershey house, neighbor says [Patriot-News]

Please, can we stop it with the Franken-pastries already? Just because you can splice two different baked goods and slap a cute name on it doesn’t mean any of us want to deal with yet another round of hybrid pastry mania. As if the mania over the cronut and its bajillions of spinoff pastries wasn’t enough, Starbucks has launched The Duffin in the UK, a muffin, donut hybrid and sigh, make it stop.

For those who haven’t grown weary to the bone over pastry mashups, Starbucks has rolled out the duffin in its 730 stores across the pond last week. It’s not a flash in the fryer for Starbucks either, apparently, as BusinessWeek notes that the newest menu addition is a permanent one.

The duffin has a buttermilk base, and reportedly tastes “like a moist, cakey muffin, not the coarse, bready type.” It’s got the look of a muffin but the heart of a donut with a raspberry jam filling and sugar coating.

“The Duffin follows a recent fusion trend of combining two bakery items into one hybrid,” explains Ian Cranna, vice president of marketing & category for Starbucks UK in pointing out the obvious.  “Since launching the Starbucks Duffin we have discovered that there are lots of other Duffins out there.”

One British woman takes issue with the “since” part of that — she says she’s been making duffins and calling them that at her bakery for years, reports The Telegraph. She’s mad that Starbucks also snagged the trademark on the name.

“I don’t mind if Starbucks chooses to create a version of my duffin, but don’t trademark it, which gives you the legal right to prevent anyone else using the name,” she says.

All I know is that anyone eating a cronut or duffin and talking about it in my vicinity better keep a firm grip on it or I will smack it out of your hand and laugh as it falls to the ground. Just sayin’.

Starbucks Launches Donut-Muffin, Yet Another Pastry for the Indecisive [BusinessWeek]

Is your unruly stomach keeping you up at night? How about some Trojan condoms to help you get some rest… You say that doesn’t make a lick of sense? Welcome to the wonderful world of Target’s inane suggested substitutions.

We’ve been writing about Target’s bizarre substitution suggestions for years, whether it’s telling customers that an elephant-shaped humidifier is a replacement for nicotine patches; or a flash drive is just as good as that flash bulb you were looking for; or to just go buy a mirror instead of a scale.

The newest one, posted on Reddit, suggests that since the store is out of Tums Chewy Cherry Antacid, don’t go and buy another chewable antacid. No, pick up a 10-pack of Trojan condoms instead.

A Target employee once gave some insight into the sometimes bizarre suggestions offered by Target:
“A substitution isn’t a real substitution, it’s Target’s way of saying, ‘F***, we have no more of this, and we have a rain check for you, but we’re going to immediately put something else on sale right now that you might enjoy also.’… Stores actually get graded on how many substitutions are attached to rain checks. The more substitutions, the higher the score, the higher the store ranks in their region.”

This sentiment is essentially confirmed by a reader on the Reddit thread who claims to be a Target staffer:

I will pretty much sub the first thing I see that is in the +/- $1 price range of the item. Because lazy. Also, you cannot sub an item that is a promotional item, and that’s usually all of the actually substitutable items. So if that particular size of tums are on sale, chances are most of the antacids within a similar range of price are also on sale.

If you want to ask people for money on the streets of Middle Township, NJ, you’ll need to get a permit, as local lawmakers have passed an ordinance aimed at reining in what some view as out-of-hand begging and panhandling in the area.

The ordinance (see full text at bottom of post) was passed by the Township Committee on Monday night. “No person may ask, beg or solicit alms, including money and other things of value, in an aggressive manner in any public place,” reads the new rule, which defines aggressive begging as “Speaking to or following a person in a manner that would cause a reasonable person to fear bodily harm or the commission of a criminal act upon the person or upon property upon the person’s immediate possession or would intimidate another person into giving money or goods.”

Since “any public place” is a very vague term, the ordinance also calls out specific locations where begging is banned. This includes a bus or train station or stop; within 100 feet of an ATM; begging from anyone in a motor vehicle on a public street.

The township goes on to ban certain acts that some beggars have used over the years to encourage the giving of cash, like blocking a free parking space until money is given, or washing car windows in the middle of traffic.

People who wish to beg in Middle Township can apply for a permit, which would be good for one year. However, the Township Police Chief says officers won’t be going after folks who are subtle about their panhandling.

“Someone walks by and says, ‘Can you spare a dollar?’ And they thank you, they keep on moving – that’s something that is protected by the First Amendment,” the chief explained to the Press of Atlantic City. “That’s not what we’re targeting here. These are people that are making people feel unsafe.”

Since he brings up the First Amendment, this is where we wonder if the ordinance A) will be challenged by anyone and B) if it will stand up to said challenge.

The city of Charlottesville, VA, recently passed a law forbidding panhandling, but a federal appeals panel ruled in March that begging is a form of protected speech and that a group of homeless men should be allowed to pursue their legal challenge against the ordinance.

Below is the full text of ORDINANCE NO. 1456-13 in Middle Township, NJ:
A) Definition:
1. AGGRESSIVELY BEG
Speaking to or following a person in a manner that would cause a reasonable person to fear bodily harm or the commission of a criminal act upon the person or upon property upon the person’s immediate possession or would intimidate another person into giving money or goods.
2. ASK, BEG OR SOLICIT ALMS
To ask for money or goods as a charity, whether by words bodily gestures, signs or other means.
3. PEDESTRIAN OR VEHICULAR INTERFERENCE
To walk, stand, sit, lie or place an object in such a manner as to block passage by another person or vehicle, or to require another person or a driver of a vehicle to take evasive action to avoid physical contact. Acts authorized pursuant to the City’s picketing and parade ordinances and regulations are exempt from this article.
4. PUBLIC PLACE
An area generally visible to public view and includes the Boardwalk, alleys, bridges, buildings, driveways, parking lots, parks, plazas, sidewalks and streets opened to the general public, including those that serve food or drink or provide entertainment, and the doorways and entrances to buildings, shops or dwellings and or grounds enclosing them.
(B) Permits.
Pursuant to N.J.S.A. 40:48-1, it shall be unlawful for any person to ask, beg or solicit alms upon the streets or elsewhere in the Township without first obtaining a permit from the Township.
Persons may apply in writing for permission to ask, beg or solicit alms, which such permission shall be issued on a case by case basis upon review of the Municipal Police Department. The permits shall be valid for a period not to exceed one year and are available at no charge or fee to the applicant. A photo identification is required with the application. A warrant check will be conducted before a permit is issued. At the time a permit is issued, the guidelines relating to the activity will be explained to the permittee.
(C) Prohibited acts.
No person may ask, beg or solicit alms, including money and other things of value, in an aggressive manner in any public place. Acts authorized as an exercise of one’s constitutional right to picket, the right to legally protest, any acts authorized by permit or parades issued pursuant to the Code of the Township of Middle shall not constitute obstruction of pedestrian or vehicular traffic.
1. A person is guilty of pedestrian interference if, in a public place, that person intentionally obstructs pedestrian or vehicular traffic or if the at person aggressively begs.
2. No person may ask, beg or solicit alms in any public transportation vehicle or at any bus or train station or stop.
3. No person may ask, beg or solicit alms within 100 feet of any automatic teller machine (ATM).
4. No person may ask, beg or solicit alms from any operator or occupant of a motor vehicle that is in traffic on a public street.
5. No person may ask, beg or solicit alms from any operator or occupant of a motor vehicle on a public street in exchange for blocking, occupying or reserving a public parking space or directing them operator or occupant to a public parking space.
6. No person may ask, beg or solicit alms in exchange for cleaning motor vehicle windows while the vehicle is in traffic on a public street
7. No person may ask, beg or solicit alms in exchange for protecting, watching, washing, cleaning, repairing or painting a motor vehicle or bicycle while it is parked on a public street.
8. No person may ask, beg or solicit alms on private property or residential property without permission from the owner or occupant.
9. No person may ask, beg or solicit alms at any time.
10. No person may ask, beg or solicit alms within 25 feet of the entrance or exit of any business establishment where the express intent of such asking, begging or soliciting of alms is to solicit directly from the employees or patrons of such business establishment.
(D) EXEMPTIONS
Not for profit organizations seeking to solicit donations may be exempted from the provisions of this ordinance. Such exemptions must be granted first in written by the Municipal Police Department.
(E) PENALTIES AND FINES
a. First offense. A fine up to $250.00 plus up to 30 days jail time and up to 5 days of Court approved community service.
b. Second offense. A fine up to $500.00 plus up to 30 days jail time and up to 10 days of Court approved community service.
c. Third offense. A fine up to $1,000.00 plus up to 30 days jail time and up to 15 days of Court approved community service.
SECTION 2. All ordinances, or parts of ordinances, inconsistent herewith are hereby repealed to the extent of such inconsistency.
SECTION 3. This ordinance shall take effect after final adoption and publication as required by law.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to enjoy a burger after a night of drinking — but it is in no way legal or safe on a car chase just so you can finish your meal. Police in Ohio say an intoxicated driver led them on a brief chase because he still had some snacking to do before he stopped the car.

According to a police report obtained by The Smoking Gun, the cops had responded to a call about a reckless driver when they caught up with the suspect. He was just leaving a McDonald’s around 1 a.m. in a silver SUV, and police noted that he had trouble keeping his car in its own lane.

The officer on the job tried to pull over the man, to no avail.

“I initiated a traffic stop and the subject failed to stop,” he wrote, and chased him until the man finally pulled over.

At that point, the cop detected a strong smell of alcohol and says the suspect was slurring his speech. At that point, the man apparently apologized to the officer and confessed that he “was too drunk and he just wanted to eat his Big Mac before he stopped.”

His blood alcohol content clocked in at 0.225, way over the legal limit. He was arrested on charges including drunk driving and fleeing an officer.

Drunk Driver Led Cops On Chase So He Would Have Enough Time To Finish His Big Mac [The Smoking Gun]

Listen, you think just because your car is teeny tiny, pink and splashed with a famous name like “Barbie” makes you immune from police attention? Oh no, not even little girls are above the long arm of the law. Utah cops wanted to make sure Barbie and her cohorts didn’t get away with abandoning a vehicle in the street where it was blocking a driveway, and left a ticket on the wee set of wheels.

Before anyone gets up in arms about the injustices served upon a toy car, it should be noted that the entirety of KUTV.com’s report is relayed with tongue firmly in cheek.

As it turns out, a little girl who thought she’d left her Barbie car in the driveway after the distractions of juvenile playtime with pals had somehow parked it in front of a driveway.

An officer out for his nightly patrols saw the car and left it with a bright orange ticket reading “Abandoned Vehicle” and moved it to the driveway, lest it get squashed or otherwise damage by potentially uncaring grownup traffic.

The girls’ father was surprised when he left for work and almost backed over the toy and noticed the ticket. Despite the fact that officers would usually tow an abandoned car (cough, cough, not a real car), the ticket didn’t come with a fine or any real citation, of course.

“These little girls are very lucky. If it was blocking someone’s driveway normally we’d tow it away,” joked a police officer.

Dad is relieved, and not too crabby at his daughters for leaving their belongings in harm’s way.

“Unfortunately I’ve received my share of tickets,” he admits. “This is definitely my favorite ticket I’ve received.”

Barbie In Trouble With The Law [KUTV.com]

Even if you’re not into specters, wraiths, revenants, and poltergeists, it might seem cool to snap up a run-down old house that everyone thinks is haunted, especially if you can get it for a deal. Aside from the fact that your sassy best friend will be impaled on the fence in Act III and your fiance(e) will be presumed dead until she/he makes a heroic gesture to save you in the final act, you might want to reconsider because having an infamous home can just be a very real pain in the rear end.

The L.A. Times recently talked with real estate appraiser Randall Bell, who specializes in figuring out the real value of homes with unsavory backstories.

His transition from being a normal, everyday appraiser to his current field of expertise began 21 years ago, in the wake of the L.A. riots surrounding the Rodney King beating by the LAPD. He saw an opportunity in appraising those damaged properties that no one else would try to appraise, or wouldn’t know how to if they tried.

Since then, he’s written up detailed reports for well-known scandal magnet homes like the Brentwood condo where O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown was found murdered; the Rancho Santa Fe mansion that was home to 39 Heaven’s Gate members before they committed suicide; the Colorado home of JonBenet Ramsey and her family; and others.

Then there’s the Las Vegas house, believed to be haunted, that was featured on the Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures show. The homeowner had purchased the mansion at foreclosure but after the property was shown on TV, along with stories it was inhabited by ghosts and had previously been the site of mob shootings, he says it was repeatedly broken into and vandalized.

“The fire was right over here,” recalls Bell, pointing to a spot where he says there had been a pentagram scrawled on the floor. “You could see where they did their little ritual thing.”

In the end, that homeowner ended up selling the mansion for below what he’d paid at auction. The new owner’s real estate agent estimates that it would have sold for $150,000 to $200,000 more if it hadn’t been for the ghost-filled reputation.

Bell tells the Times that buyers assume that it’s just a matter of cleaning up damage or tearing down an infamous structure, but that’s not generally the case. After all, everyone who lives near the Heaven’s Gate mansion is going to know what happened on that property, regardless of what happens to the physical structure; the reputation lives on.

Likewise, the Vegas mansion with its supposed ghosts and fable mob hits — both of which Bell denies any evidence of — will continue on for a while, mostly due to basic cable’s love of reruns.

So the new owner, who hopes to flip it, is taking care to secure the building to keep lookie-loos away. So far he’s been successful. But even if he can get it back to a pristine condition, will he disclose the reputation to prospective buyers?

While some places have varying requirements about disclosing whether someone died in a for-sale property, sellers in most states are not obliged to tell buyers about the fame or infamy of a property.

Thanks to a 1991 New York state appeals court ruling in a case involving the attempted sale of a house that had been touted as “haunted” for years, sellers in that state are required to disclose to the buyer if a property has been publicly marketed or believed to be haunted:

“Having undertaken to inform the public-at-large, to whom she has no legal relationship, about the supernatural occurrences on her property, [the seller] may be said to owe no less a duty to her contract vendee… [H]ere, the seller not only takes unfair advantage of the buyer’s ignorance but has created and perpetuated a condition about which he is unlikely to even inquire… Application of the remedy of rescission, within the bounds of the narrow exception to the doctrine of caveat emptor set forth herein, is entirely appropriate to relieve the unwitting purchaser from the consequences of a most unnatural bargain.”

One appeals panel judge who dissented, also made an argument worth quoting:

Finally, if the doctrine of caveat emptor is to be discarded, it should be for a reason more substantive than a poltergeist. The existence of a poltergeist is no more binding upon the defendants than it is upon this court.

The liquor aisle is a place brimming with possibilities — do you want wine or beer? Dark rum or light? There’s so much to choose from! The choices can become even more intimidating when they are all falling toward you in a wave of crashing glass and sloshing liquid.

In a video currently titillating the voyeuristic masses on LiveLeak, two friends appear to be mulling over their potential drink decisions while a store worker goes about the job of stocking the shelves.

At first it’s like, “Why am I watching this, I’m bored and now thirsty” — until the worker stands up, apparently to admire his handiwork. The ladies glance over at his movement and it’s a good thing they do. Otherwise they likely could’ve gotten hit by the sudden booze avalanche bearing down on them like a boozy wall of doom.

As Boss Meg put it when discussing this bit of video awesomness, “Oh my stars.” And also it reminds us of the great Target Shopping Cart Disaster of 2008, but a bit less epic as no carts seemed to be harmed in that instance.

Prince William County and Stafford County home sales Washington Post 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. Prince William County. BRISTOW ...

Halloween Happenings at Prince William & Manassas, Virginia's Historic Haunts DigitalJournal.com Spend the night in one of Virginia's most haunted homes, watch for ghosts on busy streets corners and learn about the spirits that roam the community as numerous Prince William & Manassas historic haunts host special events for the Halloween season. and more »

Maryland's five western counties have had enough. Allegany, Carroll, Frederick, Garrett and Washington counties are ready to sever ties with the Free State and start their own, according to Scott Strzelczyk, a 49-year-old information technology consultant and self-proclaimed leader of the Western Maryland Initiative.

The opening of Rockville's first stand-alone Chick-fil-A restaurant doesn't happen until Thursday but that apparently didn't stop people from camping out for it a day earlier.

Photographer captures seal balancing on shark's nose.

The structure was designed by sculptor Andy Scott as a monument to horse powered heritage across Central Scotland. 

New Comic: The Intrusion Of Actual Life