Nobrainer’s Think Tank

Have you heard about the “Runaway Prius driver“? I’ve got three words to describe this guy: TOTAL FUCKING IDIOT!

During the two 911 calls, Sikes ignored many of the dispatcher’s questions, saying later that he had to put his phone on the seat to keep his hands on the wheel.

Leighann Parks, a 24-year-old dispatcher, repeatedly told him to throw the car into neutral but got no answers.

Neibert told Sikes after the CHP caught up with him to shift to neutral but the driver shook his head no. Sikes told reporters he didn’t go into neutral because he worried the car would flip.

What the flying fuck? He ignored the only advice that mattered because he was so stupid that he thought it would make the problem worse? Jeezus. Toyota isn’t the problem here. A stupid fucking driver is the problem here. James Sikes ought to have his license revoked and be barred from ever getting behind the wheel for the rest of his life.

A recent Southwest flight experienced some damage and had to make an emergency landing.

Fortunately a keen passenger was able to speak to the press.

John Benson of Knoxville was on Flight 2294 with his two sons. Benson was planning on taking his sons to New York by way of Baltimore. What was supposed to be a nice family trip, quickly turned into one of the most frightening experiences of his life.

“Literally the whole top of the plane ripped off,” Benson said.

Southwest spokeswoman Marilee McInnis said a football-sized hole was located mid-cabin, near the top of the aircraft.

Sometime, maybe a year ago, I heard Lenny Dykstra on a local radio station talking the local radio station talking about Lenny Dykstra’s transformation into an uber-successful stock picking/investing guru. He apparently appears on TV regularly, has until recently been making picks for thestreet.com, and maybe even publishing other newsletters. He even had Jim Cramer in his corner, “He is one of the great ones in this business. Lenny Dykstra.” It all sounded a bit sketchy to me. Well guess who’s just filed for bankruptcy?

The 46-year-old has no more than $50,000 of assets and between $10 million and $50 million of liabilities, according to a petition filed Tuesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Central District of California.

Dykstra’s filing comes in the wake of more than 20 lawsuits he faces tied to his activities as a financial entrepreneur, including The Players Club, a glossy magazine for athletes he had helped launch in 2008.

According to an April article on ESPN.com, Dykstra put his net worth at $60 million, and also owned a black Rolls Royce Phantom and Gulfstream II jet.

Thanks to Fark for the heads up.

Update: Here’s the audio I heard from 3/17/2008. The guys on the radio were really just talking about Dykstra’s appearance on HBO’s Real Sports.

Update 2: For more Lenny goodness, try reading this GQ article from a photographer who worked for him, or this ESPN article, or this DeadSpin post with some video from a more recent HBO Real Sports segment.

I’m pretty upset with this one (more than my normal state of being upset).

On December 8th, well before Christmas in my book, I ordered some Christmas presents. You can bet (since I’m posting this here) that they took my money and haven’t bothered to do anything. I just filed a complaint with paypal, so I may be able to get my money back.

They’re a real great website to order from. They don’t offer a phone number. They don’t reply to emails. And they go on vacations over the holidays, for over a week at a time, or so says their auto-response email. But they do list a phone number, 614-895-2170, if you dig through the details of the paypal transaction; the downside is that it’s disconnected. As is another phone number, 866-488-2170, which shows up through some Google searches as their “service number”. Real pros there.

On the upside, I don’t feel as bad because I just read this thread at Amazon. Apparently eftgifts was offering some kind of Playstation bundle for Christmas. They of course failed to deliver the Playstations, and in some cases shipped boxes filled only packing materials.

I guess this will cure me of ever again not buying from the retail giants.

UPDATE 2009-01-18: It’s been 5 days and EFTgifts has yet to respond to my PayPal complaint. Only 5 more days until I learn whether or not I can get any of my money refunded.

UPDATE 2009-01-24: Paypal agrees that EFTgifts ripped me off. EFTgifts didn’t even bother to respond to my complaint.

After careful review, we have concluded our investigation of the Buyer
Complaint described below.

We have decided in your favor, however, we were unable to recover any funds
from the seller’s account. As stated in the PayPal User Agreement, recovery
of funds associated with a Buyer Complaint cannot be guaranteed.

Please know that we will make our best effort to recover the funds in
question if they become available in the seller’s account in the future and
will take appropriate action against the seller. Such action may include
issuing a warning, a temporary restriction, or terminating the account.
Keep in mind that PayPal uses a number of factors to determine when to take
action, including member complaints. Due to privacy laws, we cannot discuss
the details of any action taken. We hope you understand our policy and that
it assures you that you are safe using PayPal.

Well I certainly don’t feel safe using Paypal. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that once they are sent more money by anyone else, that money will become mine. If so, that’s a really twisted way to handle these types of situations.

“I will present undeniable scientific proof that God exists.” Sure you will Mr. Comfort. Comfort and Kirk Cameron are going to appear on a to-be-televised-on-ABC debate.

For Mr. Comfort’s sake, I hope his undeniable scientific proof isn’t a jar of peanut butter or a banana.

What’s funnier, or really, sadder, is Kirk Cameron. I give him credit for avoiding the childhood-actor-turned-petty-criminal-who-dies-in-the-gutter path of life. But his religious exploits are just way too far over the top. Let’s look at some of what he said in the article:

Atheism has become very popular in universities–where it’s taught that we evolved from animals and that there are no moral absolutes. So we shouldn’t be surprised when there are school shootings.

Just let that thought marinate for a while.

(more…)

If there’s a bruise on my forehead later today, you’ll know why:

Waiting in a winding line for autographs from his favorite NBA player, 15-year-old Brian Cox lifted the lid of a shoebox to show off his synthetic leather high-top sneakers with black sides and blue-and-orange soles.

At a price his mother doesn’t mind — $14.98 — he got his fourth pair of Starburys this week, a sneaker created by New York Knicks point guard Stephon Marbury. Joanne Cox brought her two teenage sons to Steve & Barry’s University Sportswear after church Sunday for the launch of Marbury’s spring line.

The NBA star “grew up in a poor neighborhood just like we did,” said Cox, who is raising the boys on her own. She says it is not easy on the wages she earns as a city traffic officer, and she has spent thousands on her sons’ shoes over the years. “Now that we got a price of $15, we’re not going higher than that.”

Just so you know, Starburys have only been on sale since September ’06. The math works out to indicate that Brian gets new shoes every 10 weeks. That leads me to conclude that either the shoes are pieces of crap that don’t last at all (sounds like the British Knights I had about 16 years ago), or the Coxes still need lessons on stretching their dollar.

And, as a footnote, Starburys are apparently all the rage at UVA law.