Piecost.Net

[High quality knob gag courtesy of Tom Scott]

The iPhone’s electrostatic screen is excellent for putting in your pocket and not accidentally having coins or keys push the buttons.  But how to operate it with gloves on in this chilly weather?  In South Korea they’ve turned to the humble sausage:

Apparently snack sausages from the CJ Corporation are electrostatically compatible with the iPhone’s capacitive touchscreen, leading many to use them as a “meat stylus” in the cold weather, rather than remove a glove.

Yep.  Meat stylus.  Not a bad name for a band.

[thanks to Sam over at The Jerk Store]

Every so often appears a story which renders the reader into a stupour, unable to decide whether to break down laughing or start editoralizing about the state of the world.  Either way, there’s no way you could make this stuff up:

Two men involved in a pub brawl sparked by an argument over who should win TV talent show The X Factor have been jailed for two years.

Don’t people argue about who the best British Prime Minister was any more?

[thanks Jeffo!]

PS Pitt the Elder

The Sun reports that as a form of protest against last week’s World Cup qualifier result, cleaners across Ireland have been defacing vacuum cleaners bearing the surname of the contentious French sportsman involved in the match controversy which dashed their hopes of going to South Africa.

Several cleaners say they’re unhappy working with vacuum cleaners with the cheat’s name written on them.

It’s bizarre because the machines have nothing whatsoever to do with Thierry Henry.

Another journalistic gem from Australia – this time from the Northern Territory’s NT News: a woman involved in a high-speed car crash in the excellently named town of Humpty Doo had been fingered by the driver of the vehicle as the cause of the mishap, however she staunchly denies being the culprit – employing empirical reason as her defence.  The paper cheerfully relays her reasoning in stellar fashion:

I was not ****ing his **** — and it’s pretty obvious that wasn’t the case … you only have to look at the mark on my chest.  Clearly I had my seat belt on, so it’s impossible I’d be leaning over ****ing his ***** unless he is hung like a donkey or I’ve got a ******* rubber neck. If it was true I’d just cop it sweet and think ‘how embarrassing, I got caught ****ing someone’s ****. But it is not true and that’s what is p***ing me off. It didn’t happen like that at all — he was just going too fast.

[sorted from the chaff by Neonwombat]

In a remarkable gesture of restraint and moderation by event organisers, patron of Australian premier motor sport event – the Bathurst 1000 – are having limits imposed on them regarding how much booze they’re allowed to take on-site.  The daily limit is one slab (24 x 375mL cans) per person.

“But more restrained spectators would be able to slake their thirst, if not their craving for alcohol, with up to 36 cans of low or mid-strength beer.  Wine lovers must make do with no more than four liters of cask wine per day and combinations of the options would not be allowed.”

Sometimes you’ve just got to get by on 9 litres of beer a day.

[Reuters/Yahoo News, courtesy of Sir Sydney]

The Wisconsin Tourism Federation has recently decided to amend its nomenclature to the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin, after they learned that their acronym – which they’ve proudly been using since 1979 – was identical to a piece of rude vernacular in common use on the Internet.

The main WTF at work here seems to be why they’d pass up a perfectly good marketing opportunity like this…  after all, the Federated Union of Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming, Idaho, and Texas Spelunkers aren’t given such a silver platter.

[The Age Online]

Having lost various items in “long-drop” loos at campsites, I can contest that the pit isn’t the most hospitable looking environment, and if you do drop something in there the sensible plan is to just cut your losses and leave it there.  An American gentleman however seems to have developed an affinity for being in there:

Portland’s Gary Moody has been caught — for a second time — hiding inside a pit latrine at a campsite. The first time he claimed he’d dropped his wedding ring (authorities sieved the biomass and found no ring); this time he claimed he’d dropped his shirt.

Least-impressed out of all this must have been the authorities who had been given the job of “sieving the biomass”.

[via BoingBoing]

Daily breakfast televisual docu-feast GMTV came into the news today after one of its presenters blurted out that in the name of political correctness, Britain’s capital should be referred to in as passing-a way as possible in morning broadcasts so that the programme doesn’t give the impression that they’re preoccupied with the place.

GMTV presenter Clare Nasir has revealed that bosses have issued a diktat telling her and colleagues not to focus too much on London in case viewers from other parts of the country complain about favouritism.

She said: “Almost all the weather programmes are broadcast out of London, but you will rarely find weather presenters saying the word ‘London’.”

Presumably from now on – in order to protect the delicate sensibilities of people living on farms and not make anyone feel like their town is any less important – the big city in the southeast which is home to approximately 7 million people will only be insinuated about, at best.  As to quite why there’s this much ruck about weather forecasts, which are typically wrong anyway, is anyone’s guess.

[thelondonpaper]

The town of Raschala in Austria was so proud of the fact that Mozart stopped off for a Jimmy Riddle there once that they erected a Mozart Pinkelstein (“Mozart pee-stone”) to commemorate the historic event.  Not content with immortalising it in stone, however, the local tourism board has decided that a more fitting tribute would be an annual festival of beer and music.

“Local people always remarked on the fact that there was so little to do here even Mozart only stopped long enough to take a pee before carrying on with his journey to Prague.

As far as we can tell he drove through our town in 1787 – and asked the horse-carriage driver to stop so he could take a leak.”

Whether or not this move will prompt Salzburg into commissioning a Mozart Scheissebrunnen down a back alley off the Kapitelplatz remains unclear.

[TheMetro]