Hope you have a Merry Christmas, America, because you’ve been extremely naughty at the mall this year. After surveying retailers in the U.S., the Global Retail Theft Barometer says that shoppers pinched $1.8 billion worth of merchandise during the four weeks leading up to Christmas, reports the AP. $1.8 billion! For context, $1.8 billion is a 6 percent increase from 2010.
2011’s movie roster was filled with the good, the bad and the mediocre. Some films wowed us, while some drove us out of the theaters.
Like the Devil Himself, the middle finger bears many names and adopts many guises. There’s the “single-digit salute” favored by punk rockers and rebellious celebrities. Or the “expressway digit,” a remarkable single-sign code by which California drivers communicate their complex emotions. It’s also known as “the bird,” a poor symbolic avian that is endlessly flipped and flicked. It can be displayed statically, waggling and waving, thrusting with rage, or drooping dispassionately from the hand of a rapper.
Long before punk rock and eight-lane highways, the middle finger was known as the digitus impudicus or digitus infamis (indecent or infamous digit) by Romans and medieval Europeans. Augustus Caesar once booted an entertainer for giving a heckler the finger. And the lunatic emperor Caligula — famed for such crimes as wearing women’s clothes and murdering indiscriminately — was said to have habitually offered his digitus infamis to be kissed by his enemies, just to flaunt his imperial disdain. Until, of course, one of those enemies stabbed Caligula in the neck.
The office printer, the elevator buttons, the computer keyboard, the calculator and most other tech stuff that we use have use daily have germs on them but the dirtiest of them all is the TV remote control found in hotel rooms.
The ginger moggy, who was named after the Artful Dodger from Oliver Twist, has taken to hopping on and off the public transport at the bus station near his home.
The 15-year-old Tom even sits on bemused passengers’ laps as the bus makes up to 10 mile round trips from Bridport to Charmouth in Dorset. Dodger is such a regular customer that some of the drivers take tins of cat food to work with them to give to him. They even know what stop to let him off at.
At the end of his journies the roving moggy returns to his home and owner Fee Jeanes.
Microsoft’s Windows Phone Evangelist has made a surprising offer – free Windows Phone handsets for people who complain publicly about Android on Twitter.
Ben Rudolph, who Tweets as BenThePCGuy, said, ‘Share your android malware story (there’s lots going around) and you could win a Windows Phone upgrade.’ The Tweet was retweeted by an official Microsoft Twitter account, and Rudolph is a prolific Twitterer for the company, so the offer appears to be genuine.
What wasn’t clear was how many phones were on offer, and what exact models. Tech sites such as Electric Pig were quick to speculate that Nokia’s glamorous new Lumia 800 handset would be the phone Microsoft would send out.
