In China, a sewer snake came came up from a toilet and bit a man’s penis.  Crazy.

No, I am not referring to the “N Judah” or the BART trains.  A man named Muni Bart Perzov from San Jose is missing.  I thought this was a total joke when I heard about it, but it’s true.  I wonder if his mom actually named him after the trains beneath Market Street.  Here’s hoping they find him.

WHO raises swine flu to pandemic level 11.  Cough, cough!  Ahrm, it is only a matter of time before “El Swine” gets us all.  Cough, cough!

Seasonal flu, the regular influenza virus, has killed more than 13,000 people since the beginning of the year and swine flu has killed only one.  Although you wouldn’t know it by the mass media hysteria surrounding this flu of swine.  All of the news networks are tracking the “outbreak” by reporting the number of cases as they increase, which by the way, (insert sarcasm here) is REALLY exciting to watch 24 hours a day.  Just yesterday a couple of people were reported to have swine flu in Marin and everyone in San Francisco started to panic as if Godzilla was swimming around The Bay ready to pounce on us Tokyo-style.

Almost immediately after the Marin “outbreak,” The Governator declared a state of emergency in the best press conference ever by saying, “there is no need for alarm.”  Well, isn’t that what “declaring an emergency” is all about!? You are sounding a freakin’ alarm so that people take notice, right!?  Uh, really!?

Let’s keep things in perspective people!

You are no more likely to die from swine flu as you are from regular seasonal flu.  The same rules apply.  People should be a lot more worried about getting the AIDS virus, since that has a much higher mortality rate.  But understandably it is a lot easier to get the swine flu virus than the AIDS virus.  Use the same precautions that you would to avoid getting the flu and you will be fine.  I am not saying we should all go out and start kissing pigs, but there is definitely no need to panic.

The four system administrators of The Pirate Bay file sharing site have been convicted of copyright infringement, sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay $3.6 million in restitution to to a handful of entertainment companies.  Peter Sunde, one of the defendants and The Pirate Bay’s spokesman, announced the news over Twitter Friday morning before the verdict was official. He remained defiant, and offered comfort to supporters.

“Stay calm — Nothing will happen to TPB, us personally or file sharing whatsoever. This is just a theater for the media.  We see this as a film…this is a small setback for the heroes…In the end we know that the good guys will win, as in all movies.”

The defendants claim that there are mirrors of the site all over the world and the site will remain operational even if they were to go to prison.  The defendants are expected to appeal, and they remain free pending further proceedings.

It seems like everyone is talking about Keri Ferrell, the hipster grifter and criminal from Utah that continued scamming people in Brooklyn, New York.  One Observer post followed by several Gawker posts has several Internet observers looking for this crazy con girl.  According to Gawker, there are three reasons why following her exploits is becoming an Internet meme:

1. She is so much like you or your friends or someone you know. All us young urban cools relate, right? Yes! Just like your neighbor!

2. But yo she was seriously totally psycho. Come on, the frauds and ripoffs or the fake cancer or the fake pregnancies or the other assorted lies would pass for normal one at a time. But all in one place—she was the holy grail of the outwardly cool, inwardly crazy and dangerous person you met at a bar one night.

3. She had the misfortune to perpetrate her fraud in the midst of the most self-absorbed, writing-intensive demographic, and zip code, in all of America. Sucks for her.

Sucks for her indeed. There’s even a link to the Observer article from SFGate!  I cannot believe that modern day con artists think they can outrun the long arm of the Internet. They may be able to outrun the law, but not the Internet.  Fascinating.

A man in Texas passed gas in a motel room with a couple of his buddies.  Normally that does not make the news.  But, the ensuing olfactory assault from this particular fart was so severe that one of the buddies threw a knife at the farter and proceeded to stab him in the chest!  The farter was later treated for non-life thratening injuries and released.  This has to be the first time that a “fart fight” turned into a “knife fight” in the history of mankind.

A group of vandals and/or thieves cut a couple of fiber optic cable trunks on Thursday.  The cut cables knocked out 52,000 land lines, Internet connections and cell phones all over southern Santa Clara county.  People were really pissed.  Now police have increased their reward to $250,000 for information on this case.  I wonder if there were any large robberies (diamonds, large wads of cash, or something) while these lines were down.  Because this sounds like some Ocean’s 11 type shiznit.  You know, a distraction to commit a much bigger crime or to turn off an alarm or something.

GM and Segway introduced a new two-wheeled vehicle yesterday, a big ass two-person Segway.  According to news reports, this new vehicle is supposed to revolutionize urban travel. You know, like the original Segway did several years ago. What!? You don’t have a personal Segway for short trips around town? Well, clearly you do not work at Google. Anyway, the chances of people choosing this vehicle over walking, a gas powered scooter, or even a new electric scooter is ridiculous. It’s good to know that GM is spending stimulus money on publicity stunts.

Newspapers and magazines are laying off journalists left and right. Well, would be shocked to find out that journalism school applications are up by as much 38 percent at Columbia and 20 percent at Stanford. Should anyone trust your abilities to collect and summarize information if you pay exorbitant tuition to be trained in a dying profession? Think about it.  People with graduate degrees in journalism were paid like $40,000 before the great newspaper and magazine die-off.  So why pay $35,000 per year to get a journalism degree now!?  Just throw $100 bills into a bonfire or a fireplace or something.  Much easier.

“Pubs” in the title of the post refers to publications, not bars.  Ironically, that is where these new journalists will likely end up.  Sadly reevaluating their lives.

Above is a photo of an ATM card skimmer found on a WAMU ATM in NYC.  The guy noticed that the reader was right in front of the ATM card slot and misaligned and was able to rip it right off of the machine and take it inside the branch.  The reader consisted of a small chip for storage and a mini-USB connector.  Please make a note of this and examine ATMs before sticking your card in it.

A Yahoo! engineer went nuts and shot everyone in his house, including himself, on Sunday.  Authorities are trying to figure out why the guy would shoot his entire family, including his wife’s brother and the brother’s spouse, who were visiting from India.  If there is any good news about this mess is that his wife survived and is in critical condition.  Perhaps she will be able to shed light on what happened after her recovery.  Crazy.

Does anyone remember Microsoft’s CD-ROM encyclopedia called Encarta? Well, it’s shutting down. I read about its demise in a newspaper article and the update is already on Wikipedia.  Ha!  No wonder Encarta is adios amigos.

In today’s economy it’s it’s good to hear that someone is making money.  A cafe owner in Ohio is thriving by allowing customers to pay what they think is fair for a meal.  This is what they do in small towns in Europe and apparently it works here too!

The Daily Nugget is now banned in China!  Yes, it is a rite of passage for any reputable news organization to be banned in China, and now The Nug is too.  And it is just a crappy blog!  My friend Benson Tran, who lives in Beijing, says he can no longer access the site because the site, or me, angered a Chinese official.  Kick ass!

A Turkish man cheats death by escaping a collision between a train and a truck with only minor injuries.  Incredible!

A Nigerian 419 gang created official looking documents to trick Citibank into wiring $27 million to bank accounts all around the world.  They illegally accessed an account that the National Bank of Ethiopia held with Citibank.  When Citibank contacted the fraudsters to verify the wire transfers they went as far as impersonating Ethiopian bank officials.

They were ultimately caught because several of the banks that received the wire transfers could not complete the transactions (for one reason or another) and contacted Citibank.  At which point the real National Bank of Ethiopia was contacted and the FBI were involved.  They would have gotten away with too it if they had simply used only a single bank account to receive the wire transfer and emptied it immediately.

This is a highly sophisticated con pulled off by a few very talented people.  Nobody thought that these Nigerian guys could pull-off an Ocean’s 11 type heist.  Well, it wasn’t that complicated, but it yielded amazing results.  Crazy.

The chimp that attacked a woman in Connecticut reportedly had a closer relationship with its owner than those of some married couples. The chimp bathed, dined, and even slept with its crazy-as-bat-shit owner.

Needless to say, he was likely acting crazy becuase he was living with a crazy woman.  Never mind the fact that he is a wild animal.  According to animal experts, he likely thought he was protecting his mate when he attacked the owner’s friend.

Sad to think the chimp could have been free in the jungle somewhere instead of playing husband to a crazy widow.

The story today in SFGate about eagles reminded me of the best video report about eagles ever produced anywhere! It’s the gift that keeps on giving!

Another jet crash lands in London–all survive.  How many more crashes!?