There's a lot to live up to when you're a MadCow. And even MadCows get sick. Well, the website did anyway. Cowpies is back online and with many many thanks to Frank Truscott from over at the Nucleus CMS Forums. Excellent work!

LOLCats: Because they are smarter than we are.

foliage - handsoap:

this is actual soap.
shaped like little hands!
each ‘hand’ is hand made.
wash your hands with hands.
the soaps range from 1/2” to 2”.
it’s goat’s milk glycerin & has a light scent.
really quite lovely!
comes in a pretty bag… all ready for gifting to a friend with dirty paws!

$12.00

Now that's some strange handy soap.

Daniel Keys Moran:

Dan Moran is one cool guy. We've worked with a lot of "Hollywood Types", obviously a lot more well known than Dan is. We've never gone all 'oogly woogly' with them - with Dan, we did. The whole autograph thing. But you know, it's because he's a great one. Dan is mostly known as a SciFi author of several books (The Long Run being on our top 5 SciFi books of all time) and darn good writer of just general things too.

He's been missed sorely from the SciFi scene and just hearing from him in general. Yeah, he uses that 'I have a life thing' - which I know to be true - to take loving care of his kids and loving wife. Having recently found that he's back in the wind, I wanted to extend a warm hello and say, thanks for all the fish...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Keys_Moran
http://danielkeysmoran.blogspot.com/2007/05/suppose-i-ought-to-have-posted-this.html

WaterB.O.B.:

The WaterBOB™ turns any standard bathtub into an emergency water reserve, storing up to 100 gallons of fresh drinking water. Water stored in an open bathtub, with dirt, soap film and exposure to debris will spoil quickly and become useless.

When an emergency arises simply lay the WaterBOB™ in your bathtub, hookup to the faucet and fill to capacity. A siphon pump is included to easily dispense the water into jugs or pitchers. The WaterBOB™ follows FDA guidelines and is constructed of heavy-duty food grade plastic.

Living in Souther California and having gone through a couple major Earthquakes, we can pretty much say that this is a great idea®. For $22.95 you just can't go wrong here folks.

Citysquares Raises First Round:
As we've covered in the past, Ben Saren of Citysquares (think overpriced hyperlocal websites for small businesses that don't know better) - has managed to con eCoast into funding his A round. I sincerely hope they took him to the cleaners on points. Perhaps it's time to ratchet up the blog machine and focus on his client base and let them know how he stole $10k from us. It's not like he just woke up and decided to not be a cheese weasel - his spots are not going to change. One nice thing though - we don't have to wake up next to that mug (nice receding hairline there buddy).

BTW, Ben. Nice digs you're in. We're going to be out there in Boston sometime this summer. We'll have to stop by and personally say hi. And hey, as always - keep sending us those letters. Every person we can find that has been screwed by Ben Saren is just one more nail in his corporate coffin. I want to thank the guys out here in Los Angeles for getting ahold of us about Scout.

Visit AboutUs.org for more information about ATOMICUSA.COM
AboutUs: ATOMICUSA.COM

Registration Service Provided By: Citysquares Online, Inc.
Contact: hostmaster@citysquares.com
Visit: http://www.citysquares.com

Domain name: ATOMICUSA.COM

Sleep tight Ben.

Menupix LA:

There's been several services for online menus and ordering for those late night munchies, lunch, dinner and working late at the office. Menupix is noteable in that they have done it right. Easy to find what you're looking for. Not tied to a specific advertising schtick and gives equal time to each eatery. They cover LA and other core cities in the US and are expanding. What's great about them is they have a scan of the actual menu with the listing. Dig in!

Check them out.

Keystroke the Carriers:

The Cellular carriers frequently have menu keys that you don't know about. Here's a list of the common ones. The Google one doesn't really count as a shortcut, it's just damned cool.



1) Skip Voicemail intro: press *
2) Check anytime minutes: dial #646 and Send
3) While listening to a message press: 1 to Rewind, 2 to Pause, 3 to Fast Forward, 4 to Slower, 5 to go Envelope Info (date/time), 6 to go Faster After listening, 4 to Replay, 7 to Delete, 9 to Save, 0 for Help.
4) Check Your Balance: dial #BAL and Send
5) Make A Payment: #PMT and Send
6) Check The Number of Text Messages and kilobyte usage: dial #DATA and Send
7) Contact Customer Service: dial *611 and Send
8) Verizon Minutes used Firefox Extension
***


1) Skip Voicemail intro: press *
2) Check anytime minutes: dial *646#
3) Delete a voice mail message: press 77
4) Save a voice mail message: press 99
5) To turn off the lady talks when people enter your voicemail: Call your voicemail and at the main menu dial 4272.
***


1) Skip Voicemail intro: press 1
2) Check anytime minutes: *4
3) Sprint Users can get credits for their dropped calls. Simply dial *2. Press 1. After the virtual representative prompts you say “credit for a dropped call” or “dropped call credit“. You can only redeem 20 dropped calls a month for a max credit of $10 (use this service only twice a day). 50 cents is added for each credited dropped call.
***


1) Skip Voicemail intro: press #
2) Check anytime minutes: dial #646#
3) Remaining minutes: dial #999#
***


Free 411 calls. Just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone.

So, on Friday (March 23rd/07), my wife opens up a can of Rosarita Zesty Salsa Refried Beans to make steak wraps for dinner. Since I was working late, she went ahead and ate first.



Halfway into the can of beans she notices some extra ingredients:





What appears to be the ribcage of a small animal, probably a rodent - is cooked into the batch of beans. We wrapped the remaining can of beans up for later identification. My wife, proceeded to "evacuate" the offending steak wrap over the next 45 minutes or so. My concern was that if we had the ribcage, then in that whole big batch of beans that was processed - Mr. Rodent had left his other body parts. We called Vons, thinking they should be aware of this and perhaps pull the product on shelf until it had been cleared. The person at this Vons told us that they wouldn't do anything and that we should can ConAgra (yes, the Peanut Butter Salmonella ConAgra). So. Looking up on their website, lists a customer service contact that's open Mon-Fri. Nice.

So, fast forward to Monday morning (3/26/07). I called Rosarita and spoke to a front line CS person (Carol), she took my information and based on the report was going to transfer me to "someone else". Shortly thereafter, Heidi, came on the line. She proceeded to ask a script of questions like, "what did the bones feel like?" and "can you describe what a bone looks like?". After listening to her soothing tones she stated that they would like to have the can/contents inspected by their Quality Assurance Group. They would dispatch a prepaid mailer that I should be expecting - yes! wait for it - 2 to 2.5 weeks! Meanwhile, I should probably freeze the can of beans. Oh. And they were going to include 6 coupons for future Rosarita products that I could use anytime within the next year. When I told her that the chances of me using their products ever again - were slim to none - she generously said she would send a check for $20.

Now here's some thoughts on this: They are going to wait for at least 2 weeks to get me a mailer, meanwhile, Rosarita product with Rodent® is sitting on the shelf waiting for you to find the other parts of Mr. Rodent (not to mention that he was cooked in the whole batch, so each can from that batch has some tasty Rodent® goodness). I pointed this out and they didn't seem too concerned. The other is that I'm not sure I'm ever going to feel like eating anything canned for a long time. We're also waiting the 7 to 10 days to see if any other nasties crop up, like dysentery or other types of poisoning. We get put off canned food for life and they want to give us coupons to buy more... what the hell are these companies thinking? They should have dispatched a local rep (this is Los Angeles, they should have a headquarters nearby - or just fly out) come by and investigate this. How much more bad PR do they need before they realize how to handle situations like this before it blows up in their face?

image by: André Karwath aka Aka

Sore Throat Cures:

Who would have thought? In this day and age of "purple pills" and all the hellish side effects - something simple - red pepper. The folks over at EarthClinic have an interesting site of folk cures and testimonials. It's worth a read if you're tired taking some of the stuff they try to shove down your throat. (No, that doesn't mean what the political machine is shoving....)