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Random Acts of Blogging – 8/18/09

By Brian | August 18, 2009 | Share on Facebook

A few quick items I found interesting or humorous:

First it was an epidemic, then it was a global pandemic, and now the Swine Flu is a video game! The game is free, and can be found at http://www.thegreatflu.com. Heck, if the latest Harry Potter movie can be a video game, why not swine flu, right?

Next, there’s this post from BoingBoing, which explains that you can get G-mail to stop putting advertisements on your e-mails, simply by putting words or phrases like “9/11″ and “suicide” in the mails. You see, G-mail doesn’t want to appear insensitive by putting ads on e-mails about such serious topics, so if you fool it into thinking that your e-mail refers to such subjects, then you can be ad free. Here’s my favorite line from the article:

Questions remain [such as] How do you avoid scaring the people who receive your emails with your seemingly pointless references to incest and gang rape?

Classic.

Moving on, we have Elsie Poncher. Elsie’s late husband, Richard, bought two tombs in a Los Angeles mausoleum (for him and his wife) from Joe DiMaggio in 1954. When Mr. Poncher passed away in 1986, he was laid to rest in one of them, which wound up being directly above DiMaggio’s ex-wife, Marilyn Monroe. Fast forward to today, where Elsie wants to pay off the $1.6 million mortgage on her Beverly Hills home.

So, she’s put her husband’s grave on eBay. Her plan, you see, is to move him to her spot, and have herself cremated. Sound crazy? Well, the starting bid was $500,000, and as of yesterday, the bidding had reached $2.5 million. It seems Ms. Poncher will pay off the mortgage and have some money to spare. My favorite part? The text of her ad:

“Here is a once in a lifetime and into eternity opportunity to spend your eternal days directly above Marilyn Monroe. In fact the person occupying the address right now is looking face down on her.”

Does that make this a “tomb with a view?” (Ba dum! I’m here all week! Don’t forget to tip your waitresses…)

UPDATE: Final bid: $4.6 million.

UPDATE #2: Sanity returns to the world. Unidentified $4.6 million bidder pulls out. A second auction, with reserve price starting at $500,000 closed with zero bids.

And finally, there is the somewhat sad news that the venerable magazine, Reader’s Digest has declared bankruptcy. There are details available in the link, but for some reason, I feel the need to tell you about this in a short, summarized paragraph.

That’s all for now folks. Hope you enjoyed the show. Have a great day…

Topics: Random Acts of Blogging | 5 Comments »

5 Responses to “Random Acts of Blogging – 8/18/09”

  1. Jeff Porten says at August 18th, 2009 at 2:08 am :
    On the bright side, the Digest intends to save on legal fees with a 2-page bankruptcy filing, ending with a joke.

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  4. Ilya says at August 18th, 2009 at 12:58 pm :
    So, DiMaggio sold 2 tombs, but Marilyn is nonetheless entombed there. Who else did Joe plan to bury along?

  5. Brian says at August 18th, 2009 at 2:24 pm :
    It’s a good question, Ilya, and one that isn’t addressed in the article. Some families bury siblings, parents, aunts/uncles/etc. together – not just husband and wife. I don’t know what family Marilyn had, but I do know that Joe had a brother Dom (also of baseball fame). Maybe after divorcing Marilyn, he decided to take his (and Dom’s) business elsewhere? Then again, was Dom married? What about his wife?

    I fear the mystery will endure, unless you want to kick in $2,500,001 to win the auction, at which point you could probably ask all the questions you want… ;-)

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