Category: News

National Caffeine Awareness Month

Computer geeks, cramming college students and early-morning coffee-drinking workers rejoice, for your addiction has finally made the big time in the field of public awareness by having the month of March chosen by the non-profit organization Caffeine Awareness Alliance as National Caffeine Awareness Month.

Once again proving the theory that all odd news items must come from either eastern Europe or Florida, Ormond Beach’s Mayor Frank Costello has signed the paperwork to officially recognize the awareness month.

Now coffee and soda drinkers can celebrate by taking the CAA’s “Are you an addict?” online quiz while downing caffeinated breath mints or showering with caffeinated bar soap.

Until their hearts explode and the madness of not having slept for seven nights straight hits.

Garage jumping teens prove Darwin wrong

Local 6 News in Orlando, Florida, has a story about teenagers jumping from parking garages for entertainment. Apparently running in traffic and sticking knifes in wall sockets have lost their thrill for the teens, who are making the leap to jumping from one city-owned six story parking garage complex to another privately owned complex next door.

One boy, Tim Bargfrede, apparently never heard the old parental cliché about jumping off bridges because your friends are doing it, because he fell more than 80 feet off the parking garage roof during an evening with his teenage friends doing exactly that.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a story from Florida if there wasn’t a lawsuit involved, and the family’s lawyer, Vincent D’Assaro, is currently looking at filing suit against both the city and the private owner for not preventing these teenagers from doing their community a greater good and removing themselves from the gene pool early.

“There was a very, very short length of fence that was completely ineffective in preventing this from happening,” Lawyer D’Assaro said in response to the city erecting a small fence in order to prevent such stunts. The family believes that both garages need to do better and have continued on with their litigation.

No doubt the Darwin Awards committee is already preparing a space on their winner’s list for these kids.

Another blogger fired

CNET has a story about Mark Jen, a former employee of Google, who is apparently no longer working for the company after recent controversial comments he made in his personal blog.

This of course isn’t the first time someone has found themselves unemployed because of a web journal:

  • Ellen Simonetti was fired from Delta Air Lines after posting photos of herself and fellow employees in their Delta uniforms.
  • Michael Hanscom lost his Microsoft contractor position after posting photos of Apple Mac G5 computers arriving for use at the Microsoft.
  • Joyce Park was a web developer for Friendster up until she posted about the company three times in her “Troutgirl” blog.
  • Jessica Cutler was fired by Senator Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) for her blog Washingtonienn.

Stories like those above serve as a reminder for the growing blogging community to be aware that they aren’t as anonymous as they might sometimes believe.

The advantage you to get in the ability to put your writing in front of a large number of people comes with the downside of those words being potentially used against you by those who disagree with what you’re saying and have the ability to act on it.

The sub shop that refused to close

The Seattle Times has a story about a Quiznos sub shop apparently abandoned by its franchise owners, leaving the employees stranded without pay or food supplies in November of 2004.

Instead of just walking away from the job, the 25-year old store manager and three other employees kept the store running by using the money from the day’s sales to buy lunch meat and other supplies from the local supermarket, paying themselves with whatever money’s left over.

I can’t say that I would do the same thing, nor do I think it was the best idea, but I have to salute their gumption.