But where do you get shirts with french cuffs?

I've seen them at Target, of all places.

On another note....

I work in a hospital, and we have something like this in the ceiling over our CT scanner—a beautiful view of a canopy of autumn leaves.

One day, I brought a trauma patient into CT. He'd been working in a cherrypicker that had plunged down a ravine, and he'd been thrown into the branches of a nearby tree and been stranded there, injured, for hours.

We moved him over to the CT scanner, he looked up at the ceiling, and said "You know, I'm sure you guys thought you knew what you were doing when you put that up there, but I'd really rather not see that right now...."

True story.

My dad sold chainsaws for a living. Not very glamorous, or profitable, but he made enough money to support a family of five and helped give me a wonderful childhood.

One day, he came home and told me that the Plasmatics had contacted him, asking for a chainsaw donation for their upcoming local performance.

I don't remember if he gave them a chainsaw. But it was then I knew how totally cool my dad was.

And is it a coincidence that the "Flying Pizzaria" sign bears more than a passing resemblance to a certain venerated B-B meme--the Flying Spaghetti Monster!?!?!

It's the white Mickey Mouse four-fingered gloves that make the whole get-up work.

I'm a long-time Gloeckner fan, and this is pure Gloeckner gold. Thanks, Mark!

And Phoebe, if you're reading this, I really want to lay my hands on a couple nice copies of your "Throatfist" illustration—one for me, one for an otolaryngologist I work with. I've been trolling the interwebs for, literally, years, looking for a copy....

That is incorrect. The FDA absolutely does regulate over-the-counter medicines—including Motrin™, Benadryl™, and Sudafed™.

As mentioned above, Airborne is classified as a dietary supplement, and has no proven clinical benefit over placebo (this is stated on the packaging), and thus is exempt from FDA regulation.

However, the FTC can go after them for making false claims in their advertising.

Actually, I just did a Google patent search for "death ray," and came up with something interesting. Patent No. 2045519--filed on December 21, 1933 by Jay Gould Coutant of New York City--is for a device that purifies gases. It uses a death ray.

Here are a couple of quotes from the patent, with the key words capitalized for emphasis:

"Finally, before reaching the stack or the final outlet, the now transparent gases are subject to DEATH RAY treatment for the destruction of bacteria[....]

"The bacteria destroying instrument or lamp may be one operating on the principles explained by Dr. Charles H. Mayo involving opposing DEATH DEALING WAVES."

I guess this clears up the mystery. The death ray invented by the Cleveland scientist (in his laboratory) infringed on a pre-existing patent held by a New Yorker.

On a side note, I find it ironic that the beneficent founder of the Mayo Clinic is also the evil genius who came up with the scientific principle behind the death ray.

I don't know; parts of Cleveland definitely have that "hit with a death ray" appearance.

It makes perfect sense to me.

If somebody wears a helmet that makes them look REALLY crazy, then--when that person turns out to be only slightly demented--they seem normal.

Changing the context is absolutely brilliant, if you ask me.

My Newton eMate is the perfect Apple sub-notebook. Oh, except for the fact that Apple gives it absolutely no support whatsoever.

If Apple does indeed announce the launch of a beautiful, high quality sub-notebook tomorrow, I'd say that they're finally starting to overcome their mistake on abandoning the Newton platform.

Took 'em long enough.

I can do that.

She's not even that good.

So burn them to a DVD. And burn three copies, in case two of them get confiscated or melted.

This is a pretty silly non-story.

Lots of good stuff here, although most of the discussion was covered in the comments stemming from the "TigerDirect" incident from 8/24/07 (as seen at Consumerist). But there WAS one point made earlier that I found unique.

#154 says that Mr. Righi should have shown his driver's license (i.e., his ID) to the officer. I'm inclined to agree—but not because the officer has a right to ask for ID. In fact, after reading this whole thread, I'm still not sure what the current law says on that issue. If I'm reading the thread correctly, it used to be that we didn't have to show ID in the past, but then Osama bin Laden took that right away from us. Or something like that.

Anyway, I agree with #154 because if Mr. Righi called the officer himself, with the intention of pressing charges for unlawful detainment, then he should cooperate with the officer who responded to his 911 call! I mean, you called him, why not cooperate with him? Give the officer anything reasonable he asks for, like the receipt (which you say you did give him when he asked, so he could inspect it) and your ID (which, for some reason, you refused to give him when he asked), so you can proceed with your goal of pressing charges against the silly folks at CC who clearly don't know what they're doing.

It seems to me that, while Mr. Righi was clearly correct under the law in not having to show his receipt to the security guard at CC, he let his ego get in the way of cooperating with the police that he himself called, and needlessly complicated the situation.

In closing, I'd just like to add that I really hope the ACLU doesn't waste any of their limited resources on this case.