KEY POINTS:
Strange new products: Political dog biscuits come in two different shapes and packages. Republican Elephants come in red foil bags and the Democratic Donkeys come in blue foil bags.
(Source: Hipandtickle.com)
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News media are keen for citizen journalists to provide camera-phone footage for their websites, but UK website Popbitch.com reports: "One 24-hour news network didn't spot that someone was sending them photos of the London Olympic torch procession and photo-shopping images of Maddie McCann into the crowd."
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In response to Cliff Bindon's comment about shopping around for a food bargain, sometimes you don't even have to shop around, says a reader. "Our local Countdown was advertising a great special on capsicums - 75c each (any colour). At the same time, one shelf away, you could also buy a pack of three (assorted colours) for $5.99. Pak'n Save is another - a certain feminine hygiene product (pretty much non-perishable) can be purchased for $8 for a pack of 32, or $3.50 for a pack of 16. Do these places assume that no one can do basic maths?"
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Autocorrect typos: "Recently, around the time of the Bhutto assassination, the Australian ABC news generated a story about Benazir Bhutto and President Pervez Musharraf," says Jeremy of Perth. "Their obviously Australian dictionary spell-checker didn't like the names presented and came up with "Bonzer Bhutan and Perve Musharraf". These subsequently got distributed around the world by a series of unquestioning news aggregators. ABC repaired the story but for all we know, Bonzer and Perve are still fighting it out on various legal and illegal aggregation sites."
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Auckland's Sky Tower is looking for a recruit to wear its "Scotty Sky Tower" mascot suit and entertain kids through the SkyCity education programme. But because of the size restrictions of the costume, applicants must not be taller than 1.62m.
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A number of readers delighted in pointing out that the phone books pictured in yesterday's column were last year's and are waiting for collection to be recycled. Not, as our reader Raz suggested, abandoned new phone books out in the rain. Of course. D'oh! A rep from Yellow Pages also emailed: "It does appear the recycling people may have overlooked the books, but we are now happy to report they are being picked up and sent off for recycling."
Today's Webpick: A ingenious clip which uses the 1952 cowboy film High Noon but adds science fiction and gaming special effects. Watch it here.
These are the very best online videos from Ana's online magazine Spare Room.
