Sideswipe: April 14: Stairway to heaven?

Stairway to heaven? Spotted on Remuera Road by Richard. Photo / Supplied

Supermarket paranoia?

Officiousness at supermarket checkouts: On Saturday about 6pm Jason was shopping at a supermarket in Whangaparaoa where he had selected cheese, crackers, and a bottle of Speight's cider. "The perfect ingredients for a quiet night in," he says. "After going through the self-service checkout, I provided my ID to the attendant.

'What about the other guy?' she asked ... Huh? 'You were with that other guy,' she said. I told her no, I was shopping alone. She then took the cider off me, said she couldn't sell it to me and wouldn't sell me any alcohol for the rest of the evening. She told me she saw me 'lingering' with another guy of a similar age ... Which guy!?

I had no idea who the guy was she was referring to, and didn't know anyone else in the store. You cannot suspect suspicious activity because two people look at the same shelf of chocolate biscuits. Sorry, I forgot to call up beforehand and make sure there were no other 25-year-olds in store before I came down."

Buyer beware

"I had just left school and been working for a currency trader for a while learning the ropes and getting negotiating tips from traders," writes a reader. "The adage 'make your own market' stuck with me so I got friends to start ringing one used car dealer looking for an orange Mini. A week later I drove my orange Mini into the dealer to ask about a car ... he almost ripped my arm off for that Mini."

Nice branding

Nice branding opportunity for this obstacle course at a Spartan Race in the US. Spartan Race is a series of obstacle races.

Seeking missing phone in Esmonde Rd

On Sunday Gabrielle Wilson was driving and as she turned into Esmonde Rd her car's back door flew open. She got out of the pickle, but when she got home, she discovered her cellphone missing. "It must've flown out the door on impact when the door opened," she theorised. "I'm a 72-year-old widow and depend on my cellphone and contacts in it greatly. I wonder if anyone found the white Huawei phone in the vicinity?"

Good read: The Guardian commissioned research into the 70m comments left on its site since 2006. Despite the fact most of their opinion writers are white men, those who experienced the highest levels of abuse and dismissive trolling were not. The 10 regular writers who got the most abuse were eight women (four white and four non-white) and two black men. A female journalist reports on a demonstration outside an abortion clinic, and a reader responds, "You are so ugly that if you got pregnant I would drive you to the abortion clinic myself"; a black correspondent is called "a racist who hates white people" when he reports the news that another black American has been shot by the police. The Guardian also blocked ad hominem attacks (on both readers and journalists) and "Dismissive trolling" comments are blocked too...Read the fun story here.

Video: Dog gets free and easy with a credit card and finds himself up to the hind legs in debt...(This is a PSA about the value of debit cards as opposed to credit cards)

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Video: People in 1999 Explain Why Owning a Cell Phone is a Waste of MoneyMobile phone's are a waste of money!

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Got a Sideswipe? Send your pictures, links and anecdotes to Ana at ana.samways@nzherald.co.nz