Now, you’ll never have to leave the couch.
A new remote control scheduled to go on sale next year doesn’t have a bank of buttons to push, yet it allows you to control your entire house from the couch potato comfort of your living room sofa. The “uWand,” developed by the Phillips company, works like a “Wii” controller all you have to do is point it and flick your wrist to accomplish an enormous number of tasks. Apart from TV channel surfing and managing the sound, color and contrast on your set, the “uWand” will permit you to integrate your television with your computer to surf the web. Using technology developed by the chip maker Intel, the “uWand” will create icons on your TV screen. Flick one of them and you can turn on the oven in the kitchen. Flick another, and you can turn the air conditioner up or down.
———-
THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
- 7 million people around the world watched YouTube on Sunday to catch U2’s concert from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.
- Lily Allen says she’s quitting the music business because she has nothing else to write about.
- Suzanne Somers says she was misdiagnosed last year when doctor told her she had full body cancer and just days to live.
- “Sex and the City” author Candace Bushnell is finished writing “The Carrie Diaries,” a pair of books about 17-year-old Carrie Bradshaw.
- Britney’s “The Singles Collection” will hit stores on November 10th.
- LaToya Jackson says that all three of Michael Jackson’s kids are in therapy to help them deal with the sudden loss of their father.
- The Olsen twins are launching a new line of “affordable fashions” at JC Penney.
- Rosie O’Donnell confirms her separation from partner Kelli Carpenter. She admitted to Howard Stern that she and Carpenter were “working through a lot of the stuff that we have.” She added, “We have different styles of living. I’m very messy. She’s very not.”
- Bruce Springsteen canceled Monday night’s concert in Kansas City after his cousin and road crew member Lenny Sullivan was found dead in his hotel room. Just 36.
- Tickets for the first 20 Garth Brooks shows in Las Vegas beginning December 11th sold out in just five hours.
- MSNBC.com reports that a woman known only by her surname of Wang, traveled to Qinghai province of northwest China in September to purchase an 18-month old dog for $582,000!
- How bad is the economy in Iceland? Next month, all three of the McDonalds restaurants in the country will close.
- Jay-Z and Alicia Keys will sing “Empire State of Mind” live to kick off tonight’s World Series game.
- The good luck continues for the Los Angeles Clippers. Now their #1 draft pick, Blake Griffin, has a busted knee cap.
—————
WEIRD NEWS
Sorry But You Can’t Take Paychecks From Places You Don’t Work For!
Not quite sure how he thought he’d get away with this one but 35-year-old Anthony Armatys has pleaded guilty to banking more than $470,000 in paychecks from a New Jersey company he never worked for. Apparently Armatys accepted a job with the New Jersey based telecommunications company Avaya Inc. in September 2002. He then changed his mind and did not take the job. But the company’s computer system never removed his name from the payroll and continued to deposit paychecks in his bank account until February 2007, when Avaya auditors finally discovered the mistake. Prosecutors are recommending a six-year prison term and full restitution of the money. myway.com)
How Not To Get Leniency!
Here’s a sure fire way to make sure the judge in your robbery trial never will never consider giving you a lighter sentence. Convict Weusi McGowan apparently managed to sneak a bag of his own feces into a San Diego courtroom during his home-invasion robbery trial. He smeared it on his lawyer and threw it at jurors. McGowan, who attorneys say suffers from mental illness, had asked for a mistrial because he believed jurors had seen him in restraints when he entered the courtroom. Several days after his request was denied, McGowan pulled out a bag of excrement he had hidden in his clothing, rubbed it on his lawyer and tossed it at the jury, hitting one juror’s computer case. The judge poo-pooed any thought of leniency and gave him 31 years in prison. (The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Even Robbers Hate Crazy People!
In Athens, Georgia, the victim of a would-be-robber scarred off the crook by acting like a dog! The woman got on the floor and began scratching at the door and acting like a large dog when the suspicious man tried turning the woman’s door knob. This was apparently a little more than he wanted to deal with so he ran from the porch. Police searched the neighborhood but had no luck finding the guy. (Athens Banner-Herald)
About Time I Got My Ring Back!
In Akron, Ohio, 75-year-old Joe Lepera finally got his high school ring back 57 years after he gave it to his high school sweetheart. He had dated Sharon Coddington Gainer for two years, but they broke up after he joined the Air Force following his 1952 graduation from Akron Central High School. Well Sharon recently passed away and after seeing the obit in the newspaper, Joe went to the wake to pay his last respects. While there he was then tapped on the shoulder by Bill Gainer, the man who eventually married his old flame. Gainer handed over the class ring that his wife had kept all this time. She apparently had given her husband instructions to return the ring if Joe visited the funeral home. Hmmm. Wonder how that makes you feel? That all these years your wife has been secretly pining away for another guy and even thinking about him right before she dies? (Akron Beacon Journal)
What Are the Odds of This?
In Australia, defying what has to be incredible odds, Michelle Thiele caused a fatal car crash when she failed to look to her left while entering a busy intersection. Her mistake caused the death of 69-year-old car driver John Mitchell who slammed into her car. What makes it so incredible is that she did the exact same thing, at the exact same intersection, and caused the death of another man exactly seven years ago! The first time she killed 51-year-old motorcyclist Graham Bryant. Thiele was fined $426 for failing to give way after the initial fatal accident. After the second collision, she was found guilty of driving without due care and sentenced to eight months in jail, suspended after a one-month non-parole period. She also has to forfeit her driver’s license for 18 months. (News AU)
A Real Horror Show!
In Baltimore they call it “The House of Screams!” It’s your average run-of-the-mill haunted house operating for Halloween but it became a true house of horror when police officer Eric Michael Janik went through. 32-year-old Michael Brian Morrison was just doing the same thing he does every night — dressing up as “Leatherface”– the Texas Chainsaw Massacre villain, and jumping out at visitors waiving his chainsaw — that has had the actual chain removed to keep it safe. But when he jumped out at Officer Janik — Janik, who was off duty at the time — pulled out his service revolver and pointed it at Morrison’s chest! Morrison said, “I’ve never had anything like this happen to me!” So Officer Janik found himself under arrest and could lose his job. As for Mr. Morrison, he said that the haunted house opens again this Wednesday and that he’ll be back in his familiar role but added, “I’ll probably be a bit more leery.” (Baltimore Sun)
One Way To Prevent Getting Arrested!
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, convicted sex offender Johnnie Joe Hobbs managed to avoid getting arrested by SETTING HIMSELF ON FIRE when deputies came to serve a warrant at his home!! After finding the house empty, officers peered into a cargo van that sat in the cluttered yard. Hobbs, who was in the van, reached out and slammed the door shut. He then doused the van with gasoline and ignited it. Did a good job too– medics pronounced him dead at the scene. The deputies had intended to serve three protective orders on Hobbs, and parole officers were sent to revoke his suspended sentence. He had been convicted of showing obscene material to a child, lewd molestation and making lewd proposals to a child. But he won’t be doing any of that any longer. (Tulsa World)