Technically Incorrect

It's not exactly the Pepsi Challenge.

A new teaser site, whoppervirgins.com, created by Crispin Porter Bogusky, claims to be the home of the world's "purest taste test."

Created on behalf of Crispin client Burger King, the site looks like it fell off the back of a National Geographic camel. It features people from remote Thai villages, deeper, darker Transylvania, and even the icy tundra of Greeenland.

These places were, apparently, chosen because burgers have never been seen or eaten there. In some cases, the people don't even know the word "burger." So, … Read more

J.P. Weichel claims he was "venting." But his alleged comments in Craigslist's Rants and Raves section might now lead him to a room where the vents let in a chilling draft.

Colorado prosecutors have decided to bring a case of criminal libel against Mr. Weichel.

Apparently, the state has a law, dating from the 1880s, that says you can be prosecuted for "blackening the name of one who is dead." Or for exposing "the natural defects of one who is alive, and thereby to expose him to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule."… Read more

Cool is a slippery customer. One minute, you have it, and the next, it seems to desert you like a bon mot on a date.

Once, for perhaps four minutes, Boy George was cool. Yet today he appears to be somewhat over the weight limit for the dohyo, and he was in court apparently admitting to handcuffing a male escort. Against, in this case, the escort's will.

Which leads me to thinking of Microsoft. A fine company that still sometimes endures the image vestiges of an accountant in, um, an office building. So very PC. Yet, like so many … Read more

Perhaps you are a fan of the gay porn movie Army F*****s. Perhaps you are not.

But surely everyone can sympathize with the English couple, aged a little more than 60, who received a nasty letter from a law firm demanding that they pay around $750 for "copyright infringement."

According to this law firm, the deeply sensitive Davenport Lyons, this couple downloaded all 115 minutes of the aforementioned seminal German gay porn flick.

There is only one potential drawback to this hammer blow for justice. The couple in question don't even know how to download. As … Read more

You can imagine the conversation.

One policeman turned to his partner and said: "Blow me down in Tiananmen Square, but isn't that bloke driving his car with his feet?"

His partner just stared as if he was watching Saw III, and, then, with a strange, involuntary reflex, stopped the car in question.

The driver of the car was Zing Shen, a 42-year-old resident of Beijing. Chinese police claim this was a mere random vehicle check. I always believe anything I hear from the Chinese police. But how much visual acuity do you need to notice that a … Read more

In a move that might be a lesson for my beloved (and, just occasionally, beloathed) Golden State Warriors this Friday, Microsoft has shut down LeBron James.

Two years ago, MSN and the Cleveland Cavalier superhero who looks 35 and is, allegedly, 13 or 14, announced big plans.

Now the deal, just as that of Buick and Tiger Woods, has floated down the Styx with Charon the boatman.

While no one believed that Tiger Woods would ever have allowed even his Secret Service doppelganger to actually own a Buick, there was at least some reason to conjecture that a LeBron James … Read more

The other day, I got an email from my former assistant, the effervescent Brandy Barber.

Brandy is a rising New York comedienne who has a serious distaste for any woman who talks like Woody Woodpecker. Well, actually, for one woman in particular.

Her email was simple, but not very informative. She wanted to share her iLike playlist with me. (That was it. No 'how are you?' No 'I miss you.') Until now, I have not had an intimate involvement with iLike. If I want to know what other people like I tend to ask them.

Sad, I know.

However, because … Read more

You know it's going to be really bad when the man who first revealed that the world is flat, Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, says it's going to be really bad.

Here's how bad it is: Russians are drinking less vodka.

So, as you gird your loans and tighten your money belts, perhaps it's time to live a simpler life. One that revolves far less around luxurious and complex technologies.

Here are five tech products that you will surely be able to live without in this recession/depression/secession from Alaska.

1. Twitter. … Read more

In these troubled days for journalism, it was, for some, uplifting to read that Angelina Jolie is able to control her image to a pre-Botox level of startle.

The New York Times reported this week that Jolie allegedly offers exclusive pictures of her latest offspring in exchange for guaranteed positive coverage in venerable publications such as People magazine.

This surely leads one to thinking about Yahoo.

Here's a company that seems to enjoy more barbs than British teeth. Allegations of indecision, myopia, and even collusion with the Chinese government are tossed like pungent confetti at the company on a … Read more