April 2012 Archives

There was disastrous news this week for all of you epicurious folk who prefer the far-eastern cuisine of sushi. NBC New York reports that at least two-hundred cases of salmonella poisoning have been reported along the East Coast.

The tainted tuna has been traced to a company in San Francisco, the Moon Marine USA Corp. They have recalled 300 tons of the filthy fish, as of April 18th, but sushi restaurants and consumers should still be extra-cautious, as the fish may also have been sold wholesale and may not be labeled with the company's name reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

The New York man who caught the police's attention, and a rain of bullets, was by most accounts a terrible human being.

Prior to shooting his .22 caliber six-shooter revolver at the police, Steven Murray, 28, allegedly shot his mother three times and his sister twice in the face, reports the New York Post. His mother survived, but his sister didn't. He fled his home in the Polo Grounds projects and eventually came across a couple of police officers. He let a round or two out of his miniscule gun and the cops may have gone a little overboard with their response.

Eighty-four bullets fired later, with fifteen hitting paydirt, the firefight was over. Now, there shouldn't be much sympathy for someone who shot his 13-year-old sister, if he did in fact do so. However, does that justify the use of 84 bullets on a suspect who is innocent until proven guilty?

Thinking about clicking on those seven emails you got this morning? You know, the ones with "performance enhancement" promises? Think twice. There seems to be a growing problem with herbal supplements being labeled as such, but actually containing prescription drugs or their chemical analogs.

Just on Friday alone, the FDA released the names of three supplements that contained hidden drugs, including "Instant Hard Rod," "ZenMaxx," and "RigiRX Plus." Since the beginning of the year, there have been nine names released in total. The first three contain a chemical analog of tadalafil, also known as Cialis. Others contain sildenafil, also known under the brand name Viagra.

It’s lonely being a genius. Most people don’t understand us. We’re so busy being awesome that sometimes we have to come up with unique ways to stay organized. David Merkur is catching a lot of flak on the internet for his genius method of keeping track of all of the women he was dating, reports the Gothamist.

Merkur made the spreadsheet because he was pursuing online dating relationships with a handful of women. And anyone who has ever tried online dating knows that it can he hard keeping track of ongoing conversations when people come and go and delete profiles and tell you to stop calling them in the middle of the night …

Sorry, it’s just so lonely being a genius.

The “cool” parent on the block provides their kid with a keg party for their high school graduation. The party is thrown at home, so the kids can be “supervised.” One of the kid’s friends drinks and then sneaks out and drives. He dies moments later in a DUI traffic accident, injuring a third party in the process. Besides being a plot for a Lifetime movie, it is also a common scenario that allows that parent’s bank account to be emptied under the theory of Social Host Liability.

The legal trend started with Dram Shop Laws, which held bars liable for over-serving patrons who then proceeded to hurt themselves or others. This only applied to commercial sales of alcohol, however. To close this loophole, and discourage underage drinking, New York passed Section 11-100 of the General Obligations Law in 1983, which made suppliers of alcohol to underage drinkers, commercial or not, liable for the acts of the drunk teens.

Darrell Dula, 25, just lost a year of his life for nothing, and a Brooklyn District Attorney is to blame, reports the New York Daily News.

Last June, Darrell Dula was arrested for the rape, pimping, and sex trafficking of a 22-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl. On March 31, 2011, she filed a report with detectives, stating that she had been raped and forced to engage in prostitution since she was 13. A day later, she recanted the rape allegations and stated, "Can't a ho change her ways?"

An interesting and creative set of complaints were filed with the Federal Trade Commission, New York State Attorney General, and the Better Business Bureau against Dunkin' Donuts over their recently launched line of "artisan bagels," reports the Gothamist. The complaints allege that the descriptor "artisan" is false advertising.

The man behind the legal whine is Marc Fintz, the Director of Business Development for Davidovich Bakery. Their bakery apparently makes bagels "in the Old World tradition," which must have more meaning than the word artisan, which means absolutely nothing anymore. The "Old World" way is, of course, by hand. They kettle-boil, plank bake, and use "traditional recipes."

Isn't their description also a little heavy on the adjectives?

A Queens Bus Driver was taken into custody after a Con Edison worker called 911 to report that a two-year-old girl was left on the parked bus, reports CBS New York. The police were alerted and responded to the call, rescuing the girl from a locked bus. EMTs examined her and determined that she was in good condition before reuniting her with her mother at the 110th Precinct in Queens.

The driver, Ana Garcia, 62, was arrested and charged with failure to exercise control over a minor. The child was supposed to be dropped off at Kathy’s Day Care in Queens.

Before you proceed with this article, beware! It contains material that may disturb some viewers.

Seniors need love too. And apparently, sexually-transmitted diseases amongst our elders have risen over 70% in the last five years, reports the Gothamist.

That is a lot of senior citizen lovin'.

The problem with this public service announcement is that it displays some positions that appear to be a bit risky for the older folk. Some of the more acrobatic positions would probably be unsafe for twenty-year-olds, let alone those with arthritis and osteoporosis.

Peanut butter and jelly. Tupac and Dr. Dre. Vanilla vodka and root beer floats. Some combinations make so much sense that it is absurd that it took so long to get there.

Finally, you can get your cardio AND your cocktails in one sitting. Really. Or your boot camp, bloodies, and brunch. How has this taken so long?

Gym. Gin. They sound so similar. They belong together.

Uplift Studios, in the Flatiron district, has just opened a bar that rewards you for your workout with alcoholic beverages. But to take a phrase from Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn't help but wonder ... what comes first, the lawyers or the lawsuits?

We all know that cops do not often hand out jaywalking tickets. However, if you are unlucky enough to run into a cop that decides this is the day to hand out a ticket, then you will need to know how to fight it.

The thing is, jaywalking tickets are so rare that no one knows what the laws actually are. Googling "New York Jaywalking Laws" gives you articles about Rudy Giulianni and Jewish Rabbis. After digging through the state code, this should help you on your day in court.

If you crossed the street outside of a crosswalk, New York State Law requires you to yield to automobile traffic. It is as simple as that. Basically, you are recreating Frogger in person.

It is still mind-boggling that Ryan Reynolds could be cast as two superheroes at once. He starred in the recent box office disappointment Green Lantern and is signed to play Deadpool in an upcoming movie. Fans of the X-Men series will recall his small role in that film as the same Deadpool character.

So here is a proposal: replace him with Ryan Gosling, who is a real life hero. That way, children everywhere will not stay awake pondering how Green Lantern man, wearing the wrong costume, could also be killed in the Wolverine movie and then be resurrected and rebooted for another movie with the same Deadpool character. Confused yet? The kids will be too.

The NYPD is being sued again, this time by the family of a mentally ill woman who was allegedly suffocated by police while being restrained, reports The Wall Street Journal.

The family of Shereese Francis, 29, called for help when she refused to go to the hospital voluntarily. Francis suffered from schizophrenia and had not taken her medication since November. When police arrived, Francis allegedly lunged at them and threatened to call the cops. Four officers cornered her and allegedly held her down while cuffing her.

Riding a bicycle, especially one of the standard road bike or hipster fixie varieties, has been suspected for some time of causing erectile dysfunction and decreased sensation for men due to reduced blood flow in the nether regions. A new study, reported on by The New York Times, states that women might just suffer the same fate.

Road bikes and the fixed gear models popular with hipsters are usually ridden in a forward leaning manner for aerodynamic purposes. The problem is, a traditional bike seat, with its protruding nose, presses on the perineum and reduces blood flow to the genitalia. This results in reduced or no sexual function in a small percentage of men and reduced sensation in the outer genitalia for women. The problem is exacerbated in those who ride bikes extensively, such as bicycle cops and long distance riders.

In short: riding a bike may kill your sex life. And not just because of the unflattering spandex shorts.