Tag: illinois

IT’S A CONSPIRACY!

I’ve gotta say, it must be fun to work in Microsoft’s legal department. Personally, I tend to gauge whether my day is enjoyable by whether it was busy or slow, and more often than, unfortunately, my days at work are very slow. Not so much over in Redmond, it seems. It appears to never be a dull day, though whether the majority of what they have to deal with are credible or crackpot, we’ll not know. We do know one thing, however: this lawsuit is of the latter characteristic.

Microsoft is being sued yet again for allegedly knowingly selling, and profiting off of, defective products. Up to bat is a fine gentleman from Oak Forest, Illinois, who had to pay $99 to get his X-box 360 fixed. Surprisingly, though, this time, though, it seems the Red Ring of Death is not to blame. Unfortunately, the plaintiff doesn’t know exactly what’s wrong with his system, because Microsoft refused to tell him.

The unnamed plaintiff is hoping for a class-action suit, along with monetary damages (of course) and for Microsoft to stop selling 360s until they fix their hardware issues. Yeah, which of those things do you think is a bit more possible than the other?

I wouldn’t automatically accuse Microsoft of purposefully making broken hardware, because I don’t think any major company would intentionally put out a defective product, but the failure rate of their consoles has been incredibly questionable. Whether it was simply a rush job, a lack of oversight, or something totally beyond their control, who knows, but whatever it is, a total injunction against selling the system is no way to correct the problem.

Another reason to keep your corpse at home

From this month's issue of Home Decorpse! AH-HAHAHAhahaha ...Another cemetery scandal has been unearthed (ha!), this time near Chicago, Illinois. Police are accusing some unnamed workers of digging up over 300 bodies in graves nobody visited, dumping the remains and reselling the plots for personal profit.

It’s ghoulish, but what’s the point? Sure, there’s the aspect where the business end was cheating the owners out of their coinage, but did it matter where these dead people were forgotten? Family members weren’t reporting the disappearances, history didn’t care about them … who cares if they become bean-bag chair filler?

(In fact, what may be the few undisturbed graves were those of African-American civil rights pioneers: people who won’t be forgotten for some time.)

So, let’s save the outrage, and maybe reevaluate our country’s obsession with immortalization after death. It’s–clearly–not immortal, and you ain’t no pharaoh. Or, if you’re really worried, keep your dead at home.

He has a hairdo for radio

Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is back! And by back, we mean on the radio! (No word on how many Nickelback songs he plays every hour on the hour.)

Blagojevich went to the airways in Chicago, flippin’ wax and playin’ tracks and criticizing the current governor for supporting a state income tax increase. The new governor, Pat Quinn, took over after Blagojevich got caught up in the home game version of Payolla.

While the show was reportedly a mixed success according to bored people who listen to disgraced politicos on the radio, Blagojevich is reportedly anxious to find sponsors:

“It’s a ####ing valuable thing — thing. You just don’t give it away for nothing,” Blagojevich said.

“I’ve got this thing, and it’s ####ing golden. And I’m just not giving it up for ####ing nothing. I’m not going to do it, and I can always use it; I can parachute me there.”

Booze and stripclubs = peanut butter meets jelly

Some things in life just go together. For instance, who would want a peanut butter cup without chocolate? Or who would order steak and eggs and just want one of them?

Well, if you’re following my logic then you are also wondering why in the world DuPage County, Illinois would even remotely consider banning booze from their strip clubs. We here at SG support both endeavours involved in this equation. After all, we supply you with the latest booze news, and we also make our money one dollar at a time.

You Missed It: So long and thanks for all the kickbacks edition

We have arrived at the end of another week, and also the end of another month. It seems like only yesterday I was recovering from a hangover courtesy of cheap champagne. This weekend promises to be just as entertaining for all of America (or at the very least, the dudes) with the Super Bowl on Sunday. If you were busy contemplating not working on Tuesdays from now on, odds are you missed it.

Blagojevich, hair unhappy with obvious ouster
Never mind that he’s facing federal corruption charges, Illinois Gov. Rod “The Bod” Blagojevich was kicked out of office yesterday. Blagojevich became the former governor after making a heart-wrenching speech about how he has not been allowed to tell his side of the story and bring in witnesses who will defend him. State senators responded by unanimously voting him out and banning him from ever holding public office in the state again. Upon replacing Blagojevich, Gov. Pat Quinn pledged to clean up the office of the governor, and make sure the tape recorders were off when solicits or accepts bribes.

Being a Patriots fan, I have no recollection of there ever being a game
Police say they have recovered 27 Super Bowl rings that were made for the New York Giants last year. The rings were reported stolen from a Massachusetts jewelry store in June, the robbery netted an estimated $2 million. The rings have been sent to the Giants since being recovered, and a Boston area couple has been arrested in connection with the robbery. In other news, Bill Belichick could not be reached for comment.

And the dad is heading back to Iraq soon to get some peace and quiet
A mother of six gave birth to octuplets this week. Bringing her total count to 14 children. The mother has not been identified, but it is said she had feritility treatments and they did a little better than she had expected them to do. Here’s a question: if you already have four kids, why are you concerned about fertility?

You Missed It: Do not adjust your television set edition

Hi folks. Welcome to 2009, and brand new year for news you will miss. As you may have noticed if you are reading this on Friday, You Missed It is now being published late Friday afternoons, as opposed to early Friday afternoons. If you hadn’t heard about that change until now, um, well, odds are you missed it.

Digital get-down
Did you know that television is changing over to a digital format next month? You probably did, and you are probably still really confused about it. Don’t worry, Congress and President-elect Barack Obama are trying to get the switch over date pushed back. Why? Because, among other things, the federal coupon program ran out of money a couple months ago. By the way, gang, you only need a digital converter if you get your television by bunny ear antenna–that’s it. If you have cable or satellite, you don’t need to worry. You’re welcome.

Charges of corruption and excessively-voweled last name
Today, the Illinois House of Representatives voted to impeach Gov. Rod “The Bod” Blagojevich. Some going to far as to say he had stolen the trust of the people. After the the 114-1 vote with three lawmakers not voting, the measure now heads to the state senate. Why was there one vote against impeachment and three non-votes? Blagojevich promised them all “something really f@$*ing nice. No f%&$ing kidding around.”

The Whopper Virgins will decide
Is the recession getting you down? Did you blow way too much on bar tabs and presents during the holidays? There is a meal in sight for you, for the low, low price of 10 friends. Yes, in this economy, even the value of a friendship can be worth less than something on the dollar menu. For what I assume is a limited time, Burger King will give you a Whopper if you de-friend 10 friends using their new app available on their website whoppersacrifice.com. Just to make things tougher, there’s no way delete the friends and not have it show up in the News Feed, so everyone will know you would rather 1/10 of a Whopper than their friendship. Ouch.

The analogy of arcades being speakeasies just became more legitimate

Pouring one out for your digital homies just became a lot more difficult if you reside in Illinois. I mean, really difficult.

Despite there never actually being many instances of this, Illinois has decided to ban any and all references to malt liquor in video games “marketed to children.”

Protip: This will most assuredly make America a better place somehow. Obviously. Clearly.

The state’s government is introducing a whole range of laws designed to tackle alcohol abuse and drunk driving, of which this is but one. Advertisements and displays of any sort of “alcopop” or malt liquor will not be allowed in any video game hoping to go on sale in the mid-Western state.

Protip: Mystifying alcohol and making it look like some sort of forbidden secret will totally not make children all the more curious to try it.

Billboards within 500 feet of public schools and live performances where the majority of the audience could be children have also been affected by this new law, which went into affect this past week.

Protip: Prohibition on a video game level is just a completely inane idea.

In democratic America, video tapes you

In a story more meta than anything written by Grant Morrison, two former Neiman Marcus security employees who were paid to secretly videotape customers as they shopped are now suing their bosses for secretly videotaping them … as they had relations in the security office. Relations of the biblical manner. Whoopsidoodle. Of course, the story does ask the question of how could they have possibly guessed that someone would be watching them?