Business Owners, Customers, Unicorns Upset Over Controversial Billboard

"When you condemn all religions and say they are a fairytale that is wrong," said Rich Stormes, a nearby business owner.

The billboard went up a week before Easter and business at the restaurant went down. "Easter Sunday is usually a busy good day," said John Russel, an employee at Straub's. "Easter Sunday business was down by two thirds."

MediaNet said it had no idea the sign was there and someone put it up illegally in the middle of the night.

The billboard rents for $1,400 a month. If an anti-religious group paid to rent it legitimately there is no telling how long it would have been up.

Why I love this town: today a bunch of maniacs raced bigwheels down Lombard Street.

Update: Links to many more photos and videos here.

The Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel

The launch tube for the burritos lies just under the tunnel mouth and looks like what it is: an enormous gun. Every four seconds a `slug' of ten burritos, white with frost, ratchets into the breech. A moment later it flies into the tunnel with a loud hiss of compressed gas, and the lights dim briefly as banks of powerful electromagnets accelerate the burritos to over two hundred miles an hour. By the time they pass Stockton three minutes later the burritos will be traveling faster than the Concorde, floating on an invisible magnetic cushion as they plunge into the lithosphere.

Some guy is trying to sell a salvaged Boston Mooninite on eBay, but eBay has pulled it for "Encouraging Illegal Activity". It seems like every time I ever click an eBay link, the auction has already been pulled for some similar reason.

Also, Aqua Teen Hunger Force is a terrible and unfunny show.

'Spider Girl' gang held in Chile

Police have arrested two members of one of Chile's most notorious gangs, known as the Spider Girls. The all-girl gang of teenagers were infamous for climbing up buildings in Santiago to burgle luxury apartments.

In a spate of high-profile robberies in 2005, they made off with thousands of pounds worth of jewellery.

Lurking in the gardens of expensive parts of Santiago, the four girls hurled ropes and hooks up to balcony railings, hauled themselves up and walked through the flat windows. They then walked out of the buildings as if they were visitors.

The gang members were arrested last year but three of them were sent to reform school rather than prison because of their age.

They vowed to change their ways but after being released, one Spider Girl, Yasna, returned to her old tricks, recruiting a new member, Marcielle.

Despite both being heavily pregnant, they still managed to climb up to the third floor of some flats.

"A unit of StuG III assault guns stands ready for review. They are accompanied by a Überschwerer Kampfschreitpanzer (Superheavy Armored Walking Tank), also known as a 'Thor's Hammer.' Eastern Front circa 1943."

Weeds

To advertise comedy "Weeds", there was created a billboard that had attached three 6-foot high bags filled with giant sandwiches and massive prop marijuana. This latter billboard had a security camera trained upon it and when inevitably the marijuana was stolen, the footage was released as a viral video which received 50,000 views and wide-spread press coverage.

Video 1, Video 2.

(BTW, the show is very funny.)

Paris Hilton targeted in CD prank

Banksy has replaced Hilton's CD with his own remixes and given them titles such as Why am I Famous?, What Have I Done? and What Am I For?

A spokeswoman for Banksy said he had doctored 500 copies of her debut album Paris in 48 record shops across the UK. She told the BBC News website: "He switched the CDs in store, so he took the old ones out and put his version in." But he left the original barcode so people could buy the CD without realising it had been interfered with.

No customers had complained or returned a doctored version.

Photos. banksy_flickr. Previously.