Black Friday Shoplifting

The Thanksgiving and Black Friday holiday mean that the crazy shopping season is here too, and that means that, inevitably, there will be people looking to take a five-finger discount on top of the already crazy deals.

According to Morningstar.com:
 
$13 billion worth of goods are stolen from U.S. stores annually, the National Association for Shoplifting Prevention estimates, and shoplifters are reportedly only caught every 48 times they shoplift; by then, a regular shoplifter has already stolen $1,800 worth of goods. 

So retailers are fighting back. Nearly two dozen major U.S. stores apprehended 1.1 million shoplifters last year, an increase of 7% on the year before, according to the 25th Annual Retail Theft Survey conducted by Jack L. Hayes International, a loss-prevention consulting firm. Over $138 million was recovered from apprehended shoplifters in 2012, an increase of almost 23% from 2011.

Here's a look at some of the items shoplifters like to target most.

Cosmetics - makes sense, easy to pocket

Pregnancy tests - those are expensive...or so I hear

Baby formula - again makes sense

Men's razors - too expensive, if you ask me

Jewelry - duh.

Underwear - apparently ladies go and layer on a few pairs and then walk out with them all on

Condoms - I suppose. Too embarrassed to purchase them?

iPhone accessories - easy to pocket.

Bears fan race (some NSFW language)

So nobody won on the field between the Packers and the Vikings yesterday, but I think it's safe to say that both fanbases win with this video.

WARNING: SOME NSFW LANGUAGE

Those Crazy Canadians

I'm all for helping animals, but these guys have some cajones.

Greenland shark

Two quick-thinking men on Newfoundland's northeast coast managed to save a Greenland shark from choking to death on a large piece of moose hide this past weekend.
Derrick Chaulk said he was driving down a road by the harbour in Norris Arm North this past Saturday when he saw what he thought was a beached whale.
When Chaulk went closer to investigate, he realized it was a shark, which he estimated was about 2.5 metres long, and weighed about 115 kg.
The animal was still alive and had a large chunk of moose hide protruding from its mouth.
  "It [the moose] had the fur and all the liner on it — it was about two feet long, maybe."
Chaulk said another local man, Jeremy Ball, arrived on the scene and starting pulling on the moose chunk.
Jeremy Ball of Norris Arm North, N.L., moves the beached shark into deeper water. (Courtesy Derrick Chaulk )
"A couple yanks and it just came right out."
The two men then set about getting the shark back in the water.
Ball tied a rope around the shark's tail, and Chaulk got ready to push.
"He pulled the rope, and I pushed with my boot," said Chaulk, "and between the two of us we got him out into deeper water."
Chaulk said the shark lay in about 30 cm of water for a few minutes.
"Then all of a sudden, the water started coming out of his gills and he started breathing,"

It's one thing to help an animal. It's another to help a distressed animal that has the capability of biting you in half. Well done, Canadians.

Read more here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/moose-eating-shark-rescued-in-newfoundland-harbour-1.2434102

Rivalry weekend

I've been having conversations all week with different people about both the Badgers vs Gophers game and the Packers vs Vikings game, but for some reason it just hit me that both of these games are going on these weekend. It's Wisconsin vs Minnesota rivalry weekend? The Badgers are a 16.5 point favorite (give or take, depending where you look) over the Gophers, even though both teams are 8-2. And the Packers are about a 4 or 5 point favorite (again, depending on where you look) over the Vikings, even though Green Bay has lost three straight. That being said, I wouldn't be betting on either Minnesota team this weekend. And that's not the homer in me talking...

Scott Tolzien has experience playing against the Gophers, and will get his first look at the Vikings this weekend.

What the heck?

How is this a game? My friends and I did some stupid things when we were younger, such as make Drano bombs to set off in an open field. or hitting flaming tennis balls at each other), but nobody ever got hurt. At least not intentionally.

This is different. And dumb.

According to the New York Daily News:

"Knockout" is an emerging trend among unhinged teens that consists of targeting a passerby at random and trying to lay them out with one punch.

That's it.

Participants call this — the game's singular move — the "one hitter quitter."

Their victims can be anyone: elderly men or mothers with kids are not exempt. This poor attempt at manliness — i.e. thinly veiled cowardice — has even ended in death.

Most of the knockout incidents have taken place in the New York metro area.

"You just knock them out. You hit them with a blow and you take their belongings," one teen told the station.



This was the only "knocking out" of anyone that I did growing up.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/teen-knockout-game-continues-harm-innocent-people-article-1.1521185#ixzz2lDbtCGfu

Train Goddess

Why can't this ever happen to me on the train?





According to the ChicagoNow article and Gawker report:

After jumping the turnstile at the Granville station of Chicago's Red Line — the Chicago Transit Authority's busiest line — and slapping several commuters, a fully nude woman announced that she was taking over the train and was heading to the front to drive it.
Calling herself "The Goddess of the Train" according to eyewitnesses, the unidentified 31-year-old ordered all passengers off, causing a 15-to-30-minute delay in service this past Saturday
DNAInfo Chicago reports that police arrived at the scene around 12:45 p.m, and escorted the woman off the train.
She was subsequently transported to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston for evaluation.
A police spokeswoman said the woman suffers from a mental illness, but would not specify.

I literally have no idea what I would say to her in that situation. Apparently some girls just wanna have fun.

Hate your commute?

If you've been stuck in traffic before on your way to work  and wondered what it would be like to tear through the streets on a sports car, you might soon be able to. With the video game Gran Turismo 6 and the miracle of GPS, video game designers are working on it.

According to AutoBlog.com: At some point after the game's launch, players will be able to download a GPS-enabled app to their smartphones. Turn it on while on your choice of road, and the app tracks elevation and GPS coordinates to create a replica of the road in the game. That's right, you can essentially add any road on the planet into GT6.



That's an actual screen shot from the game. Pretty realistic, huh? Read more about it here: http://www.autoblog.com/2013/11/17/gran-turismo-6-gps-track-creator/