For the Funnier than Fiction News Files

Okay, here's another news item for my "Truth is Funnier than Fiction" file. Leroy Greer of Houston has filed a lawsuit against 1-800-Flowers because he was sending flowers to his mistress & got caught. Apparently he asked them not to send a receipt to his home, but a few months later they sent a thank you note for the order. His wife opened it, called the company & got the order details: 12 long stemmed roses, a cuddly stuffed animal & sappy love note to the girlfriend, including her name & address. Oops! Here is the case filing:

Leroy Greer v. 1-800-Flowers.Com Inc.
8/6/2007
H-07-2543 (Houston)

Breach of contract action in which the defendants agreed to keep the plaintiff's order of flowers for his girlfriend private, with no record of the transaction mailed to him at his home or office.

Months later, the defendants sent a thank you card to the plaintiff's home, and his wife called the defendants for proof of the purchase. The defendants faxed the plaintiff's wife proof of his order of flowers for his girlfriend, which resulted in a divorce being filed.

Actually the story could have taken a much nastier turn here (think Lorena Bobbit). At least the wife had the self-restraint to just fax a nasty note & then change the divorce terms. Alot of less reasonable people might have reacted differently. The previously amicable divorce has turned into a much more expensive proposition, & now the plaintiff is sueing for monetary damages & "mental anguish". Pu-leeaaze!!!!

Is there such a thing as florist-client privilege?

A Sneak Peek at Web 3.0

Hey guys! I don't very often blog about technical stuff, but I came across something really interesting. It's a short video of Google's CEO Eric Schmidt talking about the future of the world wide web, & what web 3.0 is likely to look like. These guys at Google have been pretty darn good at predicting the future so far, so this is worth listening to.

The short version is, web 2.0 was mostly about using AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript with XML, an acronym to impress your friends with!) to create graphically interactive web applications. Web 3.0 is the new buzz phrase now. Watch the video for a much better explanation than I could give.

20 Days Until Kickoff

A funny followup to my post last weekend. One of my neighbors has a mailbox shaped like an oversized, red and white Sooners helmet. The very next morning after my last post, I drove by to find it had been mysteriously bashed to pieces in the middle of the night. It wasn't just knocked off the post, it was knocked off & into the street, where it was clubbed into about 5 pieces. This didn't look like the usual mailbox bashing since every other one in the neighborhood was completely untouched. I guess that makes it a hate crime! :)

This mailbox was so defeated that there was no bringing it back--or so I thought. When I drove home that night I was shocked to see it up again, sitting on the mailpost held together by glue, tape and pride. 20 days left until kickoff, and as they say, it's on!!!

27 Days Until Kickoff

Hey y'all!
Well, there's a giant flashing billboard on my way to work counting down the days. Not until back to school or Christmas, but rather the start of a special brand of insanity known as football season in Oklahoma. I've lived in Texas, where they're pretty damn football crazy, & lived in Seattle where there is a pretty passionate college rivalry.... But, neither one even comes close to this. People in Washington may plant their flowerbeds in Husky or Cougar colors, but here rival fans have been known to break each other's windshields out.

Things have been made even more interesting this year by the Sooners' 3-way race for starting Quarterback, & the recent NCAA sanction ordering them to "erase" all their wins for the 2005 season (for you non-fans, it's hard to describe how painful this is for a football program... i'd compare it to having your entire junior year of college erased, & being told you have to repeat it). Even though it's the hottest time of year w/every day pushing the triple digits, people have already started the Friday night tailgate parties. The evening news spends more time talking about football than Iraq, next year's presidential race, terrorrism and world events combined... And the season hasn't even started yet.

It's funny to see otherwise normal people dressed from head to toe in team colors and face paint for game days. Last year I tried to joke w/an older couple about the fact that they were dressed like a couple of Tony-the-Tigers, & was told very sharpy that OSU is "God's School", & the only institutions of higher learning in Oklahoma are OSU and Sunday School. Ouch. The only thing OU and OSU seem to agree on is how much they hate TEXAS. The annual Cottonbowl or "Red River Shootout" between OU and the UT Longhorns is such a long-standing tradition that it even has a page on Wikipedia. Tickets can be harder to get & more expensive than the Superbowl. The yearly Bedlam game played every Thanksgiving between OU and OSU IS the Oklahoma Superbowl.

And speaking of the Superbowl, there is a Baptist church I drive by on the way to work. Usually they have a bible verse or sermon info on the billboard, but back in January during the week before the Superbowl they replaced it with this instead:

Sunday Service 10-11
Superbowl Party 11 - ????

Hmm, maybe instead of the Bible Belt they should call it the Football Belt. Even funnier, the following Monday (after the Bears lost to the Colts), there was another quote from legendary Bears coach Mike Ditka:

Success isn't permanent;
failure isn't fatal.

Luckily, neither is football season! Cheers,

Layla :)