Cat's litter box

Tits ahoy

What happens when 130,000 inflatable boobs designed for a promotion to keep Ralph magazine afloat go missing?

More than 130,000 inflatable breasts have been lost at sea en route to Australia.
 
Men's magazine Ralph was planning to include the boobs as a free gift with its January issue.

The cargo is worth about $200,000, which is another blow for publisher ACP's parent company PBL, which is already in $4.3 billion of debt.

A spokeswoman for Ralph said the container left docks in Beijing two weeks ago but turned up empty in Sydney this week.

The magazine has put out an alert to shipping authorities to see if they have the container, but if they don't turn up in the next  48 hours it will be too late for the next issue, she said.

Ralph editor Santi Pintado urged anyone who has any information to contact the magazine.

``Unless Somali pirates have stolen them its difficult to explain where they are,'' Pintado said.

``If anyone finds any washed up on a beach, please let us know.'' 

And now, the follow-up boobs have been found

They had been due to dock in Sydney last week, but have since turned up at a Melbourne dock, where they've been sitting for a week.

Workers are now frantically working to put them in bags to go out with the December 15 issue.

Ralph editor Santi Pintado said the incident had cost the magazine $30,000.

"If we'd found them a day later, it'd have been too late to get them on the next issue," Pintado said.

"You'd think the Chinese economy was in enough trouble without misplacing 130,000 pairs of boobs."

Thanks to BoingBoing for getting this on my radar.

I still gots it

I popped out of the subway at Roosevelt Ave, Queens and was loitering on a corner, looking for Mr. Me. A garage punk podcast was blasting in my ears, so I was a little disconnected from the street audio. 

I was peering up and down the street when I noticed a man in a car parked right next to me. The angle was such that I couldn't see his head, but he was leaning toward me and I think he was talking to me. That was when I noticed he had some crumpled bills and he was waving them at me. He thought I was a hooker. 

Not bad for a Monday night on the way to the psych ward.

You are what you wear

Often when I take Bitey McGee for her morning walk I meet a seriously nice, god-fearing brazillian woman who's dogs name is Bollo. (I only ever know the pups names, not the owners.) Bollo's mum is the housekeeper to a couple of famous actors (I ain't Perez Hilton, so no celebrity gossip). This mornings encounter with Miss Bollo made me muse a little. She was wearing a cheerful T shirt with the words "Jesus hears you" in Spanish. I thought it was very apt. I've met Miss Bollo on a Sunday after church, so I know she walks the walk. My T shirt was also dead on. It has a crude drawing of a stick figure and the word "CAKE!" emblazoned across the front.

Toilets and the things you find in them

Today I joined a gym. But that's not the story. After I dropped $279 for a year of pool and cardio, I went to a greasy spoon diner on Steinway for a $5.50 breakfast. The Metro is an excellent hole-in-the-wall, a little run down maybe, but great food. I chowed down my greek omelette with home fries, wheat toast and coffee. Before I left, I decided to visit the toilet. It was through the kitchen, down the dangerous stairs, past the meat locker and next to a dark room with a spanish soap opera playing. 

I pulled open the door, stepped back and clutched my heart. There were two small children in the toilet, swatting flies with huge swatters. They were as surprised to see me as I was them. The older girl (maybe 6 or 7) knew to vacate the area. She was trying to get her brother out too. He was having none of it. He was chasing flies, swatting away, trying to close the door to keep the doomed flies captive. After about a minute of spirited arguing in spanish, the girl won and dragged her brother away. I was left to pee with the traumatized flies, which I did, very, very quickly.

I had barely opened the door before the little boy pushed in to continue his rampage. That was when I noticed the girl's attention was on an upturned box on the floor in the hallway. There was something under it, something that could be poked with a stick. I didn't hang around to see if it was a huge cockroach, their retarded sibling or a rat. I ran up the stairs like Satan's children were behind me. Because I think they were.

The amazing Steinway street

Last weekend I was promenading along Steinway in Astoria, when I saw one of those astounding things unique to Queens.

In a clothing store window was a manikin dressed in bootyasscrack jeans and a basque/bodice. The top was transparent in places with lacing--the kind you need a friend with sturdy forearms to tighten to make your waist 19 inches.

What makes this a truly unusual tableau was the sign below the trampy outfit. It said, "Back to school sale."

Sadly, I didn't take a picture.

Jesus on the R train

Yes it's true. I saw Jesus with my own eyes on the R train this morning. This is going to be one of those things I have to describe because I either didn't have my camera on me or was too shy/afraid of a beating to take a picture.

The R train in Queens is a particularly surreal experience at the best of times. Half awake and uncaffinated it has a Hunter S. Thompson quality that's hard to shake, even when you reach the relative normalcy of Manhattan.

This morning I blundered on at Steinway and grabbed a pole (the horrors of which I'll have to go into some other time). I could feel something brushing my shin. Instead of a well-endowed subway pervert or a huge rat, it was a puppet of Jesus, held by a adorable Hispanic girl sitting with her Mom. Jesus-puppet had flowing robes, beautiffic expression, palms raised, everything. To be fair, his hands were raised because was a string puppet (with convenient holes in his palms).

The little girl was having a swell time, making Jesus-puppet dance about. He frolicked around the pole like a professional. Resisting the urge to scream, repent or laugh I contemplated getting a picture of the whole scene. But I didn't fancy my chances of escaping without a serious drubbing from Mama. And you know what, a little girl should be allowed to play with Jesus unmolested.