I don’t normally watch the news, because it brings out my unfortunate habit of yelling at the TV every time Gary Ley uses the word snizzle or anybody mentions the president or anybody mentions the governor or TJ DelSanto does anything because OH MY GOD that man annoys the crap out of me, but I happened to watch the premiere of the new Brooke Shields nonsense tonight and then was too lazy to change the channel, so I caught Jim Taricani’s report on nail salons and it was too much for me to watch without feeling compelled to blog angrily at two thirty in the morning.

Taricani profiled a guy in Johnston who owns three Hollywood Nails salons across the state, and thanks to the intrepid reporter’s research (ie. haranguing the guy in his driveway) we learned that the dude is driving with an expired registration and doesn’t want everyone to know what he’s paying his employees. He might be a creep–a number of his female employees live in the Johnston house that his wife owns, and they may or may not be here illegally–but there’s no way to tell because Taricani prefers to accusingly bark at the camera about how the guy drove from one salon to another “at a high speed!” (more…)

Also looking pretty weak…. an MBA from Harvard
The New York Times reports that the dollar is so weak abroad that “the Taj Mahal has stopped accepting dollars for the entrance fee”. Meanwhile, back in New York City “East Village Wines, a liquor store at 138 First Avenue, accepts payment in euros as well as dollars.” What what what?!!!!!!

I wonder if the government would consider issuing the upcoming tax rebates in something Americans can actually use, like euros or rupees or toilet paper.

That’s right. You thought it was fine to poke fun at fast-food sandwich rivals with your YouTube and your digital camera and contest challenging netizens to “depict Quiznos sandwiches as ’superior’ to Subway’s.” You were wrong. And you’re being slapped with a massive civil suit.

Subway promptly sued Quiznos and iFilm, the Web site owned by Viacom that ran the contest, saying that many of the homemade videos made false claims and depicted its brand in a derogatory way. Subway is also objecting to ads that Quiznos itself created, showing people on the street choosing Quiznos over Subway.

The dispute over an ad is fairly standard — companies often sue one another over advertising claims — but the video contest raises a novel legal question: Quiznos did not make the insulting submissions, so should it be held liable for user-generated content created at its behest?

See the winner of the libel-fest above. Legal questions aside though, what ever happened to that Quizno’s downtown? (more…)

When you waste as much time reading Drudge as I for some reason do, you end up with a conception of the dude’s personal quirks. Perhaps his weirdest: an obsessive glee with what he dubs “Houses of filth.” Today there’s this headline:

HOUSE OF FILTH: 68 dogs, 26 hissing cockroaches, 16 rabbits, 15 guinea pigs, 13 gerbils, 7 doves, 2 dwarf hamsters, 2 hedgehogs, 2 bearded dragons. an opossum and a pink toe tarantula in Texas…

Look closely — their toes really are pink!

I don’t know what ‘The Thing’ in Cloverfield is, but I’m pretty sure I know why he was so pissed off. ‘Rob’s Party Mix’ includes Bright Eyes ferchrissake. If this is party music, it really may be time to thin the herd.

In keeping with the US Weekly themeDirty little secret — ‘Not for Nothing’ — besides being a ridiculous RI idiom and the name of Ian’s blog — is t he url for Dave Navarro’s website. He’s that poopfaced rocker who used to date Carmen Electra and Jenna Jameson. So the url is probably a function of some sort of faux humility? Or is he from around here?

Anyway, when you google ‘not for nothing,’ Ian turns up first, which is probably how things should be.