Worst Date Ever Involves Texting During Movie; Lawsuit, Accusations

I've gotten into the weird habit of watching "First Dates" on TV occasionally on Friday evenings. 

A first date at this movie was probalby the worst ever,
and ended with a small claims court lawsuit. 

It is a "reality show" in which people go on first dates and see if they establish a connection. It's oddly entertaining. 

Some couples seem to hit it off. Some dates are terrible. The guilty pleasure is watching how people looking for love find connections. 

However, the worst date ever wasn't on this TV show. It was in Austin Texas, when, according to the Austin (Texas) American Statesman, Brandon Vezmar, 37, of Austin took a 35 -year-old woman on a date to see a 3D showing of the movie "Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2"

Veznar said the woman kept texting during the movie, and he got annoyed. "This is, like, one of my biggest pet peeves," Veznar said. 

Yeah, texting during a movie can be annoying, but what Vezmar did next was a little over the top. He's suing the woman for $17.31, the cost of the movie ticket.

He was particularly peeved that she got annoyed by Veznar's texting scolding, so she left, leaving him without a ride home. 

When the Austin American-Statesman informed the woman she was being sued by Vezmar, she said, "Oh my God.....This is crazy."

Well, yes. 

Sometimes, two annoyinig people can make magic together. However, in Austin, an obnoxiously texting woman and a litigious man couldn't make it work. 

How sad. Or not. 

On the bright side, the CEO of another Austin theater, the Alamo Drafthouse, has offered a $17.31 gift certificate to settle the lawsuit.  

Worst Texting Driver Ever In Pennsylvania

Hard to see in this still from the video. but a woman
steers through traffic near Philadelphia with her
feet while constantly texting. 

A couple driving along the highways and streets around Philadelphia spotted a woman texting with both hands and driving with her feet on the steering wheel.

I guess the texting enthusiasts' war on the rest of us is escalating. I swear they want to kill us by being as ridiculous as possible on the highways.

According to ABC 6 Action News in Philadelphia, the couple spotted the women on the busy Schuylkill Expressway and in thick urban traffic in Center City.

They followed the woman for about 20 minutes as she steered through traffic with her feet, her fingers skittering across the phone screen and eyes on the phone instead of traffic, swerving all the way.

While Shawn Delong drove and kept his eyes on the road, Sarah filmed the terrible texting woman.

"Someone is going to get killed, that's why I was so mad. You see people on their phones all the time, but that took the cake," Sarah Delong told Action News.

The Delongs tried beeping at Horrible Texting Woman and signaling her to get off the phone, but Horrible Texting Woman just took her eyes off the phone very briefly, smirked at the Delongs, then went back to texting.

Amazingly, Horrible Texting Woman did not hurt anyone, that we know of.

The cops apparently can't do anything about this situation, because they have to catch Horrible Texting Woman in the act.

Now that the video of Horrible Texting Woman has gone viral, maybe somebody can identify her and publicly shame her into never driving with her phone again.

A guy can dream, right?

Here's news video about Horrible Texting Woman

  

Billboard From "Funeral Home" Brilliantly Goes After People Who Text And Drive

This billboard from the "Wathan Funeral Home" in
Toronto is causing a stir.  

I guess the Wathan Funeral Home in the Toronto area needs to drum up business.

They have a giant billboard on a major highway there that says "Text And Drive."

Texting and driving is one of the best ways to get you, or somebody else killed, so there's that.

Actually, the Wathan Funeral Home doesn't really exist. The "Text and Drive" billboard is a clever, if dark PSA  to tell all those idiots out there to stop friggin texting and driving, dammit!

It's one of my pet peeves. Maybe my biggest. All the time, on the road, their heads are down, they're swerving all over the road, or not stopping at red lights, or not going at green lights, because of the all important texts they have to send.

In my darkest moments, I think people who text and drive deserve to die, as long as they don't hurt anybody else.

After all, if you text and drive, that means you don't give a crap about anybody else. "Who cares if somebody dies. This text to my girlfriend is more important than your life,"  seems to be the thought process of those who text and drive.

Maybe if texters and drivers were brought up on murder or attempted murder charges when they cause a crash, that would teach them a lesson.

Anyway, my hostile view of texters and drivers is the same one that inspired the "Text and Drive" billboard from the fictitious Wathan Funeral Home.

The funeral home, as noted, doesn't exist, but it does have a website. 

If you go to it, you get this message:

"If you're here, you've probably seen our "Text and Drive" billboard. And if you have, you probably came to this website to tell us what horrible people we are for running an ad like that. And you'd be right.

It's a horrible thing for a funeral home to do. But we're not a funeral home.

We're just trying to get Canadians to stop texting and driving, which is projected to kill more people in Ontario this year than drinking and driving. That's right. More. And while most people wouldn't even think about drinking and driving, over half of Ontario's drivers admit to reading texts behind the wheel.

That's more than half of the drivers on the road today risking their lives, their passengers' lives and the lives of fellow motorists and pedestrians.

Which should make you even madder than our billboard did."

It sure does!

The PSA is from the Montreal ad agency St. John St., in partnership with Cieslok Media, says AdWeek.  

Oblivious Texting Guy Misses One Whale Of A Cool Moment

Photographer Eric Smith took this photo
in Redondo Beach, CA of an oblivious guy texting on his phone
while an incredible moment in nature
played out right in front of him.  

If there was ever an illustration of how sometimes, smart phones, social media, texting and all that jazz can make you miss out on more exciting stuff, this is it.

CBS News says photographer Eric Smith took a pic of a guy on a boat in Redondo, Beach, Florida intently texting somebody on his phone while a whale surfaced right next to the vessel.

Actually the whale and her calf were "flapping, breaching, jumping, mouths eating fish," right there, Smith said, and the guy never noticed.

"The guy never looked up from his phone during the entire breach," Smith said.

Too busy on the phone.

I hope whatever was going on in the text was more interesting, but I doubt it. I haven't experienced it yet, but people have told me there is practically nothing more awesome than watching whales nearby.

Smith said he admits he can get too wrapped up with a phone. "We're all guilty being buried in our phones, even me," he said.

The photo of the oblivous guy on the boat with the whale is probably one of the best illustrations of the Way We Are these days.

Though this might be his best photo, Smith is an experienced photographer with a lot of great work. Check out his Instagram page.

Brilliant PSA On Texting And Driving Tricks Moviegoers Awesomely

We've heard over and over again that simultaneously texting and driving is dangerous.  

This woman sitting in a Hong Kong movie theater
just got a text message. And she's in for a big
surprise in just a moment.  

Everybody should know that by now, but people are still getting killed and hurt on the road because some idiots insist that texting "OMG!!! I Love Bieber!" while blasting down the highway is worth killing other motorists over.

To drive the danger home, Volkswagen, made a video which shows a crowd settling into a movie theater to watch a film.

As people munch popcorn and settle into their seats, the film they're watching starts with a driver's eye view of a trip in a car down a nice road, lined with big tall trees.

But the theater, and the makers of the ad are equipped with a location based broadcaster. They hit a button, which makes the mobile phones of everyone in the the theater start ringing, signaling they all got a text message. Many movie goers drag out their phones and start to look at the tiny little screens on their mobile devices.

As they look at their phones, something happens on the movie screen. You'll have to watch it the video, below, to see what happens next (don't want to spoil it!)

You'll see the point is driven (pun intended) home: Don't text and drive. That text message to your friend about that hottie that was on "America's Got Talent" last night can wait.

Here's the awesome video:

World's Worst Young Woman Super Mad At Cyclist She Hit Because She Was Texting While Driving

I nominate Kimberley Davis, 21, of Australia as the worst young woman on the planet.

This church sign is a fitting illustration
for this post, but I don't think Kimberley Davis
is good enough to meet Jesus.  

I say this because she was texting with seven different phone numbers as she drove through a small town in western Australia.

She hit and seriously injured a cyclist, local police said, according to the Australian newspaper The Standard.

The lovely Kimberley's reaction was as follows:  "I just don't care because I've already been through a lot of bullshit and my car is like pretty expensive and now I have to fix it."

She continued: "I'm kind of pissed off that the cyclist has hit the side of my car. I don't agree that people and texting could hit a cyclist."

Police said Kimberley was "nice" enough to call emergency responders to the accident scene, but refused to help the injured cyclist and left him lying on the side of the road.

A judge fined our um, fine young woman $4,500 and took her driver's license away for nine months.

The cyclist suffered a broken spine and other injuries. There were fears he'd be left a paraplegic, but he is recovering and is walking.

As for Kimberley, the most fitting punishment would have been to ban her from ever again touching a smart phone. She's too dumb for one.

Best Revenge EVER: Man Texts Entire Shakespeare Works To Scammer

Edd Joseph, 24, of Bristol, England was annoyed.

This guy got revenge on a scammer by
texting him Shakespeare plays, which cost him
nothing and tied up the scammer's
smart phone for days or weeks.  

He'd paid 80 British pounds or roughly $132 in U.S. dollars via the British equivalent of Craiglist to buy a PS3 games console.

The guy he paid the money to never delivered on the game. The police couldn't help and the way he paid the money meant he couldn't recover it.

But Joseph found the best possible way to get even. He just texted the crook entire works by Shakespeare, according to the Bristol Post.  The crook's phone buzzed and buzzed for hours and days and weeks with snippets of Shakespeare.

Here's how Joseph scammed the scammer using Shakespeare, according to the Post:

"Edd discovered he could copy the words from the Internet and paste them into a text message - without costing him a penny on his unlimited mobile phone package.

He sends it as one text but the victim can only receive them in 160 character chunks - meaning the 37 works of Shakespear will buzz through in 29,305 individual texts.

So far, Edd has sent 22 plays including Hamlet, Macbeth and Othello, whih have been delivered in 17,424 texts.

He reckons the remaining 15 works will take another few days to send - meaning his adversary's phone will have been constantly beeping for nearly a week.

Edd said he too revenge because he wanted to stop feeling powerless about losing his money.

The guy who is getting the constant barrage of Shakespeare texts has called Edd in anger several times, but he is not relenting, only asking the guy if he is enjoying the plays.

Maybe the guy getting the play will give up his life of scams and become a literary theater intellectual or something, but somehow I doubt it.

This Shakespeare revenge is a lot of fun, but the only thing I worry about is weirdos out there turning the tables. In the age of "revenge porn" or phishing and all those trolls out there, it's just a matter of time before innocent people might get days worth of unstoppable porn texts or something.

Just another danger of our connected world, I guess.