Voice Actor Hilariously Scams Scammer

A voice actor in California recently helped a friend deal with an employment scammer.

In the first half of the video, below, she explains the scam and how she sets up her trolling. (The little detail about the Santa Monica Solid Waste District is fun.)

Then she puts her voice talent skills to work. Listen to what she has the scammer spell whil trolling him.

I love revenge like this.

Here's the video:

Burned Up Toasted Tesla On Lake Champlain Getting Lots Of Attention

A burnt up Tesla on the ice, Shelburne Bay, Lake Champlain
 

Vermont seems to be a bit of a magnet for weird mishaps.

Which is why I wasn't totally, 100% shocked when a 2019 Tesla Model X recently went up in flames atop the ice on deeply frozen Shelburne Bay in Lake Champlain.  

I guess it was such a big deal that web sites all over the place picked up on the story. This includes Jalopnik and Popular Mechanics wrote up articles about this unfortunate Tesla.

Popular Mechanics had this likely explanation for the blaze

"The specific cause of the fire is as yet unknown. People on Tesla forums who saw the crazy pictures began to speculate about insurance fraud or someother oddball explanation, but the most likely explanation would be battery failure. If damaged, lithium-ion batteries can rapidly discharge their stored energy in the form of heat, leading to an inferno. The bigger the battery, the bigger the fire.

Teslas necessarily have a giant battery pack, so if the car suffers sufficiently severe impact, it can go up in flames."

The driver of the car reported hitting something on the road, perhaps a rock or a big pothole or frost heave, reports Seven Days. The motorists said he smelled something odd after hitting whatever he hit. That might have damaged the battery, leading to the Tesla fire a little later on Shelburne Bay.

As the fire raged, the Shelburne Fire Department wisely decided not to drive their 50,000-pound fire truck out onto the ice to put out the blaze, notes Seven Days.  So the Tesla burned to a crisp.

By the way, the fire didn't melt too much of the ice and let the Tesla fall through because most of the heat of the blaze was directed upward, away from the ice.

It's the owner's responsibility to get the Tesla off the ice. And you wouldn't want it to sink into the water when the ice melts, due to a pollution risk.

The Burlington Free Press says a towing company got the wreckage off the ice a few days ago, but it wasn't easy. It had frozen back onto the ice, and had to be pried loose.

Here's a YouTube video, taken on the day they were trying to get the remains of the Tesla off the lake:

Mad Gardener Might Have Booby Trapped The Pansies With Bombs

Gardening usually makes people happy, like the pair in this stock photo.
But a German gardener apparently took his job very, very angrily. 

One of my jobs, in the warmer time of year, is to tend peoples' gardens.

I'm happy to report I've never had any kind of serious dispute with any of my clients. But if I did, rest assured I wouldn't go to the lengths a gardener in Germany seems to have done.

BBC reported this about the German gardener:

"Bernhard Graumann 59, was found dead on Friday. Police believe he may be behind an explosive trap that killed a 64-year-old doctor on the same day. Two other people with connections to Graumann were injured by an exploding piece of firewood in their home."

A 37-year old woman threw the log in a wood stove, unaware it was booby trapped. It exploded, injuring her and her daughter, age 4. The mother and daughter's injuries weren't life threatening, but still.

Another booby trapped log was found at another house where Graumann had dispute with the homeowner, but the homeowner found it. Police were called, and they blew it up away from anyone and anywhere it could cause harm, the Associated Press reported.

At least 60 people have called a hotline set up after these incidents. The people were worried they'd had a dispute with Graumann and might have been targeted.

Authorities suggest anybody who had a conflict with Graumann while he tended their gardens maybe ought not totally trust their plots of daffodils and early spring vegetables.

You never know what might explode.

Police searched Graumann's home, where they found gunpowder and other items covered by German explosive regulations, says the BBC.

I've always thought of gardening as a peaceful endeavor. It gives me a sense calm, serenity, even when I'm working for a nitpicky client. I think that's true of just about everybody who gardens.

Which tells me this Graumann character in Germany really had problems.

Randy Rainbow Alert: Yet Another One, As Naturally We Get A Trump/Kim Summit Edition

Randy Rainbow is at it again, this time skewering Donald Trump
and the recent summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Randy Rainbow keeps cranking them out, and I dutifully post them in this here blog thingy.

I'm a fan boy, deal with it.

This time the tune is "He's In Love (And We're All Going To Die.)" This cheerful tune is a parody of the song from South Pacific, "I'm In Love With A Wonderful Guy."

At the start of this video, like all Randy Rainbow videos, it starts with a "news" interview. This time Randy introduces President Donald Trump as "the castoff from Bachelor Hanoi." This, of course focuses on the star-crossed recent summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. 

I won't give away anything else, but one is full of zingers, as usual. And as always, this video is a delight.

Watch:

You Must Watch/Hear This Jennifer Hudson/Sir Tom Jones Performance From The Voice UK

Jennifer Hudson and Sir Tom Jones performed an epic
duet during an episode of The Voice UK 

Jennifer Hudson and Sir Tom Jones are judges on this season of The Voice UK in Britain.

The Voice, for those who don't watch reality shows, is one in which accomplished singers act as judges and pick worthy contestants based on their voices, not their looks. (The judges listen to contestants' auditions facing away from them.)

Once contestants are selected as the show's season progresses, contestants pair off in "battle rounds" in which the judges pick one of two contestants who perform duets.

During a break in The Voice UK, fellow judge Olly Murs was asked what his dream battle round would be. He responded he'd like to see Hudson and Jones go at it.

So they did, with "It's A Man's Man's World," you know, the Etta James classic.

The result from Hudson was what you'd expect out of her: Just incredible vocals that will blow you away. The surprise, at least to me, was Jones, age 78. He totally knocked it out of the park, too.

It's totally worth watching and listening to this "battle round." Here it is:

"Superstore" Ad Is A Wonderful Biting Commentary

I usually have little patience for TV promos, you know, those things networks play during commercial breaks telling you how wonderful the upcoming season of whatever show will be.

Right now, though, NBC is promoting a new season of "Superstore," a comedy I actually like quite a bit because of its somewhat cynical, but accurate and biting take on the service economy and large corporate retailers.

I actually think the promo is terrific. Yeah, on one level it's just telling you to watch the show. But it really hits at the daily humiliations many people in service jobs have to endure at the hands of soulless, cheap and abusive corporate offices. And the awful things these workers must wear on the job!

Not all corporations are like that, of course, but a fair number are. So I like how this promo skewers this piece of society and capitalism.

Watch:

Crazed Man Holding Pillow Outside In Minnesota? Maybe

People in Jordan, Minnesota thought this was a deranged man
standing out in the street. It was just a cardboard cutout,
but I suppose the mistake was understandable

Police in Jordan, Minnesota got a weird call the other day.

It was freezing cold, and a person reported a deranged man standing motionless outdoors, with no coat on, hugging a pillow.

Police raced to the scene, only to find a cardboard cutout of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.

Well, that was an easy mistake. If you've seen any of the company's TV ads, he does look like he's a bit much. And the premise of the ad is something: A sleepy couple encounter Lindell inside their bathroom medicine cabinet.

I don't know about this company's pillows, but I do know if this medicine cabinet encounter happened to me, I'd probably never be able to sleep again.

According to Jordan, Minnesota police, "Those cardboard cutouts sure can look real from a distance and the caller certainly was not wanting to get too close thinking who is this deranged person standing outside in the cold hugging a pillow."

Or, for all we know, the person who called police knew it was a cardboard cutout but was still freaked out anyway. A plausible scenario, don't you think?