Anonymous shopper buys toys worth $1M from store
An anonymous person bought $1 million worth of toys at a Raleigh, NC Toys “R” Us last week and reportedly donated them to children. Employees at the store said that they spent all of Friday — the last day the toy store chain was in business — boxing up toys for the anonymous buyer and had to get toys from other locations to fill the order.
“It didn’t happen all at this location. We don’t have that much inventory. It happened at various stores. They likely went through the Raleigh liquidator,” one employee told WTVD. It’s not clear where the toys were sent.
Packing all those toys required the store to be closed one day early and shoppers hoping to get discounted toys before the store closed were turned away. But when WNCN-TV told them about the donation, would-be customers weren’t disappointed. “Oh, that’s so nice. I’m happy to hear that,” said customer Erin Sampson. On Friday, June 29, all Toys ‘R’ Us locations around the country were permanently closed after the chain filed for bankruptcy last summer and failed to find a new buyer to take over operations.
Phillies fan injured by hot dog launched by ‘Phanatic’
It was a flying frankfurter and not a foul ball that left a baseball fan with a black eye in Philadelphia. Kathy McVay says she was at Monday night’s Phillies game when the team’s mascot, the Phillie Phanatic, rolled out his hot dog launcher. McVay was sitting near home plate and, she says, all of a sudden a hot dog wrapped in duct tape struck her in the face. McVay says she is suffering from a shoulder injury, so she was unable to swat the hot dog away. She left the game to get checked out and was diagnosed with a small hematoma. She told WPVI-TV she doesn’t plan legal action. The Phillies apologised to McVay on Tuesday and the team has offered her tickets to any game.
Man selling six-year-old McDonald’s food on eBay
An Ontario man is offering an unusual set of items on eBay — a McDonald’s cheeseburger and fries that spent six years on a shelf.
Dave Alexander posted a listing on the auction website for the 6-year-old burger and fries, which he said were “never eaten” or even refrigerated.”The fries are stunningly good looking. The fries look like they were purchased this morning,” Alexander told CBC Radio’s As It Happens program.
“The burger itself has darkened a little bit. The bun is about as hard as a hockey puck, but it looks just like it’s brand new cosmetically,” he said.
Alexander said he had his daughter buy him the burger and fries on June 6, 2012, so he could put them on a shelf in his home and determine whether rumors that McDonald’s food doesn’t decompose were mere urban legend.
He said a homemade burger and fries placed next to the fast food items five years ago have been rotting as expected. “The cheese on the homemade one, especially the french fries, the potatoes, just look like little bits of charcoal right now,” he said.
The McDonald’s burger and fries started at $22.91 and bids reached $62.65 on Friday with six days remaining in the auction. “We live in the country and we’ve never seen a fly land on it. Ever,” he said.
‘Space kingdom’ seeks citizens for life beyond Earth soon
Feel like the world is going to the dogsIJ Want to get away from it allIJ Here’s a solution: become a citizen of the nation of Asgardia and hope it makes good on its promise to colonise the moon. Asgardia was founded just 20 months ago, and it already has about 200,000 citizens, a constitution and an elected parliament. It has a leader, Igor Ashurbeyli, who was inaugurated on Monday. It also has grandiose ambitions. It wants to build up a population of 150 million within 10 years. It plans to set up “space arks” with artificial gravity in outer space where humans could live permanently.
“This day will certainly be recorded in the annals of the greatest events in the history of humankind,” Ashurbeyli said in his inaugural speech to an audience of several hundred in the Hofburg, Vienna’s former imperial palace.
“We have thus established all branches of government. I can therefore declare with confidence that Asgardia — the first space nation of the united humankind — has been born,” said Ashurbeyli, a Russian engineer, computer scientist and businessman.
Asgardia — named after Asgard, a world in the sky in Norse mythology — says its citizens now live in more than 200 countries, outnumbering the United Nations’ 193 member states. Becoming a citizen online is free. It wants to attract the 2 percent of the world’s population that is “most creative”. Asked how that was working out so far, Ashurbeyli said, “Citizenship selection will continue. It might even involve IQ tests.”
Ashurbeyli said he intends to have satellites providing Internet access around the globe in five to seven years, space arks operating in 10 to 15 years, and finally to establish a permanent settlement on the moon within 25 years.