March 04, 2005

• Awesome. Simply Awesome.
• I don't quite believe that. Wal-mart would have had him arrested for damaging personal property (person with a motive, captured on videotape) and larceny. There is no reason on the face of the earth Wal-mart would have honored the computer sale that he announced. Just doesn't sound believable.
• I know, I still can not decide whether this is something that really happened or just his revenge fantasy. If I had done something like this I do not think I would use my name in the story. I am not so sure that criminal charges would be brought, but a civil lawsuit perhaps. In any event, I thought it was kind of funny.
• I. Love. This.
• StayFree magazine? When they publish a lot of articles, is that a "heavy flow" day? (etc)
• Uhg, DrJimmy. That was so not-so-fresh...
• Big surprise that axe-wielding, bad-ass, revenge-freak moneyjane loved that. It involved her three favorite things: pissing on Wal-mart, pornography, and revenge.
• I thought drjimmy was spot-on.
• Seems this incident would have caused a stir, and would be searchable in someone's blog or on Usenet. An hour of porn? That would not stay quiet.
• Doesn't have the ring of truth to it. What? No pictures of said monitors displaying porn to a shocked crowd of Walmart shoppers? What kind of revenge is that? And then there's this-- If: "The day after Thanksgiving is notorious for being the busiest shopping day of the entire year" Why would there also be this: "Thanksgiving night... 80 percent of the workforce had the night off, so the store was my playground." Yeah, right, the night before the busiest shopping day of the year and there's no night shift? The pants, dey be on fire, mon.
• Seems this incident would have caused a stir, and would be searchable in someone's blog or on Usenet. An hour of porn? That would not stay quiet. This is actually a pretty old story. I know I had read about it a long time ago, so I went to the guy's site and found the story. At the bottom of the page it said: "This story was accidentally deleted on 12-01-02, but thanks to Google's cache, it was rescued." So, more than 2 years old.
• Did some more digging...I found the site where I first read the story, or at least a longer (original?) version of the story.
• The author's official website. And also a FAQ that doesn't really prove if the story is true or not... Q: I just read [insert story here]! It was CRAZY! Did [insert subject of story here] really happen to you? Is [insert story here] TRUE??? A: I remember reading once a statement by Ray Bradbury that states "The most unbelievable events happen in really bad science fiction or in real life." Every story I write is based on actual events. However, for the purposes of publication and protecting my ass, I will go on record as saying that every single word on this site is a complete work of fiction - including the answer to this question.
• pissing on Wal-mart Hehn? Wal-mart's not on my radar since I've never been to one. I'll go for the last two :)
• I don't believe it is a true story and here is why: 1. As StoryBored said, Thanksgiving night (which is also an extremely busy shopping day) would not have 80% of the work force off. They would need to do inventory recovery (restock shelves) and maintenence (face inventory on shelves, put items back in their proper place, throw away garbage left on shelves) for the following very heavy day. 2. Circuit breakers. Any large wall of display electronics, be they computers or televisions, would have their own circuit breakers. If porn was playing or computers were scrolling messages and neither could not be turned off then a manager would just turn them off at the circuit box. 3. Phone jack and cordless phone. Wouldn't work. Those phone jacks in stores are part of a PBX and have different wiring, voltage, and signal requirements than POTS phones. 4. The unit integrity of items could be adjusted to be off-by-one using an LRT (those hand-held terminals). This is the most likely truthful part of the story. However, no one would catch it until months later, and even then such small losses in inventory are already assumed. Besides, inventory is done once a year by an outside contractor. Yeah, I've worked retail.
• Well, I sort of gave you one of mine. I am confident that if you ever get to one then you will see things my way.
• I miss the age of Internet innocence when I could fall for things like this and find joy in it. Calgon, take me away to 1994... when I believed the Neimann-Marcus Cookie Recipe and enjoyed baking them.
• I tried the Neimann-Marcus Cookie Recipe myself, but I forgot whether it was 1 cup Neimann to a half-cup Marcus or the other way around...
• Nomen Nescio: Phone jack and cordless phone. Wouldn't work. Those phone jacks in stores are part of a PBX and have different wiring, voltage, and signal requirements than POTS phones. That's true, but PBX-to-POTS adapters are tiny, simple, common devices. Which doesn't mean that I believe the story, although I sure would like to believe the PA hijack bit. One could play some very amusing stunts with a setup like that.
• There's a lot to choose from- but to me the most fake part was the porn channel which I'm SURE is optional on DirecTV and equally sure wouldnt be included in an instore sample package so that any customer who picked up the remote could flip it on... Also the part where he made them pay a 1/2 cent tax on each email they sent was a little hard to believe.
• Okay, I haven't clicked the link, but I assume he deceitfully captured pictures of Wal-Mart masturbating in front of its webcam and is now spreading them round the internet, yes?