Every so often, some friends of mine and I will take a jaunt into Brooklyn to traipse about. And in our journeys, we’ve come across the above establishment, conspicuously located right across the street from The Real Thing. Every time we drove by, we’d wonder: what’s the deal? Was that the original Real Thing, and the owner just happened to lose his franchise? Or was s/he just horribly stupid and lacking in any creativity?

Welp, thanks to Satan’s Laundromat, the answer has been found.

Apparently someone decided it would be a good idea to open a place called New Kentucky Fried Chicken diagonally across the street from a real KFC. (Said entrepreneur is the same person who owns the Eleven-Seven deli on a third corner; why mess with a winning formula?) Unfortunately, the real KFC was not amused, hence the change to New Kantacky Fried Chicken.

Just an update to this: evidently, the name change wasn’t enough to mollify Yum! brands, the owner of the KFC trademark, and as a result the eating establishment changed its name to the “All Day Cafe” which is currently closed. I guess the new name wasn’t as catchy.

More info can be found here.

Few people even realize that along with analog and digital video, on-demand service, music, and broadband internet, cable companies like Comcast offered rebroadcasts of plain old FM radio. The intention was to extend the footprint of plain old analog FM radio stations to communities that were just a hair too far to recieve the signal over the air, much in the same way cable TV was born to carry and extend over-the-air TV stations. The service was so niche, in fact, that Comcast thought they could stop offering the service…. until apparently, a huge uproar ensued:

While other Napa Valley communities have had little outcry, things are different in FM-starved Calistoga. Angry residents called city hall and wrote letters to their local newspapers demanding Comcast bring back their FM service. In a meeting Tuesday, Calistoga city officials voted unanimously to support its disgruntled residents by passing a resolution urging Comcast Cable to reinstate the service.

Wow, people still listen to watered-down, stodgy, boring, commercial-filled, formulaic FM radio, and they even get really pissed when you try to take it away from them. Even though there’s plenty of alternative options with actual substance that are intended to provide a national footprint, transcending the limitations of FM. Go figure.

The Verizon test geek is gonna be stylin’ now in his new set of wheels. This high cell rates that Verizon Wireless users pay every month went to a good use: the purchase of a fleet of Verizon Wireless Hummer H2’s.

So, next time you get a dropped or blocked call with Verizon, or end up in a bad service area, remember: they could have devoted a little more money on improving the network, but they gotta pay to fill those gas tanks!

Name: “Moribund Frustrations”
Subject: Notes. Annoying Notes.
Medium: PalmOne Treo 650
Date: April 27, 2005 @ 10:30 a.m.

A shooting and subsequent police standoff unfolded into the grizly discovery of a woman who was frozen in a block of ice for four years, while her son allegedly collected her social security checks.

Philip Schuth, 52, told police his elderly mother, Edith, died of natural causes in August 2000, but that he didn’t tell anyone because he was afraid police would blame him, according to documents filed in court Monday.

He said his mother years beforehand was attacked by a cat and her blood was on the walls in the house they shared, and he feared police would think he killed her, according to the documents.

Police recovered a chest-type freezer in Schuth’s basement, and after chipping away at a block of ice, discovered a human knee.

Reading the reports, you can easily tell the guy is an all-around nutcase.