The Off Topic Topic

[Neil]

From The Economist:

The world's oldest company is a Japanese firm called Kongo Gumi, founded in 578.  It maintains Buddhist temples in the Osaka area.

Unlikely. Kongo is in Africa.

Wrong.  It's a battlecruiser.

Africa has no battlecruisers?

None.  Battlecruisers were only allowed for Europe and Japan.

[jimmy olsen]

Jared Sullinger fell to the Celtics!

Even though there's a bit of a risk because of the potential for back problems, at that point in the draft taking him is a no brainer!

[Eddie Teach]

!

[11B4V]

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/06/4-ny-students-who-bullied-bus-monitor-suspended-for-a-year/1?csp=24&kjnd=MShMUrp3LuTxwpsWEc2pHLYini1Sh7UCaVDHomix7LdyahFVXANDdOkwTCACJslk-876bb4c9-1551-4c9e-91d1-87835dc0baea_AFC24%2BPSs35iXCQFAblTSJjzuXpn5FSinjvnXrwssKRGkuOjR9KE6fWFQVZYn9ro#.T-7Q5ZGqYuc

Four seventh-graders who bullied bus monitor Karen Klein have been suspended for a year, banned from bus transportation and ordered to do community service with senior citizens

[CountDeMoney]

Nice.  Stricter than I expected.

[The Brain]

So it's OK to put senior citizens through shit that was unacceptable to a bus monitor?

[Ideologue]

My cousin's request for permanent political asylum (or whatever the hell it's called) in the UK: DENIED

So she's coming back to the U.S. with her tail between her legs.  She's too embarrassed to move back to Florida, so she, her husband & daughter are going to settle somewhere in the Carolinas.

WE'RE FULL.

[CountDeMoney]

Holy Shit, Tom and Katie are getting a divorce.

All three of Tom Cruise's marriages ended when wife was 33

Soon after news broke about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' plans to divorce, fans noted a weird coincidence. All of Cruise's three marriages broke up when his wife at the time was 33, and ended when she was 34.

Cruise's first wife was Mimi Rogers, who was 31 when she wed 25-year-old Cruise in May 1987 and 33 when they broke up in 1990.

Cruise then married Nicole Kidman, 23, in December of 1990, and then separated in 2001, when Kidman was 33.

Holmes, 28, and Cruise wed in 2006, seven months after daughter Suri was born. And when word came Friday that Holmes had filed for divorce, those with a sense of Cruise history noted that Holmes was also 33.

Divorces, in each case, came when the woman in question had turned 34 (or so we assume with Holmes, who will turn 34 in December).

The coincidence didn't go unnoticed on social media, where no weird fact is too small to escape notice.

"How weird is it that Tom Cruise's three failed marriages have all ended while the women were 34?" tweeted Karen D'Souza. Others tried to find a connection between the number 33 and Cruise's well-publicized Scientology faith.

And others had fun with a different numerical aspect of the Cruise-Holmes marriage. Wrote Adolf McGough, "Shoutout to Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise. Your marriage lasted 28.47 Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries marriages."

Scientology numerology or not, smarter than he's given credit for.

[Eddie Teach]

My cousin's request for permanent political asylum (or whatever the hell it's called) in the UK: DENIED

So she's coming back to the U.S. with her tail between her legs.  She's too embarrassed to move back to Florida, so she, her husband & daughter are going to settle somewhere in the Carolinas.

WE'RE FULL.

He didn't say how old the daughter is. 

[Josquius]

Had my school festival today. Wonderfully bizzare. Its like the students were all drunk (ON FUN).

Some bonny young girls came. One I thought I recognised. I knew I vaguely recognised her but couldn't quite place her, was wondering how and where I had met her, then it clicked, they were ex students, graduated just this March...its just the first thing Japanese kids do when they leave high school is dye their hair. Combined with the typical trendy fashions of people in their early 20s (oh the Japanese do love their one fits all trends) it was quite an unusual transformation and made me feel a bad, bad man.

[Sheilbh]

The Mail seems to be sailing close to the wind, 'Miss Holmes, a nice girl from Ohio who is the nevertheless very aware of why Cruise feels the need to play the macho card in public.'

[Ideologue]

A nice girl from Ohio?  Nonsense.

[Ed Anger]

A nice girl from Ohio?  Nonsense.

Which town?

Let me help you.

[CountDeMoney]

I downloaded a sample of it - and it seemed dreadful.

It is horribly, horribly dreadful.

which is why you only read it three times. Not good enought for a fourth time

Not sure why that book was a big deal. How was it different then any other mommy porn romance novel?

I don't know and don't care;  it's been getting me laid since it came out.

[MadImmortalMan]

Had my school festival today. Wonderfully bizzare. Its like the students were all drunk (ON FUN).

Some bonny young girls came. One I thought I recognised. I knew I vaguely recognised her but couldn't quite place her, was wondering how and where I had met her, then it clicked, they were ex students, graduated just this March...its just the first thing Japanese kids do when they leave high school is dye their hair. Combined with the typical trendy fashions of people in their early 20s (oh the Japanese do love their one fits all trends) it was quite an unusual transformation and made me feel a bad, bad man.

So they don't wear Mario Brothers jump suits like the Norwegians then.