You can buy quite a few unusual gifts for Christmas over at Servonet. For instance, check out the Home Freebasing Kit, as well as the Power Fork. Interestingly, when you try to order one of these products instead of being asked to enter your own credit card number, you're allowed to select a number from their customer database. And then you get a message that their "shipping capabilities have been suspended indefinitely."

Holy Fake Batmobile! Would-be Batman demands refund.

Reemco: Providers of high-quality products such as the 'CDC Ebola Virus Outbreak Action Playset.'

General Delivery University: America's only genuine diploma mill

Home Despot: Shop, Destroy, Rule

Interesting piece in the NY Post about how government economists can lie with statistics, making economic growth go up and down like a yo-yo.

Does this photo that's been circulating through email really show the management of Microsoft as they looked back in 1978?

Enter the Win-Toilet-Paper sweepstakes, and the toilet-paper delivery man could soon be knocking on your door. I'm not sure if this is for real or not. I don't feel like supplying them with my email address to find out.

Update: Apparently it's real. Strange, but real.

Can you buy land on the moon? According to this website you can. It's the home on the internet of the Lunar Embassy, which claims that it is "the only company in the world to possess a legal basis and copyright for the sale of lunar, and other extraterrestrial property within the confines of our solar system." And if you believe that, then I've got a bridge to sell you. Their basis for this claim is that the UN Outer Space Treaty of 1967 forbid governments from owning extraterrestrial property, but it didn't mention anything about individuals or corporations! Ah Ha! Sounds like a clever loophole. Unfortunately this argument doesn't hold water, because individuals and corporations can themselves only claim ownership of land through governments. There's a good article debunking the Buy-Land-On-The-Moon Scheme over at CNN, explaining that it's the creation of con artist/entrepreneur named Dennis Hope. The British National Space Centre also denies it's possible to own land on the moon. And Space.com has a good article about this scam as well. What it all comes down to is that for the $30 bucks you'd pay to buy a plot of land on the moon, you'll gain ownership of a piece of paper, and nothing more.

Do you have 'See ID' written on the back of your credit card, or know someone who does? I used to, until I had an unpleasant run-in at the post office because of it. Turns out that the idea that it's safer to write 'See ID' on the back of your credit card rather than sign it is just a weird hoax that's floating around. (I used to have this blurb about my experience at the post office on my LiveJournal account, which has now become defunct. I've moved it over here so that it'll have a more permanent home, and because I keep getting comments from people who have had the same experience).

Here's another hoax website: Hooty Corp. It's the creation of a visitor to my site (a young one, I suspect). Hooty Corp might be a little unpolished, but it's all the more endearing for being so. I particularly like the Hooty shop where you can buy products such as the Clothes Desmellerizer and a book titled How to Drive a Laidlaw Bus in 12 Simple Steps. You get a nice, subtle message if you click on the 'buy' button to purchase any of these products.

A visitor asks if Eurorest is a hoax? Well, if not a hoax, then it's definitely a scam. The premise of Eurorest is that if you agree to send a message promoting their business to seven of your friends (i.e. if you agree to turn yourself into a spammer acting on their behalf), then they'll send you a 'cheque' that you can use to get 14 free days of stay at participating European hotels. But here's where it gets fishy. Sending off the emails doesn't automatically get you a 'cheque.' It only enrolls you in a lottery with the possibility that you'll receive one of these cheques. Who wants to bet that the cheque would never arrive? Plus, when you investigate these cheques more closely, you discover that the stay at the hotels isn't even free. It's only discounted at some of the hotels, while others charge an 'obligatory catering rate.'