Community ClicksFor the love of ramen noodles
Computer hardware engineer Toshio Yamamoto, 49, this year celebrates 15 years’ work tasting and cataloguing all the Japanese ramen (instant noodles) he can get his hands on (including the full ingredients list, texture, flavor, price and “star” rating for each), for the massive 4,300-ramen database on his Web site, expanded recently with “hundreds” of video reviews and with re-reviews of many previously appearing products (in case the taste had changed, he told journalist Lisa Katayama, writing in April on the popular blog Boing Boing).
Yamamoto said he had eaten ramen for breakfast seven days a week, but cut back recently to five.
“I feared that, if I continued at (the seven-day) pace, I would get bored,” he said.
Compelling explanations
In January the California Historical Resources Commission formally claimed, on behalf of the state, about 100 items of property on the surface of the moon having been left behind during the 1969 Apollo 11 landing (since California companies were instrumental in that mission and since only the moon surface itself is off limits to ownership claims under international law).
Among the items declared are tools, a flag, bags of food and bags of human waste left by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.
>>> In February, Jesse McCabe, 29, was spared jail time (probation and community service only) for his conviction in connection with a missing $18,000 in bank deposits he was to have made for his employer in New Port Richey, Fla.
Police discovered 13 deposits, from a six-week period, in McCabe’s home, but all the money was recovered, and McCabe persuaded the judge that he just hadn’t been able to make it to the bank yet.
Ironies
Karen Salmansohn, 49, prominent author of self-help books for women with relationship and career problems, including Prince Harming Syndrome”and How to Make Your Man Behave in 21 Days or Less Using the Secrets of Successful Dog Trainers, filed a lawsuit in March against cad Mitchell Leff.
Salmansohn said Leff had strung her along for months with promises of marriage and a baby, but abruptly cut off support when she became pregnant.
Said Salmansohn, “I’m a self-help author, not a psychic.”
>>> Former baseball star Lenny “Nails” Dykstra recently started accepting clients for his investment advice service, charging $999 a year, according to a March Wall Street Journal report.
His Web site discloses that while Dykstra is “NOT” (his emphasis) a “registered” financial adviser, his “proven track record caught the attention of many.”
Dykstra filed for bankruptcy in 2009 to stave off more than 20 lawsuits against him for entrepreneurial ventures gone bad, and in November, the bankruptcy judge denied him the right to reorganize his debts, converting his case to a chapter 7 liquidation.
>>> In March, Monica Conyers, pleading insufficient funds, was granted a court-appointed lawyer to appeal her bribery conviction stemming from her work as a city councilwoman in Detroit.
Conyers is the wife of John Conyers, the Michigan congressman who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Mrs. Conyers arrived in court on the day of her sentencing clutching what reporters said appeared to be a Louis Vuitton handbag that sells for $1,000.
Government health care follies
Paula Oertel, on Medicare, has a brain tumor that had miraculously been in remission for nine years thanks to a type of interferon approved for multiple sclerosis but not for cancer.
Medicare had been paying about $100,000 a year for the drug, but when Oertel relocated from one county in Wisconsin to another, 30 miles away, it triggered an automatic, full-scale review of her records, at which point officials realized that her drug was unauthorized and stopped paying.
According to a March Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report, her doctors scrambled to find a drug on the “approved” list, but discovered neither a less expensive one nor one nearly as effective, and Oertel’s tumor has returned.
