By Paul Thomson :: 9:28 PM
The Ridgecrest, California Taco Bell employee who was plastered all over social media sites earlier this week, shown licking a stack of taco shells in the restaurant, has been fired from his job at the fast food outlet.
Taco Bell said in a statement earlier today that “the franchisee has suspended and is in the process of terminating the restaurant employee” for his actions. In addition to the employee pictured with his tongue on the taco shells, another employee, the one who took the picture, was also let go from the restaurant.
“We do not believe these employees harmed or intended to harm anyone,” continued Taco Bell’s statement. “But we deplore the impression this has caused to our customers, fans, franchisees and team members.”
The restaurant franchisee has told Taco Bell’s corporate office that they will work with their employees to ensure that this type of action does not occur at their restaurant again.
By Cynthia Herbert :: 8:11 PM
Bobbi Kristina Brown, daughter of the late singer Whitney Houston, apparently isn’t a very neighborly person.
When she and her boyfriend were evicted from her apartment in Alpharetta, Georgia, due to several excessive noise complaints, she left a nasty note (pictured below) for her downstairs neighbor when she moved out.
The note was published earlier today to Reddit by a friend of the neighbor who it was directed at. It reads, in part:
“You are a miserable couple, and always will be. You were honored to have us living above you and you couldn’t stand such a young beautiful couple being far more successful than you ever will be. I pray your misery doesn’t rub off on your innocent little baby.”
Neighbor Joshua Morse, the recipient of Brown’s tirade, told a local news outlet that he had placed at least 10 complaints with the apartment complex’s management about noises from Brown’s apartment over the past several months.
By Gilbert Falso :: 4:19 PM
A new service from a company called Etch allows Foursquare users to customize and print out large format maps of their check-ins in several select U.S. cities.
Etch will synch directly with a Foursquare account to download data for check-ins in Manhattan, Portland, or San Francisco. Users can customize the map with a choice of three color schemes, and highlight a particular venue on the map through a special callout flag.
The company calls the maps “one-of-a-kind city maps. They’re data visualizations of your Foursquare check-ins, your unique story of exploring your favorite cities.”
After your map is customized, Etch prints it out for $48, plus shipping. Maps vary in size between 18 and 22 inches wide and are all 26 inches high. The company says they are suitable for framing, and considers them to be more works of art than novelties.
This service is the latest use of Foursquare’s massive treasure trove of personalized data. Earlier this year, the location-based social network launched a tool called “Your Year in Check-ins” that displayed user check-ins as a round graphic showing locations most frequented, along with user paths from one location to another.
It is not clear when additional cities will be added to Etch’s menu – the company says that they plan to add more cities in the future, both domestic and international, but will base the decision on the feedback that they receive from users. Given Foursquare’s initial launch in Austin during SXSW a few years ago, that Texas city could be a good possibility for a future location.
Right now, Etch is only plotting check-ins that use Foursquare’s service, but is open to recommendations for other location-aware services that can also provide data to plot to a map.
[Etch]
By Paul Thomson :: 11:33 AM
A building has collapsed in downtown Philadelphia this morning, and rescuers are currently combing through the debris, looking for victims who may be trapped in the rubble.
The building was located at the corner of Market Street and 22nd street, and on one floor housed a Salvation Army thrift shop.
Local news is reporting that as many as 25 people have been taken away from the scene by paramedic personnel.
It is not known at this time what caused the collapse, but a permit had been issued for the building immediately next door to the collapsed structure.
The photo below shows a view from Google Maps of the corner where the building and thrift shop are located. Many streets in the vicinity of the collapse are currently closed to non-emergency vehicles.
By Cynthia Herbert :: 11:08 AM
Twitter is giving TweetDeck an update soon, at least according to a post briefly published to Twitter’s blog earlier today, which was subsequently removed.
The blog post, which was here, looked to be a draft marked for review and approval, outlined a number of enhancements to Twitter’s TweetDeck product.
It read, in part:
“In order to deliver a number of new and often requested features, we’ve updated TweetDeck’s look and also improved its usability. It’s a step forward in making TweetDeck feel fresh, as well as enabling some great new functionality.”
The changes are mainly to the navigation location within the application. It has been moved to the left side, and a vertical scrolling list for all columns has been added, along with the ability to add new columns and create lists.
Although the announcement has been yanked, the actual new version is live for the Chrome version of TweetDeck. Updates for the Mac and Windows versions of TweetDeck are expected soon.
For hardcore old-time TweetDeck users – the original Adobe Air version of TweetDeck, often affectionately called the “yellow” version, was supposed to stop working at the beginning of this month, but the API connectivity still seems to remain for the stubborn holdouts.