Amazon - Early Edition

One of my favourite television programmes back in the day was “Early Edition” which followed the adventures of a young man, who, through some sort of mysterious magic, received tomorrow’s news…TODAY. It was then up to him to save the day etc based on this information.
Predicting the future is always a bit of fun, and you can potentially make a fair bit of money out of it too.

On the morning of April 3rd of this year Amazon.com the online retailer, sent an email entitled “UCLA Wins” to all the customers that bought a sports related item, to give them a heads up on this special offer. This cap would act as a great reminder for Bruins fans of a great victory in the NCAA finals

The problem was…the game had not yet taken place, and the Florida Gators the other finalists were not going to let a novelty cap determine their fate. As it turned out, later that night Florida gave UCLA a complete spanking in the final, cruising to a 73-57 victory.
“Clearly it was a mistake” announced a spokesman for Amazon

Tumbleweed = $

Picture the scene...the "good guy" is walking through the ranch looking to kill that damn baddie, but its quiet...TOO quiet *tumble weed rolls by*, how many times have we seen a situation like that, well a few anyway.
Tumble weeds make any average movie BRILLIANT, and enjoy a reputation all around the world as the most photogenic of all weeds, surely there could be some way to make money out of these rotund delights?

Uncommon business points us to just such a venture. Linda Katz of Kansas has throught her site, created a living out of selling tumble weeds, "it all started as a joke" she remarks, but the site has turned into an online business that earns her in the region of $40k per annum. Katz and some of her family members search for tumbleweeds trapped along fences etc on the roadside and post them off from the local post office.

The site has been so popular in Japan , she has released a separate Japanese edition of the site, and the largest order to date has been a $1000 order from the Barney&friends TV show.

The tumbleweed entrepreneur added “Isn’t the Internet a wonderful thing?”

Stockpicking.....easy?

Stockbrokers and traders will have you believe that they posses knowledge and skill that will give you the advantage over your average Joe and get you above par returns on your investment. The website TradingMarkets, which charges its subscribers for investment advice, decided that it would be a great publicity stunt to Invite 10 playboy bunnies to take part in an investment competition. By the time the competition was over 40% of the bunnies delivered better results than the index average, compared to just 29% of actively managed mutual funds in America. Maybe playboy needs to start offering financial advice

You can see the full list here, the winner of the competition, Deanna Brook had an incredible return on investment of 43%

Stress in the workplace leads to penisectemy

This was in the classy free "metro" paper recently

Doctors' unions in Romania have criticised a decision to make a surgeon pay
£100,000 in damages after he lost his temper and hacked off a patient's penis
during surgery. Surgeon Naum Ciomu, who had been suffering from stress at
the time, had been operating on patient Nelu Radonescu, 36, to correct a
testicular malformation when he suddenly lost his temper. Grabbing a scalpel, he sliced off the penis in front of shocked nursing staff, and then placed it on the operating table where he chopped it into small pieces before storming out of the operating theatre at Bucharest hospital.