Camera Phone - Shown!

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A Bunny Latte @ The Rabbit Hole (NYC)

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House Of Desire Discount

Part of Berlin's red-light scene is going green. One bordello, hoping to stave off falling demand in the economic crisis, has begun offering discounts to customers who pedal bicycles to the door.

"It's very difficult to find parking around here, and this option is better for our environment," said Thomas Goetz, who owns the brothel Maison d'Envie, or House of Desire.

The bordellos in the capital of Germany, where prostitution is legal, have seen business suffer with the global financial crisis. Patrons have become more frugal, and there are fewer potential customers coming to the city for business trips and conferences.

But Maison d'Envie has seen its business begin to return since it began offering the $7.50 discount in July, Goetz said.

To qualify, customers must show the receptionist either a bicycle padlock key or proof they used public transit to get to the neighborhood.

Those who arrive on foot, however, are out of luck. "We haven't found a way for people to prove they have walked here," Goetz explained.

Other brothels have tried different incentives to cope with the economic downturn. One Berlin bordello offered a flat-rate for an unlimited time before officials' concerns over prostitutes' rights and cleanliness in the club forced them to rescind the offer.

Real Or Fake???

(...or both?)

The Kids Got The Swine!

New Jersey!

Free Coat Riot

A woman being driven around in a rented limousine pulled up at a coat store and announced she'd won the lottery and would pay for everyone's purchases, police said, but she ended up causing a riot when customers realized it was a hoax.

Angry customers threw merchandise around and looted, leaving the store looking as though a hurricane had passed through it, police said.

Linda Brown was arrested Tuesday after an hours-long shopping spree that began when she hired a stretch Hummer limousine to drop her off at a Burlington Coat Factory store, police Sgt. Lt. Michael Deakins said. Brown walked to a cash register and loudly announced she had won the lottery and would pay for each person's merchandise up to $500, he said.

People flooded the registers as cashiers began ringing up purchase after purchase, but Brown had not yet paid the bill, Deakins said. At least 500 people filled the aisles and another 1,000 were outside trying to get in, he said.

"She was telling people she won $1.5 million," Deakins said. "But it ends up she didn't win anything. She had no money to pay for anything."

About an hour later, Brown had the limousine driver take her to a bank to withdraw money, but she returned empty-handed, police Detective Steven Nace said. By then, store employees had called in two dozen police officers to handle the crowds.

By the time employees realized Brown didn't have any cash to pay, police said, she already had taken off in the limo.

That's when angry customers, realizing they weren't getting free coats, began throwing merchandise on the floor and grabbing clothes without paying for them, Nace said.

When the limousine driver realized he wasn't going to be paid the $900 Brown owed him for the day's rental, he turned her in to police, Deakins said.

Brown, 44, was arrested on three outstanding warrants for aggravated menacing, misuse of a 911 system and causing false alarms. She was jailed late Wednesday, but no charges had been filed against her related to the coat store chaos pending a mental health evaluation.

Tie Game

An Illinois bus driver thought he was doing the right thing by wearing a pink tie to help raise breast cancer awareness — until his employer slapped him with a one-day unpaid suspension for the wardrobe choice.

William Jones, 46, bus driver for the Springfield Mass Transit District in Springfield, Ill., says he was told he must take a day without pay for violating the district's dress code.

He told the newspaper that he wore the pink tie to honor his relatives who have battled cancer, including his grandmother and his sister, and didn't think it would be a problem, given that his pink tie coincided with the first Friday of October, which is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

His employer declined to comment on the specific personnel matter, though Linda Tisdale, the SMTD’s managing director, told the Journal Register that employees are given a standard uniform, which includes neckties.

“Any time there is a deviation from the uniform, the employee must ask in advance,” she told the newspaper.

Even so, since Jones' suspension the transit district has agreed that agreeing that employees can wear pink on Fridays in recognition of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October.

Dance With The Devil

A German artist is posing 1,250 garden gnomes with their arms outstretched in the stiff-armed Hitler salute in an installation that he calls a protest of lingering fascist tendencies in German society.

Artist Ottmar Hoerl posed the gnomes in the historic central marketplace of Straubing, a town in southeastern Germany, on Wednesday. The exhibit called "dance with the devil" is to run through Oct. 19.

Most of gnomes are black plastic, but about 20 are painted shiny gold.

Displaying Nazi symbols is illegal in Germany but a court ruled earlier this year that Hoerl's gnomes were clearly satire and thus allowed.

Hoerl says: "the fascist idea, the striving to manipulate people or dictate to people ... is latently dangerous and remains present in our society."

Amp Up Before You Score

Energy drinks are meant to be edgy and cool, and drunk by young men. So PepsiCo Inc. decided to release an Apple iPhone application for its Amp Energy drink to appeal to guys out on the prowl.

Now the snack and beverage giant is facing a storm of criticism for "Amp Up Before You Score."

The app, released last Friday, purports to help men pick up any one of 24 types of women, such as the "sorority girl," "cougar," "rebound girl" or "punk rock girl." Users can choose the type of woman they have their eye on, then get coached on facts that might be useful, such as computing a carbon footprint to impress "the treehugger."

Suggested pick-up lines can be risqué. To pick up "the artist," the app recommends the following line: "You know the Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. I wonder what else she shaves."

The app then takes the coaching a step further, encouraging users who "score" to post details such as name, date and comments, for their pals via Facebook and Twitter.

PepsiCo apologized in a Twitter feed, saying, "Our app tried 2 show the humorous lengths guys go 2 pick up women. We apologize if it's in bad taste & appreciate your feedback."

Local News!

A Belle Vernon teen was stabbed with a sword by his father during a fight yesterday that led to both of them being arrested, police said.

Ronald Cinkan Sr., 48, is free on $5,000 bond, pending a preliminary hearing Friday before District Judge Jesse Cramer.

He is charged with aggravated assault, simple assault and harassment in connection with the domestic dispute around 4:15 p.m. at their Belle Vernon residence.

Mr. Cinkan's 17-year-old son was treated at a hospital for "a moon-shaped scratch on his rear end," and he was released. According to a police affidavit, Mr. Cinkan had been using a vacuum cleaner in their living room where his son on a loveseat.

The vacuum cleaner bumped into the younger Cinkan's foot, prompting him to shove his father.

Mr. Cinkan retrieved a sword from behind a curio cabinet and stabbed his son on the right side of the buttocks. The boy retaliated by punching his father about the head and face, police said.

Officer Smith said in the affidavit that Mr. Cinkan had briefly left the residence before police arrived. In his absence, the son bent the sword in half. The weapon was seized by police.

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The Belle Vernon Volunteer Fire Department and the Southwest Regional Police were called to the 100 block of Main Street for a vehicle fire early Wednesday morning.

As they were en route, firefighters Joel Davis and Brent Crarry saw the van traveling along Main Street while ablaze.

Davis was able to get the attention of Carl Miller Jr., the driver, near the Route 70 ramps where the vehicle stopped underneath an overpass.

As firefighters attended to the blaze, police arrested Miller for drunken driving. He was transported to the Mon-Valley Hospital for a legal blood draw and for treatment due to the vehicle fire.