The stories about people who make money from others’ garbage never get old. Take this one from today’s New York Times:

Litter speaks to Mr. Goodwin, 37, a studiously disheveled art school dropout, and, to his patrons, apparently, who drop their quarters into a couple of gumball machines around town that dispense plastic capsules containing pieces of trash personally selected by the artist.

…

Success has not changed Mr. Goodwin. Though he has recently announced on his blog that he will ship internationally, he is not raising his price of 25 cents a Trashball. (He pays about 4 cents each for the capsules.) Nor does he plan to quit his day job as a truck driver for a junk hauler.

Head over to Goodwin’s blog for pull tabs, random photos, and other interesting junk.

We saw the NYC Condom campaign and thought it’d be worth a post. It’s edgy, speaks to a target audience, builds upon a widely known brand (NYC subway), and isn’t offensive to non-targets.

We’re just jealous because one of us proposed the double-entendre slogan “Get some” for a student organization back in college.

Check out the site when you get a sec. And, if you’re in Manhattan and need some free rubbers, well now you know where to go.

NYC Dept. of Health gets an A in health class this semester. Nice work.

Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

We just had to repost this:

The sailors were brought to the palace to meet with the Iranian president before being released. The sailors were given suits but no ties, because ties are considered a Western extravagance. You know, as opposed to living in a palace.

The big story, Iranian President Mahmoud … has released those 15 British captive soldiers. He released them after they were held hostage for 13 days. Or, as we call that in this country: JetBlue.

From Jay Leno, NYT.

If you have a young one, or otherwise have had to endure the awkward silence of Dora, then you need to check out this spoof that aired recently on SNL.

If nothing else, it’s a Monday reminder that it’s okay to poke fun at yourself – it may even help strengthen your brand image with fringe publics.

“Instead of working solely in Wal-Mart’s interest,” the company said, Ms. Roehm “frequently put her own first. She did not merely fail to avoid conflicts of interest, she invited them.”

Wal-Mart backed up its assertions with what it said were e-mail messages sent by Ms. Roehm and Mr. Womack, both married, from their work and private accounts.

“I hate not being able to call you or write you,” Ms. Roehm wrote early last fall, according to an e-mail message Mr. Womack’s wife provided to Wal-Mart. “I think about us together all the time. Little moments like watching your face when you kiss me.”

Hey now! Someone didn’t pass the HR exam on the way in.

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled postings…

Via NYT.

CBS has stepped up to the foul line just in time with a handy widget that you add to your own blog.

Via Widgify.

Earlier in the week we were baffled by a NASA astronaut who, besides going crazy stalker killer on a colleague, wore an adult diaper to make the most of the long drive from Texas to Florida. Our favorite headline comes from TIME: “Houston, She’s Got Problems.” The funny thing is that diapers and astronauts make sense on those long gravityless trips around that pretty blue marble we call home – making this whole thing, well, even more interesting.

Then yesterday we heard about the odd news about Anna Nicole Smith’s death at a casino hotel in Florida. The news spread like wildfire and the cameras came out in throngs. Check out this Reuters photo that’s on today’s NYT:

Marc Serota/Reuters

Then there’s upstate New York that’s simply getting pounded by lake effect snow. Check out this shot:

This week’s round-up stands out in a cloud of political silliness, depressing news from Iraq, and the never ending tales of corporate mishandlings.

For once, we can almost say we don’t want the week to be over!

Something like this:

Via Micro Persuasion.