Fascinating story about high tech car theft of "unstealable" cars.

Then I heard about another possibility. Earl Hyser, the superintendant of State Farm Insurance’s Vehicle Research Facility, told me that some transponder-equipped cars came with a secret “cheat” code designed to allow people who lose their keys to drive back to the shop. I asked the SFPD about it and was referred to Ken Montes, famous in Bay Area street racing circles for a souped-up 1992 Honda Civic he built as part of a tuner team called the Benen Brothers. The SFPD told me the team called the car Spanky, which instantly made me feel a certain kinship.

I went to see Montes at his custom motor-cycle shop about a half hour south of San Francisco and asked him how someone could have stolen my car. He just laughed. “If I want to take your Civic, I’ll do it in 10 seconds,” he said. Then he confirmed Hyser’s story. The mythical Honda override exists: It’s a series of presses and pulls of the emergency brake. Each car, it seems, has a unique override code, which correlates to the VIN.

...

He called an acquaintance who worked at a Honda dealership. I listened, awestruck, as Montes fed the guy a barely credible story about a cousin who had dropped his keys down a sewer. The dealership employee was at home but evidently could access the Honda database online. I gave Honky’s VIN to Montes, who passed it along to his friend. We soon had the prescribed sequence of pulls, which I scribbled down in my notebook.

...


Then I grabbed the emergency brake handle between the front seats and performed the specific series of pumps, interspersed with rotations of the ignition between the On and Start positions. After my second attempt, Honky’s hybrid engine awoke with its customary whisper.

I just love the fact that these four bumper stickers, made by four different liberal asshats, all misspelled "its".

Sort of defeats the whole purpose of calling someone an idiot.

For the record I've ruled out the possibility that these are somehow supposed to be ironic, and therefore secretly conservative. How did I do that, you ask? Easy, the rest of the material filling these fools' stores is all clearly pro-liberal and/or virulently against President Bush.

[I hope there aren't any typographical errors in this post, other than the fact that asshat isn't a real word.]

Why simply saying "FedEx It!" isn't definitive anymore...

Here's a shockingly honest, though unfortunate, tracking result I received using the Post Office's Delivery Confirmation service.

Status: Missent

Your item was misrouted. The error has been corrected and every effort is being made to deliver it as soon as possible. Information, if available, is updated every evening. Please check again later.

Aha! The phone used on Deal Or No Deal!

The Bang & Olufsen Beocom 1.

I never figured it was a real product, it looks like it was designed solely to be a prop on the set.

Funky.

Oops.

The Lego Bandit was sentenced to 13 months in prison as part of a plea bargain on state charges he faced for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Lego toys through a barcode scam.

He still may also face federal charges relating to the interstate nature of his crimes.

He decided to stick with it, however, when Lesowski said he was ready to go to trial, prove Swanberg guilty of everything and ask for three times the 13-month sentence.

"This man needs to go to prison," Lesowski said.

In the meantime, Lesowski [Jeff Lesowski, Washington County senior district attorney.] said, federal authorities are considering indicting Swanberg on charges relating to the resale of the toys that will "make everything we are struggling through today seem like small potatoes."