Odds ‘n’ Ends: Facebook firing, new frog, doomsday haven

Published 10:08 pm Monday, May 17, 2010

Waitress’ Facebook gripe about tip gets her fired

A Charlotte, N.C., waitress is out of a job after griping on her Facebook page about the $5 tip she got from a couple who sat at their table for three hours. The Brixx Pizza waitress said the customers kept her at work an hour after she was supposed to clock out.

So the 22-year-old Ashley Johnson blasted the couple on Facebook, calling them cheap and mentioning the restaurant by name.

Brixx officials told Johnson a couple of days later that she was being fired because she violated a company policy banning workers from speaking disparagingly about customers and casting the restaurant in a bad light on a social network.

Johnson said she has apologized to Brixx and is looking for a new job.

Frog volunteers to be discovered

Finding a new animal species is a special moment for scientists and even better when one hops into their mountain camp.

An international team of researchers was camping in the Foja mountains of Indonesia when herpetologist Paul Oliver spied a frog sitting on a bag of rice in the campsite.

On closer look it turned out to be a previously unknown type of long-nosed frog. The scientists dubbed it Pinocchio.

When the frog is calling, its nose points upward, but it deflates when the animal is less active.

“We were sitting around eating lunch,” recalled Smithsonian ornithologist Chris Milensky. Oliver “looked down and there’s this little frog on a rice sack, and he managed to grab the thing.”

“Herpetologists (experts in snakes, lizards etc.) have good reflexes,” Milensky observed.

The Foja Mountains are in the western side of the island of New Guinea, a part of Indonesia that has been little visited by scientists over the years.

A feature on this expedition appears in the June issue of National Geographic magazine.

Doomsday haven offered in Mojave Desert

A salesman with a doomsday plan is taking money for what he promises will one day be a comfortable, nuke-proof bunker in the Mojave Desert.

Robert Vicino, who runs the Del Mar, Calif.-based company Vivos, is already taking reservations for the bunker in Barstow. He said the 13,000-square-foot underground structure will include an atrium, gym and jail.

Experts say the demand for bunkers is growing because of strong earthquakes, terrorism and predictions that the world will end in 2012 when the ancient Mayan calendar ends.

About $50,000 will get you a spot in Vicino’s facility. He said half the 132 spaces planned in the bunker have been reserved, and he’s still taking deposits of $5,000 for adults and $2,500 for kids. Pets are free.

Associated Press