If anybody else is wondering why Town Hall Station was evacuated this morning, it appears there was a small fire.

Here’s your True Crime story for the day: Some guy has been posting questions to AskMetaFilter for a while now asking about possible recourses to getting screwed on eBay auctions. He bought a laptop; he received a box of sand; will the seller get off scot-free? That kind of thing. His latest question was about a seller who took the payment and then claimed the laptop was stolen out of his car. Somebody in the thread finally put two and two together and looked up this guy’s eBay history… and he hasn’t bought any laptops. In fact, he appears to be running a large number of auction scams and has actually been selling laptops. That’s right; he was using AskMeFi to see if there were any flaws in his brilliant scamming technique. Of course, the first problem was that he used the same login name on both sites. And then there’s the fact that his profile also included a link to his myspace page with pictures of himself and his family, and from there people were able to Google up a whole heap of information. One of the laptop buyers discovered the discussion and joined in with the information that he had. Now the cops are involved. It’s fascinating reading in a real-time CSI kinda way…

And just to round out this triumvirate of suck postings, I officially stayed pretty much the same weight for the third weigh-in in a row. EIGHTY-FIVE KILOS IS MY EVEREST. My beautiful red Crocs are up on a shelf. I’ll be lucky if I get to wear them by the time Rent comes out!

Sonofa– I just discovered that I’m going to have to wait til friggin’ MARCH for Rent to premiere in Australia. That’s three months away! The damn Region 1 DVD will probably be out by then! This sucks. And Ebert only gave it 2.5 stars. I can see his complaints, though a lot of them sound like issues he has with the opera as well.

With twelve hours to go to Thanksgiving,* I have just discovered that I am in the Land of No Pork and Beans. Seriously. Canned pork and beans just doesn’t exist in Australia. How am I supposed to make Aunt Deb’s Crockpot Baked Beans without pork and beans?

* Okay, we’re not eating til Saturday, but I thought the anecdote needed some sense of urgency.

The Snook spent, like, twenty minutes the other day telling me about these amazing colored bubbles but I admit I just didn’t really see the point. Reading the article now though, I’m BLOWN AWAY. Those are so cool!

Huzzah! After twelve long years in the wilderness, the Purple Weasels of PW have finally brought home the Interhall Football Championship once more. Awesome work, ladies! I still remember how crushing it was that my class didn’t get to play in the stadium, and I’ve still got my purple jersey – #11, “Howie” – in the bottom drawer of the dresser. Maybe I’ll bust that sucker out this weekend and have some turducken in your honor. (Link courtesy of Brigita, who actually played on the previous PW winning team and whose legacy we strived unsuccessfully to live up to…)

During one of our recent (but increasingly rare) forays into the world of live television watching, I noticed ads proclaiming that Veronica Mars is soon to premiere on Australian TV. I don’t know much about it other than the folks at TWoP seem to think it’s pretty great. Any of you folks watching it? Should we set the TiFaux?

At long last, it’s the news you’ve all been waiting for: I’ve added Feathers to the TC website. I know you’re thrilled. Don’t everybody thank me at once.