I'd like to think that we have a pretty good customer service here at Neatorama, so I was shocked - shocked! - to read that Deborah and Wayne are unhappy about a product they bought.

They sent us this email (underlined links are mine, otherwise, it's a copypasta. Yes, I really did get this email)

Neatorama.com
26450 Ruether Ave. #202
Santa Clarita, CA 91350

Regarding order #105174

To Whom It May Concern:

Thank you for the prompt shipment of our order. The giant microbe plush toys far exceeded our wildest expectations. The brain cell is a sensuously soft tactile treat, and the Darwin and Einstein action figures are much as expected. We would not hesitate to recommend the service and products of your site to anyone, save for one glaring exception:

The squirrel underpants leave us beyond disappointed. Upon turning over the package, we discovered, much to our initial confusion (which quickly turned to horror and revulsion) that the garment lacks the requisite squirrel tail hole. What, if not a tail hole would distinguish squirrel underpants from, say, doll underpants or (gasp) guinea pig pants? Neither the packaging, nor indeed the description on your site gave us any indication that these would not be fully functional underwear for intact squirrels. Ninety seven percent of the squirrels on whom we tried these undergarments appeared to agree that they were uncomfortable.

Here on the East Coast, we do not dock the tails of our squirrels. Having spent some time on the west coast, we feel sure that we would have noticed all of the squirrels running about missing their tails, but then again, we lived in Northern California, where the squirrels, like so many of their human counterparts, choose to go au natural. We understand that “tucking” is a common practice in SoCal; Connecticut squirrels, however, rarely dress in full drag on the front lawn. This seems to be a case of Southern California cosmetic surgery run amok, if you and the manufacturer of this item are assuming that all underwear-wearing squirrels are “fixed” in this manner. Perhaps you would consider amending the description to clarify that these squirrel underpants are not suitable for unaltered squirrels.

Fortunately, we know a number of dolls and guinea pigs who would benefit from a sense of modesty, so we will be keeping these so-called squirrel underpants, as it is not worth the cost of postage to return them to you.

Good day, Sir
Deborah and Wayne

Now, I must say that nearly all Southern California squirrels that I'm familiar with do appear to have some sort of cosmetic enhancement (after all, we're no that far from Hollywood ...)

I'm sure you all agree that this letter needs answerin' and pronto. So, to tap the wisdom of the Web, let me turn this over to you, dear Neatoramanauts. What would be your response to Deborah and Wayne and their Connecticut squirrels if you were to write a reply?

Let's make this a bit more interesting: the best one gets a free novelty ice tray of their choice (and for good measure, we'll send the same one to Deb & Wayne for being very cool about the whole underpants business)

Hello Neatoramanauts! It's been a while since our last Neatorama State of the Blog post, so I'd like to take a minute to update everyone.

Mystery Sale - July 2009
Thank you to everybody who participated! We truly appreciate your business and support. It took us a few days longer than I had initially expected to gear up to ship out orders, but the warehouse has started to ship out - we shipped the first batch two days ago and it'll probably take us another full week or so to complete every order.

Usually, we ship out your NeatoShop order within 1 business day or so, but the volume of shipment for the Mystery Sale is (like last time) extraordinarily high. We're working hard to continually improve this process and thank everybody for being patient :)

If you ordered from outside of the United States, please be extra patient - shipments can take up to 14 to 21 business days due to customs clearance (those guys can really take their time though they're usually much, much quicker). I'll do another round of update when we've finished shipping out.

Twitter Only Contest
We're going to post a Twitter-only contest where you can win cool stuff from the NeatoShop soon. It won't be announced on the blog, so you have to follow @neatorama on Twitter (we won't overload you with tweets, I promise!) to find out. Perhaps if it's a success, we can do the same thing on Neatorama's Facebook Fan Page ... what do you think?

Upcoming Queue Top Submitter Prize
Love it or not, I think the Upcoming Queue is one of the neatest feature of Neatorama. For those of you who are not familiar with the UQ, it is a way for the blog's readers to write a blog post. Submissions are voted up or down by other viewers and good posts are promoted to Neatorama's front page (details at the Upcoming Queue FAQ).

For the coming month of August, we're going to have a neat prize for the top 5 submitters: the number 1 submitter (based on frontpaged posts) will get an iPod Nano, whereas the rest will get some extra neat stuff from the NeatoShop.

Remember that quality, not quantity of submissions will be the key - please read the Formatting Tip first.

Neat Stories You May Have Missed
We posted a lot of neat stories on Neatorama in July, so be sure to check these out (in case you missed them):

Thank you for reading Neatorama! Please tell your friends about the blog!

AskMen has just released the results of their second annual Great Male Survey, involving more than 50,000 of their readers worldwide, to find out what the modern man is thinking about.

As with their first survey last year, some results are interesting and some are quite unexpected. For instance, here are the top 100 most interesting answers:

10. 38% - Own more than seven pairs of shoes
9. 78% - Require more than $1 million to retire comfortably
8. 77% - Think moral standards in business are on the decline
7. 84% - Think it's important that a girlfriend have "wife potential"
6. 83% - Are actively environmentally friendly
5. 48% - Would dump a girlfriend if she became fat
4. 78% - Exaggerate in the sex stories they tell to friends
3. 36% - Are scared of terrorists
2. 83% - Surf the web on their phone
1. 91% - Believe in marriage

Check out the full survey result here: Link - Thanks Daniel!

This week's collaboration with the always awesome What Is It? Blog brings us this strange object - can you guess what it is for? Place your guess in the comment section - no prize this week, so you're playing for the fun of it.

For more clues, check out the What is it? Blog - Good luck!

Psst - there's a verbal virus that's been going around for years and you've probably been infected. But don't worry, it may be annoying but it's absolutely benign:

Jeff Benanto, a manager at a marketing company in Boston, Massachusetts, says he didn't even know he was overusing the word until he was teased by his sister and brother-in-law.

He says it finally hit him when he was recently having dinner with his family. Someone asked him if he wanted stuffing with his turkey.

"Absolutely."

Benanto says he and others are using the word so much because it's reassuring. He says people don't know if their 401(k) will be secure; their children's toys free of lead or if their favorite public figure is going to be exposed as a hypocrite.

But using absolutely makes one feel as if there is something someone can count on, even if one has doubts, he says.

"There's a certainty in absolutely," Benanto says. "Even if you don't absolutely mean it, you need to express it and feel it like you mean it."

Link

Found in Japan: a dog with real eyebrows. Meet "Panda," a dog born with black spots around his eyes. As he grew older, the spots moved up to be like eyebrows.

BuzzFeed has got the video clip (I bet Martin Scorsese is checking his brows right now to see if they're still there ...)

Link [embedded Liveleak video clip]

Earlier this year, photographers Eamon Lane and Carlo Nicora spent one weekend to photograph one thousand people (Flickr) on the streets of London. They asked the same question more than 1,500 times and succeeded in capturing an image an average of every 40 seconds.

Now, Gerard Franquesa and Sergi López Graells took the idea to Barcelona (Flickr, first image NSFW in a WTF kind of way, though - you've been warned) in hope that the idea will then spread to other cities around the world).

It's kind of like people watching from the comfort of your own home: Link - Thanks Gerard!

Woot! (literally) Our pal Adam "Ape Lad" Koford is curating this week's excellent T-shirt selection over at Shirt.Woot to help celebrate the second anniversary of the site's launch.

Along Adam himself, Shirt.Woot will feature three exceptionally talented artists: Mark Frauenfelder of Boing Boing and MAKE Magazine, R. Stevens, creator of the Diesel Sweeties webcomic, and Mitch "Spacesick" Ansara (of the "I Can Read Movies" series fame).

The first T-shirt is The Evil That Men Do Except Instead Of Men It’s A Kite, by Adam Koford:

Check it out here: Link - Thanks Adam, and good luck!

Predicting the economy is a lot like reading tea leaves - but a lot less certain. Indeed, economist Edgar Fiedler famously said "Ask five economists and you'll get five different answers - six if one went to Harvard."

Still, the economists at the ECRI (Economic Cycles Research Institute) are darn smart and have a pretty good track record, so perhaps there's truly something to their latest prediction: the economy is turning around and the recession will soon be over.

NPR's All Things Considered has the scoop:

"The reason we're so convinced — and we are quite convinced — that the recession is drawing to a close is because of leading indicators," Lakshman Achuthan, managing director at the institute, tells NPR's Guy Raz.

The ECRI categorizes indicators, like unemployment rates and productivity, as leading, lagging or coinciding with the business cycle. A lagging indicator would be the unemployment rate. Leading indicators include "drivers of the economy," such as housing activity, productivity, money growth and credit.

Different sequences of indicators point to different types of events. Achuthan says the ECRI sees a robust sequence of events that happen at the beginning and end of recessions, and indicators are showing it is likely that there will be a recovery soon.

"The key is that there is no one piece that we're hanging our hat on. It is a pervasive upturn in these leading indicators, and that is the hallmark of something that is going to persist for a few quarters, a year at least," Achuthan says. "And it is going to be pronounced."

Achuthan says that when you add up all the indicators without bias into a leading index, the picture becomes clear: These indexes are shooting up. And that says a lot. In the time that these indicators have been in existence, they have not made a mistake on a recession or a recovery poll, he says.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106750467

What do you think? Will the economy recover soon or are you pessimistic?

Remember the dealership that gave away handguns if you buy their car last year? Well, they've upped their firepower: Max Motors in Butler, Missouri, is now giving away an AK-47 (technically, a voucher redeemable for one) when you buy a pick-up truck!

Mark Muller, owner of Max Motors, is upgrading an earlier sales gimmick in which he offered new truck buyers to choose between a $250 gas voucher or a gun voucher. The website says the dealer is giving away guns again "due to popular demand."

"Muller calls the initial deal an overwhelming success," Business Insider reports. "He also says it generates a lot of publicity and really angers 'liberals.'"

Link | Max Motors' website

Sure, teenagers everywhere try to sneak in a beer or two. It's practically a rite of passage, but the city of Milan, Italy is cracking down on teenage drinking because they have a bad problem of underage drinking.

How bad? Let's put it this way: a third of 11-year-olds in the city have alcohol-related problems!

... the authorities are deeply concerned about the increase in consumption of alcohol by children as young as 11 in the country's industrial and financial capital.

So as an experiment, supplying alcohol - either wine or spirits - to youths under the age of 16 in bars, restaurants, pizza shops and liquor stores will be banned. [...]

Some people are pessimistic that the city-wide ban will ever work:

A national law banning the sale of alcohol to under-16s is only loosely enforced, as Italian families are used to sometimes giving young children a teaspoon of wine as a family party treat.

In past centuries, Italian children would sometimes even be given wine to drink in preference to water which was often polluted.

Link

Chimps may be portrayed as mischieviously fun but largely harmless by Hollywood, but the truth is anything but. In the wild, chimpanzees are killers that engage in years-long war against one another, and their behavior may explain man's propensity for violence:

It was a four-year "war" witnessed by Dr Jane Goodall, and Dr Muller's PhD supervisor, Richard Wrangham, a professor of primatology from Harvard University, Boston, that put an end to our cosy ideas.

In the Seventies, Prof Wrangham and Dr Goodall watched a group of chimpanzees split into two factions. One group killed every male and some of the females in the other group. The victims had recently been their companions.

Although Dr Goodall was the first to suggest it, Prof Wrangham went on to develop a theory that would explain human violence based on the aggression he had witnessed. As he points out, we are hardly a peaceful species. In Britain, men are 24 times more likely to kill or assault another person, and 263 times more likely to commit a sexual offence than a woman.

Prof Wrangham's theory is called the Demonic Male Hypothesis. He argues that human males and chimps share a tendency to be aggressive with our closest common ancestor. Chimpanzees and humans have many attributes in common: we share approximately 98.5 per cent of our DNA, we both hunt and males show a strong desire to form alliances against other males while jockeying for status. Male chimpanzees are hostile towards other groups of chimps; you don't even have to go to Arsenal to know that men are not dissimilar.

Link

Polish Czech artist EPOS257 created this street art exhibition in Prague featuring the Orghoi khorkhoi, or the Mongolian Death Worm.

For those of you who are blessedly unaware, the Mongolian death worm is the fiercest creature ever to come out of the Gobi Desert. And just how fierce is the worm? Well, let's put it like this: it kills by spewing forth sulfuric acid and discharging electricity. (Graboids, anyone?)

Link - via Wooster Collective

Ukrainian artist Yurko Gutsulyak has created what is probably the perfect calendar for pyromaniacs: the "days" made of individual matches that you can tear off and set alight.

Link - via Typography Served

In this art installation aptly titled Bedroom, Israeli artist Nelly Agassi turned the entire room into a giant bed! Perfect for your next slumber party where you can invite oh, your 100 closest friends or so: Link