• I’m a Marine and I’m not going to run from a fight. You wouldn’t want a Marine to run from a fight. Call me crazy, call me stupid. I got shot once and it just angered me more. I wanted to get this guy. I got shot twice, and I re-evaluated that decision. I decided I need to stay alive.
• Florida-based Marine vet Lt. Col Karl Trenker • Discussing how he got shot, days before Christmas, in a Craigslist-transaction-gone-bad. The Iraq and Afghanistan vet’s fiance tried selling a man’s gold-chain necklace, but Trenker offered to make the transaction due to safety concerns, which turned out to be correct, as the alleged buyer picked up the necklace and ran. Trenker ran after the man, known only as “Galven,” only to get shot twice. Here’s the dramatic part: Following his training as a Marine (29 years experience), he plugged the bullet holes with his fingers, a move which likely saved his life. Say what you will about the Craigslist transaction (it certainly wasn’t the best idea), but that’s pretty amazing, no matter how you look at the situation. source

• A few weeks old, but too good not to post: What happens when you get a new cell phone previously owned by a well-connected Hollywood actor? That’s what happened to a middle-aged dude named Bob Gray (center), who moved to California and got a new cell phone with his girlfriend Liza Foster (right). It was obvious that someone famous owned the number before him — because he kept getting invited to parties, including Paris Hilton’s birthday party. In a fitting end to this Happy Madison-like tale, Adam Sandler himself called the number and told Gray he inherited the cell phone number of Nick Swardson, a regular in Sandler’s movies who most recently starred in “Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star.” (Too bad it wasn’t like Sean Penn, but not bad either way.) Gray plans to write a screenplay about this, because … um, wouldn’t you? source

• But seriously, this is awesome: Jony Ive, the industrial design icon who became Steve Jobs’ right-hand man during his second run at Apple, will honored as a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE) next year. Jobs, who called Ive his “spiritual partner” in the biography released weeks after his death, enabled Ive to help create radical, minimalistic designs that have defined the company since the release of the original iMac. It’s not his first honor from the British government — in 2005, he was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE). This is an upgrade for the design icon — the equivalent of moving from a Mac Mini to a Mac Pro. source

• what Toy company Build-A-Bear has recalled over 300,000 bears that were sold between April and December. So, if you gave or received a “Colorful Hearts Teddy Bear” this year, you should consider returning it.
• why The eyes of the bear were poorly secured, creating a choking hazard for children; the bears went through a security and safety screening which deemed the fabric around the eyes as “substandard.” Beware of bear, folks. source

• Aren’t jokes supposed to be funny? Mitt Romney’s son Matt was on the campaign trail for his dad the other day when he made an Obama birth certificate joke, in reference to Mitt’s own tax return issues. The joke, and we quote: “I heard someone suggest the other day that as soon as President Obama releases his grades and birth certificate …then maybe he’ll do it.” This was so toxic that Matt joined Twitter just to apologize for the joke:

I repeated a dumb joke. My bad. RT @emilyrs Romney’s son Matt made an Obama birth certificate joke on the trail in NH

— Matt Romney(@Matt_Romney) December 30, 2011

• » Worst reason to join Twitter ever? Perhaps. Most people quit Twitter over saying something stupid. source

• For some Paul is seen as a homophobe and a racist. So for her fans, that may be sending them a message that she concurs with his homophobic and racist ideals. This is a problem since she does have a wide variety of die hard fans which include gays and a wide range of ethnicities who are offended by her endorsement.
• Cooper Lawrence, author of the book “Cult of Celebrity” • Discussing why Kelly Clarkson’s endorsement of Ron Paul struck such a raw nerve with many of her fans yesterday. Part of it, perhaps, was the timing of Clarkson’s endorsement — Paul’s long-dormant newsletters, racially-tinged tomes which he’s long claimed he didn’t write but has never fully resolved honestly and openly, resurfaced just a week ago. (The Economist has a smartly-written piece on Paul that’s worth considering for these sentences: “In the end, Mr Paul’s obsession with the Fed is an anti-government conspiracy theory. And in America, anti-government conspiracy theories attract a lot of wingnuts, some of whom have never read Hayek or von Mises.”) For us, though, the real question is whether this whole affair will cause a big enough decline in Clarkson’s career to force a movie sequel: “From Kelly Back To Justin Again”? Justin Guarini’s floppy, Muppet-like hair is waiting for your call, Kelly.  source

• 4 million Kindles sold in December … well, at least we think so source

• » It’s an estimate based off of Amazon’s evasiveness. They said that customers “purchased well over 1 million Kindle devices per week” in the month of December. Sales of Kindle e-books were up 175% from last year’s period between Black Friday and Christmas; so while Amazon may not give us clear numbers, the company seems to be doing well in the fields it created.

• A tough teen with a gripping story: Ben Breedlove, a high schooler with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (and a YouTube personality known for offering dating advice to others), passed away from a heart attack on Christmas Day. It was only afterward that his parents discovered these two videos from Ben in which he told stories of coping with his disease, including three near-death experiences. In his third one, above, he describes an experience, while being revived by EMS paramedics, where he was with his favorite rapper, Kid Cudi. After watching Ben’s videos and hearing about his death, the artist wrote a message about Ben on his blog. Ben’s mother said that the videos were a “gift to us, and for him to be so confident and unafraid of death and to share it with other people was so touching.” source

• $2 fee to pay your bill online, as planned by Verizon Wireless source

• » Nickel and diming, redux: To be clear, this fee wouldn’t be instituted in every case — people using automatic bill-pay wouldn’t be subject to it, nor would people paying by electronic check (at least according to the initial source of this news, a leaked memo obtained by Engadget). That said, if you’re looking to make a one-off payment, or aren’t scheduled for automatic payments, you can expect  a tidy little $2 charge starting January 15th. What reaction consumers will have is yet unclear; it has, however, been a bad year for companies trying to slip extra fees onto customers.