One of the inspirations for One Foot Tsunami is the late/possibly-just-on-an-extremely-extended-hiatus Minor Tweaks. On the site, Tom Bartlett had a running feature wherein he’d peruse and respond to search terms which had led readers to his site. Like the idea of Reviewbombs before it, I’m borrowing this concept from Tom and hopefully making it enough my own to avoid being reviled and/or sued.

So, without further ado, random searches which have led folks to this very site:

‘disgusting tweets’
Finally, proof that this site’s running feature Barvd is providing a useful service!

‘good pin numbers’
Apparently, people really are looking for help on selecting a PIN. Another search which led someone to this helpful guide? ‘ATM PIN 80085’.

‘subconscious files’
This term links to the first post about Lindsay Lohan ever published on One Foot Tsunami. In that post, the word ‘subconscious’ was used as a noun, but this is more fun if you read ‘subconscious’ as an adjective. ‘Subconscious files’ – what the hell are those?

‘major league eating 2010 rookie of the year’
It’s more than a little embarrassing that this post is proving educational for the folks searching for this term.

‘kansas city royals pronunciation guide’
The aforementioned embarrassment is more than offset, however, by the fact that somewhere there is a person insisting to his friends that David DeJesus’ last name is pronounced “Duh-Jeez-Us”. You’re welcome, friends of that idiot!

As excellent as that is, an even greater accomplishment was revealed while perusing search results. Thanks to a much more famous Lohan-based post, when folks search Google for ‘Fudgie the Whale’, One Foot Tsunami is now on the very first page! It seems my childhood ice-cream-cake-mascot-related dreams are finally coming true.

Look, I don’t want to feed this stupidity. I previously mentioned my disdain for celebrity “news”. But too many people shared recent awful news of Lindsay Lohan to ignore it. I’ll try to cover these two items quickly.

First up, Lohan was in court on Tuesday for a probation hearing. She’d been given three years of probation for multiple DUIs back in 2007, and was facing jail time. Surely the young Ms. Lohan realized the gravity of the situation, and showed deep respect for the court?

Ah, yes. Classy.

For the second item, a quick timeline of Lohan’s legal woes may be informative. Lohan was busted on a DUI in 2007 and caught in possession of cocaine. Two months later, she was again charged with driving under the influence, as well as driving with a suspended license, and possession of a controlled substance. A subsequent plea deal near the end of 2007 had her spending one day in jail¹, performing 10 days of community service and required her to complete an 18-month drug-treatment program. She was also placed on 36 months’ probation.

At Tuesday’s hearing, after violating her probation and missing 9 of 27 required drug-treatment classes (citing a litany of excuses, including the death of an uncle whose funeral she didn’t attend), Lohan received 90 days in jail.

So, after all this, what did the ridiculous Dina Lohan have to say?

“This is so not fair to do this to my child.”

Riiiiiiight.

Footnotes:

1. Apparently, she ultimately spent an entire 84 minutes in jail. ↩︎

Real journalism from a site called One Foot Tsunami? While researching last week’s Don’t Eff with Fudgie the Whale feature, I noticed a slight discrepancy. This is the card shown on Carvel’s response to the incident:

The fine print on this sample card indicates simply that the card must be presented when a purchase is being made. The full fine print reads:

The card must be presented at the time of purchase. Cardholder may receive up to $25 in ice cream products per week. No substitutions. Lost, misplaced or stolen cards are not replaceable. No cash value. http://www.carvel.com

However, Carvel’s page also shows a second image with different fine print:

[Click to enlarge]

That fine print reads:

Personal appearance of named cardholder required at time of purchase. Cardholder may receive up to $25 in ice cream products per week. No substitutions. Lost, misplaced or stolen cards are not replaceable. No cash value. http://www.carvel.com

This second set of fine print is far more damning, as it would require Lindsay or Ali Lohan to be present for all purchases. This makes perfect sense, given the nature of Carvel’s marketing plan. Having celebrities in the stores is useful. Giving away ice cream to the awful and unfamous relatives of celebrities is not. But which fine print was on the Lohans’ card?

To find out, I got in touch with Ashley Swann, PR-Communications Manager for Focus Brands (parent company of Carvel), who authored their response. Here’s what she had to say:

We didn’t want to bring any specific celebrity into this story by posting one of the actual cards, but the fine print [the second set] you see on the site is what appears on those cards. The photo you see of the “Carvel Lover” card is a generic card that’s a little different.

In addition to the fine print that details the restrictions & specifies that the celebrity must be present, the Lohans were also verbally informed of this on numerous occasions when we did honor their card.

We never planned for this to be such a media storm. Our Franchise Partners simply couldn’t have been expected to provide free ice cream to someone who was clearly breaking the rules.

So there it is – the fine print on the cards clearly tells the owner that their presence is required to obtain free treats. Even if it hadn’t, the Lohans were informed of this multiple times, and Carvel is free to do what they like with their promotion. But next time, someone at Carvel might want to spend 5 minutes in Photoshop. They’d avoid any confusion, and also demonstrate what miserable bums the other side are.