McDonald's has pulled all tomatoes out of its stores because of a DEADLY POISON salmonella scare! Winn-Dixie, Ralphs, Vons, and Albertsons supermarkets are pulling some tomatoes from their shelves! Taco Bell, Chipotle, and (a tipster says) Subway: pulling tomatoes! For your safety. Again: THE RAW RED TOMATOES IN YOUR REFRIGERATOR MAY HARBOR DEADLY MICROBES PREPARED TO ROT YOU FROM THE INSIDE. In a servicey attempt to keep all of you in good health, we are pasting this weekend's FDA warning after the jump:

We told you before how to make your pecs look ripped before getting all up in the club: rub yourself down with Preparation H! (It's the gayest thing we've seen straight men doing in a long time.) Today, a dermatologist and Rob the Bouncer discuss with Mike & Juliet this disturbing trend—and the potential side effects of the hemorrhoid cream's off-label use.

Think of all the tasty treats of your childhood that you can't find any more—what mighty act of will would it take to bring them back into existence? "1,300 phone inquiries, an online petition with more than 1,000 signatures and Internet chat sites lamenting the demise of the snack." That's all it took for Kellogg to resurrect the odd Oreo ripoff cookies called Hydrox, which were discontinued in 2003 after nearly 100 years. Turns out some people really like their Hydrox! The product always seemed like an inferior, superfluous, knockoff cookie with a terrible name. Which it is! But that has proven to work in its favor from a marketing perspective, because, it seems, "Its fans came to see their sandwich-cookie choice as a call to arms for nonconformists." Sad—but effective. Unfortunately, its kitsch value is the only thing Hydrox really has going for it:

Soon America's most bright-eyed graduates will enter the workforce and make their workaday homes in cubes at Google, MySpace, or Amazon.com. And they will suffer not just the indignity of having to work for a living, but also the dispiriting realization that a job at a cool company isn't always that hot. These employers, and the others hiring for tech's 10 worst entry-level jobs, listed below, will look spiffy on a resume someday, but for now the only good these jobs promise the world is the pleasant feeling you and I can share knowing we're not the ones stuck in them.

Former Gawker Joshua "Joshy" Stein, ever-enamored of his new 'hood of Williamsburg, points out that a new Netflix feature allows people to see what films others in their zip code are renting. For 11211, he's found that the top five movies are La Jetée, The Holy Mountain, Blow Up, Do The Right Thing, and Solaris. (As Stein puts it, "Despair, pretension, easy sex, pop music, violence, hate, photography, isolation, trouble.") We put this search function to the test. What are they watching in Bridgeport, Connecticut? San Francisco? Do they conform to regional stereotypes?

My friends are blogging about this viral video of guys doing backflips into their jeans. So neat! So shareable! So worth the million views the three-day-old clip already earned! But I could tell instantly (and I have no idea why no one else did) that this was a stealth ad — because it's a direct copy of a stealth ad that got over 3 million views last year.

The employee at Ping Pong Music who had his drivers' license inadvertently published by Facebook for all the world to see tells us he's discovered at least two more licenses exposed by the site. He found one on the Facebook page for music group Switchfoot and the other on the page for Ben Kweller. Facebook allows musicians and their labels to promote music through official Musician Pages, but before allowing them to upload music, Facebook requires the page administrators to submit identification in case of copyright .The Ping Pong Music employee tells us he's tried to contact Facebook about the problem — sending four emails and calling four times — but all he's gotten in response so far is the following brushoff via email:

It's bottled water—for kids! Fortified with vitamins, minerals, and especially good old H2O. Finally, no more arguing with your kids to hush up and drink their Evian. Yves Behar has designed this "Y Water," featuring bottles that are also toys. And Kanye West loves it! I think I heard of this "bottled water that kids love" idea back when it was called "Capri Sun." Anyhow, I'm sure this product is both necessary, and a great value. Not to mention the obvious benefits for the plastics industry. Two fun-loving pics of children enjoying this capitalist monstrosity, after the jump.

Are you the type of consumer who's always been interested in trying that "Starbucks" that you've heard so much about, but are intimidated by its mysterious ways? In other words, are you a half-bright mole person? Well the company has a new website just for you! "What the online experience does is mimic the experience [consumers] would have in the store, if they went to the barista and said, 'I want to try Starbucks, but I don't know where to start,'" says one exec [Ad Age]. With StarbucksCoffeeAtHome.com, all the frightening guesswork is taken out of the coffee-going experience. What's your "flavor profile?"

Expect a rash of headlines accusing auction giant eBay of bullying saintly Craig Newmark. eBay has sued Newmark, his business partner Jim Buckmaster, and Craigslist. The charge? Craigslist has allegedly diluted eBay's 28.4 percent stake in the company, which the auction giant acquired from a former Craigslist employee. The part of the story Newmark and Buckmaster don't want anyone to hear: The pair made about $16 million in the process of letting eBay buy the stake in their company. The deal included a shareholder-rights agreement which ought to prevent Craigslist from diluting eBay's stake in the company, people familiar with the deal have told Valleywag. By squeezing out eBay, Newmark and Buckmaster appear to be having their cake and eating it too. Relations between the companies had already deteriorated: eBay had a seat on the Craigslist board, at one point occupied by founder Pierre Omidyar, until last year.

You'd think at some point, in a creative review meeting, some advertising exec would stand up and say, "Maybe the 9-11 picture's not such a good idea." Such a simple sentence. But no! The latest example of incorporating a nationally traumatic terrorist mass murder into an ad: this spot for SABC Radio [via AdScam], with the tagline "There's More To See On Radio." Such as the Twin Towers burning. So hey, listen to the radio! Click through for a larger image, and pictures of the five worst 9-11 ads we've covered in the past:

Bill Gates has long dreamed of getting his customers to pay by the month, not by the shrinkwrapped box, for his software. As the Microsoft founder gets ready to depart, his company is just barely realizing his vision. But this is Microsoft, so they're doing it in the most asinine manner imaginable. Mary Jo Foley reports that Microsoft is testing a package of software and services, codenamed "Albany," for which consumers will pay a monthly fee. Sounds promising, until you dig into what Microsoft is actually offering.

We got an email from Jeff Stier, associate director of the American Council on Science and Health and author of yesterday's editorial in the NY Post about the cockroach peril New York will face as a result of Whole Foods' paper bag use. We referred to ACSH in our post yesterday as "the conservative 'science' group ACSH, which is funded by Dow Chemical, Chevron, and a slew of other corporations." Stier says "Gawker owe's ACSH a correction" for that post, although you will notice that our description is accurate, and is not even contradicted by Stier's own description of the group. He also objects to the fact that "reporters often ask about funding only when some if it may come from industry," something I would characterize as "good reporting." His full letter is reprinted after the jump.

A tipster in Hell's Kitchen writes in to say that marketers for allergy medicine Zyrtec have been tearing down fliers in her neighborhood and replacing them with fake guerilla-style advertisements for their product. The worst part? "Yesterday there was a flyer for a missing kitten here, apparently they took it down and put this ad up." They are endangering kittens in order to make money. Simply despicable. Below, a picture of the fiendish ad—do not be taken in by its similarity to a flier offering guitar lessons.

A reader writes in to let us know that while using McAfee's online chat system for customer support, the company representative not only didn't help, but cut off the chat rather than admit they had no idea what they were talking about. I turned up links to just what the customer was looking for — information about a piece of McAfee hardware — with a quick search of Google. Here at Valleywag, we aim to please.

Artist of our age Damien Hirst must have a busy schedule, what with all the shark embalming and gluing little diamonds onto skulls and bidding on white truffles. But he's determined to make sure that his art remains within reach of the common people, who wear jeans and patronize over-the-top art world events. So he teamed up with all-American brand Levis—and the Andy Warhol licensing machine—to design some jeans that anyone can buy, assuming they have $80,000 (really) to spend on psychedelic pants. After the jump, photos of Hirst's new clothing items from last weekend's opening in LA. The smart consumer will wait until these go on sale at Filene's.

I once wrote a story about Consumer Reports that involved a field trip to the timeless, servicey magazine's headquarters and labs. They're an amazing sight, and certainly the most fun place to visit in Yonkers. They take their work very seriously. Testing washing machines, for example, involves counting individual strands of frayed string off test items that have been washed hundreds of times. Their audio testing lab is a free-floating, echo-proof room that looks like a Star Trek set. This is my anecdotal way of introducing the fact that Consumer Reports has posted a selection of its classic testing photos, and after the jump you can find the five most amusing—one for each decade from the 1930s to the 1970s. Back to the future!

A former Starbucks employee named Mary-Elise Smilek says she was fired after four years with the company, just because she couldn't attend last month's mandatory 3-hour retraining session/ PR stunt. She had a midterm to study for. Harsh! Now she's the subject of much debate among the bored employees and company drones at the Starbucks Gossip blog. Some say she's a hoax; some say she's a victim; and the most hardcore corporate robots say: she got what she deserved for not completely dedicating her life to the Starbucks cause!

A counterpoint for all you Apple-haters out there: a new study by researchers at Duke University found that "even the briefest exposure to the Apple logo may make you behave more creatively." How did they measure that? By having the subjects list "all of the uses for a brick that they could imagine beyond building a wall." That's science for you! If only gazing at the Apple logo could help me think of a good joke for this post. The actual scientific findings:

Even at a quarter, the New York Sun is tough sell. The paper is such a joke we don't even make it fun of it. At best, it's like an animal shelter for unemployed New York writers. But even if it's a bizarre Zionist vanity project, someone needs to move that paper. So it falls to the telemarketers to sell the paper's lies. A tipster sent a recording of the pitch. We've dutifully transcribed the absurd stuff, after the jump.