After Walmart closed up shop in McAllen, they left 124,500 square feet of retail space behind for use by the city.

Debra and Gary were tired of working four jobs just so they could barely afford their mortgage, so they looked back to their days as wild and crazy kids:

I have always called Jersey Shore the most important sociological experiment of our time, and it seems one intrepid University of Chicago student agrees with me because he's not only stolen my tag line, but is trying to organize an academic conference around the reality show. This is a brilliant idea.

Dumpster pools? Yesterday's news. The latest innovation in the field of urban swimmin' holes is + Pool, a floating pool design we've become obsessed with in the five minutes since we discovered it.

Because the place doesn't have enough stuff yet: A Toronto-based developer has made a tentative deal to build a $100 million, seven-story aquarium at the bottom of 11 Times Square complete with "sharks, rays, penguins, otters, and other animals." [WSJ]

Renting a room at Manhattan Mini-Storage could easily run you $100 a month. A far cheaper solution: Buy a junky used car, fill it up with all the crap you own (and should really throw out), and then park the car on the street for free!

It was inevitable that someone smarter than us would go ahead and open up a journalism school that teaches kids how to write for tabloids. But the Russians? We're ashamed of ourselves.

Don't you just hate it when you're walking down the street and someone's umbrella pokes you in the eye? "JooYoun Paek has devised a brilliantly simple solution to this issue. With the pull of a cord attached to the handle, her Polite Umbrella shrinks and morphs its shape to reduce occupied space, and help users maneuver around others and protect themselves from wind." [PSFK]

There's a street artist in NYC by the name of D. Billy, and I sincerely hope he is being subsidized by the NYPD, because he has come up with a way to rid our streets of "unsightly" graffiti. By doing it with balloons! Just imagine how much time the sanitation department could save—just send out one guy with a needle, and he could take down an entire city's worth of balloon tags in a day. Truly a win-win solution. Plus, it's a good way to communicate Batman-like sound effects. Two more pictures of D. Billy's environmental revolution:

Rocker/blogger Carrie Brownstein on the Vice Presidential selection process: "And once we determine the results, that McCain is, um, Liz Phair and therefore his running mate should be.....RZA, then all we have to do is decide what politician out there is most like RZA. After that we let John McCain's people know." Go vote in the poll! [NPR]

Call it what you will—street art, culture jamming, or protest. I'll call it some guy who's been going around London and graphically hacking the heads off of models in all types of ads. With fantastic attention to detail. Pictured: Carrie Bradshaw, improved. You know all the cool kid brands are just dying of impatience waiting for him to hack up one of their ads. Lovely. Two more pics of the mystery chopper's graphic, allegorical work, after the jump.

The New York Sun, the little neocon paper we glance at so you don't have to, has a provocative question: what if Absolut, instead of making ads about Mexico taking over America, made an ad about TIBET? It's as if Matt Sanchez has surreptitiously landed a job on the Sun's editorial board, a scenario which is quite possible. The paper's reasoning, as it were, goes something like this: Tibet is tiny. But the IDEA of Tibet, under the "ice of Communism," is "a vast land extending deep into what is claimed by the Chinese communist party." Also, Tibet has been in the news lately with the Olympic torch protests, and so has Absolut. Makes perfect sense!

Here is what we are almost positive is a ridiculous jokey parody of an ad agency that's been floating around the web, although you never know in these crazy times of foam-filled Miami streets and hypnotizing games for children. The brilliant idea—which will surely become reality in only a matter of time—is political product placement in phone sex scripts [Sunday/Knight Productions]. In the purported audition video below, they subtly sell Hillary Clinton's candidacy with profanity, racial insensitivity, and the slogan, "Experience C(o)unts!" Seeing is agreeing:

Iran is going to shut off the Internet for the duration of the upcoming election. Unfortunately this only applies to the Iranian election, and only if you live in Iran. [IHT]

In Brazil, they do things a little differently. There, it makes perfect sense that Coke Zero is promoting itself by paying for free tongue piercings for anyone willing to be photographed with a Coke Zero-branded tongue stud [Adrants]. It's strategic, you see—Brazilian strategic. Any presumption on your part that this is not the work of a sly marketing genius would be xenophobic. Below, some pictures of Brazilian Coke fans who chose to partake of the free piercings, and a bonus Portuguese Coke Zero ad featuring talking, walking tongues. Do not view while on acid.