Tom Boddingham has two feet that fit two different shoe sizes. His left foot, a size thirteen, and his right foot, size 1450. Wait, that can’t be right.

Boddingham was trying to order a size 14.5 monster slipper from an online company, Monster Slippers, but he must have put the decimal point in the wrong position. Because when the monster slipper arrived at his door it was bigger than him.

Boddingham told the Daily Mail:

“It was sent directly from Hong Kong and measures 210 x 130 x 65cm – the same length as a grizzly bear or a family car. I must be the owner of the biggest slipper in the world… I’m going to sell it online, and if I can make a few quid out of it then all the better.”

Of course, Boddingham’s story doesn’t exactly make sense. Did the company really believe that Boddingham’s right foot was more than 6 feet long?

According to the Daily Mail, Boddingham was charged $25 for his shoes. Which means that the company didn’t charge any extra for the gigantic shoe, which contained enough material (I’m guessing) to make another hundred monster slippers.

Yep, it smells like hoax in here.

But Boddingham could be telling the truth.

Maybe Monster Slippers was trying to get some free advertising by sending the monster sized monster slipper. Maybe Monster Slippers employees are so obedient (and unobservant) that they’ll fill any order placed in front of them.

The Daily Mail reports that the company thought Boddingham wanted the shoe for a store display.

The company said:

“We are making him a replacement slipper of the right dimensions.”

If the story is true, I’m ordering a size 5000 slipper from Monster Slippers. Apparently they only cost $25.

Do you think this story is a hoax? A viral marketing campaign?

Dangers of Online Shopping: Man Mistakenly Buys Size 1450 Monster Slippers is a post from: The Inquisitr

One of the top trending topics on Twitter right now is Formspring, apparently due to a fake news story circulating on the microblogging service.

Formspring.me, a social media platform designed for users to ask and answer anonymous questions, is being maligned in tweets due to a faked AP story dated “two days ago” that claims the site’s operators plan on releasing confidential data about users as a massive April Fool’s day prank:

Over 2 million people have used the site to communicate anonymously with other users since its creation in 2009.

“We allow users to sign up for an account and ask questions anonymously, but we still store their data next to the question. For legal purposes,” said Baxter, in a January interview.

However, it was revealed, in a leaked personal email from Baxter to Anne Gralley, a friend, that the data was being stored for another reason.

“In less than a month, ” (CEO Mark) Baxter wrote, “we’ll be adding the name, email, and facebook account of each user next to all of their anonymous posts.”

Although the piece is alarming at first, a few things should be noted about the alleged news story. There is no record of it on the Associated Press’ main site. Stories without a set date (last week, two days ago) raise a red flag, and the style does not fit in with AP guidelines. (Facebook isn’t capitalized. “Creation of said website” is not typical AP phrasing. “Misleading the public” is not something a news story would cite as a criminal charge.)

Most tellingly, though, the story has not been picked up by any major news outlets or tech sites- something this inflammatory would certainly be a big story. All the links being posted on Twitter lead back to a single source- it appears to be the genesis for this particular rumor.

If you are a Formspring user, I wouldn’t advise canceling your account because of this- there is no information right now that indicates any part of this story is based on fact. Formspring.me has not responded to requests for comment.

Update: In a comment on a Venture Beat post, the president of Formspring calls the story “entirely fictitious”:

Hi Cody, thanks for the post.

formspring.me was a victim of a cyber fraud launched today. This attack, created to look like an Associated Press news release, is entirely fictitious.

All formspring.me users should know that our promise remains, We are committed to protecting their privacy and online experience as agreed in our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, and have no intention of revealing the identities of anonymous users on the site.

Best,

John Wechsler
President
formspring.me

Formspring prank story plagues Twitter is a post from: The Inquisitr

Never mind the neighbors getting into fights with the media hounds encamped around the BalloonBoy’s home. That is nothing compared to the trouble that the family is in now that the word about the whole thing has spread around the world.

Yes folks even Adolf Hitler has found out and boy is he pissed.

BalloonBoy is in real trouble now – Hitler is pissed at him is a post from: The Inquisitr

While everyone on the web seems to have been captivated by BalloonBoy and the story’s love affair with cable news there has been another potential story waiting in the wings that could send BalloonBoy and family back to the minor leagues while they wait to be charged.

You see back on October 16 a woman and her young son were in line at an airport waiting to go through security when the TSA decided to separate the two of them – even though they are not suppose to. Now as usual in this era of  The Web the woman was a blogger and everything that transpired that day was recounted every tearful word by every heart-wrenching word  in a post on her blog.

Of course in the uproar that followed everyone came rushing to her side and cursing that big ol’ mean TSA in such a way that memories of the Motrin Affair all came flooding back. In addition of course this it the Twitter Age so the whole thing began to play out there as well. The only thing that was missing was the CNN truck in the front yard but apparently there is a writing deal in the works.

Sufficiently worked up?

Well, take a big chill pill folks because there is a very good chance that this is all bullshit. In other words it never happened. In fact in an unprecedented move the TSA got out in front of this right away by releasing  a video disproving the woman’s story. The TSA Blog followed that up by posting the nine additional videos of what happened but from different camera angles. Nine videos … damn folks talk about making sure that the truth is out there if you can get up off your ass long enough to actually watch them.

Now just as interesting as this story may have been on the surface it really is just another case of blogger sexism and we’re better than old media so we don’t have to play by the same rules game that I talked about last week at various places, including here. In this case we have a woman blogger who writes what could have been an incredibly incendiary post about something that the already hated TSA had done. It was guaranteed to get people inflamed and rushing to their keyboards to publish their god-given right opinion on the matter.

Which it did for a short while sending her blog pageviews from a reported normal of 200 per day to over 40,000 but then people started to question her version of the truth – especially in light of the TSA videos.

Now this is where we begin to see the wagons begin to circle in the blogging world as people who were calling the whole story into question began to be attacked by other bloggers. From outright stupidity of suggesting the TSA had doctored the videos through to bloggers suggesting the woman might have other problems and that we should take it easy on her.

The woman lied folks.

Yet bloggers are suggesting that she be given a pass on the whole thing. While some of the comments and posts about this whole story have condemned the woman even more of them are suggesting that we are getting all worked up over nothing and that we should just let it all blow over.

Excuse me but No. Bloggers are having a hard enough time trying to get and keep any kind of respect for what we do without someone lying about what could have been an extremely disastrous action by a Federal agency. As Paul O’Flaherty noted in a post

We are, for the most part, a pack of attention seeking wannabes. We have proven ourselves time and again to be willing to post information that is unresearched and uncorroborated. We’ve proven that we are willing to be shills for as little as $5. We’ve proven that we act as mob with knee jerk reactions. As of today we’ve also proven, not for the first or sadly the last time, that we are willing to lie just to get a bit of attention.

We can’t be trusted! Until we prove that we can be then we have no business claiming we should be taken seriously and treated the same.

If it had been a man who had pulled this stunt we’d all be handing him his balls on a platter by now. However it was a woman so this makes it different but really the only difference between the hoax this woman tried to pull over on us all and the one that will see BalloonBoy’s family in court is that CNN isn’t here – yet.

Bloggers can be such gutless wonders is a post from: The Inquisitr