Quarterback Joins a New Team

Melanie A. Lasoff

Is San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young contemplating a career move? Or has he just had one too many concussions?

Young, who has helped his team win a few Super Bowls and won numerous National Football League awards, is the newest board of directors member at HydroMaid International Inc., Draper, Utah. The company manufactures, markets and distributes the HydroMaid garbage disposal, which is powered exclusively by water pressure.

Young recently installed the device in his kitchen, and says he is "amazed at how efficiently it uses water pressure to operate, rather than an electric motor, to cut through waste," the company quotes him as saying. "This is a product that needs to be seen in action to be fully appreciated," he says.

HydroMaid's "environmentally minded philosophy" is one reason Young is so enamored with the company. "I have been involved with some world-class organizations in the past several years, and I am very excited to be a part of the HydroMaid team," he says.

Young also has been a member of other product "teams" over the years, including Advil, Pert Plus shampoo, Nike and Wheaties.

Source: HydroMaid International Inc.

A Trashy Scheme Leave it to New York City criminals to invent a new scheme.

Two hoaxers tricked several restaurants in Manhattan into believing that Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, R, had issued a regulation banning unlocked garbage cans on city sidewalks. Restaurant owners then shelled out several hundred dollars to the con men to comply with the supposed regulations requiring special locks on the cans.

The New York Police Department was not immediately aware of the scheme. Two men, appearing to be father and son, entered the restaurants and claimed to be with the sanitation department or the restaurant's private waste hauler. The pair told workers they already had spoken with a manager about a new law requiring that all garbage be placed in locked metal containers. The men then requested money for the promised lock and blamed Giuliani for the inconvenience.

Although one restaurant owner was duped, he was in awe of the criminals' prowess.

"It was kind of brilliant to come up with this angle because it could really make sense to a person who didn't know any better," he said, noting he had given the pair money. "Giuliani saying [keep] garbage off the street, well, one can certainly appreciate that."

Source: The New York Times