Can you top this?

Just when you think HP has endured all the bad news it could get, a new opportunity emerges.

And I'll bet you couldn't have guessed this.  Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

Chubby Checker, aged 71, has sued HP for violating his name trademark, with a software app called, "The Chubby Checker".  According to TMZ, and today's San Jose Mercury-News (first section in the People column on page 2), the app "enables women to estimate the size of a man's penis based on his shoe size."

This one would have Dave 'n Bill not only rolling over in their graves, can't you imagine that there would be pointed questions from Bill to Dave about Dave's oversized shoes?

According to the Merc story, "a rep for HP released a statement saying 'The application was removed in September 2012, and is no longer on any Palm or HP hosted website'."  Wow!  Wonder how long they promoted it?

Apparently when Checker first asked HP to 'cease-and-desist', earlier in 2012, they refused, and so "he wants a ton of money for damaging his reputation."   The reporter, who commented that 'reporting this makes me proud to have gone to journalism school" went on to observe that Checker "must have small shoes."

The 'ton of money' wasn't cited in the Merc story, but it made the Palo Alto Daily News, at $500 million in 'damaged reputation'.  Must have been a pretty exciting brand at one point.

Now, if that app had been on the TouchPad, who knows...