This one is too good to be true - a pal tips us to a "direct mail that bombed " (pun!)

The ticking noise that brought a bomb squad to a Carmel Valley medical building Monday turned out to be a small battery in a greeting card.

The card, from a pharmaceutical company promoting its products, said "Your time is up" on the cover, San Diego fire spokesman Maurice Luque said.

A receptionist at Children's Medical Group office in the three-story building on El Camino Real heard ticking coming from a mailbox in the hallway about 4 p.m. She called 911 and security officers evacuated the building.

HA! You'd think they'd learn after a few 'bomb scares' as ads, like the LED billboards for Adult Swim which caused havoc in Boston last year. When are you US ad folks going to learn? Everything changed after "9/11", man. Nobody has a sense of humor anymore (but somebody knows who mailed the anthrax - do you?)