New Year's Eve

I hope you're all out having fun with friends and loved ones. I feel a cold coming on, so I didn't think going out and drinking heavily was a good idea. Driving home hung over the next day didn't sound very appealing, either, so I decided to sit this one out here at home.

Have a good time, but stay safe. There's bound to be a lot of idiots out on the roads tonight.

Bickering

Couples argue about the weirdest things. Like, for instance, this Washington man and his girlfriend:

A 25-year-old woman was arrested for investigation of second-degree assault for getting into an argument with her boyfriend over whether his dog should be in the bathroom while the couple were taking a shower together.

A police report said the man, 26, wanted his dog to join them in the bathroom, but the woman objected on Thursday night.

The woman told her boyfriend that if the dog doesn't stay out, she didn't want to be his girlfriend anymore. He replied that maybe his next girlfriend would appreciate the dog more, and called her a name.

The police report said the woman punched him in the face several times and the man dislocated his shoulder after the naked couple grappled. He told police his girlfriend threw a picture frame, which broke and cut him.

I want to know why the guy was so insistent on having his dog in the bathroom with them while they showered. On second thought, no, I really don't.

I don't think so

I'm going to go ahead and take a pass on this new line of menswear:

Hello Kitty is no sexist.

The cute cuddly white cat from Japan's Sanrio Co., usually seen on toys and jewelry for girls and young women, will soon don T-shirts, bags, watches and other products targeting young men, company spokesman Kazuo Tohmatsu said Friday.

"We think Hello Kitty is accepted by young men as a design statement in fashion," he said.

The feline for-men products will go on sale in Japan next month, and will be sold soon in the U.S. and other Asian nations, according to Sanrio.

The usual bubble-headed shape of Hello Kitty was slightly changed for a more rugged, cool look to appeal to men in their teens and early 20s.

For example, a picture of the cat on a $36 black T-shirt has the words, "hello kitty," instead of the usual dots for the eyes and nose.

If you click on the link to the article, you'll also see that the "rugged, cool" Hello Kitty has a super-manly bow on its head. Not really my style, that.

Update: Perhaps I was a little hasty. (Via SeeDubya.)

Shocking news: prison life unpleasant

You know, I'm sure it sucks to be in prison for a number of reasons, but um, isn't that sort of the way it's supposed to be?

Japanese prisoners dislike their unstylish pajamas, feel their cells are too small and want better meals, a government survey has found.

In a survey of inmates who left prison in the year to March, almost 70 percent of respondents who shared cells with others said they had too little space, while 44 percent of those in solitary confinement said their cells were too small, the justice ministry said in a report issued Wednesday.

Over half said their meals were bad and having supper at 5 p.m. was too early, while almost 75 percent wished for more bread with their meals rather than rice or noodles.

The former inmates also found their vertically striped grayish pajamas to be unfashionable. Close to half said the colors were bad, and 44 percent said the design was ugly.

Boo-friggin'-hoo. Now, I've never been to the joint, but based on the teevee shows and movies I've seen about prison, ugly pajamas, early dinner, and a lack of bread would seem to be the least of my worries were I incarcerated.

Oh, and prison cells, to the best of my knowledge, usually aren't designed to be spacious.

Extracurricular activities

For many college students, money is usually tight. There's tuition, books, rent, food, and, most importantly, beer to pay for. Usually, this means students also have to work, at least part time. These guys had a different idea:

Two college students who claimed they were trying to raise tuition money through armed robberies got a tough lesson in court Thursday.

A Hamilton County common pleas judge sentenced Andrew Butler and Christopher Avery to 20-year prison terms and told them dire financial straits don't justify breaking the law.

"If you get to that point, robbing people isn't the answer. It never has been and it never will be," Judge Steven Martin said.

Butler, 20, and Avery, 22, apologized to their families and their victims before Martin imposed the sentence.

The men pleaded guilty to two charges of aggravated robbery and six charges of kidnapping.

Butler, who attended the University of Toledo, told Martin in an earlier hearing that tuition increases outpaced his scholarships and financial aid. Avery, a student at the University of Cincinnati, said he couldn't pay for summer classes after an internship fell through.

The tuition at those schools must have been pretty steep, indeed, since they made off with $130,000 during that bank robbery. Or, maybe they got tired of drinking cheap, domestic beer.

The dead have risen...

...and, apparently, they're spreading Christmas cheer. Well, no, not really:

Even in death, Chet Fitch is a card. Fitch, known for his sense of humor, died in October at age 88 but gave his friends and family a start recently: Christmas cards, 34 of them, began arriving — written in his hand with a return address of "Heaven."

The greeting read: "I asked Big Guy if I could sneak back and send some cards. At first he said no; but at my insistence he finally said, 'Oh well, what the heaven, go ahead but don't (tarry) there.' Wish I could tell you about things here but words cannot explain.

"Better get back as Big Guy said he stretched a point to let me in the first time, so I had better not press my luck. I'll probably be seeing you (some sooner than you think). Wishing you a very Merry Christmas. Chet Fitch"

As the article explains, this was a gag that he and his barber had been working on for the past twenty years, but it's still a pretty cool gesture. After the initial shock wore off, it sounds like they really appreciated it, too.

Merry Xmas to all!

If you've been naughty this year, I hope Santa doesn't track you down, but if you've been nice, I hope he leaves you some good swag.

Generosity

So much of the time, I post about idiot criminals, prostitution, and drugs around here, but since it's Christmas Eve, I thought I'd post something nice instead:

Salvation Army Major Richard Hathorn knew when and where it would happen, but he still doesn't know who slipped the $1,000 bill into one of the charity's Christmas kettles.

Each Christmas since 1978, someone has covertly stuffed one of the big bills into a kettle in this northern West Virginia university city.

This year, Hathorn says, the donor alerted the Salvation Army that the tradition would continue with a deposit between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday at the Wal-Mart at University Town Center.

During the appointed period, Hathorn carefully scanned the faces of people dropping money into the kettle, but he didn't spot anyone with a bill bearing the likeness of President Grover Cleveland.

He found it later, wrapped inside a $1 bill.

I think it's amazing that someone does this, year in and year out, and anonymously, to boot. Either they're not looking for recognition or they're a bankrobber who's been donating from their ill-gotten gains for nearly thirty years. That sounds somewhat implausible, though.

My favorite Christmas carol

Christmas songs probably shouldn't come with content warnings, but this one really does. Seriously, don't press play on this if you or the people around you are offended by profanity. And if you're a fan of the whole multicultural tolerance thing, well, you should probably take a pass, too. Really.



Anyway, I hope you and yours have a Merry f*ckin' Christmas!

Priorities

Apparently, the Japanese government doesn't have any really pressing business to take care of:

A debate over flying saucers has kept Japanese politicians occupied for much of this week, ensnaring top officials and drawing a promise from the defense minister to send out the army if Godzilla goes on a rampage.

"There are debates over what makes UFOs fly, but it would be difficult to say it's an encroachment of air space," Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba told a news conference Thursday.

"If Godzilla were to show up, it would be a dispatch for disaster relief."

His remarks came after the top government spokesman was asked Tuesday about an opposition politician's demand that the government confirm the existence of unidentified flying objects.

"Personally, I definitely believe they exist," chief cabinet secretary Nobutaka Machimura said, drawing laughter from reporters.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda took a more guarded stance later in the day, saying he has yet to confirm their existence.

The debate started Tuesday when the cabinet issued a statement in response to the opposition lawmaker's question, saying it could not confirm any cases of UFO sightings.

If nothing else, I think this gives us some valuable insight as to what a Dennis Kucinich administration might look like. Sheesh.

Can I ax you why you're naked?

I'm guessing this guy was high, or crazy, or a little bit of both:

A 52-year-old man has been arrested after he attacked Crawford County sheriff's deputies with an ax and then barricaded himself in his home.

Prairie du Chien Police Chief Michael King says a special operations team that included members of his department attempted to negotiate with the man for about three hours. Then, the naked man ran screaming out of his home about 7:30 p.m. Thursday and charged law enforcement officers.

King says the man was shot with an electronic stun gun and two 12-gauge less lethal impact rounds.

The article doesn't mention exactly where the naked wacko was shot with the impact rounds, but it does say that he wasn't seriously hurt.

Bus-ted

I have a strong feeling that this bus driver is out of a job:

A Detroit school bus driver taking children to class is accused of trying to buy sex from an undercover officer posing as a streetwalker. Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans didn't identify the 30-year-old driver.

Evans said the man stopped twice Wednesday to talk with the officer posing as a prostitute. The first time he had one child aboard and the second time he had four children, ages 5 to 9 on the bus.

The sheriff said the driver gave the officer a paper with his phone number and told her he wanted to rendezvous after delivering the children. Instead, deputies arrested him and delivered the children themselves to McKenny Elementary School.

Dude, if you're going to go trolling for hoes, that's one thing, but at least drop the kiddies off, first. I bet their parents were just thrilled when they heard about this.

Found money

Okay, this story seems really weird to me for a number of reasons.

It wasn't until a store manager and others helped a man round up money blowing around an auto parts store parking that something started to seem fishy.

"We were all joking with him, 'Where's the dye packs?'" said Amy McCaulley, manager of the AutoZone store in Boulder City, told the Las Vegas Sun for a Wednesday report. She referred to devices that banks bundle with cash in a robbery to mark bills as stolen.

When the man gunned his Jeep Commander out of the AutoZone parking lot without even a thank you, McCaulley noted the Arizona license plate number and called authorities.

Boulder City police stopped the vehicle on U.S. 93 heading toward Hoover Dam, questioned the 49-year-old driver and a female passenger, and confiscated a stash of cash they found hidden in the spare tire beneath the rear of the vehicle.

Police tallied the haul at $538,780.

"You got to love the criminal mind," Boulder City Police Chief Thomas Finn said of the Friday seizure, which investigators believe was drug proceeds. "Sometimes they make it easy."

Police did not release the names of the driver or passenger, both Mexican citizens whom authorities said were not arrested. The man told officers he had no idea there was money in the spare tire under the vehicle, which he said he and the passenger borrowed from a Phoenix resident to go on vacation.

Let's look at this from a few angles.

First of all, when the cops stopped them, they had to have known that they had this cash (but maybe not just how much) in the vehicle, since they'd been chasing some of it around the parking lot earlier.

Secondly, who knowingly lends a car with more than half a million dollars on board to someone so they can drive it around on vacation? Either the owner didn't know the cash was there, or he/she was counting on them to get it somewhere, where someone else would then get it. Whatever it was, I guess their story checked out, since the cops let them go.

Like I said, weird.

Bad news, good news

I drove for nearly thirty miles in heavy afternoon traffic to the County Registrar's office, only to find out the information I was looking for (campaign spending in last month's local city council elections) isn't available there. You can imagine how absolutely thrilled I was to find out about that.

On the other hand, I got all my Christmas shopping finished on the way home, and I only had to stop at two stores (neither of which was at a crowded mall), so the day wasn't a total bust.

Ho ho oh!

Every year around this time, millions of Christmas packages are delivered. It looks like one Connecticut woman just couldn't wait for hers:

Santa Claus says that a woman who sat on his lap was naughty, not nice.

A Santa at the Danbury Fair mall said the woman groped him.

"The security officer at the mall said Santa Claus has been sexually assaulted," police Detective Lt. Thomas Michael said of the weekend complaint.

Sandrama Lamy, 33, of Danbury, was charged with sexual assault and breach of peace. She was released on a promise to appear in court on Jan. 3.

Police quickly found and identified Lamy because the woman was described as being on crutches, said Capt. Bob Myles.

A call seeking comment from Lamy was answered by a recording Tuesday morning. A woman later called back and said: "It's a false report and I don't have any idea."

Police did not give the name of the disconcerted Santa, but they said he is 65 and felt badly because children were waiting to see him. "He was apparently shocked and embarrassed by the whole incident," Myles said.

Offering milk and cookies is the more traditional way to show Santa your appreciation, and while in the song, mommy kisses Santa Claus, I don't remember any lyrics about her groping him, too.

Bikini boy

Hmmmm...sounds like somebody's either kind of nuts or lost a bet:

A Singapore national serviceman who sashayed into a lift early one morning wearing only a pink bikini has been handed a day's jail and a S$11,000 ($7,529) fine by a court in the city-state, a newspaper said on Tuesday.

Tan Wen Zhong, 21, admitted to five charges, including "outraging the modesty" of the woman who shared the lift with him and "fraudulent possession of women's underwear," Singapore's Straits Times reported.

Seriously, it sounds like something somebody would do having lost a bet, but no, that isn't it...

In mitigation, Tan's lawyer said his client had been badly affected by his parents' divorce during his formative years.

Thank God I don't come from a broken home.

Ho ho ho, where's my dough?

St. Nick doesn't sound too jolly in this story, but I can't say I blame him.

One dry cleaner now knows how to get on Santa's naughty list: lose his suit.

After Christmas last year, Max Weisberg took his red velvet suit to Royal Cleaners, which accidentally gave it to someone else. The family-owned business acknowledged the mixup and offered to pay him half the value of the nearly $400 suit, said Jean Hwang, who said she's the owner's sister.

Now, if you went to pick up your clothes at the dry cleaner and found, when you got home, that they'd given you a Santa suit, wouldn't you take it back? Maybe not if you were a fat guy looking to make some extra cash around Christmas, but otherwise, I don't really see why anybody would keep it.

Weisberg, 54, a civilian employee of the Navy, took the business to small claims court and won a $396.50 judgment to cover the suit and court costs.

But he had to collect the money himself. So Weisberg decided to do it with flair. His wife's public-relations firm notified the media that he would drop by the shop.

Donning a new red velvet suit with soft white trim and shiny black boots, a jolly Weisberg burst into the dry cleaners Monday, television cameras rolling.

"Merry Christmas! Have you been a good girl?" he asked a smiling Hwang. She promised to put the check in the mail to Weisberg the next day.

That's probably a good idea. After all, you don't want a guy like that coming down your chimney, all angry at you.

This isn't Country Kitchen Buffet*

I think it's about time to take away Great Grandpa's car keys.

A 100-year-old Japanese man who was arrested after his car hit an umbrella held by a child said driving was his ticket to avoiding senility.

"Driving helps me from going senile because it keeps me alert," police in Sendai, northern Japan, quoted the driver, Masaru Hori, as saying.

The incident marked the second time Hori had been caught for driving without a license since it was revoked after a hit-and-run accident in August, police said. He was also involved in a similar accident last month, they said.

Um, maybe it's just me, but it doesn't exactly sound like the whole staying alert thing is really working out.

*The title refers to this South Park episode.

The League of Uninformed Voters

On Friday afternoon, a woman called and asked if I'd be interested in participating in a survey on energy policy. I forget which organization she said she was from. Anyway, since I had nothing better to do, I said yes.

First, she asked if I read the news every day in a newspaper or online. I said that I did. (I read my news online, of course. The sports page is the only part of the paper I read. That helps to keep the blood pressure down, seeing as how I rarely find myself screaming about liberal nonsense being written about baseball or college football.)

Next, she asked about the frequency with which I vote. I told her that I've voted in every election around here since I turned eighteen.

Then, she asked me about the highest level of education I'd finished. I told her I had a Bachelor's Degree. She promptly thanked me for my time and hung up.

I guess I wasn't part of the demographic they were looking for. Which, apparently, includes people who don't pay much attention to current events, vote infrequently, and don't have a college education, but still want to share their opinions on energy policy. Oh well.

Fire trucks, fire water don't mix

When you get drunk and get behind the wheel, the last thing you want to do is call attention to yourself. It looks like this guy found that out the hard way.

A fire chief in Penobscot County has been charged with being drunk behind the wheel while driving a fire truck with its lights on and its sirens going.

Russell Banks of Burlington was arrested around midnight Saturday after a resident complained that Banks was racing a fire tanker by his home even though there was no fire in the area.

Banks, 34, is chief of the Triangle Fire Department, a volunteer association that provides service for Burlington, Lowell and Grand Falls Township.

When a Penobscot County sheriff's deputy responded, he located the truck and noticed that Banks smelled of alcohol and had bloodshot eyes. A blood alcohol test showed Banks was at twice the legal limit.

The article doesn't mention whether or not he's been fired. I would hope so.

Killer Ninjas plague London

Well, no, not really:

The government said Wednesday it would ban the sale of samurai swords because the weapons had been used in a number of serious, high-profile attacks.

The Home Office said the swords would be added to the Offensive Weapons Order from April next year, meaning they could not be imported, sold or hired.

However collectors of genuine Japanese swords and those used by martial arts enthusiasts would be exempt from the ban.

"In the wrong hands, samurai swords are dangerous weapons," Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said.

"We recognize it is the cheap, easily available samurai swords which are being used in crime and not the genuine more expensive samurai swords which are of interest to collectors and martial arts enthusiasts."

This is a bad idea. Because when you outlaw samurai swords, only outlaws will have samurai swords. And collectors and martial arts enthusiasts, too, I guess. Which is a little less problematic, unless some of those collectors and martial arts enthusiasts are also outlaws. Yeah.

Driven to succeed

When you find yourself in a stick situation, it's usually a good idea to use the resources you have at hand to get out of it. This time, not so much:

A woman suspected in a burglary found a convenient getaway: the squad car of the officers who arrested her.

McKenzie Schafer, 27, of Minneapolis, was arrested and handuffed Sunday by officers investigating the theft of a laptop from the North St. Paul Athletic Association building. Court papers saidwhen officers went back into the building after putting Schafer in the back of their squad, she got into the front and drove away.

She was later caught in front of a sandwich shop by officers in another squad car. Schafer told police she took the squad to help look for the men who burglarized the building.

Shockingly, they didn't give this good Samaritan a commendation for helping with their investigation. They didn't even release her from custody. Some gratitude, huh?

Accidents will happen

What's worse than shooting yourself in the foot? This guy found out:

A Scottsdale man inadvertently shot himself in the buttocks Thursday morning. Scottsdale police Sgt. Mark Clark said Daniel Leatherman, 26, heard a disturbance outside his apartment and saw a man he knew fighting with a cab driver.

Leatherman told police that the man, Cody Nunn, 25, had assaulted him in the past, so he grabbed his gun and went outside.

Leatherman told police that he accidentally dropped the gun while hiding it behind his back and shot himself in the derriere.

On the bright side, now I guess he's got a funny story to tell at parties. "Say, did I ever tell you about the time I shot myself in the ass?" Sparkling conversation.

Chug-a-lug

Yes, the duty free shop is a good place to get top shelf booze on the cheap, but this probably isn't the best way to enjoy it:

A man nearly died from alcohol poisoning after quaffing a liter (two pints) of vodka at an airport security check instead of handing it over to comply with new carry-on rules, police said Wednesday.

The incident occurred at the Nuremberg airport on Tuesday, where the 64-year-old man was switching planes on his way home to Dresden from a holiday in Egypt.

New airport rules prohibit passengers from carrying larger quantities of liquid onto planes, and he was told at a security check he would have to either throw out the bottle of vodka or pay a fee to have his carry-on bag checked as cargo.

Instead, he chugged the bottle down — and was quickly unable to stand or otherwise function, police said.

Before you go getting all judgmental on the guy, who among us hasn't found themselves in a similar state of intoxication? I mean, sure, it usually takes three or four hours and a wild party, but...well, I can't think of a way to end this sentence that makes any sense.

Audacity

This guy is probably going to have a hard time professing his innocence at trial:

A man accused of stealing a car in front of a police officer and television cameras in North Carolina has been arrested in Virginia. Raleigh Police Department spokesman Jim Sughrue said Tuesday that 38-year-old Anthony Wayne Williams was arrested overnight in New Kent County, Virginia.

Television footage from Durham's WTVD-TV shows a man getting into a 2004 Honda Accord on Monday while the female owner talked with a police officer nearby. The officer ran to the car when it started to move, slapped the hood and told the man to stop. But he drove away.

Now, you can argue (persuasively) that Mr. Williams isn't very smart, but I'll say this...the man has some big balls.

Jiminy Christmas!

In this day and age of political correctness, identity politics, and professional victimhood, I can hardly believe this. And in the UK, of all places.

Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims joined Britain's equality watchdog Monday in urging Britons to enjoy Christmas without worrying about offending non-Christians.

"It's time to stop being daft about Christmas. It's fine to celebrate and it's fine for Christ to be star of the show," said Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

"Let's stop being silly about a Christian Christmas," he said, referring to a tendency to play down the traditional celebrations of the birth of Christ for fear of offending minorities in multicultural Britain.

I almost despair at the fact that I see something like this and feel like I'm looking at some kind of revolutionary idea. Read the whole thing.

That special ambiance

You know, there are times when I just don't get other cultures. I guess this would definitely be one of those times.

In India, death is a part of life — and, at one restaurant in western India, a part of lunch. The bustling New Lucky Restaurant in Ahmadabad is famous for its milky tea, its buttery rolls, and the graves between the tables.

It's a spot where old men page through newspapers and argue politics in the morning while young couples share candlelit meals and hold hands at night. That the candles sit atop graves only adds to the ambiance.

Krishan Kutti Nair has helped run the restaurant built over a centuries-old Muslim cemetery for close to four decades, but he doesn't know who is buried in the cafe floor. Customers seem to like the graves, which resemble small cement coffins, and that's enough for him.

"The graveyard is good luck," Nair said one recent afternoon after the lunch rush. "Our business is better because of the graveyard."

The graves are painted green, stand about shin high, and every day the manager decorates each of them with a single dried flower. They're scattered randomly across the restaurant — one up front next to the cash register, three in the middle next to a table for two, four along the wall near the kitchen.

The waiters know the floor plan like a bus driver knows his route, and they've mastered the delicate dance of shimmying between graves with a tray of hot tea in each hand.

"We're used to it," said waiter Kayyum Sheikh. "There's nothing odd about it."

Okay, Kayyum, if you say say so. Me, I'll stick to the kind of restaurants we have around here, none of which features dead people. That I know of, anyway.

More than a mailbox

I don't know if my neighbor across the street has had problems with people stealing his mail, but he sure as hell doesn't seem to be messing around. Wow.

Is that a fishing reel in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?

Nope, it turns out it was a fishing reel, and he probably wasn't happy to see a cop.

Police said a man was arrested after an officer found him in a store's bathroom with a $700 fishing reel stuffed into his pants. An employee of the West Marine store in the Hillsmere Shopping Center alerted an officer on Monday afternoon to two suspicious men.

Police say Timothy Hamilton, 37, of Glen Burnie, locked himself in the restroom, where the officer found the fishing reel in his pants.

Hamilton was charged with theft and possession of drug paraphernalia after the officer found a glass drug-smoking pipe under the seat of the Jeep that he had been driving.

Huh. You wouldn't think that crackheads do much fishing, but there you go.

(And yes, I know that he was probably going to try to sell the reel to buy more drugs.)

A date which will live in infamy

(Image via Pearl Harbor.com.)

"This was REALLY not kosher"

I can't claim to know a lot about Judaism, but even I know that this is very, very wrong:

A grocery store in Manhattan made a food faux pas, advertising hams as "Delicious for Chanukah."

Chanukah, an alternate spelling for Hanukkah, is the eight-day Jewish holiday that began Tuesday evening, and hams as well as pork and other products from pigs can't be eaten under Jewish dietary laws.

A woman who saw the mistake over the weekend at the Balducci's store on 14th Street took pictures of the signs and posted them on her blog.

Jennifer Barton, director of marketing, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the signs were changed as soon as the error was noted.

How was it that nobody noticed "the error" as soon as the signs showed up at the store? I mean, "No pork allowed" is pretty much the most basic rule when it comes to the Jewish dietary laws, right?

Twins for sale

Having trouble coming up with the perfect present for that special someone this Christmas? Well, how about a pair of used funbags?

Porn star Mary Carey, who shot to fame by running for California governor against Arnold Schwarzenegger, unveiled plans on Tuesday to auction off her autographed, recently removed breast implants for charity.

Carey said the size 36-D implants were taken out two weeks ago and replaced with larger 36-DDDs and while under anesthesia she realized they could be used to raise money for breast cancer research.

"The doctors asked me what I wanted to do with them and I said, 'You know what, I'm going to keep them and try to sell them. Because my grandmother had breast cancer," Carey told Reuters in an interview.

Well, at least it's for a good cause.

The 27-year-old star of such adult films as "Boobsville Sorority Girls" and "Big Breasted Beauties" will be seen in the upcoming VH1 reality show "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew" and said that during taping she kicked addictions to the anti-anxiety drug Xanax and alcohol.

Did you ever notice that most of the time, when a show has the word "celebrity" in its title, it usually denotes a production featuring people like porn stars, losing contestants from reality shows, and washed-up sitcom actors or pop stars? And this one sounds like more of the same. Sorry about the tangent. Back to the auction...

"Now that I'm sober I wanted a new physical state to go along with my new mental state," Carey said. "I thought the auction would be a great way to spread some holiday cheer and make sure someone out there would have a Mary Mary Christmas."

The autographed implants have been placed on eBay and Carey, whose real name is Mary Cook, said she planned to donate some 90 percent of the proceeds to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

She intends to use the rest of the money on medical bills for her mother, who suffered major injuries after jumping off a four-story building in 2006.

"I'm actually overall very anti-plastic surgery," Carey said. "I watched my mom go through 11 surgeries (for her injuries) and it's like, for me to voluntarily put myself through that, the only right thing to do is make money and donate it to charity."

I don't really see how someone who is "very anti-plastic surgery," keeps getting bigger and bigger fake boobs, but perhaps that's just a failing of my imagination.

A whackjob and his money are soon parted

Apparently, this couple knew a group of the most gullible people in America.

A man was sentenced to more than four years in prison for bilking friends and family out of more than $800,000 by convincing them that his wife was a government agent who could arrange to have their medical problems diagnosed by satellite imaging.

Brent Eric Finley, 38, of Rayville, was sentenced in federal court in Monroe to serve 51 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. His wife, Stacey Finley, was sentenced in August to spend 63 months in prison and both are ordered to jointly pay restitution in the amount of $873,786.94.

The Finleys pleaded guilty in August to wire fraud, according to court records.

U.S. Attorney Donald W. Washington said in a news release following Monday's sentencing of Brent Finley that the couple convinced numerous people that Stacey Finley was a CIA agent and with her contacts she could schedule a medical scan of the victims' bodies by satellite imaging that would detect any hidden medical problems.

The Finley's convinced their victims that, if any medical problems were found, secret agents would administer medicine to them as they slept in exchange for payment, according to a bill of information filed when the Finleys were charged in May.

Okay, so maybe they weren't very gullible so much as completely fucking insane. Seriously, that sounds like the kind of thing that only the looniest tinfoil hatters could believe in. but to people like that usually have that kind of cash lying around? Weird.

Theft be not proud

Getting caught stealing is nothing to be proud of, but when you get caught stealing something like this...

A man accused of stealing several blow-up dolls from an adult novelty store says the burglary was a "drunken, stupid thing."

A criminal complaint filed in Dane County says Jose Sandoval, 26, of DeForest, smashed through the front door at Naughty Novelties in Burke last month and stole a talking love doll with a $270 price tag, along with other dolls and items.

[...]

The complaint says Sandoval denied committing the burglary, then began to cry and led detectives to an abandoned semi behind a motel where the stolen items were recovered.

There was no word on whether or not the items were...uh...used. Which is probably a good thing.

This kid is so screwed

Sometimes you can tell when someone's future is over before it starts. This is, sadly, one of those times:

Deputies said a man left his three-month-old baby home alone for six hours while he robbed a grocery store. Police said Tony Doden and his accomplice, James Schmidt, were arrested after their getaway car was spotted by a witness.

A teenage employee told police a man wearing a Halloween style 'Jason' masked robbed them at gunpoint and then took off.

Deputies said Doden had left his three-month-old son at home to fend for himself while he and Schmidt robbed the store.

As if his potential Father of the Year candidate leaving him at home to commit an armed robbery wasn't bad enough, his mother was arrested two months ago. Yeesh.

Brilliant disguise

You know, this might have worked, if only the officer involved had been legally blind.

Police said a Somerset County man fled a traffic stop, went home, shaved his mustache and changed his clothes, and reported the truck he was driving as stolen.

Conemaugh Township police said they stopped Robert Sadlon, 50, for a broken taillight on Thanksgiving night and he ran off. Later, the same officer went to Sadlon's home near Stoystown to investigate the reported theft. There, he found a just-shaven Sadlon in different clothes.

He should have worn some glasses, too. They seem to work for Superman.

Hamburglars

Say what you will about the thieves in this case, at least they seem polite.

Cheeky Australian thieves stole 16 tons of ham and bacon from a Sydney warehouse and then wrote "Thanks, Merry Christmas" on a wall, police said on Monday.

The thieves cut through a wall of the warehouse between Saturday and Sunday and stole up to A$100,000 ($88,500) worth of meat.

I can understand why someone would break into a bank to steal money or gold, or a car dealership to steal an expensive car, but, really, what's anybody going to do with that much meat?