Ten random songs, since I'm still awake

I haven't done one of these for a while, and I can't be bothered to find a story about a dumb criminal or some freaky sex this late, so here we go:

1. Foo Fighters - "Everlong (KROQ Acoustic)"
2. U2 - "All I Want Is You"
3. Patsy Cline - "I fall to Pieces"
4. Echo & the Bunnymen - "The Cutter"
5. Public Enemy - "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" (A great song, but both Chuck D. and this reviewer seem to have missed out on the fact that the draft ended sometime in the seventies. Like Chuck says during the song, "Oh, well.")
6. The Sundays - "Wild Horses"
7. Lou Reed - "Perfect Day"
8. New Order - "Here to Stay"
9. Psychedelic Furs - "Heartbreak Beat"
10. David Bowie - "It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City"

Previous random song lists here, here, and here.

The one that got away--again

Man, it sounds like this guy is one slippery bastard:

The leader of a notorious gang of armed robbers in the Philippines, re-arrested by police after months on the run, escaped again on Friday in a scene straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster.

Eight men with M16 rifles blocked a police van transporting Pedro Rodica to a Manila jail allowing him to break free of his guards.

"I must say that this particular incident is unfortunate," said Avelino Razon, the national police chief.

And I must say that you've got a real talent for understatement there, chief.

He had first escaped from his guards in December when he was being taken to court.

"The Philippine National Police will not let this pass, the long arm of the law will soon catch up with him," Razon said.

You know, chief, catching up with him doesn't really sound like the hard part.

Dream job

You know, except for the fact that I don't live in England, I think I'm damn well qualified for a job like this:

Found: drinking companions to join elderly gentleman for a friendly beer at his local pub.

Mike Hammond was bombarded with offers after advertising in his village post office for someone to accompany his 88-year-old father Jack on visits to a southern England pub from a nursing home.

He offered the lucky winner 7 pounds ($14) an hour plus expenses and, after sifting through the applicants, decided on a job-share. Drinking duties are to be divided between a retired doctor and a former military man.

He was "bombarded with offers" after advertising for a job where all you have to do is sit around and drink beer? You don't say.

Mental rental

Back in the days when I was a renter, I had a couple of annoying landlords, but they were nothing like this:

A landlord couple accused of cutting the supports under a renter's San Francisco apartment are facing felony charges in an alleged campaign to terrorize tenants into leaving.

Prosecutors say 33-year-old software engineer Kip Macy and 32-year-old real estate agent Nicole Macy told workers to cut the beams supporting the tenant's floor after he successfully fought eviction in court.

The couple also allegedly shut off his electricity, cut his phone line and had workers saw a hole in his living room floor from below.

Man, it's just like what happened in this movie. Except the tenant was the bad guy there. But the landlords did cut off his utilities. And it took place in San Francisco. So, yeah.

Okay, I got nothing.

The case of the missing...uhhhhh...

Sounds like some enterprising entrepreneur in Kinshasa could make a mint on a line of enchanted jockstraps:

Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.

Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.

"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.

Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.

"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.

Hey, man, a disappearing wang is no laughing matter.

Oh, wait, yes it is. It's hi-fucking-larious. That's pretty much why I posted this.

Update: I knew this sounded familiar. That's probably because the head of the Moron's Union had a similar post earlier today.

You can't make this stuff up

I've read a lot of pretentious crap in my day, and music criticism is certainly a fertile field for that sort of thing. But this review, which I came across earlier today, really takes the cake. I mean, really. Here's a sample:

Recorded with Steve Albini, the nonet that is Godspeed has issued its most mysterious recording yet. The sound over these three long cuts, like all of the band's recordings, develops slowly over time and creates layers of dynamic tension that expresses itself in waves and off-kilter, shimmering flows. Usually these elements resolve themselves in earth- and ear-shattering, dissonant intensity that leaves the listener emotionally drained -- especially live. But here, a more minimal and -- dare I say -- quiet approach is used. For over 75 minutes, no "found" voices are wafting through the mix like displaced ghosts at a musical inquiry into the nature of mass control and fascism. [my emphasis]

Give yourself a pat on the back, Thom Jurek, you magnificent bastard. If they gave a Pulitzer specifically for pretentious music reviews, you'd be a shoo-in.

If I didn't know any better (I have a friend who had some stuff from this band, "Montreal politico-art/music terrorist unit Godspeed You Black Emperor!") I'd think this was a parody.

By the way: Make sure to check out the track titles for some unintentional "politico-art/music terrorist" comedy gold. I'm guessing their influences included a hip, anti-establishment art teacher, possibly of the high school variety.

No sale

There are some products that just sell themselves, but this sure as hell ain't one of them:

A laboratory technician who allegedly tried to make a quick buck by stealing samples from the Indian sperm bank where he worked has been arrested after a doctor tipped off police, authorities said Tuesday.

The employee allegedly stole the sperm from a sperm bank in the western city of Aurangabad, and tried to sell 101 vials of it to a doctor in Mumbai for about $625, Aurangabad police chief Krishna Lal Bishnoi said.

The doctor declined and called police, who arrested the lab employee and a relative, Bishnoi told The Associated Press.

"The doctor contacted police because they (doctors) usually refer patients to infertility clinics for treatment. They are never approached with sperm vials on sale," Bishnoi said.

I think that applies to the vast majority of us, actually. I would certainly hope so, anyway.

At last, a crime-fightin' robot

I would have thought something like this would come from Japan, not Atlanta:

Cars passing O'Terrill's pub screech to a halt at the sight of a 300-pound, waist-high robot marked "SECURITY" rolling through downtown long after dark.

The regulars hardly glance outside. They've seen bar owner Rufus Terrill's invention on patrol before — its bright red lights and even brighter spotlight blazing, infrared video camera filming and water cannon at the ready in the spinning turret on top.

"You're trespassing. That's private property," Terrill scolds an older man through the robot's loudspeaker. The man is sitting at the edge of the driveway to a child care center down the street. "Go on."

The man's hands go up and he shuffles into the shadows. Almost immediately, a group of men behind him scatters too.

The Bum Bot's reputation, it seems, has preceded it.

The electronic vigilante — on the beat since September — has enraged neighborhood activists, who have threatened protests. Street people say it's intimidating. And homeless advocates question the intentions of its inventor, who uses the Bum Bot as a marketing tool and a political prop.

Terrill, a 57-year-old ex-Marine, asserts his motives are pure: He says more police now patrol the area at night, the park across the street feels safer and he's had no break-ins since the cube-shaped robot, which Terrill controls with a wireless remote, has roamed the area.

[...]

An environmental engineer by day, Terrill gathered the makings of his vigilante for three months. A three-wheel scooter gives the Bum Bot mobility. A home-alarm loudspeaker attached to a walkie-talkie gives it a voice. Its head is a former home meat-smoker. The red lights are from a 1997 Chevrolet, and it's powered by four car batteries.

[...]

The robot's shell is made of steel and plywood, covered in rubber gym mats painted black and nicked by rocks, bricks and other objects people Terrill was rousting have thrown at it. Terrill programmed the Bum Bot's bulky remote himself.

Read the whole thing, especially for the utterly predictable whining from a "homeless advocate," who claims that the robot is somehow diverting attention away from the need for housing and "living wages," but is rather silent for some reason about the needles junkies are leaving at a neighborhood child care center. Go figure.

When lasers are outlawed...

...only outlaws will have lasers:

A major Australian state has banned laser pointers after a spate of incidents in which aircraft pilots have been temporarily blinded, the government said on Monday.

High-powered hand lasers, including so-called "star pointers" used by astronomers, would be listed as prohibited weapons in New South Wales state with jail terms of up to 14 years for anyone carrying them without a permit.

"It is a gutless and cowardly act that could result in an horrific outcome. It only takes a fraction of a second for a pilot to become temporarily blinded and that could have catastrophic consequences," said state Premier Morris Iemma.

Several pilots have recently reported high-intensity lasers being shone into their cockpits during take-offs and landings, and police recently enlisted intelligence agencies to help combat what papers called "laser lunatics."

Normally, I'd say that sounds pretty sensationalistic, but here, it sounds pretty accurate. I mean, what kind of whackjob tries to blind a pilot? Everybody knows that you should only blind your friends with lasers. They'll find it hilarious.

Unless, of course, they're pilots trying to take off or land aircraft.

Jury repeats procedure

When I was a kid, I was very accident-prone, and I suffered several head injuries (that explains a lot, huh?), but I don't remember the people at the hospital ever doing this to me:

A hospital did nothing wrong when it tried to examine the rectum of a construction worker who had been hit on the head by a falling wooden beam, a jury found Monday.

After deliberating for about an hour, a state Supreme Court jury awarded nothing to Brian Persaud, who sued NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital for unspecified damages. The panel found the hospital and its emergency room medical staff were not liable.

Persaud's lawyers, Gerard Marrone and Gary DeFilippo, said he might appeal.

"We're very disappointed," Marrone said after the two-week trial. "It's a miscarriage of justice."

The hospital's lawyer, Jeffrey Lawton, declined comment.

Marrone said Persaud, 38, was injured while working at a construction site in midtown Manhattan on May 20, 2003. Persaud received eight stitches for a cut over his eyebrow at the hospital, but denied emergency room staffers' request to examine his rectum, the lawyer said. He said doctors told Persaud the exam could help determine whether the accident caused spinal damage.

When Persaud resisted, staffers held him down while he begged, "Please don't do that," Marrone said. Persaud hit a doctor while flailing around, so the staffers gave him a powerful sedative and performed the rectal exam, he said.

Hospital witnesses testified at trial that the exam was never completed, but Marrone said that when Persaud woke up he was handcuffed to a bed and had an oxygen tube down his throat and lubricant in his rectum.

Sounds like the end of a weekend I had back in college. But perhaps I've said too much...

History's greatest monster, redux

Man, this thing sure is fun. Looky what I made with it:

Via Beth, via doubleplusundead's moron roundup.

Do leave home without it

I can't say that I know much about what you're supposed to do when you have to visit your probation officer, but I'm pretty damn sure you're not supposed to take your weed with you:

A Dothan [Alabama] man attempting to report to his probation officer and pay some fines was re-arrested when he emptied his pockets for a metal detector at the Houston County Courthouse and laid out more than the usual coins and keys.

Two baggies full of marijuana came out, too, authorities said.

Malcom Williams, 51, tried to escape when the drugs appeared Thursday, but he was caught after a minor struggle and a failed attempt to Taser him, sheriff's officers said.

"He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful with change, U.S. currency, keys, and the marijuana was evident in his hand," Houston County Sheriff's Capt. Antonio Gonzalez said Friday. "Every now and then you have somebody who forgets what he had in his pockets."

Hmmmm...what could have possibly made the guy forget that he had he had two bags of weed in his pockets? Oh, right.

Pump it up

Last weekend, I went to fill up at the gas station and I had a couple of memorable experiences.

First of all, that was the first time the total to fill up my '99 Honda Accord (not a real gas guzzler) topped fifty bucks. It's a good thing I don't drive all that much. Seriously, I only have to fill up about twice a month, if that. But still, that really sucks. Boo to "Big Oil"! (As opposed to all the little Mom and Pop Oil Companies, which are okay, I guess.)

Secondly, while I was standing there, pumping my gas, some dude pulls up next to me in one of these, gets out, and heads into the mini-mart to buy something. Which wouldn't be all that astonishing, except for the fact that he left his window rolled down and the engine running. I was standing there, my mouth agape, thinking about how goddamn easy it would be to steal a shiny, new $70,000 car.

Aside from the fact that the most serious crime I've ever committed is probably jaywalking, I just couldn't do it because it would have been a shame to violate this guy's child-like faith in the goodness of his fellow man.

On the other hand, he might have just been a rich douche with more money than sense.

Damn it, I knew I should have stolen that car!

Slaughter rule

I'm going to go ahead and guess that relief pitching isn't something they really use in Japanese high school baseball:

A Japanese high school pleaded for a regional game to be abandoned after surrendering 66 runs in less than two innings, local media reported on Thursday.

The coach of Kawamoto technical high school threw in the towel to spare his pitcher's arm with his team losing 66-0 with just one batter out in the bottom of the second.

The hapless hurler had already sent down over 250 pitches, allowing 26 runs in the first inning and 40 in the second before Kawamoto asked for mercy.

"At that pace the pitcher would have thrown around 500 pitches in four innings," Kawamoto's coach was quoted as saying. "There was a danger he could get injured."

Dude. In the Major Leagues over here, most pitchers never throw more than a hundred pitches in a whole game, much less a couple of innings. You'd think that the coach might have suspected his pitcher was struggling after, say, the first ten or fifteen runs he gave up in the first inning.

I hope the poor kid didn't go off and do anything rash afterward.

Bad day in the Hoosier State

Man, am I glad I wasn't anywhere near Crown Point, Indiana today:

Indiana 55 has reopened after a truckload of human feces spilled onto the roadway in northwestern Indiana's Crown Point.

The driver told police he was hauling treated human feces from a water recycling plant in Portage when the load spilled about 10:30 a.m. Thursday.

The Lake County hazardous materials response team came to clean up the mess, along with the Crown Point Fire Department and Indiana State Police.

You know, I just might not bitch about my job ever again. Because my boss never calls me up to clean a truckload of shit off a highway. Not yet, anyway.

The jinx

Real-life buddy Andy took me to the ballgame tonight as a belated birthday present. The Angels lost to the Royals, making that three in a row for me going back to last season. Like I've said before, God hates me. He hates me so much. This was also demonstrated by the bun on my Louisiana hot link, which promptly disintegrated as soon as I picked it up. The same thing happened to Andy, too.

But I had a good time with a good buddy, and we had kickass seats. They were really close to the home dugout, only about fourteen rows up from the field. This was the first time either of us had seats in the area of the stadium where hard-hit foul balls fly screaming into the area where you're sitting, petrifying Andy with fear every time one was hit near us. "Oh my God, we're going to die," he said at one point. But God must love us just a little bit, because we escaped with our lives.

Better luck next time

You know, it's little coincidences like this one that lead me to believe that God exists and has a pretty good sense of humor:

Three days after stealing a rare collection of coins, a thief in Germany took them to the bank for safe keeping -- and delivered them into the hands of the man he had robbed.

"I don't think the thief was expecting that," said a spokesman for police in the western city of Dortmund on Tuesday.

No, really? You don't say.

Soon after the thief made the deposit, a bank worker handling the coins recognized them as the set worth some 50,000 euros ($80,000) that had been stolen from his house.

The article does not mention how many ladders the thief ducked under, nor how many black cats he crossed paths with, on his way to the bank.

He dresses up in women's clothing and hangs around behind bars

You know, I have no idea why a lingerie shop wouldn't hire this...uh, individual:

Police say a man dressed as a woman repeatedly crashed his car into a suburban Detroit lingerie store that had refused to hire him earlier this year.

Oakland County Undersheriff Michael McCabe said Jeremy McIntosh, 27, was arrested Saturday night outside the Intimate Ideas store in Commerce Township, 25 miles northwest of Detroit. Damage to the store was estimated at $3,000.

McCabe said McIntosh was wearing "facial makeup, lipstick, blue Capri pants, red 'flip-flops,' a flowery blouse and a matching flowery women's bra." McIntosh told deputies he is homeless and wanted to go to jail because he had nowhere else to go.

Click on the link to take a look at the dude what looks like a lady. Well, actually, he doesn't look all that much like a lady. More like, well...

It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.

Happy Losers Day, loser

You know, I can admit that I'm not real smooth with the ladies, and I'm fine with that, but I'm not sure how a whole holiday designed specifically to remind me of that fact would really help me to feel any better. Apparently, South Koreans don't see it that way:

It was a Black Day for love in South Korea on Monday with lonely hearts trying to ease their pain by diving head first into bowls of noodles.

South Korea celebrates Valentine's Day, where local custom dictates women give gifts to men. It has taken on a popular event born in Japan but sweeping Asia known as White Day on March 14 when men return the favor with gifts for women.

But Black Day, on April 14, is a South Korean original. It is marked by people who have not found love dressing in dark colors and commiserating over meals of black food, with the dish of choice being Chinese-style noodles topped with a thick sauce of black bean paste.

"I had a miserable time on Valentine's Day, felt even lonelier on White Day and now I'm crying over a bowl of black noodles," said a young women who asked only to be identified by her family name Na out of embarrassment.

"Things better be different next year."

Or what, exactly? You'll sulk and eat black noodles again, probably.

At universities across the country on Monday, students without lunch dates ordered black noodles, dined with other lonely hearts and searched for companionship.

South Korea marketers have hatched special days for the 14th of each month to create a calendar laden with love.

Some days have gained traction such as Black Day, while others such as Green Day in August, when couples are supposed to drink cheap liquor that comes in green bottles and walk in the woods, have yet to attract much of a following.

I don't know about walking in the woods, but getting liquored up on cheap booze with your sweetheart sounds like fun. You'd think that would catch on.

Black Day events have snowballed, with a major matchmaking service this year providing an evening of speed dating where the dish of choice is sushi blackened by squid ink.

Um, yeah. That sounds real appetizing.

D'oh!

In ordinary circumstances, it kinda sucks to leave something behind on a train, but in this case, it really, really, really (like, times four hundred thousand) sucks to have left something behind:

A retired shipping consultant said he lost an expensive 17th-century violin after forgetting it on a train. Rob Napier said he did not realize the instrument, made by master Venetian craftsman Matteo Goffriller in 1698, was still on the train's luggage rack until it began pulling out of the station.

"I think you can imagine the awful, kind of pit-in-your-stomach feeling," Napier, 67, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Monday. "My first instinct was: Can I jump on top of the train? But that was obviously stupid."

Napier said he was on his way home to Bedwyn, some 70 miles (115 kilometers) west of London, on Jan. 29 after retrieving the violin from an expert who had valued it at about 200,000 pounds (US$390,000; euro245,000). Napier called the train company, but by the time the train reached its final destination, the instrument was gone.

Um, if I had just picked up a violin from an expert who had told me that it was worth four hundred thousand bucks, I don't think I could possibly leave it in a luggage rack. Probably because I'd be clutching it, white-knuckled, to my nerve-wracked body the entire way home. And even when I got it home, I might have trouble putting it down.

Criminally stupid

What's the worst possible place to try to pass off counterfeit money? This criminal mastermind sure found out:

Police say it was no surprise a bogus $50 bill got a Long Island man arrested: He was trying to use it to pay his bail on a traffic charge. The transaction compounded Cyheam Forney's legal problems and landed him in jail.

Police say they spotted the 31-year-old Forney making an illegal left turn in Melville on Thursday and discovered his license had been suspended.

Forney was arrested on a misdemeanor suspended license charge — until officers said he proffered the counterfeit currency as bail money. He was being held early Friday on a felony charge of possessing a forged instrument.

You know, I've been sitting here for a good five minutes trying to think of something funny to write here, but I'm drawing a blank here, foax. I've actually been struck dumb by this guy's stupidity.

Spooky

We went out to dinner tonight to celebrate my mom's birthday (I cheated hard on my new diet, eating a New York strip steak, drinking a Martini, and having wine with the meal) and, afterward, we headed out to the parking lot. I started whistling this, which my brother informed me was a song he absolutely hates. I don't even know why that song popped into my head.

During the car ride back, we were listening to a jazz station, which was playing an instrumental version of some Stevie Wonder tune. I think it was "Isn't She Lovely." During one of the guitarist's solos, he played a riff from the chorus of...that same song.

Weird. I should have won the lottery a long time ago, except for the fact that God hates me. He hates me so much.

Ladies on lockdown

I get the symbolic gesture here, but wouldn't it be easier to just put up signs? Like, "No sex, please, we're just masseuses. No, really."

Massage parlors in an Indonesian town are asking their female masseuses to padlock their skirts and pants to make it clear that sex is not on offer. But the move has been protested by the women's affairs minister of Indonesia, where massage parlors are often a front for prostitution.

"It is not the right way to prevent promiscuity," Meutia Swasono was quoted as saying in Thursday's Jakarta Post. "It insults women ... as if they are the ones in the wrong."

Well, if they're exchanging sex for money, and if prostitution is illegal there, well, they kind of might be in the wrong there.

At least one parlor in the tourist town of Batu on Java island has required its masseuses to padlock their skirts or trousers to make it clear that the establishment does not tolerate prostitution.

Others in the town started following suit after local officials suggested it was a good idea at a recent meeting with parlor owners. TV footage and photos have shown several masseuses with small padlocks in the zip of their pants or skirts in recent days.

Well, then, problem solved.

Stalk show host

Most of my friends know I've been a fan of Conan O'Brien since he took over Late Night back in 1993. That said, how did I not know about this?

A Boston priest apologized in a New York court on Tuesday for stalking U.S. television host Conan O'Brien and his family and accepted an order to stay away from the comedian's home and office for two years.

The Rev. David Ajemian, 48, a priest in the Archdiocese of Boston, was arrested in November 2007 during a taping of NBC's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" at New York City's Rockefeller Plaza.

Wearing khakis and a wrinkled overcoat, Ajemian said in court on Tuesday that from September 2006 until his arrest he sent letters, postcards and packages to O'Brien's New York home and to the NBC studio.

In one letter to the comedian, written on parish stationary, Ajemian referred to himself as "your priest stalker" and suggested he could be a guest on O'Brien's show.

"I regret my behavior that caused concern of the people that I was trying to contact," he told reporters.

Ajemian pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of disorderly conduct after prosecutors withdrew charges of aggravated harassment and stalking, misdemeanors that are punishable by up to 90 days in jail. The guilty plea allowed him to avoid a trial.

The article doesn't say what motivated the priest to stalk Conan, but I hope to God it wasn't a sexual thing. I mean, I think the guy is one of the funniest people on television, but...

Eep.

This is why you have a few after work

It's always a bad idea to drive while you're drunk, but sometimes the idea is a really bad one. Like when you're driving to your job at a police station:

The Oregon State Police arrest drunken drivers on the road every day. But it's not often when the drivers show up drunk at a state police office.

Troopers charged Ruby Ann Pederson, 42, of Newport with driving under the influence of intoxicants after she came to work to clean the state police office.

A trooper said she showed signs of being intoxicated after driving to the office with her 12-year-old son. A blood-alcohol test showed her level was 0.19 percent — more than twice the legal limit.

Along with the DUI, she was also charged with reckless endangerment. Being a dumbass is not against the law in Oregon, so she wasn't charged with that.

I guess the good part of this is that they didn't have to go too far to lock her up.

Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion

If science fiction movies have taught us anything (and of course they have) then I'm pretty sure that this is a really, really bad idea:

Robots could fill the jobs of 3.5 million people in graying Japan by 2025, a thinktank says, helping to avert worker shortages as the country's population shrinks.

Japan faces a 16 percent slide in the size of its workforce by 2030 while the number of elderly will mushroom, the government estimates, raising worries about who will do the work in a country unused to, and unwilling to contemplate, large-scale immigration.

The thinktank, the Machine Industry Memorial Foundation, says robots could help fill the gaps, ranging from microsized capsules that detect lesions to high-tech vacuum cleaners.

Rather than each robot replacing one person, the foundation said in a report that robots could make time for people to focus on more important things.

Japan could save 2.1 trillion yen ($21 billion) of elderly insurance payments in 2025 by using robots that monitor the health of older people, so they don't have to rely on human nursing care, the foundation said in its report.

Caregivers would save more than an hour a day if robots helped look after children, older people and did some housework, it added. Robotic duties could include reading books out loud or helping bathe the elderly.

"Seniors are pushing back their retirement until they are 65 years old, day care centers are being built so that more women can work during the day, and there is a move to increase the quota of foreign laborers. But none of these can beat the shrinking workforce," said Takao Kobayashi, who worked on the study.

"Robots are important because they could help in some ways to alleviate such shortage of the labor force."

Yeah? Well, Mr. Kobayashi, don't come crying to me when they decide to go on a rampage and destroy humanity. Or enslave us. There's really no way this will end well, people.

Bad hair day

I don't know much of anything about the way they cut hair in China, but I'm pretty sure this isn't the standard way of doing things. At least I hope not.

A Chinese hair salon has been shut down and fined 500,000 yuan ($71,280) for holding two customers hostage and charging wildly excessive fees for haircuts, a newspaper reported on Monday.

College students Zhang Yi and Yuan Sha Sha went for a haircut at Baolou International Beauty Salon in Zhengzhou, in the central province of Henan, expecting to pay the 38 yuan ($5.42) advertised on the window.

But when the barbers were done, they produced a joint bill for 12,000 yuan ($1,700), enough to make anyone's hair curl, the Beijing News reported.

"After borrowing from 16 people, the two were only able to come up with 9,800 yuan and it wasn't until after 10 pm were they allowed to leave the hair salon," it reported.

The amazing thing about this is that it's not the first time this has happened:

One was slapped with a bill for 4,776 yuan when she came in for a haircut last September. In December, another customer opted for a 68 yuan haircut, but was asked to pay 5,670 yuan.

Um, didn't anyone think to alert the police the first time these people held their customers hostage and demanded exorbitant amounts of money from them? Or at least the Chinese version of the Better Business Bureau?

Can't drive 55...on the roof

Let's see...drugs, alcohol, crazy, or a combination of all three?

A Reading man whose minivan crashed after he climbed on its roof while driving about 55 miles per hour is in fair condition this weekend. Police in West Reading say the 38-year-old man later stripped naked and led them on a chase along the highway.

[...]

Police say they used Taser jolts and pepper spray during the chase Friday but only subdued the man when they tackled him.

You know, I have a lot of respect for law enforcement officers, but there are certain aspects of their jobs that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies. Like tackling nude wackos.

Sounds unpleasant.

The wisdom of Solomon or spite?

I'm going to go ahead and guess spite on this one:

A Serb farmer used a grinding machine to cut in half his farm tools and machines to comply with a court ruling that he must share all his property with his ex-wife, local media reported on Thursday.

Branko Zivkov, 76, told Belgrade daily Kurir he had been ready to give his wife Vukadinka her equal share of everything earned during their 45-year marriage, but was furious at being asked to give away half his farming equipment.

Instead, he bought a grinder and cut in two all his tools, including large items such as cattle scales, a harrow and a sowing machine.

You know, if you just gave her half of the equipment in working order, you'd still be able to do at least half of your farming chores. Now, you won't be able to do any of them, and you'll probably starve to death.

That'll show her!

Take the money and roll

My aunt, who has worked all her life in special education, always taught me not to underestimate people with disabilities. She said that they can often do things just as well as able-bodied people. I don't think, however, that this was exactly what she had in mind:

Palo Alto police are looking for a bank robber who favors a decidedly slow-speed getaway vehicle — an electric wheelchair. Police said a man in his 60s with gray hair and a beard held up the Wachovia Bank branch at the Stanford Shopping Center late this afternoon with a black handgun.

After the stickup, he left in his wheelchair and was last seen motoring down a nearby street toward El Camino Real, a major thoroughfare.

Witnesses say the man's legs were wrapped in bandages and his right leg was sticking straight out while he zoomed away.

Police are looking for a white Ford van that the suspect may have been hoisted into after the robbery.

Assuming that whoever hoisted him into the van wasn't also in a wheelchair, wouldn't it have been easier for that person to go in and commit the robbery?

Oops. My aunt would be disappointed if she found out I'd made an assumption like that.

It's looking like a lovely day outside

What? It's not like I have to be bitter and sarcastic all the time, right?

Criminal mastermind tripped up somehow

You know how in certain movies and teevee shows, a criminal will leave behind a calling card to taunt the police? Well, usually, they're not quite this specific:

A would-be bank robber came away empty-handed, but left behind something useful for police — her photo identification. Police Commissioner William Dwyer said the woman was arrested on an attempted armed robbery charge less than an hour later.

Dwyer told The Detroit News that the woman filled out an account application Thursday morning, then pulled a handgun and demanded cash. But she panicked and fled without getting any money. Police found an address on the account application, along with her photo ID.

Needless to say, they arrested her dumb ass.

Do the cops even get paid for something like that? I mean, it's like they didn't even have to do any work. I bet they had all kinds of cool CSI-style equipment and chemicals they didn't get to use, either.

Thai government to doctors: go easy on the snippety-snip, okay?

What's the only thing that the Commander of our Army of Morons loves more than Val-U-Rite vodka or murdering hobos? Why, Thai tranny hookers, of course. Having noted that, I think he'll be outraged when he hears about this:

Thailand's health chiefs barred hospitals and clinics on Wednesday from castrating would-be "ladyboys" amid growing concern about the operation being seen as a cheap and quick alternative to a full sex-change.

In a letter to 16,000 private health units, the Public Health Ministry said doctors performing the operation outside formal sex-change therapy -- which requires rigorous physical and mental evaluation of the patient -- faced up to six months in jail.

However, senior health official Tara Chinakarn admitted that policing the temporary ban might be difficult as cosmetic removal of the testicles was such a quick operation and easy to conduct in secret.

Well, I would hope they didn't do it, you know, out in public.

The tolerance shown towards the "third sex," as it is often referred to, has led to the country becoming a world leader in sex-change surgery.

However, at the lower end of the market, clinics have responded to demand from teenage boys to look more like girls by posting Internet advertisements offering castration for as little as 4,000 baht ($125).

You know, I've never had an operation on my junk (and I hope that trend continues), but if I had to, I don't think I'd be looking for the kind of place that does it for a discount. But maybe that's just me.

Update: Check out the blogad that showed up here right after I posted this:

God, that's so friggin' awesome.

That darn cat

When you've got a house full of illegal narcotics, it's probably not a good idea to attract attention to yourself in any fashion. But it's a really bad idea to attract the attention of police, as this dumbass found out:

When a police officer went to the home of a Ridgefield [Washington] man who had complained about a neighbor's cat, the officer smelled marijuana.

A drug task force returned with a search warrant last weekend and found 84 plants in a raid on the man's home.

Reached for comment, the neighbor's cat had this to say:

Changing my e-mail address

If you feel like sending me tips, questions, or accolades, you can now send them to breacanyonmonument at yahoo dot com.

Now, make with the accolades, people!

Inmate through the out door

If I was this guy, I'm not sure whether I'd feel lucky or unimportant. Okay, that's a lie. I'd feel lucky, for now:

Law enforcement officials are trying to understand how a convicted felon managed to escape from a privately owned jail across the street from the police headquarters without anyone noticing his absence for a full day.

Esequiel Pena, 35, escaped from a private San Antonio jail sometime between Sunday afternoon and Monday afternoon. He remained at large Tuesday but was thought to be in the San Antonio area, said U.S. Marshals Service spokesman Thomas J. Smith.

Pena apparently escaped by pulling back chain-link fencing around a rooftop recreation yard and climbing down an eight-story fire escape, Smith said.

I have a feeling a few people are going to be looking for a new line of work sometime very soon. I say they start with the guy who designed such a suck-ass jail and work their way down the list.

Appropriate video link

You know, I could so totally Rickroll* you here, but I'm not a jerk like that.

You're welcome.

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter

I'm not a big fan of the interest rates the credit card companies charge, but are they evil? These nutjobs seem to think so:

A Russian doomsday cult sheltering in a bunker say credit cards and food packaging bar codes are satanic, the official negotiating the release of children from the group said on Monday.

Around 30 followers, including four children, from across Russia and neighboring Belarus met last October and barricaded themselves into a hillside to escape an apocalypse their preacher says is looming in either April or May.

"For us right now, what's most important is the children," said Alexander Yelatontsev, an official from Russia's Penza Oblast region, who has been the chief point of contact for the cult since the siege began.

"They have burned their passports and say that all plastic (credit) cards and strip codes on food packaging are the work of Satan," he told reporters.

Yelatontsev said the people underground were in contact with him regularly, and would accept food only if it had not been processed with modern factory equipment.

"Right now they are asking for a cow so that they can have fresh, boiled milk that is not processed," he said.

He said progress was slow but local authorities were negotiating with the group to leave their refuge.

"In as much as their beliefs have been formed over a long period of time, convincing them to come out is not going to happen quickly," he said.

Well, we could just wait until May. By then, the apocalypse their leader has predicted will probably have fizzled, and they can come out and rejoin society. That, or we'll all be dead anyway if the kook was right. In that case, I guess the rest of us sure will have egg on our faces.

Unless our faces have all melted off during the apocalypse. Then, I guess we'll have egg on our skulls. Or something.

I have a foul mouth blog

If you've got kids or a grandma with a heart condition, you should keep them away from here. Because of all the fucking cursing, I mean.


Created by OnePlusYou - Free Online Dating

Via the relatively tame by comparison doubleplusundead.

Getting smashed and almost smashed again

I'm just shocked—utterly shocked—to find out that this story involves drinking:

A man nearly crushed inside a garbage truck told police he can't recall how he ended up inside a trash bin — and then the truck — after a night of drinking with friends.

William M. Bowen, 27, awoke about 6:30 a.m. Thursday to find that he was inside a commercial trash-collection truck filled with waste.

A Rumpke garbage truck driver had emptied a bin behind the Muncie Eye Center into his truck and was about to activate its trash compressor when he heard someone screaming.

"He looked up and this gentleman was standing out the top of our truck," said Larry Green, market safety supervisor for Rumpke.

Green said the only thing Bowen said to the driver who found him was that he was cold.

"This gentleman was extremely intoxicated," he said.

Bowen told police the last thing he remembers before waking up in the truck was drinking with buddies about 3 a.m. Thursday at a Muncie bar.

Bowen, who wouldn't tell police who his drinking pals were, was treated and released with minor injuries from Ball Memorial Hospital.

I would assume that Mr. Bowen was a little miffed with his good buddies after that. I mean, as if the whole getting dumped in the trash thing wasn't bad enough, then he almost gets crushed to death. Though at least they didn't let him try to drive home, so there's that.

Good times, man. Good times.

What?

I've noticed an annoying trend in teevee commercials lately, this being the latest example:



It's that airy-fairy babbling female singing. It bugs the shit out of me! I mean, is she even singing in fucking English there? I can't tell. Old Navy has had a few of those over the last few months, too, and every time I hear one, I just want to hurl my remote through the goddamn picture tube.

Manila spice

I've heard plenty of people make the "I only read it for the articles" joke over the years, but it looks like there's one place where they're actually taking that seriously:

Playboy magazine is launching in the Philippines next month and will be targeting mature men who like well-written articles and tasteful photographs of semi-nude women.

"Maxim and FHM are called laddy magazines. We can be called a Dad magazine," Beting Laygo Dolor, Playboy Philippines' editor, told Reuters on Thursday.

"We are targeting a more mature market, Filipino men, 30 and above."

"There will be no full frontal nudity."

Mens' magazines with risque photos are already sold in the Philippines, which despite being a largely Catholic country has a macho culture that encourages promiscuity.

Although rural areas are more conservative, Manila and other large cities have a relaxed attitude to sex.

Dolor, who describes himself as a "bad Catholic," said the religion's values had influenced the decision not to go for a raunchier look for the magazine.

"I don't want to be ashamed to show it to my mother," said the father of four. "I have daughters in their twenties. It's something that I want them to also enjoy. I want them to be proud of their Dad."

Uh, am I the only one who's creeped out by the idea of this dude showing Playboy magazines to his mom and daughters, even if it is a little less smutty than the American version?

"Someone's in here!"

They say a man's home is his castle, and one of the most important rooms is the "throne room," if you know what I mean. It's a place for peace and quiet and, most importantly, privacy. So I'd imagine it's quite a shock when that privacy is breached in such a jarring fashion:

A New Zealand man got the fright of his life when a runaway SUV crashed into his house and knocked him off the toilet, a newspaper reported Friday.

The vehicle had been parked with its emergency brake only half on, and rolled backward down a 32 foot bank into the house Thursday in the southern city of Christchurch, "The Press" newspaper reported.

Police said a building contractor working next door had parked the vehicle at the top of the bank minutes earlier.

"He came back to his vehicle and found it next door, basically," Christchurch police Sgt. Kim Reid was quoted as saying.

The paper said that when the homeowner was asked how the builder might be feeling, he said: "What about me? I got knocked off the toilet. I got a hell of a fright."

If there's any justice in this world, his response to the person who asked that question was accompanied by a swift kick in the ass.

Portrait of a (naked) lady

Having never been married, I'm not quite sure how I'd feel if this sort of thing involved my wife:

A nude portrait of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's wife Carla Bruni will go under the hammer in New York next month, according to auctioneers Christie's.

The 13 x 10 1/8 inch gelatin silver black and white photograph was taken in 1993, when Bruni was one of the world's top fashion models, and is being sold by art collector Gert Elfering.

It is expected to fetch $3,000 to $4,000 when it is sold in New York on April 10, according to the Christie's web site.

On the one hand, I'm not really sure I'd like some other dude having a naked picture of my special lady to ogle whenever he'd like. On the other hand, I might feel some pride over the fact that someone would be willing to pay that much for a single naked picture, especially when you're able to download pictures of naked women for free from teh internets. Or so I'm told. Not that I'd do such a thing.

Val-U-Rite viper

I'm a big believer in both the entrepreneurial spirit and the Ace of Spades Lifestyle™, and it looks like a guy down in Texas has found a way to blend the two. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this may lead to prison time:

A rattlesnake rancher who calls himself Bayou Bob found a new way to make money: Stick a rattler inside a bottle of vodka and market the concoction as an "ancient Asian elixir." But Bayou Bob Popplewell's bright idea appears to have landed him on the wrong side of the law, because he has no liquor license.

Popplewell, who has raised rattlesnakes and turtles at Bayou Bob's Brazos River Rattlesnake Ranch for more than two decades, surrendered to authorities Monday. He spent about 10 minutes in jail after the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission obtained arrest warrants on misdemeanor charges of selling alcohol without a license and possessing alcohol with intent to sell.

If convicted, he faces up to a year in jail and $1,000 in fines.

Popplewell said he will fight the charges. His intent, he said, is not to sell an alcoholic beverage but a healing tonic. He said he has customers of Asian descent who believe the concoction has medicinal properties.

"It's almost a spiritual thing," said Popplewell, 63.

Well, there are definitely spirits involved, but I'm not really sure how a dead snake in a bottle of Val-U-Rite vodka provides one with a religious experience. Not even if you drink a lot of it. That mostly just gives you alcohol poisoning.

But alcohol commission agent Scott Jones pointed out that investigators confiscated 429 bottles of snake vodka and one bottle of snake tequila. At $23 a bottle, that's almost $10,000 worth of reptilian booze.

Even if Popplewell intended his drink be used as a healing tonic — an assertion the alcohol commission disputes — his use of vodka requires a state permit, authorities said.

"It's sold for beverage purposes, and he knows what he's doing," commission Sgt. Charlie Cloud said.

Popplewell said he uses the cheapest vodka he can find as a preservative for the snakes. The end result is a super sweet mixed drink that Popplewell compared to cough syrup.

"I've honestly never seen a person drink it," he said.

That's probably due to the fact that you can buy cough syrup (which contains very little snake, I'm told by reliable sources) for a lot less than twenty three bucks.

That, and the fact that it sounds pretty effing nasty. Most people I know prefer not to have dead reptiles in their booze.

Ask and you shall receive...

...attention from the authorities, in this case, anyway:

Police in Bethany [Oklahoma] are looking for what Chief Neal Troutman calls a "sick individual" who's leaving notes asking for women to give him their underwear.

Troutman said the person is knocking on doors and leaving notes with specific instructions asking for the undergarments.

The notes say the women will be given $20.

It doesn't sound like anybody has taken him up on the offer.

One real classy lassie

Do they still have finishing schools to teach young women how to be classy and graceful? If they do, I'm going to go ahead and guess this gal didn't attend one:

Suburban New York police say a drunken driver had a suspended license and had marijuana in her car. Oh, they also say she didn't have any pants on.

Yonkers police say 22-year-old Long Island resident Angelica Buchanan was found Saturday standing bottomless in a street near her car. They say she was so drunk she had to be hospitalized.

Police say she claimed she wasn't wearing pants because she needed to use the bathroom. They've charged her with driving while intoxicated, unlicensed operation of a vehicle and marijuana possession.

What, no indecent exposure? And the DWI charge seems a little unfair. I mean, she was standing outside the car, after all. I didn't know standing near your car after having a few was illegal in New York. It shouldn't be, not if you're wearing pants, anyway.

Logo shows where it's a no go for SoKo hoes, yo

I'm not really sure what the legal status of prostitution is like in South Korea, but wouldn't it just be easier to put a sign reading "whorehouse" outside?

South Korea is introducing new signs for its hot spring spas to remove any confusion for those seeking other kinds of steamy liaisons.

The Ministry of Public Administration and Security introduced the new blue logo Monday for about 480 spas across the country, said ministry official Lim Jae-wung.

The sign replaces a nearly century-old red icon — a circle with rising wisps of steam that have been appropriated by "love motels," which offer prostitution or short stays for couples having extramarital relations.

[...]

The new logo depicts waves of water with two circles symbolizing the heads of a father and son amid rising steam. Those using the sign at non-spa facilities can be punished by up to two years in jail and a fine of up to $10,030, Lim said.

Well, I guess that kind of clears up my question about the legality of prostitution over there. It sounds like Korean "ladies of the evening" can ply their trade without any worries, so long as they don't use the wrong logo.

Good to know. So that I can find a legitimate spa if I ever find myself in that neighborhood, I mean. Get your minds out of the gutter, you pervs. Honestly, your mothers would be ashamed of you. And so am I.

Welcome, Moronosphere enthusiasts

I've been getting a lot of traffic from doubleplusundead as of late, and I see that I've also been included in Conservative Belle's official Moronosphere blogroll, so if you're new here, feel free to explore the place and leave comments. It's good to have you here.

Update: I can honestly say that I've never been more proud to be a member of somebody's private army of retards.

"Have the Rolling Stones killed."

Thanks, but my name's not Burnsie.

My good friends at the Phillip Morris Company sent me a coupon for a couple bucks off a pack of smokes, though, so there's that. Oh, and I get to have dinner here, which looks pretty nice. Yay me!

Update: My good meatspace buddy Andy had some kind words for me today, which were much appreciated.

I should also note that today was my parents' 35th anniversary. I'm the gift that not only keeps on giving, but also couldn't be exchanged.

Happy Easter...

...to all my Peeps.

My family will be celebrating the resurrection of the most famous Jewish guy in the history of the world by eating a ham dinner. Pretty ironic, no?

Father of the year

A lot of people will tell you that their kids are the mean the world to them. This guy, not so much:

A shoplifter looking to make a quick getaway from a Dutch supermarket after stealing a packet of meat left police a crucial piece of evidence -- his 12-year-old son.

In his haste the 45-year-old thief made a solo dash to his car, batting away a supermarket worker who had flung himself on the vehicles' bonnet in a bid to stop the escape.

Police in the southern Dutch town of Kerkrade said they managed to contact the thief via the boy, but he had refused to return and collect his son. The man told officers to get hold of the youngster's mother instead.

I don't know if they celebrate Fathers Day in the Netherlands, but if they do, something tells me this guy isn't even getting an ugly tie this year.

The great kruller caper

Stealing a vehicle is never really a good idea, but stealing this particular vehicle was just begging for trouble:

A bevy of officers chased a doughnut delivery van at speeds up to 100 mph before arresting the driver at gunpoint, authorities said.

But the cops weren't simply hankering for doughnuts.

The van, owned by Donut Delite of Moline, Ill., was stolen early Thursday while the driver was making deliveries at a hospital in nearby Rock Island. The driver had left the van running, and a man jumped in and headed for Iowa, just over the Mississippi River.

A Benton County, Iowa, sheriff's deputy spotted the van later in the morning, and eight other officers eventually joined the chase. Authorities finally cornered it in neighboring Tama County.

Frank Alvarado, 46, of Moline, Ill., was charged with theft and other counts and was held on $15,000 bond.

[...]

Tama County Sheriff Dennis Kucera said his officers had no idea what the unmarked van was carrying.

They were rewarded for their efforts anyway — the doughnut shop gave them the purloined goodies.

I bet they were glad it wasn't a delivery van from a health food store.

Leafy green veggies

I know most people like to bring a little something back when they visit a foreign country, like a snow globe or a t-shirt. God knows, those kind of items arouse less suspicion than thirty pounds of canned food:

It didn't look quite right to federal agents when the high school student strolled into the U.S. border crossing while carrying six enormous cans of vegetables.

After agents took X-rays of one can, their suspicions were confirmed. It turned out the industrial-size containers of hominy and jalapeno peppers actually were stuffed with 25 pounds of marijuana, agents said.

The cans normally hold about 5 pounds of vegetables and are commonly used in food service and restaurants, U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Roger Maier said.

The 17-year-old, a U.S. citizen who lives in Juarez, Mexico, had declared she was just bringing in some food.

I guess if I had 25 pounds of weed, I'd have the munchies, too.

Grand theft taco

Creating a video record of your crimes probably isn't the smartest idea. But you know what's sheer genius? Posting that video on the internet:

A man who pretended to be a CEO complaining about his fast-food order in a taco scam was sentenced to 30 days in jail after authorities saw the prank in an online video.

Rialto police said it was an easy case to crack because the video, called "How to Scam Del Taco" and posted on YouTube.com, shows Robert Echeverria, 32, calling the restaurant about 50 miles east of Los Angeles on Feb. 19.

In a friendly tone he claims to be a CEO named "Robert Kennedy" who has already spoken to the store's manager and corporate office about some unwanted sour cream and the lack of a receipt in a previous order.

"I love your guys' tacos," he said.

One of his two 18-year-old co-stars is later shown walking into the restaurant and claiming the food. The video ends with the three men feasting and laughing.

Echeverria even provided a pair of personal phone numbers in the video, Rialto police Lt. Joe Cirilo said.

Well, that certainly makes it easier for people to call up and tell you how awesomely awesome your scam was. Or to arrest you. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, really.

Update: Want to watch this fat load working his scam? Enjoy:



I think he loves their tacos a little too much, if you know what I mean.

Only in Japan

If you were to tell me that any other country was doing something like this, I wouldn't believe you. But the Land of the Rising Sun? Oh yeah.

Japan has created an unusual government post to promote animation, and named a perfect figure to the position: Doraemon.

Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura appointed the popular cartoon robot cat as "anime ambassador" on Wednesday, handing a human-sized Doraemon doll an official certificate at an inauguration ceremony, along with dozens of "dorayaki" red bean pancakes — his favorite dessert — piled on a huge plate.

Komura told the doll, with an unidentified person inside, that he hoped he would widely promote Japanese animated cartoons, or "anime."

"Doraemon, I hope you will travel around the world as an anime ambassador to deepen people's understanding of Japan so they will become friends with Japan," Komura told the blue-and-white cat.

[...]

Doraemon — through voice actress Wasabi Mizuta, who spoke from behind a sliding paper screen — promised Komura that "Through my cartoons, I hope to convey to people abroad what ordinary Japanese people think, our lifestyles and what kind of future we want to build."

That's probably not going to confuse anybody. I mean, who better to explain what ordinary Japanese people are like than a giant blue cat?

In case you were wondering...

...and you probably weren't (bastards), my foot is feeling much better. It's barely swollen at all, I'm not limping around anymore, and I can even wear shoes comfortably now. I'm also getting used to my dietary restrictions, though I'm hoping I can ease up on those sometime soon. I think I'm going to quit drinking regular sodas, though. The diet stuff doesn't taste half as bad as I remember it tasting, and diet Dr. Pepper really does taste pretty much like the regular stuff!

I still miss red meat, bacon, sausage, and booze, though. I miss them so much.

Just give the kid a hall pass, already

You know, I had a few teachers who were pretty strict, but none of them ever did anything like this:

A teacher was put on paid leave Tuesday while officials investigate why a student urinated in a lunch box during her class.

The Meadowbrook Middle School student urinated in a lunch box while hiding behind a classroom bookcase, Orange County school officials said Tuesday.

According to statements by other students in the class, school officials think that when the boy asked to go the restroom on Thursday, teacher Jameeka Chambers told him to hold it or use her lunch box.

I'm gonna go ahead and guess that wasn't a treasured lunch box from her childhood that she paid big bucks for on eBay. At least I hope not.

The boy took the lunch box, hid behind a bookcase, urinated in it and returned it to her, Frank Kruppenbacher, attorney for the Orange County School Board, told the Orlando Sentinel.

"I think we clearly know she didn't tell him, 'Go pee in this box,' in the sense of going to go do that," Kruppenbacher said. "That's beyond our comprehension."

Yeah, it sounds more like a dare that she didn't really expect him to accept.

This is a first-year teaching job for Chambers, who teaches sixth-grade language arts.

Something tells me she might not be back for a second year.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I'll be having one of these with my corned beef and cabbage tonight, Doctor's orders be damned! Life's too short to avoid alcohol and boiled beef on a day like today. In fact, my heritage demands it. So there.

Gone with the wind

Gather round, children, and listen to the tale of a man who could have saved himself thousands of dollars and a lot of heartache by tying a simple knot around his finger:

It is the one moment every man wants to get right -- and which London floor-fitter Lefkos Hajji could hardly have got more wrong.

The luckless 28 year-old's dreams of giving his sweetheart, Leanne, 26, the ultimate proposal have literally vanished into thin air.

Hajji, of Hackney, east London, had concealed a $12,000 engagement ring inside a helium balloon. The idea was that she would pop the balloon as he popped the question.

But as he left the shop, a gust of wind pulled the balloon from his hand and he watched the ring -- and quite possibly the affections of his girlfriend -- sailing away over the rooftops.

"I couldn't believe it," he told The Sun newspaper.

"I just watched as it went further and further into the air.

"I felt like such a plonker. It cost a fortune and I knew my girlfriend would kill me."

Hajji spent two hours in his car trying to chase and find the balloon, without success.

"I thought I would give Leanne a pin so I could literally pop the question," he said.

"But I had to tell her the story -- she went absolutely mad. Now she is refusing to speak to me until I get her a new ring."

I'm thinking that telling her the story might not have been the best idea. I don't claim to know a whole lot about women, but I'm pretty sure telling one that you let twelve grand worth of jewelery float away on the breeze is bound to make her mad.

Junk'n donuts

Chances are if you're working the drive-thru at a donut shop, you're probably getting paid the minimum wage. But no matter how much they pay you, it's probably not enough when you have to deal with a customer like this guy:

Careful with that coffee! Police say a man placing an order in a suburban New York doughnut shop's drive-through lane didn't have any pants on.

They say a Dunkin' Donuts worker saw John Greco's exposed genitals in the Feb. 27 stunt and then noted the make of his car and his license plate number.

Police say the 46-year-old Croton-on-Hudson resident was arrested last week and has been charged with misdemeanor public lewdness. He's due in court March 27.

There's no mention of what kind of donuts he ordered or, thankfully, what he planned to do with them.

Accidents will happen

We all make mistakes, right? Sure, but how many of us make the same mistake over and over, nearly nine thousand times?

A Queensland police officer caught with more than 8000 child porn images on his home computer has avoided spending any time in jail.

Thomas James Anthony Wilson, 25, pleaded guilty in Brisbane's District Court today to possessing the lewd material, including pictures of boys as young as 10 engaging in sex acts.

He was sentenced to 18 months' jail, but the term was wholly suspended after his lawyer successfully argued Wilson had downloaded the images by mistake.

The former policeman, who has since lost his job, was one of 1717 suspects identified as part of a 2003 child porn investigation by US Customs and FBI agents.

Police traced his credit card to a child porn website titled “Sunshine Boys”, where Wilson had paid a $35 access fee.

A March 28, 2006 raid on his Shorncliffe home on Brisbane’s northside uncovered a computer loaded with pornography.

In all, 8742 images were identified as depicting children aged between 10 and 18 posing nude, masturbating and engaging in sex acts.

First of all, ewwwwwwwww! Secondly, how do you pay a registration fee for a kiddie porn site and download 8,742 photos from said site without, you know, figuring out that you're downloading some sick shit? Perhaps his lawyer can explain:

Wilson's defence barrister Craig Eberhardt told the court his client had not purposefully sought out child abuse images when he downloaded pornography files from the internet.

He suggested Wilson may have viewed some of it as a way to deal with his own sexuality as a young man.

"(He is) not a pedophile, he does not have pedophilic tendencies," Mr Eberhardt said, citing medical evidence.

"His culpability comes from his failure to get rid of it once he knew it was there."

Apparently, the judge bought it, seeing as how he gave the pervert a suspended sentence and told him, "I accept that you did not actively seek child pornography and these images were accessed somewhat accidentally."

I still don't get it. Did he think they were midgets or something? Because if he did, well, that's only somewhat less disturbing.

(Via FARK.)

Extreme voter apathy!

Quick, somebody call Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton! It looks like the Republicans are suppressing Florida voters again!

Every vote counts. But what happens when there are no votes at all? That's the situation city officials in Tamarac are facing. No voters showed up Wednesday night to cast a ballot in an annexation referendum for an unincorporated Broward County community.

There are 68 registered voters in the 200-person Prospect Bend neighborhood. Tamarac officials have proposed annexing the neighborhood.

Details were mailed to registered voters. If just one voter had shown up, that one vote would have decided the neighborhood's fate.

Eh, it's no big deal. That one voter probably would have just voted for Pat Buchanan anyway.

A match made in heaven

Women tend to get mad when their husbands do something insensitive, like forgetting their wedding anniversary. This poor bastard never made it that far:

A Chinese bride burned her new husband to death after he got into bed after a drunken argument without washing his feet, state media reported on Wednesday.

"Wang and his wife, Luo, were married on February 2. The couple, however, frequently fought over trivial things while still on their honeymoon," the official Xinhua news agency quoted a local newspaper as saying.

The couple, from the central province of Hubei, had another fight on the night of March 4, "and in frustration they together drank a bottle of liquor to ease their anger."

What a good idea! If only more fighting couples would just hit the bottle, I'm sure domestic violence rates would plummet.

"At about 10 p.m., Luo watched her husband get into bed without cleaning or washing his feet. In a fit of anger and intoxication, she set fire to the sheet he was sleeping in," the report said.

I guess that's one way to save on the cost of a divorce lawyer. But seeing as how she's been arrested, those savings may have to go toward her murder defense. Easy come, easy go.

Dream job

I wonder how a company would phrase "Help Wanted" ads for job like this:

A "sniff squad" of trained noses is being called in to root out Northampton's landfill odors. The city has hired specially trained stink-sniffers to help determine whether the dump is too pungent for neighboring homeowners to stand.

Northampton officials signed a $25,000 contract with an Agawam environmental company after state officials ordered independent testing of landfill odors.

Using little more than their own noses, the super sniffers are trained to detect and rate the strength of rotting trash, landfill gases and other unpleasantries.

Rating on a 1 to 8 scale — roughly, from bearable to foul beyond belief — the sniffers also judge the smells against a kit they carry of ready-to-sniff odors of various intensities.

The next time you're tempted to bitch about how much your job sucks, just remember the fact that you don't have to carry around a kit with you full of vials of "Essence of dead rat" and "ripe ass" in order to complete your work.

Better late than never

There are some books, like War and Peace, that take a long time to read, but this is ridiculous:

A Finnish library-goer apparently thought 'better late than never' and quietly returned a book on loan for more than 100 years to a library in Vantaa, in southern Finland.

The library had long since lost track of the loan but welcomed back to its collections the bound copy of a 1902 volume of Vartija, an active religious monthly periodical at the time.

"We are unclear when exactly it was borrowed and who returned it. There weren't any documents with it," librarian Minna Saastamoinen told Reuters.

"There is an old note attached to the book which says there is a fine of 10 pennies a week for late returns," she added.

Sure, that sounds like chump change, but when you consider inflation and interest, they could probably use the late fees to fund the entire Finnish library system for the next decade or so.

A really big date

If you're single and you're convinced that's due to the fact that you've put on a few pounds, well, that may not be the case. I mean, if this guy is dating...

When Manuel Uribe went out on a date, he made all the necessary arrangements: a forklift to carry him out of the house and a flatbed tow truck big enough to haul the formerly half-ton man and his bed to a party.

But even the open road wasn't big enough to handle Uribe's dream of celebrating a budding romance and his success in losing about 440 pounds.

Uribe was halfway to a picnic near his Monterrey-area home on Sunday when one of the posts holding a sun-shielding tarp over his bed hit an overpass.

Uribe's blood pressure dropped so much his doctors advised him not to go on and the celebration — being documented by about two dozen photographers and reporters from around the world — was canceled.

"We were going to celebrate that I've been losing weight for two years and that it was my girlfriend's birthday," Uribe said in a telephone interview. "The saddest part was that I couldn't fulfill my dream of taking my girlfriend out to eat."

Well, I guess he is in better shape than he was a couple of years ago, when he started a new high-protein diet. So maybe slimming down is the key to meeting that special someone, after all.

I miss beer

After valiantly struggling into some shoes, I went to meet some friends at a bar last night. The beer—real beer—looked so very, very good. But I had lemonade. Doctor's orders, you know.

I actually got up for a rare Saturday morning breakfast today, more because I had to have food to take my pills than for any other reason. Just an English muffin and some juice. I made a tuna salad sandwich for lunch, which I ate with some carrots and Pringles. I'm really looking forward to dinner tonight, though—BBQ pork ribs! Ah, the other white meat.

Getting better all the time

I went to see my regular doctor today, and he said my foot was looking okay. I have to agree. It's still a little swollen and tender, but it's not nearly as red as it was earlier this week. The steroids I've been taking have been doing a good job on the inflammation, and I'm drilling 95 mph fastballs out over the fence in left-center with the greatest of ease. Okay, so I made that last part up. Different kind of steroids.

I couldn't complain too much about the food today, either. Had a three-cheese omelet with rye toast for breakfast, a Twice Grilled Burrito form El Pollo Loco for lunch, and thin-crust Pizza Margherita with salad for dinner.

Tanked

Getting behind the wheel of your car after you've had a snootful is dangerous enough, but this is ridiculous:

A Russian tank crashed through a villager's house after the crew stopped to buy more vodka at a nearby shop.

Footage from a mobile phone camera showed the tank hitting a corner of the house and a laughing, and apparently drunk, driver awkwardly trying to clamber aboard with two bottles of vodka.

"Get him out of the tank," screamed a woman in the village in the Urals.

The army promised Friday to pay compensation and said the tank must have been broken and fallen behind a column heading to a test site for exercises. Earlier it said the vehicle slid on melting ice.

Let me guess...they slid right into a liquor store parking lot. Or maybe the Russian version of AAA brings vodka along when they come to fix your broken-down tank.

A steady diet of...somewhat better food

I started out the day with a bowl of Cheerios, which wasn't any great shakes, but I added some fresh-sliced strawberries, so, hey. Not bacon, but tasty, nonetheless. But still not bacon. I can't stress that enough.

A grilled cheese sandwich with some little kosher dill pickles on the side for lunch, which is something I like, but note the lack of meat. It's like I'm turning into some kind of goddamn hippie, here. Oh, and I made a pitcher of iced tea, since I did a little research and found out that sweetened soft drinks place you at higher risk for gout. Guess what I've been drinking with lunch for as long as I can remember? Damnit.

For dinner, finally the sweet, sweet taste of an animal's suffering. Sautéed chicken thighs, potato gnocchi with cheese in a light tomato sauce, and salad. Not a bad meal, really. And I washed it all down with pills and water.

I've got another non-alcoholic beer waiting for me in the fridge. I can't hardly wait.

The scenic route

I'm pertty sure this sort of thing is the reason why, here in America at least, they make someone from the dealership go along with you:

An Australian who took a new car on a 3,200 km (1,988 mile) six-day test drive from the city to the outback has been arrested, police said on Thursday.

The 30-year-old convinced a car dealer in the southeastern city of Melbourne to lend him a A$40,000 ($37,000) Honda Accord sedan last Friday and drove the equivalent of London to Istanbul before he was arrested near the town of Tennant Creek, deep in the outback of the Northern Territory.

"He drove from Melbourne to Adelaide to Alice Springs," Tennant Creek police Constable James Gray-Spence told Reuters.

He said the man was arrested without incident at a road block on his way north to Darwin after he failed to pay for fuel at a hamlet.

[...]

Melbourne car yard owner Ian McKenzie said the man would have had to have been in the car all day, every day to reach Tennant Creek.

"He seemed a legitimate gentleman. He stood at the desk right in front of a camera. He wasn't afraid of being photographed or videoed," McKenzie told the Herald Sun newspaper.

Well, he probably figured that nobody would recognize him, you know, two-friggin'-thousand miles away.

For some reason, the article doesn't mention whether or not the guy was satisfied with the car. Maybe needed another few thousand miles to decide.

Arrest that corpse!

Something tells me that this ordinance is going to be a bit tricky to enforce:

The mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.

In an ordinance posted in the council offices, Mayor Gerard Lalanne told the 260 residents of the village of Sarpourenx that "all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish."

It added: "Offenders will be severely punished."

Uh, Mayor Lalanne, I think I've detected a slight flaw in your plan. Unless it involves some sort of pipeline to St. Peter, or a curse that will turn "offenders" into zombie slaves.

Come to think of it, that might be kind of cool.

A steady diet of blah

Toaster waffles for breakfast (no sausage or bacon, damnit), chicken soup for lunch, and fish with rice and salad for dinner. Along with a bunch of pills.

Oh, and I have a non-alcoholic beer to look forward to, later. Yay.

At least I got to take the huge wad of bandages off my foot, which is looking and feeling a little better.

Update: That's funny. I've never felt like throwing things at the teevee during commercials for Wienerschnitzel chili dogs before.

(Confused about this post? See here.)

Just a drunk a drunk of burning love

I can't think of many places where it's appropriate too show up drunk and dressed like Elvis, but court sure as hell isn't one of them:

A central Kentucky judge had a suspicious mind when an Elvis Presley impersonator showed up for court apparently drunk and sporting sunglasses and a rhinestone-studded shirt with a scarf draped around his neck.

County Attorney Brian Goettl said that as a result, the judge had David Blaisdell, 64, tested for intoxication and sentenced him to three days in jail for contempt of court when it was determined that the man's blood-alcohol level was nearly twice that at which a person in Kentucky is considered legally drunk.

The article goes on to say that he told the judge that he'd had "a few drinks the night before," by which I guess he meant "several jugs of moonshine."

So, how was your evening?

I hope it was better than mine. You see, I hurt my right foot somehow the other day (or so I thought—keep reading), and the joint of my big toe started to swell up. I started icing it, but that didn't really seem to help. I've been limping around for days now, unable to even put on a shoe. I tried to make an appointment with my doctor, but the scheduling desk said he wouldn't have an opening until the 19th. Great. Anyway, my mom saw how red and swollen it was this afternoon and basically ordered me to go to the emergency room.

So I struggled into a pair of flip-flops and drove over there, where I got to sit around for more than an hour before I even got shown to a room. Good thing I took a nice, thick book, huh? Once I got into the room—which was freezing cold, of course—I got to sit there for another eternity or so. The doctor finally showed up, asked me some questions, looked at my foot, and decided he was going to slice it open to check for an abscess. He didn't find one. No, instead, he thinks I have...gout. Which meshes nicely with my curmudgeonly outlook on life and my disdain for the music the kids are listening to these days.

That's bad enough, but until it clears up I have to cut red meat, nitrates (hot dogs, sausage, etc.), and booze out of my diet. I might as well just not get up in the morning. Ugh. Well, hopefully I won't be as gimpy by this time next week.

Savor the whales

Anybody who knows me could tell you that I'm all about green living, reducing my carbon footprint, and all that bullshit. So, in the interest of saving Mother Earth, I may have to start eating whale:

Eat a whale and save the planet, a Norwegian pro-whaling lobby said on Monday of a study showing that harpooning the giant mammals is less damaging to the climate than farming livestock.

Environmental group Greenpeace dismissed the survey, saying almost every kind of food was more climate friendly than meat.

The survey, focused on whale boats' fuel use, showed that a kilo (2.2 lbs) of whale meat represented just 1.9 kilo (4.2 lbs) of greenhouse gases against 15.8 for beef, 6.4 for pork and 4.6 for chicken.

"Basically it turns out that the best thing you can do for the planet is to eat whale meat compared to other types of meat," said Rune Froevik of the High North Alliance, which represents the interests of coastal communities in the Arctic.

"Greenhouse gas emissions caused by one meal of beef are the equivalent of eight meals of whale meat," the study said.

Well, I'd really like to do my part by tucking into a delicious whale steak, but it turns out whale meat is hard to get around here, since the only people who are allowed to practice whaling in the U.S. are some Eskimos and an Indian tribe up in Washington.

The blame for this environmentally irresponsible policy rests squarely on the shoulders of George W. Bush and his Big Oil cronies. Probably.

Birthday brawl

I always loved birthday parties when I was a kid. Pizza, games, cake, and friends. But there was always something missing. What was it? Ah, yes, the fisticuffs:

Two battling Boston moms face the next round in court after police say they turned on each other at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant.

The fight allegedly broke out at the Natick pizza-and-play eatery during a child’s birthday party, police said.

Natick police said the mom of the 9-year-old birthday boy apparently became enraged because the other woman’s son was "hogging" an arcade game Saturday night.

Sgt. Paul Thompson said 38-year-old Catherine Aliaga and 33-year-old Tarsha Williams, both of Boston, would be summoned into court to answer charges of simple assault and battery stemming from the scuffle.

[...]

A company spokesman tells the Herald the two moms "exchanged words" Saturday night at 6:45 while two children were playing an arcade game and then "punches were thrown."

Last I knew, Chuck E. Cheese's didn't serve alcohol, so I don't think they can use that as an excuse. Unless they brought flasks or something, but I really can't see two such obviously classy dames doing something like that.