We're gonna need about this size boat

I've lived in California all of my life, but I've never been a fan of the ocean, which is something that some of my younger Midwestern relatives can't seem to fathom (get it?). Why not? Because of stuff like this:

Twenty-nine-year-old Jason Kresse (KRES'-ee) of Freeport says he and two crew members were dumping fish guts in the Gulf of Mexico about 3:45 a.m. Monday when they heard splashes in the distance and then something hit the side of their 25-foot boot.

A shark in an apparent rush to feed had jumped into the back and was thrashing around. Kresse says the crew couldn't get close to the 375-pound fish to toss it back in the water.

See, when you're sitting in your car at a traffic light or standing on a street corner, it's extremely rare to have a nearly 400 pound monster lunge at you from out of nowhere.

Also, there really isn't any reason to be carrying fish guts around with you on dry land, and I'm okay with that.

What's in a name?

I don't really get how this is a coincidence:

Virginia police who arrested a man on suspicion of dealing drugs say it's just a coincidence the suspect's name is Kevin Lee Cokayne.

A search inventory of items confiscated in Cokayne's Fairfax County apartment lists a safe with marijuana, a wooden box with marijuana, two jars containing marijuana, a smoking device with marijuana, a digital scale, and "records and documents," The Washington Post reported Monday.

I mean, if his name was something close to marijuana or weed or his nickname was Bud, that would be something. But his name doesn't have anything to do with the illicit substance he was caught with.

Still, though, that's not exactly an auspicious name to have.

Since it's Friday night...

...and we like to look at lovely ladies on Friday nights, here's a pic of Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner:

She's pretty hot for someone with such a manly-sounding name. Which really can't be said for Wolf Blitzer.

Squeaky fraud

I'm not sure if the whole thing about getting your ass kicked in prison for committing weak-ass crimes is true or not, but if it is, this guy is in for a bad time behind bars:

A Montana man who mimicked a female voice is exchanging his ill-gotten Tempur-Pedic mattress for a cot in a federal prison.

The U.S. attorney's office in Idaho says 60-year-old Ricky Vaughn Barry of Hamilton, Mont., was sentenced Wednesday to a year and a day in prison for impersonating his ex-wife when speaking to company representatives.

Wait, this was his ex-wife that he was impersonating? I can't believe that they didn't get along and had to split up for some reason.

It's enough to make a guy doubt that true love really exists.

Good news for housebound nerds!

And by "housebound nerds," I mean "me."

Sudden bursts of moderate to intense physical activity -- such as jogging or having sex -- significantly increase the risk of having a heart attack, especially in people who do not get regular exercise, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

Seeing as how neither sex or jogging are either a part of my normal routine, I should live a very, very long life. Now, somebody please pass some bacon, the teevee remote, and a beer.

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!!!

The opposite of robbery

So, a guy walks into a Starbucks, and...

The witnesses said the man walked into the Brookline Avenue location Thursday, said "I'm rich, I'm rich, I'm rich!" and threw the approximately 100 $1 bills into the air, WFXT-TV, Boston, reported Tuesday.

Nutritionist Tara Mardigan said she and the other customers stood in stunned silence after the man calmly walked out of the store.

"We all just sat there stunned. Nobody scrambled for the money like you would think they would," Mardigan said.

Hmmmm...let me put on my hack comedian hat here:

"Of course not, they were all too absorbed with writing their novels on their laptops."

Or

"Of course not, you can't get anything for a hundred bucks at Starbucks."

On a positive note, the employees apparently gathered up the cash and donated it to Japanese earthquake relief efforts.

Your rights end at my eyes

I have long maintained that the kind of people who like to be nude in public are almost always the last people you'd actually like to see without clothes on, and a loophole in an Oregon law may take care of that:

In a state where men have legally strolled the streets in nothing but tennis shoes and Portland hosts an annual naked bike ride, nudists appeared at the Oregon Legislature on Monday -- clothed -- to ask lawmakers not to let their lifestyle get wrapped up in an effort to regulate strip clubs.

Okay, if they're so committed to the nudist lifestyle, why did they feel the need to cover up in front of their elected officials? Oh, yeah, because it's inappropriate to appear in certain public places (by which I mean just about any public places) without wearing fucking clothes, now, isn't it?

The battle over bare skin renews familiar debates about balancing freedom with neighborhood standards in a state known for its liberal protections of free speech -- and nude expression.

Nudist advocates testified against a bill that would ask voters to change free-speech protections in the state constitution to let communities keep strip clubs out of neighborhoods. But, nudists warn, that might unintentionally allow cities to outlaw nude recreation.

And why shouldn't communities be allowed to do that? If you and a majority of your fellow citizens would like to live in a town where you're not forced to look at your neighbor's dong every time he walks out to water the plants or get his mail? If I decide that I don't want to use the toilet anymore and want to start pooping in the front yard, do I have the right to do that, too? Is that not "poop expression"?

"We want to protect our rights," said John Kinman, past president of the American Association for Nude Recreation, which has joined the American Civil Liberties Union in opposing the measure.

But of course. The ACLU is involved. Who could have seen that coming? Oh, and how about the property rights of people who would like to sell their house someday and have to explain to prospective buyers that they'll be living next to people who enjoy airing out their genitals while jogging?

Debates over nudity have a familiar history in Oregon, where the City of Ashland last year banned public nudity after two men walked naked near public schools.

There was a FUCKING DEBATE after something like that happened? What the hell? Was the debate about how many years in prison the two men sex offenders would be sentenced to?

In Portland, the annual World Naked Bike Ride has attracted thousands to protest oil dependence.

Yeah, I think the oil protest was kind of secondary to a bunch of exhibitionists who wanted to show their naughty bits to the people of Portland.

(Cross-posted at doubleplusundead.)

Since it's Friday night...

...and the prez is heading down to Brazil this weekend, how about a lovely photo of Adriana Lima, who happens to hail from that particular country?

Untying a bow has never, ever been that satisfying. Even when I got the Nintendo 64 for Chrimmas. And it even came with Goldeneye and Mario Kart.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Green beer is for rookies.

Do you believe in magic?

Gee, this is just what all the people barely subsisting on grass really need:

North Korea, renowned for its secrecy and incredible artistic performances, is now planning the ultimate magic show -- complete with disappearing aircraft.

The North's state-run KCNA news agency reported that the capital Pyongyang would host a "new form" of magic show in which the aircraft, a bus full of passengers and elephant would be made to disappear.

I wouldn't want to be one of those bus passengers. Disappearing in North Korea probably doesn't ever end well.

You need to learn the difference between red and Crimson early

I'm generally not the kind of guy who has grudges against the rich, seeing as how few poor people tend to hire you, but this is not the sort of thing that most people are going to be very sympathetic about in this economy:

A New York woman's lawsuit against her daughter's preschool claims teachers did not do enough to prepare the girl for an Ivy League future.

Um, I'm not a parent, but even if I was, I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have shelled out the nineteen grand that this woman spent on a fucking preschool that would prepare her kid to get into an Ivy League school.

The article goes on to talk about how the preschool supposedly promised to prepare this woman's small child for an entrance exam for some of New York's most "elite private elementary schools."

Where she'll learn, what, exactly, compared to the kids in this obviously rich neighborhood who end up in some *gasp* private school that isn't posh enough? Or in *horror of horrors* the local public schools that are full of slightly less-rich or middle class kids whose parents just send them to whatever school and expect them to learn something?

I'm all for religious tolerance...

...but most people's religious ceremonies don't sound like something you'd be more likely to see in a slasher flick:

Police serving a search warrant in a drug investigation said they found something more ghastly in a backyard shed: Two human skulls in a shrine, and several hundred pounds of animal bones, flesh, and blood believed to be part of a religious ceremony.

Roberto Casillas-Corrales, 53, of Clearfield, remained jailed Monday, a day after he was arrested for investigation of abuse or desecration of a human body. Authorities say he may also face several charges of cruelty to animals.

"We believe it's a religious ritual at this time," said Mike Stenquist, assistant police chief in Clearfield, about 20 miles north of Salt Lake City. "He's been performing some type of ceremonies in his backyard shed, and that would include the sacrificing of animals, lambs, sheep, goats, rams and chickens."

Although this happened in Utah, I'm gonna go ahead and guess that this guy isn't a Mormon.

Since it's Friday night...

...and we could all use some positive developments out of earthquake-ravaged Japan, here's Playboy Playmate Hiromi Oshima:

Pictured: positive development.

(Seriously, though, I hope her loved ones are okay.)

Something strange

So, this morning, I finally got off my fat ass, looked up a few computer repair shops, and started calling around for estimates to get my fan fixed. When I was done, I fired up the laptop to check my email and poke around a few blogs. I can usually run the machine for ten or fifteen minutes before it's in danger of completely overheating.

After about three minutes, the fan kicked on. The little bastard had been listening to my phone calls.

I still think I'm gonna take it in for a checkup, though.

Light blogging ahead

My laptop died on me a couple of times today, and I realized that it's been running really hot. I think the fan died. Until I can get it fixed, I think things will be a little quiet around here.

(Much like my non-working fan.)

Since it's Friday night...

...and we could all pretend like we needed a joke here, but that would be pointless, here's British model Lucy Pinder, hanging out in a meadow:

If she's not wearing any underpants, she'll be awfully itchy.

Oh, who the hell cares?

Happy birthday, George

My favorite Beatle would have been 68 today.



Man, it's pretty hard to believe he died ten years ago.

See, this doesn't help

Also, it's pretty fucking disgusting:

[Paul Kausalik, 61] was taken to the police station for a formal blood test and asked to use the bathroom, police said. Officer Chad Langley said he could tell Kausalik had something in his mouth when he emerged from the bathroom.

"As I observed what he had in his mouth, I took a step back and began turning my head as he violently spit the contents of his mouth toward my face," Langley wrote in his report. "I felt the matter strike the left side of my face and head."

The report said the substance was identified as feces and Kausalik also had the waste on his hands.

Okay, I don't care how much the fact that the cops have pulled you over has angered you, stuffing poop in your mouth (much less spitting it at a cop) is just never a good idea. Seriously, most toddlers having a tantrum in a supermarket know better than that.

Those peanut butter cookies are way better anyway

This story actually kind of makes me look mature, somehow:

Police say a brawl between roommates over Girl Scout cookies led to assault charges against one of them. According to the Naples Daily News, the Collier County Sheriff's Office reports that 31-year-old Hersha Howard woke up her roommate early Sunday and accused her of eating her Thin Mints.

They argued and deputies say that it turned physical with Howard chasing her roommate with scissors and hitting her repeatedly with a board and then a sign.

You really want to go after someone who's stealing your cookies with at least a handgun.

Anything less, and the thieves won't learn their lesson.

This needs to be developed as a sitcom right away

Just think of how epic it would be if he forgot that it was Valentine's Day:

The more, the merrier is certainly true for Ziona Chana, a 66-year-old man in India's remote northeast who has 39 wives, 94 children and 33 grandchildren -- and wouldn't mind having more.

They all live in a four storied building with 100 rooms in a mountainous village in Mizoram state, sharing borders with Myanmar and Bangladesh, media reports said.

"I once married 10 women in one year," he was quoted as saying.

His wives share a dormitory near Ziona's private bedroom and locals said he likes to have seven or eight of them by his side at all times.

Seriously, the episodes where he forgets wedding anniversaries write themselves. And fill up almost two full seasons.

Don't even get me started on the potential for (multiple) parent-teacher conferences!

Breaking news!

Gee, who could have possibly seen this coming?

Officials with Chicago Public Schools said school lunch sales have dropped about 5 percent since the introduction of a healthier menu.

The district stopped offering daily nachos, doughnuts and Pop-Tarts in favor of healthier options at the start of the school year. District officials say figures from September to December show lunch sales were down about 5 percent, about 20,000 lunches per day, from the previous year, the Chicago Tribune reported Monday

The caterer employed by the district, Chartwells-Thompson, said the new meal options exceed U.S. Department of Agriculture meal standards. However, the meals, which now include things like broccoli, peas, carrots, zucchini, rice and beans with less salt and sugar, have proven unpopular with students.

Wait, you mean to tell me that children enjoy nachos and doughnuts more than broccoli and zucchini? GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!!

Now that you mention it, do you mean to tell me that most people prefer nachos and doughnuts over broccoli and zucchini? Well, then, how do you explain the overwhelming popularity of green vegetable stands at sporting events?

Since it's Friday night...

...and many of us (I'm trying to be inclusive, here) enjoy images of sexy women, here's evil robot/figment of a twitchy and traitorous genius's imagination Tricia Helfer:

I guess humanity is kind of overrated.

That seems counterproductive

Maybe it's just me, but this kind of seems like the wrong way to prove a point:

Authorities in Florida said they arrested a woman who exposed her breasts in a high school to protest another female visitor's cleavage.

The saying goes that you don't want to bring a knife to a gun fight, not that you should bring a gun to a court hearing regarding that knife fight.

I'm staying out of this

The rest of you might want to try to work this shit out amongst yourselves.

Don't judge

This seems a lot less gay (NTTAWWT) once you read it in context:

Then, he heard a knock on a window from a hiker, and suddenly his long, painful ordeal was over.

"I just kissed him," Morello said of the hiker. "He looked like an angel to me."

Read it all, and rethink your concept of what it means to have a bad day. Or five.

Aw!

It turns out that the Royals aren't really all that different from the rest of us:

The see-through dress worn by Kate Middleton at a university fashion show at which she caught the eye of an admiring Prince William goes under the hammer next month.

William paid for front row seats at the charity show at Scotland's St Andrews University in 2002 when Middleton strutted down the aisle in little more than her underwear as she modeled the knitted lace dress.

British newspapers always cite it as the moment William's interest in Middleton was stirred from one of mere friendship to something more serious, and they began dating soon after.

Finding true love by checking out a girl in her underpants isn't exactly like picking up a glass slipper after a fancy royal dress ball, but I guess that's kind of how life works out in the real world.

Since it's Friday night...

...and I've reached my quota of stupid jokes for the week, here's Colombian model and actress Sofia Vergara:

I bet you didn't even notice how perfectly her shoes matched the shade of lipstick she's wearing and vice-versa. What?

Feel the need to be nude outside? There's an app for that.

I've long maintained that nudists are most often the last people you'd want to see in their, um, natural state, so if I had an iPhone, I might download this app just so I could avoid any places where they might turn up:

The Florida-based American Association of Nude Recreation said its free "Nakation" iPhone application has been downloaded nearly 800 times.

The Kissimmee group, which bills itself as the nation's oldest and largest nudist organization, said the "Nakation" app went online last month as part of the association's efforts to keep its nearly 50,000 members connected via social media and updated on the latest nudist news, the Orlando Sentinel reported Thursday.

Say, it's not like these people have pockets, so where do they keep their iPho—oh, damn. I almost went down a really horrifying path right there.

You can't fight City Hall

But you can sure as hell tell it what you think of it these days.

And that's all I have to say about that.

European swimming just got creepier

As if the heavyset guys in speedos weren't bad enough...

A local authority in England has given the go ahead for a swimming pool to use energy created by the next-door crematorium to heat its water.

The plan, the first of its kind in Britain, will see waste heat from the incinerator chimney used to warm up the neighboring leisure center and its new pool.

I guess it's a shame to let energy go to waste, but couldn't they use it to heat an orphanage or something? A game of Marco-Polo fueled by dead people is just...yeesh.

Cable network announces pointless waste of time

You already know this is a dumb idea since everyone knows that Bigfoot lives somewhere in Oregon:

Cable network Animal Planet said a camera crew will join a Bigfoot search led by a North Carolina man who claims to have videotaped the legendary ape in 2009.

Tahli Kouperstein, director of communications for the Animal Planet, said the camera crew will follow Bigfoot seeker Michael Greene of Salisbury as he looks Saturday for the Sasquatch in the Uwharrie National Forest in Montgomery County, the Charlotte Observer reported Monday.

Um, if we actually wanted to watch a bunch of dumbasses wander around in the woods for hours without finding anything, we could just rent a copy of The Blair Witch Project.

Since it's Friday night...

...and blah, blah, blah, here's a photo of pop star Rihanna...

Listening to her is terrible. Looking at her is better.

Tiny clue trips up criminal mastermind

This is one of those criminal cases where the CSI people probably feel insulted:

Police in Maryland arrested a man after finding his cell phone charging at the scene of a burglary.

Now Montgomery County police say 25-year-old Cody Wilkins has been charged in other burglaries.

It began when a homeowner's son arrived as a burglar was going through rooms in the home Friday. Startled, the burglar jumped out a window and fled.

The son called police, who searched the home and found a cell phone charging in an electric socket. The phone led police to Wilkins.

I suppose they could call for the forensics team to dust the phone for prints or swab it for the suspect's DNA, but that would kind of be gilding the lily, huh?

You know what's great about really stupid people?

Other than the fact that they're often hilarious (and supply much of the material here), they also make you feel better about all of the relatively minor stupid decisions you've made in your life:

Tenants using a hole in the floor as an ashtray apparently started a house fire in North Portland today that caused $30,000 in damage, fire officials said.

"If that's true, it shouldn't be a surprise that there was a fire," said Portland Fire spokesman Paul Corah. "That's not careless smoking, that's stupid smoking."

I've done some pretty stupid shit in my day, but it all pales in comparison to that. I can honestly say that at least none of my dumbassery has ever resulted in a major fire.

I mean, seriously, you couldn't just put your butts in an empty beer can? I mean, you know that there was no shortage of empty beer cans in that house.

I'm not exactly a fan of political correctness

That said, damn, you lads might want to tone down the fucking stereotypes just a wee bit:

Mexico's ambassador in London has written a furious letter to BBC bosses to complain about "offensive and xenophobic" comments made by presenters of the popular TV motoring show "Top Gear."

Ambassador Eduardo Medina Mora was infuriated by "insults" made by presenters Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May during Sunday's episode of the cult show, which has been sold to television channels around the world.

"Why would you want a Mexican car? Because cars reflect national characteristics don't they?," said Hammond as they discussed the Mexican sports car, the Mastretta.

"Mexican cars are just going to be lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight, leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat."

They went on to imply that Mexican officials wouldn't complain about their remarks because they would likely be snoozing through the episode. This was obviously not the case, seeing as how the show ran in prime time, and not during the middle of the afternoon.

I kid. I kid because yo te amo.

Also, they apparently referred to Mexican food as "refried sick," which is pretty ballsy for people with a culinary heritage that's a worldwide punchline. On the other hand, the Mexican food that's available in England is probably pretty close to just that. If Taco Bell is crap here, just imagine what it's like in a land where they probably have a "Boiled Mutton Burrito Supreme."

The real reason

I'm guessing that there's actually something else going on here:

A man who has lived on the streets of an Illinois city for nine years said he moved next to a soon-to-open restaurant to protest the servers' apparel.

Scott Huber, 59, who said he started living on the Naperville streets more than nine years ago to protest local government injustices he blames for the loss of his home and business, said he has been camping outside of the soon-to-open Show Me's restaurant because it employs scantily clad female servers, The (Arlington Heights, Ill.) Daily Herald reported Monday.

Yeah, the "something else" I mentioned earlier is that this guy is all kinds of crazy. Sleeping out on the streets for any extended period of time is actually being a hobo, dude.

Since it's Friday night...

...and attractive women are the order of the day here, how's about Michelle Rodriguez?

Is it just me, or does she look a lot happier than most of the characters that she plays?

Liar liar, piano on fire

It turns out that the douchey independent filmmaker I mentioned in the piano story from yesterday wasn't just full of himself, he was full of shit:

It was a musical mystery in Florida - a piano sitting on a sandbar out in the ocean. Now, the people who put it there have come forward.

Two Miami teenagers say it was all for the sake of art, and they have the pictures to prove their story.

Nicholas Harrington and his friend Julian Kolevris-Roots got the baby grand from a relative, and they used sparklers to set the instrument on fire as a photography subject.

After the fire, the teens used a 22-foot boat to bring the piano out to the sandbar. They were hoping to create a mystery in Biscayne Bay.

It worked until another man came forward and said he put the piano there. An independent filmmaker said he was trying to portray the death of art. That convinced the teens to tell their story.

As the actual "artist" said, "that's just not right."

Although, I'm sure that Billy Yeager, the guy who tried to take credit, will try to claim that his lie about putting the piano out there was in and of itself some kind of performance art about "conceptions of truth in the digital age" or "the way society determines artistic authorship" or some kind of similar bullshit.

Yeah, whatever

Wow, that's like, deep, man...

Indie filmmakers Billy and Anais Yeager say they put the grand piano that appeared this week on a sandbar in Miami's Biscayne Bay to protest the city's vanity.

"I wasn't going to say anything, but rather (than) someone say it was just a silly piano from a music video, I said I'm not going to let that slide. This is highly symbolic and profound," Billy Yeager, who said he and his wife have left pianos in Malibu, Death Valley, Costa Rica and Guatemala, told the Miami New Times.

I hate to tell you this, you fucking douche, but if you have to actually tell people that something you've done is "highly symbolic and profound" instead of some kind of goofy stunt, you've completely and utterly failed.

Ties that grind

I'm honestly not sure what to think about this:

A car salesman in suburban Chicago who was fired for refusing to remove a Green Bay Packers tie says he won't be coming back even though his former boss has relented.

John Stone wore the tie to work at Webb Chevrolet in Oak Lawn Monday, the day after the Packers beat the Chicago Bears to advance to the Super Bowl.

Stone says he wore the tie to honor his late grandmother, who was a big Green Bay fan.

Okay, unless there's some sort of dress code regarding sports attire and the like, getting fired for something like that seems kind of frivolous.

On the other hand, this is a big sports rivalry, and Bears fans aren't very happy that their team lost. Wearing some Packers attire to your sales job in Chicago probably isn't great for business, so there's that as well.

What say you, nonexistent commenters?

Moonlight and bullshit

Some pointy-headed professor from Idaho State has come up with a bunch of crap to rationalize a bunch of creepy Goth behavior:

Williams says self-identified vampires seek significant others with an abundance of energy willing to allow them to suck blood from a small incision made high up on the chest by a scalpel.

"Quite often, they are in a relationship with a donor, where one person has energy blockages and the partner has excess energy; it's a perfect, symbiotic relationship," he said.

Well, that all sounds perfectly scientific. Words like "symbiotic" were used, you know. I mean, Williams is a professor of sociology, after all.

He is pioneering the study of such alternative lifestyles. It took years for the scholar in forensic social work, criminal justice and leisure sciences to gain the trust of self-identifying vampires, whom he says are widely misunderstood.

Seeing as how just about everyone else in western society frowns on drinking the blood of other people, well...

"The negative discourse out there about blood and the transmission of infectious diseases just drives them underground," said Williams, who advises vampire acquaintances to abide by safe blood-drinking practices like having donors tested for HIV and other ailments transmitted by blood."

Also, you know, you might want to advise people that the Red Cross could use their blood in a more constructive fashion. A transfusion could save someone's life. Which is something that a college professor might want to point out.

Since it's Friday night...

...and that is the time of the week during which we celebrate the existence of sexy ladies, here's a photo of month-appropriate actress January Jones:

You know, I've heard good things about that Mad Men show, but I've never watched it. Perhaps I should start.

This whole "laundry" thing is a scam

And here I am, changing my clothes once every week like a sucker:

The jeans a University of Alberta student wore daily for 15 months without washing them tested normal for bacteria levels at the end of the experiment.

In Edmonton, student Josh Le, 20, told Postmedia News he bought the denim jeans in September 2009 and wore them daily -- and sometimes slept in them -- until last December.

There's no word in the article about whether or not he had any human contact whatsoever during the experiment.

Tacos de Leon

I'm not picky about my food, but this is a restaurant that I think I'll skip:

A Tucson taco restaurant already has served up python, alligator, elk, kangaroo, rattlesnake and turtle.

What's next? Lion meat.

Boca Tacos y Tequila says it's accepting orders for African lion tacos, to be served starting Feb. 16. Bryan Mazon says there are already a few reservations from curious customers.

Um, a lion is a cat. It may literally be a "big" cat just like leopards and cheetahs and such, but it's still a cat. I may not have the smarts to reason out why we do eat some animals and don't eat others, but I just don't eat tacos made out of cats.

Now, why didn't I ever think of that?

Whenever I'm stopped by airport security for transporting human remains in my luggage, I usually just freeze up, sweat, and stammer a lot. This guy, on the other hand, at least had an excuse:

A Cypriot monk caught at a Greek airport with the skeletal remains of a nun in his baggage on the weekend told authorities he was taking the relics of a saint back to his monastery.

The 56-year-old Cypriot was detained at Athens airport on Sunday after security staff discovered a skull wrapped in cloth and skeletal remains in a sheet inside his baggage.

Now, the nun in question hasn't been recognized as a saint by any church, and the Archbishop of Cyprus seems to think it's some kind of scam meant to get donations from the faithful, but rest assured that the monk in question has been punished:

The monk was freed after being charged with theft and desecrating the dead, a misdemeanor in Greece. He was also suspended from his monastic duties for three months for going away without leave, Cypriot police said.

I'm not exactly an expert on monastic life, but from what I've read over the years, you live in a cell, spend the time that you're not silently meditating by toiling in the fields, and you get relatively meager food.

Hm. Now that I think of it, sending him to jail wouldn't have made much of a difference.

Okay, a couple of things here

We'll get to them after you've read this:

Police in Massachusetts said a man posing as a valet stole a car from a woman in labor after she arrived at the emergency room.

Lowell police said the woman drove herself to Lowell General Hospital at about 3 a.m. Friday and a man wearing what appeared to be a uniform shirt approached her, identified himself as the hospital's valet and offered to park her car, the Boston Herald reported Monday.

"During the admission process, she was told they don't have a valet there," police Capt. Kelly Richardson said.

Alright, first of all, it's been years since I've had to rush to a hospital, so I'm not really sure as to whether or not they feature valet parking these days, but I'm gonna guess that most of them don't. The whole thing where ambulances enjoy priority would suggest that handing a guy a few bucks wouldn't really be feasible.

Secondly, hospitals employ lots of people, many of whom walk in and out of the front door fairly often. How is it that none of these people noticed that someone was operating a fake valet parking service outside of their place of business?

Since it's Friday night...

...and that is the night when we usually look at pretty ladies, here's one of my fave Fox News people, Patty Ann Brown:

Chris Wallace is just as smart, but somehow, I'm not as hypnotized when he's talking.

Obsessive compulsive something or other

I suppose that you could call this a hobby, but that doesn't quite seem like the right word...

A northern Michigan woman has put her own spin on Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" by making a replica out of laundry lint.

Laura Bell of Roscommon collected lint from her dryer and fashioned it into a 14-foot-long, 4-foot tall reproduction of the Italian Renaissance painter's masterpiece.

Bell says she needed about 800 hours to do enough laundry to get the lint, and 200 hours to recreate the mural. She bought towels of the colors she wanted and laundered them separately to get the right shades of lint.

Bed Bat & Beyond is hardest hit. At least until she starts her version of the Mona Lisa.

Friends don't let birds drink and fly

A bunch of unexplained bird deaths have been in the news lately, but some scientists in Eastern Europe have apparently unraveled the mystery:

There was nothing mysterious about the death of a flock of birds in Romania last week -- they were simply drunk, veterinarians said.

So, in short, lock up your liquor cabinets. Especially if you have a mouthy parrot who likes to invite friends over while you're out.

And you might also want to put a scarecrow outside of your meth lab for good measure.

Dude, you're not Batman

I enjoy the idea of cleaning up the streets of some crime-ridden city with superpowers or detective skills, but that doesn't really work in the real world:

Seattle police are asking self-styled "superheroes" to knock off amateur crime fighting after one of them had his nose broken Saturday.

Sgt. Sean Whitcomb told Seattlepi.com he had seen no police report of the incident and only learned of it when "Phoenix Jones the Guardian of Seattle" recounted it Monday on KOMO-TV.

"I endanger my life with a reason and a purpose," Jones told KOMO's Luke Ducey Monday.

On ABC's "Good Morning America" last week, Jones said calling 911 is a good start, but "it's like waving a white flag." "If police aren't here, criminals feel free to run wild in my city," he continued. "And I'm not going to stand for it."

The article goes on to note that this guy did indeed call 911, got kicked in the face, and is not invulnerable to gunshot wounds, and is seriously lucky, seeing as how he let his perp go once someone pulled out a pistol.

Head for wherever they sell your favorite DC or Marvel titles, nerds. Otherwise, you're going to die in some alley.

Since it's Friday night...

...and that is the time of the week when we look forward to some feminine pulchritude, here's a photo of Angelina Jolie lounging in bed:

I guess Brad Pitt and their zillion kids are off somewhere in their mansion, making breakfast in bed for her.

Let's call them "Shiny-Scalped" instead

I found this in an article about men in the Boston area shaving off the hair that was left over when they lost the hair on the tops of their heads:

"There should be a moratorium on the word 'bald.' Everything else is politically correct, why not this?" he said.

Because things being politically correct aren't automatically a good thing. And, also, because you're BALD. It happens.

My late maternal grandpa started losing his hair at a pretty early age, and his complaints were more about getting sunburns and cancerous lesions as a result of those sunburns on his scalp than the fact that anybody would refer to him as being "bald." Which he actually WAS for most of his life. He really should have worn a hat more often.

The fact of the matter is that men lose their hair, and it sucks. It's not like I want to lose mine, but it could happen. And if it does, I'll be bald. No two ways about it.

The happy couple

I guess there's a reason why the word snitch doesn't appear in most wedding vows:

A camera got a clear shot of the man with a pony tail and scruffy beard robbing the First Bank in Bradenton on Tuesday. The robber got away.

But Manatee County Sheriff's officials got a break Tuesday evening when Afra Sandifar saw a news report about the robbery. She called authorities and told them her husband was the robber.

That's when 45-year-old Troy Sandifar fled the couple's apartment.

I'm guessing he won't be back if he makes bail.

At least, I hope not.

Stray cat controversy

I'm not a "cat person" (I'm allergic as hell) but I feel for this guy:

A British feline owner said he had to go around town taking down his 35 "lost cat" posters to avoid a $1,500 fine.

Mike Harding, 44, said he used cable ties to affix the posters to trees, lamp posts and parking meters in Bedford, England, after his cat, Wookie, was missing for six weeks.

[...]

"You would think the council would have some compassion," Harding said.

You might think so, but no. And they apparently think that his lost cat posters are harming the local trees. To which I would say, if someone's lost pet fliers are harming your trees, those trees are waaaaay too fragile. You're not doing a good job of taking care of them. I hope none of you have pets. Or houseplants.

Mysterious ways

Some religious people say that whenever God closes a door, He opens a window. In this case, it sounds like He did a couple of other things, too:

A would-be suicide jumper in New York was alive on Monday after leaping from a ninth-floor window but landing in a giant heap of garbage uncollected since the city's massive snowstorm a week ago.

Vangelis Kapatos, 26, was hospitalized in critical but stable condition after jumping from his apartment on West 45th Street on Sunday afternoon, authorities said.

Sanitation workers have not collected trash since the December 26 storm dumped more than a foot and a half of snow on the city. Mounds of garbage several feet high line many sidewalks.

"Everybody is complaining that the trash hasn't been picked up," Kapatos' aunt said on Monday. "But me, I'm thankful that it was never picked up."

Meanwhile, everyone else whose relatives weren't saved by a combination of garbage and snow are kind of pissed off, from what I've heard. Go figure.

Perhaps he'll design a better snowplow someday.

Since it's New Year's Eve...

...and it's also Friday night, here's a pic of Scarlett Johansson celebrating both with a bottle of Champagne...

This is actually from an ad for a famous French sparkling wine. An ad which mainly implies that Ms. Johansson can afford to spill French sparkling wine all over because of her great wealth and celebrity status, I presume. Mainly.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year's Eve. I tend to stick close to home on this particular holiday because of the number of drunk drivers out on the roads/DUI checkpoints. I don't like those odds.

I may not be a lawyer...

...but I'm pretty sure that this defense isn't going to hold up in court:

An Ohio drunken-driving suspect is blaming his arrest on Ozzy Osbourne. William Liston was arrested Christmas Eve in suburban Cleveland. WJW-TV says he told police officers, "Ozzy Osbourne and his music made me do it."

I mean, unless he can somehow get Ozzy to appear in court and testify that, indeed, his music was specifically written and performed to compel William Liston of Ohio to drive drunk, that is. That would be pretty compelling.

Arbitrary milestone reached

Sometime over the past few days, this here little crapblog reached 50,000 hits. That doesn't really mean anything, at least in terms of the real world, but that's half a million or so people who have read my crappy jokes, right?.

I mean, I told myself there would be no math here. And I run this place, so shut up.

Oh, also, thank you for showing up here for whatever reason.

Remind me again why everyone hates lawyers...

Oh, right, it's because of stuff like this:

Gene Gulinson, who practices [law] in Phoenix, said his treatment at the Highland Justice Court in Gilbert damaged his reputation, The Arizona Republic reported. He is seeking $75,000 from the town.

And what indignity did Mr. Gulinson suffer there? Was he dragged out of court by a bailiff on the orders of some pompous judge? Pepper sprayed by an abusive guard? Subjected to a humiliating strip search?

Er, not exactly...

The trouble began when Gulinson went to the courthouse for a pretrial conference with a client who had two traffic tickets. He said guards first told him he could not enter carrying a bag of pastries a client had given him.

After he got rid of the pastries, guards searched his briefcase and found the jawbreakers.

That's right, they confiscated his sweets. This is truly (not) the human rights outrage of the decade!!!

Please stop truckin'

The lesson I got from this roundup of news from the Sunshine State is that if you're ever down there and you meet someone with a pickup truck, you should just back away slowly:

In other truck news, a death row inmate filed and lost a lawsuit seeking to keep a restored 1971 Chevy pickup that he stole from the couple he killed.

In Sanford, a dealer of used pickup trucks offered a free AK-47 assault rifle with every purchase. Apparently trucks and guns go well together. Fort Pierce police say a 25-year-old man drove his pickup truck across a lawn, over a mailbox and at several people after losing an arm-wrestling match, then pressed a rifle to the forehead of the man who beat him. Two men were charged in Glades County after authorities found 36 dead alligators and 19 live hatchlings in their pickup truck.

Well, I'm sure they had a reasonable explanation. And I'm sure there are also plenty of gun-toting, alligator-hoarding nutjobs down there who drive sedans, sports cars, and vans, too.

Especially vans.

Since it's Xmas Eve...

...and it's also a Friday night, here's a pic of Futurama's Amy Wong in some festive holiday garb:

No, I really don't know why she has a sword. The future is apparently complicated.

Wedding China

If you can't wait for the pirated DVD of the upcoming royal wedding, relax--you can buy some other cheap commemorative junk:

Chinese vendors looking to cash in on the frenzy over the April wedding of Britain's Prince William and Kate Middleton are selling copies of her engagement ring for as little as three dollars.

Knock-offs of the 45,000-dollar sapphire-and-diamond ring that the prince gave to Middleton -- and once worn by his mother, Princess Diana -- are on offer at various shops on Taobao.com, China's largest online mall.

Most are selling for less than 100 yuan (15 dollars), with the cheapest -- allegedly made of zircon and unspecified alloys -- available for just 19.9 yuan, or about three dollars, according to Taobao pages searched by AFP.

What do you want to bet that the "unspecified alloys" include frightfully lethal amounts of lead?

Next time, you might want to call an exterminator

The independent can-do spirit of this country is admirable in a lot of ways, but there are some problems you should leave to the professionals. Especially those that involve swarms of stinging insects and fire within your home:

Capt. Don DeLucia, spokesman for Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue, said Mario Go of Lake Worth was trying to smoke the bees out of a column supporting a second-story balcony Tuesday and accidentally set the house on fire, The Palm Beach Post reported Wednesday.

The damage to his property is estimated at $50,000. Oh, and the kicker?

[DeLucia] said the fire also failed to drive away the bees.

I don't think bees understand the concept of humor, but if they do, they're laughing their stingers off. Which, in a further ironic twist, would kill them.

Okay, there are a couple of problems here

No, I don't mean with the idea of putting reflectors on animals in a region where it's dark all day:

Norwegian reindeer owners have a Christmas safety tip for Santa -- put reflectors on his fleet-footed animals so they won't get hit by cars.

About 2,000 reindeer have been fitted this month with reflective yellow collars or small antler tags to cut down on the car crashes that now kill 500 reindeer a year and pose a danger to motorists across Arctic Norway.

"It really works," Kristian Oevernes, the leader of the project at the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, told Reuters of the project in Finnmark, where the sun does not rise in mid-winter.

The problem here is that this would be good advice for Santa Claus if he used the roads that the rest of us travel on, but he has a fleet of magical, flying reindeer. Hell, he even parks them on the roof while he's breaking into your house. If you crash into Santa's sleigh, it's really your problem, not his.

Toys don't pay for themselves

It looks like the recession has hit everybody pretty hard--even mystical beings:

Police say a man dressed as Santa Claus has robbed a Rhode Island yacht club.

Authorities say a bartender was alone in the East Providence Yacht Club Sunday night when a large man wearing a red suit, red hat, white beard and carrying a sack walked into the bar and brandished a gun.

The bartender fled and ran to a nearby business where she called 911.

[...]

There were no immediate arrests.

They should check the chimney.

I mean, If he managed to climb out of the chimney, there may be fingerprints. And if he got stuck somewhere inside the chimney, they'll find, um, some other evidence up there.

Yeah, Gremlins.

Since it's Friday night...

...and we like to gaze at attractive women during this time of the week, here's a pic of actress Amy Acker (try saying that five times fast!):

I said it five times fast! What do I get? Oh, a restraining order. Great.

It's called a belt

Again, it's called a belt:

A New York man said he has invented the perfect fashion accessory designed to keep low-riding pants sagging at just the right level.

Seriously, it's a belt. It's been sold in almost every store in this country in which pants have also been sold for at least the last century.

It's crazy, what turns up in the couch cushions

I mean, something goes missing for a while, and then it just turns up:

A team of scientists say they have positively identified an embalmed head, presumed lost in the chaos of the French Revolution, as that of King Henri IV of France who was assassinated in 1610.

The head was apparently lost after revolutionaries desecrated the graves of French kings in the royal basilica of Saint-Denis near Paris in 1793.

Few remains of those bodies have ever been found and positively identified since.

But a team of experts using advanced scientific techniques say they have conclusively identified the head, passed down over the centuries by private collectors, as that of the monarch.

You know, I kind of think that the fact that they've identified a number of the kind of people who collect severed heads is the more important thing here, but that's just me.

If I ever get sent to jail...

...I've decided that I'll be invoking The Great Pumpkin to get out of something or other:

The Orange County Register reported Monday that Malcolm Alarmo King disliked the salami meals served at the jail, so he used his devotion to Festivus as a reason to get kosher meals reserved for inmates with religious needs.

Keeping kosher is not one of the tenets of Festivus, which was depicted on "Seinfeld" as celebrated with the airing of grievances and the display of an aluminum pole.

The article does not go on to state whether or not he was provided with an aluminum pole, though I kind of doubt it. On the other hand, in a setting like jail, I'm sure that "airing of grievances" is a year-round kind of thing.

Since it's Friday night...

...and it wouldn't be Friday night around here without a sexy dame, here's Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Jessica Gomes, hanging out with a dolphin:

Is it just me, or is Flipper smirking at us?

The cards that pay you back

So, there's this woman named Jill-Anne (no last name given) who designs greeting cards and sells them out of her own store in New York, and whenever someone buys fifty bucks worth of stuff, she'll perform an in-store pole dance for them. Needless to say, I'm cool with that. But I noticed this at the end of the article:

"Seventy-five percent of the people, when I'm poling, in my store who walk by are women who smile and clap, so it's not a male lust thing. It's empowering women thing as well," Jill-Anne said.

Yeah, it's nice that a lot of ladies smile and clap when they walk by and see you "poling," but I can't help but notice that you didn't mention how many of them are actually, you know, coming in and spending fifty bucks inside your store.

Still, it's cool that you've found something that works for you in this tough economy. I don't think your business model would work for the kind of frumpy old ladies who work at my local Hallmark store, even if they were able to do a pole dance.

It's a small world after all

Gosh, it's like these two were made to be together...

A motorist caught speeding in London two years ago moved to New Zealand only to be booked by the same police officer for again exceeding the limit, reports said Wednesday.

Former London bobby Andy Flitton ticketed the man in Britain two years ago, shortly before migrating to New Zealand -- then caught him again in September on a highway in the South Island, the New Zealand Herald reported.

The lesson here is that God doesn't want us to live on islands. The UK? A bunch of islands. New Zealand? Also islands. There are fewer miles of roads on islands, so the cops have more speed traps per capita, right?

Continents are the way to go, people.

Love bites

I've never been married, but I've been to a few weddings, and "Love, honor, and cherish" are common things I've heard in the vows. "Chomp," on the other hand...

A Wisconsin woman bit off half her husband's tongue during a kiss and has been arrested, authorities said on Tuesday.

The bitten piece of the husband's tongue was recovered, and he was taken to a hospital following the incident late on Monday, Sheboygan, Wisconsin police said in a statement.

The woman, 57, told emergency workers she had "bit her husband's tongue off," police said in a statement. She had blood on her clothing, they said.

The 79-year-old victim said his wife bit his tongue while he was kissing her, police said.

Um, the victim "said" that his wife did that? I'm surprised that the cops understood him.

Have a very merry minimalist Christmas

Now, this is just some lazy-ass bullshit right here:

The artist behind this year's Christmas tree at the Tate Britain gallery in London said he left the tree bare to show how it is "naturally beautiful."

Artist Giorgio Sadotti said he decided to leave the Norwegian spruce undecorated, save for mirrored silver cards promoting a Jan. 6 concert at its base, The Daily Telegraph reported Monday.

"I am showing what I believe to be a naturally beautiful object," Sadotti said. "When you see a tree in the forest you don't think 'that tree's naked, it needs a bit of tinsel.'"

No, you don't think anything like that, because what you're looking at there is just an ordinary tree growing in a forest, not one which a prestigious museum had shipped in and then hired you, an artist, to decorate for Christmas. You know, with decorations.

I don't know if this Sadotti guy has kids, but I'd hate to be one of them on Christmas morning.

"When you see a tree in the forest, kids, you don't expect to find gift-wrapped toys underneath it, right? Right? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Since it's Friday night...

...and we're about to be swamped with red and green, here's British actress Billie Piper doing something with a pink and white theme:

There's probably some symbolism going on there, if you look at it in context, but I don't really care.

Snip, snip, CRASH! Snip, snip...

Damn, this guy had better get some kind of award from the local Chamber of Commerce:

An SUV crashed into an Anchorage barber shop, narrowly missing shop owner Heng Song and his two customers.

But Song wasn't about to let the horrifying moment get in the way of a good haircut.

He was momentarily stunned, yes, when the vehicle burst through a door and window Wednesday afternoon as he was clipping a customer's hair.

"Half a haircut and kaboom!" is how the 53-year-old native of South Korea described it Thursday, after the shop had been cleared of debris and the gaping hole was boarded with plywood.

[...]

Song laughed Thursday as the footage showed him soon return to the chair and continue the haircut, while in the background bystanders began to gather. There's no way he would let a loyal customer go home with a botched job, Song said.

Leaving a customer with half a haircut, he said, would be "something too ugly."

On top of that, Song gave both customers haircuts on the house. He said it's the least he could do after the ordeal.

The police then had him tested for drugs, because, seriously, nobody is that good-natured.

I think it's awesome that that he finished the haircuts and all, but I'm not sure I'd necessarily want someone handling scissors around my head after something quite that jarring.

I know what I don't want for Christmas

Well, there are lots of things I don't want, but I specifically would prefer not to find this under the tree:

A Los Angeles auction house said on Tuesday it would sell the simple pine coffin in which the suspected assassin of President John F. Kennedy was buried for almost 20 years.

Bidding will start at $1,000, but the item is expected to fetch strong interest from museums and collectors of presidential memorabilia when it goes on the block on December 16.

No, the coffin doesn't contain Lee Harvey Oswald's remains, either, though I can't really say that the inclusion of his corpse would make this a more attractive gift idea.

(Seriously, I'm more of a McKinley assassination buff. If Leon Czolgosz's coffin becomes available, that would make a great stocking stuffer.)

Hats on to you!

I don't know whether this woman is a Democrat or a Republican, but in the interest of continuing to make congress look ridiculous (no matter which party is in power, that's a good thing) I hope she succeeds:

[Representative-elect Federica] Wilson, a Florida state legislator known for her collection of fancy hats, says she's trying to ask Speaker-apparent John Boehner to waive a House rule that bars members from wearing hats while the chamber is in session, The Miami Herald reported Monday.

"It's sexist," Wilson said of the rule. "It dates back to when men wore hats and we know that men don't wear hats indoors, but women wear hats indoors. Hats are what I wear."

She said people "get excited" when they see her hats.

She must be from a rather sleepy corner of the Sunshine State.

If you were wondering why I said that a reversal of the women's hat ban would make congress appear more ridiculous, well...

She managed to show off at least one hat in Washington when she arrived for orientation wearing a sequined black cowboy hat.

Yeah.

Booming headaches, booming business

Now, why the hell didn't I think of something like this?

Your head aches, you're hungry and your house is littered with sticky plastic cups. Who ya gonna call? Hangover Helpers.

Two University of Colorado graduates are marketing a new business by that name in Boulder, home of CU's main campus. They'll bring in breakfast burritos and Gatorade the morning after a party — and clean up the mess.

The Daily Camera in Boulder reports that Marc Simons started cleaning party houses about a year ago for extra cash and realized he'd found a niche, despite the bad economy.

Oh, right. It's probably because I'm much less of the driven entrepreneur-type than a member of their targeted client base.

Since it's Friday night...

...and that's as good a time as any for drinking and/or smoking, why not join Anne Hathaway for a bit of both?

The black and white, smoking, and her haughty look makes it artsy and European. This is what Europe is like, right?

Next time, go to the Better Business Bureau

I really don't know anything about patronizing hookers, but when a couple of them rip you off, I'm pretty sure that's not something you want to tell anybody about, least of all the cops:

Investigators said Ryan McNames, 19, of Columbia, told them he offered two women $60 if one would show him her chest and the other would perform oral sex on him, but they took his money and left after completing only the chest-showing portion of the agreement, the Columbia Daily Tribune reported Wednesday.

Police said McNames asked an officer to contact the women and get at least $40 of his money back. They said McNames admitted to knowing his actions were illegal.

I guess the verbal contract he had worked out with the hookers had a sliding price scale, where the flashing was twenty bucks and the beejay was forty. The article does not mention whether or not he was able to get his refund, but I'm guessing that no, he did not.

He did, however, bond out of jail for $500, so, money well spent, huh?

The bishop beats himself

Seeing as how I'm an American, I really don't pay much attention to the British (or any other, for that matter) royal family, I have no idea whether or not this guy's comments have any merit:

A Church of England bishop apologized on Monday for suggesting that the marriage of Prince William and his fiancée Kate Middleton would only last seven years and that the couple were "shallow celebrities."

Pete Broadbent, the Bishop of Willesden in northwest London, said he was sorry for his online comments about the couple, who announced their engagement last week, which were picked up and condemned by the British media over the weekend.

"I don't care about the Royals," the bishop wrote on the social networking website Facebook, saying he was a republican and that there were "more broken marriages and philanderers among these people than not."

Okay, remember what I said about not knowing whether or not the bishop in question knew what he was talking about? I mean, the royals may be a bunch of syphilitic, inbred dumbasses, but...

Even a Yank like me knows a little bit about the history of the C of E and how the head of the family he just insulted happens to be the boss of him.

That's probably not good for your job prospects.

Also, though I'm not a religious person, it doesn't strike me as a very Christian thing to do.

Plan for traffic

That was something that these kids and the adults driving them should have done, but wasn't something the other motorists in the area could have possibly done:

A dance troupe from Florida caused a rush-hour terror scare when they ditched their cars in the Lincoln Tunnel and tried to run to a TV appearance in Manhattan while wearing their camouflage costumes.

The dancers drove about 1,000 miles so they could appear Wednesday on BET's live "106 & Park" show. But they hit traffic at the tunnel, which connects New Jersey and New York City and is just two miles from the TV studio.

The five young women and three young men decided to sprint the rest of the way. They left their adult chaperones behind and ran through the toll plaza.

When a bunch of people in camouflage go sprinting through a tunnel and a toll plaza, that raises a few eyebrows. A few police and counter-terrorism eyebrows, to be specific. And those raised eyebrows caused traffic to be shut down for 45 minutes.

They didn't make it in time to do their dance routine on the teevee, which is something that I'm sure all those drivers who got stuck in the tunnel just feel awful about.

Since it's Friday night...

...and you're looking for some lady-style hotness, here's a photo of actress Thandie Newton with some strategically (if unfortunately) placed hair:

Yeah, I took the top pic from the result of my Google Images search, but can you blame me?

A likely story

I've made some lame excuses for stupid shit that I've done throughout the years, but compared to this, every one of them seems utterly plausible:

Soldiers accused of breaking into a Colorado medical marijuana dispensary and then accidentally locking themselves inside told police they planned to destroy the marijuana — not smoke or sell it.

The Gazette in Colorado Springs reports a police affidavit says two of the three Fort Carson soldiers told officers they were trying to steal the marijuana so they could get rid of it.

Not only did they break into the place, they managed to get themselves locked in, which I guess explains why they weren't quicker to think of something like meeting a poor little old lady with glaucoma who needed all the weed they were stealing.

The softer side of Putin

It turns out that when he's not busy intimidating journalists and opposition politicians, Vladimir Putin is just a big ole softy:

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has invited Russians to help him come up with a name for his new puppy, which he received as a gift from his Bulgarian counterpart over the weekend.

"Anyone who wishes to can send their suggestion of a male name for the prime minister's new dog to his site," a government statement said on its official website www.premier.gov.ru .

After Moscow and Sofia signed a series of accords to boost the South Stream gas pipeline, Putin was all smiles when Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov presented the Karakachan dog to the 58-year-old leader.

Putin, who has a black belt in judo and has cultivated a macho image, snuggled the fluffy, floppy-eared puppy of three months before gently planting a kiss on his snout.

Awwwww...isn't that cute? It's almost enough to forgive him for invading a smaller neighboring country and swiping some of their territory.

Almost, but not quite. I'm sure all kinds of assholes throughout history have loved puppies.

Look out, there sits the spider man

Seeing as how I'm a lazy bastard, I would usually endorse the kind of charity event that entails sitting around for three weeks over, say, running a marathon or going on a long bike ride, but this isn't quite my style, either:

An Australian man has begun his attempt to spend three weeks in the front window of his shop with 40 venomous spiders.

Nick Le Souef said he will spend three weeks in the window enclosure of his opal shop in Melbourne with spiders including redbacks, hairy huntsmen and white-tailed biting spiders, the Melbourne Herald Sun reported Tuesday.

While I don't consider myself irrationally afraid of spiders, I can't say I'm a fan. That said, hanging around with one that's explicitly called a "biting spider" for any amount of time sounds like a really, really bad idea.

There's no word in the article about whether or not his funeral expenses will eat into the money his stunt will raise for the childrens' charity he's doing this for.

The great bake sale bust

I think that taking the rule of law seriously is an admirable quality for a politician to have, but, dude...

Some parents in a New York City suburb are upset because a local politician called police on two 13-year-old boys for selling baked goods without a permit.

Andrew DeMarchis and Kevin Graff had a brisk business selling cupcakes, cookies, brownies and Rice Krispie treats in a Chappaqua (CHAP’-uh-kwah) park.

The Journal News reported Monday that New Castle Councilman Michael Wolfensohn called police when he saw their stand last month.

[...]

Wolfensohn says rules are rules. But he concedes calling the police might have been a half-baked decision.

I don't know much about that area or its crime rate, but, yeah, shutting down a bake sale that doesn't even apparently involve pot brownies or anything like that would seem to be a bit of a waste of police resources.

Since it's Friday night...

...and that means it's time for a picture of an attractive woman, here's actress Emma Caulfield, looking snug on a rug:

Am I the only one who feels both turned on and intimidated at the same time?

Priorities

On the one hand, this deli sounds like it's in a bad neighborhood. On the other, they must make the best damn sammich in the world:

Connecticut police said a man who heard gunshots while exiting a deli went home and ate his sandwich before seeking treatment for shots to the groin and thigh.

Investigators said Miguel Soto III, 25, heard three gunshots when he left the deli Tuesday afternoon in New Haven and continued home to enjoy his lunch, WVIT-TV, Hartford, Conn., reported Thursday.

Police said Soto asked his father to take him to Yale-New Haven Hospital after he had finished his sandwich.

You know, I've never experienced being shot (knocks on wood) but I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't even make it home to put my lunch in the fridge before calling 911, much less having the appetite to finish eating before asking someone to take me to the hospital.

The man took a bullet to the groin, fer chrissakes. I guess he needed his strength.

Happy Veterans Day

I'd just like to thank any of my readers or their friends and family members who have served honorably in our armed forces over the years. People like you are the reason why this is the greatest country in the world.

Cigars are more traditional

Seeing as how I don't have any kids, I've never celebrated the birth of a child, but I'm pretty sure that smoking some dope right at the hospital is a pretty dumb idea:

Uniontown police Sgt. Jonathan Grabiak tells the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that a nurse smelled the marijuana when she took a cigarette break in the same area, and a hospital security guard called police about 3:20 a.m.

Grabiak says the man told him, "I'm having a baby and wanted to get a buzz," then pulled a bag of marijuana from his shoe.

Okay, so this guy wasn't exactly a genius to begin with, but he pulls out his weed and shows it to the cop who was called to the scene?

Good luck, kiddo. With a dad like that, you're gonna need it.

Pornsecution

I realize that different countries have different morals and traditional customs that we're all supposed to respect and everything, but, damnit, this is one of the hugest violations of human rights that our generation has ever seen:

Sri Lankan newspapers on Tuesday published pictures of mainly women police said had acted in locally produced pornographic films, part of a court-ordered crackdown and the latest sign of growing social conservatism.

Police have identified 83 people they say have acted in the films found on websites, and got a court order to have media outlets publish their pictures to help locate the suspects.

"This is illegal and we need them to be identified for investigations," police spokesman Priyashanth Jayakody said.

Okay, so my introduction to this was just a tad hyperbolic, but seriously, you'd think a country like Sri Lanka, which is coming off a civil war and is hardly an economic powerhouse, would have other, more important priorities.

There is a movement within a faction of President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government to ban alcohol...

Okay, this means war.

Fine, bother me instead!

"We have made overtures to him," Fitzgerald said. "And we've had plenty of feedback from people in Storm Lake. He knows the money is there. It appears to be a situation of him not wanting to be bothered."

Click here to find out what the guy doesn't want to be bothered about.

Since it's Friday night...

...and today was the beginning of Diwali, the Indian "festival of lights," here's a photo of Bollywood superstar and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai:

Spicier than any curry I've ever tasted...

Oopsie!

We all make mistakes, but most of them don't involve misplacing a big ol' box full of illegal drugs:

Authorities worked Wednesday afternoon to literally get drugs off the street after a canine handler realized he may have lost about 28 grams of methamphetamine last week along Highway 22.

The canine handler left a black box ­— which contained the drug and has white lettering that says “METH” on it — on his bumper and drove away after a training exercise in the area Oct. 27, sheriff’s Sgt. Lloyd Funk said. When the handler, a Teton County Sheriff’s deputy, realized Monday evening that the drugs were missing, he immediately notified his sergeant, Funk said.

Sheriff’s deputies used dogs to search a small area Monday night and conducted additional searches Tuesday, Funk said.

The box apparently hasn't turned up yet, but if you stumble across it and think "Jackpot!" think again. It turns out that possession of that amount is a felony. Also, thinking that when you find a box full of meth means you're not in a very good place in your life.

This is the worst link I have ever posted

That says a lot, considering that most of the stuff I've linked here has to do with idiots, criminals, perverts, or some combination of those categories. But, no, this is something different:

A British woman has made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for being a 27-time champion of gurning -- contorting the face into a distorted expression.

Anne Woods, 62, a 27-time world champion at the annual competition at the Egremont, England, Crab Fair, said Guinness World Records officials informed her she will be in the next edition of the book alongside 11-time men's champion Tommy Mattinson, The Sun reported Wednesday.

What, if you're reading this (and that makes you an extremely slim part of the world's population), makes this an egregiously bad article?

THEY NEVER FUCKING SHOWED HER FACE!!!

That's right. An article distributed around the world about a woman who made the world's ugliest facial expression did not include a photograph of her achievement.

To be fair, perhaps gazing upon her ugly-ass visage turns one to stone, or something. There might actually be some liability issues there.

Please vote

I don't care about who you plan to vote for (though I'd prefer that you pick GOP candidates) please head to your polling place and do your duty as a citizen. A lot of people have fought and died to ensure that you have the right to choose the government that you want, and taking a few minutes out of your day to exercise your rights is probably the simplest way to honor them.

Also, you'll probably get one of those "I Voted" stickers. And stickers are fun.