Fine steep for creepy peeper

I guess the lesson here is that you should be fully clothed while you spy on your neighbors:

A man has been ordered to pay more than $13,000 to his former neighbors who he spied upon while sitting naked in his house.

A jury Thursday ordered William Andrianse, 59, of Des Moines, to pay damages to Julie Weissinger, 40, who said she and her family were so upset they had to move away.

Andrianse pleaded guilty in 2004 to harassment and public exposure. After the Weissingers filed their lawsuit, he countersued claiming his neighbors violated his privacy by videotaping him with a night-vision camera they borrowed from police.

Jurors decided that Andrianse owed the Weissingers, and that they owed him nothing.

So he gets busted for getting nekkid and looking at his neighbors, but when they use the tools of the fascist police state to make salacious videos of him, um, looking at them while nude, they get a free pass? And it gets even worse—he was provoked!

Court records showed that Andrianse claimed that Julie Weissinger provoked his actions by"walking around in the house wearing a black teddy and bending over."

The police report said that Andrianse thought it was a mutual act and that he did not know Weissinger was "an unwilling participant."

Go figure. So, does that mean my neighbor's wife doesn't want me to spank myself or rub ice cubes on certain "sensitive areas" of my body?

I just lost my appetite

I like Chinese food as much as the next person, but I have my limits. Those limits most definitely include things like this:

The dish in front of me is grey and shiny.

"Russian dog," says my waitress Nancy.

"Big dog," I reply.

"Yes," she says. "Big dog's penis..."

We are in a cosy restaurant in a dark street in Beijing but my appetite seems to have gone for a stroll outside.

Nancy has brought out a whole selection of delicacies.

They are draped awkwardly across a huge platter, with a crocodile carved out of a carrot as the centrepiece.

Nestling beside the dog's penis are its clammy testicles, and beside that a giant salami-shaped object.

"Donkey," says Nancy. "Good for the skin..."

I don't care if it's going to give me heat vision, Nancy, much less good skin. I am not going to eat any kind of penis.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Click on that link, by the way, for some horrifying pictures and plenty more descriptions of awful, awful things you can order at Nancy's evil restaurant.

Update: Is this place Jade Garden? After all, "they put mega ding dongs in their food!"

Coup not cool

If you weren't concerned about that coup in Thailand, well, you should be now. The leaders of the coup sound seriously uncoool.

Thai coup leaders have banned go-go girls from dancing near tanks and troops on Bangkok streets as a distraction from the serious business of power, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

"It is not appropriate to entertain soldiers while they are on duty," Colonel Acra Tiprote told Reuters after a troupe of 10 women in tight camouflage vests and shorts posed with soldiers and tanks while making a music video.

What kind of topsy-turvy world are we living in when people are placing restrictions on where Thai go-go dancers can perform? And seriously, these coup leaders are just begging for a mutiny. If they were smart, they'd be requiring go-go girls to dance near soldiers. That's how things will work when I rule the world.

How to get cheap hits (and lots of them)

Write a post like the one I wrote yesterday with the word "sex" in the title and you'll have to beat away the perverts Googling "sex" with a stick. I've had more than 100 visitors today.

I bet a lot of them were disappointed with what they found here, too. I know I would be.

Dirty British sex perverts

Pastiness. Bad teeth. Snooty costume dramas. Horrible food with funny-sounding names. These are the things we tend to associate with our cousins across the pond. But not red hot dirty sex, right? Right?

Historical attitudes to sex in Britain will be laid bare for all to see this week in archives which reveal a nation rich in sexual experience and enthusiasm.

Oh boy. I can hardly wait.

The historical documents, to be given a public outing by the Center for Archive Studies at Liverpool University, include Britain's first ever sex survey, conducted 57 years ago but deemed too shocking for publication at the time.

The survey shows many British men had homosexual experiences, many were frequent visitors to prostitutes and many British wives were active in the pursuit of sex outside marriage.

Well, that all sounds pretty healthy. Buncha whoremongering poofters and cheating wives. Swell.

Caroline Williams, of the Center for Archive Studies, says the archives show that while sex has always been a part of major part of British -- and human -- life, attitudes have changed and broadened over the years.

What a scoop! Sex has always been important to humans! Who knew? Attitudes have changed? Whoah, that's some insight there.

I'd tell you to read the whole thing, but it's really oned of the more boring articles about deviant sex that I've ever read. Then again, we are talking about British people having sex.

Fools

I was at a party this weekend when some of the other guests started talking about how great Loose Change is. Unfortunately, we were all about to leave, so I didn't have time to sit them down and explain in detail why the movie is a travesty of a joke of a piece of shit. I did, however, get them to grudgingly admit that the "controlled demolition" theory of why the towers came down was dubious at best.

Speaking of Loose Change and 9/11 conspiracy theories, this takedown from a humor website is worth a look if you haven't seen it already. I think one of Ace's guest bloggers linked to it a week or two ago. And of course there's Screw Loose Change, your one-stop clearinghouse for debunking and fact-checking Dylan Avery's dumb ass.

Do you like surprises?

Yeah, me neither. But thankfully, I've never had one like this.

A western Iowa woman is recovering from the shock of finding a drowned bat in her tea mug after she sipped from the cup all day.

The brown bat, about the size of two tea bags, was found a few weeks ago by a 60-year-old Woodbury County woman, said Chuck Cipperley, an environmental director for the Siouxland health office in Sioux City.

"I knew the person, so I knew it was no joke," said Cipperley, who took the call from the woman.

The woman, who declined to identify herself, told Cipperley she found the bat when she was cleaning out the mug at night. She said she put the bat in a plastic bag before alerting the Siouxland health office the next morning.

Cipperley said the bat was sent that day Sept. 1 to the University Hygienic Laboratory in Coralville. Results showed the bat did not have rabies.

Just how big was this mug, anyway? (Or, I guess you could ask how small the bat was.) I mean, she was sipping from the mug all day and she didn't notice the dead animal that was in it. That's nice about the lack of rabies, though.

More genius at work

Getting drunk and getting behind the wheel is a bad idea. Trying to bum rush a bunch of bikers with a pool cue—also pretty stupid. Getting hit by your own car in the process? Well, then you've reached a new low there.

An alleged drunken motorist who brandished a pool cue while driving at a group of motorcyclists was hit by his own car after he stopped and attempted to approach the bikers on foot, the California Highway Patrol said.

Richard Brooks, 50, of Concord was pulled to safety by several of the motorcyclists after his car — which he left in reverse — knocked him into the highway Thursday morning...

And why did this potential Nobel Laureate try to attack the bikers? You'll love this:

Brooks, who was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and driving under the influence, told authorities he was offended by skeletons some of the riders wore on their leather Harley-Davidson jackets and what he perceived as their attempts to appear tough.

"It was his impression that they thought they were better than him," [CHP Officer Scott] Yox said. "They were irritating to him and he felt he needed to do something about it." [my emphasis, of course]

Well, you can't argue with that. And I don't mean that his reasons were sound—it's just that they're so crazy-stupid that it would be futile to try.

I hate California Nazis

Oh, this is just lovely.

Two flags or signs depicting swastikas were reported to be hanging from freeway overpasses Friday, the day the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashana begins. Another swastika flag was spotted over the 101 Freeway in Encino, north of Los Angeles.

An officer removed one of the symbols reported to the California Highway Patrol around 5:55 a.m. at eastbound state Route 78 at Escondido Avenue in Vista, CHP officer Alicia Contreras said.

The second emblem, reported at the Sea World Drive overpass off of southbound Interstate 5, was not seen by the time officers responded, she said.

Some dickweed obviously did this because the Jewish new year began tonight at sundown, showing that even here in enlightened, tolerant California, you've still got knuckle-dragging troglodytes.

Update: On the other hand, maybe I shouldn't be so surprised that something like this would happen in a "Blue" state.

(via IndeedPundit)

Who are you?

Man, this story is just bizarre:

An undercover police operation took an odd turn Thursday when a Syracuse police officer pretending to be a john met a suspected prostitute who pretended to be a police officer.

The encounter ended with two women under arrest. Police charged Lisa Greene, 31, with first-degree criminal impersonation, prostitution and fifth-degree conspiracy. Elena Irwin, 20, was charged with fifth-degree conspiracy and possession of a hypodermic needle.

Police spokesman Sgt. Tom Connellan said a male undercover officer driving in a neighborhood known for prostitution was flagged down by Greene. The woman got in his car and the two went to a nearby parking lot to negotiate a price for sex.

She asked the cop if he was a cop and the police officer said no.

"That's OK, because I am," the woman told the officer as she pulled out handcuffs and a two-way radio and barked a command into the radio: "Move in!"

The officer, concerned the woman was armed and looking to rob him, forced her from the car, Connellan said. Moments later, officers who had been monitoring the situation arrived and grabbed Greene with the radio and cuffs at a nearby intersection.

A male officer pretending to be a female used the radio to find out who was on the other end, Connellan said.

Police found Irwin waiting in a car in a nearby alley.

So, let me get this straight...A cop pretending to be a john picks up A hooker pertending to be a cop, and when she bails, a male cop pretends to be her to pick up her partner, who seems to be the only one in the story who wasn't pretending to be somebody else. You just can't trust anybody these days, can you?

Well, I guess you never really could trust anybody when trolling for hookers, could you?

How much is too much?

Damn those European socialists, always stifling the entrepeneurial spirit:

A fee of 25,500 euros ($32,000) is way too much for a woman to charge a man for fondling her bosom, a Finnish district court ruled.

The court jailed a couple in their twenties for more than a year for charging a 74-year-old who suffers from dementia a total of 25,500 euros to enjoy the woman's breasts on 10 occasions.

"Based on general life experience alone, it is indisputably clear that a 25,500 euro charge is disproportionate to the compensation in question," Judge Hasse Hakki, who heard the case, told Reuters Friday.

So, uh, Judge Hakki...has "life experience" with paying to cop a feel? Or is he saying that experience has taught him that the old man should've been entitled to, um, more than a feel?

But he said the court in Kokkola, about 300 miles north of Helsinki, would not decide "the proper financial value of the compensation."

Well, why not? I mean, if you can determine that 32 grand is too much for ten boob grabs, shouldn't you be able to set a reasonable price? You never know when that kind of information could come in...handy.

It's for your own good

Do not, under any circumstances, click this link. I'm warning you.

Okay, so you're going to click it. I know, I know. You're curious. Well, whatever you do, don't watch the video over there. Seriously, DON'T.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go see if they make a mouthwash for your mind.

(h/t Dave at Garfield Ridge)

Kind of slow, eh

Uh-oh. I guess this means I should get my "Serial Killer" tattoo removed.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Shylo Kujawski -- who has "Grand Theft Auto" prominently tattooed on his back -- was spotted acting suspiciously in a Vancouver suburb where several stolen cars had been reported.

Using the tattoo to identify Kujawski as a convicted auto thief, police said they then set up a stakeout that nabbed him attempting drive away in a stolen car.

Police said during the stakeout they also watched Kujawski thwart his own attempt to drive away in another stolen vehicle by accidentally disabling the car with the owner's steering wheel lock.

Somehow, I don't think that guy is going to be winning any Nobel Prizes. Unless they create a category for inept auto theft. But how likely is that?

Media figure silenced

In yet another shocking abuse of freedom of speech and the press in Chimpy McBu$hitlerburton's Amerikkka, a member of the media has been bullied into silence after making "controversial" remarks. Oh, wait...this happened in Canada.

The chairman of the publicly funded Canadian Broadcasting Corp. has resigned after remarks about bestiality and ruminations about defecation, Canadian Heritage Minister Bev Oda said on Tuesday.

Guy Fournier created an uproar in Canada's Lebanese community and in the media when he claimed that Lebanon allowed men to have sexual relations with female animals, but reserved the death penalty for those who did so with male animals.

In comments made in May, and replayed in a CBC weekend interview, he talked at length about the joys of bowel movements.

Now, I don't know where he got the idea that Lebanese men were allowed to have sex with female animals (although this website makes the same assertion--scroll about halfway down the page), but if you're a public figure, you might want to keep your feelings about pooping out of interviews that could be played on the teevee or the radio. After all, that's why they invented internet message boards and forums.

Oh, snap!

So, Hugo Chavez went to the U.N. and called Bush "the devil." Big deal. You can find that kind of thing on a thousand lefty blogs every day. What I liked most about this story was something John Bolton said:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Chavez's remarks were "not becoming for a head of state."

"I am not going to dignify a comment by the Venezuelan president to the president of the United States," Rice told reporters in New York. The main U.S. seat in the assembly hall was empty as Chavez spoke, though the U.S. Ambassador John Bolton told The Associated Press that a "junior note-taker" was present, as is customary "when governments like that speak."

Ouch. That's gonna leave a mark.

So, how long do you think it will be before some Dem politico expresses outrage over Bolton's "insensitivity"?

Update: Video of Chavez's freakout is available at Hot Air.

Offense taken

When I began to read this article, I expected there would be obscenities or racial slurs, but...well, you'll see what I mean.

A book of rhymes handed out to kindergarten classes across Maine is being criticized by some parents as inappropriate. "Schoolyard Rhymes" is a compilation of 50 verses included in bags given to 18,000 pupils through the Read With ME literacy project supported by Gov. John Baldacci and his wife Karen.

Get ready to be scandalized, people...

A few of the rhymes have raised some eyebrows. For example, one says, "Ladies and gentlemen, Take my advice, Pull down your pants And slide on the ice." Another one says, "Girls go to Mars to get candy bars. Boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider."

Erica Smith of Hampden, mother of a 5-year-old son who goes to the McGraw School, said the book is "completely inappropriate."

"It's rude. There are words in there that I don't allow in my house," said Smith, who complained to her son's teacher as well as the school principal. She also called the governor's office to voice her displeasure.

Man, what a letdown. That kind of stuff was covered with dust and cobwebs when I was a little kid. Heaven forbid any frogs, snails, or puppydog tails get mentioned. There would be statewide fainting spells and they might even have to recall the governor.

"The game of the century so far"

That's what Cindy Brunson of ESPNews called this see-saw gem between the Padres and Dodgers, and I'm finding it hard to argue with that assessment. Seven home runs for the Dodgers (including four consecutive shots to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth--only the fourth time in history that that's been done, by the way), a rare blown save by star Padres closer Trevor Hoffman, two times that the Dodgers came back from four run deficits, and a walk-off homer by Nomar...wow. I just wish I'd been at Dodger Stadium to see it. The fans who were there are going to be talking about this game for years, especially if the Dodgers can gut it out and make it into the postseason.

We're doomed

Scientists have found a shark that can walk on its fins. Next thing you know, they'll be using tools and weapons. And smoking.

Pay attention, morons

I'm becoming more and more convinced that a lot of trouble and heartbreak could be prevented if people would just pay attention to what the hell they're doing. Case in point:

School officials apologized after an X-rated font was used on a third-grade spelling packet handed out to parents. The font showed male and female stick figures in provocative poses to form the letters of the alphabet.

Officials with the Monroe-Woodbury School District in Orange County [New York] apologized last week after parents at Pine Tree Elementary School were given the spelling packet at an open house.

Administrators said the teacher did not use the font intentionally.

Well, that's comforting. And hey, it could've been worse—at leasst it was handed out to the parents and not the kids themselves.

Appreciate modernity.

India may be the world's largest democracy, but in a lot of ways it's still a pretty screwed up third world country. Take this, for example.

The leaders of a village in the Indian state of Rajasthan ordered 150 men to dip their hands into boiling oil to prove their innocence after food was stolen from a local school, a newspaper reported Sunday.

In late August the school's principal informed police that rice and wheat had disappeared but no action was taken, the Sunday Express said.

The council, or panchayat, of Ranpur village, 340 km (210 miles) south of state capital Jaipur, then decided to take the law into its own hands.

After 10 days spent trying to identify those responsible, it issued what the paper called the "medieval diktat."

The 150 men from Ranpur and two neighboring hamlets were told to pick a copper ring from a cauldron of boiling oil. The council elders then announced that the 50 who refused the order must be behind the crime. Many are now nursing their burns.

As they say on South Park, dude, that's pretty fucked up right there! Seriously, edcucated, well-adjusted people just don't do something like that in this day and age.

"I really didn't have a clue."

Sometimes it pays to be detail-oriented. This would be one of those times.

When moviemakers told Gallatin, Tennessee, Mayor Don Wright they wanted to use his office to film a scene with a superheroine, he kindly obliged.

But Wright was startled when the movie's title, "Thong Girl 3," and his role in its making was splashed across the front page of Friday's editions of the Nashville Tennessean newspaper.

"I had no idea what the movie was about," Wright said on Friday. "They told me it was about a superhero woman and there was no nudity or offensive stuff in it. Other than that, I really didn't have a clue."

No clue? You don't say. You know, you might've been spared this sort of embarrasment if you had, oh, I don't know, asked them what the fucking title of the movie was!

Please tell me they cut out the vocals

Speaking of skinny chicks with minimal talent, Paris Hilton's new album has been remixed by Danger Mouse and snuck into British music stores, where the remix CDs replaced 400 copies of the regular version of the CD on the sly. For the remix version, graffiti artist Banksy also redid the artwork. You can see the slightly NSFW artwork here.

(First link originally left in a comment thread here at Treacher's other blog.)

Plus-size models to attack Milan

I'm outraged! If this fascist gets her way, people watching fashion shows in Milan may have to watch models who weigh (GASP!) more than eighty pounds!

Italy's fashion capital is in a tizzy over a ban on overly thin models at Madrid's fashion week, fearing it could be next with its own catwalk extravaganza less than two weeks away.

Milan's mayor, Letizia Moratti, told a newspaper this week that she may bring the Spanish ban on underweight models to Italian shows.

Madrid is turning away models whose body mass index, based on weight and height, falls below a certain level.

"With those kind of rules, we'd have to turn away 80 percent of models. Naomi Campbell wouldn't be able to walk down the catwalk, she'd be too thin," said Riccardo Gay, head of the model agency of the same name that used to represent Campbell in Milan.

He also said Madrid had exaggerated the issue.

"Some designers have used extremely thin models, but we haven't. We tell models to exercise, eat well, go to bed early — sensible rules," he added.

Yeah, and I'm sure they make sure to tell the girls to keep it to three lines of cocaine a night.

Madrid's regional government imposed the rules on fashion week to protect the models as well as teenagers who may develop anorexia as they try to copy underweight catwalk stars.

Mario Boselli, head of the Italian fashion industry's chamber of commerce, said anorexia was a "rare phenomenon" in the fashion business.

And drunkenness ia a "rare phenomenon" at frat parties. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go die of laughter.

Harshing mom's mellow

Education is important, and some parents decide to reward their kids when they do their homework, but this doesn't seem like a very good idea...

A woman facing drug charges admitted in court that she smoked marijuana with her 13-year-old son, often to reward him for doing his homework.

Well, just so long as she didn't smoke with him before he did his homework...

Amanda Lynn Livelsberger, 30, pleaded guilty to several misdemeanor drug charges Monday in Adams Country [PA] court and will be sentenced Nov. 27.

She admitted she had been smoking marijuana with her son since he was 11 and said she had also smoked with two of his friends, ages 17 and 18.

And thus ends the reign of the neighborhood's "cool mom," who, if you do the math, gave birth to her son at the tender age of seventeen. Sounds like someone needs some better decision-making skills.

The article doesn't mention whether or not the authorities were going to bogart her son.

Five years ago

I don't really have anything deep or original to say about the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that someone else hasn't already said (and said more eloquently).

I just remember my brother waking me up that morning, telling me to turn on the TV. Something was going on in New York. We watched the events unfolding all day, unable to look away from what was happening in spite of the horror.

And then I remember the silence in the skies on that day and the following days, as all the flights were grounded. It was unnerving, not seeing or hearing anything up there.

I'll never forget that day, and that's the way it should be.

The chilling of dissent

No, I don't mean that Bu$hitler has forced the Dixie Chicks to play in Canada. I'm talking about the fact that a certain political party is calling for a teevee show to be yanked from the air before the public has seen it.

"Those fascist Rethuglikkkans ought to be stopped," one might say. But "one" would be wrong.

Who are the fascists now? I thought so.

Nude until winter

(Or, Another transparent attempt to lure pervert search engine hits to my blog by using the word "nude" in the title of a post)

Remember the Vermont town with all the nude teenagers that I posted about last month? Well, they're not going to put a ban on public nudity, deciding instead to rely on shrinkage to take care of it for them.

Mother Nature, not an ordinance, will draw the covers over public nudity in Brattleboro.

The town's Select Board decided Tuesday to take no action on an anti-nudity ordinance that was introduced in response to a clothing-optional movement launched by local teenagers this summer.

"Winter is coming. If spring comes and we still have a problem, we'll take another look at it," said Select Board Chairman Steve Steidle.

As I noted in my previous post, there's some hippy-dippy bullshit behind all of this public nudity, some of which was on display when the town debated a ban on public nudity:

One of the nudists, 19-year-old Adhi Palar, told the town board the issue was freedom.

"Our acting in nudity is an act of celebration of this history and traditional values as a place where you're allowed to be nude," he said. "I find that important, and I find that proud."

Uh...yeah. Take another hit off that bong, dude.

Not everybody is having fun here, though:

Town Manager Jerry Remillard said the town's image was tarnished by the uproar.

"We have been the brunt of phone calls from all over the world," Remillard said. "The media made this into nothing less than a circus."

Hard to believe that, in this day and age, people would show any interest in a bunch of teenagers parading around nude in public, isn't it? Next thing you know, they'll be attracting (gasp!) tourists.

Mom and Dad burn out

If your parents sell the house and make you live with them in a VW bus or move the whole family to some stinky hippie commune, don't say I didn't warn you. It seems they're reverting to their stinky hippie ways.

Some moms and dads might want to take a lesson from their kids: Just say no.

The government reported Thursday that 4.4 percent of baby boomers ages 50 to 59 indicated that they had used illicit drugs in the past month. It marks the third consecutive yearly increase recorded for that age group by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Meanwhile, illicit drug use among young teens went down for the third consecutive year - from 11.6 percent in 2002 to 9.9 percent in 2005.

"Rarely have we seen a story like this where this is such an obvious contrast as one generation goes off stage right, and entering stage left is a generation that learned a lesson somehow and they're doing something very different," said David Murray, special assistant to the director for the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The annual survey on drug use and health involves interviews of about 67,500 people. It provides an important snapshot of how many Americans drink, smoke and use drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine.

Actually, I don't have a lot of faith in the accuracy of these surveys. I mean, when someone contacts the average person and says, "Hi, I'm from the government, and I'd like to ask you about your illicit drug use," I think a lot of people are going to lie. I think a lot of people will even lie about how much they drink in situations like this.

But still, for some reason it's deeply satisfying to imagine a bunch of paunchy, gray-haired baby boomers smoking dope to regain some of their former hippie glory.

Excuse is unconvincing

Do you ever see a string of words which, taken one by one, each make sense, but as a whole are very tough to comprehend? That's what happened to me when I saw the following words: "Speeding driver blames lack of goats." I decided to investigate further (okay, I didn't really "investigate"--I just read the damn article):

A Swiss driver caught speeding in Canada explained that he had been taking advantage of the ability to drive fast without hitting a goat, police said on Wednesday.

Airtight logic there, basing your speed on what you're not going to hit. Anyway, here are some more odd words:

"A motorist from Switzerland, used to driving around hills and mountains, takes advantage of the ability to go faster without risking hitting a goat," read the traffic officer's notes of the incident.

Who is this traffic officer? Yoda?

"I've never been to Switzerland but obviously they must have a problem with that there," said police spokesman Joel Doiron, adding that in his 20 years of service he had never found a goat on the highways of eastern Ontario.

It doesn't sound like they have a "problem" to me. Sounds like they have the solution. Want to cut down on speeders on Ontario highways? You need some goats out on those roads.

And to think, the ingrates actually fined him!

Obvious

I'm watching the Dodgers play the Brewers on the teevee right now, and I had forgotten that this guy is one of the Brewers' outfielders. It's a night game, but he hasn't been wearing sunglasses.

I bet he never gets tired of that joke.

An eternity

I'm a baseball fan, and I'm not the kind of fan who leaves a game early. I don't even mind when a good game goes into extra innings, but this is just effing ridiculous.

Talk about extra innings. A baseball game that began at 10 a.m. on Saturday in Alliance [Nebraska] ended Sunday at 4:05 p.m.

That's 30 hours and five minutes between the first pitch and the final out. Game organizers are counting on the contest being long enough to break a world record.

Forty players, ranging in age from 18 to 44, rotated in and out of the 84-inning game in hopes of setting a new Guinness World Record for the longest baseball game.

The record stands at 25 hours, set in Canada nearly three years ago.

There were a total of 234 runs scored in the game. How do you even do that? I'm guessing that they just didn't bother to play any real defense.

Anyway, after reading about that, I don't think I'll ever be bored by an extra-innings game in quite the same way again. I sure as hell hope they didn't cut off beer sales after the eighth inning, which is the biggest problem with games that go long. People would've gone homicidal.

Perspective

Sometimes, it takes an outsider to remind you of the better points of your hometown. This weekend, that perspective was provided by D.C. resident Dave of Garfield Ridge, who's been in SoCal visiting his brother.

He had a great post with great pictures about their trip to Dodger Stadium, which is one of the most beautiful temples of baseball the world has ever seen. He enjoyed one of the tastiest hot dogs available to man and even saw some celebrities. And his bro survived a nasty encounter with a foul ball. As they say, read the whole thing.

I haven't been to Dodger Stadium for a season or two, and his post actually filled me with longing for the place. And for Dodger Dogs. Mmmmmmm...Dodger Dogs.

Dave also got to enjoy the best fast food burger anybody's ever eaten soon after touching down here. Seriously, In-N-Out is one of the reasons why I don't think I could ever live anywhere but California, and Dave reminded me about what a treat it is to have something so good nearby.

SoCal has its faults, but it's a pretty good place to live. Dodger Stadium (and The Big A, too), In-N-Out Burger, and a myriad of other things make this a great place to live. Sometimes, you just need a reminder.

The saddest thing

But what would the Taliban be doing in a diner? Maybe the food is Halal.

You learn something new every day

Hey, did you know that Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Stephen King conspired to murder John Lennon? And that they used headlines in news magazines to spread "government codes" announcing their intentions to do so? Well, thanks to the voices in this guy's head, now you do!

Seriously, the internets have to be the best thing to happen to crazy people since Xerox machines allowed them to cobble together their paranoid manifestoes for distribution to their fellow freaks.

(via Ace of Spades commenter krakatoa)