Okay, that was weird

My hometown just got mentioned at the beginning of tonight's episode of Lost. Random.

Hot potato

I know the Atkins people will tell you that potatoes aren't good for you, but this is ridiculous:

A 74-year-old Italian grandmother who bought a sack of potatoes at the her local market found a live grenade among the spuds.

"I found a bomb in the potatoes," Olga Mauriello said in a telephone interview with Reuters.

"I went to the market to buy some potatoes and that's where the bomb was. But this bomb was covered in dirt, and I put it in water and got all dirt off. And then I realized 'It's a bomb'!"

Police said the pine cone-shaped grenade, which had no pin and was still active, was the same type used by U.S. soldiers in Europe in World War Two. Authorities believe the mix-up happened at a farm in France, where the grenade was plucked from the ground along with potatoes.

To the woman's relief, police and explosives experts in the small town of San Giorgio a Cremano, near Naples, recovered the grenade and safely detonated it on Wednesday.

Ah, that's the good old bloodthirsty United States military for you. Nearly killing sweet old ladies without even trying.

More than pennies from Heaven

If you're going to try to cash a bad check, you probably don't want to make it completely and blatantly obvious that that's what you're doing. Case in point:

Kevin Russell found out it's not easy trying to cash a check from God. The 21-year-old man was arrested Monday after he tried to cash a check for $50,000 at the Chase Bank in Hobart [Indiana] that was signed "King Savior, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Servant," Hobart police Detective Jeff White said.

Russell was charged with one count attempted check fraud and one count intimidation, both felonies, and one count resisting law enforcement, a misdemeanor. He could face prison time.

Police were called to the bank after Russell tried to cash the check, which was written on an invalid Bank One check with no imprint, White said. Russell had several other checks with him that were signed the same way but made out in different dollar amounts, including one for $100,000.

Russell struggled with police as they tried to detain him, White said, and then threatened police as they transported him to the Hobart Police Department.

You probably don't want to mess with a guy who's tight enough with the Man Upstairs that he's getting hundreds of thousands of dollars from Him. That's practically begging for a smiting.

Late night/early morning musings

If it's true that no man is an island then how do you account for the Isle of Man?

And what's up with those cats without tails? That's pretty weird.

Regulation: it's what's for dinner

Oh, great. More busybodies telling people how they ought to live their lives and wanting the government to get involved with restaurant menus:

Many U.S. chain restaurants are promoting "extreme eating" with dishes that pack at least a day's worth of calories and fat, without giving customers facts about their orders, a consumer group said on Monday.

Displaying restaurant offerings including a cheese-laden chicken-and-pasta dish they dubbed "Angioplasta," officials at the Center for Science in the Public Interest said such dishes help fuel national epidemics of obesity and heart disease.

They urged local, state and national governments to make restaurants list nutritional data on their menus.

Michael Jacobson, the group's executive director, took aim at "table-service" chain restaurants like Ruby Tuesday's and Uno Chicago Grill. Such places increasingly stuff their dishes with extra unhealthy ingredients, he said.

"What we're finding is that table-service restaurants have launched into a whole new era of extreme eating," Jacobson said. "If we're going to deal with the epidemic of obesity and the tremendous prevalence of heart attacks and strokes, we're going to have to do something about restaurant foods."

Um, no "we" don't. People need to make choices about what they want to eat. If they want to eat healthy food, they can make that choice. If they want to load up on a lot of fattening crap, why, they can make that choice, too.

Oh, and I just love the example this guy showed reporters:

Jacobson showed reporters an appetizer offered by Uno Chicago Grill that he said contained 2,050 calories. It was a cross between a pizza and stuffed potato skins, with a deep-dish pizza crust crammed with mozzarella and cheddar cheese, mashed potatoes, bacon and sour cream.

Look, if you don't know that something like that isn't good for you, you're a moron. And if you eat stuff like that every day, you're probably not going to live to a ripe old age. Does that mean the government needs to step in and regulate restaurant menus? I don't think so. But these people think the government needs to step in to be our nanny because we're too stupid to make our own choices.

The sad thing is that they'll probably ultimately succeed.

Meaty monstrosity

Are you feeling hungry? And I don't just mean a little peckish, I mean really hungry? If so, you might want to head to Clearview, Pennsylvania:

The newest addition to the menu at Denny's Beer Barrel Pub is one whopper of a burger. The Beer Barrel Main Event Charity Burger weighs in at 123 pounds, a meaty monstrosity that its cooks maintain shatters the world record of 105 pounds shared by two restaurants in New Jersey and Thailand.

The sizable sandwich features an 80-pound beef patty, along with a pound each of lettuce, ketchup, relish, mustard and mayonnaise, 160 slices of cheese, up to five onions and 12 tomatoes.

It's topped with a couple of pounds of banana peppers, then sandwiched into a 30-pound bun. Don't forget the garnish of 33 pickles.

According to the article, the burger will set you back a cool $379. But you'd better hurry, because Michael Moore can easily afford that!

(Yeah, yeah, so I made a joke about Michael Moore's weight. It's not like I'm getting paid to come up with original material, you ungrateful bastards.)

The Oscars

Yeah, so I'm not really watching them at all. I honestly didn't see any of the movies that are nominated for anything, and while I'm sure at least some of them were entertaining, I just can't bring myself to care. Since I live here in SoCal, I'm sure I won't be hearing about much of anything else on the local news for the next couple of days anyway, so I don't really feel like I'm missing out either way.

Txt 4 w33d

Who's the last person you want to try to buy pot from? This guy is probably near the top of the list.

Misguided text messages led to the arrest of a western Kentucky teacher who is accused of trying to buy pot from a state trooper. Trooper Trevor Pervine was at dinner with his wife and parents, celebrating her birthday when his phone started buzzing.

Pervine was getting text messages about buying marijuana Thursday night, Kentucky State Police spokesman Barry Meadows said. The person sending the messages had the wrong number.

Ann Greenfield, 34, a teacher at Murray Middle School, is accused of sending the messages and has been charged with conspiracy to traffic in controlled substances within 1,000 feet of a school, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, Meadows said.

Pervine initially thought the messages were from friends playing a joke, Meadows said. A couple of phone calls put that idea to rest, so Pervine began responding to the messages to set up a meeting, Meadows said.

When Greenfield arrived at the meeting point, she found Pervine and other law enforcement officers waiting for her, Meadows said.

I don't know about you, but I probably would've paid to have seen the look on her face. The dumbass.

For the Children™

Behold the Maryland state legislature, where that fine state's politicians are dealing with the most pressing issues of the day:

Fake bull testicles and other anatomically explicit vehicle decorations would be banned from Maryland roads under a bill pending in the state legislature.

The measure was filed in the General Assembly Monday by Delegate LeRoy E. Myers Jr., R-Washingon, who says children shouldn't be exposed to giant plastic gonads dangling from pickup truck trailer hitches. The bill also would ban depictions of naked human breasts, buttocks or genitals, with offenses punishable by fines of up to $500.

"It's time to take a stand," Myers told The (Hagerstown) Herald-Mail.

Right. Because the problem of people hanging bull balls from their trailer hitches is so widespread and pernicious that the state needs to get involved. Why, I bet there have been tens of children who have been severely traumatized by this menace of the highways and byways.

Look, these things are tacky and the kind of people who would put them on their vehicles are probably idiots, but is there really a compelling need for the government to step in and ban them? Don't these people have anything more important to talk about?

I guess not.

(This is a few days old, but it's related.)

Bitch, bitch, bitch

Come on, people, get a sense of humor.

A newly opened store catering to very pampered dogs, especially female dogs, is getting more than questioning looks for its name, High Maintenance Bitch.

The third word in the sign is widely visible at North 45th Street and Wallingford Avenue North, one of the main intersections in the Wallingford neighborhood business west of Interstate 5 and north of the Lake Washington Ship Canal.

"I am probably the most progressive liberal person in the world and I am personally offended by the sign," said Janet Stillman, executive director of the Wallingford Neighborhood Office. "It's so blatant and so in your face."

Who would have guessed that a "progressive liberal person" would turn out to be a humorless killjoy? And here's the kicker: the complainers just don't understand that the whole thing is meant to empower women. No, really.

"Our company is probably the most high-end pet brand in the world," [co-founder Lori] Pacchiano said. "We want to be known for growing from Seattle."

In the process, she said, one of her goals is to reclaim the word in its original meaning, a female dog, as opposed to a derogatory term for a woman.

"Our store is a dog store, but the concept and philosophy is directed specifically toward women," she said.

Uh-huh. And soon, I'll be opening a new pub in Boston called "The Potato-Gulping, Whiskey-Gargling, Baby-Spouting Mick." I'll be sure to let you know how well that goes over.

Old dirty bastard

No, I don't mean the late Wu-Tang Clan rapper. I'm talking about a real-life, honest to goodness old dirty bastard. And, boy, does he ever sound dirty:

An 81-year-old man was charged with possessing child pornography after a flood opened up a hole near a septic tank, revealing videotapes that depicted the man having sex with children decades before, the FBI announced Wednesday.

Walter C. Stevens is charged with one federal count of possessing child pornography, the FBI said. He turned himself in Wednesday after being told he would be charged, FBI agent Deborah McCarley said.

The investigation began in August, when a flood revealed a plastic bag with the tapes. The resident turned them over to the Sierra Vista police, who called in the FBI when the tapes appeared to contain films of an adult man having sex with minors, McCarley said.

The FBI lab in Quantico, Va., enhanced the tapes and confirmed they contained illegal activity, McCarley said Investigators identified Stevens and determined he made the tapes showing him having sex with underage Japanese girls while he lived there between 1965 and 1975, McCarley said. Other tapes allegedly showed Stevens having sex with underage Korean girls between 1975 and 1980 while he lived there and between 1980 and 1986 while he lived in Thailand.

Just another example of why it's a really, really bad idea to videotape yourself while committing crimes.

The article says that if he's convicted, he could face ten years in prison and a lifetime on probation. The dirtbag is 81 years old, so even if he survives ten years in the slammer, I doubt he'll have to worry about that probation for too long.

(Via Fark.)

Check's not in the mail

I've always hated paying bills, but I think I'd shit a brick if I got one like this:

Perhaps his $24 billion electric bill will teach Richard Redden not to leave the heat running. Thanks to a printing error, Redden and more than 1,300 Weatherford utility customers this week received billion-dollar electric bills marked as late notices.

Irving-bases DataProse, which prints customer bills for Weatherford Electric, said the company was embarrassed by the error.

"Obviously, this is not something we are pleased about," said Curtis Nelson, DataProse vice president and general manager.

You don't say.

Fun with Grandma

I always liked spending time with my late grandmothers. That's probably because they were sweet old ladies and not drunken, crazy-ass bitches.

Lincoln police said a 50-year-old woman was charged Tuesday with child abuse and criminal mischief after having her 12-year-old granddaughter drive her to her niece's house, where the grandma broke five windows.

A neighbor told police that Vickie Britton picked up a chair from the front yard of a duplex Monday night and used it to smash five windows, causing about $400 in damage, said Lincoln Police spokeswoman Katherine Finnell.

Finnell said police arrested Britton when she came back to the neighborhood more than an hour later. Police found Britton drunk and belligerent in the car with the 12-year-old behind the wheel, Finnell said.

Baking cookies, reading me stories, buying me toys for Christmas and my birthday. Those are some of the things I remember both of my grandmothers doing. I can't ever remember a single instance when either of them got drunk and had me drive them around on any sort of crime spree. That was more of something we tended to do with my uncle.

Do you take yours black or with cream and Hitler?

Nothing says sweet, sweet sugar like...Hitler?

Small packets of sugar bearing the likeness of Adolf Hitler and carrying Holocaust jokes have been found in some cafes in Croatia, prompting an investigation, the office of the state prosecutor said Monday.

"The local district attorney in (the eastern town of) Pozega has opened an investigation and is currently looking at the matter," said Martina Mihordin.

The Novi List daily newspaper reported that officials at a small factory in Pozega have confirmed the sugar packs were produced on their premises.

The incident will embarrass the government which has been keen to play down the country's past links with Nazism.

Yeah. That's definitely not going to help.

But who would've guessed that something like this could happen in the Balkans, of all places. It's not like they have a history of racial intolerance in that neighborhood, right?

The mummy's curse: loneliness

I sure hope this guy didn't have any pets:

Police called to a Long Island man's house discovered the mummified remains of the resident, dead for more than a year, sitting in front of a blaring television set.

The 70-year-old Hampton Bays, New York, resident, identified as Vincenzo Ricardo, appeared to have died of natural causes. Police said Saturday his body was discovered Thursday when they were called to the house over a burst water pipe.

"You could see his face. He still had hair on his head," Newsday quoted morgue assistant Jeff Bacchus as saying. The home's low humidity had preserved the body.

Officials could not explain why the electricity had not been turned off, considering Ricardo had not been heard from since December 2005.

Seriously, you'd think they would've cut off his power after a month or so. Unless he had direct deposit. In that case, I guess the mummy could've watched TV for eternity.

His neighbors just figured he was in the hospital, and that's why they hadn't seen him for more than a year. The sad thing is, I have several neighbors who I wouldn't miss for a similar amount of time.

So that's what he looks like

The guy who runs Hot Chicks with Douchebags is a little peeved about the fact that Jim Treacher was given credit for his blog, so he's posted a picture of a guy that he says could be the mysterious Treach himself.

Huh. Well, I guess we now know where he stands on the whole unicorn issue. And hair gel, too.

I don't remember video games being so strenuous

I'm kind of sore this weekend because I went to occasional commenter and longtime real-world friend Andy's new apartment on Friday night, where we played a bunch of games on his Nintendo Wii. Unlike other video game consoles, the Wii involves a lot of physical activity. We played home run derby a few times, some golf, and bowling. I found the latter to be the most fun, and although he beat me two out of three games (the prize: Respect) I managed to get four strikes in a row in the game I won.

I honestly thought I'd be feeling worse than I did the next day, seeing as how I'm an almost entirely sedentary creature, but I'm only a little sore. All in all, the Wii is pretty fun. Hopefully, in the future, I'll get a little better at the games. It takes some getting used to.

Lucky bastard

I can't ever seem to catch a break on anything, and now I think I know why. This guy is lucky enough for himself, me, and several other people:

An airline pilot from Maplewood won a $25,000 lottery jackpot _ two days in a row. Raymond Snouffer Jr. matched the winning numbers 11-14-23-26-31 to win Saturday's Northstar Cash drawing with odds of about 170,000 to 1, Minnesota Lottery officials said.

On Sunday, Snouffer stuck with 11 and switched to 3-7-19-28 _ and won again.

Meanwhile, I found a penny in the dryer after doing a load of laundry. I'll let you know if that happens again tomorrow.

"It's amazing what vodka does"

Looks like we've got ourselves an Australian practitioner of the Ace of Spades Lifestyle™ here:

A man who caught a 4-foot shark with his bare hands off an Australian beach said on Friday he only tried the feat because he was drunk on vodka.

Phillip Kerkhof was fishing off a jetty at Louth Bay, a town on South Australia state's Eyre Peninsula 870 miles west of Sydney, when he spotted the bronze whaler shark swimming in the shallows, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.

"I just snuck up behind him, and eventually I went for the big grab and I fluked it and got him," Kerkhof said.

"He was just thrashing around in the water … starting to turn around and try to bite me and I thought 'well, it's amazing what vodka does'," Kerkhof said.

There's no word on whether or not any Thai tranny hookers were involved.

Not a good way to get repeat business

A lot of people find buying a car to be a stressful experience, what with all the pushy salesmen and credit checks and financing deals, but most customers don't have to put up with anything like this:

A 73-year-old car dealership owner has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for attacking a customer with a machete.

Robert "Jack" Parker, who must serve five years before he is eligible for parole, was convicted Wednesday of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after a jury deliberated for less than two hours.

According to police, Gerald Davis had purchased a car from Time Auto Sales and went back to the dealership to pick up his license plates. Police said Davis, 53, and Parker began arguing and eventually Parker produced the machete.

Now, Parker's attorney argued that he pulled the machete in self-defense, but I guess the jury didn't buy that. My main question is why someone would have a machete at a car dealership.

Mad love

Though it's early, this story may well be one of the strangest of the year.

To summarize it a little bit: A young woman named Linda Hodge meets an older, extremely wealthy man named Bruce McMahan, with whom she starts a relationship. Several years later, though both are married to other people, they fly to London where the following happens:

"We traveled to London for some business, and during that trip Bruce took me to the Westminster Abbey and we exchanged vows," Linda testified in her deposition.

Besides her testimony, there are the cheek-to-cheek photographs documenting this unusual ceremony.

There is little description in court records of how the couple made their ceremony happen in the very public church on June 23, 2004. Photographs inside the sanctuary are prohibited, so only the two of them would know if there was anything more to it than two well-dressed tourists walking up and performing a little ritual during visiting hours.

They took their photos with the garden of the Little Cloister as a backdrop. In one, they share a chaste kiss.

According to several people close to the litigation, a ceremony at Westminster Abbey made sense because McMahan, they say, is an Anglophile who counts among his heroes Adm. Lord Nelson, the British naval hero who died in the Battle of Trafalgar. Also, McMahan is said to believe that his genes are exemplary and saw in Linda the best match for his own superiority.

Four days after the ceremony, Linda wrote in an e-mail: "You asked me afterwards if I felt different. Near, I don't but at a distance, I do. I am glad about this and feel the insecurities slipping away."

In other e-mails, they began to sign off as "H" and "W," references to husband and wife. In one e-mail, dated June 29, 2004, McMahan wrote: "Miss you W. Think nasty things about you all the time." Linda answered a couple of hours later: "Mmm yeah, nasty is so good. You must have read my mind. What else can we say, we're H & W — that's the beauty."

Okay, so they've become polygamists at this point. That's weird. But the weirder thing is that McMahan turns out to be Hodge's long-lost father.

Weirder still? That would be the fact that Hodge and McMahan started their relationship—their very intimate relationship, if you know what I mean—after a paternity test had confirmed that he was her father, a fact which both of them knew. Beforehand. Yeah.

Read the whole thing. If you feel like getting a serious case of the heebie jeebies, that is.

(Via Fark)

A long way from Gotham

I don't see what the big deal is. I mean, it's not like the Joker was sighted in the vicinity:

Three schools in the north Phoenix suburb of Cave Creek were on lockdown for about 45 minutes Wednesday morning after a student at Desert Arroyo Middle School reported seeing a person dressed as Batman run across campus, jump a fence and disappear into the desert, Scottsdale police Sgt. Mark Clark said.

The student described the person as 6 feet 3 inches tall and possibly male.

"We're assuming it was male, although they did have a mask on," Clark said.

Officers combed the desert around the middle school. A nearby elementary school and high school also were on lockdown as officers sought the caped crusader.

The result _ no Batman.

"It's just one of those interesting little stories that we looked into but we couldn't find anyone," Clark said.

Don't you think that maybe—just maybe—this was the product of a somewhat overactive imagination? Sounds that way to me. But if Batman really was around, the lockdown really wasn't necessary—those kids had never been safer.

Filthy, filthy animals

I'm not what you'd call a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but this seems just plain wrong:

Genevieve Chandler has been visiting the Lowry Park Zoo since she was a kid, but the tour she got the other night was definitely not the G-rated fare of her childhood. Among the things Chandler, 30, and her date learned on their "Wild at Heart" zoo tour: Male pigs have a unique corkscrew endowment and impressive, um, output; manatees have orgies and don't really care if their partners are male or female; and a male porcupine has only one four-hour window a year to mate _ very carefully, of course.

Valentine's Day is the time of year when zoos around the nation seek to woo a new adult audience with risque tours that couple champagne, chocolate-covered strawberries and candlelight dining with impressive facts about how animals do the wild thing.

Right. Because what could possibly be more romantic than learning about bisexual manatee orgies?

Tour guides in Tampa warned of possible manatee make-out sessions. But the giant mammals were content to munch on vegetation while the tour group ate a candlelight dinner in front of the zoo's massive aquarium windows.

"Manatees are not particular," Nelson said. "We have only males right now and they don't seem to care."

And people actually pay good money to eat a romantic candlelight dinner in front of that? Sometimes, I'm glad that I'll probably die alone.

The damnedest thing

My neighbors seem to be singing some sort of Chinese barbershop quartet. Huh.

You're never too old to act creepy

You'd think that once women reach a certaain age, they'd get over the bunny boiling thing, but then, you'd be wrong:

A 70-year-old Japanese woman has gone on trial for bombarding a 79-year-old man with over 200 love letters, repeatedly cleaning his family tombstone and breaking a stalking ban, media reported over the weekend.

Prosecutors told a court in Ibaraki prefecture in eastern Japan the defendant had forced her way into the man's home seven times between July and October last year despite being ordered to stay away by police, the Mainichi newspaper reported.

Prosecutors said the woman had sent 206 love letters and cleaned the man's family grave site 85 times. After the prohibition order was issued, she then demanded 1.25 million yen ($10,300) from him for the amount she had paid to get a driver's license to travel to his home and for petrol costs.

That's some chutzpah, right there. And it kind of makes me doubt the purity of her crazy-ass stalker love for the guy, being all petty and calculating and materialistic like that. Stalkers are usually a little more unhinged than that.

Later, she reportedly started sending threatening letters to the man, saying "If it comes down to it, you could die," the paper quoted the indictment as saying.

Now that's more like it.

This sucks

One of my favorite radio hosts, Mr. KABC, is off the air. Apparently, he and the radio station (guess which one) couldn't agree on a new contract. I hope he finds a new gig somewhere here in L.A. sometime soon.

Update: If you want to call on KABC to renew Mr. KABC's contract, call 310-840-4900 or 800-222-KABC.

Some constructive criticism for the adult swim folks

You know, people standing/sitting around looking awkward and gurgling is pretty far from what most people would call "Awesome." But I guess taking one of my comedy heroes and making him unfunny, well, that's...something. Oh, and this kind of sucks, too. Actually, it really sucks.

Huh. I guess none of that was very constructive, but I guess you could chalk that up to having just watched a half hour of total fucking crap.

Comedy or tragedy?

It's hard to decide which category this blog falls in. It's funny, but it infuriates me and makes me sad, all at the same time.

Via Treacher and Ace.

Dumbass wants jail time

I don't have much of a sweet tooth, so I don't eat much chocolate. Nonetheless, this annoys me:

A Dutch journalist asked an Amsterdam court on Friday to convict him for eating chocolate, saying by doing so he was benefiting from child slavery on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast.

Teun van de Keuken, 35, is seeking a jail sentence to raise consumer awareness and force the cocoa and chocolate industry to take tougher measures to stamp out child labour.

"If I am found guilty of this crime, any chocolate consumer can be prosecuted after that. I hope that people would stop buying chocolate and thus hurt the sales of big corporations and make them do something about the problem," van de Keuken said.

You know, there are other ways to raise awareness about this problem. Like, oh, I don't know...maybe writing a detailed expose about child slavery in some sort of periodical. But one would have to be some sort of journalist to make that happen, so I guess getting sent to jail for some phony-baloney crime is the only way to go.

"Sorry, hoss."

Lyle wrecks Teodor's peaceful moment. He wrecks it so badly.

Gay in the NBA

So, some guy I never heard of who used to play in the NBA for a few seasons apparently came out of the closet. What's priceless are some of the reactions from current players:

Injured Philadelphia Sixers forward Shavlik Randolph acknowledged it's a new situation.

"As long as you don't bring your gayness on me I'm fine," Randolph said. "As far as business-wise, I'm sure I could play with him. But I think it would create a little awkwardness in the locker room."

I feel the same way, Shavlik. I hate it when some dude gets his gayness on me, though I'm pretty sure you can get gayness out of your jersey with a little club soda.

News that Amaechi had come out surprised some players.

"For real? He's gay for real?" said Philadelphia center Steven Hunter. "Nowadays it's proven that people can live double lives. I watch a lot of TV, so I see a lot of sick perverted stuff about married men running around with gay guys and all types of foolishness."

Even so, Hunter said he would be fine with an openly gay teammate.

Okay, sure. Now, get ready for the inappropriate comment in three, two, one...

"As long as he don't make any advances toward me I'm fine with it," he said. "As long as he came to play basketball like a man and conducted himself like a good person, I'd be fine with it." [emphasis mine]

As opposed to him coming to play basketball like a little sissy girl, huh?

Anyway, I don't really care about what these people said, but it'll be interesting to see if anyone picks up on these remarks and demands that these guys get sent to sensitivity training. Because, honestly, if you or I got caught saying stuff like that about a co-worker who came out of the closet, we'd be punished for it in one way or another.

At last, the bathroom of my dreams

I don't care if excessively decadent things like this are the reason why the rest of the world hates us, I want one.

Think you deserve a throne? A U.S. plumbing firm has created a luxury toilet equipped with laptop computer and flat-screen TV which it plans to give away in an online sweepstake.

Ohio-based Roto-Rooter says its "Pimped Out John" is designed to "fulfill all your wildest bathroom dreams."

Somehow, I doubt that. Not unless it comes with...uh...perhaps I've already said too much.

Special features include an iPod music player and speakers, an Xbox video game console, a refrigerator filled with drinks and snacks and a cycling exercise machine.

What do you want to bet that the "cycling exercise machine" is the accessory that gets used least by whoever wins this thing?

How'd he get his pants off while wearing skis?

Pepole play with themselves in the strangest places these days:

Blame global warming. An Albany, N.Y., man is accused of riding nude in a gondola at Stratton Mountain Resort on Dec. 15. William N. Barrett III, 46, pleaded not guilty to felony lewd and lascivious conduct and misdemeanor marijuana possession Tuesday in Vermont District Court.

A witness reported to lift attendants that Barrett was nude and touching himself inappropriately while riding the lift.

He was supposedly fully clothed by the time he reached the bottom of the hill, so I guess it was the thrill of doing it on the ski lift. Not exactly the mile high club, but hey, you've got to get your thrills where you can find them.

Wondering why he could have possibly thought this was a good idea?

Police found a glass pipe and film canister containing marijuana in his pocket when they arrested him, authorities said.

Hopefully, the next time he decides to get high and diddle himself, he'll just stay in his basement.

Astro-nuts

This story gives me hope in a perverse sort of way, since it demonstrates that even extraordinarily talented, driven, and successful people can screw up just like the rest of us schmucks.

An astronaut drove 900 miles and donned a disguise to confront a woman she believed was her rival for the affections of a space shuttle pilot, police said. She was arrested Monday and charged with attempted kidnapping and other counts.

U.S. Navy Capt. Lisa Nowak, 43, who flew last July on a shuttle mission to the international space station, was also charged with attempted vehicle burglary with battery, destruction of evidence and battery. She was denied bail.

Police said Nowak drove from her home in Houston to the Orlando International Airport to confront Colleen Shipman.

Nowak believed Shipman was romantically involved with Navy Cmdr. William Oefelein, a pilot during space shuttle Discovery's trip to the space station last December, police said.

Nowak told police that her relationship with Oefelein was "more than a working relationship but less than a romantic relationship," according to an arrest affidavit. Police officers recovered a love letter to Oefelein in her car.

If you thought this story was good so far, oh brother, just wait—the really good craziness is just beginning...

When she found out that Shipman was flying to Orlando from Houston, Nowak decided to confront her, according to the arrest affidavit. Nowak raced from Houston to Orlando wearing diapers so she wouldn't have to stop to urinate, authorities said.

Astronauts wear diapers during launch and re-entry.

And it seems they wear them during crazy-ass kidnapping attempts, too.

Dressed in a wig and a trench coat, Nowak boarded an airport bus that Shipman took to her car in an airport parking lot. Shipman told police she noticed someone following her, hurried inside the car and locked the doors, according to the arrest affidavit.

Nowak rapped on the window, tried to open the car door and asked for a ride. Shipman refused but rolled down the car window a few inches when Nowak started crying.

Big mistake there, honey. Were I the kind of person who talks to the characters on the screen, this is where I'd be yelling at her not to roll down the window.

Nowak then sprayed a chemical into Shipman's car, the affidavit said.

Of course she did.

Shipman drove to the parking lot booth, and the police were called.

During a check of the parking lot, an officer followed Nowak and watched her throw away a bag containing the wig and BB gun. They also found a steel mallet, a 4-inch folding knife, rubber tubing, $600 and garbage bags inside a bag Nowak was carrying when she was arrested, authorities said.

Inside Nowak's vehicle, which was parked at a nearby motel, authorities uncovered a pepper spray package, an unused BB-gun cartridge, latex gloves and e-mails between Shipman and Oefelein. They also found a letter "that indicated how much Mrs. Nowak loved Mr. Oefelein," an opened package for a buck knife, Shipman's home address and hand written directions to the address, the arrest affidavit said.

It's probably a good thing that this Nowak woman was so batshit crazy in love. If she'd been a little more lucid, she might've come up with a better plan, and those garbage bags could be full of Shipman in little pieces out in the Everglades.

If she's convicted, she could end up getting life in prison.

Update: Donnah brings up a thought that I had, but forgot to add:

I'd say NASA needs to beef up the psych eval section of their fitness reports before someone up in the space gets their Tang poisoned.

She also links to a photo of Cmdr. Oefelein, who she describes as "devastatingly unremarkable," though I must say he has a haircut you could set your watch to.

Another father of the year candidate

Can't get that crying baby to quiet down so you can get some sleep? Most people would try singing to it or rocking it gently. This guy tried a different approach:

An Albany [Oregon] father used a 100,000-volt stun gun on his 18-month-old son, police said Monday. Rian Whittman, 23, has been accused of assault and criminal mistreatment. Police said he used it "multiple times" over three weeks. A police spokesman said there were up to 10 instances.

Police said Whittman's wife, 21, who was not named, reported the abuse on Saturday.

The child was treated at a hospital, police said, and then taken into protective custody by the state Department of Human Services.

Actually, the article says that the authorities don't know why this jagoff did it, but really, who cares? You just don't use a stun gun on a baby.

Cry me a friggin' river

When I lived alone in a small apartment in the years following college, I didn't have air conditioning.

So, yeah, Mamut, why don't you quit whining and cram it?

Think of all the horrible mirrors

Do you enjoy exercise? Do you also enjoy exposing yourself to strangers? Well, if you live in the Netherlands, you're in luck:

Self-conscious about what you wear while working out? A Dutch gym plans to introduce "Naked Sunday" for people who like to huff and puff in the buff.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm a little more self-conscious about my nudity that about what I'm wearing while I exercise. Anyway, moving right along...

Patrick de Man, owner of Fitworld gym in the town of Heteren, said he got the idea in part from two of his customers who are avid nudists.

"I heard that some other gyms are offering courses on 'pole-dancing' as a sport, so I thought: Why not bring something new to the market?" de Man said.

He said the response had been overwhelming — positive and negative.

I could have told him that would happen. Weirdos who like to exercise with their junk hanging out would love it, while the rest of us would be a little put off by the idea. And here's why:

De Man said the first question Fitworld customers were asking was whether it would be sanitary.

Nude exercisers would be required to put towels down on weight machines and to use disposable seat covers while riding bikes. All machines would be cleaned and disinfected afterward. "We clean them every day anyway," he said.

Still, you probably couldn't pay me to work out on a weight machine or a stationary bike that had been coated with someone's crotch sweat, towel or not. But good luck with that.

Let's lay off the murdering, okay?

This story is interesting pretty much all the way through, but something in the lede jumped out at me:

Immigrants wishing to live in the small Canadian town of Herouxville, Quebec, must not stone women to death in public, burn them alive or throw acid on them, according to an extraordinary set of rules released by the local council.

Uhhh...those rules don't sound "extraordinary" to me. Maybe it's just the way I was raised, but murdering women is kind of frowned upon in my family.

Read the whole thing, which includes the utterly predictable outraged reaction from the head of a Canadian Muslim organization.

Uhhhhh...why?

Oh, God, this is just nasty:

A 36-year-old Omaha man accused of luring women to his home and taking urine samples when they thought they were applying for a job was found guilty Thursday of two counts of criminal impersonation.

Victims told police Kevin Oliver said he worked for cell phone company T-Mobile and was interviewing them for jobs. Prosecutors said there never were any jobs.

"To this day, we don't know what his ultimate goal was but whatever it was it was deceptive, it was damaging and it was protracted," said Omaha city prosecutor Marty Conboy. "This went on for 18 months that we know of."

I think it's probably a good thing that "we don't know what his ultimate goal was," because it damn well probably wasn't anything good.

But, ladies, don't you think it's a little suspicious when someone wants to take your urine sample at his house? Think about it.