"I'm not the best criminal."

That's what William K. Bradley admitted to a judge during a hearing on Monday. While undoubtedly true, it was still something of an understatement:

He stole a computer.

From the Kalamazoo County jail.

Where he already was serving a sentence in a different case.

Kalamazoo County Circuit Judge Gary Giguere Jr. sentenced Bradley on Monday, telling the Kalamazoo resident his jailhouse theft was "the dumbest crime I've heard today" and "may be in the top half-dozen in my career."

If there are five dumber crimes that Giguere has heard in his court room, I'd like to hear about them. No, seriously. That's the kind of thing I crack lame jokes about here, and someone trying to do something more idiotic than trying to swipe a computer from a jail where they were already serving time would be right up my alley.

Worst. Competition. EVAR.

I'm pretty sure that I don't want to know how this event even got started:

A 10-year-old girl set a new world record by bringing 567 worms up from the ground during Britain's World Worm Charming Championships.

Sophie Smith of Willaston, England, won the competition in her village Saturday by besting the previous world record of 511 worms listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, The Daily Telegraph reported Monday.

A number of techniques were employed to try to coax worms from the ground during the light rain Saturday, including a man who strummed rock tunes on his guitar, a woman who tap danced to the theme from "Star Wars," a man who played the xylophone with bottles and the most common method, sticking a garden fork into the ground and smacking it with a stick to create vibrations.

Yeah, it sounds like whoever eventually comes out on top at this thing, there aren't actually any winners there.

Deposit slip-up

My bank used to have those pneumatic tubes at their drive-thru windows, and they didn't want you to put anything but cash, checks, or deposit slips in the canisters, much less anything like this:

According to the arrest report, the teller notified a supervisor that a customer in a white SUV had sent her a deposit canister containing $200, a deposit slip and a bag of marijuana with another bag of white powder inside.

TPD was called about 4:30 p.m., and Officer Jamie Martinez stopped the only white SUV in the teller line. He detained the driver, [Cameron] Jefferson, who was identified by the teller as the customer who made the deposit, according to the report.

Jefferson told Martinez that he sent the canister with $200, according to the report. He became frustrated that the transaction was taking so long and asked several times for his money back.

Jefferson told Martinez, "If you said I did it, then I did it," according to the report. When asked if he accidentally grabbed the plastic bag when putting his money in the canister, Jefferson said "I put it ...," then refused to comment further.

Well, what else is there to say, really? Other than, perhaps, "I think I'd like to speak to an attorney."

Youthful idealism crushed by reality

Look at it this way, kid, at least you got a free dose of what life is like here in the outside world:

The students behind Florida Atlantic University's bike-sharing program said all of its community-use Green Bikes have been stolen.

Alexander Van Mecl, 19, a member of FAU's sustainability committee, said the Green Bike system worked on the honor code -- find a bike not in use, ride it to your destination, and leave it -- but not all users were entirely honorable, the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post reported Thursday.

"They were done, it worked, and they got stolen," Van Mecl said. "You can think of hundreds of different scenarios as to why we don't have the bikes anymore. Kind of a depressing story."

The article goes on to say that they're looking at starting the program over again with "more safeguards in place to prevent theft." Yeah, uh, in hindsight, you might have wanted to consider that in the first place.

Ah, nostalgia

When Americans get nostalgic for the 1940s and 50s, they go to classic car shows or some kind of kitschy diner. I shudder to think what happens when Russians get the same feeling:

Russian communists have put up giant billboards of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in a southern city, promoting his tough methods as the best remedy for the world economic crisis.

Stalin killed millions of people during his 30 year rule until his death in 1953, but many in recession-hit Russia have grown nostalgic for his strong leadership, and he was voted the third most popular historical figure in a nationwide poll.

Yeah, this will probably end well.

Didn't your mother teach you any manners?

The answer appears to be "no," and although there's no explicit mention of it in this article, I have a feeling somehow that alcohol may have been involved here:

A sheriff's deputy and his mother face charges of disorderly conduct after the deputy vomited on people at a Kenny Chesney concert in Fargo and refused to leave, authorities say. Police Sgt. Mark Lykken said Stark County Deputy Justin Krohmer, 26, and his mother, Susan, 47, whose husband is the Ada, Minn., police chief, were arrested after the Saturday night incident.

Lykken said Justin Krohmer was asked to leave the Fargodome about 11 p.m. Saturday after vomiting on people in front of him, but he refused to do so.

Susan Krohmer is accused of pulling and pushing officers, screaming profanities and of trying to prevent an officer from escorting her son out of the concert.

Perhaps I'm mistaken about the booze. Maybe the cop just had a nasty stomach bug and his mom just has a severe case of Tourette's syndrome. Yeah.

Unarmed robbery

How bad do you have to be at robbery to not even try the old "finger gun in the jacket pocket" thing? This bad, apparently:

Crown Prosecutor Jane Williams said John Newall, 27, was nearing the close of a four-day amphetamine binge when he walked into the United service station in Bridewater and exclaimed: "I want the money," The Mercury of Tasmania, Australia, reported Monday.

The clerk, however, was not impressed by the attempted robber, authorities said.

"You need a weapon," he said. "I have to fear for my life. You can't just have the money."

Yeah, the four-day meth binge probably didn't help matters.

The article goes on to say that he got away with four hundred bucks after the clerk opened the register for another customer. Why the hell hadn't he been kicked out of the store by then?

Since it's Friday night, Pro-Iranian revolution edition...

...here's a photo of Catherine Bell, who's partly Persian. And 100 percent hot. I really had no idea she had any Iranian ancestry until b-rad noted it here.

Anybody who would try to cover that in a burkha is insane. (Click for bigger.)

What a PETArd

Lord knows I'm not exactly a fan of President Obama, but even he deserves to be defended against this kind of idiocy:

Some animal rights activists have a message for U.S. President Barack Obama: Leave those poor flies alone.

Obama's swatting and killing a fly during an interview with CNBC Tuesday got a quick response from the high-profile animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

ABC News quoted Bruce Friedrich, vice president for policy at PETA, as saying the group supports brushing away flies instead of killing them. He expressed disappointment that the president had killed the fly.

"We support compassion for even the smallest of animals," Friedrich told ABC. "We support giving insects the benefit of the doubt."

The fleas, ticks, wasps, lice, and cockroaches that Friedrich shares a kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom with were not available for comment.

Words of wisdom

My late grandpa was a very wise man. He gave me a lot of great advice that I'll never forget. For example, he once told me*, "Sean, if you're ever going to commit a serious crime, don't dye your hair bright red beforehand. Or, if that's not an option, at least wear a hat."


*Okay, so he never actually told me that, but it's still good advice.

Tiny clue leads to criminal mastermind

When you're going to commit a crime, you might not want to leave your fingerprints behind at the scene. That said...

Cue the "Real Men of Genius" song

I think there's an important lesson to be learned here:

Hanceville Police arrested Billy Floyd Norris, 33, Sunday at his residence on County Road 616 for unlawful manufacturing of a controlled substance and unlawful possession of a controlled substance.

Capt. Jimmy Rodgers said officers allegedly discovered a working meth lab at Norris’ residence while responding to a robbery call.

“He reported he had been robbed by his roommates,” Rodgers said. “We were never able to verify that.”

Rodgers said during the course of the investigation of the alleged robbery, Norris told officers there was a meth lab at the location.

The lesson being that you're likely to go to prison if you have a name like "Billy Floyd." Oh, and you probably shouldn't call the police with a dubious claim about being robbed if you're cooking up meth in your house, either.

Bittersweet

Congrats to the Lakers on winning their fifteenth NBA Championship. It's also the tenth for head coach Phil Jackson, making him the all-time leader.

That said, here's a hearty fuck you to the jackasses who decided to damage property around the Staples Center after the victory. Way to make your city look good.

There was some question in L.A. over the last week as to whether the city could afford to throw a parade if the team won. They're going to, of course, but in retrospect, I would have liked to see the city council threaten to deny the fans a parade if there was even any slight mayhem on the streets.

Since it's Friday night...

...and I've got nothing, how's about a picture of Olivia Munn in a Princess Leia Slave-Girl outfit?

Jabba something or other, a-a-ah!!! (Click for bigger.)

The perils of pronouns

I pity the poor English as a Second Language student who has to make heads or tails (no pun intended) (okay, pun intended) this article:

Chastity Bono is having a sex change to become a man. A spokesman for Bono, born a girl to Sonny and Cher, says he "has made the courageous decision to honor his true identity" and began the sex-change process earlier this year. Publicist Howard Bragman said Bono is proud of his decision and hopes "that his choice to transition will open the hearts and minds of the public regarding this issue."

Yeah, that wasn't at all confusing.

What-A-Bunch-Of-Idiots

I know that fast food restaurants don't usually employ many MENSA members, but Jesus Tapdancing Christ, people...

A pair of New Mexico fast food workers were hoodwinked by a prank caller into stripping to their underwear and breaking the restaurant's windows, sources said.

The sources told KOAT-TV, Albuquerque, that the two male What-A-Burger employees received a phone call Monday night at the restaurant from someone claiming to be a representative of the fast food chain's corporate office.

The caller told the men to test the fire suppression system and warned them to shed their clothes after they were covered by the yellow powder released by the system. The caller then told the men to break the restaurant's windows for ventilation, the source said.

The underwear thing aside, I've never been to a What-A-Burger, but I would guess that most of their franchises have, you know, doors. Doors that could be opened. In lieu of smashing all the windows, I mean.

What do you think, Captain Picard?



Yeah, that about sums it up.

No parking

Drinking and driving is never a good idea, but if you're going to drink and drive and then look for a place to park and sleep it off, you probably couldn't pick a worse spot than this guy did:

Police said an intoxicated man chose an odd place to park his car and try to fall asleep -- in the East Pennsboro Twp. police parking lot, between two marked cruisers, in a space designated for police cars only.

Michael L. Wagner, 37, of Mechanicsburg, caught the attention of an officer as he sped through the parking lot at 10:32 p.m. Sunday, police Chief Dennis McMaster said. After Wagner parked, the officer watched him turn off his headlights, recline his seat and close his eyes, McMaster said.

The officer approached the car to check on Wagner, and saw an empty bottle of vodka and a container of orange juice on the floor, McMaster said. The officer also smelled alcohol on Wagner, who was later found to have a 0.112 percent blood-alcohol level, McMaster said.

You've gotta love it when some stupid dumbass makes it easy for the cops like that.

Also, it's nice that he didn't crash into and kill any innocent people, though that's more fortunate than hilarious.

"I'm still in here!"

Um, sure, construction noises can be kind of loud, but yelling and pounding on things is a good way to get the workers to stop:

A Minneapolis man said he was preparing to leave his foreclosed home for the last time when contractors boarded up the house with him still inside.

Ted Poetsch, 53, said he was finishing packing and loading his cat into its carrier May 12 when he heard drilling coming from the frame of his front door, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Monday.

[...]

Poetsch said he escaped his house-turned-prison with the help of his one-time lawyer, Josh DuBois.

This is where I make a "Habeas Crowbar" joke, right?

Since it's Friday night...

...and I don't feel like looking for any stories about sexual or criminal dumbassery, how's about a picture of Summer Glau with a shotgun?

Oh, yeah. That'll do nicely. (Click for bigger.)

What, it didn't grant him any wishes, too?

Curt Carish is already lucky, seeing as how he gets to live in what most of us would consider paradise, but the bastard has to go and be even luckier:

“I was just sitting on a picnic table looking out into the ocean of Port Allen beach when I saw a nice-size fish awkwardly swimming close to shore,” Carish said. “So my friend Allen Hall gave me a bamboo stick and said, ‘Go get ‘em.’”

Carish jumped into the waist-high water and struck the nenue a few times with the dull stick until the fish went limp.

He said its stomach was abnormally large but he just threw the fish in the cooler along with his frozen chicken that he was going to barbecue that night.

Tanley, a good friend of Carish, opened the cooler minutes later to discover a gold watch laying inches from the nenue’s mouth.

“And the funniest thing is that the watch was on time and still ticking,” Carish said.

You know, I found a ten dollar bill once. Once. Yeah.

Be prepared

When you're gonna rob a bank, you might want to make sure that the little things are taken care of first:

Daytona Beach Police Chief Mike Chitwood said Jason Warren Dietrich, 35, and Randall Fredric Walker, 38, abandoned Dietrich's green Jeep Cherokee after it ran out of gas a few blocks from the Riverside National Bank, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported Wednesday.

Police said they traced Dietrich's vehicle back to his home and Walker was arrested after his name was mentioned during Dietrich's arrest. Walker, who allegedly carried out the bank robbery while Dietrich waited in the car, was found to be in possession of the bank's money.

On the plus side, they're not really going to need gas money where they're headed.

More like "rap novella"

I don't know what you call it at this point, but "rap sheet" seems insufficient at this point:

A man has been arrested for the 153rd time, this time after he was accused of punching someone in the face over the weekend.

You'll be shocked—shocked, I tell you—to find out that alcohol was involved.

Thanks...

...but I think I'll have my chicken without the deadly poison:

A video showing a cook holding a snake and forcing it to bite a live chicken until it dies has been widely circulated online, (http:/you.video.sina.com.cn/b/21145091-1405053100.html) generating mainly angry comments.

[...]

Health authorities in Guangdong have already told restaurants to stop serving "poisonous snake-bitten chicken" and now those in Chongqing have joined in.

"Although nobody has been poisoned, this at the very least is an irregular way of slaughtering poultry," the business newspaper quoted a local health official as saying.

Yeah, I think I'm gonna go ahead and stick to eating chickens whose heads have been sliced off in a factory somehow.

(And, yes, I'm aware that killing chickens is inherently not nice as far as the chickens are concerned no matter how you bump them off, but it's their fault for being so friggin' tasty.)