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.