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.

Oh no: More mutant deer

Remember last month when that guy killed the hermaphrodite deer with all the extra legs? Well, it happened again:

Joe Stokes was deer hunting on public land in Sumter County on Nov. 12 and shot two deer, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported.

When FWC senior wildlife technician Tim Farley logged in the deer, he discovered that one deer was a hermaphrodite, possessing both male and female reproductive organs. Farley also he logged in another hermaphrodite deer the day before.

"I've been doing this for 27 years, and I've only come across three deer that were 'true' hermaphrodites, those having all of the male and female sex organs," Farley said in a statement.

Now, the article says that the guy who runs deer management for the FWC says that hermaphrodite deer are "extremely rare," but this guy, Farley, has seen two of them in as many days? That can't be good.

Next thing you know, they'll start developing giant fangs or heat vision or something that will kill us all.

Weird tales of the Sitemeter II

Every once in a while, someone stops by here, having been referred here by my comment on this post about a hot foreign chick by Dave in Texas—a week or so ago, three different people came here on the same day via that link.

That was posted back in April of last year, and it was just a throwaway comment with a stupid joke about a somewhat obscure Canadian teevee show, so I don't know why they keep showing up here, but that's cool. I takes my hits where I can get 'em.

Oh, and thanks, Dave in Texas.

Fitness is important

Man, I don't know how I could have missed this article yesterday, but it looks like the Chinese are striving to become just as crass as we are:

Treadmills are run-of-the-mill -- Luo Lan wants the Chinese masses to pole dance instead.

As manager of Beijing's first pole dancing school, Luo says she is trying to make exercise fun -- and not morally corrupt anyone in a country where this kind of dancing is associated with seedy bars and sex is still a taboo topic.

But she admits she has had a tough time convincing people that pole dancing, which has a celebrity following said to include pop star Britney Spears and heiress Paris Hilton, is great for your health.

Fancy that. I don't see why you'd have trouble convincing people to try something that Britney Spears uses to work out. But I digress...

"When I first started people would only come furtively, and not tell their boyfriends or husbands," Luo told Reuters in the apartment she has converted into a dance studio with poles bolted to the floor and roof.

"But over the last year, people have started to hear more about pole dancing, and they know it's purely for keeping fit," she added, as one of her students in black hotpants writhed around a shiny steel pole.

Huh? What was that you said just now? Something about fitness? I...uh...wasn't really listening. Something must have...distracted me.

Luo started her pole dancing school, located in a fashionable part of Beijing, last July after realizing that nobody in the city was offering classes in what had become a fashionable way to shape up and lose weight in the United States and Europe.

"Lots of girls love pole dancing, but like me could not find a place to learn. So I spent a lot of time doing research, watching DVDs," Luo said.

Ah, yes. I'm familiar with that kind of "research," too. Very familiar. Which reminds me...I have to go download some of that "research" right now.

And these nipple clamps will help with your fear of flying

I don't know about you, but I'm just not quite buying this guy's story:

An Australian psychologist charged with indecently assaulting a patient told a court on Tuesday that forcing his female patient to wear a dog collar and call him master was within a psychologist's ethical guidelines.

Psychologist Bruce Beaton, 64, pleaded not guilty in the Western Australia District Court to four charges of indecently assaulting a 22-year-old woman in 2005, local media reported.

Beaton was arrested when police, who had been secretly video recording the session with the woman, heard whipping sounds, reported Australian Associated Press from the court.

Beaton told the court he resorted to master-servant treatment with his bulimic patient because other methods had failed. He said he thought forcing the woman to wear a dog collar and call him master would build a more trusting relationship.

Riiiiiight. Because nothing helps to build trust like forcing someone to participate in your creepy bondage games.

He said that this sort of thing is "right within the ethical guidelines" of the Australian Psychological Society, which must be one of the world's freakiest professional associations, if he's correct. Hmmmm...I wonder what's their positiion on the psychological treatment value of skintight, black vinyl bodysuits.

Greasy kid stuff

Well, this would put me right off my lunch:

A high school lunch period was disrupted Monday by a greased, naked student who ran around screaming and flailing his arms until police twice used a stun gun on him, authorities said.

Taylor Killian, 18, had rubbed his body with grapeseed oil to keep from being caught, and got up after the first time he was shocked to continue running toward a group of frightened students huddled in a corner at Westerville North High School, Lt. Jeff Gaylor said.

"That prank went a little farther than he intended, I guess," Gaylor said.

This was supposedly a prank? Sounds more like the kind of thing that could maybe land someone in the psych ward for observation.

Police said that an administrator ordered Killian to stop, but that the student made a sexual gesture and kept running.

Killian is in jail and charged with inducing panic, public indecency, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. A message seeking comment was left at Killian's home.

School officials reported that Killian was a good student, Gaylor said. There was no indication of substance abuse or a medical problem.

Well, something must've set him off. Watching too much Jackass, maybe.

Anyway, I can't wait for his lawyer to come out and claim thatr what he did was a protest or performance art, and that it's protected by the first amendment.

Now that he's not running anymore...

...John Kerry apparently feels free to put his foot in his mouth.

I'm sure it was just a series of "botched jokes."

I'm guessing it'll be heavy on the pancakes

What's the worst place possible for a discussion of porn? Why, church, of course.

It's not your typical church breakfast. An event billed as "Porn and Pancakes" is being hosted by a church in rural upstate New York.

The breakfast discussion on the pornography industry in America is planned next month at the Living Word Assembly of God Church in the town of Ontario, about ten miles east of Rochester.

[...]

Organizers told a Rochester TV station that the event on February 10th will be an honest discussion about pornography and its impact on society. The discussion will be led by Triple-X Church, a group of youth ministers who travel the country talking about porn and the porn industry.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I was kind of disappointed with Triple-X Church. When I first read the group's name, I figured it was some kind of ministry for born-again porn stars. Because, really, who would possibly know more about sin?

Anyway, I'm guessing that somehow, the pro-porn viewpoint won't be very well represented at this "honest discussion" on the subject.

Milestone reached, redux

In this here post where I celebrated my 10,000th visitor, I made a bonehead move. I thanked the 10,000th visitor and the guy who threw me the link that got me that visitor, but forgot to thank everyone else who has stopped by over the last year or so, those of you who have bothered to leave comments, and the other bloggers who have sent some traffic my way.

If it weren't for all of you, my blog wouldn't be the (very minor) success that it's become. I'd like to thank you all for dropping by to watch a prematurely bitter old crank rant about the things that annoy him and make fun of the news.

Parking lot bastards

Man, I fucking hate it when I pull into a parking lot (as I just did not fifteen minutes ago), see someone stepping off the sidewalk in front of me, and stop for them to pass, only to have them saunter along at a snail's pace directly in front of me, including right through the goddamned parking space I obviously intend to park in.

Now, it'd be one thing if this was a little old lady or a handicapped person, which I wouldn't mind so much, but I'm talking about three able-bodied people, each of them around twenty years old. Bastards.

I hope it was worth it

Remember the guy who got arrested last fall for trying to steal a mannequin for...uh...personal gratification? Well, it looks like he's going somewhere where there aren't any mannequins:

A man who acknowledged a sexual fetish for female-shaped mannequins was sentenced Thursday to more than a year in prison after repeatedly breaking into storefront windows.

Ronald Dotson, 39, of Detroit, was sentenced to 18 months to 30 years on charges of breaking and entering and being a habitual criminal.

He was arrested in October after police in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak spotted him near a smashed storefront window containing a mannequin wearing a French maid outfit.

The arrest came less than a week after he had been paroled for his sixth breaking-and-entering conviction in 13 years.

Some of the previous cases also involved mannequins. Police once found him in an alley behind a women's clothing store with three mannequins dressed in lingerie.

Mercifully, they don't say what exactly he was doing with the three lingerie-clad dummies. Some things are better left to the imagination.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go poke my brain with a Q-tip.

Sound advice

When you're out huntin' for your "vittles," there are some areas you want to avoid:

New Jersey has warned squirrel hunters near a toxic waste dump about consuming the critters because they could be contaminated with lead.

It is the first time the state has cautioned Ringwood residents many who are members of the Ramapough Mountain Indian tribe who hunt and fish in the area about their squirrel intake, said Tom Slater, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Senior Services.

A lead-contaminated squirrel was found in the area two months ago, prompting the agency, along with the state Department of Environmental Protection, to send out letters advising that adults eat squirrel no more than twice a week and even less for children and pregnant women.

Uh...how about you just cut the squirrel out of your diet entirely? Chicken isn't all that expensive anymore, and things like ground beef and pork chops are surprisingly affordable.

I know, you'll miss eating them little rat-like creatures at first, but once you ease into the culinary mainstream, you'll never look back.

Take the pledge

On a more serious note than I usually sound around here, Beth over at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy wants Republicans to sign the following pledge:

If the United States Senate passes a resolution, non-binding or otherwise, that criticizes the commitment of additional troops to Iraq that General Petraeus has asked for and that the president has pledged, and if the Senate does so after the testimony of General Petraeus on January 23 that such a resolution will be an encouragement to the enemy, I will not contribute to any Republican senator who voted for the resolution. Further, if any Republican senator who votes for such a resolution is a candidate for re-election in 2008, I will not contribute to the National Republican Senatorial Committee unless the Chairman of that Committee, Senator Ensign, commits in writing that none of the funds of the NRSC will go to support the re-election of any senator supporting the non-binding resolution.

She makes a good case for why this is so important:

This matters, y’all. This isn’t just about supporting Bush; it’s about showing the Iraqis that we are not weak-kneed, fair-weather friends to those who need our help, and that we aren’t afraid to do what it takes to get the job done. Y’all know that’s what those serving in uniform are waiting for, because they aren’t going all wobbly. It’s their lives on the line. Too bad some in the Senate place their own “political survival” higher in their priorities than the actual lives of our troops and our national security.

Sounds exactly right to me, so I signed it. If you want to sign it or read more about it, head on over to the link at the top of this post. Let's hope they take it seriously.

(Via ace whose post—trust me on this—you do not want to read all the way through.)

Milestone reached

Woo-hoo! I got my 10,000th visitor today. I'd like to thank whoever it was, from Foley, Alabama, and also SeeDubya, who sent them here.

Update: Here's a screenshot, since that first link didn't really work:

What did they expect?

Uh, there's a reason why they named the animal after one of the seven deadly sins. Or was it the other way around? Either way...

Scientists in the eastern German city of Jena said Wednesday they have finally given up after three years of failed attempts to entice a sloth into budging as part of an experiment in animal movement.

The sloth, named Mats, was remanded to a zoo after consistently refusing to climb up and then back down a pole, as part of an experiment conducted by scientists at the University of Jena's Institute of Systematic Zoology and Evolutionary Biology.

Neither pounds of cucumbers nor plates of homemade spaghetti were appetizing enough to make Mats move.

Aside from the fact that these people wasted three years trying to get a sloth to move, the best part of this story was the following quote:

"Mats obviously wanted absolutely nothing to do with furthering science," said Axel Burchardt, a university spokesman.

Really, Axel? You think so?

Next time, she'll probably find a gas station

If there's one piece of advice that my grandpa gave me that I'll never forget, it's his axiom that "Nothing good can come of going to the bathroom outside." Well, he never actually said that, but it's still good advice:

A woman going to the bathroom outside lost her balance and fell into Lake Erie, said police, who had to pull her out of the frigid water. Officer Kevin Youskievicz and the woman's friend helped pull her out early Monday and wrapped a blanket around her until an ambulance arrived.

She was treated at a hospital and released.

The woman's friend told police the woman needed to go to the bathroom and lost her balance near the water.

Now, if you're desperate to go, why do it perched near a lake full of freezing cold water, especially if you have to squat down somewhat precariously to do so?

Now, you too can look like a third world prostitute

Sometimes people complain that girls in this country dress like prostitutes these days. Well, in Brazil, you literally can:

As the rich and slim flocked to waterfront convention center for Rio de Janeiro's glitzy biannual fashion show, prostitutes in a downtown square took to a cobblestone catwalk for a show of their own.

Sex service workers from Davida, a Brazilian organization that defends the rights of prostitutes, strutted through the streets wearing their new line of fall/winter clothes.

The brand's name is Daspu, is a play on "Daslu," one of Brazil's most expensive and exclusive fashion names being displayed across town by top models like Gisele Bundchen.

Gabriela Leite, a founder of Daspu, said it was no mistake that her show was running on Fashion Rio's biggest night.

"This fashion show today makes up part of our fall/winter collection that is not on the official agenda of Fashion Rio because we were never invited. Once again, social responsibility does not appear where it should appear," Leite said.

If getting snubbed by a fashion show is the biggest problem facing the prostitutes of Rio, well, life must be better for them than I would've imagined. But stay strong, Gabriela. You shall overcome someday and get invited to the fashion show. Who knows? Maybe even movie premieres.

Oh. Thanks.

So I go to get a haircut yesterday, and the chick who's cutting my hair is halfway finished before she mentions that they're having a $4.99 haircut sale...starting next week.

A fat lot of good that does me.

Criminal masterminds

When you're stealing something, it helps to know what you're actually swiping. Case in point:

Three thieves who allegedly stole 14 global positioning system devices didn't get away with their crime for long. The devices led police right to their home.

Town officials said the thieves didn't even know what they had: they thought the GPS devices were cell phones, which they planned to sell.

According to Suffolk County police, the GPS devices were stolen Monday night from the Town of Babylon Public Works garage in Lindenhurst [New York]. The town immediately tapped its GPS system, and it showed that one of the devices was inside a house. Police said that when they arrived there, Kurt Husfeldt, 46, had the device in his hands.

He didn't even think to hide or even put down the stolen property when police came to the door. For his sake, I hope he doesn't decide to represent himself in court.

No, I take that back. Because it would probably be hilarious.

Life imitates The Jungle Book

This is just crazy:

A woman has been returned to her home in Vietnam's Central Highlands 18 years after she went missing as an eight-year old girl tending cows near the Cambodian border, her father told a newspaper on Thursday.

Policeman Ksor Lu long believed that his daughter had been eaten by a wild animal until last Saturday when he was told that loggers had found "a forestman" at a village in Cambodia's province of Ratanakiri.

Lu arrived and "recognized his daughter from the first sighting" even though her body was blackened and she had long hair down to her legs and could not speak, according to the account in the Vietnam Rural Today newspaper.

Lu said his daughter, Ro Cham H'pnhieng of the Jrai ethnic minority group, probably spent most of the time in the jungle in Cambodia since she went missing in 1989.

The loggers told Lu that they caught her after realizing that someone had sneaked up and taken their lunch.

So, in essence, she only got caught after she swiped someone's pic-a-nic basket. Maybe I should've titled the post "Life imitates Yogi Bear."

The article goes on to say that at first, she resisted doing things like bathing and wearing clothes when she was brought home, so I'm guessing she was running around in the jungle nekkid. Which is why I'm wondering why the loggers thought they'd found a "forestman." Huh.

Baby, it's cold outside

The Weather Channel's website says it's just a few degrees above freezing here in my little corner of balmy Southern California, but I'm not quite sure they're right. All of the cars outside are coated with a layer of frost, and the lawns are stiff and glistening with ice crystals. I ran my hands through the blades of grass on a couple of them when I went outside for the night's last smoke, and they feel like cold astroturf.

Anyway, I figured the low temperatures here mean that I should educate you about something out there which threatens our very existence and may be the end to the human race as we know it:



I'm totally cereal about this.

Screencap bleg

Can anyone reccomend a good free program you can download for screen captures? I looked on download.com, and most everything is a free trial of something I'd have to buy later. And I'm poor as hell right now.

Global warming strikes again

It's been snowing in Malibu today. I just saw news footage of snow in Westwood, which is part of the West side of L.A., on the teevee.

Is ManBearPig visiting Southern California today?

Having your cake...stolen by a pro athlete

Okay, this one is more than a little weird:

A man walking down the street at bar-closing time with a $190 cake in his arms claimed Los Angeles Lakers center Kwame Brown swiped his birthday treat.

But authorities said the cake caper won't be prosecuted.

In a police report, Alexander Martinez said he left his 30th birthday celebration at the Shore Restaurant and Lounge at about 1:45 a.m. Saturday with the uneaten 2-by-2-foot cake and walked north toward the Blue 32 nightclub.

Martinez told police he first came upon Lakers forward Ronny Turiaf, who he said agreed to pose for a photograph with him and the chocolate cake.

But outside of Blue 32, the 6-foot-11, 270-pound Brown came along, grabbed the cake and threw it at Martinez, according to the report. Brown got into a white limousine and left, Martinez claimed in the report, although he didn't suggest any reason for the cake toss.

Police presented the case to the City Attorney's office, but they decided not to pursue charges, possibly because this is the least violent crime committed by an NBA player in recent memory.

(via Fark)

Oh, come on

For God's sake, don't they have editors at the Associated Press? It's "who's," as in "who is." It's just that simple.

Update: For those of you who are scratching your heads and wondering what the hell I'm talking about, when the story was posted yesterday, the headline read, in part, "Whose Your Daddy?" They've since changed it.

We are the world

In spite of all of the differences we may have with other cultures, it's comforting to know that there's at least one thing that we all seem to have in common. (Trust me, I checked out the websites for several countries, and that seems to be the one constant across the globe.)

Okay, so it's actually a little disturbing that we have that in common.

The return of the neo-con

After a lenghty hiatus, Jeff Goldstein is back blogging at protein wisdom, one of my favorites. And it's as if he hasn't missed a beat.

Bush lied, burgers were fried

So, I was perusing this article, which details how some Texas state legislator is trying to get her hometown designated the birthplace of the hamburger. Meanwhile, some guy in New Haven, Connecticut has his panties in a bunch because he claims his grandfather invented the burger at the family's restaurant.

And then, at the end of the article, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. pipes up with some rather unusual comments:

"It's a well-known and established fact that New Haven is the home of the hamburger. In fact, New Haven's claim to the hamburger is even supported and documented in the Library of Congress," DeStefano said.

DeStefano notes that New Haven has been a cradle of creativity, as the birthplace of the cotton gin, the first rubber tires, the corkscrew, the Frisbee, lollipops, Erector Sets and pizza.

"We are even the birthplace of George Bush, who wants people to think he's from Texas. So yes, the hamburger is as much a New Haven original as President Bush," DeStefano said. "Get over it, Texas."

Huh. I wonder which political party he belongs to.

Well, no, I don't really.

The gap between attitude and experience

When I read the first paragraph of this article, I thought, "Wow, them kids in China are gettin' some." Check it out:

More than half of China's high school students find nothing wrong with one-night stands and an overwhelming majority of girls would not reject a boyfriend's demands for sex, a poll suggests.

Okay, sounds like Chinese girls aren't exactly prudish, and Chinese boys are very, very lucky. But then I saw the second paragraph:

Some 6.2 percent of the survey's 2,300 high school students in Xuanwu, a downtown district in the Chinese capital of Beijing, had already had a sexual experience and the average age of students losing their virginity was 15, the China Daily said on Thursday. [emphasis mine]

The results surprised educators, the newspaper said.

"The new generation is open-minded about sex," Zhang Meimei, a professor at Capital Normal University who was involved in the survey conducted last year, was quoted as saying. [emphasis mine]

Well, they may be open-minded about sex, and it sounds like a lot of them would like to give it a try, but it doesn't sound like a whole lot of them are actually, you know, doing it.

Hide and seek

It's usually a good idea to pay attention to where you're going. In this case, it would have been a very good idea:

Brian Valentino sure picked the wrong hiding place to elude police. The 33-year-old burglary suspect was being transported yesterday to the Onondaga County jail in Syracuse when he kicked out a back window of the police car and dove headfirst through the opening.

Still handcuffed, Valentino ran a short distance and ducked into a building, where he ran down a hallway and hid behind a door.

We all know where this is going...

There was one problem. His hiding spot was inside the headquarters of the county sheriff's office. Apparently, Valentino didn't notice the big yellow star on the entrance.

Of course, they caught the dumbass, who is now facing additional charges for the escape attempt.

God, I love stupid criminals. The jokes just write themselves. Hell, I didn't even need to write any jokes in this post.

What are the odds?

If I worked at this bank, I think I'd call in sick tomorrow:

Lt. Steve Rose of the Sandy Springs [Georgia] Police Department summed it up well, "It's weird." He was talking about two robberies at the Wachovia Bank in Sandy Springs that happened two days in a row. "That's the first time I've seen anything like that within 24 hours of each other," Rose said.

On Wednesday around 9:34 a.m. a man walked into the bank and presented a note to a teller that read "give me the money or I will shoot," Rose said. The man escabed in a silver Honda Civic or Saab with an undisclosed amount of money.

Earlier, around 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, a different man entered the bank showing an automatic gun and presented a note demanding money, Rose said. He also left with an undisclosed amount of money.

Seriously, is this bank branch located between a prison and a freeway onramp or something? Because if this keeps up, they're going to have to put up one of those signs like they have at 7-11 that says they don't carry more than twenty bucks at any given time.

Welcome, ass painting enthusiasts!

There's been a spike in my normally lethargic traffic today, with most of the hits coming from people searching for information on ass painting former teacher Stephen Murmer, mentioned in these posts.

Well, I'm happy to see you all. Please, feel free to look around and leave some comments.

Use of ass gets man the axe

Remember the teacher who got suspended because the district he worked for found out that he was making paintings with his ass? Well, it looks like his ass (not to mention the rest of him) got fired:

A high school art teacher who sparked controversy when his off-hours work as a so-called "butt-printing artist" became known has been fired.

The Chesterfield County School Board, in a unanimous voice vote, decided to terminate Stephen Murmer at a meeting Tuesday night, spokeswoman Debra Marlow said.

[...]

In its decision, the board reasoned that students have a right to receive their education in a positive learning environment free from distractions and disruptions, Marlow said. The decision also is in keeping with court rulings that hold that teachers are expected to lead by example, be role models and honor core values, she said.

The school system operates under an ideal that holds respect, responsibility, honesty and accountability as core values for all students and employees to abide, and the board clearly felt that Murmer had gone outside those parameters with his art.

I feel bad for the guy, since this was obviously something he did outside of school, but if the board felt that this activity violated their standards for conduct, they had a right to hold him accountable.

Meanwhile, this case provides a valuable object lesson in this day and age:

Murmer, a teacher at Monacan High School, was suspended in December after objections were raised about his private abstract artwork, much of which includes smearing his posterior and genitals with paint and pressing them against canvas.

His paintings sell for as much as $900 each on his Web site.

The unique approach to art became a topic when a clip showing Murmer, wearing a fake nose and glasses, a towel on his head and black thong, turned up on YouTube.com.

That video inevitably made its way to the high school.

Of course it did.

So remember, the next time you get drunk and decide to show your ass at a party, or take off your top during spring break, or videotape yourself having sex with a celebrity, all of your friends, neighbors, and loved ones will eventually see it on the internets.

(But if you're a good-looking young lady, please, don't let that stop you.)

Why?

Of all the things you could possibly steal from a bar, why on earth would you steal this?

A British man caught on camera stealing a urinal from a pub gave himself up to police after media reports of his antics attracted global attention, detectives said Tuesday.

The 42-year-old man carefully removed the toilet from the bathrooms of the Royal Oak Pub in Southampton, on the English south coast, stuffed it into a rucksack and walked out.

I'd throw away that rucksack if I were him.

The man handed himself and the urinal over to police, saying he had taken it as a "souvenir."

Most people who swipe something from a bar take something like a glass or an ashtray. Toilets? Not so much.

Besides, a lot of people (like me) find public restrooms to be kind of nasty. Why would you want to take one of the nastier parts of one home with you?

French...uh...cuisine

The French eat some pretty strange stuff, but this is just ridiculous:

A French prisoner who killed his cellmate "very probably" ate some of the victim's body parts, a prosecutor in the northern town of Rouen said on Friday.

The victim's body was discovered in a prison cell on Wednesday, with a large wound to the chest. The alleged killer, who shared the cell, told investigators he had removed and eaten his victim's heart.

Investigators initially discounted the possibility of cannibalism after the victim's heart was "found intact in its usual place and in its membrane which was also intact," Rouen state prosecutor Joseph Schmit said in a statement.

However an autopsy revealed that pieces of muscle from the victim's rib area and part of his lung were missing.

"The absence of these anatomic elements, which have not been found on the scene of the crime, render the confessions of cannibalism by the presumed perpetrator of the crime very probable," Schmit said.

There is no word in the article on whether or not fava beans and a nice chianti were involved.

(Sorry, but I just couldn't help myself.)

Neither snow, nor sleet, nor weed...

This story is somewhat confusing:

An Amarillo woman who mailed 78 pounds of marijuana to herself was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in federal prison Monday.

Tiffany Joy Kelly, 28, pleaded guilty in October to one count of illegal use of a communication facility, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Dallas said in a news release. She has been in custody since her arrest in July, after a postal inspector in El Paso became suspicious of two Express Mail parcels.

[...]

Prosecutors said she admitted buying the marijuana and mailing it to herself so she could distribute it.

Why didn't she just hold on to the weed? I can't figure out why she felt the need to mail it to herself. Maybe she was high at the time.

It should say: "By all means, please get in the washer"

You all know how much I love to mock stupid people, right? Well, they have a contest up in Michigan that shows just how mockable people have become.

Don't clean your kids in the washing machine. Don't dry your cell phone in the microwave. And be sure not to read the phone book while driving. Those are among the winning entries in this year's Wacky Warning Label Contest, run by an anti-lawsuit group.

Backers of the right to sue have a warning of their own _ don't be so quick to poke fun at labels, which help save lives. They say the contest is part of an effort to pass laws that shield businesses from liability for those they hurt.

Look, if you're doing any of the things mentioned in the first paragraph, you're lucky if you can remember to breathe. To my mind, it's not the businesses that are hurting these idiots; they're hurting themselves.

The Wacky Warning contest winners were chosen from about 150 nominations received by Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, said the group's president, Robert B. Dorigo Jones. The group picked five finalists, and callers to WOMC-FM's Dick Purtan show chose the winners.

The top vote-getter was a warning tag from a front-load washing machine.

"DO NOT put any person in this washer," it read.

If you're getting into a washing machine, or putting your drooling moron children into it, by all means, turn it on and help us all to thin the herd.

Besides, if people are dumb enough to do things like this, what are the odds they can read the warning labels, anyway?

Meet your future overlords

We're all doomed! Doomed, I tells ya! Why do I say this? Because the robots have begun procreating:

With South Korea's birth rate at its lowest ever, medical students are resorting to robots to practice bringing babies into the world.

Kyunghee University Medical Center in Seoul is the first institution in South Korea to use Noelle, a life-sized robot, and her "newborn" to give obstetric students experience.

"With this simulator training tool, we can conduct not only normal deliveries, but also complicated deliveries such as breech births, Caesarean deliveries," Professor Jung Eui told Reuters Television. "Students can practice in a very realistic situation with this mannequin."

Students regularly crowd around Noelle as she gives "birth." They take turns at monitoring her vital signs and at pulling the "baby" out of her body.

The newborn, also a robot, is equipped with lights on its hands and cheeks to indicate its health -- blue lights mean problems while pink lights signal all is ok.

[...]

Noelle was purchased for $20,000 from Miami-based Gaumard Scientific Co. Inc. in the United States. She was manufactured in 2000 and over 400 units have been sold in the United States.

If science fiction movies and declining educational standards have taught us anything, it's that by the time all those robot babies grow up, we'll be their flesh slaves. Those of us who survive the coming war between the cyborgs and the genetically-enhanced superhumans, anyway.

Breaking and entering...and sticking around

I've never broken into someone else's house before, but I'm pretty sure that if you do, you're supposed to grab what you want fairly quickly and then leave:

A burglar who smashed a glass door to break into a house couldn't quite find his way back out after treating himself to some beans and booze, then passing out.

Esteban Avila Jr., 45, allegedly entered the vacant home by smashing a sliding-glass door at the rear of the house just after noon Tuesday, said Santa Clara County Sheriff's Deputy Serg Palanov.

Avila apparently hung around the house for about two hours. During that time he helped himself to a can of beans and had a drink from the bar, Palanov said.

He then stretched out on the living room floor and had himself a nap, which is where the homeowner found him. The police suspect he's homeless, which makes sense if you think about it. I mean, of all the things he could have chosen to eat, he goes for a can of beans. Classic hobo move. There's no word about whether or not the authorities found a bindle.

Vicodog

Pets are wonderful for so many reasons. They keep you company. They entertain you with their amusing antics. Some studies show that people who have pets even live longer. Sometimes, as in this case people find some really creative uses for their pets:

A Burlington woman has been charged with trying to get painkillers from a drug store by using her dog's name. Kymberly Smith, 38, faces more than two dozen charges related to her alleged repeated attempts to fraudulently obtain painkillers at a Farmington pharmacy under her dog's name.

Police said Smith is charged with using her dog Zack's name to get Hydrocodone, which is marketed under several names including Vicodin.

Simsbury police said Smith was also arrested in June after she was allegedly caught calling in a fraudulent prescription for the same drug.

You should probably stick to taking your dog for a walk or playing fetch. Using your dog to score drugs just seems kind of unseemly. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go...uh...take Riley for a walk. Yeah, a walk.

"Are you kidding me, Sean? I am not going back to prison."

Birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, etc.

It must be a slow news day over in Old Blighty, since they're basically reporting the extremely obvious:

Attempts to wean Britons away from binge drinking toward a more continental European "cafe style" culture may never work because too many like getting drunk, a cabinet minister said Sunday.

"I don't know whether we'll ever get to be in a European drinking culture, where you go out and have a single glass of wine," Labor Party chair Hazel Blears said.

"Maybe its our Anglo-Saxon mentality. We actually enjoy getting drunk," she told the Sunday Times newspaper in an interview.

People in the British Isles like getting drunk? Get out of here! Next, you'll be telling me that the French aren't noted for their military prowess.

Britain introduced extended drinking hours last November in a bid to tackle the country's binge drinking problem where people consumed large amounts of alcohol in a short space of time.

You can see where this is going...

Proponents of the changes to the licensing laws had argued it would usher in more civilized drinking habits like those of France or Spain.

But as pubs and clubs prepare for the second New Year's Eve under the new laws, there has been little sign that people are drinking more responsibly.

Uh-huh. People get more time to drink, and it just leads them to drink more. Who could've possibly forseen that outcome? Oh, right. Everybody.

Look, I'm all for the government butting out and letting people do what they want, but it's just kind of stupid to pretend to be shocked by people's very predictable behavior.

Comments back up

I managed to re-install Haloscan comments and trackbacks this evening, so if you left a comment within the last month or so, it's not going to appear here anymore. Older comments from my previous install of Haloscan are back up, though. Please keep the comments coming. Hopefully, this will be the last time I have to tweak things around here.

Oh, great

One of my few pleasures in life is watching the misfortunes of the stupid. The teevee show Cops gives me an opportunity to do just that. So I sit down to watch it on Court TV, and an episode of Murder She Wrote comes on instead. What's up with that, I say to myself, though in a somewhat more colorful fashion.

Well, it turns out that Time Warner and my satellite provider, Dish Network are feuding, and Dish Network's parent company has yanked Court TV from its channel lineup, replacing it with the Biography Channel. Yawn.

Yet more proof that God hates me and wants me to suffer.

Happy New Year

Went to a party last night out in Palm Springs, and I just got back. I'm tired.

A little late...

...but you can still hear a few of your favorite Christmas songs, sung by the cast of the Venture Bros.

A fitting end to a life of evil

Bryan Preston at Hot Air sums up the life and crimes of Saddam Hussein in a clear and succinct post. His conclusion:

Saddam Hussein was an evil man. He was the Hitler that we stopped before he could do even more damage. Tonight he’s dead. Good.

I wholeheartedly concur.

Dear ABC News

I understand that you wanted to give us the news that Saddam Hussein is dead in a timely fashion, and really, that's commendable. But did you really have to do it right before Trebek was about to reveal the answer on Final Jeopardy? Right that very second? Because, you know, I was watching that.

love and kisses,
Sean M.

p.s. I guessed correctly. It was "Phantom of the Opera."

Cool site

Today, I found the official website for one of my favorite contemporary authors, Haruki Murakami. If you've ever read any of his stuff, you might want to check it out. And if you haven't read any of his work, check it out anyway. He's written some really great books.

Man wins stupid contest

So, in this town up in Wisconsin, they have a club that crowns the "World Champion Liar" every year. Sounds kind of interesting, right? Wrong:

A bit of funny math helped James Wilberg win the title of top liar. His winning quip: "There are three kinds of people in the world: Those who are good at math, and those who are not."

That's it? That's not an outrageous lie, it's a lame joke. If you click on the link, you can read the other submissions that got honorable mentions, which are just as lame.

"I don't even know where I'm at."

If they gave a Nobel Prize for stupidest carjacker of the year, this guy would definitely be a finalist:

A carjacker called 911 and turned himself in to police after he crashed a stolen SUV twice and got lost during his escape from the crime scene. Claude King, 31, called police from a Palm Springs pay phone and confessed to stealing the GMC Envoy Tuesday night, The Palm Beach Post reported.

"Um, I committed a crime," he told the police dispatcher. "I stole a vehicle."

He asked for officers to respond to his location, but when the dispatcher asked where the vehicle was, King didn't have an answer.

"I couldn't even tell you," he said. "I don't even know where I'm at."

Now, I've never stolen a car before, but I have been lost once or twice, and, like most people who get lost, I looked for a gas station where I could get directions. I never felt the need to get the police involved.

The police came and got King, who knows where he's at now, cooling his heels in the Palm Beach County Jail.

The smell in the cell

Haaving never been locked up myself, I can only guess that being in jail probably stinks. In this case, quite literally:

Brian Bruggeman caused a stink at the Lincoln County [Nebraska] Jail earlier this month and will now have to answer for it in court. Another inmate, Jesse Dorris, alleges that Bruggeman's flatulence, passed in close proximity to Dorris, sparked a Dec. 14 fight between the two at the jail.

Now Bruggeman, 38, faces a Jan. 11 preliminary hearing on the state's complaint of assault by a confined person. It's a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

Bruggeman is accused of injuring Dorris, his cellmate, when he pushed him into cell bars. Dorris, 26, was not charged.

So he farts on the guy and then beats him up to boot? Sounds like someone needs to work on improving his manners. At least he'll have plenty of time to do so if he's convicted.

Gerald Ford, RIP

He died tonight at age 93. I was too young to remember much about his administration, having been born at the tail end of it, but he always seemed like a nice enough guy.

I looked for the end of this Simpsons episode, where an animated version of Ford makes an appearance, on You Tube, but no dice. It came to mind because I got the seventh season DVD set for Christmas, and that's one of the episodes from that season.

Update: I found the clip on Google Video.

Just say no to the ho ho hoes

I hardly ever have any sex with prostitutes. Well, actually, I never have. With prostitutes, that is. So, anyway, where's my prize?

The South Korean government is handing out gifts for office workers who promise not to visit brothels this holiday season.

"If you promise yourself to make it a healthy night out at the end of the year, and if you recommend this to others, we are giving lots of prizes," the Ministry of Gender Equality said in an Internet posting.

The ministry is offering to pay companies whose employees pledge not to buy sex after what are typically alcohol-soaked, year-end parties.

Well, getting a prize for avoiding the hoes is nice, but I happen to think that virtue is its own reward. That, and not having genital warts.

A ministry spokesman confirmed the campaign but declined to answer questions about it.

But a ministry official told the Korea Times daily: "Korean corporate culture that includes heavy drinking is also what makes buying sex acceptable as a way for male-bonding, which is proving to be a hard-to-break ritual."

Huh. Who'd have thought that hard drinking and whoremongering would be hard habits to break?

Merry Christmas!

I hope Santa brought all of you lots of good stuff this year. If you were good, that is.

Sad news for Christmas

James Brown, the Godfather of Soul and the Hardest Working Man in Showbusiness has passed away. Fans of classic soul music (myself included) will miss him dearly. He was 73.

"It was Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank..."

"A Fairytale of New York," by the Pogues and the late Kirsty MacColl. It's a beautiful song, but it contains some harsh language. Nonetheless, it always brings a tear to my eye.

Pick your battles

Some people are very passionate about certain issues. Then, there's this guy who's as crazy as a shithouse rat:

A man used flammable liquid to light himself on fire, apparently to protest a San Joaquin Valley school district's decision to change the names of winter and spring breaks to Christmas and Easter vacation.

You read that right. He set himself on fire because they changed the names of holiday vacations. I guess his devotion to the principles of secularism is admirable, if not his sanity.

The man, who was not immediately identified, on Friday also set fire to a Christmas tree, an American flag and a revolutionary flag replica, said Fire Captain Garth Milam.

Seeing the flames, Sheriff's Deputy Lance Ferguson grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran to the man.

Flames were devouring a Christmas tree next to the Liberty Bell, where public events and demonstrations are common.

Beside the tree the man stood with an American flag draped around his shoulders and a red gas can over his head.

Seeing the deputy, the man poured the liquid over his head. He quickly burst into flames when the fumes from the gas met the flames from the tree.

The deputy ordered the man to drop to the ground as he and a parole agent sprayed him with fire extinguishers.

"The man stood there like this," the deputy said with his arms across his chest and his head bent down, "Saying no, no, no."

And he would've gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for those meddling deputies!

Now, normal people would write strongly-worded letters to the school board, or even go to a meeting to voice their displeasure with this decision. But that's not very funny. This, on the other hand, is hi-friggin'-larious.

I know, I know. I'm going to hell. But I'm only saying out loud (or, in this case, writing down) what everyone else was thinking.

Update: Allah has more here, including stills of the guy from a local news story. He looks a lot less, um...crispy than I thought he would.

Stick a fork in me

Well, actually, don't. That's just my way of saying I'm done. With my Christmas shopping, that is. That's the advantage of having a pretty small family: just about every year, I can get my shopping done in a day or two at the very last minute. I never set foot in the mall, either. And I didn't even have to buy anything online and wait for it to get lost in the mail or stuck in Denver.

Feel free to hate on me in the comments if you're running around like crazy to try and find Elmo dolls, Nintendo Wiis, conflict-free diamond jewelery and such for your huge and demanding family. It's okay.

I'm not lovin' it

I don't really eat at McDonald's very often. Maybe once or twice a year. I don't intensely dislike the food there, but I don't really dig it, either. Maybe these people feel a bit more strongly about the quality of the food they serve there:

An employee working the drive-through window at a McDonald's will have a tale to tell. When the worker went to the open window thinking the car pulling up had already ordered, the people in the car threw a dead cat through the window, police said.

Cedar Rapids Animal Control officer Matt McAtee said the black domestic shorthair appeared to have been dead for a while.

"It looked like somebody had picked it up off the road," McAtee said.

Oddly enough, the article doesn't mention what was done with the dead cat.

Lethargy

That's what I've been feeling all day. This is the first time I've been anywhere near a computer today, and I just don't feel like poking around for some news to make fun of.

Perhaps I just had a litrtle too much Christmas cheer (meaning, in this case, chilled Ketel One) at the boss's Christmas party last night. Don't worry—I didn't do anything embarrassing—I'm just not used to drinking very much on weeknights.

Anyway, I guess I'll see you tomorrow.

An ideal world

Mrs. R. at Wuzzadem imagines a world where Chris Matthews asks hard questions, Matt Damon is shamed for being a douche, and Robert DeNiro apologizes for liberal Hollywood's sins against the bulk of the American moviegoing public. You won't want to miss the part where the movie stars of yesteryear who all served with the Allies in WWII are mentioned.

Let's just say that Jimmy Stewart is probably spinning furiously in his grave.

(Read about 3/4 of the way down on the bio page I linked to see what I mean.)

Seasonal bad idea

This sort of thing seems to happen at least once every winter here in Southern California:

Two Long Beach women are recovering from carbon monoxide poisoning after they used a barbecue inside their home to battle the recent wave of chilly weather.

Paramedics were called to a duplex occupied by six family members at 1725 Jackson St. at 9:30 Monday night, according to Long Beach fire Capt. Mike Duree.

When they arrived, they found a 64-year-old woman lying face down, unconscious, on the porch, with her front door cracked open. While she was revived, firefighters searched her side of the duplex and found a small barbecue being used to heat the duplex, Duree said.

Inside they found the victim's daughter, a woman in her 30s. The daughter was conscious, but started showing signs of carbon monoxide poisoning while accompanying her mother to the hospital in an ambulance.

Both women were admitted to Long Beach Memorial Hospital. Officials say both women are showing stable signs Tuesday morning and are expected to survive.

Four other people who are related to the two women live on the other side of the duplex, Duree said. Firefighters made sure everyone was out of the building, then opened windows and doors to clear the air.

The use of a barbecue indoors is never safe because of the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.

The thing is, this usually happens to poor people who don't have heating in their home or apartment. But when I saw this on the news this morning, one of the near-dead women's relatives was interviewed and said they had central heating in the house, but they just wanted to "try something different."

Unbelievable.

A little Xmas cheer

The video quality is pretty poor, but the song is still really funny.

White bread

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
Boston
North Central
The Inland North
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The South
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

I pretty much figured that this would be the result I'd get. After all, I'm a white guy from California whose parents are transplanted midwesterners.

(Via Sean Gleeson)

Gingerbread Nazis strike again

Remember the artist asshole who had too take down the "holiday display" he made featuring gingerbread Nazis? Well, he found someplace else to put it up, and is doing at the bestest possible time of the year:

An artist who was forced to remove his Nazi gingerbread men from the window of a hardware store has set up the display in an empty storefront in another town.

"The Secret Lives of Gingerbread Men" depicts a small gathering at a Nazi rally. Keith McGuckin set up the display in this northeastern Ohio city Thursday night, a day before the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah begins at sundown.

My emphasis, of course. What a dick this guy is. I understand that he has a right to express himself, but this is obviously in bad taste. And again, he uses the "I didn't mean to offend people, I just wanted to provoke thought" line. Well, get this:

He said he wasn't aware he had set up the Nazi gingerbread men so close to Hanukkah.

"This one does seem to rub people the wrong way," he said. "But I hope it'll stay up for a little while."

Well, since people obviously are offended, why be so pig-headed about wanting it to stay up, even after learning that he's putting it back up right around Hanukkah? Because he's a dick, that's why. Pardon me for lacking the Christmas spirit, but I hope somebody kicks his ass.

I am pathetic

When it comes to any automotive task more difficult than filling up the gas tank, I'm worse than useless. Case in point: today, I bought a new pair of wiper blades. I tried to install these new blades, and couldn't figure out how to do so. I had to drive back to the auto parts store and get the clerk to show me how.

I'm pretty sure I could feel my balls shriveling up and retreating into my body.

Oops, I let an anniversary slip by

I don't have any evidence, so you'll have to believe me when I tell you that I'm the person who sent the e-mail to K-Lo that inspired this post in The Corner three years ago, yesterday, when they dragged Saddam out of his spider hole.

But I did.

That terrible, horrible nibbling sound...

Not even death itself could keep this animal lover from feeding the little critters he so loved:

A deputy investigating neighbors' latest complaint that a reclusive homeowner fed rats and didn't take out the garbage found a decomposing body in the home with rats feeding on it.

Health officials believe the body found Monday is that of the house's resident, Thomas H. Stone, 67, though the medical examiner's office hadn't confirmed his identity as of Thursday.

Is it possible for something to be both heartwarming and sickening at the same time? Maybe, but not in this case. That's just plain nasty.

"In the end, he wouldn't even take out the garbage," said Tom Ellis, a neighbor. "It looks like he never took down the Christmas decorations from when his mother died in 1999. It was all very Edgar Allan Poe-ish."

Ellis and other neighbors began complaining about rats to the county health department, sheriff's office and city council members about five years ago.

"I wanted to get him help," Ellis said, "and I wanted the rats to go away."

Officials visited the house repeatedly and told Stone to stop feeding the rats, clean up his property and hire a pest control company, said Hilary Karasz, a spokeswoman for Public Health _ Seattle & King County.

Somehow, I don't think any of that sunk in.

They also sent him a bunch of letters, fined him, and got a lien on his house, but he never responded to any of those measures. And now, I think we all know why.

Bear with me

I switched over to the blogger beta version and changed my template so I could customize it, and it dumped my haloscan comments and trackbacks. I'm trying to reinstall them, but for the time being, if you want to leave a comment, the old blogger commenting system is running.

I totally called this

When I heard the news that Eric Gagne had signed with the Rangers, I predicted to my brother that occasional commenter, real-life friend, and Super Dooper Dodger fan Andy wouldn't take it well.

See the evidence of my prescience for yourselves.

Weird in Wisconsin

Uh-oh. Sounds like somebody's been burying radioactive toxic waste in the woods of Wisconsin:

Rick Lisko hunts deer with a bow but got his most unusual one driving his truck down his mile-long driveway. The young buck had nub antlers and seven legs. Lisko said it also had both male and female reproductive organs. "It was definitely a freak of nature," Lisko said. "I guess it's a real rarity."

I should hope it's a rarity. If there are a lot of extra-legged hemaphrodite deer running around, I'd say something really wrong is going on. Like the nuclear waste I mentioned a minute ago.

When he looked at the animal, he noticed three- to four-inch appendages growing from the rear legs. Later, he found a smaller appendage growing from one of the front legs.

"It's a pretty weird deer," he said, describing the extra legs as resembling "crab pinchers."

"It kind of gives you the creeps when you look at it," he said, but he thought he saw the appendages moving, as if they were functional, before the deer was hit.

*Shudder* That gives me the heebiest kind of jeebies.

John Hoffman of Eden Meat Market skinned the deer for Lisko, who wasn't going to waste the venison from the animal.

"And by the way, I did eat it," Lisko said. "It was tasty."

Well, it may very well have been tasty, but don't come crying to me when you start breaking out in vaginas and sprouting extra arms.

Nightmare comes true

Remember that nightmare you used to have about the toilet when you were a little kid? Well, it turns out that your fears weren't entirely irrational.

An Australian wildlife worker pulled a 7-foot python out of a septic tank Wednesday after a plumber found it hiding in a woman's toilet, officials said.

Peter Phillips, a wildlife officer for the Northern Territory's Parks and Wildlife Service, was called to remove the snake after a plumber who was fixing the blocked toilet discovered it curled in the pipes.

"The ... resident originally called a plumber because her toilet was blocked," Phillips said in a statement released by the Northern Territory government. "I arrived to see a large python head peering out of the toilet bowl."

The article does not specify whether or not any monsters were also found in the woman's closet.

That didn't take long

So, Democratic Senator Tim Johnson has a stroke, and it only takes the usual suspects twelve comments before the tinfoil hats come out.

I can't say I'm surprised.

"I'm certainly proud of the ass painting"

Whoever said that a fool and his money are soon parted was absolutely right. Case in point:

To hear the students tell it, Stephen Murmer is a fun, popular art teacher who is always quick to crack a joke. But there is another side to Murmer. A side that has agitated school officials and resulted in his suspension. A side that focuses, almost entirely, on the crack in his backside.

Outside of class and under an alter ego, the self-proclaimed "butt-printing artist" creates floral and abstract art by plastering his posterior and genitals with paint and pressing them against canvas. His cheeky creations sell for hundreds of dollars.

People pay hundreds of dollars to buy paintings that this guy makes with his ass and junk? I'm definitely in the wrong line of work.

Anyway, the school district got wind of his extracurricular activities and suspended him. The ACLU is involved, of course.

Murmer went to great lengths to keep his work life separate from his activities as an artist, said ACLU executive director Kent Willis. As a butt-printing artist, he goes by the name "Stan Murmur," and appears in disguise in photographs and videos promoting his art.

"As a public employee, he has constitutional rights, and he certainly has the right to engage in private legal activities protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution," Willis said.

A nearly naked Murmer expressed concern about remaining incognito during a 2003 appearance on the now-canceled cable television talk show, "Unscrewed With Martin Sargent." In a clip from the show, available on YouTube.com, Murmer dons a fake nose and glasses, a towel on his head, a black thong - and nothing else.

"I'm certainly proud of the ass painting," Murmer said in response to questions about his disguise. "I do have a real job where I do have real clients and I don't think they'd be too understanding if I was also the guy who painted with my ass."

Well, I guess he was right, wasn't he?

But slightly changing his name and going on a talk show nearly naked doesn't really sound like going to "great lengths" to protect his secret identity.

Frankly, I'm not sure whose side I fall on with this one. I'm pretty much still trying to wrap my head around the fact that people actually pay hundreds of dollars for paintings this guy makes with his ass.

Two great tastes, together at last

Do you like A Charlie Brown Christmas? Do you like Scrubs? Well, if you answered yes to both of those questions, you'll enjoy the former redubbed by the cast of the latter:



Via tv squad and Gorilla Mask.

Zombie demands benefits

Aaaaah! A woman has apparently come back from the grave, and she wants Medicare benefits!

Margaret C. Morris and her insurance company now agree: She's alive.

Several months ago, her insurance company, Medicare or both dropped her coverage because they presumed the 95-year-old woman was dead.

"It's disgusting and it's irritating and it's frustrating, and if you can think of any other words, go ahead and use them," Morris said. "And I'm not dead. I'm not even close to it."

Morris' daughter, Margaret Spring, said the problem started when she fired her mother's hospice nurse. Spring thinks a hospice official checked the wrong box or typed in the wrong code when the agency was dismissed, making Medicare — and, later, her insurer — believe Morris was dead.

Okay, so my lead-in was a little misleading. She was never actually dead. That we know of, anyway.

But don't they usually require a death certificate before they declare that someone's dead? I know that when someone croaks and their family wants to collect on their life insurance, the insurance companies are pretty insistent about getting one of those. I guess they're a little less strict about that on the health insurance side.

Don't call the cops, dude

I know it sucks to get ripped off, but sometimes you've just got to say, "Aw, screw it," cut your losses. This would be one of those times:

A Wichita man called 911 to report he was the victim of an armed robbery. The theft? A pound of marijuana worth about $1,100 that he had been trying to sell at his home.

The victim told police Thursday that a buyer had pulled out a sawed-off shotgun and stole the drugs.

Police brought in a drug-sniffing dog to the house and located more marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

And now, this poor crime victim is in jail. Stunning, isn't it, that someone with that much weed on hand wouldn't have thought that through.