Deja DUI

Why does this story sound so very familiar?

Authorities say they arrested an upstate New York man twice in less than an hour for driving drunk. Oneida County deputies said the man was initially stopped Monday at about 1:26 a.m. near Westmoreland for moving from his lane unsafely.

After he was charged, he was released to another person. Deputies said the man's blood-alcohol level at the time was .25 percent — more than triple the state's legal limit of .08 percent.

About 30 minutes later, deputies spotted the same man's vehicle in Rome and stopped him for failing to keep right.

Oh, that's right. It's because I had a post just last week that was essentially the same story, but in a different state. Weird.

Anyway, it seems some jurisdictions are going to have to rethink their policies on releasing DUI suspects into someone else's care.

(Cross-posted at doubleplusundead.)

Circle the wagons!

I just found an arrow out in the street in front of my place. I suspect the people across the street, seeing as how they're Injuns.

(Okay, actually, they're from India.)

Happy Father's Day

I know there are at least a couple of dads who read this, so I want to say thank you for all the little things you do. It's a tough job, but I understand it's very rewarding.

I would have posted this sooner, but I was sleeping off a food coma induced by the fine folks here, where we took my old man for brunch. A buffet coupled with good beer is a deadly combination.

The worst laid plans

I've never robbed a bank, but I've seen enough movies involving holdups to know that this guy royally screwed up one of the most important parts:

A would-be bank robber was taken down by four civilians and arrested Friday after getting his money but failing to plan his escape, police said.

Police arrested Larry Don Enos, 57, and charged him with aggravated robbery, said Lt. Paul Henderson, a Fort Worth police spokesman.

[...]

The incident began when a man with a handgun walked into a bank and told an employee: "This is a robbery. I want the money from the drive-thru and the money from the cash register." The man was wearing a fake beard, mustache and wig, Henderson said in the online edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

After getting the cash, the alleged robber - who apparently took a taxi to the bank robbery, KTVT reported - told the teller to drive him from the bank, but the teller refused, Henderson told The Associated Press.

Okay, first of all, who takes a taxi to rob a bank? If you don't have a car of your own, steal one. Or at least get a friend to drive you. Especially if you've got a gullible friend who's used to seeing you in a wig and a fake beard. Tell them you're going to rehearse a play.

The teller instead tricked the alleged robber, giving him keys and saying they went with a car in the parking lot. They didn't.

Foiled, the man attempted to steal a car from a woman in the ATM drive-thru, but she needed space to pull up. The robber allowed her to pull up, but she just kept driving, Henderson said.

"Smart lady," Henderson said.

The man then tried to steal another woman's car, Henderson said. This woman wanted time to get her children out of the car.

That's when two soldiers and two other bystanders took the man down and detained him until police arrived, Henderson said.

If they gave a Nobel Prize for suckiest getaway, this guy would certainly be a finalist. You almost feel sorry for the guy, he was so inept.

Almost.

If you sniff the pit, they won't acquit

There are some countries (I'm looking at you, Japan) where they seem to put up with all kinds of weird and creepy sexual fetishes and the fetishists who indulge in them. It sounds like Singapore is not really one of those places:

A Singapore man with a penchant for sniffing women's armpits was sentenced to 14 years in jail and 18 strokes of the cane for molesting his victims, a local newspaper reported Friday.

The 36-year-old, who the Straits Times said was mentally unstable, had previous convictions for drug and sex-related offences.

He molested 23 women over the course of 15 months, smelling their armpits and touching them in lifts, staircase landings and their homes, the paper said. He was caught after a housewife reported him to the police.

The court meted out the jail term, normally reserved for hardcore criminals, saying the man was likely to commit crimes again, the paper reported.

Normally, I'd say that sounds unduly harsh, but given his previous sex-related offenses and the fact that he apparently (check out the second to last paragraph there) broke into some of these women's homes to do his thing, it sounds like the dude might be just a tad dangerous.

Your lucky day?

I've never been terribly superstitious, but if you are, there may be good news. It looks like tomorrow won't be such a bad day after all. Well, if you're Dutch, that is:

Dutch statisticians have established that Friday 13th, a date regarded in many countries as inauspicious, is actually safer than an average Friday.

A study published on Thursday by the Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics (CVS) showed that fewer accidents and reports of fire and theft occur when the 13th of the month falls on a Friday than on other Fridays.

"I find it hard to believe that it is because people are preventatively more careful or just stay home, but statistically speaking, driving is a little bit safer on Friday 13th," CVS statistician Alex Hoen told the Verzekerd insurance magazine.

They found that there were fewer incidences of fire, theft, and traffic accidents on average on Friday the 13th than on other Fridays.

On the other hand, you should be careful on Judas Priest Fridays.

Keep your shirt on

Man, I bet this is a law that the cops prefer to enforce when the perps are female:

For only the third time in five years, Easton [Maryland] police have ticketed someone for going topless in public. Sean Cephus, 18, was cited June 4 when police say he was spotted without a shirt on South Street near Hanson Street. He was also cited for failing to obey a lawful order to stop for police.

A town ordinance adopted in 1974 forbids anyone from going topless in public buildings or on public streets and sidewalks. Possible penalties are a fine of up to $100 and up to 10 days in jail.

The article goes on to say that the police consider shirtless people a "public nuisance." Being a fan of this show, I'm inclined to agree. Shirtlessness seems to be a major cause of crime in this country.

Great job there, guys

Well, the Lakers sure stunk up the second half tonight, blowing a 24 point lead. My brother is predicting riots in downtown L.A. We'll see.

Yeah, you might want to leave that on the ground

I've had a snootfull or two in my day, but I can't imagine being drunk enough to think picking something like this up off the ground was a good idea:

A 22-year-old man was hospitalized in fair condition today as he was being treated for a bite inflicted by a rattle snake that he picked up off the ground at an Inglewood park following an apparent bout of drinking, authorities said.

The man discovered the reptile at Edward Vincent Park, at 700 Warren Lane, late Tuesday night, said Inglewood police Sgt. Juan Ferreira.

"He picked up the snake, and got bit" on the hand, he said.

The victim then placed the reptile in a bucket, the bucket in a bag, and the bag in the trunk of his car, Ferreira said, adding that he tried to drive himself to a hospital but pulled over on the side of the road and called 911.

[...]

Paramedics took him to Centinela Hospital Medical Center, Inglewood police Sgt. Matthew Hart told RMG News.

In telephone conversations, animal control officials and hospital staff asked Inglewood police officers at the scene to determine what kind of snake bit the man.

The officers then took the bucket into which the reptile had been placed out of the victim's trunk and, while one officer held down the snake with a crowbar-type tool, another one used a pocket knife to cut off its head, RMG reported.

Police then took the dead snake to the hospital, where the victim was receiving anti-venom treatment this morning and listed in stable condition, Hart said.

Ferreira said a rattlesnake surfacing at the park was novel.

"It's extremely uncommon. I've been here for 10 years, and have never heard of a rattlesnake being found at one of our parks," he said.

The victim, whose name was not immediately released, had apparently been drinking before coming across the reptile, Hart said.

Hart reminded drunken idiots without a lick of common sense never to try to pick up a snake outdoors. Unless they want to the gene pool a great big favor, that is.

Oops. In my haste to publish this post, I might have messed up that last paragraph just a little bit.

Criminal mastermind tripped up somehow

Sometimes, when the police are investigating a crime, they get a break from some tiny clue, like a tiny hair or a single fingerprint found at the crime scene. But in a case like this one, their jobs are a little easier:

Fandi Pradipta, 18, pleaded guilty Tuesday to using a stolen card at a store in the Fox Run Mall in Newington.

Police said Pradipta made the investigation easier because he had been at the home of the card owner the day before it was reported stolen, then after using the card, he filled out a complete job application — name, address, telephone number.

Normally, I'd write some kind of lame joke here, but what could be funnier than the actual story?

So long, suckers!

Since the whole Crazy Blog Money thing hasn't happened for me yet (I haven't hit the two buck mark on my Google Ads yet—thanks, guys!) I was thinking that I might never get rich off of the internets. Well, that all changed when I opened my e-mail tonight:

Hello.

Am Mr. Vincent, I work with a bank here in Ghana as an
accounting officer. I have just found out that a
foreign customer with us died last year without
leaving a next of kin to his funds and he has no known
family. The bank will keep the funds if it remains
unclaimed which will only favor the bank, so I decided
to look for a foreigner that will agree to inherit the
funds while I prepare grounds for it.

I deem it important to assure you that this is legal
and genuine and will be carried out officially too.
The claim itself is overdue and will be given prompt
attention by the bank upon your payment request while
I抣l give you exclusive details and support from here.
I am ready to give you 25% of the funds for your
support and I also guarantee the safety of your name
and details.

I'll furnish you with more details upon getting your
immediate response.

Thank you.

Vincent A.

Hey, since he says it's "legal and genuine" and "will be carried out officially too," it sounds totally, completely, one hundred percent legit. And besides, what would a reputable banker from Ghana have to gain by lying to me?

I'm finally rich, bitches!

Screwin' in the snow

I realize there may not be a whole hell of a lot to do down in Antarctica during the winter months, but DAYUM!

One of the last shipments to a U.S. research base in Antarctica before the onset of winter darkness was a year's supply of condoms, a New Zealand newspaper reported Monday.

Bill Henriksen, the manager of the McMurdo base station, said nearly 16,500 condoms were delivered last month and would be made available, free of charge, to staff throughout the year to avoid the potential embarrassment of having to buy them.

The base only has a skeleton staff through the long winter.

"Since everybody knows everyone, it becomes a little bit uncomfortable," Henriksen told the Southland Times newspaper.

About 125 scientists and staff are stationed at McMurdo base, the largest community in Antarctica, during the winter months when there is constant darkness.

Once the sun comes up, the article says, it grows to about 1,000 people. Hopefully they'll have enough condoms left for a few of them.

Two-time loser

Getting arrested for a DUI is always bad, but do you know what getting two DUIs in two hours is? Why, that's EPIC FAIL:

A Sheboygan man is behind bars after being arrested twice for drunken driving within two hours early Tuesday. Police say the 24-year-old driver was stopped by an officer about 1:50 a.m. after he was spotted driving the wrong way on a one-way street in Sheboygan.

The man was arrested, cited for driving drunk and released to his brother about 3 a.m. at the police station.

Police say about 40 minutes later, an officer saw the same man, driving the same vehicle at 20 mph over the 30-mph speed limit.

They didn't just release his drunk ass that second time.

Look, Lord knows I'm all about being a drunken moron—after all, that's a huge part of the Ace of Spades Lifestyle™—but I'm also all about staying out of jail. That's why I always guzzle my Val-U-Rite vodka in the comfort of my own home.

Or on public transportation.

(cross-posted at doubleplusundead)

Pooping out

In 21st century America, you wouldn't think there were people who still prefer to poop outdoors, but you'd be wrong:

An ailing, retired farmer who refused to give up his outhouse after authorities declared it to be a public nuisance finally got a new one.

Elbert "Lew" Preston, 79, stood his ground long enough for a nonprofit group to come to his aid and build him a sturdy new outhouse with a waste tank underneath.

"There she is," Preston said as he showed off the new outbuilding. "She's a lifesaver."

The wooden outhouse, complete with a crescent moon on its door, replaces a 1960s-built version that had run afoul of public health officials in Clermont County, east of Cincinnati. While the old one was over a hole in the ground, this one sits atop a concrete base and a 1,000-gallon tank.

"It's too nice and complicated to be an outhouse," Preston said. "I call it a privy."

Call me an elitist prick if you want to, but am I the only one here who is picturing this guy in overalls and a straw hat, with a corncob pipe dangling from his lips?

Preston, who is slowed by diabetes and has colon problems and pacemaker, said he never saw the need to replace the old outhouse — which once was picked up and carried into his garden by a tornado without major damage.

He said he has used an outside toilet since settling in Washington Township 40 years ago and likes the privacy of a privy.

"When you're in a house, sounds carry," Preston said. "Everybody knows your business."

That may be true, but you'd think a guy with "colon problems" might not want to have to sprint out into the yard every time nature calls.

I'm just saying, is all.

Tag, I'm it!

I've never been involved in one of those blogger meme tag thingers, so I was honored when one of my old-school blogging heroes, Kevin Parrott, decided to include me in this one:

1. choose 19 of the songs you like best, regardless of artist or genre.
2. put them all together in a CD.
3. make 5 other copies.
4. post your playlist on your blog.
5. choose 5 people and send them a copy of your CD each. send the first copy you made to the one who tagged you.

There are a couple of problems with this. First of all, I have no idea who most of my blog friends are. We're like some kind of Bond-villain international criminal syndicate, each of whom prizes their anonymity. Secondly, I'm broke as hell. I'm not sure I can afford to send CDs to a bunch of people. Really, I'm that poor. Finally, my computer burns suck-ass CDs. Once you get above about twelve tracks, they start to get scratchy.

But, you know what? I'm gonna try to do this thing. The people on my list may not get their mix CDs for a while, but this is a matter of honor, and I'll be damned if I break what amounts to an elaborate internet chain letter. Plus, there's probably like a million dollars from Bill Gates in it for me.

Anyway, here's my list, in no particular order:

1. David Bowie - "Ashes to Ashes"
2. New Order - "Touched by the Hand of God"
3. Yo La Tengo - "Tom Courtenay"
4. U2 - "All I Want Is You"
5. The Smiths - "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out"
6. Pavement - "Range Life"
7. The Jesus and Mary Chain - "Just Like Honey"
8. The Shirelles - "Will You Love Me Tomorrow"
9. The Replacements - "Alex Chilton"
10. Happy Mondays - "24 Hour Party People"
11. Ride - "Dreams Burn Down"
12. Isaac Hayes - "Walk on By"
13. The Damned - "Alone Again, Or"
14. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - "Bold as Love"
15. Elvis Costello & The Attractions - "Accidents Will Happen"
16. Joy Division - "Atmosphere"
17. Aztec Camera - "Oblivious"
18. Pulp - "Mile End"
19. The Clash - "Janie Jones"

Here's the list of my victims good, good blogging friends:

1. doubleplusundead
2. maggie katzen
3. see-dubya
4. The Hatemongers Quarterly
5. Muslihoon

If any of you want a mix CD, e-mail me at breacanyonmonument-at-yahoo-dot-com with your mailing address. Those CDs may be a long time coming, but I'll send them out, eventually. If you're taking this seriously, you can contact me at the same e-mail address.

Oh, and by the way, you're not under any obligation to do anything if you were one of the bloggers I mentioned. But you might miss out on Bill Gates' millions!

D-Day

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have
striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The
hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.
In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on
other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war
machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of
Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well
equipped and battle hardened. He will fight savagely.

But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of
1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats,
in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their
strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home
Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions
of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men.
The tide has turned! The free men of the world are marching together to
Victory!

I have full confidence in your courage and devotion to duty and skill in
battle. We will accept nothing less than full Victory!

Good luck! And let us beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great
and noble undertaking.

SIGNED: Dwight D. Eisenhower

(Ike's message found here. More here.)

Voters: "Un-legalize it"

Hmmmmm...do you think maybe all the stoners forgot about the election?

Mendocino County's reputation as a marijuana haven of California may be going up in smoke.

Voters on Tuesday leaned toward repealing a law allowing home marijuana growing, according to preliminary results of a ballot measure vote released on Wednesday.

Critics say a cottage industry had grown out of control.

California in 1996 voted to allow possession and cultivation by residents of marijuana for medical purposes, despite federal law which declares it illegal.

Mendocino, a rural county north San Francisco, in 2000 approved marijuana cultivation for recreational use as well, voting to let residents grow up to 25 marijuana plants, compared with the state limit of six.

With about a third of the vote counted, 52 percent supported repeal, the county clerk said. The tally may not be complete for up to four weeks.

"We thought Ma and Pa growers would be able to grow a little bit," said Dave Bengston, the county's agricultural commissioner, who supported the repeal. "The legalization of marijuana sent a message to organized crime that they could set up shop here, and we got people with automatic weapons growing marijuana in large quantities."

Gee, I guess nobody could've seen that coming. I mean, who would have guessed that a law that basically amounted to putting up a sign at the county line reading, "Please come and grow a lot of weed here without any legal consequences," might attract a somewhat shady element?

Look, I know people who grew marijuana for sale back in college, none of them grew anywhere near 25 plants at a time, and they still managed to sell a lot of weed at a tidy profit. Nobody needs 25 plants for their own personal use. Trust me. Those people who sold the stuff used plenty of it themselves, and I don't think any of them grew more than nine or ten plants at a time, max.

(cross-posted at doubleplusundead)

Who knew?

Now batting, playing Third Base, The Lizard King.

Presented without context

Seventeen-year-old senior Erin Cummings says it was upsetting to see her classmates' hard work turned into a huge penis even though many other students thought it was hilarious.

Man, I hate it when that happens, don't you?

(Cross-posted at doubleplusundead)

Fired up about gas prices

I'm not super happy about the price of gas these days, but I'm not about to do something this mind-numbingly stupid about it:

A Danville [California] woman faces arson charges after she allegedly set fires at two gas stations and a coffee house, saying she was protesting high gas prices.

The woman, 64, remained Thursday in a Contra Costa jail on $810,000 bail on suspicion of premeditated arson and burglary.

Police say the woman used a fireplace log and a lighter to set fires in the restrooms of an Arco station, a Chevron station and a Starbucks on Wednesday. No structural damage was reported at the locations.

Police later found the woman at a nearby fast food restaurant with eight fireplace logs with her. She told officers that she was behind the fires and said she woke up that morning wanting to do something about high gas prices.

So, why not bitch to your Congressman about the fact that we're not drilling for oil off the coast or in ANWR, or getting a piece of posterboard and some markers and carrying a sign that says "Honk if you hate high gas prices" instead of lighting fires at gas stations? Because, last time I checked, fire and gasoline really weren't two great tastes that go great together. Dumbass.

Oh, and they don't know why she set the fire at the Starbucks, either. I guess maybe she felt the price for a latte was a wee bit too steep.

Blogging jumps the shark

You know those "need a moment?" Twix commercials, the ones where a guy says something insensitive and is saved by cramming his piehole full of a candy bar? Well, I just saw one that went something like this:

Hot Politically-Active Chick: "Don't you love protesting?"

Average-Looking Guy With Twix: "Yeah, it's great. Wanna go to my place?"

HPAC: [shocked] "What?"

[ALGWT stuffs mouth with Twix while announcer asks "Need a moment?" and comes up with a plan.]

ALGWT: "Well, I thought you were passionate about the cause and would want to blog about the issues."

HPAC: "I love blogging."

[ALGWT and HPAC exit together, presumably to blog and engage in a little slap and tickle.]

Good God.

The lap of luxury

Man, something is really wrong with the world when this guy is living better than I am in a third world hoosegow:

With a plasma TV, a DVD player, $172,000 in cash, gym equipment, two refrigerators and a couple of guns, Genilson Lino da Silva had everything he needed for a luxurious life -- in his Brazilian prison cell.

It came to an end on Monday when his cell, which also contained a king-sized bed, was raided in a police operation against drug traffickers in the northern city of Salvador.

"He was alone in all that comfort. It wasn't very big but the other cells had several prisoners in them," a spokesman for Bahian state authorities said on Tuesday.

Officials said Da Silva, also known by his nickname "Leg," was serving time as the biggest drug trafficker in Bahia state. He was reported as saying the money in his cell was from old robberies and gambling in prison.

"We will investigate if the leaders of the prison were conniving in this," Paulo Gomes, a state prosecutor, told reporters.

You have to investigate? The dude had close to two hundred grand an a couple of guns in his fucking prison cell. There might just be something fishy going on in that prison, Paulo. Maybe.

You know what else might indicate that the officials there might be a wee bit crooked? Maybe the fact that outside cops had to raid the guy's fucking prison cell.

Second banana?

Well, the Associated Press is reporting that she's interested. But with all the crap that she and Baracky have flung at one another over the course of the primaries, could it really work? Time will tell, I guess.

Practical joke literally comes back to bite man in the ass

Smarter and sillier-dressed people than I, like ancient Greeks and college drama professors, have come up with complex theories about what constitutes tragedy and comedy. I think I can break the two down into slightly more simple formulations. Tragedy is when bad things happen to good people, whereas comedy is when bad things happen to stupid people:

Utrecht police say a 21-year-old Dutch man is recovering after a "mooning" that went horribly wrong.

A police statement says the man and two others had run down a street in Utrecht with their pants pulled down in the back "for a joke."

It says that at one point the 21-year-old "pushed his behind against the window of a restaurant" that broke and resulted in "deep wounds to his derriere."

The statement released Tuesday says police detained the three men after the incident Sunday morning. But the cafe owner decided not to press charges after the men agreed to pay for the broken window.

That's really too bad. Because this was clearly a case where insult was just begging to be added to injury.

Big Moron-related news

Moronosphere caretaker doubleplusundead has started inviting guest bloggers to post there, and for some reason, he saw fit to ask me if I wanted to join up. How could I say no to an opportunity like that? So, in addition to ignoring what I write here, you can now ignore me over there, too.

Everybody wins!

A likely story

Some people are excellent at thinking on their feet during crisis situations. This guy, not so much:

Police in Iowa say a man caught with a large quantity of marijuana claimed all he had in mind was recycling.

A complaint by the Johnson County Sheriff's Office says the 30-year-old man told police in Iowa City that he planned to turn several large bags of marijuana into compost.

Officers report the bags he had when he was arrested early Saturday held a "gallon" or more of marijuana each.

For some reason, the cops didn't believe this conscientious environmentalist's story. Which is a shame, since it sounds like he was doing his damnedest to reduce his carbon footprint. After all, a compost heap is probably a lot more emissions-neutral than a bong.

(h/t: maggie)

Worst. Getaway. Ever.

Boy, I bet in the criminal world, it's probably pretty damn embarrassing when you get taken down by such an easy mark. Not to mention his wheelchair-bound friend:

A 21-year-old robbery suspect was jailed in Luzerne County thanks to the efforts of the 71-year-old victim and his friend in a wheelchair.

Harry Kopenis, said he went to an ATM at a bank near his Kingston home Monday morning and withdrew $100 when a woman came out of nowhere, knocked him down and stole the money. The woman fled.

His neighbor, Kevin Lamb, was nearby in his electric wheelchair and both men chased her. Lamb said Kopenis got the woman in a headlock and grabbed the squirming woman.

How slow do you have to be to get caught by a septuagenarian and a dude riding a rascal? I mean, was she crawling away from them or something?

Talkin' old-timey baseball

The L.A. Times had a fascinating article today about a 1924 exhibition game featuring Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson that was played just down the road from where I live (and down the road from this blog's namesake, too). I knew Johnson grew up in Brea, but I had no idea he and Ruth ever played a game anywhere around here. Read the whole thing.

Thanks, morons...

...for giving me three straight months of increasing traffic, culminating in more than a thousand visits to my humble little crapblog this month. I don't think that's happened since the Moron-in-Chief linked a couple of my posts a few years back.

And thanks to everybody who's linked here recently, especially see-dubya, who drove a lot of traffic here from Michelle Malkin's blog, and doubleplusundead for including me so often in the Moronosphere roundup.

The jinx is dead!

Well, it took them ten innings and three lousy runs on sixteen hits, but the Angels finally won a game while I was in attendance! It must have been my 2002 playoffs t-shirt, which I wore today instead of my newer, non-frayed Angels shirt, which I wore the last few times. Yes, I'm crazy.

Aside from the game, which was great, we ate dinner here, where they have the best pastrami sammiches in Southern California. All in all, a good night.

(Previous jinx posts here and here. And, sort of, here.)

Hey, isn't today Caturday?

Swindler with a bindle

I think I'm in the wrong line of work. Instead of writing news articles about what the local city councils are up to and the such, I think I'll start scamming ultra-gullible people out of thousands of dollars. I mean, if this hobo could do it, how hard could it be?

Prosecutors say a former Souderton resident posed as a music mogul on an Internet dating site and swindled more than $100,000 from 13 women all around the country.

Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Ferman said Thursday that 50-year-old Paul Krueger is being held without bail in Atlantic County, New Jersey. He was apprehended at a casino. It's not known if he's retained an attorney.

[...]

Ferman says Krueger posed as a Grammy Award-nominated music producer but was actually homeless, his only possession a laptop computer. He told women he was starting a company to manufacture DVDs and CDs.

Sheesh. You'd think that with more than a hundred grand in ill-gotten gains, he could have found some decent accommodations. And maybe a few knick-knacks.

Souderton police investigated when a woman who invested $10,000 complained to federal authorities that he had stopped returning her phone calls.

Yeah, I can see how that might make a person a little suspicious. Eventually.

Way to keep a low profile, dumbass

I don't know a whole lot about being a fugitive from justice, but I'm pretty sure one hard and fast rule is that you're not supposed to call attention to yourself. This guy apparently didn't realize that:

Police responding to a tip about a naked man walking on a state highway in Lumberton [North Carolina] say he's connected to a three-week string of thefts involving more than $85,000 worth of property.

The Fayetteville Observer reported that police say Jonathan Michael Allen stole two vehicles, televisions, power tools and jewelry. The 31-year-old is charged with multiple counts of breaking and entering, larceny and burglary.

Allen was charged with multiple counts of breaking and entering, larceny and burglary.

Lumberton Police Lt. Johnny Barnes said Allen was stealing and selling the property to support a drug habit.

You mean to tell me that a dude they found wandering around a state highway completely starkers has a drug problem? No, you don't say.

In space, no one can hear you...uhhhhh...

When you think about missions to outer space, you think of the importance of complex computers, oxygen systems, rockets and the such. But there's another piece of equipment that's also really, really important:

Astronauts aboard the NASA space shuttle Discovery will be carrying an extra piece of cargo when they launch on Saturday -- a new toilet pump.

Crew members aboard the International Space Station have been fumbling with plastic bags since their zero-gravity toilet went made "a loud noise" and stopped working properly last week.

"We will be taking some spare parts up," NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.

The three station crew members want the toilet working properly for obvious reasons -- but on Saturday they will be sharing facilities with seven space shuttle astronauts.

"You can imagine you are having guests over and your one and only bathroom is broken. Clearly this is something you want to have working," Beutel said.

Discovery will carry a pump and other spare parts for the toilet, which is still disposing of solid waste.

If you read the whole thing, you'll find out about how the toilets work and where the waste goes. Let's just say that the concept of a space walk just became a little less appealing to me.

Maid of dishonor

Uh-oh. Sounds like somebody's got some serious splainin' to do:

A nude maid is accused of really cleaning up at a Florida man's home. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said a 50-year-old man hired the maid from the Internet on Friday to clean his Tampa home.

Authorities said the woman arrived at the home in a one-piece, light colored dress. She took off the dress and cleaned the house for $100-per-hour. Sheriff's office spokeswoman Debbie Carter said the man told deputies he left the maid alone in the bedroom to clean.

When the man's wife came home from vacation, she discovered $40,000 in jewelry missing from their bedroom.

I wonder what she was more pissed about: the fact that forty grand worth of jewelery got swiped, or the fact that her husband took advantage of her absence to hire some nude tart to ogle while she jiggled around their home with a vacuum cleaner?

Strange love

They say people grieve in a lot of different ways. And not all of them are healthy. Case in point:

A Taiwan man grieving over the death of his girlfriend climbed inside a morgue freezer to be with her and was only pulled out alive half an hour later, media and an official said on Tuesday.

The 41-year-old man was discovered on Monday when workers detected an unusually high temperature in the freezer and realized the hatch was not securely fastened.

"A morgue manager opened the hatch, saw two people lying inside, felt scared enough to yell out and then even cried," the Liberty Times reported. "She didn't stabilize for a long time."

The man took a drug before entering the freezer to speed what appeared to be suicide attempt, local papers said. They said his girlfriend died on Friday from an overdose of sleeping pills.

Why is it that when something like this happens at the end of a certain overrated play about "star-crossed lovers," people think it's incredibly romantic, but when it happens in real life, it's just creepy and sad? Funny how that works.

Jail: it's no fun anymore

I figure being in jail has got to suck, but now, in the Cincinnati area, it's more repressive than ever. I mean, check out what these fascists are requiring of the visitors:

Officials say visitors to a southwest Ohio jail can't wear plunging necklines, Spandex or see-through garb. The Hamilton County jail said the new dress code also requires guests to wears shirts, shoes and underwear.

Sheriff's spokesman Steve Barnett said the dress code has become a problem in recent years. He says the rules are in line with visitor dress codes at state prisons.

[...]

The new rules also require visitors to keep their pants on their waists, bellies covered and upper thighs concealed. Guards will send visitors home if they think the clothing is too revealing.

I wonder how they're going to check to make sure people are wearing underpants. That would seem to be a job that would be at turns very interesting and extremely repulsive.

Memorial Day

I know I have a few readers with friends and/or family in the military right now, but for any of you who know someone who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country, I'd like to give my sincere thanks today. Both to them and to you.

Wanna see some bad crazy?

Most people who know me will tell you that I'm a night person. When I was in college, and in the years right afterward, for instance, I used to wait until around midnight to do my grocery shopping. The stores are virtually empty, except for employees stocking the shelves and a few other misfits like me, which cuts down on the annoyance factor that comes with shopping at peak hours.

I mention this because driving around at night got me into the habit of listening to Coast to Coast AM, which was Art Bell's show at the time. Now, if you're unfamiliar with the show, it's generally a talk/call-in show about the paranormal. UFOs, ghosts, psychics, and such phenomena, basically. Government/Illuminati conspiracies, too. It's like the X-Files, if Agent Mulder had a radio show.

While I'm not a big believer in any of that stuff, I've still seen some crazy shit in my day, so I like to think I have an open mind. But a lot of the people who call the show just spout the most insane stories you've ever heard. And the people who host the show let them tell these stories, sometimes, seemingly, lending them credence. I've often wondered whether or not they believe these people.

Which brings me to the point of this post. I was driving home from one of the local watering holes when I switched over from my mix CD to Coast to Coast, and heard a caller talking about a nefarious conspiracy involving mind control, rape, and people in the highest ranks of the U.S. government. Seeing as how this supposedly took place in the San Francisco Bay area, you may not be surprised to find out that it allegedly involves President Bush, as well as the Director of the FBI.

Read the whole thing for a glimpse into a truly unhinged mind. There's more here, which is where I found the link. The caller suggested that Google search.

I might add that the Coast to Coast host sounded pretty incredulous about the story the caller was peddling, though he said he'd look into it as a future show topic.

Update: I found the whackjob's website. Note the URL.

Fight for your right to underpants

We've all had a crappy job at one time or another, but I've never had one where they wouldn't let me wear underwear. Up until now, these guys couldn't say that:

Employees counting donations at a popular Hindu shrine in southern India will no longer have to take off their underpants at work after the local human rights commission intervened.

Police and temple authorities imposed the dress code at the Sabarimala hill shrine in Kerala five years ago after thefts were reported from the shrine's strongroom.

Employees in the vault, all of whom were men, were made to work topless wearing only a dhoti -- a cotton wrap worn around the waist -- with nothing underneath.

But they found it degrading, and their union complained to the Kerala State Human Rights Commission.

"The employees on duty are made to strip before an officer before leaving the office to ensure that they do not carry anything in their underwear," said Chavara Gopakumar, the union leader. "It is humiliating and an insult to human dignity."

The state's human rights commission agreed.

Authorities at the shrine, which is dedicated to Ayyappa, a south Indian deity, said on Friday they would end the practice and have begun looking into electronic surveillance systems.

While putting up security cameras may well be a little more expensive than the old "show me your junk before you go home" system, they'll certainly be less time-consuming. And considerably less awkward, I'd imagine.

Open sez me

So much of what I do around here is about ridiculing stupid people, and that's because I'm a mean bastard. And I'm okay with that. But once in a while, I see something somebody's done that's actually pretty cool, like this story about a locksmith who cracked a an old safe that had baffled a bunch of experts:

In 2 1/2 hours, Tom Gorham of Longview got the safe open by spinning the dial and feeling for grooves to get the combination, a technique called manipulation.

"You've got to have a lot of patience, and concentration doesn't hurt," Gorham said.

Gorham trekked to Astoria, a town about 40 miles west of Longview and 70 miles northwest of Portland, Ore., to try his luck with the 1-ton safe found during renovation at a cannery there. The cannery's owner, Floyd Holcomb, wanted it opened without damage.

Gorham and his wife, Kelly, also a locksmith, asked to try after watching a television report on unsuccessful attempts to open the safe. He said an expert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had tried, as did another professional locksmith who gave up after 14 hours.

The only disappointing aspect of the story is the fact that they're not saying what they found inside the 159-year-old safe until the owner tells the cannery's board next month. I'm guessing gold coins, jewels, and a bunch of nineteenth century pornography. That's just how my mind works, people.

Flying off the handle

I can't say I'd like it if I found a dead insect floating in a bottle of water I'd been drinking from, either, but I'd like to think I wouldn't freak out about it like this guy did:

A man who claimed that he became depressed, anxious and phobic after finding a a dead fly in a bottle of water will no longer get the judgment he won against a bottling company, Canada's top court ruled Thursday.

Martin Mustapha will have to shell out thousands in court costs, instead of collecting the more than $345,000 he won in an Ontario court three years ago.

The Supreme Court of Canada agreed in a 9-0 judgment that Mustapha suffered real psychological harm, but Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin said his reaction was so "unusual or extreme" that bottling company Culligan of Canada Ltd., should not have to pay compensation.

McLachlin said the legal test for damages is whether a person of "ordinary fortitude" would suffer psychological harm. In Mustapha's case, she concluded, the reaction was so unique that Culligan could not reasonably have foreseen the consequences and should not be held liable.

Mustapha insisted that he had been treated unfairly and said finding the dead fly in an unopened bottle of water in 2001 devastated him. He became obsessed with thoughts of dead flies, could not sleep and was constantly on edge — to the point that his business and even his sex life suffered.

Damn, that's one fragile dude. I hate to think what would have happened to him if anything like this had happened to him. He'd lose his friggin' mind. Moreso, I mean.

Maybe now he'll start having nightmares about the Canadian Supreme Court.

It never rains in Southern California

Man, we had some wild weather today including hailstorms in some areas (like at my brother's office), snow in the mountains, and tornadoes out in Riverside County. We just had thunderstorms here, but they had predicted that we could get nickel and dime-sized hail. And all this after record high temperatures for this time of year (up around 100 degrees) just last week!

By the way, if you click on the link at the top of this post, you can watch videos of the hail tornadoes, and flash floods from around the area today. Some crazy shit.

Man's freedom bogarted

I think an incident like this might just be the perfect combination of stupidity and drug use:

A New Zealand man had a novel idea when he found himself in a queue at a service station counter with no money, could he pay with marijuana instead?

Unfortunately he didn't get a chance to discover whether the attendant would accept his offer, as the person behind him in the queue was a police officer, the Dominion Post newspaper reported.

The man's attempt to buy two packets of M&Ms and a packet of potato chips to satisfy his "munchies" was caught short when he was arrested.

He must have been hungry, as he failed to notice the police patrol car sitting on the station forecourt being filled with petrol, the paper reported.

I don't think he missed the patrol car because he was hungry. I think it was probably more because he was really high.

Look what we found!

Oh, man, this could have been tragic:

Three children picking up trash along a river in Hudson [Wisconsin] for community service work found much more than garbage. Charlie Thompson, 11, Maddie Roth, 10, and Demetri Roth, 8, came across a hand grenade, picked it up and headed home to show off their discovery.

On their way back Monday, they ran into a neighbor, who immediately called 911. Hudson police cordoned off the block, then determined the grenade wasn't a danger, even though it still had the firing pin inserted. Sgt. Eric Atkinson says the grenade was rusted and contained no powder.

They're lucky they didn't blow themselves to bits. But, honestly, what kid that age wouldn't pick something like that up? I know I would have. After all, kids are stupid.

Say what?

I don't speak German, so if I was (or were—I'm not getting paid to write this, so I don't really care if it's grammatically correct) taking a trip to, say, Vienna, I'd probably want to take a German-English dictionary or phrasebook. I don't think I'd want to take this one with me, though:

A free guide to be distributed around Vienna to soccer fans visiting for Euro 2008 will advise them how to order Austrian cuisine, flirt with local women, and find their way to the stadium in the thick local dialect.

Essential phrases such as "Ham Se an Kaiserschmoan mit Zwetschknroesta?," "Do you have a sliced sugared pancake with plum compote?" or "Fia mi bitte no a Soizguakn," "another gherkin for me please," are listed with English and German translations.

Those are "essential phrases" in Austria? I had no idea that pickles and pancakes played such a big part in their day-to-day lives. I figured they were all about waltzes, little cans full of barely edible sausage, and bodybuilding. That, and getting confused with Australia.

For an initial approach to a member of the opposite sex, the book suggests: "Servas, fesche Katz," literally "greetings, hot kitten" but translated as "Hello princess."

Is it just me, or does that sound like the kind of thing that could lead to a guy getting a drink thrown in his face?

Total Nerd Update: I have no excuse for why I didn't immediately think of this:



"My nipples explode with delight."

Into the woods

Spontaneity is important for some people when it comes to romantic relationships, and it can lead to wonderful things. But it can also lead to big trouble:

An airline pilot was found hiding behind a shed wearing only flip-flops and a wristwatch as a nighttime romp in the woods with a flight attendant ended with both under arrest, police said.

Jeffrey Paul Bradford, 24, and Adrianna Grace Connor, 24, both employees of Pinnacle Airlines Inc., were at a diner on the outskirts of Harrisburg on Sunday night before they apparently decided to walk into the woods, police said.

"They told the officer they wanted to go do it in the woods, essentially," said Lower Swatara Township police Sgt. Richard Brandt. "That's the best answer they had."

The two somehow became separated, and people who live in the neighborhood summoned police around 9:30 p.m., saying they had seen a naked man and an intoxicated woman.

It might not have been that big a deal that they got separated from each other. I think the real problem is that the guy somehow seems to have become separated from his clothes.

A helicopter with heat-seeking equipment was called in, and Bradford was discovered hiding behind a shed shortly before midnight.

Bradford, of Pittsburgh, was charged with indecent exposure, public drunkenness and other offenses. Connor, of Belleville, Mich., was charged with theft from a motor vehicle, public drunkenness and other offenses; police said she took a flashlight from a neighbor's vehicle.

Wait, you mean the both of them were were trashed when it happened? Who would have guessed that alcohol played a part in something like that?

Big trouble

Like most boys, I got in plenty of trouble when I was young, but I never did anything like this. Good thing, too because my parents would have probably murdered me.

An Arkansas preteen faces a drunken driving charge after he and a friend drank his parents' beer, "got liquored up" and crashed his stepfather's pickup truck, the Johnson County sheriff said.

Sheriff Jimmy Dorney said the 12-year-old boy and his 10-year-old friend drove off in the truck May 4 to find a girl they met at a rodeo. The boys made it about 10 miles before the 12-year-old lost control of the truck.

Dorney said the truck hit and jumped over a guardrail, sending it careening 50 feet down a steep hill into a forest.

Clark James, 46, who lives down the road from the crash site, said he answered the boys' banging at his front door with shotgun in hand about 2:30 a.m.

"I opened the door and the first thing (the 12-year-old) said to me was, 'I'm drunk and I had a wreck,'" James said. "I looked at him and I thought 'You're kind of young to be out drinking. And you sure shouldn't be driving.'"

Neither boy was seriously injured in the crash.

County prosecutor Bruce Wilson said that he will charge the 12-year-old boy with drunken driving and several other misdemeanor charges in district and juvenile court in Johnson County.

Wilson said the 12-year-old could face a variety of sanctions ranging from probation, to court-mandated community service and alcohol rehabilitation, to commitment to the state Department of Human Services Division of Youth Services.

I take it that's the fancy title for juvie, which is where it sounds like he belongs. Hell, it might just be the only place where he's safe from his stepfather, who's got to be really really pissed.

A rhetorical question

How come the spiders what live outside my house always spin their webs right at the damn level of my face? I'm really sick of going "AAAAAAH! Pppfffftttt! Get it off!" every time I go out for a smoke.

I love a parade...

...but this one sounds incredibly stupid;

The veggies your mom implored you to eat are getting their own celebration in New York City: The Veggie Pride Parade.

Rain or shine, the parade is expected to wend its way through Manhattan's old meatpacking district on Sunday before ending at Washington Square Park.

Along the route, costumed bride and groom Penelo Pea Pod and Chris P. Carrot will exchange veggie vows and ask observers to "Give Peas a Chance" and "Go Vegetarian!"

I'm gonna go ahead and guess that something this lame probably drove people to eat a hell of a lot of steak, unless they're fans of really lame puns. Then again, that's assuming anybody showed up to watch.

By the way, click on the link to find out which super-awesome, not-at-all-ridiculous country inspired this event.

Aw, screw it. It was France.

Bad taste

So, I went out to get a few drinks with some friends last night, and while I was sitting at the bar, some goateed, shaved-headed douche sidled up next to me and ordered a few drinks. He was wearing a black t-shirt with a bunch of writing on it, which I suddenly recognized as...the prayer they say at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Ugh.

I wonder what he wears when he's buying crystal meth.

Fascinating news: man rides bike to work

Boy, it must be a slow news day if some guy parking his truck can make headlines:

Brian LaFave couldn't care less how high gasoline prices climb these days — he's parked his pickup truck and is refusing to buy gas for a month, possibly longer.

"The goal is to not use one drop of gas for 31 days," LaFave said, calling it his personal stand against the oil companies.

Now LaFave, 31, is riding his bicycle or walking everywhere he goes. He won't even let friends pick him up unless they already planned on being in the neighborhood.

"If they're not going out of their way, I can take the ride," he said. "But if they're going out of their way, then ... I'm still consuming gasoline so it kind of defeats the purpose."

LaFave started the effort May 11. He bikes to his third-shift job at Aldrich Chemical in Sheboygan Falls, a 9-mile commute.

[...]

LaFave fills out a chart each day listing how many miles he bikes, the destination and the gas price that day, among other things. He plans to compute his savings and donate that amount to a charity that provides food to children in Africa.

"I think just with the gas prices being so high, everybody complains about it but no one ever really does anything about it," LaFave said. "People continue to drive nonstop and not think about it, but I just wanted to take a stand and say, `I'm not gonna pay this much money for gas.'"

Quick, somebody get him a medal.

Look, it's nice to see somebody putting their money where their mouth is, but is this really worthy of a wire story? Really? There was nothing else interesting going on in the world?

World's worst tourist attraction

I enjoy visiting museums as much as the next guy, but I don't think I'll be heading out to see this one:

Sigurdur Hjartarson is missing a human penis. But he's not worried: four men have promised to donate theirs to him when they die.

Hjartarson is founder and owner of the Icelandic Phallological Museum, which offers visitors from around the world a close-up look at the long and the short of the male reproductive organ.

His collection, which began in 1974 with a single bull's penis that looked something like a riding crop, now boasts 261 preserved members from 90 species.

The largest, from a sperm whale, is 70 kg (154 lb) and 1.7 meters (5.58 ft) long. The smallest, a hamster penis bone, is just 2 mm and must be viewed through a magnifying glass.

One species conspicuous by its absence is homo sapiens, but that may soon be rectified since a German, an American, an Icelander and a Briton have promised to donate their organs after death, according to certificates on display.

The American, 52-year-old Stan Underwood, supplied a written description of his penis -- which he purportedly nick-named "Elmo" -- for display alongside a life-size plastic mould of the member as well as his pledge to donate it.

Hjartarson said the Icelandic donor, a 93-year-old from nearby Akureyri, was a womanizer in his youth who thought having his penis in the collection might bring him eternal fame.

But vanity may make him rethink the offer.

"He has mentioned lately that his penis is shrinking as he gets older and he is worried it might not make a proper exhibit," Hjartarson said.

Uh, does that really happen? Boy, getting old really sucks.

The specimens, most of which were donated by fishermen, hunters and biologists, are kept in glass jars of formaldehyde or dried and mounted on the wall, creating an atmosphere that is part science lab, part trophy room.

Hjartarson has paid for only one -- an elephant penis nearly 1 meter long that hangs, stuffed and mounted on a wooden board, in the museum's "foreign section."

He said he began collecting penises 24 years ago, when working as a school administrator, with little notion he would one day be running a museum devoted to the subject.

"It was just a hobby," he said, adding that the collection was relegated to his office until the inception of the museum.

How the hell do you get started collecting something like that? Get bored with your stamp collection?

Anyway, if you read the whole thing, you'll find out that the majority of the museum's visitors are women, which isn't very surprising if you think about it. I mean, how many guys do you know who would enjoy visiting a building packed to the rafters with severed dicks?

Getting a TUI

Sure, the Ace of Spades Lifestyle™ is a lot of fun, but there are certain places where you just shouldn't practice it. Like at school, for instance. Especially if you're there to teach a class:

A substitute teacher suspected of being drunk in a suburban Dallas middle school class was too intoxicated to complete a sobriety test and was arrested, authorities said.

Thomas Brownlee, 56, was in a classroom Tuesday with students and another staff member for about 20 minutes, Richardson school district spokesman Tim Clark said. Another teacher suspected Brownlee was drunk and told a police officer at Parkhill Junior High.

A Dallas police report states that Brownlee "had slurred speech, breath smelling of an alcoholic beverage and bloodshot eyes."

The officer stopped issuing a sobriety test out of concern for Brownlee's safety, according to the report. Brownlee was charged with public intoxication.

Damn. You've got to be really, really trashed to have the police stop your sobriety test for fear that you're going to keel over and injure yourself.

Whatever happened to the friendly skies?

If this turns out to be true, I've got a feeling that several people are going to be losing their jobs:

A New York man who says he was denied a seat on a five-hour JetBlue flight and was instead told to "hang out" in the plane's bathroom has sued the airline for $2 million, saying he suffered "extreme humiliation."

When Gokhan Mutlu arrived to check in for a JetBlue flight from San Diego to New York in February he was told the flight was full, according to the lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court.

But Mutlu was allowed to board after a JetBlue flight attendant agreed to give up her seat and travel in an airline employee "jump seat." It was not clear in the lawsuit whether the flight attendant was working.

However 90 minutes into the flight, the pilot told Mutlu the flight attendant was uncomfortable and he would have to give up his seat and "hang out" in the bathroom for the remainder of the flight, the lawsuit said.

The pilot "became angry at (Mutlu's) reluctance" and said Mutlu "should be grateful for being onboard," the lawsuit said. When Mutlu volunteered to sit in the "jump seat," he was told it was reserved for airline personnel.

Well, in that case, the pilot probably should have told the flight attendant to suck it up and sit there.

I guess somewhere along the line, somebody repealed the old rule about the customer always being right, huh?

What could possibly go wrong?

I know next to nothing about local politics in Oklahoma, but I'm pretty sure that this is a really bad idea:

A 19-year-old freshman at the University of Oklahoma was elected mayor Tuesday of Muskogee, a city of 38,000 in the northeastern part of the state.

With all precincts reporting, John Tyler Hammons won with 70 percent of the vote over former Mayor Hershel Ray McBride, said Muskogee County Election Board Secretary Bill Bull.

"The public placing their trust in me is the greatest, humbling and most awesome experience I've ever had in my life," said Hammons, who is from Muskogee but attends the university in Norman.

The two candidates squared off in a runoff election for the nonpartisan post after neither secured 50 percent of the vote in a six-person election April 1.

Hammons, who will be sworn in next week, said he plans to continue his college education but expects to transfer to a school closer to Muskogee.

"Being elected does not change my desire to continue my education," he said. "We will schedule our time in an appropriate fashion so that I can be mayor and stay in school."

Now, this Hammons may very well be very mature and a great guy, but I remember what I was like as a 19-year-old college freshman, and I wasn't fit to run my three man dorm room, much less a city of thousands.

I just hope there aren't any city council meetings scheduled during final exams. Too much pressure, man.

I guess his Aston Martin was in the shop

It sounds like this oh so suave guy may have had a few too many Martinis, shaken, not stirred. Or maybe just a bunch of malt liquor. Either way, it sound like he was plenty drunk:

Police say a tuxedo-clad western New York man was drunk when he took a riding lawn mower out for an early morning spin.

Chautauqua County Sheriff Joseph Gerace said deputies got a report of an intoxicated person at a home in Irving around 1 a.m. Monday. When they arrived, the man was spotted riding away on his mower.

Deputies who stopped the Irving resident charged him with felony driving while intoxicated and aggravated unlicensed operation.

Huh. I didn't know you needed to have a license to operate a riding mower. But riding around on an open vehicle with whirling blades on it while soused is certainly a bad idea.

A story that's sure to impress the ladies

My brother went down to Orange County to pick up his friend from a medical office and take him to dinner. His buddy, it seems, suffered a "sports" injury and had to get an MRI. What happened, you might ask? Well, he blew out his knee playing...ping pong. Actually, he wasn't even playing ping pong. He was retrieving the ball from the concrete floor somewhere near the table when he slipped on a puddle of water, resulting in his injury.

My brother assures me that we're laughing with his pal, rather than at him. Aside from the excruciating pain, he apparently thinks it's pretty damn funny, too.

Art is dead

I really don't understand why this guy's photo shoots are even news anymore. We get it, already:

The man behind the camera had three requests for his subjects: no sunglasses, no smiling, and no underwear.

The latest work by New York photographer Spencer Tunick gathered 1,840 people, baring it all in Austria's Happel Stadium on Sunday.

"Stay very still. Don't move," the Austria Press Agency quoted Tunick as telling the crowd as he went to work.

[...]

The stadium will host seven of the Euro 2008 soccer championship matches being staged by Austria and Switzerland, including the June 29 final.

Tunick has made a name for himself with his works featuring hundreds of naked people at unusual venues. He described Sunday's shooting on his Web site as combining "the spirit of sports, the grand sweeping waves of stadium architecture and the abstract relation of the human form to modern structures."

I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit on that. Your pictures actually combine the "spirit" of conning a big crowd of doughy people who are (probably) liberal dupes into getting nude in public places in the name of doing something "transgressive," with your ability to con the media into giving you free publicity, again, because you're a "transgressive" "artist." But you're not. You're a huckster, no matter what kind of high-minded rhetoric you try to use to pass off your big group naked pictures.

Am I jealous just because every time I try to get people to take their clothes off in public, my parole officer gets a call? Probably. But you're still a douche.

Michelle-lanche Update: Welcome Michelle Malkin readers! Thanks for stopping by. Please take a look around and feel free to leave comments.

I was away from the computer for most of the day, so I didn't notice the huge spike in traffic until well after midnight Monday night/Tuesday morning. Otherwise, I would have put this update up much earlier.

And thanks, of course, to see-dubya for linking!

Eight isn't nearly enough

Seeing as how I'm a pretty classy guy, I'll forgo the rather obvious anatomical joke that could be made here:

It's a happy Mother's Day for an Arkansas woman — she's pregnant with her 18th child.

Michelle Duggar, 41, is due on New Year's Day, and the latest addition will join seven sisters and 10 brothers. There are two sets of twins.

"We've had three in January, three in December. Those two months are a busy time for us," she said, laughing.

The Duggars' oldest child, Josh, is 20, and the youngest, Jennifer, is nine months old.

The fast-growing family lives in Tontitown in northwest Arkansas in a 7,000-square-foot home. All the children — whose names start with the letter J — are home-schooled.

I knew a family whose four sons' names all began with the same letter, and I thought that was insufferable. Sheesh.

Duggar said she's six weeks along and the pregnancy is going well. She and her husband, Jim Bob Duggar, said they'll keep having children as long as God wills it.

Uh, yeah, you see, the thing is that with this one, you'll be able to field a couple of baseball teams. Are you looking for enough for a tournament or something? Enough, already.

On the other hand, these people must make hardcore enviro-weenies' heads explode, so there is that.

"We should totally make a bong out of a..."

Smoking dope can lead to some really bad ideas. Fortunately, it also often leads to inertia, so that those bad ideas are forgotten while the people who had them sit around, snacking and watching television. It's a pretty good system, actually. But unfortunately, sometimes, the system breaks down:

Authorities in Texas have filed corpse-abuse charges against two men who allegedly removed a skull from a grave and used it as a bong.

The Harris County District Attorney's Office confirmed on Thursday that misdemeanor abuse of corpse charges have been filed in the case.

One of the men allegedly told police they dug up a grave in an abandoned cemetery in the woods, removed a head from a body and smoked marijuana using the skull as a bong.

I'm fairly certain that the conversation that led up to this really heinous crime began with words to the effect of, "Hey, brah, you know what would be really killer?"

And then they went and dug up a corpse. So they could smoke weed. Out of its skull.

Man, I guess there really wasn't anything good on teevee that day.

Dude

Most people, were they to run over your pet, would feel the need to apologize profusely. Most decent people, anyway:

The driver of a 1997 Honda Civic that struck and killed a dog near Cloquet is suing the dog's owners for damage done to his vehicle. Jeffery Ely was driving on the night of Jan. 4 when Fester, a miniature pinscher, squeezed past owner Nikki Munthe as she was letting in her other dog and ran out onto the road. Ely's car struck Fester, killing the 13-pound dog instantly.

Now Ely is suing the Munthes for about $1,100 for damage to his car, time he had to take off from his two jobs to get the car repaired, and court fees.

Pieces of the bumper were propelled into the radiator when it hit the dog, Ely said, necessitating a replacement. Ely maintains he didn't have problems driving until after the accident and that the radiator issues were not pre-existing.

Ely said he feels sorry for the Munthes' loss but, as a dog owner himself, feels that they must be responsible for their pets' actions.

"I have complete compassion for them," Ely said. "I know how it feels. I love dogs. But once you get them, they are your responsibility."

Something tells me he has a very different idea of what compassion means than the rest of us. That something would be the assholish lawsuit. Yeah.

A picture's worth a thousand words...or a couple years in the pokey

I've always hated those guys who think it's funny to jump in front of your camera when you're trying to take a picture. It turns out that the joke was on this douche:

Police had no trouble tracking down a suspect in the robbery of three women at a Bucks County convenience store, because the women had taken the man's picture a short time earlier at a bar.

The suspect, Andre Smith, struck up a conversation with a group women at a bachelorette party at the Bensalem Township taproom early Sunday morning, said the township's public safety director, Fred Harran. The women were taking photos of each other when Smith jumped in front of the camera, Harran said.

Smith later was ejected from the bar for allegedly harassing customers.

When two women in the group left the bar to go to a nearby convenience store, Smith robbed them of their pocketbooks, Harran said. The women recognized Smith — who apparently didn't recognize them — and gave investigators a copy of their photo, Harran said.

The cops were able to track his dumb ass down later the same day. Unfortunately, jackassery isn't against the law, so he's just being charged with theft and robbery.

Well, that was awful

So, Andy and I headed out to beautiful Dodger Stadium this afternoon to catch the final game in the series against the Mets. I've got to say, that was the worst, most one-sided game I've been to. I love heading out to the ballpark to catch a game, eat some hot dogs (and Dodger Dogs are the best), and drink overpriced beer, but it's a little more fun when the team you're pulling for isn't getting beaten like a red-headed stepchild.

Anyway, I guess it looks like the jinx is still in effect. If this keeps up, I think I may have a lucrative career ahead of me where wealthy baseball team owners pay me not to show up at their home games.

EPIC FAIL

And here I thought the whole "shooting yourself in the foot" thing was just a metaphor:

The police chief who shot himself in the ankle was waving a loaded pistol and being careless, according to two students who were attending his class to qualify for a concealed-weapons permit. "We were told the gun is the chief's personal sidearm, but it looked to me like he didn't know anything about the gun," Lewis Walker said.

Bart Ulm, another student seeking certification to carry a concealed weapon, said he was surprised Chief Dave Hansen was using a loaded gun to show how it worked.

"Right then, I was very leery, because there's no need to have live ammo in a gun in the class. But I figured he's the chief, so he must know what he's doing," Ulm told the Standard-Examiner of Ogden.

Looks like you were wrong there, Bart.

Hansen held the Glock 40 under a table to disassemble it when a bullet fired, Walker said.

The chief cried, "I'm hit," and fell over. Students who were screaming "Officer down!" were urged to call 911.

The gun went off in a conference room Saturday at Riverdale police headquarters.

Hansen was taken to McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden for surgery and released Monday, Lt. James Ebert said.

Wow! Who knew you could make a full recovery from a brain transplant in only two days?

Holidays in hell

I've gone to some pretty crappy places on vacation in the past. I think we all have. What I don't get is why someone would intentionally visit a place like this:

A Rio de Janeiro tour company could be in trouble for giving tourists too intimate a view of life in the city's notorious slums, including photo opportunities with drug gang leaders.

The Brazilian city's tourism chief said on Monday that the company, Private Tours, could be stripped of its license after a report in Sunday's Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper that it had set up meetings between traffickers and tourists.

The paper sent a reporter disguised as a foreign tourist on the 4-hour, $55 tour of Rocinha, the city's largest slum, that included visits to the "bocas de fumo" where traffickers sell drugs to Rio residents.

It said the traffickers told the tourists stories about their time in prison, described the life of a Rio drug dealer, and would then pose for pictures with their guns -- as long as their faces were not photographed.

Rio tourism chief Rubem Medina said the firm could lose its license if the story was accurate.

"It's not necessary to do this kind of tour in Rio; there are a lot of wonderful attractions," he told Reuters.

Well, while I don't really get the appeal of a tour like that, there's obviously a demand for it, and if they're safe, I don't see why the tour companies shouldn't be allowed to continue offering them.

As for me, if I wanted to take a tour like that, parts of Los Angeles are right there! Actually, back in high school, Andy had a couple of exchange students from Japan, and the first place they said they wanted to visit was...Compton. We took them to an amusement park, instead.

He fought the law (and guess who won?)

It's been my experience that people who enjoy riding motorcycles fall into two categories: Ordinary people who enjoy the thrill of the open road, and idiots who fancy themselves badass rebels. This guy falls into the latter category. Well, at least he did, for a few minutes, anyway.

A Long Island man who flipped his finger at a police cruiser and then popped a wheelie on his motorcycle is recovering from injuries after crashing.

Suffolk County Police said Frank Patti, 26, of West Islip, rode by the police car at a service station in Copiague at 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Police say Patti made an obscene gesture to two officers in the car, popped a wheelie and then sped away.

Police gave chase.

When the motorcycle turned into a parking lot it crashed into a police car that had joined the chase.

Yeah, see, when you're running from the cops, you generally don't want to do that. I mean, you've got to figure that it's much easier for them to arrest you while you're lying on the ground, all unconscious-like.

Beerly departed

Man, if this guy ends up dying in some kind of alcohol-related accident, that funeral is gonna be awkward:

Bill Bramanti will love Pabst Blue Ribbon eternally, and he's got the custom-made beer-can casket to prove it.

"I actually fit, because I got in here," said Bramanti of South Chicago Heights.

The 67-year-old Glenwood village administrator doesn't plan on needing it anytime soon, though.

He threw a party Saturday for friends and filled his silver coffin — designed in Pabst's colors of red, white and blue — with ice and his favorite brew.

"Why put such a great novelty piece up on a shelf in storage when you could use it only the way Bill Bramanti would use it?" said Bramanti's daughter, Cathy Bramanti, 42.

Uh, maybe because it's pretty damn creepy to drink beer out of a friend's coffin. That's why.

That, and novelty coffins are kind of tacky.

Damn

I'm a relatively young guy, but I figure, hey, it's never too early to do something to help out your...uhhh...internal plumbing. And so, when I heard a week or so ago that there was a certain simple activity which was good for that, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, it looks like that was bullshit:

Recent reporting you may have read on the health effects of masturbation is wrong. I don't mean morally; I mean journalistically. PlanetOut reported on Monday that "BBC News reported on Wednesday" that masturbating frequently may reduce a man's risk of prostate cancer. Masturbating may or may not affect one's cancer risk, but the only BBC report I can find on the subject is dated July 16, 2003—and it contains statistics that are identical to those cited by PlanetOut. (For what it's worth, that day was indeed a Wednesday, according to this online tool.)

Moreover, the Australian organization named by both news outlets, the Cancer Council Victoria, does not appear to have any recent press release on masturbation or ejaculation, though it does have one dating to July 2003. (A phone call to the Cancer Council, placed at 4:27 a.m. local time, went unanswered.) A search of PubMed.gov, a database of published medical studies, turned up only one study about ejaculation (and one letter to an editor) coauthored by Graham Giles, the researcher quoted by PlanetOut.

A staff member at the Advocate who claimed to have written the PlanetOut.com story (the publications share an owner and some of their content) double-checked her source at a reporter's request and confirmed that the BBC report on which she had based her article dated from 2003.

In a brief news report, FoxNews.com appears to have perpetuated the error, citing PlanetOut as its source and further stating: "Researchers told the BBC last week that the prostate produces one of the fluids involved in ejaculation and that frequent masturbation appears to flush out carcinogens." No such report could be found on BBC.co.uk.

So, I guess I can totally go back to not doing that, huh? Because I was only doing it for my health. For real. Yeah, totally.

Oh, hell, who am I kidding?

Imagine if he worked from home

Sure, we all likes us some porn, but nowhere nearly as much as this guy, who I'm going to guess has some kind of compulsive behavior problem:

A Japanese civil servant was demoted for logging more than 780,000 hits on pornographic Web sites on his office computer over nine months, an official said Friday.

The man, a Kinokawa city government employee in western Japan, visited porn sites from June 2007 to February 2008, city official Tomiko Waki said. The man's name was withheld.

City officials said the number of hits discovered on his computer's internal log was so high in part because one click on certain types of pornographic sites registers multiple hits.

Despite his frequent porn viewing, none of his colleagues noticed his activities, which he apparently conducted throughout the workday.

"Each desk is set apart from each other," Waki said, adding that the man logged 170,000 hits on porn sites in July alone.

I think it's probably a very, very good thing that his co-workers didn't know what he was up to because the desks are set apart from each other, if you know what I mean.

(Via Dave in Texas over at Moron Central, who notes that the dude was merely demoted, not fired. Huh. That city must have the wold's most tolerant human resources department.)

Related: I had this video embedded here, but it loaded automatically every time I clicked back here, so you can just go watch it at the link.

Shouldn't she have seen this coming?

I'll admit that I don't know a whole lot about gypsies, and what I do know mostly comes from old horror movies. That said, isn't some kind of curse more traditional?

A fugitive wanted for allegedly killing a Sunset Boulevard fortune teller as part of a bitter feud between two Gypsy families has turned himself over to police in Phoenix, Los Angeles police said today.

Frank Shano Siganoff, 24, is charged with throwing a burning Molotov cocktail into Rose Marco's Hollywood storefront last September, setting her ablaze and leaving her with injuries that caused her death six days later, detectives said.

After the LAPD last week made public allegations that Siganoff had set the blaze, Deputy Chief Charlie Beck said, the fugitive gave himself up.

"We are on the way to Arizona to interview him and bring him back," Beck said.

The feud began over a broken engagement, police said. Within days of a marriage plan being announced over Easter 2005, relatives of Marco called off the wedding.

The other family demanded that the Marco clan pay $5,000 because of the show of "disrespect" in canceling the wedding, and warned that the life of a Marco relative would be in danger if the money was not forthcoming, police said.

Well, I guess that prediction turned out to be accurate.

Damn, I'm going to hell for making a joke there, aren't I? Or at least getting cursed. I mean, more so than already.

(By the way, I stole the title for this post from the e-mail subject line of a certain blogger who wishes to remain unnamed, who also hepped me to the story. He knows who he is, and I love/hate him for being funnier than I am. And for being more successful. Damnit.)

Don't mess with mom

Like everyone else, I've had fights with my mom. But I've never had one like this:

If anyone was wondering where French avant-garde novelist Michel Houellebecq got his talent for character assassination, the answer is clear: his mother.

In his seminal 1998 novel "Les particules elementaires," known in English as "Atomised," Houellebecq vented a lifetime of anger against his mother by portraying her as an egocentric, sexually promiscuous hippie who neglected her children.

Now it's pay-back time.

Lucie Ceccaldi, 83, has returned to France from her home in the Indian Ocean island of Reunion to publish a book of her own, "The Innocent One," in which she heaps insults on her son.

"My son can go and get screwed by whomever he wants, he can write another book, I don't give a toss," she says in one excerpt, widely published in French media on Wednesday.

"But if he has the misfortune of sticking my name on anything again he'll get my walking stick in his face and that'll knock his teeth out," she says in what newspapers described as a typical sample.

They really sound like some charming people.

He has always been very open about his grievances against his mother, who he says lost interest in him shortly after he was born in 1958 and left him in the care of his grandmother when he was a small boy.

Mother and son have been estranged since 1991, when a row over the Gulf War was the last in a long list of arguments.

"I knew I would never see my mother again and I was trembling with joy ... I really felt that I was experiencing a great moment -- full of light, liberating, peaceful," he has said of that final showdown.

In one subsequent interview with French arts magazine Les Inrockuptibles, he said his mother was dead.

Well, I guess he was mistaken.

"Michel and I can start talking again when he goes out in public with his 'Atomised' in hand and says 'I'm a liar, I'm an impostor, I've been a parasite, I've never done anything with my life except hurt those around me. And I'm sorry,'" she writes.

Houellebecq has given no public response.

Ceccaldi's account of his childhood does not contradict his version of events, but the interpretation is very different.

According to her book, she viewed him as a hindrance to her travel plans and active love life when he was a baby and later left him with his paternal grandmother for his own good.

Well, then, I guess he really has no reason to be upset with her. I mean, if my mom decided I was a burden and ditched me to go globetrotting and screwing around...uh...well, yeah, I guess I might be just a tad resentful, too

Getting greedy

I've never tried to pass a bad check, but I'd imagine that if you're trying to do so, you might want to try something a bit more...plausible than what this guy did:

Charles Ray Fuller must have been planning one big record company. The 21-year-old North Texas man was arrested last week for trying to cash a $360 billion check, saying he wanted to start a record business. Tellers at the Fort Worth bank were immediately suspicious — perhaps the 10 zeros on a personal check tipped them off.

Fuller, of suburban Crowley, was arrested on a forgery charge. He was released after posting $3,750 bail.

Fuller said his girlfriend's mother gave him the check to start a record business. But bank employees who contacted the account's owner said the woman told them she did not give him permission to take or cash the check.

I'm going to go ahead and guess that she probably didn't have hundreds of billions of dollars in the bank, either.

Oh, and in case you were wondering how he came up with such a bright idea, when he was arrested, the cops found weed in his pocket.