Doing shots isn't always fun

I've never been shot before (and I hope that trend continues indefinitely) but I'd like to think that I'm perceptive enough that I would notice if it happened:

Tracy Durham remembers hearing the pop. But the gunshot wound the Illinois man discovered after a neighbor asked about his limp? That was a surprise.

The 48-year-old Durham told police he thinks he was shot by a friend during a party late Sunday at his home.

Police say Durham recalled calling the friend's girlfriend ugly. The Peoria man then heard a pop as he took a drink from a bottle of whiskey. But police say he felt no pain.

Yeah, well, it sounds like that wasn't the first drink he took from that bottle of whiskey.

I think it's nice and all...

...that these kids have a respect and reverence for life, but we're ultimately talking about an insect here:

Residents of a California apartment complex said they attended a funeral for a Monarch butterfly organized by local children.

The Mission Terracina Apartments residents in Vallejo said a group of about 10 children, led by 11-year-old Savone Cummings and 4-year-old Alayah Speller, made programs, a guest book and designed the service for Friday's memorial of the Monarch butterfly Cummings and Speller found dead in a carport Wednesday, The (Vallejo) Times-Herald reported Monday.

"I was very surprised the kids did this," said Cherie Duncan, Cummings' mother. "They made programs and put them at everybody's door. They were singing and saying prayers. It was just a very positive thing."

Yeah, that's nice and groovy and I'm sure good vibes were shared by all, but I hope some adult took the kids aside later and discussed how their time could be better spent by helping out at an animal shelter or some kind of project that didn't involve, you know, dead bugs.

Since it's Friday night...

...and it's been heating up around here as of late, here's the local NBC station's morning news weather gal, Elita Loresca:

For some reason, she doesn't dress like this on the air. Imagine the ratings!

Back-to-back champs

Congrats to the 2010 Lakers for winning their sixteenth NBA championship (against the hated Boston Celtics, no less!)

Now, could everyone in Downtown L.A. cut out the rioting bullshit?

(They just showed a car on fire over there on one of the local news channels, and the LAPD has been authorized to use rubber bullets.)

Update: Conspiracy theories!

Were there any explosions?

Because explosions (or maybe fire-breathing dragons) would be the only thing that could make this paragraph more insane:

A German student created a major traffic jam in Bavaria after making a rude gesture at a group of Hell's Angels motorcycle gang members, hurling a puppy at them and then escaping on a stolen bulldozer.

You'll be happy to find out that the puppy was okay. And that reality is still real, at least outside of Bavaria.

I'm not a religious guy...

...but I'm pretty sure that this isn't the kind of thing they encourage at church festivals, even in New York:

Police in western New York said two Canadian men attended a church festival and wound up in the woods drunk, naked and covered in mud.

Okay, so they were both Canadian, so the church wasn't really at fault. Unless they played some Bryan Adams or Gordon Lightfoot music or something. That kind of thing gets Canadians all riled up. Or so I'm told.

Police said both men were highly intoxicated.

Oh, yeah. That also might have had something to do with the whole thing.

Don't do drugs, but DO make hotel reservations

Maybe it's because the houses around here aren't all that quaint and none of us serve Continental Breakfast, or maybe it's because we all tend to lock our doors at night, but this kind of thing never seems to happen in my neighborhood:

Connecticut State Police said a man they believe was on drugs mistook a home for a bed and breakfast and went to sleep in a bedroom.

Police said a Higganum couple told them they were spending time with relatives in their home when a family member went inside and found a credit card on the stairs, The Hartford (Conn.) Courant reported Monday.

Investigators said they found Walker Bruce, 45, asleep in a bedroom. Bruce told them he had mistaken the house for a bed and breakfast and left his credit card on the stairs as payment.

You know, I've never stayed at a bed and breakfast, but I'm pretty sure that's probably not the proper check-in procedure.

Since it's Friday night...

...and sexy ladies go well with that particular time of the week, here's tennis player (I'm told) Maria Sharapova

"Love" is tennis-speak for "zero chance with her."

There's a time and a place for everything

Okay, there's not necessarily a time and a place for burglarizing cars, but doing so outside of the courthouse where you're answering to theft charges is probably one of the worst times and/or places for that kind of thing:

Police say a Connecticut man who appeared at a courthouse to answer a larceny charge broke into several cars in front of the building, took a GPS unit and inadvertently tried to sell it to its owner.

[...]

When he tried to sell the GPS to its owner, an argument ensued, and a bystander called police. He has been taken into custody by judicial marshals.

The article mentions that this is his 40th arrest. I guess you just stop trying after a while.

It's good to have goals

Well, usually it is...

A New Jersey woman is waging a campaign to become the world's heaviest living woman, admitting that she is as hungry for attention as she is for calorie-rich food.

Donna Simpson, 42, weighs more than 600 pounds (272 kg) and aims to reach 1,000 pounds (455 kg).

The mother of two children, ages 3 and 14, models on a website called supersizedbombshells.com, where admirers and the curious can pay to watch videos of her eating greasy foods or walking to the car.

Were this a more lowbrow type of blog, this is where I'd make a joke expressing surprise that she'd had sex at least twice, but instead, I think I'll express my condolences to her basically-already-orphaned children.

You stay classy, Philadelphia

I know that the Phillies can't control anything like this, but, still, it reflects badly on a team I dislike, so AWAY WE GO...

The Philadelphia Phillies said a beer bottle a small child appears to be drinking from in TV footage recorded in the stands was "probably empty."

Phillies spokeswoman Bonnie Clark said the team does not condone allowing children to drink beer, regardless of what the real story is behind the footage, which depicts a small boy -- estimated to be about 3 or 4 -- in the stands during Sunday's game against the San Diego Padres with what appears to be a beer bottle in his mouth, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported Tuesday.

Well, at least he was just drinking from the bottle and not throwing it at one of the opposing players like the other Phillies fans.

The question is...

...how did he keep them all quiet during the whole flight?

A man who smuggled Asian songbirds into the country by hiding them under his pants during a flight from Vietnam to Los Angeles was sentenced Monday to four months in prison.

Sony Dong, 46, of Garden Grove, was also ordered to pay $4,000 in restitution to federal authorities who are caring for the birds.

[...]

In April 2009, customs officials determined that Dong was scheduled to fly from Vietnam and arrive at LAX. They conducted an inspection and saw bird droppings on his socks and feathers peeking out from under his pants.

Lessons to be gleaned from this incident? Don't try to smuggle rare birds into the country. But if you absolutely have to, wear roomy pants, attach them fairly high up on your leg, and point them butts-and-tail-feathers-side-up.

Since it's Friday night...

...and you'd like me to shut up already and get to the hotness, here's actress Zoe Saldana:

To borrow a phrase from cooking shows, "Golden brown and delicious." (Okay, if that's kind of racist, we can just go with "Yummy.")

That's low

Six feet low, to be precise:

A New Zealand funeral home has stepped in to stop a fake mourner who was attending up to four funerals a week to stock up on food, even filling up tupperware containers to take home, according to media reports.

Harbour City Funeral Home director Danny Langstraat told local newspaper The Dominion Post that the "grim eater" appeared at up to four funerals a week in March and April to enjoy the finger food but clearly did not know the deceased.

[...]

"Certainly he had a backpack with some tupperware containers so when people weren't looking, he was stocking up," Langstraat told the newspaper.

Okay, showing up to the funerals of people you don't know in order to have a snack is poor form, but doing your "grocery shopping" there is extremely fucking creepy.

The worst call in MLB history?

Quite possibly. Hell, just look at what the umpire had to say about it:

"It was the biggest call of my career," an emotional Joyce told reporters, "and I kicked it. I just cost that kid a perfect game."

That would have been the first time in history that there had been three perfect games in one season, by the way.

Allahpundit thinks that this will result in instant replay being instituted in the near future. I don't think that would be good for the game, but I think he's probably correct that it's gonna happen.

Update: As Drew M. (no relation) points out at the Moron Mothership, both the pitcher and the ump displayed a great deal of class after the game.

Arbitrary Milestone Achieved!!!

I just noticed that the last post was my 2,000th!

It's time to celebrate, I guess.

They put a safety on guns for a reason

Also, they sell holsters for a reason:

A Washington state man accidentally discharged his gun at a Lowe's Home Improvement store and shot himself in the testicles, police said.

Lynnwood police spokeswoman Shannon Sessions said the man was shopping at about 12:30 p.m. Sunday when his gun, which was in the waistband of his pants, went off in an apparent "accidental discharge," The Seattle Times reported Tuesday.

There's really no kind of "accidental discharge" in your pants that's ever a good thing, but that's got to be the worst kind.

Memorial Day

While you're barbecuing and enjoying a beer (or six) today, stop and take some time to remember the brave men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep us safe and free.

Since it's Friday night...

...and none of us (I'm assuming from my own experience) will enjoy the company of a sexy lady tonight, here's a picture of Angie Harmon in her, um, natural state...

Please, please, PLEASE let her need to scratch something!

Something's amiss in Santa's Village

Get ready for your kids receiving a bunch of voodoo dolls as stocking stuffers on Christmas morning, because it looks like the elves have turned to the dark side:

Alaska State Troopers are puzzled by a gruesome discovery in the city of North Pole: 26 headless chickens carefully arranged at a coop.

Police say the fly-infested carcasses found Monday were arranged in a 12- to 15-foot-long line pattern that ended in a circle. There was no sign of the missing heads.

Of course the heads are missing. The head priest needs the heads for some sort of ritual necklace. Or so I've been told by black and white movies starring Abbott & Costello.

Actually, "Abbott & Costello Meet the Voodoo Elves" would be a pretty awesome movie, if they made it today. Back then, the special effects would have totally sucked. Plus, Luke Wilson would play Bud Abbott and Kevin James would play Lou Costello!

Oh, God, the modern world is fucking awful.

The best laid plans

I don't know a hell of a lot about robbing banks, but I'm pretty sure this isn't the way you're supposed to go about it:

Would-be robbers in Germany had to flee empty handed after blowing up everything in a bank except for where the money was, police said on Wednesday.

[...]

"The explosion was so big, they had to run away without the money," said local police spokesman Niels Borgmann. "Something evidently didn't work the way the robbers wanted it to."

I'm pretty sure it doesn't currently exist, but once someone establishes the World Understatement Championship, I'm nominating that guy.

Steal Fresh

I can never get my sammiches to taste quite like Subway's (or any other chain, for that matter) when I make them at home, but I don't think this is the best solution to that problem:

Des Moines police said the burglars, who struck late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, took 6 pounds of ham, 4 pounds of turkey, 8 pounds of roast beef, 10 pounds of cold cuts, 12 pounds of cheese, a case of beverages, 96 cookies and four to six loaves of bread, the Des Moines Register reported Tuesday.

Seeing as how Jared probably has a free pass to get whatever sammich he wants at any Subway around the world, I'm guessing he's not a suspect.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Isn't it odd how in the nineteenth century, we could look at this guy and his beard and think, "presidential material," and now we look at him and say, "hey, those guys with huge beards weren't presidential material"?

I mean, beard fashion and/or beard political viability has really changed since The Reconstruction.

Since it's Friday night...

...and everyone enjoys product placement, here's a photo of Kate Beckinsale holding a Diet Coke:

Enjoy!

On a mission from God

Any number of people have noted that ancient prophets from various religions would be treated as nutjobs in this day and age for claiming they'd talked to God. While I'm no theology expert or anything, I'm gonna place this guy in the nutjob catecory:

Thibodaux police responded to an obscenity complaint around 2 a.m. Thursday and found Shafiq Mohamed walking nude down the street. When approached, Mohamed reportedly told officers that "America raped him" and added God told him to walk the streets naked to save his soul.

Again, not a theology expert (or even a particularly religious person), but a bunch of paintings with strategically-placed fig leaves that I've seen over the years suggest that he might have been mistaken.

As someone who's made cold calls...

...I can attest to the veracity of this study:

The prospect of making cold calls for a week as a salesperson is more unappealing than giving up sex for a month, a survey showed this week.

Also, as someone who has no possible chance whatsoever of having sex this month—um...I think I've said too much.

Judicial restraint

I'm a smoker, so I may be biased here, but I think this is good news in terms of property rights:

Judge Rosie Allred ruled in favor of Linda Garcia, who was sued by neighbors Jesus and Pat Martinez for smoking cigarettes in her own backyard, KOAT-TV, Albuquerque, reported Tuesday.

"After hearing the facts, she said what Ms. Garcia was doing on her own property was not unreasonable," Stephen Lane, Garcia's attorney, said of the judge.

As far as I know, it's legal to smoke on your own property in all 50 states, not just New Mexico. Oh, and if you don't happen to be a smoker but you enjoy something like, say, grilling with charcoal in your backyard, who's to say that one of your neighbors won't object to that someday?

Since it's Friday night...

...and you'd like to glimpse a beautiful woman even more than I'd like to avoid looking for something that I could make a dumb joke about, here's CSI's hottest lab tech, Liz Vassey:

She Blinded Me With Science. (Yeah, you heard me. That's what caused me to go blind.)

How's that working out?

Looks like you've still got some work ahead of you, comrade:

President Dmitry Medvedev, halfway through his four-year term, has pledged to fight Russia's all-pervasive graft and build a law-abiding state, where everyone observes the rules rather than looking for ways around them.

But findings by the Levada Center showed that Russians still pay bribes to obtain better medical services, prefer to "buy" their driving licenses, bribe police when caught violating traffic rules, or pay to ensure that their child can dodge the draft or get a place at the right school.

Of course, people all over the world do things like that, and have done so since the dawn of time (or at least since the dawn of the time when people realized that things someone else values could be traded to expedite favorable cave paintings), but this is a little disturbing:

Watchdog Transparency International last November rated Russia, a G8 country, joint 146th out of 180 nations in its Corruption Perception Index, along with Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, and five other developing nations.

Um, I'm not an expert in international relations or foreign policy or anything like that, but I'm pretty sure that when a major world power with a bunch of nuclear weapons ranks near Zimbabwe on just about any list, that's somewhat problematic.

Liquid courage

In any other situation, I might think that this was a waste of beer:

Sheriff's officials say the would-be robber brandished a gun at the clerk Saturday night at Mr. Fuel and demanded money, then pointed the weapon at several store customers. One customer walked to the rear of the store, got two beer bottles and struck the suspect in the back of the head.

The customer struggled with the gunman, who in turn shot him several times. The customer didn't suffer life-threatening injuries.

The article doesn't mention whether or not the guy was charged for the beers, but I would hope not.

Well, his mustache was (literally) pretty square

When you think of past world leaders who people would rank as "cool," who would rank last? (And, I mean other than Jimmy Carter.)

British ambulance workers say they were given a leadership survey that asked them to rate the "coolness" of German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Hitler's name was included among a list of people workers for the West Midlands Strategic Health Authority were asked to rate on a scale of one to five, The Times of London reported Tuesday.

They were also asked if being gay, funny or black made a leader cool.

I've never read anything which suggested that Hitler had much of a sense of humor, but were he to take the survey himself, gay and/or black wouldn't be things he thought were "cool" in a leader.

Also low on Hitler's list of "cool" traits would be Jewish, Russian, or bearing the surname "Churchill."

Oh, and by the way, this was part of a process to help the organization come up with a new "leadership strategy." I'm hoping that they weren't looking for a response from their employees that was favorable on the Hitler question. Because ambulance services really shouldn't have anything to do with genocide.

Friends don't let friends do any of this shit

This isn't funny when it happens to you. But when it happens to someone else and they get punished for it? Comedy gold...

A Colorado man who claimed he was trying to defend himself from a mugger when he shot himself in the groin has been convicted of illegal discharge of a firearm. Investigators said there was no evidence to substantiate David Leroy Blurton's self-defense claim and jurors convicted the 50-year-old on Wednesday. The shooting happened at the parking lot of a grocery store in Dillon, Colo., on May 2009.

Wait for it...wait for it...

Prosecutors say Blurton had been drinking.

But of course he had. I'm just surprised that there was no crystal meth involved.

Since it's Friday night...

...and I can't be bothered to even make a joke about why I'm not making a joke here, a picture of Ashley Judd is featured here...

Even if she doesn't actually look exactly like that when she wakes up, DAAAAAMN!!!

How to lose friends and influence tourists to go elsewhere

Oh, this is just brilliant:

Japanese visitors to children's author Beatrix Potter's English cabin are being asked for $7 donations to preserve the National Park.

Tourism officials with northwest England's Lake District National Park said Japanese tourists are being singled out by the scheme, set to begin next week, because they travel to the "Peter Rabbit" author's cabin in the thousands, The Times of London reported Thursday.

So, let me get this straight...Japanese people make up the bulk of your visitors, so instead of asking everyone to pay a few bucks to conserve the site, you single them out, asking them to pay for (let me stress this again) everyone who visits. Way to make your most frequent visitors feel welcome.

Smart.

If I didn't know any better...

...I would have sworn that these people had been running Britain since Thatcher left office:

If David Cameron is to become the next prime minister, his first act will be to shake the hand of the self-confessed biggest loony in the country.

The Conservative party leader is certain to retain his seat in parliament representing Witney, a picturesque market town in the Oxfordshire countryside.

But lining up against him is Alan "Howling Laud" Hope, the leader of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, which has a 47-year tradition of fighting British elections from a standpoint of stupidity.

You might not know it, but there's actually been an American branch of this party for years. The only difference is that they call themselves "Libertarians."

(I keed. I keed because I love.)

Driving while stupid

Well, the good news is that nobody died.

Oh, and also, an idiot got arrested. There's that, too.

The house at poo corner

A couple in the UK has decided to renovate a public restroom and turn it into their home:

"Some people joke about it. At work they'll say things like, 'Oh yes, you're the couple who live in a lavatory,'" [Tracy] Woodhouse said. "But we now have a lovely little house with a sea view that used to be a loo. We understand the amusement it causes. It tickles us, too."

Um, you might want to see a doctor about that tickling sensation, seeing as how you live in a former public toilet.

Since it's Friday night...

...and life is too short for coming up with jokes, here's the woman who played George Lopez's wife on his teevee series:

See what I did there? Jokes? George Lopez? Okay, he's kinda funny. Also, sideboob. Yeah.

Earth Day was last week

Oops. I didn't do anything to commemorate it. Thankfully, eco-scold Al Gore did, though, by purchasing a tiny, climate-sustainable bungalow:

[Al and Tipper Gore] spent $8,875,000 on an ocean-view villa on 1.5 acres with a swimming pool, spa and fountains, a real estate source familiar with the deal confirms. The Italian-style house has six fireplaces, five bedrooms and nine bathrooms.

Yeah.

No shirt, no shoes...

...no Statehouse:

A man is battling the Ohio Statehouse over the right to bare feet. Bob Neinast said his feet hurt when he wears shoes, so he goes barefoot nearly everywhere, even in winter. The man from the Columbus suburb of Pickerington calls it a healthy lifestyle that makes him feel closer to places he visits.

When he tried to go shoeless in the Ohio capitol recently, he was stopped by an officer who said Neinast was violating the rules.

On the one hand, "free spirits" will argue that rules are meant to be broken. On the other hand, when they break such rules, they complain that they're being oppressed.

Logic sucks. Especially for hippies.

Maybe so, but it worked, didn't it?

"I've never seen anything like this in my 34-year-career," said Friedrich-Wilhelm Lach, chief executive of regional utility Ueberlandwerke Leinetal GmbH, told Reuters. "It's incredibly dangerous and utterly stupid."

Drinking and driving and drinking some more

You know, what this guy lacks in brains, he almost makes up for with balls:

Police in Florida said a 68-year-old man who refused a field sobriety test after being involved in a car crash drank a beer while talking to troopers.

I can almost see his, um, logic here. I mean, if he's casually sipping a beer while talking to the cops, they're not gonna suspect that he was driving the car, right? I mean, that would be foolish.

There was just one little problem...

The Florida Highway Patrol said Elmer Daniels of Bradenton initially switched seats with his wife after a collision with another vehicle just prior to 8 p.m. Tuesday, but four adults in the other vehicle identified him as the driver, the Bradenton Herald reported Monday.

And he would have gotten away with it, if it wasn't for those meddling accident victims!

Since it's Friday night...

...and blah, blah, blah, yackety-smackety, here's a picture of Doctor Who's new "companion," Karen Gillan...

Mmmmmm...ginger.

When blowguns are outlawed...

...maybe it will discourage tribe members from the Amazon from coming here and going on crime sprees.

Oh, and outlaws will be the only people who have blowguns.

How to properly create a "time capsule"

1.) Fill a container with stuff from your era. Photos and/or recordings of relevant people from the time in question, along with other items such as fashionable items of clothing or popular gadgets are good items to include. Actually, anything that you feel is representative of your era that will fit in the container will do. Be creative.

2.) Bury or encase your capsule somewhere that will be relevant to people in the future. While future people who have nothing in common with you may find this interesting, people who have some kind of cultural continuity with you might bother to dig this up before a few centuries have passed.

3.) Tell someone where it's located. If you don't do this, the search for your time capsule becomes a scavenger hunt or an archaeological dig. Both of which are fun, but they're missing the point.

This Space Available

While the sentiment behind this is noble, I can't help but think that business owners would get better visibility for their products and/or services through billboards, print ads, or commercials.

I mean, I'm not an expert on advertising or anything, but I'm pretty sure that "some dead guy's ashes" probably haven't traditionally been regarded within the industry as a big draw for customers.

Oh, wait! Maybe if he agreed to become a mummy and sold ad space on his sarcophagus. That would be kinda cool.

Give a hoot, don't pollute

I think picking up trash is a worthy cause and everything, but I doubt that even Woodsy the Owl would venture up here:

Twenty Nepali climbers are setting off to Mount Everest this week to try and remove decades-old garbage from the mountain in the world's highest ever clean-up campaign, organizers said on Monday.

Many foreign and Nepali climbers have cleaned Mount Everest in the past but Namgyal Sherpa, leader of the Extreme Everest Expedition 2010, said no one had dared to clean above 8,000 meters (26,246 feet), an area known as the "death zone" for the lack of oxygen and treacherous terrain.

Gee, I wonder why nobody has ever bothered to drag a bunch of garbage (in addition to all of their necessary supplies) down from a freezing, oxygen-poor environment like the summit of Mt. Everest. Also known as the "death zone."

The next clean-up crew, which will be sent to drag your dessicated, frozen corpses off the mountain, will doubtlessly admire your efforts, though.

(Before they freeze to death and/or die from a lack of oxygen, that is. It's the Circle of Death.)

Since it's Friday night...

...and pretty ladies have been popular pretty much since the dawn of time, here's a photo of Mandy Moore looking perky:

This is where I'd Google some Manilow lyrics if I wasn't so lazy.

Popularity contest FAIL

Um, when you can't beat someone who lacks what is literally the most basic qualification for elected office, you might want to reevaluate the direction in which your political career is heading:

Election officials in a Tennessee county said a town elected a deceased candidate mayor in a landslide -- 268 votes to the incumbent's 85.

Donna Basham, administrator of the Grundy County Election Commission, said Tracy City voters elected Carl Robin Geary, who died suddenly a few weeks ago, over Mayor Barbara Brock, who took office about a year ago after the death of the last mayor, WTVC-TV, Chattanooga, Tenn., reported Thursday.

The article goes on to say that the winner's death was "widely reported" there, so, ouch.

I hate modern life

RT @julietcap16: Down here Lol!

One of Shakespeare's most famous plays gets a 21st century makeover in a new version of "Romeo and Juliet" which will unfold through Twitter messages and on the YouTube video website.

Entitled "Such Tweet Sorrow," the experiment is a collaboration between the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and Mudlark, which produces entertainment on mobile telephones.

[...]

Each character writes their own tweets, guided by an existing storyline and diary which outlines where they are at any moment in the adventure.

And so two families named after the original adversaries the Montagues and Capulets have loathed each other for years after a fatal car crash in an unnamed English market town in 2000.

Juliet, played by actress Charlotte Wakefield, is just turning 16 and wonders whether she should have a birthday party to celebrate. She posts a video on YouTube showing viewers a typical teenager's bedroom.

Her Twitter name is @julietcap16 while Romeo's entry into the messaging world comes later as "he is too busy on his Xbox."

Far be it from me to tell the Royal Shakespeare Company how to do their business, but this is just fucking dumb. I mean, it's one thing to stage a production of Shakespeare's work in a contemporary setting while using the original text, but it's something else to essentially dig up The Bard's corpse and rape it as a stupid publicity stunt. And I don't even particularly like the play.

Also, get off my lawn!

What are the odds?

This would actually be kind of funny if a couple of people hadn't been injured in a traffic accident:

A man has been charged with driving drunk and hitting the car of a retired Maryland judge who once spared him jail time in previous drunk driving case. The suspect, 45, was scheduled to be in court Wednesday to face trial on eight charges related to the August crash where he hit a car being driven by retired Montgomery County District Judge Edwin Collier. Collier, 86, and his wife Ellen Collier, 82, were both injured in the crash.

Irony is like all those games we used to play when we were little kids—it's all a lot of fun until an elderly, retired judge and his wife get hurt.

(We really shouldn't have swiped our mom's car keys and driven around the neighborhood when we were eight.)

(I'm still sorry, Judge and Mrs. Ellsworth.)

Since it's Friday night...

...and, well, you want a photo of a beautiful woman, so here's LOST actress Yunjin Kim:

Funny, but she never looks that tanned on the island. Not that I'm complaining...

I'll admit...

...and I know that this will come as a total shock, but there were occasions where I drank adult beverages before I was of legal age. That said...

Sheriff's deputies in Florida said a 19-year-old woman who asked for a ride home was arrested after opening a can of malt liquor in the back of the patrol car.

Seriously? You couldn't wait until you got home? Or, um, for another couple of years?

(Although I'm not sure cracking open a Mickeys in the back of a cop car, even when you're 21, is a good idea.)

First game of the season

Meatspace buddy Andy took me out to see the Angels play the Twins as a birthday present. The Angels lost, 4-2, but I had a good time, ate a couple of hot dogs, drank some beer, and even got my picture taken with former Angels players Ike Hampton and Clyde Wright, who pitched the first no-hitter in the history of Angels Stadium back in 1970. All in all, not a bad evening.

Just because they're pale and have weird teeth...

Where would we be without universities, those vital centers of learning and research, where the most important topics and ideas are discussed?

A British university is to hold a conference on Vampires in an effort to counterbalance the "Americanization" of the fictional genre.

Delegates to the University of Hertfordshire's "Open Graves, Open Minds: Vampires and the Undead in Modern Culture" conference to be held on April 16-17 will have their food served to them out of coffins as part of a mission to encourage students of all ages to study literature.

English lecturer Sam George, who has just launched a Master of Arts degree in vampire fiction at Hertfordshire, said the most famous vampire narrative of all, Dracula, was written by Irishman Bram Stoker and set in London and Whitby in Yorkshire, but that now with the "Twilight" saga and "True Blood," modern vampires have become Americanized.

So, let me get this straight...a bunch of Limeys are going to get together and discuss how a genre popularized by an Irishman that's loosely based on an Eastern European prince and which has roots in just about every culture in the world isn't sufficiently British anymore?

Yeah.

The pointless pointy parade

Far be it from me to discourage women from baring their breasts in public, but this is kind of stupid:

About two dozen women drew a crowd of onlookers when they shed their shirts and marched downtown in Maine's largest city to promote what they call equal-opportunity public toplessness.

Organizer Ty MacDowell said the point of Saturday's march in Portland was that a topless woman out in public shouldn't attract any more attention than a man who walks around without a shirt.

Okay, at this point, you're probably wondering why I think this whole thing is stupid and pointless. Well...

It's not illegal for a woman to be topless in public in Maine, and police said there were no incidents or arrests.

So, um, why in the hell did they feel the need to do this? It's not like this was something they needed to do in order to overturn some sort of injustice or anything.

Oh, and by the way, for quite some time, I've been of the opinion that the people who like to parade around nude in public probably shouldn't do so. If you doubt me, Google the phrase "Berkeley Breast Freedom Parade."

Just be sure to have some eyebleach handy.

Since it's Friday night...

...and blah, blah, blah, here's Scarlett Johansson, wearing socks and a matching cardigan with colors from the Awesome High School Fighting Awesomethings and little else:

Sure, that school never existed, but I damn sure know who I'm rooting for during their Girls Volleyball games.

Sean's Aunt Hortence M., here

I just wanted to let you know that Sean M. died from an accidental overdose of sex with lingerie models.

HAR! April Fools! It's me, Sean M., pretending to be someone else who can't even come up with a plausible cause of death. And--here's the kicker--I don't even have an Aunt Hortence!

Seriously, though, I didn't want to look through the funny news stories to find something that was probably a prank, anyway. Sorry if you were looking for something funny and new here.

(And, by "you," I mean "who the hell is reading this?")

Why I hate kids these days

Those who are busy texting during a history lesson from someone who was there are destined to be a bunch of assholes:

Officials at an Oregon high school said they are banning cellphones and iPods after rude behavior during a speaking engagement by a Holocaust survivor.

Scappoose High School administrators said the electronic devices are now banned for the school's 700 students after Alter Wiener, 84, was repeatedly interrupted during a January assembly by students text messaging and talking on their phones, KGW-TV, Portland, Ore., reported Wednesday.

"This is the first time I had to deflect from the presentation and say, please show me some respect," said Wiener, who survived stints in five different Nazi labor and concentration camps while his entire family was slain. "It's an insult to me."

There. Are. No. Words.

You could be hearing a stirring story about one man's survival in the face of unspeakable evil, and you'd rather be typing "OMG did U see wut Taylor is wearing 2day LOL?"

I weep for the future.

What a fun vacation!

Here's a headline from Reuters:

Theme park highlights challenges facing dwarfs

Granted, this is from China, but over here, our theme parks tend to highlight stuff like, oh, I don't know, fun. For the kids, usually.

(Nothing against dwarf theme park employees or anything, but I thought it was mainly about the kids. And the kids having fun. And the parents taking pictures of the kids on a carousel that didn't involve "challenges" for the park's employees.)

That's entertainment

Like everyone else, I get bored sometimes. When that happens, I check to see if there's anything good on teevee. Failing that, I put on a DVD or search for some internet por—um, entertaining Youtube videos. This, on the other hand, would not have occurred to me:

A man who has been charged with making a naked dash through a Tennessee supermarket told police he was "bored and didn't have anything else to do."

And, um, now you're in jail where the entertainment options are virtually limitless.

Since it's Friday night...

...and you're accustomed to seeing a photo of an attractive woman, here's model/actress Gabrielle Union:

If I was a lesser man, I'd make a joke involving her last name and my swimsuit area.

Any title I could come up with would be pretty crass

I've never been incarcerated before, but movies and teevee have shown me that it's not a pleasant place. And not just for the inmates, either. It's pretty harsh for the guards, too. Especially in Swedish prisons:

The warden of a Swedish jail said a prisoner received an official warning for voicing his discontent toward his situation via flatulence.

Anders Eriksson, warden of the Kirseberg prison in Malmo, said guards filed numerous complaints against the 21-year-old prisoner, who was not named, alleging "a series of concerted attacks" in the form of the prisoner's constant wind-breaking, Britain's The Daily Telegraph reported Thursday.

While I'm sure that having someone constantly farting in your presence is rather unpleasant, it doesn't really seem as bad as having to deal with riots or having a prisoner stab you with an improvised knife.

Okay, I officially take back the "Especially in Swedish prisons" thing that I said before.

What a horrible guy

Does anybody see what's wrong with this picture?

Nineteen-year-old Ilenia Moretti had asked her father Rodolfo for 5,000 euros ($6,756) for a trip to America before using the money to hire a hitman to kill him, apparently with her mother's consent, a police statement said.

The teen-ager, from the small town of Luzzara near the northern Italian city of Milan, told authorities she could no longer bear her despotic father's ways.

"She said she wanted to bring to an end years of intimidation suffered by both daughter and mother," an investigator said in the statement.

That's right. He was such a rotten, "despotic" father that when she asked him for nearly seven thousand bucks to go on a vacation in a foreign country, he gave it to her. The bastard!

Fortunately for him, the hitman had second thoughts and went to the cops to confess.

Daily Double!

"I'll take 'Places People Don't Normally Break Into' for $1000, Alex."

"This is a facility surrounded by barbed wire and full of criminals."

"What is jail?"

"It was not intended to cause offence and we apologise if it has"

Intentional or not, but, yeah, but when a company issues a statement like that, you know that some mistakes were made.

And, yeah, people were offended.

Since it's Friday night...

...and since this is the part of Sprockets where we post a picture of an attractive woman, here's a picture of Angie Everhart at sundown:

Looks like you might be a little chilly. Wanna snuggle? No? Well, can I at least get you a towel? Oh, well, this restraining order seems to be in order...

Good news!

If you're looking to buy what's probably the most popular URL in the world, there's still time for you to search for a few million bucks that you may have left sitting around in your couch cushions.

This is why God invented bedrooms

And showers. And hastily-cleared dining room tables. And basically anywhere other than carbon monoxide-filled garages as ideal settings for sex:

"A man and a woman retreated to their Volkswagen to have sex... Most likely the lovers turned on the engine to get warm," Interfax reported, citing a source in the Moscow police force. During a moment of "intimate closeness," the pair, in southern Moscow, inhaled the gas and died, the source added.

Well, at least they died doing what they loved. Inhaling noxious fumes.

What are the odds?

When you're impersonating a cop, who's the last kind of person you want to pull over?

An Arizona man accused admonishing motorists of traffic laws while posing as a police officer apparently picked the wrong driver to pull over.

A Maricopa County jury on Tuesday found 62-year-old David Word guilty of impersonating a lawman for pulling over an off-duty police officer. Sentencing is set for May 5.

I don't know much about Arizona's courts, but I'm pretty sure there's very little danger that fake jurors will show up for that.

Since it's Friday night...

...yeah, let's just get to the picture of a beautiful woman. This week, it's Roselyn Sanchez:

Well, howdy, cowgirl!

Dude, just take shorter showers

Like most people, I'm not a big fan of paying bills, but this is ridiculous:

Police in Florida said a man who was angry about the size of his water bills found a way to stop the bills entirely -- he blew up his mobile home.

Investigators quoted witnesses as saying Johnny Dossey, 43, coated his Fort Lauderdale mobile home in gasoline Wednesday and the residence exploded only moments after he ignited the flames, the Miami Herald reported Thursday.

And just how much was he on the hook for? Thousands of dollars? Click on the link and check out the second-to-last paragraph for the answer.

Next time, try a bank

Since the economy sucks and most places accept debit or check cards anyway these days, this story doesn't exactly surprise me:

Riverside County authorities say a woman with a gun robbed 11 customers at a market and got away with $6.

Seriously, I don't usually have more than a buck or two in my wallet these days, mostly because it's more convenient to just swipe my bank card than to stop by an ATM and get cash.

Oh, and also, sticking up customers in a Riverside County convenience store isn't exactly a good strategy if you're looking for the big bucks. Seriously, just ask them for whatever meth they happen to have in their pockets and go for the resale route. You'll make a lot more than six bucks that way.

Banana Hammocks

That was just a slang term for a certain kind of dudes' underpants, until now...

Australian underwear company AussieBum has been monkeying around and the result is a range of men's underwear made with bananas.

The new eco-friendly banana range of undies incorporates 27 percent banana fiber, 64 percent cotton and 9 percent lycra, AussieBum's Lloyd Jones said on Friday.

Okay, even if I was all about saving Mother Gaia, I'm not going to be wearing underpants made of banana peels. Comedy potential or otherwise.

Unusual headline of the day

Woman charged in breast milk assault on jailer

There really doesn't seem to be much more to it than that. A woman who was being booked into jail squirted a deputy in the face with breast milk.

Although this is technically a crime, like spitting on someone, I'm sure that there are lots of dudes in Japan who would pay good money for something like that. I'm just saying, is all.

Oh, and there are probably lots of Japanese dudes who would pay you to spit on them, too.

Go Bears!

Congratulations to the Cal men's basketball team, who won my Alma Mater's first conference title since 1960 with their win over Stanfurd today. Now, it's on to the Pac-10 tournament, and then, March Madness.

Since it's Friday night...

...and Doctor Zhivago was just on one of my movie channels, here's a classic photo of Julie Christie hogging the covers...

Quit hogging the covers. No, seriously.

And, here's a musical interlude.

Life imitates slapstick comedy

Headline of the day, from our cousins across The Pond:

Man in gorilla suit helps nab suspect

There's no word as to whether or not rubber chickens or silly walks were also involved.

Something personal

I haven't mentioned it here before, but my Grandpa is in the hospital. He's 98, and he's got pneumonia. My Uncle and Aunt live nearby, and he seems to be doing better over the last few days. We've had a couple of scares, though, since he was admitted.

Thankfully (and I've knocked on A LOT of wood) my Uncle said that yesterday, he may have "turned the corner," and is getting better.

I don't tend to talk about personal stuff here, preferring to link to stories about idiots who have screwed up their lives through criminality and/or stupidity, but I'd like to ask the few people who visit this place on any sort of a regular basis to think of my Grandpa in your hopes and prayers for a while. I've mentioned this already at The Hostages, which is a den of scum and villainy until someone needs some help, at which point it becomes a (dysfunctional, yes) family, and I've received a lot of support. The people there who trade the vilest, most profane jokes with me over there have actually offered their kindest wishes, over and over.

Anyway, if you're stopping here for whatever reason (and if my Sitemeter is any indication, you're here for a photo of Jennifer Love Hewitt that I put up back in November) please spare a happy thought for my Grandpa.

Well, at least they aren't currently emitting carbon

Russia is doing its part to fight global warming by curbing a hundred or so modern tanks. Quite literally, it seems, by abandoning them along the side of a highway:

Video clips from the E1.ru website that were rebroadcast on Russian television showed local people clambering over some of the unguarded T-80 tanks that were parked in long rows in Kamishlovsk, about 100 km from the Ural city of Yekaterinburg.

[...]

Russia is currently streamlining its massive military, with some commanders recently quoted in the Russian media as saying they only require half of the country's 20,000 tanks.

Some people have criticized the "Cash For Clunkers" program (and I'll let you Google those people, seeing as how I'm too lazy to find the links) for a number of reasons, but, um, that didn't really involve vehicles with treads and high explosive shells, so I guess this is a little different.

Since it's Friday Night, Winter Olympics Edition...

...and I suppose it would be more patriotic to find a U.S.Olympian tonight, but...

...daaaaaaaamn, Yu-Na Kim is a Gold Medal hottie!

School daze

When you were a kid and you complained to your mom about something that happened at school, she may have said something like "You're too old for me to be fighting your battles for you anymore," and you may have been upset by that. On the other hand...

Police said the mother of an elementary school student drank a 40 ounce bottle of malt liquor before brandishing a sword in her child's school. The woman, 32, apparently intended to confront the parents of another child who had been in a spitting match with her child the previous day.

According to court records, an employee at Riverview Elementary School in Memphis reported a drunk woman armed with a sword was running through the halls of the school and had threatened to cut her.

Well, at least the woman was sober enough not to threaten to shoot the employee with her sword.

What? I'm a glass half full kind of guy.

Pasty nerds unite!

You apparently have nothing else much to do, really:

"Participants in a British "flash mob" event said hundreds of "Star Wars" fans came out to a shopping center for a massive lightsaber battle.

Organizers of the flash mob -- defined as an event organized online involving a large group of people carrying out an unusual activity in public -- said hundreds of Jedi knights and Sith lords brought their lightsabers to the Cabot Circus shopping center in Bristol, England, Feb. 13 for what was dubbed "the world's largest lightsaber fight," The Sun reported Wednesday.

There's nothing about the average level of sexual experience of the participants in this "Star Wars" light saber flash mob, but, well, you know...

There ought to be a law

But since being a douche is still legal, I guess the authorities will have to settle for this:

Police said they've arrested a teenager who caused thousands of dollars in damage to a western New York home's hardwood floor by break dancing on it while wearing a large diamond belt buckle.

Erie County Sheriff Timothy B. Howard said the 18-year-old apparently was intoxicated when he arrived at a house party held by the victim's daughters in Elma, a small town just east of Buffalo. He said when the teen repeatedly tried to break dance he gouged the floor and caused about $3,000 worth of damage.

I like how the article mentions that he "repeatedly tried" to break dance, implying (more or less) that he repeatedly failed.

A fool Frog and his money...

I had no idea that the French economy was booming so much that they could waste their money on this kind of crap:

Thrill-seekers in France tired of the usual array of white-knuckle sports are turning to a bizarre new service to get their adrenaline rush -- designer abduction.

For 900 euros ($1,226), clients of Ultime Realite ("Ultimate Reality"), a firm in eastern France, can buy a basic kidnap package where they're bundled away, bound and gagged, and kept incarcerated for four hours.

Alternatively, they can opt for a more elaborate tailor-made psychodrama, involving an escape or helicopter chase for example, where costs can quickly escalate.

Um, if you know that you're going to be kidnapped, and you shell out the money specifically for the helicopter chase, doesn't that kind of ruin the element of surprise? I mean, the helicopter chase is gonna be somewhat anticlimactic if you know that you're probably not going to, you know, die at the end in a fiery crash. That's no fun, is it?

Oh, wait, I get it now...you have someone kidnapped by a bunch of thugs as a present.

Happy birthday!

Since it's Friday Night...

...and you'd rather see a good-looking woman than read about some dumb criminal, here's a pic of Elizabeth Hurley:

(Insert [heh] Austin Powers "Oh, yeah, baby"-type joke here.)

Dear John,

My greatest hope for 2010 is that you go oh-fer at the Big A. Especially if your sellout ass ends up pitching there in the postseason. In fact, I'd be more than happy if you suffered a career-ending arm injury during Spring Training, seeing as how you're dead to me and most of the Angels fans who have supported you since 2002.

Please die in a fire, you fucking Red Sox piece of shit.

With Hate,

Sean M.
Lifelong Angels Fan

Honesty is the best policy

It's refreshing in this day and age to ask someone a direct question and to get a direct answer, without any bullshit. Of course, there are some situations where there's really no point in lying:

Sandy police Sgt. Troy Arnold said the homeowner heard a strange noise at about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday and discovered a man had entered his home through a rear window and was loading items from the home into the resident's car, The Salt Lake Tribune reported Thursday.

Arnold said the homeowner demanded to know why the man was in his house and the suspect responded: "I am burglarizing your home."

Confronted in a similar situation, I would have used my superior intellect to demand to know why the homeowner was actually in my home, and then asking them to leave. I would even nonchalantly pour myself a drink as I was doing all of this, getting into the homeowner's head.

Then, I would spend several years in jail. But it would be funny as hell.

(For me. Not for the terrified homeowner. But my amusement is what counts.)

Ah, wedded bliss

When people say that "the honeymoon is over," they're not usually referring to the first few hours after the wedding:

A marriage got off to a rocky start...

I'm gonna stop right there and say that the previous sentence fragment is likely the understatement of the month:

...after the 21-year-old groom from northern Idaho was arrested twice on his wedding night and charged with assaulting his new wife in nearby eastern Washington. Court records show Nathan Lewis of Lewiston, Idaho, was charged Tuesday in Asotin County Superior Court with second-degree assault and interfering with a report of domestic violence.

Oh, and it gets better. Well, not exactly better. Well, actually, much worse:

Police say that after Lewis was released on bail, he assaulted his new wife at a home in nearby Clarkston, Wash. The bride told authorities she was slapped and choked during the altercation, the Lewiston Tribune reports.

A discount coupon for a divorce lawyer isn't a traditional wedding gift, but I think it would actually be appropriate here.

Horrifying news sentence of the day

Um, what the hell is going on here?

Nearby, a man reached inside his skimpy nun's outfit and shortly afterward emitted a sigh of relief.

Trust me, foax, in context, it really ain't that much better.

What is art?

I may not be a tenured expert or anything, but I think I'm safe in assuming that this isn't it.

Since it's Friday night...

...and I can't be bothered to find anything funny to link to and you'd rather see a sexy woman anyway, here's a picture of Jessica Biel:

I'll take one of those, on the rocks.

Thisis where I'd normally make a joke...

...but but this really sucks...

An East Tennessee grandfather has been charged with endangerment after police said they stopped him while he was driving, drinking and holding his grandson in his arms. WRCB in Chattanooga reported the man was stopped because his van had a broken tail light. The station says surveillance video then shows the driver exit the van holding a 2-year-old.

Well, at least he didn't leave his grandson behind the driver's seat.

Hugs, not drugs

I don't know a lot about drug-sniffing dogs, but I'm pretty sure they're not fooled by flowers...

A week before Valentine's Day, a consignment of cocaine was found hidden among 20,000 roses from Latin America at Amsterdam airport, Dutch authorities said Wednesday.

The roses, a popular February 14 Valentine's Day gift, arrived last Sunday on a flight from Bogota, Colombia, which stopped over in Puerto Rico, the public prosecutors' office said in a statement. The drug was found in cellophane packets hidden in boxes containing the roses.

The stuff came from Bogota, Colombia? Really? The hell, you say!

(Actually, I didn't know they grew roses there. Who knew?)

Flush

There's apparently some hanky-panky going on in the bathrooms of my Alma Maater:

If you see strangers in the building, give us a call. If you see people walking around with bags that look like they may be carrying tools or parts, give us a call. We're hoping to pick up some sightings of suspicious people in the area.

All I can say is that I'm glad I'm not an East Bay plumber.

Declined

This guy made a couple of big mistakes. Well, I'm actually sure that he's made quite a few mistakes over the course of his life, but he made a couple of big ones recently.

*hint* Nobody takes Diner's Club anymore.

Since it's Friday night...

...and I'm too damn lazy to do anything but a Google Images search, here's a picture of Sarah Michelle Gellar:

You really slay me, Sarah! (Get it? Huh? Shut up.)

Garfunkel never has this problem

You know, because, well, I don't really have to spell it out, do I?

New York police said they arrested a man who allegedly tried to withdraw money from Paul Simon's bank account
by impersonating the musician.

Police sources said Rafael Ramos, 54, attempted to withdraw $4,300 from Simon's account at a Citibank branch Wednesday using the recording artist's name, bank account number and Social Security number, the New York Post reported Thursday.

However, the bank teller was familiar with Simon's work and recognized that the 6-foot-1 Ramos was 10 inches taller and years younger than Simon.

Um, I don't know much about identity theft, but I'm pretty sure that when you're trying to steal money from a famous person who you look nothing whatsoever like, you probably want to do it over the phone or online, not in person.

An F for effort

If movies and teevee shows have taught me anything (and they've taught me lots of stuff) it's more traditional to bake this kind of stuff into a cake:

On Monday, jail officers found tobacco and a baggie full of oxycodone pills inside a melon that was destined for use as food for jail inmates.

It wasn’t hard to spot.

“It was like a pumpkin, with a noticeable cut around the top,” said Phil Stanley, jail administrator. “Somebody would have had to be a little bit more sneaky than they were.”

Only "a little bit more sneaky" than that? In that case, just wait until Halloween.

I didn't know birds had a sweet tooth beak

From the unusual sentences department:

A 19-year-old Scottish man who admitted to threatening his grandmother's parrot for interrupting his sleep was ordered to apologize with chocolates.

Far be it from me to second guess the court, but I think a bag of sunflower seeds would be more appropriate.

Oh, wait...