Exchange rate blues

In today's volatile economy, the dollar may be down in the UK, but a $250,000,000,000 tip is pretty awesome, right? Well, maybe not so much.

Proving a point

Nothing says a guy is mistaken about your lack of courtesy like giving him a sound beating:

An alleged lack of manners at a Sandwich Road gas station led a local man to beat another man with a golf club, the police said.

Police officers were called to the Hess gas station at the corner of Sandwich Road and Route 151 at 6:45 a.m. Monday following an altercation between two customers. The incident began with one man not saying "thank you" to another man as he held the door open for him, police said.

When he was exiting the gas station, police said, a 50-year-old East Falmouth man held the door open for Carlos Navarro, 38, of Falmouth. When Navarro allegedly failed to thank the man for opening the door, the 50-year-old man allegedly uttered a sarcastic "thank you" to Navarro, police said.

Navarro told police he believed he had been disparaged, which led to a heated argument. Navarro then went to his car and retrieved a golf club — a wood not an iron — and struck the alleged victim several times in the stomach and legs, police said.

Ah, there you go. His club selection was polite. Had he used an iron, well, that would have been horribly rude. I'm sure Miss Manners and Emily Post would approve.

Times have changed

When someone says "country store" I think of things like old cigar store Indians, sacks of grain, and soda in glass bottles. I don't tend to think of, well, this stuff:

A popular Vermont chain store has sparked controversy among customers for stocking adult sex products on its shelves.

The Vermont Country Store, a statewide chain that has been serving the region for more than 60 years, recently added vibrators, sex creams and "instructional" sex videos to its stock, causing anger among some customers who see the products as inappropriate, WPTZ-TV, Plattsburgh, N.Y., reported Tuesday.

I can't say I blame them. I mean, it's not like I'm a prude or anything, but a it just seems wrong to have a "Dildos 'n' Porn" section in a country store.

Bible bondage

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that this guy isn't quite right in the head:

Police in Toledo, Ohio have charged a man who they say held a woman captive for three days and read Bible passages to her.

Police say 34-year-old Troy Brisport picked up the woman in Detroit and drove her to his home in Toledo.

The woman told police she feel asleep at the apartment and that's when Brisport handcuffed her wrists and ankles and put a gag in her mouth. Then, she said he undressed her and put an adult diaper on her.

Now, I don't claim to know a whole lot about women, but I'm pretty sure 99.9% of them do not enjoy that sort of thing. Seeing as how he's now in jail, I guess the woman in question didn't fall into the other 0.1%.

Smitten

Now, I'm not by any means a religious man, but I'm pretty sure this might be a bad omen:

No sooner had the bus -- carrying the message "The Good News Is There Are Millions of Atheists In Italy; The Excellent News Is They Believe In Freedom Of Expression" -- headed out onto the streets of Genoa than it developed a battery problem and had to head back to the depot for repairs, ANSA reported.

''By pure chance,'' a member of the Italian Union of Atheists, Agnostics and Rationalists told the Italian news agency, ''the vehicle left the depot bright and early but had to go straight back because of a 'curious' problem with the batteries."

I'm pretty sure now is he time to quit when you're ahead. You know, before the blood, plagues, and/or locusts get involved.

No thanks, I'm not thirsty

It looks like a Hindu group in India is working on developing the world's worst beverage:

An official with India's oldest and largest Hindu nationalist movement said a new soft drink made from cow urine could hit store shelves by the end of the year.

Om Prakash, head of the Cow Protection Department of the Hindu nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, said "gau jal," or "cow water," is in the final stages of laboratory testing and would be made available to the public "very soon, maybe by the end of this year," The Times of London reported.

"Don't worry, it won't smell like urine and will be tasty too," Prakash said from his headquarters in Hardwar.

He said the unique selling point of the drink "will be that it's going to be very healthy. It won't be like carbonated drinks and would be devoid of any toxins."

Yeah, uhh, that's all well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that the stuff is going to be made out of COW PISS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

Naked as the day he was born to be wild

I don't know a whole lot about riding motorcycles, but I'm pretty sure this is a pretty big safety violation:

Christopher A. Clark, 35, of Searcy has been cited for no vehicle license, indecent exposure and fleeing after the Jan. 26 incident. Arkansas State Police officials were involved, but are not releasing reports on the incident, saying it is the subject of an ongoing investigation.

Jerry Cruise of Searcy witnessed the chase, according to the report.

“I was stopped at the intersection of Main Street and Highway 267 when they came by,” Cruise said. “He was naked as a jaybird and it was kind of sleeting.”

I have several friends who ride motorcycles, and I'm told that the feeling of the open air whipping past you while you ride is part of the thrill of the experience, but I don't think this guy was exactly doing it right.

Multiple choice

Huh. And here I would have guessed the right answer was FOR GOD'S SAKE CALL A FRIGGIN' AMBULANCE:

If someone's intestines are protruding from an open abdominal wound, should you: A. Put them back in place; B. Do nothing; or, C. Cover them with some kind of container and fasten it around the body?

The above is not from a first-year medical school exam, but is one of the 100 questions that locals and foreigners alike could find on China's written driver's licence exam. (The answer, by the way, is C.)

You know, if that's a situation that's common enough on Chinese roads that it's required knowledge to get a driver's license, well, I think I'll just avoid China altogether.

Naked guns

Is it just me, or does this sound like the worst party evar?

Swedish police said nine officers have been reassigned to desk duty during an investigation into a party that involved taking nude photos of the officers.

Police officials in Gothenburg said the nine officers, all of whom were male, were celebrating at a cabin near Gothenburg after completing supplemental training to serve in special tactical units, Swedish news agency TT reported Monday.

"These are officers with several years of experience. They are between 30 and 40-years-old," said Erik Nord, commander of field duty police officers in Gothenburg.

Nord said a game played at the party involved taking pictures of the officers' nude bodies while holding police-issued sub-machine guns. A male stripper was also in attendance at the party, Nord said.

Nine dudes and a male stripper in a cabin, taking naked pictures of each other? Not exactly my idea of a good time. NTTAWWT.

Nature au naturel

Ah, what could be more invigorating than a hike trough the mountains of Switzerland? Beautiful scenery, outdoor exercise, the fresh mountain air on your junk...

Naked mountain hikers in the Swiss canton of Appenzell-Innerrhoden will in future face on the spot fines of 200 Swiss francs ($170), Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger reported over the weekend.

A wave of naked hiking -- particularly popular with German visitors -- outraged people last year in the traditionally minded canton, Switzerland's smallest by population, which gave women the vote only in 1990.

I don't much care about when they gave women the right to vote, an invasion of naked Krauts is a serious problem.

25,000 Morons can't be wrong

Okay, that's obviously not true. But I got my 25,000th hit this weekend, so I wanted thank everyone who's stopped by or linked to me over the past few years. I hope you've enjoyed reading my half-assed jokes almost as much as I've enjoyed half-assing them.

Oh, and a special shout out to mystery guest number 25,000 from Hot Springs Village, Arkansas! Thanks for stopping by.

Modern convenience

Getting dumped always sucks, but this has really got to suck pretty hard:

A British woman said she didn't know her husband was planning to divorce her until he posted his intentions on the Facebook social networking Web site.

Emma Brady, 35, said she had no idea about the intentions of her husband of six years until a friend logged into Facebook and saw the message, "Neil Brady has ended his marriage to Emma Brady," The Mirror reported Friday.

"We were like any other couple. We had our ups and downs but as far as I knew things were fine between us," Emma Brady said.

Well, it looks like you were wrong about that. Really wrong. Like, "The sun rises every day in the west" wrong.

(Sorry to rub it in, but you have to admit that she was pretty damn wrong.)

One-man crime spree

Something tells me that this guy's car insurance rates are going to be going up ever so slightly in the near future...

Authorities say a Martin County man already has a lengthy criminal record but that didn't stop him from racking up 50 traffic citations; all in a single day.

46-year-old Elvis Alonzo Barrett allegedly fled from police who were trying to stop him for a traffic violation Thursday morning. Police say he ran through red lights, crashed into another car and a fence.

Police also say they found crack cocaine and a crack pipe in his car.

That might just have had something to do with the rest of his problems.

Anyway, I know that the cops claim that they don't have quotas for writing traffic tickets, but this had to be the lead officer's lucky day. Assuming no innocent people were injured, that is.

Futility, thy name is Cha

If at first you don't succeed, try, try, and try nearly eight hundred times again:

A South Korean woman who has failed her driver's exam 771 times said she has signed up for another attempt in the hope that number 772 will be the charm.

Choi Young-cheol of the Driver's License Agency in Jeonju, South Korea, said the 68-year-old woman, who was identified only as Cha, began taking the written driver's test in April 2005 and re-attempted the exam on a daily basis until eventually slowing to one test attempt per week, CNN reported Thursday.

If you expect me to make a joke here about older Asian women being terrible drivers, shame on you. Besides, it's pretty late, and I can't think of anything funny to say.

Strange love

Lots of people have messed-up relationships, but I'm pretty sure you'll agree that this one takes the cake:

John Alfred Sharkey, 44, of Toms River, N.J., was held in the Olmsted County jail Wednesday in lieu of $125,000 bail. He was charged last summer, but didn't appear in court until last month after he was arrested on a warrant.

Sharkey, who calls himself the "The Impaler," ran as the Vampyres, Witches and Pagans party candidate for Minnesota governor in 2006, when he listed Princeton, Minn., as his address.

The criminal complaint says he was running for president in 2007 when the 16-year-old Rochester girl wrote a message of support on his MySpace page. She told police they began dating online, and the threats began when she tried to break off the relationship.

She told police that "in a desperate attempt" to get him to leave her alone, she had e-mailed him that she was a member of an elite vampire hunter society and that continuing their relationship would put him in danger. Her father told police he talked to Sharkey, but Sharkey continued to call the girl and write letters to her parents.

He was charged with felony harassment and two misdemeanors: coercion with a threat to inflict bodily harm and coercion with a threat to expose a secret or disgrace.

I'm gonna go ahead and guess the disgrace that he was threatening to expose was that she had dated him.

Man, are they strict

As the saying goes, if you do the crime, you've got to do the time, but this is pretty damn ridiculous:

An Indian court sentenced a 75-year-old doctor to jail for accepting half a dollar as a bribe nearly a quarter of a century ago, officials said Wednesday.

India's federal police caught Balgovind Prasad accepting 25 rupees (51 cents) from a sweeper in 1985 for issuing a fake medical certificate, police said.

The case dragged on for years and Prasad was convicted in 1992 and given a one-year jail term. He was freed as he appealed the sentence.

Tuesday, a higher court in India's eastern state of Bihar state reduced the one-year term to three months, saying the bribe amount was too small, but directed the police to take Prasad into custody as he was guilty of the crime.

I wonder, with all the time and lawyers and judges involved in this case since 1985, how many thousands of dollars has this cost?

That's not a good place to sleep it off

As you all know, I've been known to go out and have a few drinks. And, yes, sometimes I have a few too many. But I don't think I've ever gotten quite this trashed:

Fire officials said the man, who has not been charged with a crime, does not live in the building and told rescuers that he had been drinking with his brother the previous evening and could not remember how he ended up lodged inside the chimney.

That must have been one hell of a night. And one hell of a hangover.

Street smarts

Meet Alejandro Melendez of Cleveland. Something tells me that Alejandro won't be winning any Nobel Prizes in the near future:

Police said Melendez called 911 late Saturday and reported that two men with guns were watching him.

Police records show he hung up, so the dispatcher called back.

Melendez answered and asked the dispatcher to hold on, but the dispatcher could still hear what was being said.

A voice can be heard on the recording of the call saying: "What you need? A 10-pack? You need a 10-pack? All right." Police say "10-pack" is slang for a bundle of heroin.

The dispatcher called police, who found Melendez at the location he gave, had the dispatcher call his cell phone again, and said they found cocaine in his trousers.

And they found absolutely nothing whatsoever in his skull.

Local color

I know that in this day and age we're taught not to judge other cultures' rituals and customs, but I've got to say that liquor and big, angry animals don't seem like a good mix:

"The bulls are angry when they arrive, obviously, so they go at it with full force," said Cristobal Salamanca who studies local traditions.

Men on horseback rope the animals and steer them near raucous crowds clad in bright red T-shirts, many chugging beer under the hot sun.

The dangers increase after hours of drinking sweet creamy cocktails called "toritos" ("little bulls") made with local moonshine, sugar, milk and fruit or peanut flavoring.

On one narrow street, four men drove an angry bull toward bystanders who fell over in panic. A teenage girl was butted and suffered a dislocated jaw.

Well, I'm sure she had fun in a culturally authentic setting, and that's the important part, right?

Flush with cash

There's gold in them thar...pipes?

A sewage treatment facility in Nagano prefecture, north-west of Tokyo, has reported a yield of gold extracted from sludge to rival production levels at some of the best mines in the world.

Tens of thousands of pounds worth of gold has been found at the Suwa treatment facility in the past year, with more than 1,890 grammes of gold per tonne of ash recorded from incinerated sludge.

The gold yield significantly surpasses levels at Japan's Hishikari Mine, one of the world's leading gold mines, where 20 to 40 grammes of the precious metal are found per tonne of ore.

The unexpected presence of soaring levels of gold in sewage has been attributed to the high concentration of precision equipment manufacturers using the precious metal in the Nagano region.

Oh, I guess that makes much more sense than my original theory, which involved gold-plated sushi and record levels of Goldschläger consumption.