Since it's Friday night...

...and I'm nearly ready to head out to the local watering hole, how's about I post a picture of BSG's Grace Park from two angles?

Double your pleasure! (Gum not included, but you can click for bigger.)

Jim Morrison was right

"Keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel," indeed:

Police say a Buffalo-area tow truck driver was juggling two cell phones — texting on one and talking on another — when he slammed into a car and crashed into a swimming pool. Niagara County sheriff's deputies say 25-year-old Nicholas Sparks of Burt admitted he was texting and talking when his flatbed truck hit the car Wednesday morning in Lockport.

The truck then crashed through a fence and sideswiped a house before rolling front-end first into an in-ground pool.

He may as well have had a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. He injured a 68-year-old woman and her 8-year-old niece in the crash. Hopefully, he'll be stripped of his driver's license, though I'm not confident of that, seeing as how often actual drunk drivers get back out on the road.

What East Coast bias?

ESPNews started the top of the hour by noting that the Dodgers (who lost in fifteen innings to the Cardinals) and the Yankees (who beat the Rays) were tied for the best record in Major League Baseball. They then put up a graphic which showed that the Angels were just behind both teams, and, after that, showed highlights from...the Red Sox beating the pathetic Oakland A's.

Fuck you, ESPN.

Update: They mentioned the players the fucking Pirates traded away today before mentioning that the Halos got their sixtieth win at fourteen minutes in. We need a West Coast version of this network. One which reports on teams outside of the Bristol, Connecticut area.

Navigation FAIL

It's not like I'm all that great with directions or anything, but I'd like to think I could do better than this:

Two Swedes expecting the golden beaches of the Italian island of Capri got a shock when tourist officials told them they were 650 km (400 miles) off course in the northern town of Carpi, after mistyping the name in their GPS.

"It's hard to understand how they managed it. I mean, Capri is an island," said Giovanni Medici, a spokesman for Carpi regional government, told Reuters Tuesday. "It's the first time something like this has happened."

The middle-aged couple, who were not identified, only discovered their error when they asked staff in the local tourist office Saturday how to drive to the island's famous "Blue Grotto."

That's right. Not only were they 400 miles or so away from where they were supposed to be, not only did they fail to realize that they'd made a spelling mistake on their GPS device that sent them to the wrong place once they got there, they also failed to realize that they were on the mainland, and not on an island.

I've taken a wrong turn or two in my day, but that's fucking ridiculous. Stupid Scandis.

You try to be nice...

And look where it gets you:

Madison police said a panhandler accepted $1 from a good Samaritan, then grabbed the rest of the donor's cash and punched him in the face. Police said the panhandler approached a 50-year-old man Monday evening and asked for 40 cents. Authorities said the man pulled out $14 and handed $1 to the man. The man allegedly grabbed the entire wad of cash and walked away.

The donor followed him and demanded his money back. Police said the panhandler responded by punching him.

This is why, number one, you don't give money to panhandlers. Number two, you don't show them all of the money you've got, even if you're giving them sixty whole cents more than they're asking for.

Besides, you know they'll just invest it in risky mortgage derivatives. Oh, wait...that's Congress.

Criminal Masterminds tripped up by getting trashed, apparently

I've never stolen a bunch of liquor, but I'm pretty sure this is the wrong way to do it:

After stealing about $1,154 in liquor, two burglars decided to celebrate and got so drunk they fell asleep instead of escaping, police in Swansea, Wales, said.

Burglars Keith Cullen and Paul Wiggins stacked up the stolen booze outside the store and then went in to have a drink. Police found them asleep in the store the next morning, The Sun newspaper reported.

See, you're supposed to plan your liquor heist (or any heist, for that matter) in a way in which you end up in some kind of hideout. That hideout could be your residence or a cabin in the woods or some other place, but it really, really shouldn't be the place you've stolen stuff from.

I'm just saying is all.

Simultaneously the most arousing and disturbing thing ever

Content Warning: The following is NSFW unless your boss happens to be Larry Flynt:



That's actually (and I'm not kidding, here) a commercial for a chain of Canadian convenience stores. Yeah, really.

(h/t)

Since it's Friday night...

...and blah, blah, blah, so here's a picture of Sarah Chalke from Scrubs looking hot:

Going to the hospital was never this much fun! Okay, it's never fun, but you get the idea. (Click for bigger.)

This is where a lesser man would make a joke about plowing

I know we're not supposed to judge other cultures for their traditions, but...actually, in this instance, I'm not gonna criticize them:

Farmers in an eastern Indian state have asked their unmarried daughters to plow parched fields naked in a bid to embarrass the weather gods to bring some badly needed monsoon rain, officials said on Thursday.

Witnesses said the naked girls in Bihar state plowed the fields and chanted ancient hymns after sunset to invoke the gods. They said elderly village women helped the girls drag the plows.

Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and criticize the elderly women helping out thing a little bit, but still...pretty neat.

Bad cop, no Big Mac

I have the utmost respect for police officers and the job that they do, but that job also, unfortunately, attracts some high-strung, power-tripping jerks who think that a badge and a gun give them an excuse to act like assholes. Case in point:

A Denver police officer has been charged with felony menacing for allegedly brandishing his gun at a McDonald's restaurant after getting tired of waiting for his food. Derrick Curtis [Saunders, 29] also [faces] charges of prohibited use of a weapon, reckless endangerment and disorderly conduct.

An employee at the Aurora restaurant told investigators that two Denver police officers were waiting for their food at the drive-through window May 21 when one grew impatient and pulled his gun.

He's been suspended from his law enforcement duties, the article goes on to say. That's all well and good, but why isn't he in jail for pulling a gun on innocent people?

Now, she belongs to the ages

Gidget (not the surfer chick), an advertising icon, has passed away:

Her bug eyes and sweet face captured the hearts of millions of fast food enthusisats [sic].

But more than 10 years after her face first graced a "Yo Quiero Taco Bell" ad, marketing's top chihuahua has died at 15 from a stroke.

Since these things tend to happen in threes, and Billy Mays just died, the ShamWow guy had better watch his ass.

"Disgusting" would be more appropriate

I don't think "special" is the word you're looking for:

"I'm out for bragging rights," she said of entering the online contest. "It must mean I'm really special."

I'll leave it to you to click on the link to find out what kind of contest she entered.

Puzzling headline of the day

From Reuters: And WHY did they let him out?

Um, maybe because otherwise he would have died?

German police had to rescue a 20-year-old man from a train station suitcase locker after he shut himself in for fun and began to suffocate.

Yeah, sure, the guy sounds like a drunken idiot, and I don't know a lot about German law enforcement, but I'd guess that they're probably obligated to save the lives of innocent (if stupid) civilians when they get a call like that.

Since it's Friday night...

...and I really can't be bothered to come up with anything "funny," how about a picture of Charisma Carpenter looking hot as hell?

Oooooh...shiny.

Headline of the day

Hunt called off for drug lord's hippo:

Colombia has called off the hunt to kill a drug lord's escaped hippo and will instead try to relocate the beast after its mate was shot dead by order of the government, sparking outrage from animal rights groups.

The late Pablo Escobar apparently made enough money by exporting blow to musicians, New York City yuppie douches, and Robin Williams back in the eighties that he could afford his own zoo, from which two hippos escaped back in 2006. They've been living in the wild ever since. Well, except for the one who recently got gunned down. He's not really living anywhere anymore.

Worth a read

There's a good interview with one of my favorite writers, P.J. O'Rourke, here. An excerpt:

Most of the people who have grabbed hold of climate change and greenhouse gases, pollution, oil dependency—they have another motive, and their motive is to attain the appearance of virtue without having actually done anything virtuous. Or if they’re in politics, the whole point of politics is to achieve prestige and power without merit. These are just nice opinions to have. They’re utterly meaningless. It’s just a way for people to be pious jerks. This going on and on about how terrible a carbon-based economy is, these people are full of crap. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Their motives are not necessarily good just because they say they are being good. It’s peace, love, and understanding. To which I can just say, “Shut up.” Human liberty, rule of law, and free markets fix this stuff.

Read the whole thing. His last line about his motto is priceless.

(Via the Headlines at Moron HQ.)

Holy smokes!

You would think a bank might have some kind of software that would catch an error of this magnitude:

Josh Muszynski of Manchester said he was expecting to see a couple hundred dollars in his account, but instead he was faced with a negative balance far exceeding the national debt -- $23,148,855,308,184,500, WMUR-TV, Manchester, N.H., reported Wednesday.

"If it were to be true that someone actually compromised that money and got that money, they could do some severe damage with that amount of money," he said.

Muszynski said the amount appeared as a charge for a cigarette purchase at a Mobil gas station.

And I thought cigarette taxes were too high here in California...

Parents of the year

Sure, the smell of the smoke was a giveaway, but you know what else was a sign that these people were high? The fact that they ordered chicken at Arby's:

Police have arrested a couple allegedly caught smoking marijuana while waiting in the drive-through line at an Arby's restaurant with their 1-year-old in the back seat. A restaurant employee noticed the aroma late Friday and called 911, then had the couple wait for their order of chicken as police sped to the scene.

Officer Brian Silcox said he smelled marijuana while approaching the car. He said both a 27-year-old man and 25-year-old woman told officers Chatman had been smoking a cigar.

Police also said a loaded handgun was found in the car.

Thankfully, the child was distracted from the gun and the weed by several playthings, which included several broken whiskey bottles, a couple of rusty knives, and a few empty dry cleaning bags.

Rubbed the wrong way

I know that we're not supposed to judge other cultures and their peculiarities, but this is just stupid:

A family in Saudi Arabia has filed a lawsuit alleging theft and harassment on the part of a malevolent genie.

Officials with the Islamic Shariah court said the family alleges a genie has been leaving them threatening voice mail messages, stealing their cell phones and throwing rocks at them outside their home, CNN reported Monday.

"We have to verify the truthfulness of this case despite the difficulty of doing so," court head Sheik Amr al-Salmi, told the al-Watan newspaper. "What makes this case and complaint more interesting is that it wasn't filed by just one person. Every member of the family is part of this case."

Um, there's actually no difficulty here because genies (malevolent or not) don't exist. And every member of the family is either crazy or a liar.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the woods to hunt for Bigfoot.

Since it's Friday night...

...and I can't be bothered to look for any funny news stories, here's a picture of Gillian Anderson, looking like a sexy Victorian strumpet:

Scully!!! Daaaaaamn!!!

Chop it down

So, some town in Poland discovered that an oak tree planted there has a connection to one of the darkest chapters in the history of the world. A connection to the man who invaded their country and killed thousands of people. You'd think that everyone there would be happy to see that tree cut down, right? Not so much...

Not everybody in this town of 38,000 shared Kurowska's view that the tree must go.

"It was 1942 when the Germans brought a seedling of an oak here and planted it in the center of the town with all honors, an army orchestra and salutes," said Kazimierz Polak, who was present at the planting ceremony as a child 67 years ago.

"My father told me then that it was Hitler's birthday and we found out later the seedling had come from Braunau am Inn (in Austria) where Hitler was born," Polak said.

"It's a historic curiosity. What is the oak really guilty of? It's not the tree's fault that it was planted here to honor the biggest criminal and enemy of Poland."

Um, the oak isn't really "guilty" of anything, but keeping something that was meant to be a monument to "the biggest criminal and enemy" of your country isn't exactly what I'd consider patriotism.

And the whole thing about being there for the ceremony with the "army orchestra and salutes" is, um...yeah. Huh.

Underdressed for the occasion

Have you ever watched old black and white footage from the first half of the 20th century, where men wear a suit with a crisp white shirt and a tie and women wear nice dresses everywhere? Well, standards sure have slipped since then:

Investigators said Christopher Hoff, 41, arrived at Optimus Dental in Stratford completely naked and fled the building once the female receptionist began screaming, The Connecticut Post reported Wednesday.

Officers arrived on the scene and people on the street pointed them in the direction of the "naked guy," police said.

Police said they tracked Hoff to his home, where he answered to door and claimed to have been sleeping all day. However, they said the receptionist at the dentist's office identified him as the naked man.

"She recognized him immediately -- his eyes are very blue and he has a good tan," the police report of the incident states, the Post reported.

Um, I'm pretty sure there are at least a couple of other ways in which she could have identified him, though I guess she was probably happy to recognize him by his eyes and his tan.

Bottomless stupidity

Pantsless, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through Delaware:

A spokesman for Maryland's Cecil County Sheriff's Office says 41-year-old Jonathan Schultz "was driving commando" and only partially covered with a towel on his lap, though he was wearing a shirt.

Lt. Bernard Chiominto says Schultz was stopped Saturday near Rising Sun for going 69 mph in a 50-mph zone.

Chiominto says the deputy smelled alcohol and noticed Schultz's semi-exposed situation. The Newark, Del., man told the deputy he'd lost his pants, and the deputy didn't find any in the car.

Well, that stands to reason. After all, he said he lost his pants and he was in the car. Isn't that the first place where he would have looked for them?

(Okay, that was pretty weak, but I don't get paid to write these jokes.)

About a dozen kinds of creepy

Um, I think you'll forgive me if I can't summon any comment pithier than ewwwwwwwwww:

A New Zealand Internet auction site said it has pulled two postings by a teenager who sought to sell nude pictures of his mother.

The 18-year-old Auckland student, identified only as Michael, said he put up his first offering on the Trade Me Web site, promising "five naked photos of my mum," after his mother told him to clear out the family garage and sell any unwanted items, The Daily Telegraph reported Monday.

Michael said he attempted to sell a series of "glamor" shots of his mother, including a picture of her wearing only underwear, on the Web site after it deleted his first auction.

The student said the first auction was "a bit of a joke."

"I did it a bit sneakily but she found out. At first she was was pretty shocked, but then she went along with it. I just wanted a bit of extra cash, we're not rich or anything," he said.

Yeah, I'm not "rich or anything" either, but if I [shudder] happened to find nude pictures of my mom, I don't think my first inclination would be to sell them to strangers. That said, if I did do something that skeevy and my mom found out about it, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't go along with it, preferring instead to kick my ass all over the place. In fact, I'm fairly certain that had I done something that fucking wrong, I would not be typing this, seeing as how I'd be quite dead and buried somewhere out in the Mojave Desert.

Happy Independence Day!

Since it's Friday night...

...and I don't really feel like looking for a wire story about people being idiots, here's a picture of Kristen Bell in sexy lingerie:

Though she never dressed like this on the show, I still miss "Veronica Mars."

"All she could say was that it was a horrible mix up"

I don't know about that. Sounds like an incredibly sexy mix up to me:

A class of fifth graders in California got a shocking crash course on the birds and the bees courtesy of their teacher and an x-rated home video she accidently included in a DVD of classroom memories.

The error was not caught until after the DVDs were distributed to the students and their families. Parents tell CBS 13 Sacramento that the woman is a good teacher that made an honest but embarrassing mistake.

According to the station, the offending DVD starts with a menu screen that displays various school trips and functions. Click on one of them and “you see kids in a classroom sharing stories. They then start clapping and the video suddenly cuts to sex.”

Um, I understand that mistakes sometimes happen, but who has clips of their sex tape anywhere near a video they're making for a bunch of elementary school kids?

Der

This is just so stupid that I don't even feel the need to make a joke:

Police said June 22 security camera footage from the Greenbrier Mall store in Chesapeake recorded a man with a T-shirt over his head stealing nine iPods and two jugs of Heroes at Home donations for needy military families at about 9:45 p.m. while recording himself committing the crime on his cell phone, The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot reported Wednesday.

Nathaniel Forester, 20, was arrested and charged with grand larceny and entering a building to commit a felony. He allegedly sent the video of himself committing the crime to his ex-girlfriend after giving her one of the iPods as a gift.

Okay, let's break this down:

1. Stealing a bunch of stuff is not a good idea.

2. Creating video evidence of yourself doing the above is a much worse idea.

3. Sending said video to someone is even more idiotic.

4. Sending said video to YOUR EX...Just...just...seriously? I mean...really?

5. Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass GO. FAIL spectacularly.