2007 archive

A young Argentinian footie fan who decided to celebrate his love for Boca Juniors by having the team’s logo tattooed on his back paid the price for not adequately researching the body artist’s own allegiances.

The tattooist was, unknown to the unnamed teen, a follower of rival club River Plate, and accordingly substituted a penis for the Boca Juniors’ crest.

Maybe he can sue for breach of contract.

Then there was the guy whose dry cleaning was late. He sued for contract of breeches.

Whoops!

Fans settling down to enjoy a Doctor Who US rental DVD were treated to scenes from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, UK tabloid The Sun reports.

According to the paper, “a manufacturing blunder led to footage of a maniac hacking off limbs appearing midway through an episode seen by hundreds of families”. The Doctor Who episode in question was New Earth – the first installment of series two – dispatched by Netflix postal DVD rental service.

Not just in Australia. Misbehavior at Michaels nets 30 days for a clumsy mope:

According to court records, the woman was in Michael’s Arts & Crafts, where Allen repeatedly bumped into her, especially every time she “went to bend down or reach up.” After she saw his cell phone, she suspected he was taking photos up her dress. She subsequently recorded his license-plate number and called police.

For some reason, even though the company in question is actually a fairly decent outfit, I can’t get worked up over this headline.

Mild winter cuts salt use, hurts Phila. company

Especially today, when it’s 12 bleepin’ degrees Fahrenheit out there.

I am not a big fan of home schooling.

But this is not right:

How do you spell extracurricular?

Answering that question probably wouldn’t be difficult for Meghan Reynolds, a 12-year-old home-schooled student from southern Chester County, a winner in last year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee contest at her local school.

But figuring out whether Meghan can compete this year – under a new state law that gives home-schooled students the right to participate in public-school extracurricular activities – isn’t so easy.

The Avon Grove district says no; in its judgment, the first round of the bee is a classroom activity, not an extracurricular one, and therefore is not covered by the law.

Addendum, 1/26/2007:

The School Board stepped in and let her compete.

Or so said Frank Zappa.

Apparently not to this guy:

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

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

Phillybits has found this great video tracking an internet email worm as it spreads.

There is an old story that Greta Garbo once had a nightmare that she was sprinkling grass seed on her head and awoke, screaming, “I vant to be a lawn.”

Lawns are pretty much a creation of the fertilizer industry.

To sell fertilizer.

From today’s local rag:

There is a man in my neighborhood who mows twice a week during the season, no matter what the conditions.

He then clips and snips his shrubs, edges his sidewalk, whacks those errant blades that grow at the base of his chain-link fence, poisons the weeds and fertilizes and limes.

The result of all this care is a lawn with large areas of dead grass bordered by a few no-longer-evergreen shrubs and one scraggly rose bush that lives only because he ignores it.

The fascinating aspect of this situation is that he continues with his ministrations week after week seemingly oblivious to cause and effect.

In the Bushes.

Richard Cohen:

From the get-go, the Bush administration has taken the position that anyone it detained on terrorism charges was guilty. Throw away the key. No need for lawyers. No need for judges. No need for anything except, of course, the word of the authorities. In recent months, a more assertive Congress and the courts have unaccountably challenged this view, and the Bush administration has beaten a tactical retreat on unchecked eavesdropping and the legality of trying alleged terrorists before military commissions. Still, we all know where its heart is on these matters. Justice is what the administration says it is.

Mindset of tyranny.

One of the nice things about visiting my mother in the home is that, throughout most of the drive, I have interesting radio listening. When I lose the signal of the Best Public Radio Station in the USA, I come under the signal of the Salisbury (Maryland) University station. And, when I leave that, I get the UMES station.

So I was able to catch this fascinating episode of Talk of the Nation on my drive today: Former Senators Alan Simpson (R-Wy.) and George Mitchell (D-Me.) talking about getting the job done.

Wham! Pop! Bash!

is deplorable, because the captain of the ship can’t read a compass or a chart.

He just makes up his charts as he goes along.

So I shall read about the speech in the papers, while expecting nothing from it.

The Current Federal Administrator has a track record of thinking that, when things ain’t working, the thing to do is make a jolly speech to rally support, while not changing the things what ain’t working.

It’s kind of like changing the sign on the outhouse.

It’s still an outhouse.

Newsflash: When things ain’t working, doing the same things harder don’t change nuttin’.

Oh, my.

Listen.

Here.

Only in New Jersey:

In a state known for its small municipalities, the smallest of the small are two Camden County boroughs that don’t have enough residents between them to fill a school bus.

Tavistock (population eight) and Pine Valley (population 19) are historic relics, golf clubs posing as towns. Each has a mayor and borough commissioners, a clerk, solicitor, tax assessor, tax collector and school district, though neither has any schools. Pine Valley even has a police force of seven.

New Jersey, home of the nation’s highest property taxes, is contemplating consolidating some of its 566 municipalities, 616 school districts and 486 local authorities to try to save money. Gov. Corzine has urged voluntary mergers and service-sharing, while some legislators are calling for mandatory consolidations.

Researchers investigate the waistline. Girth may clear up hysterical historical mystery:

Then there was the question of Napoleon’s obesity. Genta’s team looked at historical records and did extensive legwork. Swiss physician Alessandro Lugli and his wife, also a physician, visited museums around Europe, examining different pants that Napoleon had worn.

The pants investigation showed that the emperor had lost some of his girth over the years, Genta said.

All in all, the team determined that in the six months before his death, Napoleon’s weight had dropped by as much as 33 pounds. Significant weight loss is common with stomach cancer.

In all likelihood, Napoleon had a Helicobacter pylori infection, a bacterial infection in the stomach that can lead to gastric cancer, Genta said.

His team’s analysis of the autopsy report also showed an absence of medical signs that are consistent with arsenic poisoning, including lack of hemorrhage in the heart.