C’est Rire category archive

iMugger iTracked during software demonstration:

Khan handed his personal iPhone, equipped with the Covia software, to an intern and asked her to walk around the block. Back at the office, the group tracked her progress on a laptop.

“We kind of noticed while that was happening, boy, she was really starting to move pretty fast and she wasn’t heading back toward the place,” he said. “Moments later she comes bursting into the office and said she’d just been mugged.”

The mope was apprehended and handcuffs were applied.

No vodka is worth this. It’s made from potato peels, for heaven’s sake. Charging more than $5.00 for a bottle represents the evils of marketing.

Scotch whisky, maybe worth it, but only a single malt.

Add all the fancy flavorings you want, it is rubbing alcohol with a degree from a diploma mill.

The only use for vodka is 8 parts to 1 part dry vermouth rocks olives with a dash juice from the olive jar for flavor, because gin tastes like turpentine.

This has been a day for them.

A Monterey County woman who allegedly littered while driving in Santa Cruz led police on a cross-county pursuit before she crashed into a traffic signal in Watsonville and was apprehended Tuesday night, the California Highway Patrol reported.

Bad idea: sexting behind the wheel.

Cats and dogs.

They appear to be going right from paper to over-priced Apple products.

Remember, “Apple” and “over-priced” mean the same thing.

Details at Geekazine, because I’m too lazy to write the same post twice.

No more secrets:

. . . these days Facebook provides an increasing amount of courtroom ammunition in divorce proceedings. Eighty-one percent of the nation’s top divorce lawyers said more evidence in the last five years came from social-networking sites – MySpace and Twitter included – according to a survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Facebook philandering is so prevalent, it’s central to the plot of a play being staged in Philadelphia next month. Built on a Lie, based on a true story, is about a married man who portrays himself as single in order to stoke multiple relationships on Facebook.

30 days in the pokey, three years probation:

Toll was arrested in April 2009 after police received a call of a domestic dispute at a Boulder apartment building. Inside, they (sic) Boulder police found a shiba inu wrapped in packing tape and bound with hair ties stuck to the side of a refrigerator.

Toll admitted attaching her boyfriend’s dog — then named Rex – to the fridge, saying she did it as a way of getting back at him for paying more attention to the dog than to her, according to police.

Pennsylvania tests bottle vending machines, complete with breath-testing machines, in supermarkets.

Customers seem to think that they are better than the alternative, the alternative being patronizing Pennsylvania’s archaic state store system, which makes the traffic circles in Washington, D. C., look like marvels of forethought:

Individuals can buy wine and liquor for home consumption only in state-owned stores staffed by public employees. Private beer distributors sell cases and kegs only. Licensed corner stores, delis, bars and restaurants can sell beer to go, but only up to two six-packs per customer (and often at bar prices–ed.).

Numerous attempts at reform have been turned back by special interests intent on keeping their slice of the pie. So simply stocking Chianti and cabernet on supermarket shelves is not an option under the state’s post-Prohibition liquor laws.

One cannot blame Pierre L’Enfant for not foreseeing that horses would give way to automobiles. The Penna. state store system has no such excuse.

(Actually, that’s the punchline from a joke about oboe lessons.)

Scientific Blogging explores the mysteries of the vuvuzella:

Full story here.

From the BBC:

In recent years, the huge snakes have secured a foothold in the southeastern US, after having escaped or been released into the wild by pet owners.

But hundreds of the snakes did not survive unusually low temperatures last January, a monitoring study reveals.

Though the pythons remain a threat to biodiversity in Florida, it now appears less likely they will spread further.

Offered without comment, from the local rag:

This brave traveler battled the forces of nature, from the turenchial rains of new England to the wiping winds of tornado alley in Kansas, . . . .

I once asked my vet why my cat did something (she would eat the front half of a mouse and leave me the back half as a present; I wanted know why the front half).

Dr. Epstein looked at me for a long moment and said, “Don’t ask me to explain anything cats do.”

Frankly, I doubt (un)reality television can do better, but they’ll probably make a damn sight more money providing far less of a service than my vet.

Maggots falling from an overhead luggage locker have forced a US Airways flight to return to the gate at Atlanta airport.

“Bugs just began to fall out of the overhead compartment” causing panic on board, passenger Desiree Harrell was quoted as saying by Associated Press.

All the passengers were then asked to get off so crews could clean the plane.

The airline said a container of spoiled meat brought on by a passenger caused the delay of the flight to Charlotte.

I started at the railroad in the complaint department; we were in the same department as the baggage claims guy.

One summer, he got a claim from someone who wanted to be reimbursed for a side of pork. Seems he had put it in a suitcase and checked it in the baggage car from Georgia to New York City.

The claim was denied.

Pictures at the link.

A car slammed into a New Jersey AutoZone store on Tuesday morning.

The police say that they called off the chase before the accident.

A southern New Jersey man who authorities say caused a deadly crash while fleeing police in a stolen vehicle has sued the officers who pursued him.

Michael Jones claims the Vineland officers were negligent in chasing him at high speeds. He blames them for the March 30 accident that left him injured and killed an 81-year-old man.

I would consider that he was negligent in ripping off the vehicle in the first place, but that’s me.

Most police departments in the Mid-Atlantic part of the country–I don’t know about the rest–have policies to minimize high-speed chases. They have found that the odds of their ending without injury or death, often to bystanders as happened here, are slim, while the odds of catching the mope later are fat high.

This looks to me like a case of creative defense attorney. It will be interesting to see where this one goes (though I suspect the outcome won’t be widely reported).

Which leads to the question: In English idiom, why isn’t the opposite of “slim odds,” “fat odds”?

Where I grew up, S&H Green Stamps ruled the grocery stores (according to the article at the link, they’ve gone virtual).

I remember my mother’s dragging us to the S&H store, but, for the life of me can’t remember what she got with the darn things:

Among hundreds of cars worth thousands of dollars, Mike Quam’s red Camaro stands out for one reason: He purchased it with Top Value Stamps.

Top Value Stamps are long gone, but Quam’s red Camaro is living proof they were well worth collecting.

Neat car show pictures at the link.

Final: Jeep one, building zero.

And, in the second match, SUV one, cobbler shop zero.

I know that tree. It’s as bent as my bent-wood rocker:

A woman in Delaware was seriously injured when she lost control of her vehicle and hit a tree.

(snip)

There have been two fatal accidents recently at this same intersection involving the tree.

Later:

Guerrilla tree raids in Virginia.