C’est Rire category archive

Watch out for the potholes on the information super highway. From Bloomberg:

Tweets flag potholes, warn of flooded roads and divulge police checkpoints on weekend nights. Politics laps into the Twitter alerts that Caracas drivers use to navigate traffic- choked streets, as posters rage at the government and stalled infrastructure projects.

Caracas motorists, burning the world’s cheapest gasoline and driving twice as many cars as roads can handle, may be global leaders in using Twitter Inc.’s social networking Web site to outflank traffic. Their 9,541-strong group forum, called Trafico, shows growth of 10 percent a week. Venezuela’s per- capita use of smart phones outpaces Europe’s, according to Research in Motion Ltd., BlackBerry’s manufacturer.

BBC headline:

Climbdown over pushchair safety.

US translation:

Walking back on stroller safety.

(The story concerns the Maclaren brand folding strollers that have been recalled in the US, but not in the UK.)

A suspicious wife posed as a teenager online to catch her husband propositioning girls in a chatroom, Cardiff Crown Court has heard.

Cheryl Roberts, 61, pretended to be a 14-year-old girl and was asked by David Roberts, 68, to meet for sex.

He’s pleading out.

I’ve dined there several times.

Without the car repairs.

Two people were transported to Christiana Hospital after a car crashed into a Wilmington restaurant Wednesday night.

The accident occurred shortly after 9 p.m. at Gallucio’s Restaurant and Pub, . . . .

It’s a pretty cramped parking lot; not much room to get up a good head of steam.

Creative justice in Bedford, Pa.:

In exchange for no jail time, a woman and her adult daughter have agreed to stand outside a Pennsylvania courthouse holding signs saying they stole a gift card from a 9-year-old girl on her birthday.

Follow the link for the pictures.

Read about it here.

No, not the guy behind you on the Turnpike.

The real thing.

Rumored to inhabit remote regions of the Pine Barrens, the Jersey Devil is said to resemble a gruesome cross between a bat, a horse, and a kangaroo. Possibly the best description comes from Bruce Springsteen’s epic song “A Night with the Jersey Devil”: “Ram’s head, forked tail, clove hoof, love’s my trail.” Local folklore traces the devil’s origins to a woman known only as Mrs. Leeds, who cursed her unwanted 13th child on a fateful night in 1735 near Burlington.

Follow the link and read all about it.

I’ve been to the Pine Barrens. They are indeed kind of spooky. And within them is a huge tract of miniature pine forest, fully grown and formed and three feet tall.

That’s even spookier.

It’s probably a good idea not to try to sell it in a public forum:

An 18-year-old Maryland teen was arrested this week for allegedly stealing a University of Delaware student’s car and listing it for sale on Craigslist.

Craig Cunha, of the first block of Peach Road in Elkton, was charged Tuesday with one count of felony theft and conspiracy, said Newark police spokesman Lt. Brian Henry.

Then, again, maybe he thought it was his own list.

As I write this, I wonder about the “conspiracy” charge. Can one be charged with conspiring with oneself?

Wilmington Hospital employees taking a break eating lunch got a big surprise today when a deer wandered into the cafeteria at noontime . . . .

Wilmington Hospital is in the heart of downtown Wilmington, adjacent to Brandywine Park, shown here under water.

You know the deer are desperate if they want to eat in the hospital cafeteria.

If I were fleeing the cops, the last place I would head for would the county office complex. Odds are, there are a fair amount of cops there. Then, again, if he had turned the other way, he would have been at the Air National Guard base, also not a good place for a malefactor.

He bailed out of the car and headed for the woods. The woods are bounded on one side by suburbs, on one side by a river, on one side by an industrial complex (where the local paper has its offices), and on one side by the airport.

He’s done got an orange jumpsuit in his future.

A county officer conducting speed enforcement in the area of Commons Boulevard and Reads Way spotted a silver Honda speeding about 9:49 a.m. and tried to catch up with it, Navarro said.

The driver tried to evade the officer by driving through the New Castle County Government Center’s parking lot and lost control of his car and hit two parked cars, Navarro said.

An inquiry has begun after a US plane heading from San Diego to Minneapolis missed the airport it was meant to land at by 150 miles (240km).

Contact with the Northwest Airlines plane was lost for an hour as it flew at 37,000ft, sparking hijack fears.

The crew said they had been distracted by a “heated discussion” but officials will check if they had fallen asleep.

Follow the link and look at the neat map towards the bottom of the page of the airplane’s meanderings after it overshot Minneapolis.

Wonder who these guys will be flying for next week.

H/T Susan for the pic.

I have been falling down drunk before (it has been a long time admittedly), but at least I knew enough not to get back up.

Via Huffington Post, where you can see the original, silent but in color.

Your money or your–oh, never mind.

K2 Productions is suing (“Opposite Marriage” Carrie-ed.) Prejean for, among other things, the cost of a $5,200 loan they gave her for breast surgery to help her “be more competitive” at the April 2009 Miss USA Pageant.

Via Kiko’s House.

Afterthought:

Does this qualify as “padding your resume” or is it “resuming your padding”?

Karen’s comment to the post about the Peeping Thomasina reminded me of the story of the elderly maiden lady who called the local sheriff to complain that some some local boys were skinny-dipping within view of her kitchen window.

The sheriff drove out and determined that, although they were partially screened by trees, they were visible. He told the boys to move up the stream aways.

The next day, the maiden lady called to complain again. “But,” asked the sheriff, “didn’t they move?”

“Yes,” she replied, “but I can still see them from my bedroom window.”

So he asked them to move farther upstream.

The next day, she called him again. When he asked whether they had moved, she said, “Yes, but I can still see them.”

Wait for it

They should have arrested the Peeping Thomasina:

29-year-old Eric Williamson says he was home alone when he walked into his kitchen to make coffee around 5:30 Monday morning.

Fairfax county police say a woman and a 7-year-old boy were walking by the front window around the same time.

The woman called police to report the incident.

They arrested him for exhibitionism.

Video, fully clothed, at the link.

H/T Susan for the tip.

A driver has confounded Swiss police by committing 15 traffic violations in just over 10 minutes, officials say.

After seeing the driver, I reckon it must have been a borrowed car.

Read more »

And if I don’t give up, she puts her tail up my nose.

Addendum:

I am not the only victim: