Dumb, Dumber, Art Form

Mon. Nov. 9, 2009 LONDON (Reuters) Kylie MacLellan – A British man on the run from police sent a picture of himself to his local paper because he disliked the mug shot they had printed of him as part of a public appeal to track him down. ... It appeared in the South Wales Evening Post, the 23-year-old sent the newspaper a replacement photo of himself standing in front of a police van. They obligingly printed it on the front page. The police thanked him for helping them in their appeal, saying: "Everyone in Swansea will know what he looks like now."

People do many stupid things in life, and we have all committed our share of stupid acts, but their are some people, such as the example above, whose stupidity is so profound, so unbelievable, so unimaginable to the average person, that we must regard it as an art form. For none, other than a true artist of the genre, could achieve it.

A man in New Jersey went into a drug store, pulled a gun, announced a robbery, and pulled a Hefty-bag face mask over his head - and realized that he'd forgotten to cut eye holes in the mask...

There was a woman in Virginia who was concerned that the cocaine she bought wasn’t real. So, she took it to her local police station to have it tested, and lo and behold, it was real. They promptly arrested her. She later sued the department for wrongful arrest claiming they didn’t have probable cause, because they probably didn’t know she had cocaine.

A guy going into a courthouse put his bag of marijuana into the pocket bowl before walking through the metal detector, according to the Abliene Reporter News.

In Rome, GA., A convenience-store thief broke into the store overnight, and tried to cover his tracks by burning the place down. He threw charcoal lighter fluid around and ignited a display and (bonus) set himself on fire! While in flames, he grabbed a roll of lottery tickets and fled. At the time of the story, police were looking for a man on fire, or smoldering, with facial, neck, and wrist burns.

A holdup man in Minnesota thought that if he smeared mercury ointment on his face, it would make him invisible to the cameras. Actually, it accentuated his features, giving authorities a much clearer picture.

ASHLAND, KY Police say Kasey Kazee entered Shamrock Liquors and attempted to rob the store. Employees were astonished that he had disguised his face by wrapping it in duct tape! The store manager chased him out with a baseball bat and an employee held him in the parking lot until police arrived. Police removed the duct tape after taking pictures...

Sao Paulo, CA: A psychiatrist was listening to a patient talk about her sex life when he pulled out a gun and shot her to death. As he explained to the court, "I just couldn't take those nut cases anymore."

Of course, nothing dumb has ever been done on the Island. Except for the time I backed up over my suitcase maybe. Or the time I hooked a swimmer by his shorts and kept reeling him in. It’s true I’ve done some dumb things, but it’s just me because here, all the men are brilliant, all the women are beautiful, and all the children are gifted. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it...

Fat Chance...

No Thanks, I’ll Take the Chance

It seems like everything we do is unsafe, fattening or illegal.

How did my generation ever survive? We, the Flower Power generation, grew up in extreme danger compared to kids today. We didn’t even have seatbelts. Our mothers developed strong upper chest and arm muscles as they slammed us up against the car seat when they hit the brakes. Babies rode on your lap. Toddlers stood between the driver and passenger with a bottle hanging out of their mouths. Everyone smoked, and if you sat in the back seat, you always stood a chance of being hit by hot cigarette embers being flicked out the car window by someone in the front seat. When seatbelts first started appearing, we ignored them. It wasn’t until it was made into a law, which I still disagree with by the way because I think it’s an invasion of privacy, that we used them. Now, if you’re short, you get sawed off at the neck by the cross strap, and if you’re bosomy, you get to have one boob sawed off as you drive. Ahhh, I miss the days when we lived on the edge...

Water? I remember we had clean water all the time. We drank from the tap and the garden hose if we were outside. Nobody carried around bottles of water, only themos’s of coffee or tomato soup. Now, we carry water around with us all the time like we’re nomads in a desert and we can’t be sure of when we’ll hit the next oasis! And how did we get conned into buying water? People bring water to work. Why? Isn’t there a faucet somewhere in the workplace where you can get a cup of water? How much plastic and labor is used to make a bottle of water? For a society that wants to go green, it’s nuts. Somewhere along the way we bought the concept that we have to have eight glasses of water a day or some body part will shrivel and fall off I guess. I grew up in a time when we drank water only when we were thirsty.

We survived without warning labels on everything and nobody got hysterical and passed a law based on singular occurrances. Did you know that after 9/11, a law was passed that all cell phones and laptop computers have a gps chip in them now - allegedly so that you can be found in the event you are missing. Another invasion of privacy wrapped in the “it’s for your own good” banner. Suppose I’m on the run from the law? I’ll have to use payphones, which aren’t a common sight anymore, and carry around a desktop iMac, that’s a damn inconvenience for life on the lam.

On-Star navigation can be a blessing, the cops can find you in the event of an accident. They can also find you whenever they please. I predict within five years, having an On-Star type of connection in your car will be law. It will be ‘”for your own good”. Won’t it feel good to know the authorities can locate anywhere, anytime? I’m sure that it won’t ever be abused. Men in authority wouldn’t ever abuse it to track their girlfriends movements, or other abuses like that, nah, that’ll never happen.

The invention I want to see is a gps with a small explosive charge put into men’s wedding rings. I’d pay good money for that. After all, I could track his movements - for his own good - and send him a little electric shock if he’s in a bar he shouldn’t be in. And if I located him at motel he should not be in, I could activate the explosive charge and blow off his finger, which I believe would derail him from any planned immoral activity.

Drumming

Fri. Oct. 16, 9:10 pm ET
SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio police are investigating the wounding of a man after his elderly father allegedly opened fire when the victim refused to stop drumming. Police said the son, in his 50s, suffered a non-life threatening head wound early Friday while at the home the men share. Police said his 83-year-old father was detained on an aggravated assault charge. Police said the son, who was grazed in the head, ran down the block to call for help. San Antonio police did not immediately provide further details Friday to The Associated Press.

I see that the Associated Press has put a negative slant on this story. I would like to speak up for this 83 year old father. I look at it this way; for twenty years this man raised this son and put up with God knows what.

You bring a kid home fresh from the hospital. He's cute and not mobile. You can swaddle them and prop them up anywhere. They fit neatly in the corner of any chair or couch and if you're traveling, they can fit in the overhead bin. That lasts for six months and then the little terrors learn to crawl. They get into everything and you can't punish them for whatever they break or ruin because don't comprehend that they've done anything wrong. You can swat them with a rolled up newspaper, and they still won't get it. So, you child proof your home as much as you can, making it difficult to get into your own cabinets and drawers and requiring you to unlock your own toilet every time you need to go. Okay, you survive that. I won't even discuss what you've paid in diapers, the sleepless nights of colic, or the fact that everything you own has been thrown up on; clothes, furniture, bedding, pets, babies don't miss anything.

Around one year they start walking. You can slow them down for awhile by pushing them down whenever they try to stand up, but eventually, they pop up and start furniture walking. Tying their feet together effectively keeps them from walking, but people get upset and make a big deal. Once they can walk, they are not only mobile, but fast! They get behind you all the time and you wrench your back trying not to step back on them. They have no concept of safety or respect for any property. Anything you value must be keep four feet above ground level at all times.

Soon they turn two, terribly two. Two is a year of tantrums, defiance, and diabolical plotting. They rely on the fact that they are adorable and they calculate how far they can push you before you try to trade them in for a nice beagle. They make big screaming scenes in store for things they want and you can't smack them without someone, who is not stuck with this little monster, taking umbrage and reporting you to the authorities. The authorities will give you a big lecture and threaten to take your child, however, that might not be such a bad offer depending on the kid.
Ages three, four and five are precious. They are a joy and in the euphoria of parental love you forget everything they've done to you. These few years lock you in for the next levels of hell to come.

From age eight to twelve, they are brats. Tons of attitude, nothing makes them happy, they don't want to be seen with you, they pretend they don't know you when you yell, "I love you, hunny, have a good day!" from the car as you drop them off at school. You get lots of reports about how their peers have nice parents who do things for them, as opposed to you, who does nothing for them.

Then, thirteen. At age thirteen, an alien entity sneaks into your house at night and takes away your child and leaves a teenage android, a teenoid, in their place. The teenoid drains you of all your money. They don't communicate with you at all, but blame you because you don't understand them. You look at them and wonder where your precious little child went. The teenoid ate them. There's no question in my mind that the son in San Antonio was a teenoid monster who probably hammered at his parents until he go everything he wanted, including a drum set. I believe that poor father listened to bad drumming for hours on end. And when he swore he was gonna kill the kid, the mother, threw herself in harms way to save the self centered teenoid from certain death.

Finally, the teenoid leaves their human body and around 21, your child reappears! It's so nice to see them again. And you spend your time and money helping them get started in life in the hope that they will remember your sacrifices and choose a nice nursing home for you someday.

But sometimes, the children, in adult form, return to the nest. This 50 year old son had come back home. And he was going to drum, just like when he was a teenoid. And mooch, I'll bet anything this 50 year old son is unemployed and he's mooching off the old man. Drumming, mooching, eating all the food, borrowing money again, no wonder the old man lost it...

The moral of this story is, if you march to the beat of a different drummer, keep marching and take your damn drums with you.