If The Shoe Fits, Hand It over

Gabe Fidanque owns Wagon Wheel Liquors, a liquor store in an area of Durango with a lot of foot traffic. He had a lot of shoplifters, and would call the police and have them arrested. But the same people would come back hours later and try again. Then he started a new punishment. He would give them a choice. He could call the police or the shoplifter could give Fidanque one of his shoes. He has a few shoes to show for it, and the shoplifting problem has gotten a lot less. But now the police are telling him to stop that because by intimidating them into giving up a shoe, it’s equivalent to felony robbery.

I’m so torn. There’s a small part of me that knows what the police are going for. If Fidanque takes shoes, the next guy could be asking for money. I guess it sets a dangerous precedent.

But…it’s a shoe! What is Fidanque going to do with an odd conglomoration of mismatched shoes? They’re of no value to him, except for the fact that every offender who gives up a shoe walks out of there humiliated, and probably will think twice about stealing booze from him again. Better still, they’ll spread the news to their other friends that trying to get some free booze from him just isn’t worth the trouble. It seems to be a far better deterrent than going through the justice system, and it’s far more effective than the anti-shoplifting policies of Home Depot or Target.

Now the police have advised him to stop and are asking him to give back the shoes. He doubts any of the guys caught will have the guts to come back and reclaim their missing shoe. Plus, he has to come up with another system that works as well. I hope he can. I would hate to see his past problems return.

You’re Hot, For A Crazy Person

Ok, so Sheila LaBarre sounds like she’s pretty nuts, but so does this part of the story.

Stephen Martello of Manchester testified he picked up LaBarre alongside Interstate 293 in Manchester early on March 28, 2006. LaBarre told him her car had broken down after getting into a fight with her boyfriend and she needed to get to Dorchester, Mass., to meet with an attorney, Martello said.

Martello said the way LaBarre was clutching her purse and her overall strange behavior prompted him to call the Manchester police to ask whether they were looking for a robbery suspect or a woman who had escaped from prison or a mental hospital.

Hearing from police they weren’t looking for anyone, Martello took LaBarre to a hotel, where they had sex.

What the? I can understand giving her a ride somewhere, but why would you want to screw someone who you thought of as a robber or an escaped prisoner? He’s lucky he’s not dead too.

Brings New Meaning To Trouser Snake, Doesn’t It?

Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch! I’m not a guy, but I can imagine getting bit on the end of your penis by a venomous snake can’t be pleasant. Oh ow ooo eee! The guy’s just lucky that somehow the snake didn’t fill him with venom, so he’s alive to remember the painful incident. I doubt he’ll take a roadside leak ever again.

Too Smart for Her Own Good

This is so stupid, it’s beyond stupid. Anjali Datta is very smart. She’s so smart that she made it through high school in only 3 years. But she can’t be valedictorian, and therefore cannot have access to the college scholarship given to the valedictorian because policy strictly states that only students who have done high school in four years are eligible. So a guy whose GPA is considerably lower by comparison is getting it just because he has the highest average of those who did high school in four years.

How stupid. I know that policy is in place so people can’t come in from out of state at the last minute, have an awesome grade that year and then take the scholarship from someone who was there all along, but this case is different. She was there the whole time. It especially hurts because she asked if graduating early would have affectedher status, and a guidance counselor said no.

What really sucks is what the family of the teen who won the scholarship said. It was in this article, but the damn site is trying to force me to register for the paper and not showing me the article. If it works for you, awesome. Basically the family said the other kid obviously deserved it, but this was the right solution. Uh, how about leaving it at the fact that the other kid deserved it. The only reason they’re saying it was the right solution is because their son is winning it instead of her. If the shoe was on the other foot, they’d have been screaming blue murder about it.

Hopefully the school district comes to its senses and amends the policy. Otherwise, like Anjali Datta says, nobody will want to try as hard as they can because they might do too well.

Throw This Lawsuit In The Furnace

Patsy Hamaker, a stripper, is suing her employer, The Furnace club. Why? Because part of her job includes getting customers to buy her drinks, and the club let her drive home drunk, which led to her having a crash.

Uh, how about no? If she knew she was too drunk to drive, then she should have taken a damn cab. It’s nobody’s fault but her own that she smashed up her car and got hurt. We’re just lucky nobody got hurt along with her. I’m sure she was making good money as a stripper. She could have afforded a cab. Hopefully the judge will agree.

Late-Breaking Nudes

How would you like to wake up to a naked, wet man breaking into your apartment through the balcony? Some poor soul in Ann Arbor did. The weirdest part was the guy just ran out the front door and didn’t confront the people in the apartment, and he couldn’t explain how he got that high up from the outside. He’s now going through a psychiatric evaluation. I’m betting he was having a little fun with a woman…until her husband got home. Then he just had to get out, and fast. Or maybe he’s a lune. Who knows?

Both Sides Of Your Mouth Need A Dictionary

This gets quote of the day honours without question.

Members of Toronto’s Chinese Canadian National Council are upset about a new booklet produced by local government that is intended to help small business owners in the area better understand Chinese employees they may interview or hire.

I haven’t seen enough of what’s gotten them upset to comment on that aspect of things, so instead I’ll point out the fantastic doublespeak response offered by Leslie Walker, CEO of the Richmond Hill Chamber of Commerce.

“I wouldn’t call it a stereotype, I would call it a generalization. But if you read the book, you’ll understand it’s not meant to hurt, it’s meant to help, any of the generalizations are not negative,” says the executive of unknown (to me anyway since Leslie can be either one) gender.

Awesome.

And just in case any of you need the reason this is so funny explained to you, go here and here.

The article this greatness was pulled from can be found here.

Dancing To The Beat Of A Different Drum And Talking To The Hand

Have you ever thought to yourself “gee, I’d love to dance a jig, but I have no music. If only I could dance and create my own music!” No? Didn’t think so. But somebody did, and is working on a pacer suit! Apparently, as you dance, it generates the music, which might only play in the suit or could be transmitted wirelessly to a sound system.

Uh, why? Usually, when I want to dance, there is already music playing. If there isn’t, why would I want to dance? And I would think you’d have to be a damn good dancer, because the musical rhythm is set by your dancing. It makes me wonder if it would sound like the music generated by my talking pedometer, which I have managed to get to work, although it’s not counting very accurately. But anyway. The music changes speed and rhythm depending on how fast you’re walking. So if you suck at dancing, I can’t even imagine what tune you’d be dancing to.

The fellow who is working on that wonder of wonders also has created a…glove phone! A what? All it says is it’s a cellphone embedded into the palm of a glove. Uh, why? I personally like to put my cellphone away when I’m done with it, and I don’t like to call home when I put my hand on something. Plus, I think people would think I was crazy if I was talking to my hand. “No no, that’s not the voices in my head, it’s my cellphone! See? It’s in this glove here! No, you don’t have to call the men in white coats.”

I’m trying to figure out why Nikola Knezevic, the one who dreamed up both these oddities, thought they were splendid ideas. He’s a strange, strange man.

No

29 May, Thu, 15:51:23
Google:
baby for sale couple,vancouver, deserves another chance

They do? Why? What’s to be gained by leaving a child in the care of people this stupid, other than making sure that social workers and probation officers have something to do for the next several years if the kid makes it that far?

Here’s just a small example of the type of people that you, nameless searching person, want to leave this poor kid with.

Jeremy Pete, the baby’s father, told CBC News on Wednesday that he posted the ad, but it was just a joke. He said he wrote the ad after kidding around with a friend, but did not think it would actually be posted online.

Um…duh. Where did he think it would go when he hit the post button and confirmed everything? The only way I’m buying this story is if he emailed it to his buddy who then sold him down the river and put it up on his behalf. If that’s the case I’ll gladly admit I’m wrong, but until then the only person who deserves a second chance is the baby, and the biggest tragedy in all of this is that it doesn’t look as though mom and dad are going to be charged with anything.