subnerd.com

say goodbye to blackberry? yes he can, maybe

jay — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 02:13:33 +0000

By JEFF ZELENY

The New York Times — WASHINGTON — Sorry, Mr. President. Please surrender your BlackBerry.

…

Mr. Obama is the second president to grapple with the idea of this self-imposed isolation. Three days before his first inauguration, George W. Bush sent a message to 42 friends and relatives that explained his predicament.

“Since I do not want my private conversations looked at by those out to embarrass, the only course of action is not to correspond in cyberspace,” Mr. Bush wrote from his old address, G94B@aol.com. “This saddens me. I have enjoyed conversing with each of you.”

man gets burned while using lighter to siphon gas

jay — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:10:55 +0000

Mukwonago, Wis. (AP) — Police said a man was arrested after he used a cigarette lighter while trying to siphon gasoline from a van. The man, who was visiting friends, went to drive home early Saturday but realized that he didn’t have enough gas in his SUV.

Police said the man tried to siphon the gas with help from another woman, but he couldn’t see how much gas was in the container, so he used the lighter to check.

A blast of fire burned his hands and caused nearby residents to call police.

Police said he and the woman were located later in a store parking lot. He was arrested for theft and negligent use of burning materials.

jay: sigh.

roof rats? roof rats.

jay — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 03:56:00 +0000

North Seattle Herald-Outlook — A woman living on 25th Avenue Northwest called police at 11:45 a.m. on Aug. 21 to report damage to her roof that she says unwanted guests living in her attic caused.

According to the police report though, the damage appeared to have been caused by an animal chewing on the roof composite.

The officer found no evidence of people living in the woman’s attic, but she did find a “rather large concentration” of rodent feces.

While the woman insisted that she did not have a rodent problem, her teenage son acknowledged that they did, but he was “too involved in a video game” to speak with the officer.

jay: this reminds me of a news story i read once where this kid was so deeply involved in a video game that he didn’t notice that he had shat his pants. it’s related right? shit, video game? are you with me?

black bear busts secret utah pot farm

jay — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:49:39 +0000

September 5, 2008 — PANGUITCH, Utah (AP) — One Utah community is cheering a special bear — but don’t call him Smokey. Investigators say a large black bear raided a clandestine marijuana growing operation so often that it chased the grower away.

”This bear is definitely law-enforcement minded,” said Garfield County Sheriff Danny Perkins. ”If I can find this bear I’m going to deputize him.”

Deputies found food containers ripped apart and strewn everywhere, cans with bear teeth marks, claw marks and bear prints across the Garfield County camp on Tuesday.

Perkins said the operation on Boulder Mountain included 4,000 ‘’starter” sacks of pot and 888 young plants.

”This particular bear apparently was not going to give up and basically chased these marijuana farmers away,” Perkins said. ”Our county is so tough on drugs that even the wildlife are getting in on the action.”

jay: i’d be really psyched to watch this guy pin a tin star on a black bear — then we’d finally know just how ‘law-enforcement minded’ the bear really is.

greek “robin hoods” raid stores to fight high prices

jay — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:59:54 +0000

Thu Sep 4 — ATHENS (Reuters) - Greek anarchists stormed a supermarket on Thursday and handed out food for free in the latest of a wave of raids provoked by soaring consumer prices.

About 20 unarmed people, mostly wearing black hoods, carried out the midday robbery in the northern city of Thesaaloniki, police said.

Local media have labelled the raiders “Robin Hoods” following previous raids.

They take only packets of pasta, rice and cartons of milk which they drop in the middle of the street for people to collect, a police official said.

“They have never stolen money or hurt anyone. They ask people to remain calm but use ambush tactics, jumping over cash desks,” he said.

“When they attack without hoods, people are surprised to see that they are mostly women.”

The rising cost of living has replaced unemployment as Greeks’ main concern. Inflation is officially running at a 10-year high of 4.9 percent although many items have risen in price more sharply.

jay: yassou!

Seattle’s Automated Toilets Go Way of the Box and Chain

rob — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:39:51 +0000

NYTimes - SEATTLE — After spending $5 million on its five automated public toilets, Seattle is calling it quits.

In the end, the restrooms, installed in early 2004, had become so filthy, so overrun with drug abusers and prostitutes, that although use was free of charge, even some of the city’s most destitute people refused to step inside them.

[…]

“I’m not going to lie: I used to smoke crack in there,” said one homeless woman, Veronyka Cordner, nodding toward the toilet behind Pike Place Market. “But I won’t even go inside that thing now. It’s disgusting.”

Entire article

rob: $1MM a pop is quite a sum for a porta-potty that’s too nasty to smoke crack in. And now they’re selling the things for just under 9¢ on the dollar. Nice work, Seattle City Council!

awesomest. 64-year-old. ever.

jay — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:48:51 +0000

Danville, Calif. (AP) — Police in the San Francisco Bay area say a woman set fires in the restrooms of two gas stations and a coffee house and told them she did it to protest high gas prices.

No structural damage was reported at the Arco station, the Chevron station and the Starbucks in Danville where fires were set Wednesday using fireplace logs and a lighter.

Police say they later found 64-year-old Diane Craig at a nearby fast food restaurant with eight fireplace logs with her. Authorities say she told officers that she was behind the fires and that she woke up that morning wanting to do something about high gas prices.

Craig was arrested on suspicion of premeditated arson and burglary.

Police say they don’t know why the Starbucks was targeted.

jay: leave it to a cop to not understand why starbucks was targeted. i mean, they can’t even fathom a guess? and diane, you don’t have to explain your actions, we understand.

foxy brown — no longer in the pokey

jay — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:13:39 +0000

AP - NEW YORK - Rapper Foxy Brown is out of jail. Family and fans greeted Brown Friday outside Rikers Island as she was released from the jail after serving an eight-month sentence.

“The first place I want to go is church. I’ve got to get on my knees,” said Brown.

Instead, Brown went shopping in Harlem, had some soul food and was driven to her childhood home in Brooklyn in a white Rolls Royce Phantom.

jay: zing!

Her mother, Judith Marchand, presented her with smiley-face balloons and the two hugged outside the family’s home in the Prospect Heights neighborhood. A VH1 crew captured the reunion for an upcoming reality show.

“I did almost a year in prison, a year in prison, just because my name is Foxy Brown,” she said.

Brown, whose real name is Ingrid Marchand…

jay: zing! zing!

was sentenced in September 2007 to a year in jail for violating the terms of her probation after she was accused of hitting a woman with a cell phone. She was on probation for an August 2004 attack on two manicurists at a Manhattan nail salon.

jay: nice job on the subtle editorial, ap.

gilligan’s island star caught with dope

jay — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:02:43 +0000

AP — DRIGGS, Idaho — Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann on “Gilligan’s Island,” is serving six months’ unsupervised probation after allegedly being caught with marijuana in her car.

She was sentenced Feb. 29 to five days in jail, fined $410.50 and placed on probation after pleading guilty to one count of reckless driving.

…

On Oct. 18, Teton County sheriff’s Deputy Joseph Gutierrez arrested Wells as she was driving home from a surprise birthday party that was held for her. According to the sheriff’s office report, Gutierrez pulled Wells over after noticing her swerve and repeatedly speed up and slow down. When Gutierrez asked about a marijuana smell, Wells said she’d just given a ride to three hitchhikers and had dropped them off when they began smoking something. Gutierrez found half-smoked joints and two small cases used to store marijuana.

jay: i guess this answers the ginger vs mary ann question…

‘mooning’ costs woman caregiver job at frasier meadows

jay — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:27:13 +0000

By Vanessa Miller
Daily Camera — Boulder, CO — A certified nurse’s assistant has been arrested on suspicion of indecent exposure after “mooning” two co-workers while on the job at the Frasier Meadows Assisted Living Center, according to Boulder police.

Two nurses told police that Suzanne Mueffelmann, 42, of Longmont, flashed her buttocks outside the room of a Frasier Meadows resident, according to an arrest report.

…

Since her arrest, Mueffelmann has lost her job with the senior care facility, said Dean Price, who owns the Boulder-Broomfield franchise.

…

The mooning incident occurred about 8 p.m. Feb. 27 while Mueffelmann was talking with the two nurses, Jessica Jarvis and Cleyfi Alvarado, in a common area outside her patient’s room, according to police.

Mueffelmann asked Jarvis and Alvarado if they knew what mooning was and told them, “I’ll make your night,” according to the report.

After she mooned them for a few seconds, Mueffelmann told police, “Jessica and Cleyfi appeared very startled and alarmed, and she immediately felt bad and felt that she may have crossed the line.”

When officers asked Jarvis and Alvarado about the incident, Alvarado said she was “very alarmed and scared.” Jarvis said she “felt uncomfortable with the incident” and “felt it was ‘weird and random,’” according to police.

Mueffelmann told another staff member that night that she had mooned their co-workers “to make them happier,” police said.

An officer reported that Mueffelmann later said it was a “strong misunderstanding,” and, “She hasn’t mooned since college, and she doesn’t plan on doing it again.”

jay: i’ll make your night? with mooning? those poor people. all three of them.

brought to my attention by jon

wal*mart apologizes to muslim woman

jay — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 06:37:30 +0000

AP - RIVERDALE, Utah - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. apologized to a Muslim woman who said she was mocked because of her face veil.

“Please don’t stick me up,” a cashier told the shopper on Feb. 2, according to The Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Wal-Mart apologized Monday in a letter signed by Rolando Rodriquez, a vice president and regional general manager. It was released Tuesday by the council’s Nevada chapter.

jay: wait, larry david is a cashier at a wal*mart in utah?

female bombers strike markets in baghdad

jay — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:44:49 +0000

AP - BAGHDAD - Remote-controlled explosives strapped to two mentally retarded women detonated in a coordinated attack on Baghdad pet bazaars Friday, Iraqi officials said, killing at least 73 people in the deadliest day since the U.S. sent 30,000 extra troops to the capital last spring.

jay: can someone please tell me how low were we planning on going as a species? we can’t get any lower than this, right? fuhk.

spanish driver sues dead crash cyclist for damage

jay — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:25:44 +0000

MADRID (Reuters) - A Spanish driver who collided with a cyclist is suing the dead youth’s family $29,300 for the damage the impact of his body did to his luxury car, a Spanish newspaper reported on Friday.

Businessman Tomas Delgado says 17-year-old Enaitz Iriondo caused $20,500 of damage to his Audi A8 in the fatal 2004 crash in La Rioja region, the El Pais newspaper reported.

Delgado, who has faced no criminal charges for the incident, wants a further 6,000 euros to cover the cost of hiring another vehicle while his car was being repaired, El Pais said.

The youth had been cycling alone at night without reflective clothing or a helmet, according to a police report cited by El Pais.

His family won 33,000 euros compensation from Delgado’s insurance company after the firm acknowledged he had been driving at excessive speed and this could have contributed to the incident, El Pais reported.

“I’m also a victim in all of this, you can’t fix the lad’s problems, but you can fix mine,” Delgado told the newspaper, ahead of a January 30 legal decision on his suit.

The family said they had previously pitied Delgado for the guilt he must feel at killing their son but were now disgusted that his greatest concern appeared to be money.

“This was the final straw, a kick in the teeth,” the youth’s mother Rosa Trinidad told El Pais.

jay: uh, i got nothing here.

pig fetuses impaled on car antennas

jay — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 01:18:33 +0000

Des Moines, Iowa (AP) — Pig fetuses believed stolen from a biology lab at a Des Moines high school were found impaled on car antennas at a rival school’s parking lot in West Des Moines. The incident was discovered on Tuesday at Dowling Catholic High School.

The pig fetuses were believed stolen from Roosevelt High School. They were on about 15 cars, along with a pound of biology-class crawfish that were smeared on hoods and windshields.

“You could smell the formaldehyde from a block away,” Dowling Assistant Principal Ron Meyers said.

Roosevelt Principal Kathie Danielson said science teachers “can’t be sure” the pigs came from Roosevelt. She said the pig fetuses aren’t labeled and the school doesn’t keep inventory.

jay: this is pretty gross, even for des moines.

man cuts off, microwaves his own hand

jay — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 18:44:44 +0000

AP — HAYDEN, Idaho — A man who believed he bore the “mark of the beast” used a circular saw to cut off one hand, then he cooked it in the microwave and called 911, authorities said.

The man, in his mid-20s, was calm when Kootenai County sheriff’s deputies arrived Saturday in this northern Idaho town. He was in protective custody in the mental health unit of Kootenai Medical Center.

“It had been somewhat cooked by the time the deputy arrived,” sheriff’s Capt. Ben Wolfinger said. “He put a tourniquet on his arm before, so he didn’t bleed to death. That kind of mental illness is just sad.”

[…]

The book of Matthew also contains the passage: “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for you whole body to do into hell.”

Wolfinger said he didn’t know which hand was amputated.

jay is it in the AP styleguide that all stories which quote law enforcement officials are required to have an incredibly dry punchline? it would seem that the answer is ‘yes.’