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All Pinzur, All The Time

Thursday, October 28, 2004

You best be getting home before your kids rob me in 15 years....

In the words of Chris Rock, you can get your groove on or you can get your kids on but you can get both on. As long as the kids call their mother's mom and not by their first name they still have a chance. Also according to Chris Rock, if the kid calls his grandmother, "mommy" and his momma, "Pam", kid is going to jail.

Two mothers left their children at home alone to get to a local bar. The eldest was an 11-year-old. One mother had children at the ages of 11, 9 and 5. The other mother had children at the ages of 9 and two. Read this article.


http://www.theindychannel.com/news/3864872/detail.html?subid=22100444&qs=1;bp=t

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

My kind of anti-terror policy

Yes, it's a stupid forwarded e-mail, but I like it. Besides, it's better than anything John Ashcroft's going to suggest.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR NEXT SATURDAY. AS YOU MAY ALREADY KNOW, IT IS A SIN FOR A TALIBAN MALE TO SEE ANY WOMAN OTHER THAN HIS WIFE NAKED, AND THAT HE MUST COMMIT SUICIDE IF HE DOES.

SO THIS SATURDAY AT 4 P.M. EASTERN TIME ALL AMERICAN WOMEN ARE ASKED TO WALK OUT OF THEIR HOUSE COMPLETELY NAKED TO HELP WEED OUT ANY NEIGHBORHOOD TERRORISTS.

CIRCLING YOUR BLOCK FOR ONE HOUR IS RECOMMENDED FOR THIS ANTI-TERRORIST EFFORT.

ALL MEN ARE TO POSITION THEMSELVES IN LAWN CHAIRS IN FRONT OF THEIR HOUSE TO PROVE THEY ARE NOT TALIBAN, AND TO DEMONSTRATE THAT THEY THINK ITS OKAY TO SEE NUDE WOMEN OTHER THAN THEIR WIFE AND TO SHOW SUPPORT FOR ALL AMERICAN WOMEN.

AND SINCE THE TALIBAN ALSO DOES NOT APPROVE OF ALCOHOL, A COLD 6-PACK AT YOUR SIDE IS FURTHER PROOF OF YOUR ANTI-TALIBAN SENTIMENT.

THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT APPRECIATES YOUR EFFORTS TO ROOT OUT TERRORISTS AND APPLAUDS YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THIS ANTI-TERRORIST ACTIVITY.

GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Monday, October 25, 2004

Overreliance on Spell Check...

A colleague here at the Herald points out this lovely typo in a press release from The Cat Network (yes, it really exists):

"Their grassroots efforts have resulted in the slaying and neutering of over 24,000 of South Florida's stray felines ..."


We'll see what Bob Barker has to say about THAT.

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

The wackos you know from a former life

Well, its official. Yup. I am officially heading straight form work to a psychologist. It turns out that a guy I use to work with at a day camp was recently arrested for soliciting the services of a 15 year-old boy. He is 33 years old and was arrested when he was to meet the boy but instead found a sheriff's officer waiting for him instead. Now, most of us questioned many things about him. His sexual orientation and the fact that he was an odd dude. A large man of probably about 325 lbs, he also strangely enough worked at a kids day camp for many a years. Please read the attachments for full details.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/north/chi-0410200362oct20,1,7111129.story

So heres to you Dave Costello, and have a barf-bag on me. Just as long as a little boy is not in it.

Sunday, October 17, 2004

When Pigs wear skirts....

On ESPN's Sunday Night Football, when talking about the new Illegal Contact*, one of ESPN's crack-squad commentators, Paul Maguire, mentioned that with more and more penalties protecting people permitting less vicious hits (which I am all for), that it only leads to more and more skirts. To which Mike Patrick came back with, as long as it does not make its way into the television booth. ESPN, I am sure, is paying Mr Maguire a large sum of cash to tell us that more penalities to protect its players are effectively putting more and more skirts on these players. That, and probably steroids. God, I love football and football annoucers. What other sport will you find an announcer profess that on National TV?

Definitely not on Fox, ever since Thom Brennamen made two mentions of one of a Fox affiliate, Fox Sports', The Best Damn Sports Show on TV, and was fined by the FCC. To which, Fox changed the shows name to the Best Sports Show on TV, that and was reimbursed by the Bush campaign.

*the illegal contact rule is a rule that beyond 5 yards from the line of scrimmage in football, defensive players cannot make contact to an offensive player until that player actually receives the ball. If you want to know more, look up the rules.

Friday, October 15, 2004

Plagiarism and Porn

I'm back on my old turf of Jacksonville again this weekend, writing about voting problems here (surprise), and came upon these stories in the local alternative weekly paper. (There are links at the bottom to the sidebars, which are worth reading.)

Basically, the long-time Editorial Editor at the Florida Times-Union, my old paper, has been stealing much of his writing. That's THE cardinal sin in newspapering.

He was also downloading a whole bunch on Internet porn - I love that angle, because he's an ULTRA-right wing religious conservative. He wrote an editorial while I was there, arguing against affirmative action because slavery was only "a brief period" in American history. I was part of a group of reporters who wrote a petition to have it retracted, but they never did.

I fought personally with this guy, Lloyd Brown, a number of times. We went 'round and 'round on his frequent factual errors - we was always an unprofessional, cowardly jerk. There is MUCH schadenfreude in my heart today.

The kicker is that, according to my old friends at the paper, the publisher was made aware of the plagiarism years ago and has done nothing to stop it. Even after it was exposed this week, he's evidently not been suspended or anything.

Of course, it would be unethical for me to write a story for my current paper about it - there's no way I could be unbiased against this human turd. But it was perfectly legitimate for me to tell a few of our editors about it and suggest they assign another reporter. I'd love to see this story told all over the country.

Here's to you, Lloyd. Karma's a bitch.

Monday, October 11, 2004

Theater of the Absurd

I realize this is a Burger King web site and I have no desire to endorse or support those who denigrate food... but this is the wackiest thing I've seen in a long time.

The Subservient Chicken

Try telling it to eat lunch for a truly frightening experience. Telling it to sleep is also pretty odd, and "fly away" is laugh-out-loud funny.

Sunday, October 10, 2004

Jeanne: One Cold, Cruel Bitch

After I got back from covering Hurricane Jeanne, I promised some photos of the damage. I was working on a tight-ass deadline, so there's not much, but here are two images of an organic cafe/natural food grocery that I wrote about in Melbourne, Fla.



Those used to be floor-to-ceiling windows, essentially the front walls of the store. They had covered the windows with plywood - and covered them well - but the storm was strong enough to rip the aluminum window frames from the building's skeleton.

You can't see, but off to the left, the rest of the front wall was torn off in the same way. The cafe part of the store took the brunt - it was all floored with dark cherry-colored wood, which was destroyed when the rain started rushing in.

Those walls that are still standing? They only survived because they were brand new. Two weeks earlier, Hurricane Frances had ripped those walls off, and the owners replaced them with stronger ones.



The damage was massive. The owner estimated she spent $50,000 after Frances between repairing the store and replacing destoryed or unsellable products. Jeanne, she guessed, was going to be at least as much. Insurance will probably cover much of it, but the deductible was $7,000 - they're always high right on the ocean, and the story is just two blocks off the beach.

So, my friends in New York and Chicago and Boston and Washington, next time you're complaining about the cold weather and blizzards, remember: frostbite won't tear the fucking roof from your house.

Sunday, October 03, 2004

Happy Birthday LiAps!

Go, LiAps... it's your birf-day.

LiAps tries to maintain a veil of anonymity in his blog, so I'll have to maintain that air of mystery by simply posting this picture of us hiking outside Las Vegas... LiAps is on the right.



Here's to you, LiAps.