Articles Posted in Best Of

A 9-year-old kid made a bomb! And threw it on his neighbor’s porch, where it exploded! When the neighbor came to the door, the boy flipped him off and ran. As reported by Gannett New Jersey:

The boy made the bomb using three simple household items, police said: a plastic soda bottle, drain cleaner and aluminum foil.

Mixing drain cleaner and aluminum foil creates a gas which, when capped, will eventually explode.

Who knew? Junior, of Millville, New Jersey, is looking at charges of possessing an explosive device and disorderly conduct.

Mike Timmer, as you will soon discover, is a huge Detroit Red Wings fan. So it naturally figures that he brought an octopus (under his shirt and jacket) to Game 4 of the Red Wings-Avalanche series. Why, you might ask, did he bring the octopus in? Per the Detroit Free Press:

The tradition began in 1952 when a fish merchant threw an octopus on the ice in Detroit because eight victories were then needed to win the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Carrying on a tradition established more than 50 years ago, Timmer chucked the octopus onto the ice of the Pepsi Arena in Denver. Not only did he get booted from the game, he also got busted by the Denver police. For what? “Throwing stones or missiles.” Really.

“It shall be unlawful for any person to throw any stone or other missile upon or at any vehicle, building, tree or other public or private property, or upon or at any person in any public way or place which is public in nature, or on enclosed or unenclosed ground.”

So what happened? Denver Magistrate Catherine Cary dismissed the charges.

New Yorker John McDonald was charged with second-degree assault for attacking a cab driver in Aspen, Colorado. Why? Apparently he was pissed because the cabbie wouldn’t take him somewhere to buy cigarettes. So, said the cabbie, McDonald popped him in the face, breaking at least one bone. (What, that’s a crime?) When McDonald was charged, bail was set at $5,000. He posted it, and left.

Fast forward to January 15th. Per The Aspen Times:

McDonald, who rode a Greyhound bus from New York to Aspen for his court hearing, told District Judge James Boyd that he was broke and needed the $5,000 bond money he put up to get out of jail. Boyd checked repeatedly with McDonald to make sure the suspect knew he was going to be taken into custody.

Here’s the prosecutor’s explanation:

“I’ve never seen it because most people don’t want to go to jail,” Deputy District Attorney Gail Nichols said. “But obviously he doesn’t mind. Essentially he’s revoking his own bond, and hey, why not? Now he has a place to live.”

Such a great place, too. Who wouldn’t revoke their own bond just for the 3 squares? Here’s the rest of the article.

Ohio resident Alan David Patton went to great lengths to collect urine … so he could drink it. So a father and his son were trying to use a restroom at Sports Ohio. Per the Columbus Local News:

The father told police there were trash bags covering the toilets and paper cups in the urinals, as well as typed signs in the restroom directing people to use the urinals with the cups in them.

While in the restroom, the father told police he opened a stall and saw a man, sitting on the toilet with a black bag on his lap.

Um, er, nevermind. Mr. Patton was arrested and charged with criminal mischief.

If nothing else, that’s gotta bring some seriously bad karma. As reported by the AP,

Police [in Rogers, Arkansas] are conducting an internal investigation into an allegation that a lieutenant used his stun gun to shock a cow and shared a videotape of the incident with other department employees.

Police Chief Steve Helms said Tuesday the inquiry began after he received a complaint from the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. A letter dated Feb. 11 from PETA representative Stephanie Bell complained that Lt. David Mitchell filmed himself using the electronic stun device on the cow.

Bell said in the letter that Mitchell distributed the video as a joke among friends and co-workers and she notes that animal cruelty is a misdemeanor crime in Arkansas.

Helms didn’t immediately return a call for comment on Wednesday. City Attorney Ben Lipscomb said Tuesday that the alleged incident happened 2 1/2 years ago, which would be beyond the statute of limitations for misdemeanors. Lipscomb said there would be no point in pursuing a criminal investigation.

Helms said a captain in the department will conduct the investigation and Mitchell will remain on regular duty.

Defendant Richard Glawson can forget about jury sympathy. After the judge refused the prosecutor’s request to have Glawson shackled, he sucker-punched an elderly juror, then had to be pulled off of him. Sure, hindsight is 20/20. In this case, though, foresight should have been easy enough.

Here’s what Glawson (see photo) is accused of doing during a two-day crime spree: robbing a house, starting a shootout at a mall, carjacking a woman, breaking into another home, shooting a disabled man’s dog, carjacking two more vehicles, and shooting a police officer in the hand. What the hell do you have to be accused of to warrant shackles?

If you want your horse to race in North America, the name must be approved by the Jockey Club. Andy Hillis wanted to name his horse “Nutzapper” after hearing it used in a joke on the Tonight Show. So Hillis told the Jockey Club (as reported in Slate) that he wanted the name because (prepare to dab away the tears) “as a young boy in Canada, he loved to zap walnuts in boiling oil and sprinkle them on salads.” With this explanation, the name was approved. Then Hillis just had to crow to a reporter that he’d never been to Canada, and had made up the whole story.

The racing gods were not amused. They zapped the name almost immediately. Hillis sued and he … lost! Just like the Jockey Club knew he would, because they had recently won a similar suit. (“Nutzapper” is now known as “Awaiting Justice.” Lame.) So what are the Jockey Club’s naming rules?

No horse can have a name longer than 18 characters, a name that breaches a copyright or has obvious commercial significance, or the name of a “notorious” person. Emphatically forbidden are “names that are suggestive or have a vulgar or obscene meaning; names considered in poor taste; or names that may be offensive to religious, political or ethnic groups.”

Now that you know the rules, you might be surprised that the following names have been approved by the Jockey Club:

Nut Buster (1942)

So Kevin Costner was getting a massage at a hotel in Scotland. According to the masseuse, who later filed a claim of unfair dismissal and sexual discrimination, here’s a highlight:

Throughout the massage he kept putting his hand underneath his towel but never kept it there long enough for me to suspect anything.” However, as she went to massage his head, he whipped off his towel and “performed a sex act to climax”.

Costner’s friend said it was a set up. The hotel settled with the masseuse.

(For the uninitiated, that’s from Animal House.) I have no idea if Christopher Kelly is fat or stupid. I do know that on a recent night, he was incredibly drunk. Here are some highlights of his bender, as reported in This Is Lancashire:

When the story of Christopher Kelly’s escapes were told to magistrates, a probation service officer had to leave the court in fits of laughter.

The court heard that Kelly, 31, of Railway Street, Nelson, had got extremely drunk on lager and vodka during a night out in Morecambe.

Kelly lost his friends, who were celebrating a friend’s birthday and were also drunk, and wandered onto the beach where he got stuck in boggy sand and lost his shoes, trousers and jacket.[Really? He lost his pants in a sand bog? Hmmm.]

Cold and wet, he staggered across the road to Morecambe Town Hall where, seeing a window open, he climbed inside. There he went in various rooms, took a camera and a mobile phone which he tried to use to call his friends.

Then he soiled his underwear which he threw into a black bin bag. [Personally, I would have left that little detail out.]

He found a ‘Grim Reaper’ fancy dress outfit and put this on before leaving the town hall and wandering down Lord Street towards Poulton Square where he eventually arrived at the police station which was, at that time, unmanned. He stood there for three hours, still in the Grim Reaper gear, until police arrived.

Mr. Kelly admitted the crime. [This may have been made easier since some of it was recorded on CCTV.] The time? A six-month conditional discharge and payment of prosecution costs.

Call Guinness Book. At least I’ve not read about an older streaker. As reported in the Irish Independent:

Police in Duisburg, Germany are becoming rather irked with a serial streaker.

They hauled him into court after he streaked during a girls’ football match. But they were rather surprised when, during the adjournment the man removed his clothes again.

It appears he views himself as a living work of art. Given that he is 60, it’s presumably abstract art.

(My sources tell me that the man received funding from President Bush’s abstinence program.)