Nice getaway car, Dood!
A would-be smuggler was arrested after trying to outrun border police with £300,000 of cigarettes in a horse and cart.
Police challenged Janos Jakab as he crossed Romania’s northern border with the Ukraine carrying nearly 100,000 packets of cigarettes and tobacco.
After a short chase police outran the cart and arrested Jakab.
A spokesman for the local border police said: “In general smugglers are becoming more and more sophisticated in their methods of getting contraband across borders. But this case proved the exception to the rule.
“We have a fleet of high-powered vehicles that can chase down the fastest cars. Outrunning our officers was never a possibility – even if he had a thoroughbred racehorse strapped to his cart.”
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Categories: Show Piles December 2008
Oh my – glad I didn’t have to clean up the mess…
A desperate shopper got himself banned from a bathroom shop in Germany when he got caught short and used a display toilet.
Heinz Kessel, 39, dashed into the store in Bochum and relieved himself before realising the lavatory wasn’t connected to the drains.
Furious staff gave him a cleaning bill and a lifetime ban from the shop.
Shop assistant Simone Fiedler, 32, said: “I was talking to another customer when I suddenly realised there was a terrible smell in the shop.”
“I called the manager and we went around the shop looking for it and then behind a screen where we had some toilets on display there was this red-faced man trying to flush a display toilet. He thought it was hooked up to the mains and couldn’t understand why it wasn’t working.”
“He apologised and told us what had happened but in the end we had to shut the shop until it was all cleaned up because the smell was so bad customers would have been driven away anyway.”
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Categories: Show Piles December 2008
BUNA, Texas – The one that didn’t get away held an unlikely surprise for a Texas man. The blue-stoned class ring of Joe Richardson, engraved with his name, turned up inside an 8-pound bass 21 years after he lost it while fishing on Lake Sam Rayburn.
“My first reaction was — you gotta be kidding,” he said Wednesday.
The fisherman who discovered the tarnished ring inside his catch contacted Richardson on Nov. 28 in Buna, about 100 miles northeast of Houston, after tracking him down with help from the Internet.
His fisherman hero asked to remain anonymous.
Richardson, 41, said he lost the ring about two weeks after his 1987 graduation from Universal Technical Institute in Houston. His mom had bought it for about $200 and wasn’t pleased when it went missing.
As a mechanic, Richardson said he doesn’t wear jewelry so he tucked the undamaged ring away.
“I have not cleaned it,” he said. “I told my wife I don’t want to clean it.”
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Categories: Show Piles December 2008
No, really!
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – A man using a candy cane lawn ornament fended off a knife-wielding neighbor who had been attacking holiday guests at a Sacramento home. Police spokesman Sgt. Norm Leong said the man used the two-foot-tall plastic ornament to subdue the attacker until officers arrived.
He said the 49-year-old suspect became intoxicated, went over to a neighbor’s home on Thanksgiving and began waving a kitchen knife at people gathered on the lawn.
He cut several peoples’ clothing before one of them decided to fight back.
Police said the man with the knife was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. The guest who took up the candy cane was not arrested because police determined he acted in self-defense.
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Categories: Show Piles December 2008
Apparently not…
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) – A Pennsylvania pizzeria insists venison is not on the menu – despite the impression a customer may have gotten when she saw one of the cooks butchering a deer in the shop’s kitchen.
The manager of Stromboli Pizza in Allentown says a customer saw one of the restaurant cooks carving up a deer Tuesday. But John Okumus says the venison was not intended for the store.
He says he shot a doe during a hunt and left the carcass in the store’s kitchen for pickup by a friend. Okumus says a customer complained to the city health department after seeing a cook mistakenly butcher the deer.
The department investigated the incident but did not issue a citation.
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Categories: Show Piles December 2008
Certainly a bit different scenery than one might expect in Mexico!
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) – It may have seemed like a mirage: Two camels nibbling on a pine tree along a street in this desert metropolis on the Texas border. Police tried lassoing the animals, which lunged at the officers with snapping teeth as onlookers chuckled.
But in the end, officials say all it took was some juicy green leaves on a branch held by the caretaker to lure the camels back into captivity.
Police spokesman Jaime Torres says the camels named Yull and Tobi escaped early Wednesday from the warehouse of a businessman, who had bought the animals for a planned amusement park.
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Categories: Show Piles December 2008
Ya think she had a few too many?
RENO, Nev. (AP) – The Nevada Highway Patrol says a drunken driving suspect in Reno was gassed in more ways than one. A 40-year-old Reno woman was arrested early Tuesday after an ambulance crew saw her driving on U.S. Highway 395 with a fuel hose and nozzle sticking out of her gas tank.
Patrol spokesman Chuck Allen said the crew tried to signal the woman after they spotted the unusual appendage to her green Subaru wagon about 4:30 a.m. but couldn’t get her attention.
He said the crew eventually initiated a traffic stop and radioed the state troopers. Upon their arrival, the woman failed a sobriety test and was arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence.
Allen said they are still trying to find the service station that is missing the nozzle and about 6 feet of fuel hose.
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Categories: Show Piles December 2008
…and not the first time this has happened!
BENTONVILLE, Ark. (AP) – Usually when a charity wants a donor to return, the agency is seeking another contribution. Helping Hands in Bentonville wants the person who left what’s apparently a funerary urn to come back and get it.
The ceramic vessel is elaborately hand-painted in an Asian style, featuring blossoms, mockingbirds, vases and trees, and has a cherry wood bottom. Its top is affixed with a tar-like seal, which led workers to conclude that someone’s ashes are inside.
“It was strange because it is obviously not something that happens every day. It just came in the back with a bunch of other donations,” Helping Hands director Bill Crawford said.
There is no inscription to indicate whose remains are inside. The urn was among clothes, furniture and other items that were left a couple of months ago at the charity, which helps families in need.
“It is really pretty, but after we found out, we all just kind of stared at it for three days,” worker Angela Garber said.
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Categories: Show Piles December 2008
This guy really had the Christmas spirit!
PARRISH, Fla. (AP) – Authorities say a west Florida man who lives with his parents has been arrested on a felony assault charge after he used a Christmas tree as a weapon to attack his father.
According to the Manatee County sheriff’s report a 37-year-old man was arrested last week after he threw a 3-foot Christmas tree at his father. The tree missed, but the man then tried to use the steel base from the tree to strike his father.
His father and mother were able to grab his arms to prevent the attack. Deputies say the tree could have caused serious injuries because the metal base weighs about five pounds.
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Categories: Show Piles December 2008
Those 3-point turns always get me, too!
EAST MEADOW, N.Y. (AP) – Police on Long Island say they’ve pulled two drunken drivers from one car.
Nassau County officers say they spotted a woman trying to make a three-point turn on a road in East Meadow. They say that when she couldn’t complete the maneuver, she switched places with a male passenger, who took the steering wheel and completed the turn while not wearing a seat belt.
Police pulled them over and charged them with drunken driving.
As police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey put it, “We have two individuals arrested for driving the same car intoxicated.”
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Categories: Show Piles December 2008
It is a sad day for men who want a view while getting their cars washed:
So called ‘bikini car washes’ like the one that emerged on San Antonio, Texas’ south side this past summer would be restricted or even outlawed under a change in zoning laws to be approved by San Antonio City Council later this week, 1200 WOAI’s Bud Little reports.
Councilwoman Jennifer Ramos, who represents the area which includes the Bikini Car Wash on South Flores Street is pushing for the zoning changes.
“We address the lighting issue and noise issue, and now will address the issue of viewing from public sites,” Ramos said.
She says the zoning changes will allow city officials to approve or restrict various types of car washes, and would give officials more leeway in shutting down offending businesses.
Ramos says the original Bikini Car Wash ‘no longer exists in that form.’
“This will help a neighborhood which has these types of issues,” Ramos said. “These changes will help alert a community to new car wash establishments coming into the area.”
City officials were caught flat footed this past spring when the Bikini Car Wash opened on South Flores, leading to gawking passersby.
It turned out that there were no city zoning rules which would specifically allow the Bikini Car Wash to be shut down, so officials resorted to harassment tactics, including shutting down the business briefly because the drains were an improper size.
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Categories: Show Piles December 2008
A personal victory as a parent….
The rowdy Bratz dolls have been evicted. Barbie has regained control of the dollhouse.
Toy giant Mattel Inc. (MAT), after a four-year legal dispute with MGA Entertainment Inc., touted its win in the case Wednesday after a federal judge banned MGA from making and selling its pouty-lipped and hugely popular Bratz dolls.
“It’s a pretty sweeping victory,” Mattel attorney Michael Zeller said. “They have no right to use Bratz for any goods or services at all.”
U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson rocked the toy industry with his order that MGA must immediately stop manufacturing Bratz. He allowed MGA to wait until the holiday season ends to remove the toys from store shelves.
The decision was a stunning defeat for MGA, which exploded onto the tween scene in 2001 with the edgy dolls and made hundreds of millions in profits, giving Mattel’s more classic doll-diva Barbie a run for her money.
The ruling, issued in federal court in Riverside, followed a jury’s finding that Bratz designer Carter Bryant developed the concept for the dolls while working for Mattel.
The same jury later awarded Mattel $10 million for copyright infringement and $90 million for breach of contract after a lengthy trial stemming from Mattel’s 2004 lawsuit ended in August.
They can always appeal, but in the meantime, we have a BFZ (Bratz Free Zone)!
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Categories: Show Piles December 2008
