Flight Risk

2/6/07


Normally the following story would be relegated to the pages of a bad romance novel, which is why it’s so hilariously interesting whenever things like this happen in real life. Forty-three year old astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak was released on $15,500 bail yesterday, on the condition that she not try to contact the woman with whom she allegedly attempted to kidnap. Nowak is charged with attempted burglary, attempted kidnapping, destruction of evidence and battery. What sparked this bizarre, rocket-fueled crime? A love triangle, of course!

Nowak is a married mother of three who drove 900 miles from Houston to Orlando, in disguise, armed with a BB gun and pepper spray, to throw down with her romantic rival U.S. Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman, over Navy Commander William Oefelein (pictured below) who is also an astronaut. The two space jockeys trained together and both flew in shuttle missions for the first time last year, though never together. But let me tell you, when you vomit in front of someone after being spun around in a huge chair for fifteen minutes, romance is almost guaranteed to flower. Splitting a package of freeze-dried ice cream is like Spanish Fly, brother.

After the cross-country trek in a tan trench coat and black wig like something out of film noir, Nowak followed Shipman’s car to a parking lot. After slapping on the car window like a homeless lunatic, Nowak burst into tears and asked for a ride. Shipman, who may not be the smartest tack, rolled down the window and Nowak treated her to a face full of pepper spray. Shipman drove off…somehow, and called the police. The BB gun and spray wasn’t all Nowak brought with her, either. No, this watched-Fatal Attraction-too-many-times broad came prepared! The police found a steel mallet, black gloves, rubber tubing and plastic garbage bags as Nowak attempted to dump them into a garbage can. All she was missing for a full-on murder kit was a shovel and bag of lye. But it gets better! In her car the cops found latex gloves, handwritten directions to Shipman’s house, and diapers. Yep. Because you see, when driving 900 miles to stalk and assault the possible lover of your extra-marital affair, you don’t want to be stopping to urinate.

For the record, that’s a married astronaut driving across country with a junior-felon grab bag of weaponry, to assault an Air Force Captain because they’re both in love with another astronaut. I wish I would have thought of this for a short story.

According to NASA, this is the only time an astronaut on active duty has been charged with a felony. If convicted Nowak could face up to life in prison for kidnapping under Florida law. She won’t get that stiff a sentence, I expect. If nothing else, even someone murdering and eating babies would probably get off light if they were wearing diapers at the time. I think that’s called the “poopy-pants defense.”




Sources: Wikipedia – Nowak and Oefelein
Forbes.com – Astronaut Charged with Attempted Kidnapping

From the Office

2/5/07




You know, listening to someone else describe a dream is already boring, but listening to a coworker describe, entirely in run-on sentences, her nocturnal filmstrip involving Jennifer Anniston, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie running around a mall, is a special kind of 8 a.m. hell.

It almost makes me long for the tedious and idiotic stories where she anthropomorphizes her cats to the point where you just know that, were they capable of even understanding a tenth of what she thinks they can, they would have ran away from home long ago. Or maybe thrown themselves into traffic to escape her black hole of emotional longing; one of the two.

_________________________________________________________________

“Have you ever wanted to, you know, go back and change one thing about your life and see how you would have turned out? Maybe just one turning point?”

I can think of few questions more adolescent and narcissistic than this one. You’re only asking me so that I will ask you the same thing and you can tell me a long, boring story about how you wish you’d never entered that blow-job contest or some other malarkey. I simply could not give less of a shit that you are so unhappy with your life you wish to go back and see what different but equally shitty bargain-basement path you could have taken for yourself.

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I’m guilty of this one myself, but not since I was in my teens: Can we all agree to stop saying, “I don’t want a funeral; I want mine to be like a big party!” This includes all “hilarious” suggestions of things to do with your body, including having it pop out of the casket like a huge, grotesque marionette. We get it, you’re fun and different. Just stick to quotes from movies that were popular five years ago and we’ll all pretend like you’re not a jackass, okay?

If you think through the whole “funeral party” idea for a few seconds you’ll realize that, were you able to see it from some afterlife, that would suck big time. Who honestly wants a bunch of un-sad, drunken revelers at their wake? I’d much rather see my wife and kids crying than some douche I knew in high school using my gray, makeupped face as a coaster for his can of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

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The bathroom smells like somebody pooped on a grapefruit. I see one of three possibilities:

1. The cleaning crew is making some curious deodorizer choices.
2. We have an employee so terrified of scurvy he’s consuming citrus while pooping.
3. Someone, perhaps that same employee, is eating enough grapefruit to have transformed his poo in a way that actually makes me wish for the nice, normal smell of digested meat.

With thoughts like these, it’s a wonder I haven’t yet cracked into the upper echelon of management.

__________________________________________________________________

Several laws of statistics lead me to believe that at least 90% of you who brag about the high intelligence of your school-age relatives are either severely delusional or lying bastards.

Running On Empty

2/2/07


I have had a request that it might be nice if I did a preliminary post concerning the upcoming ’08 Presidential Election, and as I have a shortage of other things to complain about just now, I’ve decided to happily oblige. For those of you who have no interest in such things, I urge you not to vote. Please, stay at home and, I dunno, whittle farm animals out of soap or whatever it is you people do while the rest of us try to have a civilization here.

Next year’s election is notable for a number of reasons, not the least of which being the colossal price tag associated with anyone who wants to give a run at our nation’s highest office. Federal Election Commission Chairman Michael Toner has said this race will be “the most expensive in American history,” and that any sucker wishing to be “taken seriously” will need to bank at least $100 million in funds by the end of this year [1]. Cripes. In another glib little sound bite clearly meant to illustrate that he has never worked a minimum wage job in his life, Toner said, “Call it a $100 million entry fee.” Or, as a tagline I have suggested, “Fuck the Homeless.”

The other reason the upcoming muckraking grudge match and is different is the fact that for the first time since 1928 no incumbent candidate is running. V.P. Dick “Shot an Old Man in the Face” Cheney has stated, in no uncertain terms, that he will not run, or accept any nomination. With the field wide open like that, the number of candidates lining up on both sides is thick as a Depression-era bread line. Officially the process of weeding out the terminally un-electable and just plain loony will continue through June, but the major contenders will become a little clearer after the March primaries. What’s the plate look like now? I’m glad you asked.

Republican Hopefuls

The heavy-hitters of the elephant party are Arizona senator John McCain, former NYC mayor and 9/11 juggernaut Rudy Giuliani, and former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney who is the one that kinda looks like a weatherman…okay you’ve probably never heard of him. Curiously none of the afore mentioned giants have officially announced that they will bid for president, but they might as well be walking around with campaign donation boxes stuffed down their shorts they’ve got such a raging hard-on for the job.

McCain / Giuliani / Romney

Polls among Republican-leaning voters have put Giuliani as the current front runner, but he’s only a scant few percentage points ahead of McCain, if at all, with anywhere from 20-30% of red voters favoring either man. Newt Gingrich (is he still alive?) weighs in with about 8-10% support, and Romney tips the scales at 5-8%. After that candidate support bottoms out sharply, with the remaining shiny little hopefuls such as Huckabee and former NY governor George Pataki raking in 1% each. A man can dream, I guess.

Pataki to voters: "Get out the pity vote!"


Democratic Hopefuls

The Democratic field is littered with candidates all hoping to drive a stake into the heart of that lumbering Republican behemoth that has done such a bang-up job of running the country lo these many years. You’ve probably guessed the first tier of racers: NY Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton, wildly popular fast-tracker Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, devilishly handsome Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, Delaware Senator Joe Biden, and the curiously gnome-like Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Whew! There are more, but frankly, who cares?


Clinton / Obama / Biden / Edwards


Kucinich


Clinton and Obama are out ahead right now, with Biden and Edwards bringing up a strong following. I do find it interesting and inspiringly progressive that the two current front runners for my preferred party are a woman and a black man. Ultimately, though, I’m not sure either is electable. I thing too many people hate Hilary and Bill, she comes off a bit harsh and some of her speeches are just…odd. Obama is charismatic, driven and has exciting ideas, but ultimately I just don’t think he’s experienced enough. Then again, Hanni brought up an interesting point to counter that. She said, “Well, I think the past 6 years have shown us that good experience isn’t a must to be President.” Indeed.

I saw Senator Biden on The Daily Show Wednesday night and despite his curiously odd comments recently that could be construed as verbal diarrhea, I liked a lot of the things he had to say, especially on a solution to the Iraq debacle. He favors splitting the country into 3 regions, with the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites each controlling their own. I like any Democrat who actually comes up with an opinion of how to run the country, rather than just explaining how admittedly abysmal the Republican plans are.

I’m pretty torn on this election, folks. I’ve oft said that John McCain is the only Republican I would ever vote for, because he seems level-headed, logical and votes his conscience, which often coincides with generally not fucking over humanity. I like Clinton and Obama, too, and almost have a pathological need to vote blue. But never fear, dear readers! I’ll keep you up to date and appraised as the Road to the White House ’08 trucks along.

[1] Wikipedia – US Presidential Election ‘o8

Mooninite Invasion of Bean Town

2/1/07


Boston, Massachusetts ground to a halt under high alert yesterday when authorities discovered the city had been peppered with “suspicious packages.” Police, feds and even the Coast Guard were mobilized to deal with this massive, obviously coordinated threat of imminent terror. Authorities stated early Wednesday that the packages had components consistent with homemade bombs, and even destroyed a few of them with controlled explosions of their own. Bridges and major roads were quarantined as swarms of special law enforcement officials locked down Bean Town in order to deal with this horror. Finer coordination and swifter action has rarely been seen as Boston mobilized and captured all “nine suspicious devices”! Well…actually, they managed to locate and subdue nine marketing displays.

It was discovered late Wednesday afternoon that the full force of Boston’s response had basically had a full-on freak out and performed the city-wide equivalent of holding a billboard at bay with a shotgun. The devices which must have seemed at the time to be the very face of terror and destruction, turned out to be Lite-Brite style signs in the form of the Mooninites from the Cartoon Network show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Which may be the best Adult Swim (who have a disclaimer about the incident up as of this posting) show ever, by the way. When looking at these signs, which have been up for weeks in other cities without police strapping explosives to them and exploding them, it’s difficult to see exactly what’s so pee-in-your-underoos horrifying about them, but then again, I’m no terror expert. I find it hard to believe there isn’t a single person on the massive Boston response team who hasn’t heard of this show as police blasted one of the signs with a water cannon in order to, I dunno, embarrass the “bomb” into not exploding? Now that’s a 1960’s-style solution to a 2007 problem!

Turner Broadcasting, who owns Cartoon Network has apologized for any confusion and trouble the signs have caused, but honestly, what the fuck was Boston thinking? I mean, I guess a massively ridiculous response to totally innocuous magnetic marketing signs is better than ignoring the dude suspiciously creeping away from his fertilizer truck after parking near city hall, but…wow did you fuckers overreact! Boston authorities are pissed, too. Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis had this to say,

“This has taken a significant toll on our resources.”

Spokesman for the Massachusetts Attorney General Emily LaGrassa was a little firmer when she said, “Our office is involved with an investigation with other federal and state authorities to determine if any criminal charges should be filed and, if so, against whom.”

I can understand that this was a big horror show for the Boston, but that kind of talk smacks of a city whose authorities have been terribly embarrassed and are pissed as hell. Boston has now become the equivalent of a man who has just been told the hottie who just gave him a suck-off in the bathroom is actually Earl the butcher in a wig.

The best part about this whole affair is that the Mooninites from ATHF who’s visage had, up to this point, been seen giving motorists the finger, would love how much chaos they’ve caused. The characters are kind of dicks, you see. What’s almost as good is listening to upstanding, official news reporters attempting to explain the show. Courtesy of the website Test Pattern:

“Trouble-making characters that look like 1980s-era computer graphics.”
(Associated Press/MSNBC.com)

“Outer-space delinquents who make frequent
appearances on the cartoon." (CNN.com)

"Boxy characters ... named Err
and Ignignokt ... Err is described on the "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" website as
"rebellious and angry." (Boston.com)

“The show follows the misadventures
of a carton of French fries, a milkshake and a wad of hamburger meat who live
together in a run-down suburban house.” (Associated Press/MSNBC.com)

“The show is an animated comedy about three detectives in the shape of
human-sized food products that live together in a rental house in New Jersey.”
(Fox News)

If you listen very closely, you can almost hear the sound of millions of Gen X and Y’ers laughing their collective asses off…in between the hits of pot, of course.

The promotion was for an upcoming ATHF movie which will undoubtedly be the awesomest thing ever. Watch the show. The explosion will be enormous. Jumping is useless.