Do you know what I could do with $231

It does not involve a stroller that keeps my watermelon cold. Are refrigerators going out of style?

From Engadget.com:

So far as we can tell, this here watermelon cart (priced at ¥19,950, or a whopping $231) serves to keep your voluptuous fruit cool when being transported from market to mouth, but everything beyond that is lost in translation.

Omelettes anyone?

Armed burglars demand egg beater, reports the Tampa Tribune (and my mother) in a bizarre story from Dec. 14.  Two Florida men were charged with armed burglary after authorities found them outside a home where the victim reported the incident.

 

http://www.originfx.com/custom/EggBeater.png

The sheriff’s office said the two men came into the victim’s home about 3:35 a.m. (The suspect) armed himself with a folding knife while (a second suspect) held a chrome pistol, arrest reports said.

(The suspect) held the knife against the victim’s neck and demanded the metal egg beater which was found in his left back pocket when he was arrested, the sheriff’s office said.

The report also said the victim knew both men.

I don’t think that last part makes me feel any better about the whole thing.

The suspects are being held without bond.

The economy hurts everyone

I’m not sure what this is signaling, per se, but there seems to be a focus on low-budget, food-related assaults recently.  Maybe the Blue Box is less expensive than a good knife?

mac_cheese_lg.jpg

From the North Platte Telegraph, we get this:

An unemployed 48-year-old North Platte man was arrested Saturday after police said he assaulted his live-in girlfriend with a cooking pot because he was upset she made him macaroni for dinner.
According to the police report, [the suspect] was intoxicated and assaulted his girlfriend with the pot when he discovered she made macaroni for his dinner. The assault caused the food to be tossed throughout the residence, as he struck her with the pot, according to the report.

And deli meat is FAR more economical than brass knuckles.  From the Florida-based TC Palm:

A 19-year-old man accused of hitting his girlfriend with a sandwich, knocking her glasses off and nearly causing a traffic crash is facing domestic battery and child abuse charges, according to a recently released police report.

The victim told police that [the suspect] got angry while she drove and “started to hit her in the arm and striking her in the face with a sandwich, knocking her glasses off her face,” the report states. [The suspect] told investigators that, indeed, he argued. He said he “didn’t want to hit her so he threw a sandwich at her striking her in the face knocking her glasses off.”

He also admitted beating the windshield with the mirror and his fist.

The type of sandwich hurled was not specified in the report.

Spaghetti is a not a weapon

As the Dallas Morning News reports, someone is vandalizing local homes with jarred sauce.

Frisco police are investigating at least eight incidents in which jars of spaghetti sauce have been thrown at cars and homes, causing several hundred dollars worth of damage. In one incident, a jar of Great Value brand onions was thrown, along with a jar of garlic spaghetti sauce. “Maybe they were trying to make a good sauce,” Sgt. Meadors said.

Specifically, jars of spaghetti sauce – various flavors and brands, according to the police report – are breaking windows and landing on vehicles, costing owners $4,600 in damages and generally making a mess.

 

 http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster_2.jpg

 

One poor guy has been hit twice:

 Mr. Anglin said the first time, he came out to his porch and found a huge mess.

 “The very next Saturday, I came outside and I looked up and noticed the sauce, and then I looked down and that’s when my child said, ‘Dad, we were hit again,'” he told KTVT-TV. 

Southern Hospitality, sort of

 Southern Italy, that is.

Today’s Washington Post brings us a story of a man who drank too much, and then did the responsible thing and took the bus home.  To bad it was the wrong bus, it wasn’t his home, and police had to come wake the guy up when the actual homeowners found him asleep in their bed:

Bob Breiner walked upstairs to the master bedroom and flipped on a lamp. Less than two feet away: a man he’d never seen, wrapped in blankets, sound asleep. On the floor were shoes, socks and pants. Earlier, the man had apparently helped himself to a crab cake from the refrigerator.

“The man had been drinking,” said Montgomery police spokeswoman Lucille Baur, “and returned to what he thought was his home and climbed into bed and went to sleep.”

He had missed by eight miles, apparently getting off at the wrong bus stop on his way home to Damascus. Gingerly, he made his way down the Breiners’ stairs, holding the banister in one hand and his shoes and socks in the other.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” the Breiners recalled him saying. “By the way, you have a very comfortable bed.”

When the homeowners found out the intruder had no police records and had recently lost his job, they declined to press charges. (The front door was unlocked when he entered, so crab cake theft was really his only crime)

But here comes my favorite part:

 

 Joanne Breiner, who teaches English as a second language at Roberto Clemente Middle School, headed into her kitchen. Into a plastic grocery bag she packed a container of homemade chicken soup, homemade cookies and some spare ribs, giving the food to officers and telling them to pass it on to the man.

“I think her mom would have been disappointed if we didn’t feed the intruder,” said Bob Breiner, noting the manners of his Sicilian-born wife and mother-in-law.

 Things could have ended up differently, had the intruder stumbled in a few hours later. Bob Breiner, a podiatrist, practices krav maga, a form of martial arts taught by theIsraeli army. “We use a lot of elbows to the head, knees to the stomach and kicks to the groin,” he said.


In the Spirit

It’s definitely fall where I live (dark mornings, fog, apples at the farmers markets, etc), and some of the neighbors have started pulling out the Halloween decorations. But this is just gross.

http://www.pixelgirlpresents.com/images/desktops/Tim_Zulewski/bat2004_1280.jpg

As the Iowa-based Gazette reports, An Eastern Iowa woman had more of a jolt than usual from her morning coffee when she found a BAT IN THE COFFEE GROUNDS.

Ew.

The Iowa Department of Public Health reports that the woman had seen a bat in her house, but wasn’t particularly concerned about it.

She turned on her automatic coffee maker, went to bed and drank her coffee as usual the next morning.

When she removed the coffee filter that night, however, she discovered a dead bat in the filter that had gone through that morning’s brew cycle.

The woman received rabies shots as a precaution because the brewing process obliterated most of the bat’s brain, which is what they use to test the animal for rabies.

Ew.

File Under: Seemed like a good idea at the time

Three young men in Maine were arrested August 29 for what I would consider bargain hunting.  The Bangor Daily News reports:

The Skinny Dip sandwich at the Black Frog Restaurant is free if you bare all and brave a jump into the cold waters of Moosehead Lake, but the court fee for indecent conduct isn’t.

Three friends who took the plunge bare-naked over the weekend and had the tasty sliced prime rib in a baguette roll may now have wished they’d ordered another meal or paid the $10.95 for the sandwich.

http://bakingbites.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/frenchdip.jpg

See, the restaurant backs up to a small lake, and have outdoor seating on a barge.  When our heroes expressed interest in dropping their pants for the free sandwich, the restaurant owner asked his other patrons if they would mind.  None did, and the young men proceeded with their naked jump in the lake.

Sadly, their jump did offend a family that was standing on a nearby boardwalk (they were the ones who called the police to complain), as well as a local gamewarden who was refueling his boat. Police came to the restaurant to arrest the jumpers.

Here’s where it gets good:

When police arrived and issued the summons, all of the restaurant patrons on the barge pitched in and donated money to the streakers to help pay the fine, according to Turner. He believed the guests provided about $150 to each of the three skinny dippers.

The Class E crime is punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000, but the local District attorney said the punishment for such a misdemeanor would not involve jail time and that the fine would likely range from $300 to $500 each.

And the restaurant owner will continue to offer a free sandwich for diners who take the plunge.

No doubt a seasoned criminal

Thanks for Reader Sara for allerting me to the following food crime, first reported by the AP at CNN.com:

Officials: Burglar wakes men with spice rub, sausage whack

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Spices_22078028.jpg

Fresno, CA, authorities arrested a 22-year-old man they found hiding in a field wearing a t-shirt, boxers and socks. He’d left his wallet and ID behind after he ransacked the home of two farmworkers.I feel like this part of the capture could have been avoided if he were wearing pants.

The news report is somewhat lacking in details, but it does offer this image:

 The farmworkers told deputies the suspect woke them Saturday morning by rubbing spices on one of them and smacking the other with an 8-inch sausage.

    http://lifeofando.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/sausage.jpg

The suspect is also accused of taking money from the farmworkers’ home, but it was recovered.