Happy Birthday Dick Wilson

One of advertising's most recognized figure, Dick Wilson aka "Mr. Whipple" turns 90 today.

Wiki -

Mr. George Whipple is a fictional supermarket manager featured in television advertisements that ran in the United States from 1965 to 1989 for Charmin toilet paper. In unvarying repetition, he scolds women who "squeeze the Charmin," while hypocritically entertaining such actions himself. (more...)

Let's See What Sticks

I've got a pair plus 2 aces

iWon -

It started as an April Fool's joke but an Irish bookmaker's proposal to hold the world's biggest strip poker contest will become reality next month.

Paddy Power floated the idea as a joke but it generated so much interest -- and hundreds of requests to take part -- that the Dublin-based company decided to organize a contest. (more...)

TheIndyBlog - News and Events from around Indianapolis and surrounding counties

TheIndyBlog - News and Events from around Indianapolis and surrounding counties

That Should Raise More Than Just Revenue

Buffalo News via Fark -

Club owner says taxes are his reason for leaving state
New York taxes lap dances in strip clubs.

And that, says Richard A. Snowden, is one of the main reasons he is leaving Buffalo.

Snowden earlier this week said he is leaving for Las Vegas because he can't get far in local politics as the owner of a gentleman's club. But on Friday, he acknowledged that lap-dance taxes - and other state levies - are also big reasons for his unhappiness.

According to Snowden, the state wants him to pay $216,000 in sales taxes on private lap dances provided by the nearly nude performers in his Rick's Tally-Ho club in Cheektowaga. Ya gotta read the rest of this....

High Speed Pursuit?

iWon News-

Thief robs police on release from custody
BERLIN (Reuters) - Police in the Bavarian city of Ingolstadt were stunned when a thief they had just released from custody stole an officer's bicycle on his way out and rode off on it, authorities said Thursday. "They could scarcely believe his cheek," said a spokesman for Ingolstadt police. "It's almost impossible to beat."

Police had earlier arrested the 22-year-old man of Tunisian origin after he was caught stealing handbags and only released him on condition he report back to them later.

After he was set free, an observant officer spotted the man helping himself to the bicycle outside the station. Police gave chase and quickly re-arrested him, the spokesman said.

"He claimed he thought it belonged to a friend," he added. "He won't be getting out of jail so quickly this time."

Once You've Had Mac, You'll Never Go Back

Dammit Jim, I'm a Doctor Not A Rapper

Ain't That A Peach

July 17 is . . . . National Peach Ice Cream Day

Texas Cooking -

Peach Ice Cream

* 5 cups ripe peaches, peeled and chopped
* 6 eggs, lightly beaten, at room temperature
* 2-1/2 cups sugar
* 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
* dash of salt
* 4 cups whole milk
* 3 cups heavy cream (whipping cream)

In a blender, purée 3 cups of the peaches. Mash the remaining 3 cups of chopped peaches with a potato masher. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, flour, vanilla and salt until well blended. Set aside.

In a large, heavy saucepan over low heat, heat the milk and cream, just until it begins to steam. Pour a little of the heated mixture into the egg and sugar mixture, and stir. Then pour the bowl of egg/sugar/milk mixture back into the heavy saucepan. Continue to cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is thick and smooth. Remove from heat, and refrigerate the mixture for several hours or until well chilled.

Add the puréed peaches to the chilled mixture, stir well, and pour into a 5-quart ice cream freezer can. Turn on the ice cream freezer or crank it by hand for 5 minutes. Then, carefully remove the top of the can and the dasher, and add the reserved 2 cups of mashed peaches, mixing them in with a long spoon. Put the dasher back in and the top back on, and continue freezing according to the manufacturer's directions. Allow ice cream to ripen for at least an hour. Makes about 3-1/2 quarts.

Heads up! Tomorrow is National Ice Cream Day - AND - National Caviar Day. (Unless one is pregnant, I do not suggest combining these two.

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That

iWon -

Oprah Says She, Friend Gayle King Not Gay

NEW YORK (AP) - Oprah Winfrey and her friend Gayle King want to be clear: they're not gay. In the August issue of O, the Oprah Magazine, the talk-show host explains that some people misunderstand her close friendship with King.

"I understand why people think we're gay," she says. "There isn't a definition in our culture for this kind of bond between women. So I get why people have to label it - how can you be this close without it being sexual?"

In a long article, Winfrey, 52, and King converse about their 30 years of friendship and "four-times-a-day phone calls." King, who hosted "The Gayle King Show" in 1997, is an editor of O, the Oprah Magazine.

The two friends say they would have no problem telling the public if they were in a sexual relationship.

"The truth is, if we were gay, we would tell you, because there's nothing wrong with being gay," says King.

Says Winfrey: "Something about this relationship feels otherworldly to me, like it was designed by a power and a hand greater than my own. Whatever this friendship is, it's been a very fun ride."

Get The Point?

July 16 is . . . .


International Juggling Day

Baseball Players All Look Alike

More from iWon News -

White Player Gets Dark-Skinned Bobblehead
By BEN NUCKOLS

BALTIMORE (AP) - Orioles players have joked in the past that they didn't look like their bobblehead dolls. But when a recent shipment of Brian Roberts bobbleheads arrived, team officials knew something was wrong. Roberts, who is white, had dark skin.

"It didn't look like Brian Roberts. The coloring was bad," Orioles spokesman Bill Stetka said. "I didn't actually see it. I've heard various versions that it was very dark and bluish."

The team returned the entire shipment of 20,000 Roberts dolls, which they had planned to hand out Saturday. Instead of bobbleheads, all fans who attend the game against the Texas Rangers will be given vouchers that they can use to pick up more accurate Roberts dolls at Camden Yards after Sept. 1. The team may end up giving away more than 20,000 dolls because of the mistake, Stetka said. Continues ...

What are the chances that these will end up on eBay?

Sex Worker Advocacy

via iWon News -
Vegas Sex Workers Demand Rights, Respect
By KATHLEEN HENNESSEY

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Strippers and hookers are trying to get some respect in Sin City. The so-called sex workers demonstrated yesterday on the steps of the courthouse in downtown Las Vegas. They're calling for more legal protection and decriminalization of the world's oldest profession.

Starchild, a 36-year-old former Army Reservist stood amid rallying sex workers in Las Vegas on Thursday and boasted of his bid for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

"And that ballot is going to say 'escort/exotic dancer,'" he said, beaming.

Protesting prostitutes, strippers and men and women of the night said they came to the downtown courthouse steps to try enable others like Starchild - active advocates for sex workers. The group called for more respect and stronger legal protections for legal and illegal workers in the sex industry. They complained that a series of new antihuman trafficking laws restrict their freedom and called for the decriminalization of the world's oldest profession. Wait, there's more ....

Mark That Insufficient Funds

WSBTV -

Thieves Try To Cash Stolen Checks That Belong To Bank Employee

SYLVESTER -- Three people accused of stealing checks in Worth County went to the wrong bank to cash them.

Joyce Powell is a clerk at the Sylvester Banking Company and was at work when a co-worker in the drive-through window told her someone was trying to cash one of her personal checks.

Investigators say the three suspects had just broken into four homes in rural Worth County.

The bank employee stalled the suspects, telling the one presenting the check that he must show some sort of identification. Meanwhile, Powell checked with authorities and learned someone had broken into her house.

The suspects became suspicious and left. But 27-year-old Calvin Barfield had left his driver's license and Social Security card at the bank. It didn't take authorities long to track him to a motel in Albany.

Authorities arrested the three late Monday near the Calhoun County line. They are being held in the Worth County Jail charged with burglary and forgery.

Those charged in addition to Barfield are 26-year-old Shannon Parrish and 19-year-old Stacey Ellis. Sheriff Freddie Tompkins says the three also are accused of passing bad checkings in Lee and Dougherty counties, and charges there are pending.

Two of My Favorite Things, eh

July 15 is . . . .


National Tapioca Pudding Day

and ...


Respect Canada Day

Vader Unwound

via Fark -

Please Mr. Postman

via iWon -

Postal worker caught with thousands of letters

BERLIN (Reuters) - A Berlin postal worker who was caught with more than several thousand undelivered letters in his basement has admitted he was overwhelmed by the job but insisted he planned to deliver them soon.

Police recently found 90 boxes of post stacked in his basement. The postal worker, 36, identified as Thomas H., told Bild newspaper Friday he was only temporarily storing the post at his house and friends would help with delivery.

"There were just too much and I couldn't deliver it all by myself," he told the newspaper. Police said some of the letters found had been postmarked as early as April. The postal worker faces disciplinary action.

No wonder I never received my Publisher's Clearing House entry....

Need A Date? Call 9-1-1

Indy Star -

Woman asks 911 to send 'cutie pie' deputy

ALOHA, Ore. (AP) -- A woman who called 911 to get "the cutest cop I've seen" sent back to her home got a date all right - a court date.

The same sheriff's deputy arrested her on charges of misuse of the emergency dispatch system.

Washington County Sheriff's Sgt. David Thompson told KGW-TV of Portland it all started with a noise complaint called in last month by neighbors of Lorna Jeanne Dudash. The deputy sent to check on the complaint knocked on her door, then left.

Thompson said Dudash then called 911, asking that the "cutie pie" deputy return.

"He's the cutest cop I've seen in a long time. I just want to know his name," Dudash told the dispatcher. "Heck, it doesn't come very often a good man comes to your doorstep."

After listening to some more, followed by a bit of silence, the dispatcher asked again why Dudash needed the deputy to return.

"Honey, I'm just going to be honest with you, OK? I just thought he was cute. I'm 45 years old and I'd just like to meet him again, but I don't know how to go about doing that without calling 911," she said.

"I know this is absolutely not in any way, shape or form an emergency, but if you would give the officer my phone number and ask him to come back, would you mind?"

The deputy returned, verified that there was no emergency and arrested her for misusing the 911 system, an offense punishable by a fine of up to several thousand dollars and a year in jail.

Thompson said Thursday it was the first case he knew of in which someone called the emergency line for such a personal reason.

"That's taking up valuable time from dispatchers who could be taking true emergency calls," he said.

New Use for Office Supplies

via iWon -

Blogger turns paper clip into house
Jul 13, 8:04 AM (ET)

TORONTO (Reuters) - A Canadian man was handed the keys to a three-bedroom house Wednesday, exactly a year after he offered a red paper clip online, asking to trade it for "bigger or better" things.

In his latest trade, Kyle MacDonald, 26, swapped a bit role in a Hollywood movie for a house in the small Western Canadian town of Kipling, Saskatchewan.

When he started his quest with the paper clip, MacDonald said getting a house was his goal.

He traded in the paper clip for a fish pen and eventually moved up to an afternoon with rocker Alice Cooper before snagging the Hollywood movie role in his 14th trade.
More here ...

Al's Global Warning

Move Over Amanda

One Man's Trash ...

iWon News-

Scot sold van Gogh paintings for a pittance
Jul 9, 10:06 AM (ET)

By Ian MacKenzie

EDINBURGH (Reuters) - When Scottish art dealer Alexander Reid returned from Paris with two paintings by Vincent van Gogh, his father berated him for bringing such "atrocities" home and sold them to a French dealer for five pounds ($9) each.

It did not matter that the paintings, a portrait of Reid and a still life of a basket of apples, were in fact gifts to the young Scot, who had lived for several months in Paris with Vincent and his brother, Theo, in Montmartre in 1886-87.

The two paintings and another van Gogh portrait of Reid are included in an exhibition of the Dutch painter's works that opened recently at Edinburgh's Dean Gallery, part of the National Galleries of Scotland. It runs to September 24.

In Search of Illinois Bigfoot Clan

WLS-TV -

Does Bigfoot live in Illinois?
WLS

June 14, 2006 - Professional "Bigfoot" trackers have returned to central Illinois, looking for Sasquatch after reports of more activity.
Tom Biscaridi and his crew are in a McLean County forest looking for tracks, droppings and split trees. He says there are a lot of signs of the creature of folklore and he believes he's getting closer to tracking him down.

Biscaridi even brought a hand with him that he thinks could be from the elusive creature. A man who reported a sighting in the woods says it was a mother and baby Bigfoot.

The team's last sightings in the area were in February. They plan to continue to come back to gather more evidence and set up traps. They're also using infrared glasses and heat-seeking devices. They hope their search will bring Bigfoot out of legend and into the light.

How exactly does one learn to become a "professional Bigfoot tracker"?

Got Milk?

July 9 is . . . . . National Sugar Cookie Day

Hmm, hmm, good

SFGate.com -

Woman Jailed for Mouse-In-Soup Scam
Thursday, July 6, 2006

(07-06) 06:36 PDT Newport News, Va. (AP) --

A woman who tried to extort money from the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain by putting a dead mouse in a bowl of soup was sentenced to a year in jail.

Carla Patterson, 38, and her 22-year-old son, Ricky Patterson, sought $500,000 from the chain after claiming they found the rodent in the vegetable soup the woman ordered at a Newport News restaurant on Mother's Day weekend in 2004.

A jury convicted the Pattersons of conspiracy to commit extortion in April. The Pattersons maintained their innocence, but evidence included tests showed the mouse had not been cooked and had not drowned but instead died of a fractured skull.

Carla Patterson wept Wednesday as a judge imposed the jail sentence and a $2,500 fine. Defense lawyer Michael Woods said Patterson plans to appeal.

Ricky Patterson's sentencing, which had been scheduled for Wednesday, was postponed until Sept. 14. He is at Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail in Williamsburg after pleading guilty to forgery in an unrelated check-fraud case.

Fake agency offers ads on hookers' thighs

via iWon
Fake agency offers ads on hookers' thighs
Jul 5, 7:59 AM (ET)

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch design student bored with conventional advertisements has set up a fake online agency offering advertising space for beer, cars and TV stations on prostitutes' thighs and cleavage.

On his website www.instoresnow.nl, Raoul Balai also proposed painting brand names on zoo animals and floating huge billboards off popular beaches to get vacationers' attention.

'I was getting sick and tired of advertising everywhere,' Balai told reporters. 'But I don't want to preach, and I thought satire would work better.'

Far from taking his ideas as a joke, an Amsterdam zoo had its lawyer threaten Balai with a defamation suit after his website depicted fish from the zoo bearing the brand name of a frozen fish company.

Prospective customers phoning his fake agency are kept on hold and bombarded with sales pitches until they give up."

Oofta

Wikipedia -

Uff da is an exclamation, of Scandinavian origins, that is relatively common in the Upper Midwestern states of the United States, meaning roughly 'drats', 'oops!', or 'ouch!', especially if the 'ouch!' is an empathetic one. The vowel in the first word is usually pronounced approximately similar to the vowel in the English word "book," though it is also pronounced with a long [u] sound, as in "snooze".

"Uff da" is often used in the Upper Midwest as a term for sensory overload. It can be used as an expression of surprise, astonishment, exhaustion, and sometimes dismay. The term can also be used when one is relieved, after a difficult or exhausting task. The term has been heard among men when a particularly attractive woman enters a room. Conversely, many Roto-rooter and septic system repair trucks have "Uff da" proudly painted on the back.

In Norwegian, "Uff da" is often spoken in a sympathetic sense, often used to show compassion to somebody. Let's say a man has broken a bone. One might take a look at it, and then say "Uff da, det ser ikke så bra ut"; meaning something like "Man, that doesn't look too good".

The term can also be spelled uff-da, uffda, uff-dah, oofda, ufda, oofta and ufta.