Thursday, January 29, 2009

Cape Cod cop is "wicked pissah." Literally.


Perpetrator/Officer Joseph Houston

It’s not even February yet, but already we’ve found our favorite headline of 2009 in the Cape Cod Times: "Brewster Man Accused of Urinating on Metallica Fan." ~RollingStone.com

There is never anything good in the Cape Cod Times, except for this story which caused me to wonder for a second if I weren't actually reading News of the Weird instead. Here's the whole thing, because it's just too good not to share in its entirety.

BREWSTER – A Brewster police officer is on paid administrative leave after allegedly urinating on a fellow music-lover at a Metallica concert in Boston and then refusing to leave TD Banknorth Garden when security guards ejected him for disorderly conduct.

A Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Transit Police report from that night identifies Brewster Police Officer Joseph Houston, 29, as being thrown out of the Jan. 18 rock concert by security guards at around 10 p.m.

Although he has been charged only with trespassing, Houston appeared to be drunk, flashed his badge in an attempt to get back into the concert, called a black MBTA officer “Obama,” and had been asked to leave the concert after he allegedly urinated on another patron, according to the report.

Citing an ongoing departmental investigation, Brewster Police Chief Richard Koch would not confirm the officer’s identity but did confirm the incident happened. He got word that Sunday night that an officer had been arrested, went to Boston the next day, on Monday, and immediately placed the officer on leave, he said.

Houston earned $50,456.35 including overtime and detail pay, in 2008, according to town records.

Boston attorney Thomas Drechsler, who, according to court records, is representing Houston in this case, did not return two phone requests for comment today.

Houston’s Brewster phone number is unlisted and he was not at home this evening.

A Boston Police spokesperson said there was no record of any charges filed by her department against Houston. Suffolk County District Attorney’s office spokesman Jake Wark said there were no charges filed against Houston beyond trespassing, which carries a maximum $100 fine and/or 30 days in jail. Houston is due back in court on Feb. 5 on that charge, Wark said.

But Wark said the victim could file charges at Boston Municipal Court where a clerk magistrate hearing would determine the need for a trial. Those charges would not be public until after the hearing.

Rolling Stone writes:

The Cape Cod Times doesn’t elaborate on the details, but we’re assuming it went down like this: An obviously drunk Houston really had to go to the bathroom, but rather than miss even one note of “All Nightmare Long,” he reasoned that the appropriate thing to do was to use the poor guy standing in front of him as his own private urinal. Whatever happened, Houston was booted from the venue by 10 p.m., well before Metallica were finished performing, so maybe actually running to use the restroom would have been the better move.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Send Dick Cheney fan mail at his real home address!

(AP Photo/The Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Michael Smith)

Cheney in Wyoming last week, sitting in the wheelchair he stole from a pediatric terminal cancer patient, after throwing the child out of the chair and into a cold ditch.


Wonkette reports that the Vice Presidential residence is no longer shrouded in pixelly secrecy when viewed on Google Maps. In fact, the image miraculously turned lucid the day Rollerdevil Cheney moved out and the Bidens moved in. Behold the before and afters:



I was curious where the Evildoer doth dwell now. I know he's got digs in Jackson Hole, a place to which I almost moved eight years ago due to its amazing dumps of fresh powder (I even had been offered a job at the National Museum of Wildlife Art which included an all-mountain ski pass). Anyhow, I did a little digging down the Google Rabbit Hole, and voila. Click on the image to enlarge.



Granted this PDF document is circa 2000, but unless they've sold their place at the Teton Pines Resort and Country Club, then this is where to find him should you want to send a fan letter or a phone call of congratulatory kudos for such a Vice Presidential job well done. Or should you want to bring a pan of brownies by, my guess is it's the one surrounded by the moat, which is probably filled with hungry alligators.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Russell Brand gets laid good when the telly is bad


Russell working his magic on the Queen Mum

~ Guache, philandering, yet completely hot sex maniac Russell Brand, on why so many women want to have sex with him, as told to GQ:

“Well, I don’t know—I’m sure there are as many reasons as there are women—but I think if there is a consistency, I think that there’s something that’s very truthful in it. I’m completely honest, I completely love them, and I’m completely in alignment with something that’s truthful. If I was going up to women and going, ‘Oh, all right darling, you’ve got lovely hair, do you want to come back to my place, I’ve got a Jacuzzi’—all of which is true—I don’t think it would work. But honestly, the thirst is so powerful: ‘Oh, my God, you’re so beautiful, how can you not come with me now, it’s going to be brilliant. Why would you not? What are you doing? What’s on the telly? What are you going to do instead?’ I’m not a [real] estate agent with a Porsche key ring on my thumb. The thing I’m offering I can deliver.”

The Amherst Police Report

It's that time again. My sister Debby is visiting from Amherst (MA) and brought my favorite reading material along with her -- the Amherst Bulletin's Police Report. These gems are from the January 23rd edition.

ACCIDENTS



Vroom vroom.
A vehicle went off Bay Road into a snowbank, police said. The vehicle was able to leave under its own power, police said.

Accident adjustment
6:27 p.m. One driver said she would check with her chiropractor following a minor two-car accident on College Street, police said.

ANIMAL COMPLAINTS



How ya doin'? Need some more Snausages? Is that hay in your doghouse soft enough? Got some bitches comin' over later tonight? Good, glad to hear it.
11:00 a.m. Police checked the well-being of a husky mix dog on Cottage Street.

Moooove it.
1:53 p.m. Two small cows in the middle of South East Street were moved from the road by their owner.



Lookin' for a kitty snack?
8:48 A coyote in the parking lot of Hampshire Veterinary was not located by police.

What's with the bovine confinement issues?
6:12 p.m. A cow loose on North East Street was not found by police.



Cesar Milan, Dog Whisperer and Honorary Amherst Police Department Member.
10:05 a.m. Police located a dog at Puffer's Pond barking at people in an aggressive manner. The owner was advised to train the dog to do less barking and not let it run loose.


CITIZEN ASSISTANCE

Dumbest waste of Amherst taxpayers' money yet

6:52 p.m. Police provided information to a woman who came to the police station seeking advice about subletting her apartment for the next semester.

DISTURBANCES



What kind of payment arrangement with the contractor did she have, exactly?
5:50 p.m. A North Amherst woman called police with concerns that a contractor she is having work on a new house might tell her husband about the project if she doesn't pay him. The woman was advised to call back if any threats are made against her by the contractor.

The pain-in-the-ass drunk guy that nobody wants to hang out with anymore.
12:12 a.m. A man causing problems outside the downtown bars after being removed from one was sent on his way with a responsible person.

FIGHTS


Twenty?
2:22 a.m. Police kept the peace at a fight involving 20 people on Philips Street.

LARCENY

Just needed to go to the convenience store for a cup of coffee, thanks!
6:43 a.m. A vehicle stolen from Rolling Green Drive while it was being warmed up was returned a short time later. The suspect got out of the car, ran from the scene and was not located.

SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY



The Facebook narc.
3:13 p.m. A teenage girl who came to the police station said she was concerned her classmates at the high school might think she was responsible for the recent release of Facebook pictures showing Amherst students drinking alcohol and in possession of marijuana.

Peep peep!
5:49 p.m. A man who has been going onto decks at Village Park and peering into windows was not located by police.

Have you taken your meds today, ma'am?
4:10 p.m. Police spoke to an Amherst woman concerned her neighbors might be plotting to harm her.

TRAFFIC

Ice problems (no not crystal meth kind of ice, the cold kind of ice).
7:56 a.m. Ice built up on Main Street near South Whitney street was determined to have been caused by melting snow run off and was not placed there deliberately.

Thrilling.
7:46 a.m. A vehicle that tried to pass a school bus on Sand Hill Road at State Street went out of control and into a snowbank, police said.
The vehicle was gone when police got there.

More thrilling.
5:36 p.m. A man walking in the middle of East Hadley Road was advised to stay on the sidewalk for his own safety.


Also a thriller.
8:26 p.m. A Christmas tree abandoned in the middle of Hallock Street was removed by police.

Most thrillingest ever.
9:13 a.m. A large piece of cardboard in the middle of College Road was removed from the road.

Friday, January 23, 2009

View the Inauguration with a "Fullscreen Gigapan Viewer"




A photographer named David Bergman took a 1,474 megapixel picture of Obama's inauguration. I have never seen anything like this. You can zoom and zoom and keep zooming in to bizzarely close details. I've been examining the photo for twenty minutes, playing "Where's Waldo" with the politicos -- "There's Rollerdevil Cheney! My, Bush looks pissed. There's pre-seizure Teddy! Look at Hillary giving Bill a look! There's Aretha in her giant bow hat! Is Clarence Thomas sleeping?"



Hey there's not much to do on a frigid January night in the boonies on Cape Cod, and this is pretty entertaining.

Learn how Bergman made this impressive image here at his website. Here's an excerpt:

I made a panoramic image showing the nearly two million people who watched President Obama’s inaugural address. To do so, I clamped a Gigapan Imager to the railing on the north media platform about six feet from my photo position. The Gigapan is a robotic camera mount that allows me to take multiple images and stitch them together, creating a massive image file.

My final photo is made up of 220 Canon G10 images and the file is 59,783 X 24,658 pixels or 1,474 megapixels. It took more than six and a half hours for the Gigapan software to put together all of the images on my Macbook Pro and the completed TIF file is almost 2 gigabytes.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Best moments of the Inauguration

In addition to the speech, the millions of people, the tears, the bizarre mix of politicians and rock stars, and the more obvious amazing Inaugural festivities, I've also been relishing in . . .

#1. Rollerdevil!




HAHA. What a fitting end to this diabolical douchebag. Thank God we are finally rid of Cheney once and for all. He reminds me of a cross between

and




#2. Bedazzlers Unite!



Aretha's headgear was so kickassly fitting for the woman whose rock-star peers recently voted her the Greatest Singer Of All Time. What an awesome crazy hat. This is the guy who designed it, for $179 in the Motor City itself.



I wonder if he used this:



#3: Teddy Kennedy channeling Prohibition-era gangsters.



Perhaps not as bedazzling as Aretha's hat, but damn, doesn't he look dapper in his fedora? Maybe it was a tip of the hat (literally) to the old style of his father, Joe Kennedy Senior, who really was a Prohibition-era bootlegging Irish gangster.




#5. Old Bush's dead bunny hat.



Yet one more excellent hat moment. Between the fashion cacophony of the hat, the yellow turtleneck and the purple scarf, he looks like he lives in the West Village. I'm digging the look. And I have this same crazy Russian-y fur hat. It is the warmest thing that has ever and will ever sit on my head.

#6: The Oath Thing. More to this flub than meets the eye. Did Chief Justice John Roberts do this accidentally on purpose? President Obama was one of 22 senators who voted against putting Roberts on the Supreme Court in 2005. Makes you wonder if he was trying to prevent our man from becoming The Man in the House.




#7. The unbelievable adorableness of these two munchkins.



#8. The first official Presidential shaka in U.S. history!



This was when the Punaho School marching band passed by. Punaho's his alma mater.

#9. Presidential Daughter Shaka-ing the Punaho kids.




#10: Relief. See ya!



#11. Awe. Nobody was immune to the awesomeness, even these serious-type Marine guys at the Commander-in-Chief's Ball.



#12. Romance and sexiness return to the White House!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Snow! Woo hoo!


The view here at my sister's home in Little Compton, Rhode Island. Talk about a drastic change!

"Not all inheritences are good"



My friend Bob is a closet blogger, eschewing a website for emailing his essays instead. Here's one he sent today that I really liked. Thank God we've only got a week left of the jackass who seems to be taking forever to exit the White House.

Not All Inheritences Are Good

As President-elect Obama prepares to take office, he can review the many situations that he will inherit from President Bush. Although Bush promised in 2000 to create 20 million jobs, unemployment grew during 2008 to its highest rate since 1945. The present rate of 7.2% is the highest since--the last month of Bush’s father’s Presidential term. Bush assured us in 2000 that he would never allow a deficit, but he set many new records for creating the greatest deficits in our history. He stated that he believed in small government, then he increased the size of our government at a rate that was more than double the rate of any Democratic or Republican President in the past 40 years. Bush stated that he would “grow the economy,” but now we are in the worst economic situation since the Great Depression.


Obama will inherit the most complex international situation that any President has inherited in our history. Bush stated in 2003 that major military actions in Iraq were over, but that remark was followed by the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of American soldiers and an unending war. Bush stated in 2000 that he would decrease our military presence in other nations and that our foreign policy would be a humble one. Then, he ordered our first attack on a sovereign nation; this was a war that he wanted to fight, it was not one we needed to fight. To avoid drawing attention to the massive funds that he was allocating for the Iraq war, he never identified the costs or placed funds into our budget. He ran the war as an overrun so that we could not see the expenditures in advance. In 2003, when he was questioned about the intelligence he had used to justify attacking Iraq he stated, “The intelligence I get is darn good intelligence.” Now, even Bush acknowledges that the “intelligence” was wrong.


Earlier this week, Bush stated that his plan to privatize Social Security failed, not because it was a bad idea, but because “legislature branches tend to be risk-averse.” If he had passed this bill, many Americans would not only have lost significant value in their personal retirement accounts, but also in their Social Security accounts. During the same press conference, he stated that there was constant job growth during most of his time in office. Job growth during his eight years was the lowest rate of growth of any eight-year period since the government began to collect records many decades ago.


Twice, Bush vetoed the children's’ health insurance plan, he eliminated a retraining program for workers who had been laid-off due after their companies took advantage of a Bush tax cut and moved overseas, he reduced home heating assistance for the elderly and disabled during a year when fuel prices were rising, he eliminated a college awareness program for high school students in poor areas who were trying to obtain a better education, he decreased the number of coal mine safety inspectors and the number of mining accidents increased, and many other programs.George W. Bush was the most out-of-touch President since Herbert Hoover, the most incompetent since Warren Harding, and many of his policies were the most mean-spirited since—well, I cannot think another of President like him.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Wanderer Imports' "Hei Matau"



I'm on Facebook and I see this ad. I'm all for that! Plus I have always wondered what these fish hook symbols mean, as half the guys in Hawaii wear them, as well as the Kiwi first mate I worked with. So I click on the ad. It says,

The stylized fish hook design, known as the Hei Matau, has its origins in Maori Legend. The legend holds that the north island of New Zealand was once a huge fish caught by Maui, the great Mariner, using only a woven line and a bone hook. For the Maori, the Hei Matau represents Strength, Prosperity, Fertility and a great respect for the Sea. It is worn by travelers to provide good luck and grant safe passage over water.

Very cool. Good luck, little entrepreneurial shredder, may you never have to work a real job.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Bad highs and cold feet




These are the Reef Fanning (complete with beer bottle opener embedded in the sole). Having shunned shoes, I cruise through my tropical existence in these exact slippers, day in and day out. Flying home up north tomorrow, I figured I could concoct some sort of makeshift shoe substitute by adding wool socks with these until I schlep to my storage bin in a week or two to rummage for some proper footwear. Not an attractive look perhaps, but a cheap alternative to unnecessary shoe shopping.

Wrong! I discovered that this week, the New England tundra I call home is going to be a high of seven. That is not a good high.

Partly Cloudy
7° F | 0° F

Rubber slippers? Over wool socks? At seven degrees? Screw that! I just ordered up some nice warm fluffy classic tall Uggs, to be FedExed from Zappos. Immediately.

Cheesiest interview question. Ever.



The yacht I was working on, well I quit because my supervisor made Cruella De Vil seem warm and fuzzy. Shortly thereafter, as luck would have it, she was fired along with the whole crew. The chef, however, is a freelancer, and the owners loved her cooking and gave her explicit foodie requests for their next trip in February. She figured her job was secure, no problem. But the new captain told her that it was "undecided" whether or not he was going to hire her back on board -- the same bullshit he told me -- and made her come in for an interview this morning.

For some reason Captain New insisted on having his newly hired chief stew sit in, which is totally unprofessional and unnecessary. Stew New, who sports a panicky demeanor, an anorexic bony ass and more plastic surgery than Joan Rivers, pumped my friend for information about the owners, which she refused to divulge. By the end of her meeting when I met her for breakfast across the marina, she was extremely agitated.

This Culinary-Institute-of-America trained professional with years and years of experience cooking for people like Prince Charles, Paul McCartney, NYC Mayor Bloomberg and Robert DeNiro was given a questionnaire with twenty-odd questions. One of the questions was,

"How do you make a grilled cheese?"

Her answer? "This is asinine."

Even better? The captain didn't know what "asinine" meant.

She gives him a month before he's fired too.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Tiger Woods' yacht





In West Palm Beach, we docked at the same marina where Tiger Woods keeps his 155-foot Christensen, M/Y Privacy. Pretty nice vessel. For interior pics, click here. The overhead shot below by the New York Times shows how gargantuan this thing is.

Full moon at sunrise



I just took this pic a few minutes ago. It's sunrise here in Lauderdale, and I love how silent and tranquil it is on the canal. This almost makes me wish I were a morning person. Almost.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

There's no place like home. But in the meantime, pass the SPF 30.



This is my current view. Gorgeous, isn't it? I'm hanging out at my friends' place on one of Lauderdale's many isles, sipping coffee and blogging from their balcony in a sarong (yeah, it's nice and warm), kept company by these guys, who I'm taking care of for the weekend.



As nice as living in the tropics is, truth is I am homesick and want to go home to New England and visit my family and rip it up on my snowboard with my nephews. I have been trying to do this for days, but every time I'm about to reserve a flight from Lauderdale to up north, there is some weather system that prevents me from going. AccuWeather's website today reads:

  • Six to ten inches of snow for parts of the Northeast.
  • AccuWeather.com predicts around 3 inches of snow for New York City.
  • Widespread snow-related watches and warnings are in effect.
  • Major Arctic blast destined for East.
  • Growing concern for East snowstorms next week.





  • Coldest air of the winter? Yeesh. I don't even own socks anymore. But I still can't wait to get back. So for now, I remain in limbo in the tropics. Guess I'll kill time today at the beach.