The Nut Cache - a collection of recent things I found interesting, or amusing, or nutworthy.
I remember, back in the early nineties, staying up all night playing the Legend of Zelda right after I bought my first Super Nintendo. Of course I had to work the next day. I went to work, all tired and bleary eyed, and I’m pretty certain I didn’t really earn my pay that day. One learn a lesson and, while I may have stayed up too late a few more times, I was a bit more careful about getting to bed and getting some sleep when I needed it. Others, it seems, to wise up so fast. It now seems that there is a man in Hawaii claiming that addiction to a video game has ruined his life. It’s so bad, he claims, that he has filed suit against the manufacturers of the video game to which he claims addiction. Yes, it seems, he has learned quite well the lesson that Anna Russell sang of long ago, “But I am happy; now I've learned - The lesson this has taught; That everything I do that's wrong - Is someone else's fault.”I have friends who love to go yard sale-ing. As the old saying goes, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Yard Salers can find a lot of good bargains and hidden antiques. But some people take yard sales much more seriously than others do, it seems. Take the case of seventy-year-old Jon Joslin and sixty-four-year-old Joseph Brown. It seems that, in a dispute over who had arrived first, and therefore had first “dibs” on the items for sale, Mr. Joslin whacked Mr. Brown over the head with a cast iron cornbread pan. Mr. Joslin went to jail, and Mr. Brown, suffering from head lacerations, refused medical treatment and continued shopping. Bargain hunting is brutal business, but, when the going gets tough… Well, one thing is for sure, the Easton Area High School 2010 yearbook is undoubtedly going to be a collector’s item. In and around and among the photographs of students, teachers, classroom activities, football games, etc., are inspirational quotes from celebrities, leaders, authors, politicians, and other public figures. This is not unusual; I remember my yearbooks from high school being full of such quotes. However, on page 190 of this year’s Easton Area High School Rechauffe is a quote from a rather infamous political figure; namely Adolf Hitler. The quote is, “And in the last analysis, success is what matters.” Rather ominous, considering his place in history. School officials deny any knowledge of how the quote was included. And really, we all know what happened; one of the journalism students Googled quotes about “success” and started pasting them into the yearbook’s lay out. Officials say that the book was scanned for profanity and sexually explicit content, but nobody spotted the Hitler quote. The proofreading will undoubtedly be a bit more thorough for 2011…There are times when it is amusing to be mistaken for someone else, and then there are times when it can be embarrassing. And then there are times when they can be just a little bit frightening. It seems that Shreveport, Louisiana pastor Gregory Jones was in a hurry to few days ago. In fact he was driving a bit in excess of the speed limit. No doubt he was a bit embarrassed when the police pulled him over. After all, pastors should not be caught breaking the law. But his embarrassment quickly turn to horror as he was handcuffed and placed in the back of the police car. It seems the Pastor Jones shares a name and a birthday with a man wanted in Texas for parole violations. It took 8 hours for an FBI fingerprint check to establish that Pastor Jones was not the Gregory Jones police were looking for. Now, no one blames the police for being thorough, but the moral of this story is, “breaking the speed limit doesn’t really save you any time.” The Shreveport Times did say that Pastor Jones still got that speeding ticket…And, finally, we’ve got two stupid criminal stories to chuckle over. The first one involves a bank robber in Eden, New York who forgot to pull his mask up over his face before you walked into the bank. As he was standing in front of the teller after handing her is robbery note, his cell phone rang. After listening to the phone call for a moment, he grabbed the note from the teller and fled the bank. The police suspect that the phone call was from the robber’s accomplice informing him of his… unconcealed condition. Oh, and yes, the security cameras did get several excellent pictures of the unmasked man…In our other stupid criminal story, we have a gang of marijuana farmers who thought that the pickup truck that had pulled up and parked near their patch belonged to their distributor. They quickly began to load bales of their product into the pickup truck. The pickup truck, however, did not belong to a marijuana wholesaler, but was, in fact, the pickup truck of game wardens of the California State Department of Fish and Game. Game wardens are, as I’m sure you’re aware, sworn law enforcement officers. They knew exactly what to do with the marijuana farmers and the 172 pounds of their product. Say it with me, “that’s why they call it ‘dope’!”That's it for this week! Keep those Nuts and letters coming!
