Daily News October 15

Today is October 15.  It is the 288th day of the year with 77 to go.

Today's History

In 1917, Dutch dancer Mata Hari was executed for spying for the Germans.
In 2003, 11 people were killed when the State Island Ferry crashed into a maintenance pier.

Today's News

In It To Win It
An Ohio woman has been arrested after causing a riot at a Burlington Coat Factory.  The woman arrived at the store in a chauffeur driven stretch Hummer and announced that she had just won the lottery and she would pay for everybody's purchases up to $500.  People began shopping in earnest, even calling relatives who were not in the store to come up to the store so they too could take part in this woman's charity.  Soon at least 500 people were standing in line to get their purchases and another 1000 people were standing outside waiting to get in.  She claimed she had just won $1.5 million and wanted to share it with everybody.  After all the stuff was rung up, the woman said she was going to the bank to get some money.  She came back empty-handed.  Another woman came up to her and said, "I don't really need new clothes, I need help with my rent."  So the lottery winner wrote her a check in the amount of the rent.  Then the woman randomly disappeared.  It was about an hour before the employees at Burlington Coat Factory realised the woman was gone and she hadn't paid for anything.  That's when the customers began to riot screaming that they still wanted their free stuff.  They began snatching at clothes and running out of the store.  The police had to intervene and shut the store down to get everybody to calm down.  The police would have never found the woman if she hadn't skipped out on the $900 bill she owed the Hummer driver; he turned her into the police.

She lucky she was in Ohio and not Baltimore; she would have been shot.  That's crazy.  I mean, I know crazy stuff like this could happen, but people are morons for even believing her, especially the workers at the store.  In these difficult economic times, who just walks into a store and announces they gonna pay for everything?  I would have been like, "We'll certainly honour your request if you wouldn't mind putting up a hefty retainer."  So that means the clerks were over there scanning all this stuff and letting people leave without getting paid for anything.  Then when she said, "I'm going to the bank real quick," that should have been a sign.  Why did you come in here and you don't even have the money with you?  The woman has been arrested on several charges, but if she has a good lawyer (or the money to pay for a good lawyer) he should be able to get her off.  The woman can come in there and say anything she wants, as long as it isn't terrorist related, but she's not responsible for the people losing their minds and stealing stuff.  She never said, "Hey, everybody, steal anything you want," and even if she did, she still isn't responsible.  She didn't take anything except the free Hummer ride.

More Fish and Relationship Problems
A man who stabbed a woman's fish during a breakup has been given probation.  An Oregan man shared an apartment with his girlfriend, but they decided to break up after he assaulted her.  She asked him to leave but he returned a few hours later and was laying in the bed.  They got into a fight, but the woman managed to get away.  When she returned to the apartment she found the beta fish that he had given her for her birthday lying on the kitchen floor with a knife through it.  The woman was completely shocked that he would do that to the fish he bought for her, knowing that she cared for it very much.  She asked the judge to make the boyfriend pay restitution so she could get a tattoo in honour of the fish; the judge declined.  The man said that stabbing the fish was a very low point in his life and he hopes the judge will allow him to see fish again.

Both of these people need mental help.  I'm sorry for the fish, but seriously, you wanted restitution so you could get a tattoo in honour of a beta fish?  A beta fish costs like $2.25 at Pet Smart.  Now if you had said it was an exotic Queen Angel fish, some shit that costs like $300.00, or something you can only find swimming off the glaciers of Antarctica, then perhaps I could see how you might be affected. 

The Midget Cup
Always dreamed of being apart of the glamour and glitz that is professional horse racing, but couldn't afford a horse, too big to be a jockey, or in some other way you fall short?  Well, what about midget racing?  It's just as fun and it's a whole lot cheaper.  In Australia, horse racing officials have decided to race midgets rather than horses to promote an annual carnival.  The midgets are the jockeys and regular sized grown men are the "horses."  The midgets ride piggyback and race down a 50 meter course.  The Australian government blasted the activity as "tasteless." 

I guess when you think of carnivals, you think of midgets.  But this is also the same country that did the blackface Michael Jackson skit a few days ago.  I'm beginning to wonder about the Land Down Under.  What's going on over there?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Retire
A Russian man who was previously homeless, managed to get himself off the streets and into stock market trading by collecting bottles.  He had been living on the streets for more than a year, collecting as many as 2000 bottles a day and trading them in for cash.  On average, one bottle fetches about six cents.  He said because of the economy many Russians are drinking more heavily than usual (surprise, surprise), so that is why he was able to get as many bottles as he did.  He got enough money to buy himself a majestic purple suit, some ostentatious violet jewellery and a $74,000 share purchase in the stock market.

When I was a mortgage collector, we used to tell people who were in serious default to collect cans to make their mortgage payment.  Most of the time we got cussed at, laughed at, or hung up on.  They thought it was a joke, but look, look at this man.  He's movin' on up.  Finally got that deluxe apartment in the sky.  On some liquor bottles.

Today's Thought

We used to do things for posterity.  Now we do things for ourselves and leave the bill to posterity.  ~Anonymous