Florida Gunman Opens Fire on School Board, Fails Miserably

PANAMA CITY - A gunman opened fire at a school board meeting Tuesday, sending spectators scrambling before he exchanged shots with a security guard and then killed himself, police said. No one besides the gunman was injured. Witnesses said the gunman walked up to a podium, spray painted a red "V" with a circle around it before he began firing...What happens next isn't shown. Police say district security chief Mike Jones entered the room and exchanged fire with Duke, wounding him. Police say Duke then fatally shot himself.

Well this is just about the craziest piece of news to come around in a long time.  How horrible of an effort did this guy make?  If you're going to go down, go down blazing.  None of this lazy shooting, you see that one shot? Just right down into the carpet, wasn't even aimed anywhere in particular.  At the end of the day I'm glad everyone but this loon was safe but I can't help feel shocked at the outcome.  If you're going to make the rash decision to line up the school committee firing squad style you'd think you'd have some conviction behind your actions.  None of this waffling, on the fence bullshit this guy pulled.  In the end no real threat to anyone but himself.

I'll tell you who the real threat was, District Security Chief Mike Jones (WHO?) marching right in there with what looks like a frigen assault rifle.  Now I assume District Security Chief is code word for minimum wage security guard of the building, that being the case what was this guy doing marching around with a sub machine gun?  I can only assume he's a war vet who's been living in a fantasy world just waiting for the day he's called back into action.  I mean where does he even keep that bazooka? Hidden under his security guard desk?

And finally, we really need more of an explanation of the V.  I get that its from V for Vendetta but what kind of suicidal maniac goes out without a proper explanation.  There has to be an unopened email or letter in the mail to someone fully explaning the thought process there.  It was a decent movie and all but nothing worth using as the creedo to your last stand.  Just a mystifying series of events from start to finish.  Glad everyone else is safe though.

Introducing Americas Biggest Badass

MSNBC - When choosing a getaway vehicle, it's a good idea to make sure it goes more than 3 miles an hour. A Palm Beach man led security guards on an intense slow-speed chase in a motorized shopping cart in a grocery store parking lot after he allegedly stole some meat and ran over a child's foot during his escape.

Louis Lorensen, 58, was finally cornered by security guards and employees of the Winn-Dixie, who waited for police to show up to finally arrest the would-be thief, reports the Sun-Sentinel.  "I ain't no punk, and I ain't going down without a fight," Lorensen was yelling, according to a police report of the odd incident.

He apparently wasn't in a rush to get away, either. Most motorized shopping carts can reach speeds of about 3 miles per hour, but they might not even be that fast. At that rate, Lorensen would have been better off using his feet. But that didn't stop him from allegedly loading up on 11 packages of meat and then low-tailing it out of the store. As he tried to exit, a woman and her 4-year-old son were walking in. Lorensen told the customers to move out of the way, but the little boy was caught like a deer in headlights with the oncoming slow cart bearing down on him, according to the police report. Lorensen ran over the boy's foot and made it into the parking lot before finally being corralled, the police report said. At the police station, Lorensen told an officer, "When you take these cuffs off, I'm going to punch you in the face," according to the report, as reported by the Sun-Sentinel. He now faces two counts of larceny, aggravated battery on a child, possession of stolen property and resisting arrest.

This guy might just be my hero.  Facing ridicule and certain arrest he had the conviction to go through with his plan and the chance to be a legend.  Sure it was about a 100 percent chance he'd get caught before he even made it to through the automated doors. But what if he didn't?  

Can you imagine the legend that would grow out of the Rascal bandit? Senior citizens from Arizona to Maine would share stories in hushed tones over their early bird dinners, wishing they could muster the courage to make a getaway on their motorized carts.  Louie Lorensen could have been bigger than Jesse James and Billy the Kid combined.  

You have to love the moxie he showed even after it was all over too.  You can be damned sure those officers never let him out of the cuffs.  He would have socked them in the face and then rode off into the sunset never to be seen again. 

But alas, his plans were foiled by some pathetic 4 year old who froze up in fear at the sight of a speeding slow rolling tri-ped.  Good luck in life kid, I'm sure you won't be a complete failure. 

Tobacco Company Bilked By Massachusetts Jury

BOSTON - A jury has awarded $71 million in damages to the estate and son of a Boston woman who died of lung cancer, ruling in a lawsuit that accused Lorillard Tobacco Co. of trying to entice black children to become smokers by handing out free samples in urban neighborhoods. Willie Evans alleged that Lorillard introduced his mother to smoking as a child in the 1950s by giving her free Newport cigarettes in her Boston housing project. Evans said his mother smoked for more than 40 years before dying of lung cancer at age 54. 

 Look, I have no problem with this guy hustling for $71 million, if you can find a way to make money and people are dumb enough give it to you then congrats.  My issue is with the courts that actually awarded these damages.  Basically from what I gather this woman's son claimed she was given free smokes as a child 50-60 years ago.  So to recap, his entire testimony was hearsay about events that may or may not have happened half a century ago from someone who wasn't even alive back then? Am I getting this right?  

I also love the people who claim they didn't realize cigarettes were bad for their health.  I'm not talking about the idiots of today who still continue to smoke despite all the information we have (how dumb do you have to be?), I'm talking about the people from decades ago who act all naive like they didn't know inhaling burning hot smoke from a rolled up piece of paper might be bad for them.  Give me a frigen break.  

I'm not big tobacco supporter, but I'm even less of a smokers advocate.  I'm addicted to eating gigantic, unhealthy egg sandwiches, surely raising my cholesterol to unsafe levels but I highly doubt I'll be able to sue the agriculture department or farmers of America for any issues down the road.  We don't reward any other members of society for gambling on their future, why do we continue to hand down rewards to this subset?

Am I the Subject of Male on Male Sexual Harassment?

So here's the deal, there is this skeevy little perv man at work who everyone assumes (actually there's not much assumption going on it seems pretty obvious) plays for the other team.  Fine, no big deal, doesn't affect me.  The big deal is the increasing level of creepiness I'm receiving.  

Probably all started 6 months or so ago when we crossed paths at the building door and I was looked up and down like I was fresh meat walking into a gay bar.  At the time I didn't know if this guy just forgot he was at work, was oblivious to his surroundings, or simply liked the view that day.  I certainly didn't think this would be an ongoing issue.   

Since that day I think its safe to say I'm getting ogled in the office more each day than any chic in the building has to put up with.  Stopped being flattering a while ago.  I mean I've now taken the stairs a few time because I've seen him waiting for the elevator and after my last ride in there with him (with other people present thank god, didn't stop him from checking out the goods though) that's a level of uncomfortable that I just can't tolerate, and you should know I never take the stairs.  You should also know I've been seen several times with my sweetheart walking through the building, its common knowledge that I'm with someone in the office.  Does this stop him from walking by my cube and slowing down for a blatant peek into my cube (legit slow down, craning his neck so he can look in)? Nope.  Just goes right on with his business.  This guy is like the ultimate meathead of the gay community, like The Situation of gays.  Just treating every atmosphere like a pick-up scene. 

Its a truly odd situation to be in.  I'm not going to report it for obvious reasons (no one likes to complain, my word against his, hard to explain: "that guy over there stares at my junk") and I can't call him out personally on it because that would just be taken as homophobic.  What should I be doing?  

I've been strongly considering fighting fire with fire.  See if I can make him uncomfortable enough to just go away.  I could bend over to tie my shoe when I see him coming, maybe do a lunge or two in the lobby like I'm stretching, or bring out the big guns with the lean back to stretch my back and push my waist forward routine. 

I could also go the scrub route and just start wearing ratty old clothes, maybe a Wal-Mart outfit or two. I'm sure that would offend his gay sensibilities.

Would these work? Has anyone else dealt with this?

Bus Driver Plows Through Snowman, Forced to Resign?

I'm confused. Why did the driver resign again?  Unless he got back to the meeting and just blatantly told everyone that he never saw the snowman (presumably not the case, it was like a 6 foot snowman) I don't see what the big deal was.  

It's not even like they could make an argument that he didn't know if it was a person or a snowman.  Snowmen look nothing like people for reasons I've never understood.  I was legitimately confused the first time I had the cognizance to understand what my parents were up to when they told me the obese statue of three snow balls was a "man."  No, its three snow balls stacked together, I was in preschool with a wild imagination but this was still a stretch for me so I'm pretty sure this bus driver understood the difference. 

If anything this guy was just spreading Christmas cheer, giving the guys with the video tape a little thrill.  And Matt Lauer can cut the high and mighty routine there at the end.  The story has ended, three bored geeks with a video camera built a snowman on a quiet wintery street.  The bus obliged them and obliterated it.  End of story.

Building Hit Twice By Cars In Same Day

WICHITA, Kan. — Employees at a northeast Wichita chiropractic office are left shaking their heads after the building was hit twice Monday by two different cars. The first crash happened around 10:30 a.m. at Lakewood Chiropractic in the 2400 block of N. Woodlawn when an elderly woman pressed on her accelerator thinking it was the brake pedal. Her car went right through the front of the building. Employees say it's a miracle that no one was hurt, because the area is usually full of patients and receptionists. Then, around 3 o'clock in the afternoon, an elderly man, who also mistook his gas pedal for the brake, crashed into the building. That crash, however, resulted in much less damage, with only a busted window. No one, including the drivers of the vehicles, was injured in the crashes.

This was no "accident."  I'm not sure how they pulled it off but I think its pretty obvious the chiropractors some how manipulated these two "accidents." I don't know how, probably iced down the road in just the right places, but that's what happened.  What better way to drum up chiropractor business than to start manufacturing car accidents in your waiting room?  How else do you explain that no one was injured? Nurses and "doctors" were probably laying in wait around the corner for their prey, dragging them out back to the chiropractic table seconds after the accidents. 

In all seriousness though, does anyone else notice that no one is ever injured in these types of accidents? Cars into buildings and houses, buses plowing into anything and everything, the occasional plane crash into a house, and houses freakishly exploding out of no where.  How is it that no one is ever home or in the building when these things happen? Its not that I'm rooting for human tragedy, it just doesn't add up to me.  Everyday on the news you hear about pizza man slayings and school bus stop shootings, yet when catastrophe strikes no one ever seems to perish.

Holiday Gift Ideas for Your Office (or a certain Blogger)

The Hottest Gadgets - The office can be a cold, hard, unfeeling, life-sucking place to spend your working days, but then again you don’t have to live in Dilbertsville.  For all the stigma surrounding “the office,” you’re getting unique opportunities to interact with people and your environment in between filing TPS reports.

A lot of awesome ideas, lets run down a few of my favs (in case anyone wondering what a good gift for a full time cube work/part time blogger would be).


The Stealth Switch – Please don’t let this catch on.  TheStealthSwitch.com just doesn’t have the same ring as TheAltTab. 

Portable Sleeping Cube – I’ve been in the market for a comfortable, under desk/cube sleep option for years now.  Best I’ve come up with so far is an accumulation of jackets to act as pillows and blankets.

Carpet Skates – Love it! Finally an office competition that is Olympic worthy. This would really give me motivation to stop by the supply room once in a while when I run out of shit, rather than just stealing it from the cubes around me.

Babble Voice – Easily the most useful item on the list.  Would work wonders on my non stop babbling neighbor.  Music and talk radio just don’t seem to cut it, a tool specifically designed for this purpose is needed in my case, not that she'd get the hint anyway.

Bright Blinds – HA!  Seems like an idea designed in a corporate think tank. “Gee our workers are miserable in the fluorescent lighted cube with no windows in sight  How about we add more fluorescent lights but just hide them behind a window blind?  It’s a fire hazard and it will remind them of real windows so they can realize even more how much their office sucks!”  Pure awesomness (and yes I'd welcome this gift despite my mocking tone).

What Do People Do In Vermont? They Drive.

So CW survived his Vermont adventure pretty easily, not because I'm some natural outdoors man, simply because there isn't anything to do in Vermont, never mind anything dangerous.

As far as I can tell Vermonters spend their days running errands and chopping wood, and frankly, I'm not sure there is time for anything else.  You see, Vermonters have a strange sense of time and distance.  Ask a Vermonter where anything (restaurant, gas station, cheese factory, restaurant/gas station combo, country gift shop, cheese factory, syrup factory, cheese factory, etc...) is located and they'll tell you its right down the road.  Don't be fooled, follow up that question by asking how long it will take.  The answer will vary from 45 mins- 1 hour.  Why? Because Vermonters incorrectly believe that any location that is within state borders is "right down the road."  45 minutes through farm country, driving at terrifying speeds on country roads to these people is my equivalent of walking up the street to Store 24.  

I always used to wonder how people spent their days since there isn't much to do up there, turns out they don't have time for anything but errands.  You just pack a lunch and a snack pack early in the morning, pack up the car and drive all around the state in search of common house hold items and necessities.  You return in the evening, have a dinner and go to sleep to do it all over again.  Miserable.  

It'll be a very long time before this blogger is convinced to cross that border again, I can't stand going to the store when its 5 minutes away, never mind a long weekend that entirely consists of running errands.  

CNN Reporting on Classics Such As Dumb and Dumber

Hysterical, there's not much to add here.

It works on multiple levels, the metaphor could be about how the Republicans and Obama working together on this tax plan is the same as Lloyd fire bombing that unsuspecting porcelain bowl with foul excrement. 

Or it could simply be a very vindictive way for the video editor to give his two weeks notice.  Every one assumes on air stars are jackasses to their staff, its likely that this clip symbolizes how those smug reporters treated the video editing crew for years.  And what do you do when you've been disrespected and under appreciated on the job?  You run a shit smear campaign on national television.