Staten Island Mom Suing City for $900 Trillion...The Defense Rests

HuffPo- A Staten Island mother is suing the city for a staggering $900 trillion for allegedly wrongfully placing her two sons in foster care and claiming she was mentally unstable. 46-year old Fausat Ogunbayo, who is representing herself, says the Administration for Children's Services's decision to place her children in foster care infringed upon her civil rights and ultimately inflicted "over three years of terror, horror, grievous harm, time lost, substantial economic hardship and injuries." The children, then 12 and 10-years old, have been out of their mother's custody since June 2008. In court papers, the ACS references several peculiar incidents where Ogunbayo sought out medical treatment because she believed her children's skin color was becoming darker due to radiation. In a separate episode, the mother allegedly told school officials the FBI was after the boys. While the city is contending Ogunbayo suffered from such hallucinations and in addition was an absent mother , a separate legal case last month ruled in favor of Ogunbayo with the court stating no substantial evidence indicating the children were ever in "imminent danger" while in their mother's care.

Does the City even need a lawyer on this one? The DA doesn't even have to show up, right? You just let the plaintiff make her opening statement, ask for her $900 trillion and then have some intern stand up and be like, "your honor, we think the plaintiff's statement and demands make our case for us, the defense rests." 

That's all it takes, right? I just feel like when you show up to court asking for $900 trillion you're kinda of just telling the judge that you are in fact crazy and out of touch with reality. 

That's not even a real number, is it? Does the world as a whole have that much money? If you're this woman you at least have to do a little research, I mean, you live in New York, you couldn't swing by the Debt Clock (Below) and just use that as a ball-park figure for your demands? 

Unless of course this is just a negotiating ploy, start out real high and make them meet you somewhere in the middle...maybe that's it. This broad might be craftier than I thought.

Kris Humphries Looks Televise Kim Kardashian Divorce...Obviously.

(NewsCore) - Kim Kardashian's estranged husband, Kris Humphries, wants to televise his divorce trial in a bid to expose the truth behind reality TV, TMZ reported Tuesday. The NBA star and his lawyer Lee Hutton want to prove in court that Kardashian had no intention of staying married and just wanted to boost ratings for her reality show "Keeping Up with the Kardashians."

People aren't falling for this, right? Like, I'm 100% on team Kris, but even I'm calling bullshit on this one. 

""The NBA Star and his lawyer want to prove in court that Kardashian had no intention of staying married and just wanted to boost ratings for her reality show..."

No freaking shit. Like Kris didn't know this, he remembers that the only reason he even met her was because the producers of Kim's show reached out to the Knicks about a possible husband for Kim K, right? And that he wasn't even the first choice, she wanted his teammate as her fake husband first, but he had other obligations, and oh yea, self respect.

Save it Kris...just come out and admit that you want this on TV so you can profit from it, we'll be cool with it, honestly...we all get that you wouldn't have gotten into this whole thing if it weren't for money, we're ok with it.

Pistachio's - The Most Infuriating and Delicious Food Group

The Pistachio consortium really needs to figure this one out, STAT...Not a good look that the first choice when searching deshelled (which isn't even a word, FYI) is your product, narrowly beating out turtle, whatever the hell that means. 

Here I am minding my own business trying to enjoy a nice snack while watching tv, and I'm a fucking mess. I've basically got an assembly line in front of me, all for a snack. I've got the bag of nuts to the left, a paper plate in the middle (for cracking over), and a solo cup to the right (for the empty shells, obvi). 

And to top it all off, these things are a pain in the ass to crack. Sure when you crack a fresh bag you can grab all the choice nuts, the ones are pretty much cracked open for you...but what about the last 30% of that bag? All the rejects that barely have a crack? Those things suck. 

You're trying with your fingers, but after a half a bag of pistachios the tips of your fingers are pretty dried out from the salt and are starting to hurt. You move to your teeth, which gets the job done but you're living in constant fear of shell-shrapnel launching into your mouth...which with most nuts isn't a big deal but with pistachios its almost a guaranteed trip to the dentist, because for some reason pistachio shells are a tougher material than construction quality lumber.

And is all this really necessary? Should I have to consult Henry Freaking Ford and my orthodontist prior to enjoying a nice bag of nuts? Is it so hard to capture the perfectly salted taste of in-the-shell pistachios in a de-shelled product? How come I can never find that? Every time I go looking the only de-shelled pistachios are labeled "raw and unsalted." That sounds fucking gross. What, only vegans and health nuts are priveledged enough to enjoy de-shelled pistachios? That's racist. 

Time for the shadowy group that is the Pistachio Consortium to admit their wrongs and step their game up....Who's with me!

Gladiator Style Asian Carp Fishing Like a Boss

And PETA will be contacting these bros in 3, 2, 1...

An awesome and hilarious idea, but the execution left me unfulfilled. I don't know, maybe its more difficult than I assume, but aside from the guy with spear and the guy with the tennis racket this just didn't seem like a successful raid.   I think a sort of nunchuck type weapon would be best suited here. The issue they all had seemed to struggle with was balance and I think a nice solid pair of nunchucks would take care of that...just helicoptering fish out of the sky.

Not to name names or pick on anyone specific, but the dude with the barbed bat? No one has ever looked like more of a sissy while wielding a medieval style weapon. 

I Hear The Boston Greenway is Looking for a Good Carousel Guy

Boston Herald - The beleaguered Rose Kennedy Greenway, already under siege for six-figure salaries and hefty bonuses, plans to ditch a proven moneymaker merry-go-round, asking taxpayers to chip in for a new $2.9 million customized carousel — even as a top state official yesterday demanded the private nonprofit begin weaning itself off public funds. The new carousel would replace a New Hampshire contractor’s revenue-producing operation and would require the Greenway to hire staff or a contractor to run it, according to Jesse Brackenbury, the Greenway’s business operations director. Brackenbury argues the new carousel will eventually turn a profit, but added the Greenway is focused more on “fun” than the bottom line. The current carousel, set up during tourist season near Faneuil Hall, has brought in $187,400 for the Greenway over the past three years without any capital outlay, Executive Director Nancy Brennan acknowledged. New Hampshire-based Fanelli Amusements Inc.’s carousel operation pays the Greenway $1,000 a month plus 25 percent of ticket sales.

Putting aside the ludicrous notion that the Greenway has some how decided that scrapping a FREE carousel that brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars for a brand new multi-million dollar carousel that will undoubtedly never turn a profit, at the expense of the tax payers, is a good idea for a second...Let's just focus on this $2.9 million price tag.

Who sold them on this? Hey guys, you could give me $1 Million and I'll get you a brand new, never used carousel, and I'll have it there in like one week, dead serious, I've got a carousel guy.

Literally 1/3rd the cost of whatever carnie-folk swindler you're working with right now. I don't know where he's getting his carousel, but my carousel guy is the best. Decent price, great customer feedback rating, plus the carousel would come with eBay buyer protection.  Yea, I'd be making a hefty profit, 139K Buy It Now Price, probably another $25 grand to get it shipped, but just consider the $800k or so that I pocket a consultants fee...Shit, you're already paying a glorified Gardner upwards of 200k a year, is shelling out 800k to a consultant who saved you an additional $2 Million really that big of a deal? You know what, just to sweeten the deal, I'll do the conservancy job for free for a year, just fire that over paid flower water'er, I'll hire some migrant workers real cheap, get the Greenway spruced up in no time, and under budget. 

I'm very serious about this offer, so contact me if our interests are mutual.

FearFactor Issues Gag Order For Twins Who Drank Donkey Semen on Show

Fox News - Twins Brynne and Claire Odioso went on the current season of NBC’s popular stunt/dare game show “Fear Factor” and drank a big glass of donkey semen. But it’s not the act itself that the ladies are spewing about. It’s the fact that on Monday night the network pulled the episode – titled “Hee Haw! Hee Haw!” – and replaced it with a rerun after news of the jaw-dropping episode leaked and freaked people out. “We are disappointed because we wanted to share the experience with our friends and family,” Brynne Odioso told Gawker.com, after calling into Tampa-based radio program The Cowhead Show and elaborating that it was the “hardest 15 minutes of (their) life. “If you vomited you would have to start over, I ended up just vomiting in my glass and drank that. The camera men were vomiting,” one of the twins said. “It smells. It’s so bitter, and it has a little hint of hay.” But not only did the Odioso girls gag, it seems they have now been gag-ordered by NBC to keep their lips sealed about the incident. The twins told reporters that the network scolded them for “revealing too much” and reminded them they are bound by confidentiality agreements. 

If they're not going to air the episode it kinda makes you wonder if chugging Donkey cum was worth it, no? I mean it's one thing to guzzle a gallon of equine jizz when you have the promise of moderate riches (max prize is only $50k, right?  Does that even cover the stomach pumping procedure?), and the fame of debuting on a poorly rated "reality" game show. But when you get nothing out of it? Man, that really kicks rocks.

I'm gonna level with ya, I've almost puked 4 times just looking at that frothy pitcher and the donkey behind it...I'm probably skipping breakfast today as a result. Dead serious, and I never skip breakfast, in fact Friday is egg sandwich day, but I just don't think I can do it. And I read further into the article above, apparently the girls had a choice between donkey urine and donkey baby-batter...How the fuck do you pick the semen there? 

Yea, donkey piss wouldn't have been a walk in the park, but at least it would have went down like liquid, drink it, hold back puke for a couple of minutes, and then go throw up like a bulemic girl on Thanksgiving. But the semen? BLEHH. You know why it was the hardest 15 minutes of your life? Because it took 15 minutes for that gooey shit to come out of the pitcher. Like what are you thinking? The consistency alone would have swayed me towards the piss, nevermind the producers telling me what it actually is. I just can't, I'm actually going to go vomit.

Patriots Day and the Super Bowl at the Office Brings Out My Worst Superstitions

Patriot's day at the office, again. CW wearing the exact same outfit he's worn the past two times, again. And frankly, I'm scared. See, I'm not really superstitious, but in another way, I'm totally superstitious...if that makes any sense.

I'm not one that has some weirdo traditions that I have to do, convinced that some oddball ritual I have in some way affects the universe, I don't believe that holding me pee or not holding my pee has ever changed the outcome of a game, and I'm not huge on the whole jinxing thing...If I predict a victory or a loss in game, chances are it's not going to make it back to Belichick, I just don't have that kind of klout. 

But in another way, I'm as completely superstitious as you can get. I'll subconsciously get in the habit of wearing the same clothing or sitting in the same position (not just seat, position. Like, if my arms were crossed and my leg was at a 95 degree angle, it has to be the same...if my leg is at a 93 degree angle, we'll lose), and if I notice some kind of nervous tick is working, like if shaking my leg at a certain pace or rythym seems to have sparked a rally I'll keep that up all night.  

But the problem is, as soon as I become aware of these superstitions I start freaking out. Like this morning I didn't subconsciously pick out this outfit, I made the active decision to pick the exact same clothes I've worn the past two Patriots Fridays, and now I'm nervous. If there's one thing I know it's that when I become aware of my own superstitions, they stop working. So now I'm all worried that my choice of socks this morning may have some affect on Gronkowski's ankle, or maybe the undershirt I'm wearing will end up being an omen for Brady's shoulder...I know, it's fucking nuts. 

Like obviously the apparel of some middle manager in Boston will have no bearing on the outcome of a football game in Indianapolis played by a bunch of men who've never even heard of me, but at the same time...it will, won't it? 

I watched the Baltimore game at home on my couch, wrapped up in a blanket over the top my head for most of the second half out of anxiety, this week we're going to a friends house for the game...Do I bring the blanket? I kind of have to, I think. Sure a grown man showing up to a Super Bowl get-together (I don't do parties when the home team is involved) with a blanky may lose whatever minimal street cred he has left, but at the same time if they lose I'll spend all off season blaming myself for the loss.

And I just hate it...In all other aspects of life I'm a fairly rational person, except when it comes to sports. Sports turn me into an anxiety riddled fool who'd willingly buy into the Mayan Calendar or the Hale Bop comet cult if you caught me at the right time (say, late in the second half of a Super Bowl with my team losing but on the comeback trail, just looking for one karmic push from a middle manager/blogger who has no real relation to the team).

New Gingrich's Wife Looks Exactly Like Conan O'brien

Somehow this may be a bit more offensive for Conan than Calista Gingrich. I mean yea, of course Newt's wife is going to have a strong chiseled jaw, he's Newt Gingrich, he's doing the best he can, he's probably made peace with the fact that he's not marrying all winners a long time ago...But I don't know what it says about Conan that he has the identical physical characteristics of a handsome woman who also happens to be the former speaker of the house's 3rd wife...If you're going to display femininity don't you want to just do it all the way? I have no experience here, but I'd think you'd want to be compared to some beautiful woman, not a slightly demonic looking woman (below anyway) who has to sleep with Newt Gingrich...jeesh.

Foxwoods Running Diary

3 weeks ago: The group e-mail….Ughh. Nothing has cemented the fact that we’re adults and quickly going over the hill more than the fact that we had to plan out a guys day involving a two hour trip, 3 weeks in advance…in fact nothing makes me feel older and less cool than just saying guys day, but that’s just where we’re at I guess. Between the self realization of where I’m at in life and the genuine excitement about the upcoming trip I don’t think I could have experienced more highs and lows in a single e-mail chain…The e-mail chain also gave us this beauty of a quote, after discussing the prices of the rooms (which are outlandish):

Do the Native Americans running Foxwoods have any idea what the hotel prices are in the rest of the world? Vegas isn't that expensive and that’s in the middle of a major city. Foxwoods is in the middle of a depressing reservation.

HA! This is going to be hilarious.

This past Friday night: “Hun I need to go to bed early, I’m leaving for Foxwoods in the morning.” Jesus Christ, CW. What the hell is wrong with you? Ok, truth be told, we were leaving at an hour earlier than I actually get up for work during the week, but still, I’m just embarrassed for myself.

Saturday Morning: Alarm set for 7 am, woke up at 6 to take a nervous/anxious shit, never got back to sleep. I was like a kid on Christmas whose parents told him he couldn’t get out of bed until the whole house was ready to get up. A couple of the guys arrive for the carpool and we all openly wonder why we’re heading down so early. Good question.

8 AM: We pick up one more member of the traveling band of 20something heading on 40 year olds, and we’re on our way…After a quick trip to Dunkin, of course, because lets face it, America Runs on Dunkin (good enough for a sponsorship? No, ok, moving on). About 15 minutes down the road we get a text from the final member of our party, he’s already at Foxwoods. We all joke about how quickly he’ll lose his money waiting for us…30 minutes later we have our answer.

10 AM: We arrive. Though it wasn’t on purpose, this was totally perfect because that’s when Foxwoods starts serving alcohol. I know what you’re thinking, what kind of degenerates are these guys? Relax, we got our vitamin C too, the first few rounds were Screw Drivers and Vodka Crans…we’re not animals. Also, this after hearing Adele come over the speakers, "She just bellows...I liked her til I saw her." It's so true.

10:45 AM: WE’RE ALL LOSING. Already…Check-in to the hotel isn’t even until 3PM, yet we’re all openly discussing whether or not it’s too late to cancel the reservations and just go home later in the afternoon. This is bad. Again, why the hell did we get here so early? We’re staying the whole night, was there any need for me to be washing down breakfast with Screw Drivers while watching some smug faced Asian lady just utterly dominate us at blackjack?

11:15 AM: The group disbands, a few go to grind it out in poker, myself and another take a walk in hopes of slowing our losses…I also debate calling my bank to raise my daily ATM limit, ugh. After circling a few games my friend takes a seat…At the Monopoly themed slot machine…Which…Was…AWESOME! Sure we had no idea why we won or lost on any given spin, all we cared about was riding around the board game, going from train station to train station and trying to hit boardwalk…One side note, they don’t pay you when you pass go, which seems a bit sacreligios.

12:30 PM: I register for a poker tournament…I gave up poker about 4 years ago, just wasn’t exciting enough for me…If I’m going to lose my money I want it to be fast and vicious, that’s why I play BlackJack and Roulette. Today, however, I’ve decided if I’m going to stem the losses and make it through the afternoon I may need a slower paced game, so I sign up. Me against 120 others, I figure I’ll last a couple of hours at which point it’ll be lunch time and almost time to check in.

1:05 PM: Pocket Aces baby! I just doubled up...I completely forgot about the rush of pocket aces.

1:07 PM: Pocket ACES AGAIN! I just doubled up…again. Twice in two hands. The rest of the table straight up hates my guts…the guy I just knocked out made fun of my haircut, which would under normal circumstances bother me, but he was a bald-o so I’m sensing jealousy. I’m now in it to win it, which is astounding because, again, I haven’t played poker in at least 4 years.

3:00 PM: Just had a hilarious exchange with some degenerate poker player next to me, he clearly spends his days in the poker room, he was waxing poetic about what a cruel game “she is” and commiserating with me on the various odds of what we just witnessed happening…Apparently because I have a large amount of chips in front of me and am for the most part stone faced, preferring to pay more attention to the 6 or 7 drinks I’ve accumulated than my opponenents, people have begun to revere and respect me. They have no idea that I’ve long since forgotten about calculating odds…I’m just playing by feel and whatever spur of the moment bets come into my head… if they only knew.

4:00 PM: Made it to the final table…this is hilarious. I clearly suck, but I don’t think they’re on to me yet…I just bet less than the minimum, had to be corrected by the dealer, and my opponent still folded. When will my charade end? Side note, there’s a guy wearing a San Francisco 49ers at, and a graphic T-shirt starring Yoda, they complement each other as well as you’d think…these types of people litter Foxwoods, or as one friend put it, “Foxwoods is just full of New Hampshire type people.”

4:30 PM: I’m all in…and Lose. 6th place, it was a great run and a nice payout, I’m now winning for the day, which is a minor miracle.

5:00 PM: I eat for the first time today...8 or 9 drinks in and I’m subsisting off an egg sandwich and a slice of pizza for the day. I have no idea why the normal rules of nutrition and digestion cease to exist when in casino’s but I feel like a million bucks.

5:45 PM: We watch a couple of our friends depressingly grind it out at a poker table…I mean depressingly. The mood in the Foxwoods pokerroom is always somewhere between a funeral and a doctors office where you’re waiting for your possibly life altering diagnosis. It’s just a weird place. No one is happy, even when you’re winning. They really need to do something about that…It could be because you feel like you’re sitting in a basement with low ceilings and no natural light…and that’s because that’s exactly where you are sitting, in the basement of Foxwoods.

6:30 PM: We head out in search of Bowling and get wait listed. We go to wait in some ultra-swanky lounge, real high class shit, and surprisingly I’m not asked to change my shirt…I forgot to mention, I’ve been wearing an official “I Love The Alt-Tab” shirt all day. No one has asked what it means, which is almost as depressing as the fact that I’m still the only one to have purchased one of these beauty’s. Anyway, the hostess must assume it’s some kind of hipster cool shirt you’d buy in Urban Outfitters, it’s the only possible explanation.

8:00 PM: We’re on fire at the bowling alley. I’m fairly certain our threesome would take down any other group out there…Also, the bowling alley just parlayed Puddle of Mud into MmmBoppp…Where the fuck am I?

9:00 PM: After thoroughly dominating the lanes we decide to kill a half hour playing…The boxing arcade game that measures the impact of your punch! Ok, I’m a bit relieved, maybe we’re not as over the hill as I previously thought. We’re still fairly childish.

10:00 PM: We head to the room to commiserate on our days wins and losses and get ready to go out for the night.

10:30 PM: We’re waiting in line at some club that the likes of Deena and Snooky surely inhabit. There is an old man in line (Like 60 years old or so) eating ice cream and looking all the girls up and down. Again he’s in line. He has no intentions of entering, he just figures it’s a great front row seat. He’s a bit creepy, but hey, you have to respect his honesty.

11:00 PM : Standard $40 round…My friends and I are now openly debating whether or not a couple of females that are seemingly doing laps are real life prostitutes or just hooking for beer, I say there’s not much of a difference. There is a liberal amount of animal print outfits in here…It looks like the Jersey Shore threw up.

12:15 AM: One of the guys just uttered this gem of a quote: “I gotta go, I need to go play war.” I’m still chuckling.

12:30 AM: I just ordered a bottle of water at the bar, that’s my cue to go. I leave in search of my War playing friend. I find him at the most depressing table imagineable. Just four down on their luck guys, all betting on whether their card will be higher than the dealers. There is 0 excitement. I tell my friend I’m taking a lap in search of a cheap Blackjack table, when I return 3 minutes later, he’s already gone. When I finally find him he tells me he went all in and lost…I just can’t. I don’t know whether to laugh or console him on his loss, but I’m definitely closer to laughing, because it was War.

12:45 AM: I try to convince him to accompany me back on the 15 minute walk from MGM to Foxwoods (why don’t they have more moving sidewalk in that goddamn corridor?), he passes. I spend an unusual amount of time just staring at the escalator trying to decide if its worth the journey. My friend apparently sees this and finds it hilarious.

1:00 AM: I’ve made it, and no, there aren’t any cheap blackjack tables left. I now have to walk all the way back. I stop for pizza on the way to break up the trip…consumption totals for the day are something like 20 or so drinks, two slices of pizza, and an egg sandwich…I’m really taking stock of my decision making.

1:30 AM: I make it back to the room. The others soon follow. My War playing friend lets out another beauty: “On my last hand of war, when I was on tilt…” No one has ever uttered that sentence before in their lives. Another friend just got cleaned out in roulette, which sucks, but was hilarious for all of us. Apparently he thought he was playing at the $5 dollar table, only to realize after a few bets that it was the $25 minimum table, to which he uttered: “Why didn’t they stop me?” Which was also hilarious, because casino’s so often have a habit of stopping people from making bets beyond their financial means…I’m starting to think it’s a good thing I wasn’t able to find a cheap Blackjack table…everyone that gambled after 12 AM lost.

2:15 AM: After some hilarious stories and jokes which remind me why we bother to take these trips (it’s certainly not for the money) my friend builds a fort on the floor as his bed…because there’s five of us in one room…Yea, we’re not quite over the hill yet, not many 40 year olds splitting a room 5 ways.

10:00 AM: We depart to the motto of the trip, and, if the marketing people at Foxwoods had any brains, what should be the Foxwoods slogan: “Easiest Drive Down, Worst Drive Back.” Yup.