JIMZ N’ FLOZ

Just in case you were keeping track… or maybe you even had an office pool going – the first Tiger Woods scandal porno parody has hit the stands. You knew they could not leave it alone and this day was inevitable… as reported by one of my favorite info sites (which shall remain nameless to protect the innocent) – “Tyler Woods”, an Adam & Eve Productions picture was released to the masses on Wednesday of this week. So now maybe I don’t have to feel sorry for the multi-bazillionaire who is addicted to having sex with porn stars and hot-hot-hot babes (not counting the Waffle House waitress)… no, I never did feel sorry for Tiger – whatever he did was his own business – but the train wreck has been hard not to watch. So anyway… now the healing process can finally begin. Yeah right… (laughing my butt off)… I am thinking not so much! Tiger is not going to get off easy… the media, the porn industry, comedians… you name it… they are all going to ride him like a pony until every last drop of drama and outrage can be squeezed from the spectacle his existence has become. I don’t normally mention the release of a porn movie on this blog, and I likely never will again… nor will I ever see this XXX rated waste of time – it is really just the fact it exists – another first for Tiger… well come on now – Sammy Snead, Arnold Palmer, and Jack Nicklaus never had a porn movie made about them, did they?

Anyone remember Ted Haggard, the pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado and president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) from 2003 until November 2006 – the extremely conservative preacher from Colorado who made his claim to fame espousing strict family values… and then infuriated his homosexual prostitute lover and fellow methamphetamine user, Mike Jones, who became angry at Haggard’s opposition to same-sex marriage and decided to let the world know what kind of values Ted really had. Turned out Ted Haggard’s values were not quite as conservative as everyone originally thought… in January 2009, Haggard admitted to a second homosexual relationship with a male church member and would not directly answer a question about his other possible homosexual relationships. Now his wife is in the news spreading the word the ex-pastor has been freed of gay urges by therapy… sure thing, Mrs. Haggard, you must be a complete idiot… but whatever you say. I still think it would be best to avoid being alone in the YMCA locker room with Ted…

But let’s not beat up Ol’ Ted too badly… he is no worse than any of the other scam artist religious conservatives who thump bibles in the light, and men in the dark. At Least Jim Bakker (future Playboy model, Jessica Hahn) and Jimmy Swaggart (miscellaneous prostitutes) were into women and not men… being anti-homosexual and anti-gay marriage is a cornerstone of the conservative religious values, right? So getting caught committing adultery (with a woman) has to be better than a perverse ungodly homosexual affair with a man… if so then why are there so many closet homosexual conservatives?

Paul Barnes, 2006 – founder and former senior minister of the evangelical church Grace Chapel in Douglas County, Colorado. Confessed his homosexual activity to the church board and resigned in December 2006.

Lonnie Latham, 2006 – senior pastor of South Tulsa Baptist Church and a member of the powerful Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, propositioned a plainclothes police officer for oral sex and was arrested for “offering to engage in an act of lewdness” with a male undercover police officer.

“Bishop” Robert Reaves, 2008 – anti-gay pastor of Cedar International Fellowship in Durham killed North Carolina Central University student Latrese Curtis in a jealous rage because she was having a sexual relationship with his roommate, Steven Randolph, who had rebuffed Reaves’ advances. Reaves had twice previously been charged with sexual misconduct with boys… and was eventually found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

But the closet homosexuals are not the only ones having fun…

Richard Roberts, 2007 – (son of the late televangelist Oral Roberts) – was president of Oral Roberts University and named as a defendant in a lawsuit alleging improper use of university funds for political and personal purposes and improper use of university resources. The filing also alleged Lindsay Roberts (Richard Roberts wife) had spent at least nine nights in the ORU guest house with an underage 16 year old male who also was allowed to live in the Roberts family residence on campus

Earl Paulk, 2007 – Founder and head pastor of Chapel Hill Harvester Church in Decatur, Georgia and had sexual relations with a number of women from the congregation who came forward during the 1990s. In addition, Donnie Earl Paulk, the current senior pastor of the church and nephew of Earl Paulk, had a court-ordered DNA test in 2007 which showed that he was Earl’s son, not his nephew, which means that Earl and his sister-in-law had had a sexual relationship which led to Donnie’s birth.

Michael Reid, 2008 – is a Christian evangelist in Essex, England, founder member of the Christian Congress for Traditional Values (CCTV), and founder of Michael Reid Ministries who resigned from the role of pastor at Peniel Church in April 2008, after admitting to an eight-year extra-marital sexual relationship with a member of the congregation with whom he “shared scripture” frequently.

Joe Barron, 2008 – A minister at Prestonwood Baptist Church, one of the largest churches in the United States with 26,000 members, was arrested on May 15, 2008 for solicitation of a minor after driving from the Dallas area to Bryan, Texas, in order to allegedly engage in sexual relations with what he thought to be a 13 year-old girl he had met online. The “girl” turned out to be an undercover law enforcement officer.

Wow… what would we do without religion to fall back on. Geez… gimmie a break. Happy almost Friday!

The Real Avatar – A Chinese national park has been swamped with visitors after it was revealed its scenery was the basis for the landscape in the hit movie Avatar. Zhangjiajie National Forest Park spokesman Shi Cheng said: “We had a photographer from Hollywood here in 2008 and he shot a lot of pictures of the forest scenery – and in particular the peak we call ‘Stick in the Sky’. We were then amazed to see it had inspired the floating mountains in the hit movie.” This week the park held an official ceremony to change the name of “Stick in the Sky Mountain” to “Avatar Mountain” although many locals said the new name was not as romantic as the old. Local Lu Wey, 39, said: “They only did it to get more visitors. But I suppose if it helps raise money to preserve the park it’s OK – even if the old name was much better.” The spectacular rock formations of the national forest park located in Zhangjiajie City in the northern Hunan Province in China are often included in traditional Chinese paintings. Zhangjiajie National Forest was declared a Chinese national park in 1982. The 3,544-foot high Avatar mountain is one of 3,000 mountain peaks in the Zhangjiajie park which were formed from years of erosion. The weather is moist all year round making the foliage very dense.

Basketball Jones – The All-American Basketball Alliance is hoping to kick off a 12-team season in June, using only the new American minority: white players (natural-born Americans, both parents Caucasian). But it’s not actually a skin-color thing, argued Atlanta-based Commissioner “Moose” Lewis. AABA is merely rejecting the in-your-face street-ball culture (like taunting your opponent, as notoriously practiced by, say, Larry Bird) and bringing back the purity of basketball fundamentals (such as exemplified by, say, Tim Duncan). Nice going “Moose” – you just set race relations back about 30 years… leave it to some dickweed from Atlanta, Georgia. Looks like we have found our next candidate for Doofus of the Week.

The New Orleans Saints won the NFC championship and the right to play in the Superbowl by a whisker last night… they literally stumbled and fell across the finish line. I kept waiting for them to build a lead, to separate themselves from their opponent – the Minnesota Vikings… but it never happened. The game was a struggle of wills right down to the bitter end and I was exhausted just from watching… then it occurred to me the game simply could not have been more fitting for the team and the city. An easy win would have been a misnomer and not represented the long suffering New Orleans Saints fans… and the city which semi-recently had its butt handled to it by a rather nasty bitch of a hurricane named Katrina. After thinking about the history of the city… and my knowledge of the flavor of the people – an easy run-away win just would not have been right… it would not have felt right. New Orleans is used to fighting… and drinking, but that is another story. The NFC Championship game needed to be a struggle – and it was everything one might have predicted. So now we head south to Miami and the Superbowl… someone please tell Drew Brees to calm down and take a deep breath; and then smack some sense into Sean Payton and the offensive play-callers… you got two weeks to get your act together, gents!

Geaux Saints Geaux!!

Big Hole Cheap – Europe’s largest man-made hole, a water-filled quarry which provided the stone that made Aberdeen, Scotland, the “Granite City” is for sale… and it is dirt cheap. Rubislaw Quarry was opened in 1740 and closed in 1971, during which time six million tons of granite were chiseled out. Its current owner bought it in 1997 but now wants to sell the 7.3 acre lake which is almost 500 feet deep for the low, low price of 30,000 EUR (about 42K US). The seller, Bixen, an overseas-based company, is hoping the new purchasers will be able to turn the disused quarry into a tourist attraction or a leisure facility. Less than $6,000 an acre for prime downtown property… who could pass this deal up?

The Force is Strong – Former Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana who lost the presidential election last year, and his wife have claimed Geoana was the subject of attacks of negative energy by aides of President Traian Basescu during a crucial debate. “During the Dec. 3 debate … people who were working for Basescu in this domain were present to the right of the camera. … I saw them and I know who they are,” Geoana told Antena 3 television. Geoana fared badly in parts of the debate and his wife Mihaela said her husband “was very badly attacked, he couldn’t concentrate.” Former President Ion Iliescu dismissed the allegations as “discussions for naive, uneducated people.” Is it a strong will? Or is it a weak mind?

Historical Beaver – Canada’s second-oldest magazine, The Beaver, which is published by Canada’s National History Society, is changing its name because its unintended sexual connotation has caused the history journal to become blocked by internet filters and has turned off potential readers. The Beaver will officially change its name to Canada’s History with the April 2010 issue. “Market research showed us that younger Canadians and women were very unlikely ever to buy a magazine called The Beaver, no matter what it’s about,” said editor-in-chief Mark Reid. So if you laid the magazine on the stove while cooking… would it then be a “hot” Beaver?

Only in Pairs Please – A plastic surgeon in Croatia has revealed he refused to perform an operation on a stripper who wanted him to make a third breast for her. Doctor Sinisa Glumicic said his client thought she would attract more attention and make more money if she had three breasts. According to sources at the clinic the anonymous stripper works in Milan, Italy. Geez… two are awesome, so three would be… odd.

I Hate Cruises – Carnival Cruise Lines won’t be sailing anymore with a boat load of “cougars” and their willing prey. The Miami-based company has turned down a request from a singles travel group to book another cruise with the cougar theme. The term “cougar” refers to older women who date younger men. Carnival says there were no problems with their first cruise on Carnival’s Elation in December that drew about 300 women and the men they call “cubs,” it’s just a business decision. They have no room for groups with that “theme.” Analysts say it’s meant to protect Carnival’s focus on family fun advertising program. One has to wonder if it were older men and younger women if they would get the same cold shoulder…

Nazi Night – Sklot Rock Club in Warsaw, Poland, used a doctored picture of Adolf Hitler wearing sunglasses above a Third Reich eagle for posters advertising the club’s party nights. “The idea is that Hitler isn’t happy with the condition of Warsaw clubs so he plans to invade and make them better,” said club spokesman Kalina Koslinska. “It’s just a bit of fun.” Now the owners are facing two years in prison for promoting fascism, strictly forbidden in Poland which was occupied by German troops in World War II. “The poster uses illegal images to promote fascism which is a very serious crime,” said Renata Mazur from Warsaw’s prosecutor’s office. Man those dead Nazis seriously like to party…

Microsoft is Innocent – The German government recommends using browsers other than Internet Explorer until Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) provides a patch to fix a critical security flaw that allowed a cyber attack against Google Inc. In a statement posted on its website, Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security warned that attacks by hackers “cannot be fully prevented,” even if users run Microsoft’s browser in safe mode. Microsoft rejected the warning, saying that the risk to users was low and that the IE’s higher security settings would prevent any serious risk. “These were not attacks against general users or consumers,” a spokesperson for Microsoft said. If the Germans won’t use it, we shouldn’t either… has anyone ever mentioned Mozilla Firefox to you?

Microsoft is Guilty – Software giant Microsoft has said a vulnerability in its Internet Explorer browsing software allowed hackers to attack human rights organizations, prompting Google to abandon its Chinese operations. “Internet Explorer was one of the vectors used in targeted and sophisticated attacks targeted against Google and other corporate networks,” Mike Reavey, the director of Microsoft’s Security Response Center, said in a blog post. “Microsoft continues to work with Google, other industry partners and authorities to actively investigate this issue.” Obviously Microsoft cannot make up their mind… or else it depends on who you talk to. If only I were not a gamer… sigh.

Hackers Drive In – An enormous television screen showing a pornographic film caused a midnight traffic jam along Moscow’s Garden Ring Road as stunned motorists slammed on the brakes to gawk at the writhing naked bodies. The owner of the 9-by-6-meter advertising screen said hackers had broken into the screen’s computer system and turned on the porn. “They were either acting out of hooliganism or were from a rival company,” stated Viktor Laptev, commercial director of advertising firm Panno.ru. Wow, my kind of hackers… any chance we can get this ported directly into my Internet Explorer browser vulnerabilities?

Lesbian Sues Netflix – An in-the-closet lesbian mother has sued Netflix for publishing data that she believes could be used to out her. The unnamed Ohio woman claims her privacy was invaded when the movie rental company disclosed insufficiently anonymous information on the viewing habits of 480,000 customers as part of a $1 million dollar contest to improve its recommendation system. By connecting a series of digital dots, it’s possible for anyone with access to the data to identify customers by name, giving the more than 50,000 contestants an intimate glimpse into data Netflix promised to keep private, the suit contends. “Although Netflix touted its privacy protections to induce consumers to become subscribers, Netflix failed to disclose that it would release the movie titles, genres, rental dates, and ratings they assigned to movies, along with other information about their rentals – without consent – as fodder for a contest to improve the predictive value of their recommendation system,” according to the complaint, which was filed last week in US District Court in San Jose, California.

Trojan porn dialers on mobile phones – After taking a long hiatus, trojan dialers which can rack up thousands of dollars in charges are back. According to researchers at CA Security’s malware analysis lab, a new wave of malicious dialers is hitting users of mobile phones. The trojans are built on the Java 2 Micro Edition programming language and cause infected handsets to send SMS messages to high-cost numbers, at great expense to the victim. “As soon as the application is loaded, this malicious software starts to send premium text messages,” CA warned on Tuesday. “The messages sent out are in the typical format to invoke premium services and land the mobile user with heavy mobile bills without the user’s knowledge and consent.”

Facebook Owns You – An interview with an anonymous Facebook employee is getting a lot of attention, but is the info discussed really anything surprising? The employee revealed that the company records everything their users post, upload and view, and that their data is kept even if they delete it. That’s not exactly a secret – Facebook uses the information for the Suggestions area, to serve relevant ads, and to provide such services as letting you know when your friends have birthdays coming up. The other revelations in the interview might be a bit more unsettling to some. The employee said that until recently a master password existed that allowed employees to log into any account. That practice was done away with in what they called a “crack down” and now any employee who logs into a user account must explain why it was necessary. The employee, who was not identified for fear of losing her job, also said all messages sent on the site are easily accessed by employees.

Hackers Homepage – Evgeny Legerov, the 30-year-old IT security researcher, founder of Intevydis, the Moscow-based IT security consultancy, has caused a quiet storm in security research circles, after saying he plans to release zero-day flaws on a range of popular applications, but without having notified the vendors concerned. In an interview with US security journalist Brian Krebs, Legerov said he plans to release flaws in a variety of packages that is likely to include Zeus and Sun’s web server software, IBM DB2, Lotus Domino and Informix’ directory server applications, including Novell, Sun and Tivoli directory. In his interview with Krebs, Legerov said that, after working with vendors long enough, “we’ve come to (the) conclusion that, to put it simply, it is a waste of time”. According to the IT security researcher, he and his team no longer intend to contact vendors about security flaws, and no longer support the industry’s ‘responsible disclosure’ policy. Oh my, this will undoubtedly turn out well…

Online Gaming Torment – Infinity Ward just can’t catch a break. They fix one major glitch in Modern Warfare 2, and then hackers go to work and find another way to exploit the game. If you breathed a sigh of relief after IW fixed the very annoying and over-exposed ‘Javelin glitch’. Then this news may have you pulling your hair out. The new glitch is being dubbed as a server glitch. It allows games to feature players that run at break neck speeds, and then slide when they try to slow down like they are ice skating. Online gamers – online hackers… is there really a difference? As long as there are online games, there will be online game hacks. Deal with it.

Dope for Dummies – A New York City-funded guidebook for heroin users is offering information on how to prepare drugs carefully and how to care for veins to avoid infection. The 16-page pamphlet features helpful tips for dopeheads like: “Warm your body (jump up and down) to show your veins,” and “find your vein before you try to inject.” The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene printed about 70,000 copies of the handout, which reportedly cost $32,000. A health official says the goal is to promote health and save lives. Yer welcome, taxpayers…

Dope for Dummies II – A Utica, NY, man was arrested for attempting to sell marijuana at the Applebee’s in New Hartford. Benjamin Brown, 29, entered the restaurant, ordered a drink at the bar and then openly began attempting to sell weed to other customers. Employees at Applebee’s told Brown to leave then called police. Brown now faces several charges including attempted criminal sale of marijuana. In hindsight, perhaps going table to table inside your local Applebees wasn’t the greatest strategy in selling your stash of weed.

Just a Few Pounds – Elitist social networking site BeautifulPeople.com says it has kicked out 5,000 users because other members signaled that those users became too chubby while celebrating Christmas and the New Year. The social network, which prides itself in not letting ‘ugly’ people enter the site, claims these users had it coming by putting pictures of themselves celebrating during the holiday season, revealing they ‘may have let themselves go’. The company also says ‘vigilant members, who take pride in the standards demanded by the site, called for action’. “Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded.” You single folk better put down that slice of cake right now…

Tiger Tracker – Tiger Woods loves the ladies. And not only that, he love the exotic ladies, with exotic professions (like a porn star or a pancake waitress). But most importantly, he loves exotic names. His seemingly endless checklist of mistresses has included gems such as: Loredana Jolie – Joslyn James – Cori Rist – Kalika Moquin. You’re probably thinking, “I want to be on Tiger’s list and get paid off too. If only my name wasn’t Jane Franks.” Well Jane, or whatever other non-exotic name you have, today is your lucky day. With the Tiger Woods Mistress Generator, you can turn your name into one that Tiger can’t resist. Just enter your name and hit “Fore.” And voila, from now on you are Bettee Little from Flagstaff, AZ – a 44 year old bartender who has texts from Tiger! Now go for the big hush money…$200K here I come!

Pig Bowl – Two burglary suspects fleeing California’s Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies Monday afternoon headed for the Foothill High School campus to loose their pursuers. They ran through the campus and onto the football field – where, it just so happens, about 30 law enforcement officers were practicing for the upcoming Pig Bowl. The Pig Bowl is the annual matchup between area firefighters and law enforcement. Unfortunately for the suspects, members of the team – composed mainly of sheriff’s deputies – ditched their pigskin and joined in the chase, eventually dog piling 19-year-old James Hill Jr. just off the field. The other suspect, a 17-year-old boy, was also tackled for a loss and penalized with jail time. I just wonder if the cops got flagged for “roughing”?

The Grinch – A Santa Maria, California, man is just expressing his right to free speech on his own property with a slightly different Christmas display. The Christmas display featuring Jesus shooting Santa Claus and Rudolph the red nosed reindeer dead on the hood of a truck has angered some residents of a California neighborhood in Santa Maria, Calif. Ron Lake says his Christmas display is an expression of his repressed creativity, and the dead Santa represents the commercialism of Christmas. His neighbors disagree and they’re upset… they say the disturbing display will upset children. A school bus stop is just outside the fence which separates the display from the town’s main roads. “I know it’s freedom of speech, but it’s pretty disturbing and there are lots of children. That’s our main concern,” one neighbor said. Police said they can’t force the homeowner to take down the display because it’s on private property. Neighbors say they are still trying to get the display removed. An unhappy man… who wants others to be miserable too… how sad. Too bad he has such a small penis and no girlfriend…

Lousy Lay – A billboard sponsored by an Anglican church that shows Joseph and Mary in bed has caused a ruckus in New Zealand, with the Catholic Church condemning it even as some locals found it funny. The controversial billboard, erected by St Matthew-in-the-City Church in Auckland, shows a dejected-looking Joseph under bedcovers beside a sad Mary. Underneath the image, a caption reads: “Poor Joseph. God is a hard act to follow.” A spokesperson for the Anglican St. Matthews says the billboard was meant to poke fun with a too literal idea of Jesus’ conception. Predictably other religious groups are up in arms. The Catholic church, of course, finds the billboard disrespectful as does Families First, a family values group. The billboard was defaced with paint soon after it was put up. Good loving gone bad…

Poor Sport – A group of 20 and 30-somethings were invited on Twitter to a snowball fight at 14th and U Street in Washington D.C. earlier this Month. Everyone was enjoying themselves, no fist fights or anything, just the occasional car getting hit by an errant snowball. Then an off duty police officer’s personal vehicle, a Hummer, was hit by a some snow… Detective Baylor jumped out, drew his gun, and threatened some of the fun seekers. End of fun. The D.C. police department, after first denying a gun was draw, admitted the fact when faced with video of the incident. Don’t you just hate it when that happens! Now the department is looking at whether it was excessive for a gun to have been drawn. Ya think?! This bad cop needs to be fired…

Coolest Teacher Ever – Music teacher, Mary Segall accompanied 40 students to a performance in downtown Phoenix. Then she took the students to a local restaurant for lunch. That would have been fine except the restaurant chosen was Hooters. The teacher claims it was the only place they could get seated due to the size of the group. School officials don’t buy it though, so Ms. Segall is on administrative leave. She is retiring in January and the district won’t say if she will return to the classroom before then or not. Interestingly, this teacher and some of her students performed at one of President Obama’s inauguration events. I’m guessing lunch was provided that day…

Wiener Boy – A 23 year old Chinese man who claimed to be depressed over a break up attempted to rob a restaurant in Benxi Heilongjang Province. After finishing a meal the young man grabbed the daughter of the proprietor and held a knife on her while demanding money from the cash drawer. Other patrons overpowered him then upon police arrival the robber showed them that he was wired with what appeared to be dynamite. When the bomb squad arrived they found that the ‘dynamite’ was camouflaged sausages. He said the shape of the sausages gave him the idea. I wonder what else he uses sausages for… seeing as dynamite isn’t the only thing they resemble.

Killer Camo – A Greek man dressed in animal hide was mistakenly shot dead while out hunting wild boar for a Christmas dinner in the town of Nemea, Chalkidiki this weekend. Police said members of a shooting party made up of families opened fire when Christos Constantinou, 49, moved through the undergrowth. They are thought to have been confused by the fact the victim was disguised in dark goat skins, which are used to camouflage and to mislead their prey. The groups had fanned out in pairs of two to track down an animal for the traditional festive dinner when the accident happened. Oops.

Lost Planet – And just in case you still have any hope left for society… here is a selection of what will very likely be the final straws which broke the proverbial camels back -

I Hate My Parents: http://ihatemyparents.tumblr.com/
Girls with Iphones: http://girlswithiphones.com/
People of Walmart: http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/
Make Me Mighty: http://makememighty.ca/

Geez. No wonder I am such a home-body. Happy Boxing Day to all my English friends…

Fore! – In other news about golf and sex… there are many ways of getting yourself banned from exclusive country clubs. But letting them film a golf-themed porno there is probably the most exciting. Raul Quintana rented out one of his condos on exclusive Fisher Island to a “representative from a modeling agency” that wanted to hold a “photo shoot.” It turns out Quintana had rented his apartment to Bangbros.com, an online porn giant based in Miami to film their next masterpiece – Sexy Golfing Experience starring the zeppelin-breasted actress Devon Lee. After viewing the film Quintana is now concerned about stains on his furniture and carpet…

Big Bang Theory – A young man studying chemistry at the Ukraine Polytechnic Institute made a costly mistake. He was studying in his room at his parents house when they heard a loud popping sound. Upon checking they found him dead, the bottom of his jaw blown off. It seems the student was in the habit of dipping his chewing gum in citric acid. That would have been fine, except there were packets of both citric acid and an unidentified explosive present. Apparently he dipped his gum in the wrong one. Oops.

Barber School – Hippie suspended from school for long hair. Oh did I mention the hippie is four years old? And the school in question is a Pre-K class? and of course this couldn’t happen anywhere else but in Texas. 4-year-old Taylor Pugh cannot attend Floyd Elementary classes in Mesquite, Texas, because his hair is too long. Taylor receives private lessons in the library until his hair meets the dress code. Wouldn’t want to corrupt the other kids with all that free thinking. Geez… Ya gotta love Texas.

No Deposit, No Return – Someone mailed an envelope filled with money to a western Pennsylvania bank that was robbed earlier this month, and the FBI suspects it was either the repentant robber or an acquaintance of his. Special Agent Jeff Killeen says the returned money doesn’t cancel out the crime that was committed Dec. 9 at the PNC Bank in West Newton, a tiny borough about 20 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The FBI won’t say how much the robber took, but say the money in the envelope was about 80 percent of the amount stolen. It was separated into stacks of $5s, $10s, $20s and $100s. The FBI announced the mailing on Tuesday and says it is checking the package for fingerprints and other clues. They believe the robber is local because he was wearing a yellow Pittsburgh Steelers T-shirt. No good deed goes unpunished…

Early Warning – A drive-by shooter in Des Moines sends a text message BEFORE the big event. Nicole Grant, 18, was visiting friends at about 1:25 a.m., when she received a text from the person she had just broken up with two weeks ago, Vritie Thammarath. Twenty minutes later shots were fired into the home narrowly missing multiple occupants. The text message read: : ‘You better be ducking :) HAHA.’ Thammarath is currently being held on $10,000 bond at the Polk County Jail. Another future brain surgeon!

Oceanfront Property – Earthquake jolts Nebraska and nobody notices. A minor earthquake has rattled southeast Nebraska but apparently caused little damage and no injuries. The U.S. Geological Survey reported the 3.5 magnitude quake struck at 8:53 Wednesday night, centered two miles north-northwest of Auburn. I guess there is little chance of Nebraska falling into the sea…

Happy Friday everyone… I hope the holidays are shaping up nicely for you!

Big Tubes – A rare surfing competition which is only staged in the most extreme surf conditions and last took place in 2004 has been held in Hawaii as 40 foot waves pounded Oahu’s famous North Shore. It was only the eighth time in 25 years that the Eddie Aikau competition, named in honour of a celebrated Hawaiian surfer and lifeguard, was held. Winner Greg Long, 24, – who took home a purse of $55,000 – said it was “a dream come true” to take part in the “biggest event of big waves in the world”. Malika Dudley of CBC News said it was “unbelievably dangerous” to take part in the event – one surfer, Tom Carroll of Australia, shattered his ankle – but no other injuries were reported. Eddie Aikau, after whom the contest is named, was a legendary surfer who died in 1978 at the age of 31. Exactly why I stay in the shallow end…

Da Hood – A group of civic activists will start running L.A. Gang Tours in January, through South Los Angeles and Watts ($65 a ticket) and has been negotiating with Crips, Bloods, Florencia 13, and 18th Street gangs to give the buses a pass when they roll through the ‘hoods. They will also sell merchandise… but not the T-shirt originally proposed, where the promoters would pay kids to blast the tourists with water pistols and then sell them shirts that read “I Got Shot in South-Central.” How bad is this idea?

Bad Idea – Swiss police have warned it is only a matter of time before someone dies after a rapid rise in the number of drivers making u-turns in tunnels to follow the advice given by GPS systems. Published traffic CCTV images from the Gotthard tunnel show cars making a u-turn with traffic approaching at 50+ mph. GPS systems are tell ing drivers to reverse the route after deciding it would be better to take the pass road instead of the tunnel. Damian Meier, head of traffic police in the Swiss province of Uri, said: “This is not an isolated case. More and more drivers are asked by their SatNavs to take a u-turn in the Gotthard tunnel. The majority of drivers taking a u-turn in the tunnel are from abroad.” Oh. I wasn’t supposed to do that?

Good Idea – Denver, Colo., UFO enthusiast Jeff Peckman has gathered enough signatures for a city ballot question next year on whether or not Denver should establish an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission, to develop protocols for “diplomatic contact” when the ETs land. I was worried about that…

Oops – A University of Montreal professor – Simon Louis Lajeunesse – intending to measure the specific effects of pornography on men, had to scrap the study because he couldn’t find any non-users for his control group. Not a one, he said. “Guys who do not watch pornography do not exist.” Lajeunesse launched his project targeting men in their 20s – he wanted to interview subjects who had never been exposed to pornography — porn virgins. But he couldn’t find any… some interesting findings anyway. [Montreal Gazette]

Too Cheap – A cheapskate commuter has been busted after he was caught hanging from the rear of a coach – to save a small fare. Amazed motorists watched Deng Chung, 33, swinging from the back of the bus as he sped through Dongwan, southern China, for more than 30 minutes before hopping off outside his office. “I was following him for a while and we got up to 40 miles per hour,” said motorist Tian Yang, who took this picture. “It’s not worth risking your life over that sort of money. If he was really short we’d let him on for nothing ,” said a spokesman for the Great Wall Bus Company. That diesel exhaust will kill ya tho…

So Observant – A court bailiff sold stolen Christmas wreaths in the lobby of the Superior Court in Manchester, NH. Sheriff James Hardy said the bailiff sold the wreaths after being asked to do so by an elderly woman who told the bailiff she had made them. But it turns out the wreaths were among about 36 stolen from a local Flower Shop in Goffstown last week. An investigation was triggered after someone noticed the store price tags still hanging on the wreaths. Nice job, deputy!

Have I mentioned lately how much I love my incredible wife, Flo… if not now is the perfect time. There is no one I’d rather be swapping germs with!