Category Archives: Gimme a Break

Lordy! Please don’t let this happen to me…

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I just read this on the wires:

NEW YORK (Reuters) — Police called to a Long Island man’s house discovered the mummified remains of the resident, dead for more than a year, sitting in front of a blaring television set.

The 70-year-old Hampton Bays, New York, resident, identified as Vincenzo Ricardo, appeared to have died of natural causes. Police said on Saturday his body was discovered on Thursday when they went to the house to investigate a report of a burst water pipe.

“You could see his face. He still had hair on his head,” Newsday quoted morgue assistant Jeff Bacchus as saying. The home’s low humidity had preserved the body.

Officials could not explain why the electricity had not been turned off, considering Ricardo had not been heard from since December 2005.

Neighbors said when they had not seen Ricardo, who was diabetic and had been blind for years, they assumed he was in the hospital or a long-term care facility.

Jeez! How did Nielson account for this??

Life imitates fiction, or vice versa

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I was just reading the February 14th, 2007, edition of The Onion and came across their “Infographic” column with highlights of the Scooter Libby trial. The second item is:

Jurors show up one day all wearing the same sweater

Iterestingliy, in the February 15th edition of The New York Times was this news snippet in the midst of their coverage of the previous day’s proceedings:

Before the jurors departed on Wednesday afternoon, they filed into the courtroom, all but one wearing bright red T-shirts with a white valentine heart over their clothes, to the uncertain laughter of many in the courtroom.
But as one juror, a retired North Carolina schoolteacher, rose to speak, Judge Walton became visibly anxious that the juror might say something inappropriate that could threaten the trial. Jurors are not supposed to speak and are supposed to make any concerns known through notes to the bench.
The juror said they were wearing the shirts to express their fondness for the judge and the court staff on Valentine’s Day. He then added, to the judge’s growing discomfort, that they were unanimous in this sentiment, but they would all be independent in judging the evidence in the Libby case.
The sole juror who apparently declined to wear the shirt was a woman who had been a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I will note that this is not the first time The Onion has proved precient in their supposedly satirical coverage. Back in January of 2001 they ran the forward looking headline “Bush To Nation: Our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is over.” Oh how true that turned out to be.

Paula gets truthy

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Seems that Paula Abdul just can’t seem to learn the lessons of Watergate, to whit “The cover-up is more damaging than the crime.” Now she claims that she has never been drunk. That may be, but I love the way she said it, telling Us Weekly magazine:

“I’ve never been drunk. I have never done recreational drugs,” she says. “Just look at my 20-year career. Tell me someone who is into partying or doing drugs that could have done that.”

Okay, hmmm. Maybe Keith Richards for starters… And what a meteoric career, from washed up Laker’s girl to Bobby Brown escort to brief flash-in-the-pan music career to humorous music video doctoring scandal (to make her seem thinner) to washed-up has-been on American Idol most notable for having an affair with a contestant!