Signs you may not be a good pet owner, a Wisconsin pervert has a creepy library of tapes and DVDs and welcome back, soccer hooliganism

- The Palombo family of Plum Borough, Pa. might want to think twice about whether they are suited to be pet owners. Given the fact that the family's alleged favorite Christmas present, a Shih Tzu puppy, fell down an abandoned well in Plum Borough over the weekend, just days after becoming a part of the family, the early answer looks to be a solid no. I’ll allow the dog’s owner, Benny Palombo, to explain: “I woke up. My mom was in shambles, screaming and hollering. She said the puppy fell down in the well. We called 911," said my man Benny Palombo. As with any stuck pet, the fire department was called to the scene and firefighters spent three hours to get little Romeo out of a pipe. Their efforts went for naught until someone got the brilliant idea to hook up an industrial-strength vacuum and found an extension for the machine that sized it down to about 1 inch. Using the tool, they were able to catch on to one of the dog's legs and pull it out. Unfortunately, the pooch wasn't breathing when it came out of the well, so some unfortunate firefighter had to do mouth-to-snout resuscitation for about half of the trip to the nearest veterinarian’s office. Much to that firefighter’s relief, I’m sure, the dog eventually started to breath on its own. A final check by the veterinarian made sure that the dog was okay, but with quality owners like the Palombo family, you have to wonder how long little Romeo will stay that way……

- Welcome back soccer, how I had missed you. No, I’m not talking about dudes in short soccer shorts running around a big grass field randomly kicking a black-and-white ball in every possible direction except that of the goal. That tends to be boring, coma-inducing and to contain approximately 87 fake injuries per game in which players aren’t actually touched by their opponent yet drop to the ground as if they’ve been shot and writhe in pain until the trainer comes out and helps them to the sideline, where they immediately spring up and wave to the crowd to let everyone know they’re okay. What I am referring to is the goonish, brain-dead off-field behavior that soccer players and fans are so famous for engaging in. Whether it’s bagging up urine to lob at opposing fans at games, rioting when your team wins, loses or ties, rioting in the streets after a big win, brawling with the opposing team’s fans, throwing lit road flares at players or clashing with police looking to keep you off the field after a big win, soccer is good for mayhem every month of the year. However, you don’t always see players getting involved, which is why it’s so nice to see Steven Gerrard, the captain of English Premier League leaders Liverpool, charged Tuesday with assault and affray over an alleged bar brawl in Southport, north of Liverpool in northwest England. Gerrard and two other men were arrested early Monday after an incident at a late-night bar that left the club’s disc jockey in the hospital undergoing treatment for facial injuries. not surprisingly, the brawl took place only a few hours after Gerrard’s team, Liverpool, won 5-1 at Newcastle United. Zero to hooligan in under six hours, how very soccer of him. Only in soccer can you go from scoring two goals to lead your team to a win to facing charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and affray. Gerrard and his cohorts were arrested at around 2:30 am after a disturbance at the Lounge Inn, an eatery on Southport's Bold Street which doubles up as a music venue. Details of exactly what happened weren’t immediately available, but I’m sure we can find all of that out at Gerrard’s court appearance at North Sefton Magistrates' Court on January 23. Again, a big welcome back for soccer, it had been far too long…..

- On a brief, rare positive, non-bitter note, congratulations go out to two people who have given us more than their fair share of quality music this year. Actress/singer Zooey Deschanel and Death Cab for Cutie singer Ben Gibbard are now engaged. The two made it official just before the holidays, and it’s great to see two people who have put out very good, albeit very different, albums this year find love together. Gibbard also has a second band, his side project known as the Postal Service, while Deschanel released her first album, Volume One, in March with her band She & Him, which consists of herself and musician M. Ward, another of my favorite artists. And in the holiday spirit, I’m not going to hold it against Deschanel that she is currently starring in the latest canned, predictable train wreck of a movie from Jim Carrey, Yes Man. So big ups to Gibbard and Deschanel, if for no other reason than theirs should be one wedding where the music doesn’t actually blow. I do wonder, though, now that Gibbard has actually found love and his soul mate, is he still going to be able to conjure up enough angst, self-pity and soul-searching melancholy to continue writing the great emo songs that he and his fellow Death Cab members have become known for. Guess we’ll have to wait and see on that one…..

- Bad news for you, pervs of the world - well, at least those of you residing in the state of Wisconsin. That’s because a state appeals court there has ruled that a person who is voluntarily nude in the presence of another still has privacy rights against being secretly videotaped. In a decision that bolsters Wisconsin's video voyeur law, the court upheld the felony guilty plea of perv Mark Jahnke, who videotaped his girlfriend while she was naked and while they were having sex. No, not while she was naked and they were having sex, douche bag filmed them having sex AND her naked around the house, two separate things. Actually, these recordings were just the tip of the perv iceberg, as when police searched Jahnke's house, they found 33 audio (33? Seriously? That’s just creepy, prev to the nth degree) tapes of the couple having sex and three DVDs, one of which showed the couple having sex and two which showed the woman nude in her home. And what tipped the woman off that she was dating a world-class freak with a fetish for filming her with no clothes on? Well, she says she became suspicious when she saw a flash of a red light from beneath a pile of clothes in her bedroom. Ah, the old “hide the camera under a pile of laundry” trick, a favorite of pervs for as long as video cameras have existed. How does one defend himself from such indefensible behavior? By arguing that
because the woman agreed to be naked around him, she had no reasonable expectation of privacy. Nice try, freak, but no. Her deciding not to wear clothes around you didn’t mean she was giving you permission to film her and make pervy DVDs and tape collections. What it meant was that she was okay with you seeing her nude in that moment, that’s all. So I have to agree with the argument made by the state’s Department of Justice argued that shared intimacy does not give a person the right to film another unknowingly, just as the court did. Nice try, though, attorney Michael Herbert, arguing that Jahnke had the right to do what he did because the court had found in a previous case that a reasonable expectation of privacy existed when a nude person reasonably believed he or she was "secluded from the presence of others." Only one of the three judges bought Jahnke’s argument: Judge Charles Dykman, the dissenter in the 2-1 decision. Wouldn’t be surprised if he had his own sex tape library based on his reasoning, saying that said the 2001 law does not specifically prohibit what Jahnke did. Right, defend the rights of freaks to violate people’s privacy, good call there. What I don’t quite get is why Jahnke pleaded guilty to illegally making a nude recording in April 2007 and is now changing his mind. The threat of three years' probation and six months in jail, the sentence he received for his plea, must be scaring the hell out of him. Putting that jail time on hold is one side benefit of appealing, but that strategy looks to be running out of time. What’s even more disturbing about this case is the fact that Jahnke was a Waunakee High School chemistry teacher before all of this drama started. Right, because who wouldn’t want a quality individual like Mark Jahnke teaching their child? Let’s all go take a long, long shower to wash the dirty, disgusting feeling of this story off of us and then continue……

- I still may not be able to understand or enjoy her music and her outfits may still be among the most bizarre in music (or any other industry, for that matter), but you can’t knock Icelandic singer Bjork for looking to better her country and the environment through her new business venture. Bjork has partnered with a Reykjavik-based venture capital firm on a fund that will invest in companies that are “socially and environmentally responsible,” while in the process seeking to rebuild an Icelandic economy that has taken a hit just like many others around the world. To help address the problem, Bjork will establish a venture fund with Audur Capital and given her name to it. The stated mission of BJORK (the company) is to assist investors seeking opportunities in new venture creation and the development of small companies with the objective of helping the recovery of the Icelandic economy. A mouthful to be sure, but beneath all the legalese and corporate speak, it’s a noble effort. Audur Capital will run the BJORK venture fund, so no worries about a flaky pop star being at the helm of this thing. I don’t know how much financial savvy Bjork has, but maybe she’ll be little more than a figurehead and a public face for the fund and leave the actual financial work to the professionals. Audur has put down the initial investment of 100 million Iceland kronur ($826,000) and is seeking investors to participate in the fund with investments to close by March 2009. “The fund will invest in sustainable businesses that create value through the country's unique resources, spectacular nature, vibrant culture and green energy," reads a message on Audur Capital's website. So if you’ve been looking for investments opportunities with the side benefit of reviving a vital cog in the world’s economy like the economic system of Iceland, here’s your shot…..

The 77 best albums of 2008

This is a departure from my normal posts, a bonus for you all out there. I've run down the best albums of 2008 and grouped them into three lists: 1) The top 10, 2) The next 25 and 3) The 42 others. The top 10 are in no particular order, merely a group of the 10 albums that separated themselves from the rest of the pack. The next 25 list is full of albums that nearly made the top 10 but weren't quite good enough, again in no specific order. The other 42 were good albums, just not good enough, and again in no particular order. Read, discuss and get back at me with any thoughts:

the top 10
artist - album
what made milwaukee famous - what doesn’t kill us
someone still love you boris yeltsin - pershing
snow patrol - a hundred million suns
oasis - dig out your soul
kooks - konk
the hold steady - stay positive
the duke spirit - neptune
apples in stereo - electronic projects for musicians
tokyo police club - elephant shell
sun kil moon - april

the next 25
artist - album
wolf parade - at mount zoomer
weezer - weezer (the red album)
vampire weekend - vampire weekend
tokio hotel - scream
tapes n’ tapes - walk it off
republic tigers - keep color
okkervil river - the stand ins
nada surf - lucky
my morning jacket - evil urges
mates of state - re-arrange us
ludo - you’re awful, I love you
los campesinos! - hold on now, youngster
the hush sound - goodbye blues
helio sequence - keep your eyes ahead
the futureheads - this is not the world
fleet foxes - fleet foxes
the dirtbombs - we have you surrounded
death cab for cutie - narrow stairs
the cure - 4:13 dream
copeland - you are my sunshine
the contrast - introducing the contrast: perfect disguise
coldplay - viva la vida or death and all his friends
british sea power - do you like rock music?
black keys - attack & release
augustana - can’t love, can’t hurt

the other 42
artist - album
keane - perfect symmetry
jakob dylan - seeing things
black mountain - in the future
the whigs - mission control
the weepies - hideaway
we are scientists - brain thrust mastery
tv on the radio - dear science
the ting tings - we started nothing
supergrass - diamond hoo ha
stephen malkmus & the jicks - real emotional trash
she & him - volume one
secondhand serenade - a twist in my story
raveonettes - lust lust lust
raconteurs - consolers of the lonely
r.e.m. - accelerate
presidents of the united states of america - these are the good times people
plain white t’s - big bad world
pillar - for the love of the game
peter moren - the last tycoon
people in planes - beyond the horizon
the old 97’s - blame it on gravity
the offspring - rise and fall, rage and grace
the myriad - with arrows, with poise
the magnetic fields - distortion
m83 - saturdays = youth
kings of leon - only by the night
jack johnson - sleeping through the static
hawk nelson - ….is my friend
gnarls barkley - the odd couple
the fratellis - here we stand
foxboro hot tubs - stop drop and roll!
foals - antidote
the breeders - mountain battles
bloc party - intimacy
black crows - warpaint
bell x1 - flock
ashes divide - keep telling myself it’s alright
anberlin - new surrender
alkaline trio - agony & irony
air traffic - fractured life
the killers - day & age
margot & the nuclear so and so’s

Playing football while high, corporate titans quibble over money and assigning credit for the Detroit Lions' magical season

- You may not remember Matt Lepsis, even if you’re a pretty avid fan of the National Football League. But Lepsis was an offensive lineman who played several seasons for the Denver Broncos and was actually a very good player for his entire career, part of a Broncos’ offensive line that was perennially among the NFL’s best. However, Lepsis abruptly retired from the league after last season and enrolled in the Dallas Theological Seminary, a drastic turn in a life that, as it turns out, was spiraling out of control. Now that he has his life back on track, Lepsis has admitted to playing the first six games of the 2007 season, his last in the NFL, while high. Yes, the Rocky Mountain high wasn’t the only one dude was experiencing, but he managed to get away with it. Lepsis didn’t specify which drug or drugs he was using, only that he played those six games under the influence. After the season, he was so heavily burdened by his drug habit and trying to rif himself of it that he walked away from the final two years of his contract with the Broncos, a deal that was to have paid him $9 million. Clearly, he felt that living the NFL lifestyle was contributing to, if not creating, his problems and that getting away from all of that was worth much more than $9 million. Honestly, as much as we would all like to believe that stories like this are one of a kind and that Lepsis is some sort of unique case, it’s not true. Maybe the league doesn’t have a cocaine epidemic like it did decades ago, but there are absolutely guys who use illegal drugs and you’d be a fool to believe that none of them have ever taken the field while under the influence. Lepsis did so and if he hadn’t told us about it, I doubt anyone would have ever known, so how can you say that he’s the only one. Regardless, I’m glad he was able to make the tough decision to walk away from the game and possibly save his life in the process…..

- Damn. I wanted to be the first one to file a lawsuit against CBS on account of Two and a Half Men, but sadly, Warner Bros. TV has beaten me to it. There are two reasons for this, the first being that my reason for wanting to sue is that the show absolutely blows and is an affront to everything that’s good about TV. It is, after all, a half-hour sitcom, and the only one of those that hasn’t totally blown for as long as sitcoms have existed is Seinfeld and to quote a famous politician, “Two and a Half Men, you’re no Seinfeld.” However, suing on this basis is something that, at present, the law doesn’t allow. The second reason is that Warner Bros. is a major corporation, has crap loads of money and lawyers and can actually afford to file a lawsuit. Oh, and their suit has an actual legal basis, so that helps. For those reasons and many more, Warner Bros. has filed a $49 million lawsuit against CBS, claiming the network has refused to reimburse the studio in production fees and costs since the sitcom became a hit (and yes, “hit” is a relative and subjective term in this case).
 Warner Bros. claims in its suit that its licensing agreement with CBS entitles the studio to recoup costs incurred during the show’s first four seasons, known as a "deficit recoupment," once the show has proven to be a success. After the first four seasons, the deal was renegotiated and for seasons five and six, it declares a "modest increase" in fees. "CBS has reaped the benefits of the tremendous success of Two and a Half Men but wants to deny Warner Bros. the right to its agreed-upon share," the Warner whined in the suit. As quick aside, how infuriating is it when two ginormous corporate titans brawl over seemingly inconsequential amounts of money and act like they aren’t both filthy rich? But back the point at hand before I get too upset, the suit claims that CBS agreed to pay a $750,000 per episode license fee during the first four years. Unfortunately, crappy shows aren’t always cheap to produce and the average cost per episode for those first four seasons was $1.22 million per clunker. Putting on our math hats, we can calculate that Warner Bros.’ deficit over four seasons id…..$61.1 million. As you might expect, CBS is giving a big legal middle finger to Warner at this point, so we’ll have to wait and see how this one shakes out….

- Here’s a steadfast standard to live by in life: no matter what your job is, if someone points a gun at you at any point during your work day, consider that day of work over and go home - well, unless you are a police officer or a soldier. In those jobs, getting guns pointed at you is part of the gig. Otherwise, if some psycho points a gun of any size and caliber in your face, it’s day over. That’s why I’m more than a little disappointed in an unidentified 65-year-old delivery man in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Dude was robbed in the middle of his shift, yet continued to drop off pizzas last Monday. The delivery man said he was dropping off a pizza at a residence when he was approached by a who demanded money. When the delivery man said he would not give the robber the money, the masked man pulled a gun and was then given $15 by the delivery man. But as I said, this tool (the delivery guy, not the robber) went on delivering pies. And why did he do so? Well, in part the reason seems to be that when this guy was robbed at gunpoint by a man wearing a bandana over his fact, his first call was to his manager at the Domino’s Pizza where he works. The manager, showing loads of sensitivity and class, told him to finish his deliveries before returning to the store. Worse still, the delivery guy listened to those idiotic instructions, finished his deliveries and then he went to the Spartanburg sheriff's office to report the robbery. Now, police are out looking for the robber but so far, they have no leads. In the meantime, how’s about arresting the manager for being an insensitive, un-caring, thick-headed ass? This senior citizen has a gun pointed in his face and you don’t tell him to call it a night and go home? Like I said, if anyone points a gun in my face at any point in the day, I’m done working. See ya later, I’m going home. So props to this old dude, I guess, for being tough enough to hang in there, but also a wag of the finger to him for not having the testicular fortitude to tell his boss to take a hike……

- I have several reactions to the news that the Detroit Lions fired coach Rod Marinelli on Monday, a day after the team became the first in NFL history to finish with an 0-16 record. The first is that even though Marinelli is a stand-up guy and a solid, character-first individual, I wouldn’t trade that 0-16 season for anything, even if it meant a dude like Marinelli keeping his job. Second, I think the Lions should be ashamed of themselves, firing a coach who was able to keep his team focused on being un-focused for an entire season, guiding them to perfection the way he did. Yes, Marinelli was gallant in defeat, admitting that he knew the axe was about to drop. "You can't go 0-16 and expect to keep your job," Marinelli said at a news conference. Why not, Rod? You got your team to do something that no team has ever done and probably no team ever will again. You were handed terrible players and a mismatched roster by an inept front office, and you kept those guys performing just the way any rational person would have expected them to. You got them to play to their strengths, or more specifically, their lack thereof. But if you really want to heap the blame on Marinelli, you might start with the fact that he had a disturbing tendency toward nepotism, which is generally not a good idea in pro sports. Hiring one’s family members tends not to work out well if for no other reason than the fact that it’s extremely unlikely that multiple members of one family are going to be good pro coaches, just as a general rule. So the fact that Marinelli's son-in-law, Joe Barry, was the team’s defensive coordinator, and assistant offensive line coach Mike Barry, Joe’s father, were on staff probably didn’t help matters. However, the Lions won't have that problem going forward, as both Barry’s were canned alongside Marinelli. Continuing the coaching carnage, secondary coach Jimmy Lake was also fired, as was defensive line coach Joe Cullen. Somehow, offensive coordinator Jim Colletto managed to survive, although he was demoted to offensive line coach. My last thought in the Marinelli firing is that former Lions GM Matt Millen deserves the bulk of the blame for the team’s awful season, as he put the roster together. After all, the players are the bulk of the reason any team wins or loses. Coming into this year, the Lions were 24-72 in Millen’s tenure. He was fired mid-season, having hired three coaches in his reign and having seen none of them work out. So if you’re looking to dish out credit for the worst season in NFL history, start with Millen and don’t be so quick to point to Marinelli……

- Wow. Stunning news here: a study has found that teens who take virginity pledges are just as likely to have sex as teens who don't make such promises. Furthermore, teens who make such pledges are less likely to practice safe sex to prevent disease or pregnancy. "Previous studies found that pledgers were more likely to delay having sex than non-pledgers," said study author Janet E. Rosenbaum, a post doctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "I used the same data as previous studies but a different statistical method." So what you’re saying to me is that a bunch of horny teenagers, people who change their minds more often than they text message their friends, don’t stick to a non-binding verbal pledge they make? Jeez, what revelation do you have for me next, that water is wet? That fire is hot? I appreciate that Rosenbaum took the time to compare those who had taken a virginity pledge with similar teens who hadn't taken a pledge, but this should surprise exactly no one. "Virginity pledgers and similar non-pledgers don't differ in the rates of sex or any sexual behavior," Rosenbaum said. "Strikingly, pledgers are less likely than similar non-pledgers to use condoms and also less likely to use any form of birth control." For her study, Rosenbaum collected data on 934 high school students who had never had sex or had taken a virginity pledge. and matched students who had taken a virginity pledge with those who hadn't. Five years down the road, she followed up with her subjects and found that those who had taken a pledge did not differ from teens who hadn't taken a pledge in rates of premarital sex or sexually transmitted diseases. Again, I’m flabbergasted. What, teenagers lie? They make promises they don’t keep? They do things like take purity pledges to pacify their parents or because friends are doing it, then don’t live up to those pledges? Never does it cease to amaze me how many “researchers” can score big grant money to research things that are so blatantly obvious……..

Movie theater etiquette (hint, guns not allowed), more attacks on pirates and putting the Detroit Lions' amazing season in perspective

- Let this be a lesson to all of you would-be nurse abductors out there: nine days is the absolute limit for the amount of time you should leave a nurse, or any trained medical professional for that matter, locked in the trunk of their own vehicle. Had an unidentified Scottish man known about this rule, perhaps he could have avoided being arrested by police Sunday in connection with the abduction of a nurse who was found tied up in the trunk of her car and left in the trunk of her car for as long as 10 days. Clearly this man isn’t a deep thinker, otherwise he would have realized that when Magdeline Makola failed to show up for work at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for several days and no one had heard from her, someone might call the police. That occurred on Dec. 18, with Makola last seen Dec. 15. She was found in the Scottish town of Airdrie, where police had tracked her through transactions made on her bank card. Oh, that’s lesson #155 in my seminar for aspiring-but-idiotic criminals, never, ever use the credit or bank cards of a person you’ve abducted, when police come looking for a missing person, that’s one of the first things they’re going to check. Fortunately, Makola escaped with relatively little damage, suffering from dehydration and pajamas. She lives in nearby Livingston, just west of Airdrie, with both towns sandwiched in between Glasgow and Edinburgh. It’s a bizarre case, for sure, and one that makes you think that the man who abducted her might be just a tiny, tiny bit (by tiny bit, I mean totally and completely) insane……

- Well, I suppose worse films have been the top earners at the box office in 2008, so in the last full week of the year, maybe a clichéd comedy starring Own Wilson and Jennifer Aniston isn’t the worst possible thing. The movie in question is Marley & Me, the tale of a couple's life with each other and their problematic dog, made an estimated $37 million this weekend, which brings the film’s four-day total to$51.7 million when you include the record $14.7 million it made on Christmas Day. Plus, I’m sure that the movie’s solid $10,632 per-screen average has the studio pumped for a successful extended run. And heck, there are worse things to do than stare at Aniston on a giant screen for the better part of two hours. Finshing second for the weekend was a movie for which there is no defense, unless you are under the age of nine: Adam Sandler's Bedtime Stories. Yes, I know Sandler is a great guy and he’s been the star or at the helm of billions of dollars worth of movies. That doesn’t mean his movies are good, it just means they are mainstream enough for parents and children to see them en masse, thus lining Sandler’s pockets with cash. Bedtime Stories finished second for the weekend with a $28.1 million showing for the weekend, just ahead of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which finished third with a total of $27 million for the three-day weekend. Finishing fourth with a solid-but-unspectacular $21.5 million haul was a movie that truly captured the warmth and spirit of the Christmas season: Tom Cruise’s Nazi-themed drama Valkyrie. Well, I suppose people like watching crazy people, at least from a safe distance, so Cruise’s movie doing well makes a little sense. The weekend’s biggest disappointment from an earnings standpoint had to be The Spirit, with the adaptation of the Will Eisner comic barely cracking the top ten (No. 9), with $6.5 million for the weekend. What gives, comic book dorks, I thought you all flocked to see one of your beloved dork books, er, graphic novels any time one of them made it to the big screen. The leaders from the previous weekend at the box office managed to stick around the top of the list, for the most part. Jim Carrey's Yes Man managed to stick and stay in the No. 5 spot with $16.5 million, while Will Smith's Seven Pounds also stayed in the top 10 with $13.4 million. Elsewhere, the reunion of two actors most responsible for the biggest waste of four hours in the history of cinema, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet (yes, I’m still freaking bitter about that nightmare Titanic) reunited for the limited release (three screens) of Revolutionary Road. The movie took in $192,000, a great average of $64,000 per theater, although I don’t see that amount holding up when it is released more widely in the coming weeks. Quite an eclectic group of movies, to be sure, and shockingly enough, not all of them suck…..

- If you thought my fascination with the 2008 Detroit Lions would end after they made history by losing their final game to become the NFL’s first-ever 0-16 team, you would be oh, so wrong. There is so much more to this terrifically terrible story, facts and stats that went overlooked during the season in pursuit of the ultimate goal. When you’re chasing a mark like 0-16, you don’t always have time to stop and look at all of the amazing stats you are racking up, so I figured now was a great time to do just that. Here, for your (and my) enjoyment, I present just a few of the many noteworthy accomplishments from my favorite football team of all-time. First, the obvious: the Lions become the first winless NFL team since 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, although the NFL season was only 14 games long back then, so the Lions obviously trump the Bucs here. Second, they are the first winless Lions teams since 1942, and while it’s disheartening to let a tradition of losing lay dormant for 66 years, let’s not dwell on the negative. Third, the futility can extend beyond 2008, as the Lions are riding a 17-game winning streak that dates back to December 30, 2007, when the Lions lost their regular-season finale against, coincidentally enough, Green Bay, the same team they lost to in this season’s finale. Fourth, the 2008 Lions put up a -243 point differential, meaning that on average, they scored 15.2 points per game less than their opponents, more than two touchdowns and two extra points. Fifth, they become just the ninth winless team in NFL history, but that 0-16 mark propels them right past the first eight in my book. Sixth, they were spectacularly awful on both sides of the ball, ranking 30th in yards on offense, 27th in points per game on offense, 31st in offensive 3rd down conversion percentage, last (32nd) in yards per game on defense, last in points per game allowed on defense, last in yards allowed per rush and last in rushing yards allowed per game. It’s a stellar resume that I don’t think you can fully appreciate in one, or even two, sittings. Look over those accomplishments, digest them and allow them to rattle around in your head. You’ll come away with a deeper and more complete appreciation of the 2008 Detroit Lions every time you think over what they have done these past few months……

- I think we can all agree to hate the tool who talks through an entire movie and disturbs everyone else in the theater, whether it’s talking to someone they’re with or on their cell phone. That being said, I’m going to go out on a limb and declare that shooting that person for talking during the movie is a slight overreaction. Take heed, James Joseph Cialella of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Assuming you aren’t in jail for a prolonged period of time, this advice could come in handy for you in the near future. When you went to see "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" on Christmas Day and threw popcorn at a young boy for talking during the movie, that was your first mistake. Not a fatal one for you, because at worst you’re going to get kicked out of the theater for that one. No one has ever been charged with assault by popcorn, to the best of my knowledge, so you could have recovered from that one. However, hard to recover from getting up out of your seat, walking across the theater and shooting the father of the boy you had just chucked your ridiculously overpriced theater popcorn at. Doing that will do a lot more than get you booted from the theater; it will get you charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and weapons violations. Hope that was worth it, you tool. Fact is, I’m sure that a lot of other people in that theater were just as angry as you were about the family talking and disrupting the movie, but everyone else possessed a smidgen of self-restraint and oh yeah, the realization that using lethal force to solve the problem was out of the question. Besides, who goes to the theater packing heat anyhow? What, you figured someone might mug you in the hall and Goober-jack you? I’m not all that familiar with the Riverview Movie Theatre, but I feel safe in saying that you can go there and watch a film without needing to carry your piece with you. Maybe movie theaters need to install metal detectors at their doors, I don’t know. Besides, did you learn nothing from that ass hat Plaxico Burress? Like you, he carried a loaded gun into a public place and stashed said gun inside his sweatpants. Like you, he shot and wounded someone and is headed to jail in the near future. The only difference is that Burress is such a moron that he shot only himself, whereas you broke out your Kel-Tec .380-caliber handgun and shot an innocent man. No lifetime pass and unlimited concessions is going to make that nightmare go away any time soon for the people in the theater that day. So to clarify, it’s okay to confront tools who talk during movies and tell them to shut up, but the line is drawn when you feel the need to bring lethal force into the equation. All clear on that? Good, moving on…..

- Wooo, look at you China, big, bad world power. Yeah, because that expensive opening ceremony for the Summer Olympics was such an eye opener that we can overlook your many toxic products and the fact that you are now among the growing legion of nations declaring open season on my boys, the Somali pirates. You just couldn’t resist piling on, could you? Had to show the world how tough you are by sending Chinese warships toward Somali waters over the weekend to combat piracy. And you knew everyone would take notice because it’s the first time the your country has sent ships on a mission that could involve fighting so far beyond its territorial waters. I think the situation in the Gulf of Aden was going just fine without you poking your nose where it didn’t belong, China. Yes, the gulf has been the site of increasingly bold pirate attacks in recent months, but again, if you’re not down with the pirates, then you’ve got a problem….with yourself. There was absolutely no need for your navy to go from mostly guarding your own coasts to patrolling waters off the coast of a different continent. And no, I don’t care that the move was welcomed by the U.S. military, because I don’t go to them for approval when it comes to how I feel about people trying to shut down my boys, the Somali pirates. If the U.S. military wants to look like tools, escorting cargo ships in the region, then let them look like tools. There was already a long line of sheep behind them, nations like India, Russia and even a collection of nations like the European Union, all persecuting the pirates. It’s just not fair, because these pirates deserve the chance to earn a living just like anyone else. Simply because their chosen profession involves pillaging, plundering, looting and stealing, that automatically makes them bad guys and worthy of an international strike force looking to take them out? I don’t think so. So China, you can take your naval force that set sail from southern Hainan, including that supply ship and two destroyers armed with guided missiles, special forces and two helicopters, and you can send it right back where you came from. A big thanks for nothing on this mess also goes out to the U.N. Security Council, which early last week authorized nations to conduct land and air attacks on pirate bases. Leave the pirates alone, all of you, they are a pleasant reminder of a bygone era and you’ll be lucky if they don’t make you all walk the plank…..arrrrrggggghhhh!

The Lions do it!, a naked run at Cal's library and a crack pipe stabbing

- YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! I don’t believe it! The impossible has happened! An 0-16 NFL season has gone from impossible dream to tangible reality. You, Detroit Lions, have made my dream (and the dream of millions of others around the world) come true! It was a bit sketchy at times and a few clueless Lions tried their best to ruin the 16th loss, but in the end, the Lions did what they do best - whatever it takes to not win games. Sunday’s 31-21 loss to Green Bay was the capper for an amazing season of dreams, catapulting the Lions to immortality as the only team to ever lose all 16 games on its schedule. The Packers jumped out to a 14-0 first-quarter lead, but their offense went limp for the next two quarters. The Lions, led by the pesky Dan Orlovsky, came back behind two Orlovsky-to-Calvin Johnson touchdown passes, tying the score at 14-all in the third quarter. But back came Packers kicker Mason Crosby with a 36-yard field goal for the lead early in the fourth quarter; redemption for miss from 69 yards as the first half ended. Yes, I realize that the 69-yard kick would have been an NFL recorf by nine yards and mind-boggling, but in cases like this where history is on the line, heroic efforts are demanded. The field goal came after Detroit coach Rod Marinelli also tried to ruin my dream by challenging an 80-yard touchdown run by Green Bay’s Ryan Grant. Marinelli challenged that Grant was down 20 yards into the run, a claim the officials inexplicably agreed with. That left the Packers to resume the drive and all they could muster was a field goal for a 17-14 lead. After Crosby’s redemption kick, the Packers drove 51 yards in seven plays for a touchdown, a 5-yard pass from Aaron Rodgers to John Kuhn, third-year running back from tiny Shippensburg College, for a 10-point lead with 8:34 left. Big ups to Detroit linebacker Ernie Sims for his part in the drive, incurring an unnecessary roughness penalty on the drive near the 12:00 mark of fourth quarter to keep things rolling. Yet there was that damn Orlovsky, inexplicably firing back with a long TD drive, including two passes for a total of 71 yards from Orlovsky to John Standeford. Running back Kevin Smith finished the drive with an 8-yard touchdown run to bring the Lions to within 24-21 and honestly, I was in full panic mode. But my new favorite NFL player of all time, Aaron Freaking Rodgers, connected on a 71-yard touchdown pass to my second favorite NFL player, Donald Driver. That touchdown pass pushed the lead back to 10 points with 7:27 left in the game. The Lions got the ball back and tried one feeble last attempt at a drive, but there was Kevin Smith, coming through in the clutch with unsportsmanlike conduct penalty at 3:53 to atone for his touchdown run and stall out the last Lions drive of this magical season. At game’s end, I was as excited as I’ve ever been for any sporting event in my life. I perused pictures from the game and the dejected, dismayed looks of Lions players and coaches heightened my joy. There are so many people to thank for this and so I don’t miss anyone, I’ll just thank anyone who played a single snap for the Lions all year, anyone who coached for the team, was on the practice squad, worked in the front office, was a ticket taker or usher, worked in the team shop, worked in a parking lot, sold concessions or been a member of the cheerleading or dance squads. You all have come together to make a magical season that I won't soon forget, and for that I thank you from the bottom of my heart. 0-16, it feels so good…..now excuse me while I go pour some more champagne over my head and start the parade on its way…….

- See, there really are ways to have fun and unwind at college that don’t involve getting fall-down drunk, high or peaking on any sort of hallucinogen. Thanks to three dozen fun-loving students at the University of California-Berkeley, people on Level C of Main Stacks at the campus library were treated to the sight of 36 streakers rushing through the building. The stunt came during finals week, so it had to be a great diversion for all of the anal, obsessive, wound-too-tight students jamming themselves into library study carrolls cramming for finals. The naked run through the library is an annual event designed to one up the Undie Run at one of Cal’s in-state rivals, UCLA. Because it’s a tradition and hurts no one, you’d assume that the suits in the university administration would shut it down immediately, but for some odd reason, they allow it to continue without persecution. Unfortunately, not every college has a tradition like this one, so most of us miss out on this sort of fun. Maybe reading about these 36 crazy knuckleheads will inspire a few more students at schools around the country to start their own streaking tradition to break up the stress and tedium of finals week…..

- Somewhere in the Great Beyond, legendary R&B singer Rick James must be so, so proud. James, you may recall, once abducted a woman at hot crack pipe point, so I have to imagine that he would enjoy the antics of Frances Platt of Charlotte, N.C. - even if the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer who pulled Platt over wasn’t nearly as amused. See, this officer attempted to pull Platt over for a routine traffic stop because she was driving slowly, but she refused to pull her car over. When Platt finally did stop her car, it was at a dead end. The officer approached her car and it was at that point a brilliant idea struck Platt. She had a crack pipe in her car, she was probably high and she was about to be taken into custody by the police - so why not make use of that crack pipe while also ensuring that she would be taken into custody for and charged with something more than just driving while impaired and drug use? In a fit of inspiration, she lit up her crack pipe and stabbed the officer in the hand as he was attempting to take her into custody. Alas, hot crack pipes don’t always make the best weapons and so the officer was not seriously injured. He was treated for possible exposure, but his life is currently much better than Platt’s. She now faces several charges, including assaulting a government official, resisting a public officer, reckless driving and driving while impaired. All I can say about that is….the girl is super freaky….she’s a super freak……

- Comic book dorks, er, graphic novel enthusiasts, brace yourselves for some bad news. The judge presiding over the legal battle for distribution rights to the film version of Watchmen has ruled in favor of Fox, declaring that Warner Bros. had no right to roll film on the big screen adaptation of the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons superhero classic. The film has been scheduled to hit theaters on March 3, but obviously that time frame is now in doubt. Fox and Warner Bros. are also in legal limbo as they wait to see if the court will determine how much Fox should get for being so wronged. There is the option of the two studios negotiating on their own to settle the matter, but with two greedy corporate entities involved, don’t bet on that. The ruling came as a surprise to industry observers, who expected the two sides to settle out of court before it got this far. Heck, the judge himself set a Jan. 20 trial date for the dispute, saying he had no intention of fulfilling the request of both parties to issue a summary judgment. Then, on Christmas Eve, Judge Gary Allen Feess reversed course and issued this ruling. He did so because Fox and Warner Bros. asked him to reconsider his previous decision and issue a summary judgment, saying that settling this thing between them was all but impossible. Their reasoning was based on the fact that on their own, they couldn’t interpret an old contract between Fox and Watchmen producer Larry Gordon. Judge Feess’ ruling indicates that the contract has given Fox the right to distribute a Watchmen movie and any new version of the franchise must first be offered Fox the chance to produce and distribute it. Feess clearly felt that neither Gordon nor Warner Bros. made any such offer to Fox, thus their incarnation of Watchmen is in violation of the contract. Dorks around the world have taken this news hard, lighting up message boards with anti-Fox diatribes and doling out threats and ultimatums that would be very scary - if they weren’t being made by pasty, pale, sickly dudes residing in their mom’s basement and playing games of Dungeons and Dragons in between readings of back issues of their favorite comic books. But Warner Bros. hasn’t given up the fight, so there may still be hopes for you dorks after all. The studio is asking Feess to “adjudicate the issue of a contractual cap on the amount of compensatory damages to which Fox is entitled.” In other words, they want the judge to decide how much they owe Fox because they hope that amount will be lower than what they would end up paying if they had to negotiate the deal themselves. Best of success with that, Warner Bros. As for you, comic book dorks, you’re just going to have to go along for the ride and hope this thing is resolved in time for your latest obsession to make it to theaters on time. If it helps, post an angry message on your favorite dork message board while you wait……

- Attention all jewel thieves in Southern California: the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is currently in possession of an 850-pound emerald said to be worth as much as $370 million. The sheriff’s department is in custody of the ginormous stone while a court decides who really owns it, so now would be the optimum time to put together your best criminal crew and make a run at this bad boy, given that you know exactly where it is. The "Bahia Emerald" -- one of the largest ever found -- was reported stolen in September from a secured vault in South El Monte in Los Angeles County. The person reporting it stolen also claimed to be the owner, but there are federal court papers showing the emerald is at the center of a dispute between a California man who claimed ownership, a company he contracted with to sell it, and a potential buyer. The stone originally resided in Brazil, but magically made its way to a Las Vegas, Nevada, warehouse. A federal judge ordered the sheriff to hold the 180,000-carat emerald until he can decide who really owns the emerald. The story takes a twist when you factor in allegations from investigators that someone used falsified papers to remove the stone from the secured vault in California. At the heart of the case is a claim by the company hired by the owner to sell the emerald that it received a $19 million offer, but the stone’s owner attempted to cut them out of the process by selling the emerald same buyer for $75 million. In a funny twist, at one point the emerald was listed for sale on eBay for a "buy it now" price of $75 million. Right, because you’re going to receive a lot of legitimate bids that way. How do you complete a $75 million eBay transaction anyhow? PayPal? Can I send you a bank or personal check? Come to think of it, if the tools currently involved with this situation can’t do any better than throwing it up on eBay, maybe it would be better to have it in the hands of a jewel thief…..

A final inspirational message for my Detroit Lions, Republican National Committee racist mixed CD's and a shoe-throwing revolution begins

- See what one brave soul can start by throwing a couple of shoes at the worst president in U.S. history? Iraqi hero Muntadhir Al-Zaidi may be facing trial next week for the December 14 incident in which he threw both of his shoes at W., but in the process he may have started a shoe-throwing revolution. One simple gesture of disgust and contempt for a complete and total tool on his way out of office inspired several dozen Iranians to throw shoes at posters of W. in Tehran Friday morning. Not the same as throwing shoes at the real thing, but ironically, the poster version of W. is both smarter and a more capable leader…..but I digress. The demonstration was in support of an Al-Zaidi chucking his kicks at W. two weeks ago in Baghdad. Big ups to Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, which sponsored the shoe-throwing events near Tehran University and the U.S. Embassy. Also, props to the 70 people who took a minute out of their day and stopped to toss their shoes in a show of solidarity against incompetent governance and sheer stupidity as they walked to Friday prayer meetings on the main campus of Tehran University. This display comes on the heels of statements made by several high-ranking Iranian clerics and members of parliament in support of al-Zaidi. But perhaps his actions were best characterized by Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, who have called al-Zaidi "a brave journalist who, by throwing his shoe at the Great Satan, had committed a heroic act." Could not agree more and for that reason, could not be more pumped about the fact that W.’s abortion of a reign is coming to an end in just over two weeks, good times…..

- It can be tough to tell whether someone would be a good parent before they actually have children. Sure, you can stick them with someone else’s kid for a day and see how it turns out or get them a puppy as a trial run, but you can't really know for sure - except with people like Meagan McCormic of Miami, Fla. See, when someone goes in front of television cameras on Christmas Day to plead for the return of their missing 5-month-old son who later turns out to be completely fictional, then admits that the whole stunt was a feeble attempt to lure an ex-boyfriend back, I’m free to conclude that this person is a total scumbag. "I don't even know if he's dead or alive," McCormic said during her fraudulent interview. No person with a soul or conscience could conjure up a fake infant son as having a mohawk, a single tooth and a fake tattoo….hang on for just a second. What the hell kind of kid is that, anyhow? A mohawk, fake tat and one tooth? Was he also sporting a tiny leather jacket, smoking a baby cigarette and riding a miniature Harley? Not that I advocate making up an imaginary child for criminal purposes, but if you’re going to do it, at least make it believable and not some mini-James Dean type. How little respect and consideration for people who actually do have missing children to pull this kind of crap? Your lie triggered a statewide search this week, but thankfully it has also triggered charges filing a false police report. Better still, if convicted, McCormic could be forced to pay authorities for the cost of their search. Before we move on though, let’s examine some of the other oh, so believable details of McCormic’s story. She claimed the infant’s name was Riley Buchness and that she had left him with a nanny who had a French accent and a gap between her teeth. A gap-toothed, French nanny? What, no eye patch? Did she walk with a limp and have a lazy eye as well? Sadly, the story was enough to lure the boyfriend back, and when he showed up and asked to see the child, McCormic allegedly told him the boy was missing. John Buchness actually attended a Christmas Day news conference with McCormic under the impression that he had a son who was missing. Authorities around Florida began looking for the boy and nanny, using the descriptions McCormic supplied, but oddly enough they found no trace of either. In attempting to keep up the charade, McCormic also allegedly downloaded of a child from the Internet and tried to pass it off to police as her child. Smooth move, very smooth. But I’m guessing, given the relative lack of intelligence McCormic showed throughout her little scam, that she didn’t clear her browser history or wipe her hard drive and that police had little trouble recovering the real source of the image. All in all, just a despicable story, both from the total lack of character standpoint and the total stupidity standpoint, but I’m probably more disappointed that another so blatantly stupid person lives in this world……moving on……..

- Tomorrow is a huge day in the NFL. By now, you should know that I am in no way referring to the multiple playoff spots and division titles on the line when teams take the field tomorrow afternoon. I couldn’t care less who wins the NFC North, the AFC East or the final wild card spot in either conference. The playoffs should be fun to watch regardless of who gets those spots; the real spotlight needs to be on Green Bay at 1 p.m., when the Packers host the 0-15 Detroit Lions in the game of a lifetime. Never before has anyone seen a team have a chance at 0-16 and honestly, we may never see it again. This is all of our shot at immortality and the Lions merely need to do what they’ve been doing this season, or more specifically, not doing what they not been doing all year: playing hard, smart, tough and skilled football for 60 minutes. Turn the ball over early and often, don’t convert third downs and don’t come up with big defensive stops at key moments. Allow the other team to impose their will on the game and get into a rhythm on offense. Basically, just give the same lackluster effort you gave last Sunday in your home finale against New Orleans. And yes, I realize that at this point in a long season, it’s easy to slip up and lose focus….or in this case, to suddenly gain focus and start playing well. So to each of the 53 players on tomorrow’s active roster, I say this: If you find yourself in a position where you are playing well and winning, just ask yourself if that sort of play is what got you to this point. Dig deep inside and quit. Immediately stop doing whatever it was that got you a lead. This is your one shot at immortality, guys, so do not blow this…..

- Enough vapid, self-important, egotistical tools who have contributed absolutely nothing to the world (I’m looking right at you, Paris Hilton, along with those two knobs Heidi and Spencer from The Hills) have been able to make a name for themselves via reality TV, so why not give a show to someone who is actually affecting the world in a positive way, even if that person is a controversial, rule-bending figure? That’s how I’m choosing to look at a new reality series fearing Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a man whose unique view of justice leads him to take unconventional steps like making jailed inmates wear pink underwear and using actors to trick suspects. His showman’s approach to justice has led to charges of discrimination and civil-rights abuses, but it has also created a sort of cult-figure status for Arpaio among fans of his tough-on-crime attitudes. Now, the sheriff will have an actual show on Fox Reality Channel, a show called "Smile: You're Under Arrest." The show features Arpaio and other officers using elaborate scripted settings crafted by comedy writers and carried out by professional actors to arrest suspects with outstanding warrants. One example is a suspect being invited to a phony fashion shoot and to “become a supermodel,” but is predictably arrested when he shows up. "It's kind of fun to show how stupid they are and, as I say, the looks on their face," Arpaio said. Not everyone is a fan, though; critics say the show will shine an unjustifiably positive light on Arpaio’s tenure, which has a decidedly darker side if you do a little digging. "It's going to celebrate a sheriff that's frankly scaring this community, a sheriff that has seen violent crime increase significantly in his county, a sheriff that is racially profiling the Latino community, and I doubt that the show is going to reflect that," said Paco Fabian, spokesman for the immigrant-rights group America's Voice. Not sure how legit those charges are, but on the group's Web site, Arpaio is labeled a "modern day Bull Connor," comparing him to the public safety commissioner in 1960s Birmingham, Alabama, who unleashed attack dogs and firehoses on civil rights demonstrators in blatant and violent shows of racism. Whether Arpaio is cut from the same cloth is open for debate, but what isn’t in dispute is the fact that he forces many of his county's 10,000 inmates to live in tents, has reinstituted chain gangs -- including crews for women and juveniles -- banned smoking, coffee and movies in his jails and required all inmates with money in their jail accounts to pay for their own meals. Oh, and dude forces inmates to wear pink underwear because in his words, they were stealing standard white underwear and smuggling the underwear out of the jail. But back to those allegations of racist behavior….seems that earlier this year, the mayor of Phoenix wrote a letter to the U.S. attorney general's office, asking the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division to investigate Arpaio's aggressive illegal immigration crackdowns. Mayor Phil Brown wrote in his letter that Arpaio’s approach to the issue shows "a pattern and practice of conduct that includes discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches and arrests." In addition to the mayor, others who are not big fans of the sheriff would included the hundreds of people who have filed lawsuits against him and the critics who say his patrols use racial profiling to unfairly target Hispanic drivers and pedestrians. But hey, he wouldn’t be the first racist/bigot on the air, and he does appear to be doing at least a little good, so let’s cue the cameras and get this show rolling…..

- Let’s draw a key distinction here: just because you claim something is a joke or even if it is your attempt at a joke, that doesn’t make it okay if your “joke” is some bigoted, racist, offensive bullsh*t. You can’t just say or do something totally inappropriate and over-the-line and then when people get upset, say, “It was only a joke, just kidding, ha ha. Don’t get so angry, all in good fun!” Doesn’t work that way now, it never has. Tennessee Republican Chip Saltsman, you really need to learn this lesson. Not that your idiotic actions surprise me; one of my tried-and-true rules in life is to never, ever trust, like or do anything other than mock and doubt dudes named Chip. The only Chip I’ve ever known who wasn’t a total tool was Chip the chipmunk of Chip N’ Dale: Rescue Rangers, a kids TV show - of course, that Chip didn’t wear pants and talked like he’d just ingested a tank of helium, both of which still leave him several notches above you on the intelligence and class scale, Saltsman. That’s big the chipmunk version never sent a CD to Republican National Committee members for Christmas that included a song titled "Barack the Magic Negro" set to the music of well-known children’s song "Puff the Magic Dragon." Saltsman, a candidate (not anymore, I hope) for the RNC chairmanship, claims that his racist CD was clearly intended as a joke. "I think most people recognize political satire when they see it," he attempted to explain. "I think RNC members understand that." Hey ass hat….this isn’t about your fellow RNC members, not any more. Never a good sign when you’re pulling songs that were first played on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, as this song was back in 2007. See, Limbaugh is a bigoted, loudmouth blowhard who isn’t a high-ranking member of a political party. He’s on the radio to shock and offend, which he usually manages to do. He can get away with this type of garbage; you cannot. Just because there was once a column in the Los Angeles Times that suggested Obama appealed to those who feel guilty about the nation's history of mistreatment of African-Americans doesn’t mean that you, a rich, white dude, can put together some racist mixed tape album for your fellow rich, white dudes on the RNC and everything will be cool because you say it’s a joke. Not when the CD is titled "We Hate the USA" and also includes songs such as "John Edwards' Poverty Tour," "Wright place, wrong pastor," "Love Client #9," "Ivory and Ebony" and "The Star Spanglish Banner." Hard to see where former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's presidential bid went wrong with a genius of political sensibility like Saltsman at the helm. Grow a brain, remove your head from you ass and you just might have a shot at ceasing to be a complete and utter tool, Saltsman….

Life getting worse for Plaxico Burress, W. fouls up a pardon (stunner) and Germans attack pirates so I attack Germans

- To quote Scooby Doo, “Ruh roh!” Life definitely isn’t getting better for Plaxico Burress, and there’s a decided chance that it is about to get much worse. Already charged with two counts of second-degree criminal possession of the gun with which he shot himself in the Latin Quarter nightclub in Manhattan on November 28, Burress had his home searched by police this week. Investigators found a 9 mm handgun, a rifle, ammunition and clothing, all of which were confiscated during a search of Burress’ home on Wednesday. Included in the confiscated clothing were the sneakers and blood-stained jeans worn by Burress when he accidentally shot himself in the leg. All of the items were found at the expansive Totowa, New Jersey home where Burress lives. Police say that at this point it’s unclear whether Burress has permits for the weapons found in his home Tuesday. If he doesn’t, then his life is about to take another turn for the worse, with additional charges likely to be filed. Oh, and I have to imagine that Burress’ wife, who was present during the search, can’t be too happy about having to watch as the cops tore through her home and rifled through drawers, closets, furniture, etc. Think she might hold it against her husband for being the cause of that experience? But hey, at least she had company. Also present were New York Police Department officers, investigators from the Manhattan district attorney's office, Totowa police and an associate from the office of Burress’ attorney, Benjamin Brafman. Oh, and Burress is still facing up to 15 years in prison if convicted on the two counts he currently faces, so there’s always that to fall back on. That and the fact that his team, the New York Giants, appear fed up with all of his antics and ready to be rid of him. The team suspended Burress for the regular season's four remaining games and placed him on the reserve/non-football injury list, which ended his season. Quite a fall for a guy who caught the winning touchdown pass in the Super Bowl just eleven months ago, yet was fined and suspended from the Giants’ October 5 game for reportedly missing a practice without notifying the team and fined $45,000 by the NFL after an October 19 game during which he argued with a referee and threw a football into the stands. Happy holidays, Plaxico, hope your life is as joyous up close as it appears to be from afar……

- Why does this not surprise me? Coming to the end of an abortion of an eight years in office, W. is going on in very W. fashion, finding a way to f’up the requisite slate of presidential pardons that every outgoing Commander in Chief doles out on his way out the door of the Oval Office. Just a couple of days after handing out 19 presidential pardons, on Wednesday W. ordered one of those pardons to be re-examined before making a final decision. The pardon in question was for Isaac R. Toussie, a 36-year-old New York developer who pleaded guilty in 2001 to making false statements in a Long Island mortgage fraud scheme. An all-around good guy who I’m sure is simply misunderstood, Toussie and his father were accused of conspiring with lenders and others to build and sell substandard homes. W. was all set to pardon Toussie, but according to a senior administration official, the White House learned new information about Toussie's case Tuesday night -- only hours after announcing his pardon. This new information is being called "additional information about the nature of fraud [Toussie] carried out." Call me crazy, but isn’t that supposed to be the sort of thing you consider before deciding who to pardon. This isn’t some term paper for your freshman history class in college that you wait until two hours before it’s due to really get cracking on - it’s a freaking presidential pardon. Feel free to do a little research before deciding who to pardon, W. I’m not 100 percent certain, but there isn’t an ongoing investigation into Toussie’s case, so all of the known information about it is the same now as it was several months ago. Thus, this “additional” information is something you and your staff could have known - if you weren’t a dunder-headed ass with an IQ of 47 and the worst president in U.S. history. And just what is this new information, anyhow? Well, it appears that Toussie's father made numerous contributions to leading Republican politicians in 2008, including almost $40,000 to Arizona Sen. John McCain, Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith, and Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor.
After all this scumbag has done, the deciding factor is his father making campaign contributions to other members of your party? Maybe you should have held off on announcing that he would receive a pardon until you were sure, W. Now will someone please help me put up my “Countdown to the End of the Worst Presidency in World History” wall calendar so I can start counting off the final days of this abortion……

- What says “feel-good holiday movie” quite like a Nazi drama about killing the world’s most brutal and heinous dictator to ever live? Furthermore, who doesn’t love a Nazi drama starring a total nut job who likes jumping on couches, berating people he barely knows for the medication they take and attempting to cram Scientology down to throats of those he meets? That’s why I think “Valkyrie,” the latest film from confirmed psychopath and the man who destroyed all that was good about nice, sweet Katie Holmes, Tom Cruise. This is a movie that was constantly beset by drama during production, mostly because of Cruise’s ego trips, but one that finally got made and thank God for that, because if a man plotting to kill Adolf Hitler doesn’t brighten your yuletide spirit, I don’t know what will. Cruise stars as Col. Claus von Stauffenberg, a German famous to his countrymen for his resistance to the Nazi reign of terror but less known outside the country. After coming up as a respected, loyal soldier and reaching the rank of officer, von Stauffenberg become increasingly unhappy with the Führer's leadership, with that dissatisfaction growing exponentially after the colonel suffered several severe wounds suffered during battle in Tunisia, where he lost a hand and an eye. Seeing Stauffenberg’s assassination plan come together, with help from a network of dissident army officers and political leaders, was mildly interesting, but Cruise’s portrayal of the conniving colonel was less than stellar, to say the least. As any history buff knows, the real-life plan to plant a bomb in Hitler's presence on July 20, 1944 failed because the bomb did little damage and the Nazi leader survived with minor scratches. His loyal followers shut down the coup and Stauffenberg lost his life because of it, along with scores of others. The movie is likewise a failure, with director Singer trying unsuccessfully to blend the conspiracy thriller and history genres. What’s surprising is that such a mediocre movie could come from a script written by Christopher McQuarrie, who penned a legendary film like The Usual Suspects. The best part of the movie is the continual string of striking, jarring and realistic visual imagery, but that isn’t enough to prop up a mostly lackluster performance by the cast. In other words, go see one of the other new films out this holiday season and you’re very likely to do better than you would by seeing this clunker…..

- Fans of good music, I’ve got a destination for you…..assuming you have the spare cash to travel to Europe this summer and pay for a ticket to the 2009 FIB Heineken Benicassim Festival. If you fit those criteria, you’ll want to mark your calendar for July 16-19 and set your GPS for Spain, where great acts like Kings of Leon, Franz Ferdinand and former Jam front man Paul Weller will headline. The 2009 festival will be the 15th annual Benicassim event, and it has become a definite favorite with international music fans, especially from the United Kingdom and Ireland. Last year, the event drew 150,000 fans to its site on Spain's east coast in 2008 to see a fantastic lineup that included Leonard Cohen, Morrissey, My Bloody Valentine, The Raconteurs, Babyshambles and the Ting Tings. London-based live music entrepreneur Vince Power (real name? I think not) has a controlling interest in the event, which he can devote a lot of time to since selling his stake in the Mean Fiddler Music Group, which he founded in the United Kingdom, to Live Nation and Irish promoter Denis Desmond in 2005. At this point, you need to hurry if you want tickets for the festival, as A limited number of advance tickets for Benicassim are available via online ticketing giants seetickets and lastminute until Jan. 15. After that, finding a ducat will be much tougher and more expensive, but if you can make it, it should be a stellar show…..

- Y’know, I’ve never really liked the Germans. Sure, they make some bitchin’ lederhosen and tasty bratwurst, but beyond that I’m not sure they have that many redeeming qualities. That hypothesis was backed up the instant I learned that German sailors foiled an attempt by pirates to hijack an Egyptian cargo ship off the coast of Yemen, yesterday. The offending Krauts are crew members of the German navy frigate Karlsruhe, which inexplicably received and responded to an emergency call from the Wabi Al Arab Thursday morning. How Good Samaritan of you, Karlsruhe crew. Did you stop to help any old ladies cross the street in on your way to help the Wabi Al Arab? Have you no respect for the hard work pirates are doing, stealing things that don’t belong to them and holding them for ransom? What gives you the right to send helicopters to the distressed vessel? Thanks to your stupid helicopters, these pirates were forced to break off their attack and a hard day’s pirating on the open seas went to waste. All they got out of it was the chance to wound one crew member on the Wabi Al Arab, that’s it. On top of that, the German sailors captured the pirates and disarmed them, destroying the weapons. Great, so not only did you foil their attack, but you kept on harassing them and destroyed their weapons? Shiver me timbers, that’s terrible. Thankfully, the German government in Berlin had the good sense to order the Somali pirates released because they were not caught while harassing German interests. Good to know that no all Germans are pirate-hating ass hats…….

A surprising source of crime in Japan, a scumbag apologizes on a billboard and the Yankees taking back the title as The Team to Hate

- How to make amends for stashing three bodies that were supposed to be cremated in the back of your van, claiming you lost paperwork for the bodies, hiding them in a funeral home refrigerator for several years, moving them to the back of a van, wrapping them in body bags and covering them with cardboard boxes? I’ll be honest, that is quite a pickle. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve had to do that, so I can’t exactly remember how I handled it, so I’ll leave it to Donald Short of Fort Worth, Texas to handle this one. As it turns out, Short has a plan for making good on one of the more disgusting, reprehensible crimes of recent memory, and that plan includes a billboard featuring a simple black background with white letters and states what is - in billboard terms - a lengthy message of apology. The billboard reads: "I should treat the deceased in my care with dignity and respect. I utterly failed them, their families and the community. I am remorseful and I apologize. Donald Short." It’s actually the last condition of Short’s court-ordered punishment, and it would seem a lot more sincere if it were of his own accord and didn’t come only after his van was repossessed in 2005 and the badly decomposed bodies were discovered. Surprisingly, abusing a corpse is only a misdemeanor, so short had only to repay the families for the cremations and make a sizable public apology right next to busy Highway 121. For this particular apology, Short will pay $3,000, which will allow him to make a very public apology for 30-days. Yeah, I’m sure this will square everything up with the families who had the remains of their loved ones treated in such repulsive, offensive fashion, no problem. I’m not sure what’s most disturbing, what Short did or the fact that it’s actually not as repulsive as the a-holes who cut up the bodies brought in to funeral homes, sell parts of them and try to pass the bodies off as normal to the grieving families…..

- The lost their title, but the New York Yankees are definitely looking to take it back. No, I’m not referring to the World Series title; the Yankees haven’t had a sniff of that since 2000 and Lord willing, they won't be getting another one any time soon. No, I’m referring to the Bronx Bombers looking to take back their title as team to hate in Major League Baseball and probably in all of sports. After failing to make the playoffs last year and finishing third in the American League East, the Yankees fell slightly behind archrival and equally hateable enemy Boston in the race for the most despised, arrogant franchise in baseball. But with the loud, blowhard Hank Steinbrenner in charge, the Yankees are rallying and have seized back the lead in this race. They have done so in a time-honored Yankee fashion: throwing absurd amounts of money at top free agents and attempting to buy a championship and bully their way to the top. First, they signed the top free agent pitcher, the portly CC Sabathia, to a 7-year, $161 million contract. Then, they vastly overpaid free agent hurler A.J. Burnett, a guy who had one great season after a career of unfulfilled promise and suckered New York into a 5-year, $80 million contract. After that, you might think the Yankees were done doling out ridiculous jack, but no. Now they have signed the top free agent slugger, the uber-greedy Mark Teixeira, to an 8-year, $180 million contract. That adds up to $421 million in contracts and still a roster full of holes that isn’t nearly good enough to overtake last season’s AL East champ, Tampa Bay, or Boston. These signings are exactly the type of arrogant, overbearing, big, bad bully behavior that has made the Yankees a target for loathing and despisal by fans worldwide. It’s a departure from the philosophy of building a franchise from the farm system up, developing that farm system setting your team up for long-term success that New York had embraced for all of one season. Instead, they’re going right back to the very approach that left them with an overpriced, underachieving roster of overrated stars that hasn’t won a world title since 2000. Steinbrenner is showing himself to be a) a loudmouth blowhard, and b) the Daniel Snyder of MLB, a man who thinks money and impulsive actions are the recipe for success. Have fun with that approach, Hank….

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Let’s hang out in the city of Srinagar, Kashmir (India) for a while, shall we? It’s not a bad place to be for a riot these days, as anti-election protests erupted Wednesday at more than a dozen locations around Srinagar, with angry youths shouting pro-independence slogans and pelting paramilitary troops with rocks and bricks. Primitive, yes, but these kids are working with what they have handy and I appreciate that. Not everyone has the materials to make a good Molotov cocktail or access to a cache of sophisticated weapons, so rocks and bricks will do just fine here. Yes, it would be nice to have a full-scale, well-armed showdown between police and protestors to appropriately mark an important milestone in an 18-year, bloody separatist campaign that authorities say has left at least 43,000 dead, but this is not an ideal world we live on, folks. These protestors have been doing a pretty solid job so far, staging months of violent protests leading up to regional elections that began in November. The rioters are anti-Indian and fear that state elections will firm up Indian control of the Muslim majority Himalayan state. On the flip side, there are also some riots and protests by Indian nationalists who are fearful that separatist groups will gain control. So you have protests and viewpoints on both sides, but the key for me is that on Wednesday, all of this led to police and protestors throwing down, rocks and bricks flying at the cops and police firing back with tear gas and batons. Additionally, you had separatists had called for an election boycott and march to the historic city center, Lal Chowk, for a sit-in. That precipitated a decision by The Man to have troops sealed off the main thoroughfares with coils of razor wire and pre-fabricated barricades. Razor wire? What is this, an election or a maximum-security prison? But that wasn’t enough for The Man, as he also had to hold down the common man by imposing curfew-like restrictions in Kashmir Tuesday to help prevent protest marches. As a result, the streets of the city were mostly empty and voter turnout was fairly low, especially when compared to other regions. Honestly, I don’t give a crap about the actual election results here, just as long as the riots, protests, dissent and good times keep on rollin’……..

- Here’s a life rule I live by: never go out grocery shopping during the middle of a blizzard in the process of dumping several feet of snow and unleashing near gale-force winds on the area where I live. This rule would serve people like Donna Molnar, a resident of the brutal backcountry of Hamilton, Ontario, well. Molnar decided that she just couldn’t wait for the storm to abate and needed to go out in the midst of it to get her groceries. She left her home and not surprisingly, never made it to the store or back home. Instead, she was gone for three days and ended up beneath a 3-foot-deep mound of snow from which she was plucked by rescuers after search-and-rescue dog Ace and Ace’s owner Ray Lau discovered her Monday. Molnar was discovered in an area congested by the thick, ice-covered brush of a farmer's field, not far from where her van had been found a day earlier. Fortunately, Ace, a Dutch shepherd, was able to use his talents to find Molnar before she turned into a human popsicle. "All of a sudden, Ace bolted off," said Lau. "He stooped and looked down at the snow and just barked, barked, barked. There she was, there was Donna, her face was almost totally covered except for one eye staring back at me!" he said. "That was, 'Wow!' There was a thousand thoughts going through my head. It was over the top." And what’s an appropriate outfit to wear when one is being rescued from a three-foot-deep snow drift after three days? Well, Molnar was dressed in a leather coat, sweater, slacks and winter boots, which I’m guessing was under-dressing a bit when going out in the type of blizzard that a sane, mildly intelligent person wouldn’t venture out in. Look Canadians, I know you all think you’re freaking badasses when it comes to fighting winter weather since you live in that crap pretty much 24/7/365, but even you need to know when do dial it down. If you don’t, you too could end up being rushed to a hospital and immediately sedated to begin the agonizing steps of hypothermia treatment, just like Donna Molnar - good times! Thankfully, late in the day on Wednesday Molnar’s condition was upgraded Wednesday from critical to serious, so it appears she’s going to survive this. Hopefully, she’ll do so having learned a valuable lesson about not being an idiot……..

- Give it up for the elderly in Japan, proving that petty crime isn’t just for those darned kids anymore. Yes, shoplifting and other such crimes are on the rise among Japan’s elderly, a trend researchers and officials attribute to economic worries and loneliness. The belief is that these factors are spurring elderly Japanese to petty crime in increasing numbers, with the nation's Justice Ministry reporting that in 2007, 48,605 persons age 65 and older were arrested in crimes other than traffic violations. That’s more than double the number for those same offenses five years earlier, with thefts such as shoplifting and pick-pocketing the main offenses. "The main reasons they shoplift are poverty and loneliness," said Kazuo Kawakami, a former federal prosecutor. "The traditional Japanese family is gone, and now our elderly live alone." So they go out and pick someone’s pocket or try to thieve a shirt from Wal-Mart? I’m no sociologist, but I’m fairly sure that there are other ways to alleviate loneliness. Go to the park, play chess, join a gym, go to the mall and do non-criminal things, etc. What, are elderly Japanese out there forming street gangs for a sense of belonging and rolling up on their local pharmacy to steal some Geritol and Centrum Silver? Another curious aspect of this report is the fact that these petty crime issues become more acute during New Year holidays, traditionally a time for family gatherings in Japan. I’m less inclined to believe that line of reasoning than I am to go along with the theory that economics also plays a role in the rise of elderly pick pocketing and shoplifting. Just like the United States, Japan's economy went into recession this year, and as such, the country's national pension system has been bogged down with mismanagement and corruption. Thus, old people are worried that their pensions will dry up and that they won't have money to live on. One private security firm was able to stage a real-life demonstration of the elderly crime wave phenomenon by nabbing a 69-year-old woman, allegedly trying to steal food worth about $10 and an 80-year-old man trying to leave the store without paying for medicine for an upset stomach despite having more than enough money to pay for all of his items. All of this becomes a bigger problem when you consider that 20 percent of Japan's population is older than 65, the largest percentage of elderly of any country in the world. You can see the ramifications clearly in places like Japan's northern island of Hokkaido, where more elderly than teenagers -- by a 3 to 2 ratio -- were arrested in 2006. So come on, Japanese teens, don’t let these old timers show you up; get out there and start shoplifting, you are the future of your nation’s petty crime industry…..

Striking actors, doctors fueling vehicles with fat and returning the much-needed disrepute to the world of beauty pageants

- The Screen Actors Guild might go on strike…..if it can ever get its membership on the same page and away from one another’s throats. The SAG announced this week that it will delay its strike authorization vote by two weeks as the organization's leadership tries to address growing dissent within the union. Before now, the plan had been to send out ballots Jan. 2 and count the votes by Jan. 23. Those dates will now be pushed back indefinitely until some point in time after an emergency meeting to be held Jan. 12 and 13, according SAG national executive director Doug Allen. Allen and SAG president Alan Rosenberg agreed to delay the vote to "address the unfortunate division and restore consensus." Good call, guys. Hard to vote on a strike when a large chunk of your membership isn’t down with the idea - not when you need 75 percent of your union’s members who cast ballots to vote in favor of authorization for that strike. According to Allen, at this point
100 high-profile members and 2,524 total members have endorsed the strike authorization vote, but more than 100 high profile actors and 1,373 others have lent their names to the opposition campaign. All told, the SAG has about 110,000 members, so they need 82,500 to approve the strike vote before it can go down. However, having big names like George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Russell Crowe, Sally Field, Robert Redford, Julianne Moore and Susan Sarandon urging other members to vote no isn’t helping the cause, it’s hurting it. But if you listen to what these dissenting voices are saying - that a strike in the midst of a recession would be ill-timed - it’s hard to disagree. How bad is it going to look when actors, some of whom make a multi-million dollar living and with others making incomes markedly more than the rest of struggling, recession-strapped America, go on strike for a few extra bucks? Yes, there are actors struggling as well and not all of them make a million dollars a year, but you can bet that the bulk of Americans aren’t going to take the time to sort that out if and when they hear about a strike by the SAG. As such, I’d advise those actors supporting strike authorization - people like Martin Sheen, Mel Gibson, Hal Holbrook, Holly Hunter, Rob Schneider, Alicia Witt, and former SAG president Ed Asner - to reconsider their stance and listen to Clooney and his posse. Oh, and I don’t think the TV-watching public is going to be down with another strike taking out their favorite shows like Lost, 24, Heroes, etc. after the writer’s strike did that last year. So while the SAG continues to insist that the latest offer from the American Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) is insufficient in terms of new-media jurisdiction and residuals, a strike is not a good answer. Quite a few actors must agree, beyond the 1,373 known to be in Clooney’s corner at present, otherwise SAG's New York division would not have announced Dec. 12 that they opposed the strike authorization vote and called for an emergency board meeting to replace the negotiating committee. Those members went on to accuse Rosenberg and Allen of botching negotiations at an emergency meeting several days later. Again, I realize that an overwhelming portion of the SAG’s members don’t earn a lot of money from their acting gigs, but a strike isn’t going to do any good for anyone involved, so just don’t go down that road….

- The lesson to be learned here: don’t cut anyone’s hair while they aren’t awake, lest you incite a domestic throwdown. This tale comes to us, disturbingly enough, from a place I once called home: Springfield Township, Ohio. It’s there we find Jaycee and Angela Houston, a couple for whom a few dozen hours of martial counseling would probably be helpful - very helpful. Seems that Sunday night around 8 p.m., Jacyee Houston was getting a little nap action in when Angela Houston decided that it would be a good time to give her husband’s lettuce a bit of a trim. She broke out the scissors, lopped off some of her husband’s mane and when he woke up shortly thereafter, he noticed that he was missing a chunk of the hair he had gone to sleep with and for some reason he wasn’t down with that. Not that this justifies his reaction, but who in their right mind cuts someone’s hair when they are asleep? This sounds like a case of a wife trying to get back at her husband by putting one over on him while he sleeps, but it backfired. Whether it was a prank or done purposefully to punish or penalize Jaycee Houston, that didn’t appear to matter to him. When he woke up and noticed some of his hair was gone, my man came out swinging. He sparked a nice domestic brawl that prompted neighbors to call police, who showed up and arrested both husband and wife. Now, both are facing a domestic violence charge and are scheduled to appear in court Monday, although I don’t know that this is the type of husband-wife activity that therapists would generally recommend to bring a trouble couple closer. Matching handcuffs and assault charges aren’t what I like to call a bonding experience, but maybe this time will be different…..

- Not sure whether to be revolted, inspired or offended by the (alleged) actions of Beverly Hills surgeon Dr. Craig Alan Bittner. As you might expect from a plastic surgeon in Beverley Hills, Dr. Bitter apparently did a lot of liposuction, as the rich, spoiled, pampered, superficial, arrogant a-holes and skanks living there wouldn’t dare drive the Mercedes or Jag to the beach and get out in their absurdly overpriced swimwear looking anything but fabulous. Fortunately, the good (good being a relative term) doctor isn’t accused of botching surgeries and scarring patients for life with his negligence. No, he’s accused of taking the body fat he sucked from the bodies of his patients and converting their fat into fuel for his two SUVs. According to financial publication Forbes, Bittner turned the fat into biodiesel, which is more commonly made from vegetable oils. “The vast majority of my patients request that I use their fat for fuel -- and I have more fat than I can use," Bittner wrote on his Web site. However, that site is not currently functional, so me thinks the doc may have thought better of broadcasting his fat-to-fuel practice publicly. Well, the fact that he also closed his practice and moved to South America pushes me in that direction as well. But according to Forbes, this is the message that Bittner’s site was pushing before he shut it down, er, it stopped functioning properly: "Not only do they get to lose their love handles or chubby belly but they get to take part in saving the Earth," a message on the site read. That doesn’t appear to be the position espoused by the state of California, as in the state of California it is illegal in to use medical waste to power vehicles - uh oh. That might explain why Bittner is being investigated by the state's public health department after his unorthodox fueling operation was discovered by authorities following up on complaints by patients about Bittner's medical abilities. Enjoy South America, Dr B., I don’t think there’s anything good waiting for you back in L.A. But hey, there should be plenty of fat to fuel your SUVs down in South America, so no worries…..

- Thank you, Mike Tomlin, for doing what we should all do if put in the unenviable position you found yourself in yesterday. Tomlin, head coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers, was holding his weekly news conference and trying to get done what he needed to do when Bill DiFabio, a sports announcer from Washington, Pa., crashed the news conference dressed as Santa. DiFabio traditionally dresses up as Santa for the pre-Christmas press gathering and spends a few months cracking jokes at the expense of the current Steelers’ coach and players. Tomlin’s predecessor Bill Cowher usually played along with the gag, as did Tomlin - for a couple of minutes. He even asked the faux St. Nick, "What have you got for me, Santa?" and invited DiFabio to join him at his desk in front of the room. However, Tomlin ran out of patience after DiFabio hijacked the news conference for more than five minutes, passing out gifts and cracking jokes about fellow sportscasters, the Browns and Cowboys and nose tackle Casey Hampton's weight. It was at that point that Tomlin -- who audibly sighed several times throughout the skit -- grudgingly agreed to toss a football to the fake Santa. "If that will get you out of here," he barked. Weirdly enough, later in the day the Steelers said there would be no future appearances from Santa at any of their news conferences. Good, because that’s a tradition that is not now, has never been and will never be funny. Grown men throwing on Santa suits for anything other than to give out gifts to sick or underprivileged kids in hospitals and downtrodden neighborhoods is a bad, bad idea. DiFabio/Santa should be thankful that a few coarse words is all he got from Tomlin. If I had been the coach, I would have had Casey Hampton come in and use his “excessive girth” to sit right on DiFabio’s chest until he agreed to never dress as Santa ever again. Let this be a lesson to everyone out there: throw away the Santa costume, don’t sit on Santa’s lap - basically, don’t have anything to do with anyone dressed as Santa after you pass the age of eight…..

- Thank God, it has been too long since we had a good beauty-queen-gone-bad story. Enter Laura Zuniga, Mexican beauty queen who was taken into custody late Monday along with seven men were after being found in vehicles containing weapons and cash in central Mexico. Zuniga is from Culiacan in the state of Sinaloa and in July, she won the title Nuestra Belleza Sinaloa. That earned her the chance to compete two months later in the national Nuestra Belleza Mexico in Monterrey, where she won "The Election of the Queens," one of five special recognitions, and came in third overall. Capping off a big year on the pageant circuit, in October, she won the title "Hispanoamerican Queen 2008" in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Hearing all of that, it would sound like she has a real future and is going places, right? After all, she is set to represent Mexico in next year's Miss International contest. She’s not like American beauty pageant skanks (i.e. Tara Conner) getting busted for being alcoholics, having scandalous pictures of them making out with other chicks and smoking week popping up on websites….or is she? Well, Zuniga may not involved in those sorts of shenanigans, but what she does do is roll with seven dudes and two vehicles containing AR-15 assault rifles, handguns, cartridges and $50,000 in cash. The eight of them were stopped in Zapopan, outside Guadalajara, and now they will face arms charges and an investigation by a federal organized crime team. They were done in by the infamous anonymous tipster, who informed police that at a group of armed men were in a home, after which police "detected" the vehicles as they were traveling to investigate the call. Showing that she has great taste in men, Zuniga was busted alongside Angel Orlando Garcia Urquiza, who is Zuniga's boyfriend and the brother of "one of the greatest capos of narcotraffic.” Nothing like dating a dude whose brother is a high-ranking member of the Juarez cartel, that won't drag you down at all. It was funny to see the eight members of this group file before the news media Tuesday and have Zuniga, a beauty queen who normally loves posing and being snapped by the cameras, raise her handcuffed wrists to cover her face. Oh, so now you’re shy? Maybe should have thought of that before you got into an SUV with your drug-and-weapons dealer boyfriend and tried to transport an arsenal of guns and stash of cash. That being said, thanks for bringing back some much-needed disrepute to the world of beauty pageants…..