- If you’ve ever built a house or worked in the construction field, you know that there is never a dearth of classless losers looking to score a quick buck by stealing and reselling materials from new homes under construction. Primary among the items these tools are looking to steal is copper, which they can often score from unsecured construction sites in the form of copper wiring. With that in mind, municipalities around the country have taken to tightening up their scrap metal ordinances and upping the requirements for those looking to recycle copper and other scrap metal. Wichita, Kan. is joining that parade after its city council approved an updated scrap metal ordinance Tuesday. Scrap metal thefts have been a big problem over the past decade, but city leaders hope that will change under the new ordinance. It requires all scrap metal dealers to have a license with the city and allows the city to revoke those licenses if a scrap metal dealer consistently buys or sells stolen scrap metal. As for individuals looking to sell scrap metal, they will be required to show a picture ID and sign documentation about where the metal came from. The last step will be mandating that dealers pay sellers with a check instead of cash, making the transactions easier to catalogue and investigate in the case of any inconsistencies. Wichita Police Deputy Chief Tom Stolz believes these measures will have a significant impact in dissuading thieves from stealing scrap metal. As a quick aside, I would advise all my friends in and around the greater Wichita area who make their living dealing in certain metallic products to branch out a bit and find a new place to ply their trade…………
- One problem I would not expect to be a major issue for fast food restaurants is a shortage of vegetables. After all, who goes to a fast food joint for veggies? But when that vegetable is tomatoes, it’s a different story. And after the bitter, depressing winter the nation just suffered through, tomatoes are in short supply because winter made an unexpected visit to Florida and took a huge bite out of the state’s tomato harvest. An estimated 60 to 70 percent of the state’s tomato crop was destroyed, said Terence McElroy, a spokesman at the Florida Department of Agriculture. Compounding the problem further, Florida produces about 75 percent of U.S. tomatoes. As a result, tomato prices across the country have soared the past couple months. A 25-pound box of tomatoes from south Florida is selling for $30, up more than 300 percent from a year ago, when a similar box of tomatoes cost about $7. With ingredients accounting for 30 percent of the price of a typical fast food meal (gee, no markup there, just 70 percent) and either tomatoes or ketchup going onto nearly every sandwich, the cost to consumers is bound to hit home sooner rather than later. For now, restaurants are looking to fend off price hikes by seeking tomatoes from other sources. Others are putting tomatoes on their sandos only of a customer specifically request them. Recently, Burger King was so low on tomatoes that some of its restaurants were forced to stop offering them. A Burger King spokeswoman confirmed there have been "spot outages of tomatoes," and the chain "will continue to resupply Burger King restaurants with tomatoes that meet our standards as they become available." Chain restaurants like Hardee's and Carl's Jr. have gone south of the border for their tomatoes for some time, so they have been able to procure the fruits from Mexico just as they always have and not seen any disruption. With spring beginning to dawn across the U.S., options for finding tomatoes will steadily become more plentiful. As an avowed lover of ketchup but not of the sliced form that tomatoes often come in when topping sandwiches, here’s hoping that the tomato drought doesn’t drag on too much longer……….
- For those of you who have been jonesing for your Conan O’Brien fix (that would not include me, as I’ve never found the gangly, awkward O’Brien funny at all), you’ll soon have a chance to feed your need. O’Brien has officially announced plans to hit the road for a live comedy/music tour — dubbed the "Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour" — starting April 12. For two months, the man affectionately dubbed Coco by his fans will crisscross the country, beginning with a tour stop in Eugene, Ore., and continuing on to 29 other cities. O'Brien's longtime sidekick Andy Richter will join him on the tour, as will the former Tonight Show band – well, the band that was on the show for the interminably long seven-month span when O’Brien was its host. "It was either a massive 30-city tour or start helping out around the house," O'Brien said in a statement. The statements also pointed fans to TeamCoco.com for tickets on Twitter. Ticket prices start at a too-high $39.50 and tour promoters are billing it as an event that, "promises to be a night of music, comedy, hugging, and the occasional awkward silence." I’m going with not much of the first three items on that list and a whole lot of the final entry. But again, if you are a Conan fan, that’s your business and I’m not trying to discourage you from following him. I’m merely saying you are finding immense humor in a man who just isn’t that funny and clearly did not resonate enough with viewers to hold onto the Tonight Show gig for more than seven months…………
- Life at sea is tough. Ask anyone who has ever served on either a surface ship or especially aboard a submarine and you’ll undoubtedly hear tales of all the vagaries and difficulties they faced in spending several months without touching their feet on solid ground. Knowing that, you’ll have to pardon me if I’m not exactly upset to hear allegations that Australian sailors on board a navy ship were running a sex competition during an overseas deployment last year. Sure, three male sailors from the HMAS Success were sent home last May after reports surfaced that they were having a competition to see which of them could get with the most of their female colleagues during their time at sea. But who among us hasn’t had a little friendly competition with co-workers to see who can bag the most chicks who also happen to be co-workers? I can appreciate the attempt to liven life at sea up a bit, but unfortunately the Australian Defense Department has begun an investigation to look into allegations that dollar values were assigned to each woman on board and that sailors could win extra money if they had sex with a female officer or a lesbian. Now THAT is what I’m talking about. You don’t just throw together a lame contest where you get a set number of points for every piece of tail you score. All chicks are not equal and if you can find a way to hook up with a female officer or a lesbian…..you deserve extra points and rewards for that. This contest spanned ports from Hawaii to China and Singapore, so it was also something of an international endeavor. "I was told about alleged bounties being placed on junior sailors at the time in terms of who could have sex with them first," the ship’s commanding officer, Cmdr. Simon Brown, testified before members of an official inquiry into the matter. The inquiry, which will be led by a retired judge, was initiated after an initial investigation was found to be biased. What I love most about this story is that not only were these sailors making a competition out of sex and creating a scoring system based on the rank and sexual preference of their sexual conquest, but some of the acts were also (allegedly) public. Among the allegations are public sex acts in a bar in China and on the ship’s mess deck during a 2009 deployment. All in all, a pretty freaking impressive enterprise and while most of you out there (and The Man, of course) are busy persecuting/investigating these proud sailors, I will simply salute them and wish them well, wherever they may be and whomever they are currently having sex with for whatever number of points…………
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