News of the Weird

Ms. Sierra Stiles, age 8, was credited with the first bear kill in Maryland in the limited October hunting season, downing a 211-pounder from 50 yards away with her .243-caliber rifle. (She had won one of the lottery-awarded permits and then aced the safety test.) And according to a Seattle Post-Intelligencer profile in January, Aidan Gold, age 8, of Bothell, Wash., recently climbed a 20,300-foot peak on Mount Everest in the Himalayas with his dad, adding to his previous climbs in the Cascades and the Alps. Aidan said the last part of the Everest climb (a 45-degree stretch of rock and ice) was "the (hardest) 3,000 feet I've ever done." [Washington Post, 10-25-05] [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1-2-06]

What the hell!?! Most 8 year olds are still trying to color inside the lines or something... learning to tie shoelaces... not 8 going on 30.

In a company employee style manual issued in late 2005 by Commonwealth Bank in Queensland state in Australia, workers were advised with great specificity how to groom themselves and practice good hygiene. Among the areas covered were proper brands of underwear, shapes for women's eyebrows, and frequency for shaving and for moisturizing one's hands. (In December, a Commonwealth executive issued an "if" apology, i.e., an apology "if" the bank had offended anyone.)

When is the bank NOT offending someone is my question... 1. they're never open when you need them to be. 2. you have to give fingerprints to make any kind of transaction, even giving them money. 3. they constantly sell your accounts to other companies because they obviously don't love you anymore.

Least Competent Criminals

Lucella Bridget Gorman pleaded guilty in Brisbane, Australia, in December to two counts of theft, the first count for stealing things from a department store and the second count for stealing the mugshot camera while police were booking her for the department-store theft.

Classic

FEMA subcontractor Frank Tanner, 47, was charged with looting in Slidell, La., in January after he walked out the front door of Darin LeBlanc's home with an armful of electronic equipment. LeBlanc was standing in his front yard at the time, but Tanner, in the hubbub surrounding cleanup efforts, apparently thought LeBlanc was just another contractor. [Courier Mail (Brisbane), 12-17-05] [Times-Picayune (New Orleans), 1-10-06)]

Soooo uhhhhh... where do you want these again? Oh back in your livingroom... gotcha.

Selina Valdez, 28, was arrested in January and her suspected partner, Daniel Marquez, 41, was sought by police, on counterfeiting charges in Pueblo, Colo., after police walked into their foul-smelling home. No hoarded animals were present, but according to police, about a week before the arrest, officers had called on the couple, who had then hurriedly flushed the bogus bills down the toilet. After questioning them, police left, but the toilet clogged, and since then, the couple have been relieving themselves into plastic bags that police found strewn about the home. [Chicago Sun-Times-AP, 1-8-06]

As smart as these people were, I highly doubt they were capable of making anything close to resembling actual money. Did they just not think to maybe... uhhhh go to like a 24 hour fast food place and use the restroom there, if they were that desperate? There's just too many possibilities for this one... I have to walk away... but I am saving the best for last...

Readers' Choice: Jessica Sandy Booth, 18, was arrested in December in Memphis, Tenn., and charged with hiring a hit man to help her kill four people so she could steal a brick of what turned out to be queso fresco cheese. According to police, Booth had seen the large block of crumbly, white, Mexican-cuisine cheese on a table at an acquaintance's home, thought it was a big pile of cocaine, and devised an elaborate plot to return later, steal it, and kill anyone in the house old enough to testify against her.

*If all the blocks of cheese, were really cocaine or weed, oh how high we would be... standing outside with our mouths open wide ah ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah*