Canadians who were children or unemployed adults during the 1980s might remember the game-show Bumper Stumpers on which contestants had to decipher various vanity license plates. Like all Canadian game-shows, it was the kind of program where contestants would have to defend their titles in a reign that would rival Rocky Marciano’s in order to get their hands on a prize that would normally be found under every audience member’s seat on Deal or No Deal.
Among the puzzles never solved on this show was why anyone but the most vulgar human beings tearing up the asphalt on god’s formerly green earth would bother forking over good money to get a personalized plate.
Vanity plates, while a ray of sunshine on a state prison work detail, do not brighten the day of anyone else maintaining a three-Chevron distance between themselves and your tailgate, who are either mocking you or secretly wishing they could scoop you into the nearest ditch with a giant cow catcher.
Like the Metallica plate above (if Metallica ever got wind of that, they’d set their lawyers on the poor owner with Napster-like ferocity), most vanity plates are devotional, mocking of the poor (KYLIESBMW) or convey some cutesy sentiment about a physician’s particular area of expertise involving odor emitting body parts. They also show someone’s affinity with outlaw biker culture, an ‘ezy rydr’, in a sensible Japanese import with decent mileage.
A man in Christchurch New Zealand recently received his just desserts for putting a vanity license plate on his newly purchased Subaru. “”A while back me and a group of friends were sitting around thinking up great names for personalised plates,” the man said, adding that the brain trust eventually selected “STOWLN” from among the “great names” being bandied about.
According to the country’s insurance reports, Subarus are New Zealand’s second-most stolen vehicles, so going the extra mile to tempt thieves into jacking your particular vehicle might be unwise. The car with the “STOWLN” license plate was stowln, err stolen, that is.
The man, whose sense of humor needs some emergency work done under the hood immediately, said: “When I got my car, I thought it would be hilarious to get the licence plate, so I bought it and put it on my car. It was so funny but I’m certainly not laughing now.” (We’d like to point out that laughter was more appropriate after the theft than before). “My friends have all been giving my sh..t about it as well, I don’t think I will ever live it down.” Certainly not if we have anything to do about it.
Hack comics have long made sport of just how awful airline food is. Such material belongs quite rightfully in the comedic dumpster of pathetically worn-out jokes along with anything related to the fundamental differences between men and women and cutesy anecdotes detailing how their children are especially hilarious that are embarrassing to hear from comedians who had far better stuff back in their single days when they were hoovering up cocaine and dodging paternity suits.
Rarely, with the possible exception of talent night at the local Don’t Drop the Soap Inn, do we get to hear any comedic musings on prison food, presumably because the oversized blazer and sneaker ranks of comedians are generally not culled from the prison underworld.
If a ‘comedy police’ existed the likes of Gallagher, Dane Cook and Jeff Foxworthy would be hauled away and perhaps this situation would be rectified, but for now, we’ll have to rely on accounts of prison food from the occasional foray into the underground economy.
For prisoners, “Nutraloaf,” a “loaf-style form of nourishment” (Wonder Bread should look at copyrighting the phrase) is offered when trays are tipped or a night’s repast is among the substances flung at a guard (often giving new and disgusting meaning to the phrase ‘this food tastes like shit’).
With this culinary option likely not too much worse than the fare regularly offered, it’s no wonder inmates who aren’t on hunger strikes or cannibalistic maniacs, turn to sources other than the guy on kitchen detail with a pot of boiling water and an ill temper.
According to a Reuters report, the state-run Al Ahram newspaper (the ‘all the news that’s fit to print’ only because there aren’t any competitors) reported that prison authorities in Egypt have been placing orders with restaurants and then handing them to prisoners.
Apparently, according to reports, it is also not uncommon for those on the shackled side of the Plexiglas to get meals from their visiting families and Egyptian human rights activists say conditions inside jails are bad, with unclean cells and low-quality food comparable to what would be stuffed inside a documentarian over the course of a month. No word on whether Devil’s Food Nail file cake is available.
An 'artist's' take on what could have happened had the delivery been accepted.
Delivery work can be tough. Fearing repo men or the religious, most people don’t welcome knocks on their doors from strangers, and the ranks of mail carriers are filled with psychopaths driven to it by a combination of bad handwriting and the Zip Code system. So, there it is, sympathy expressed for the challenges of delivery work. Nonetheless, the person responsible for the following blunder still has to put on the pointed dunce cap and sit in the corner (a practice sadly abandoned by all but the very best schools).
The unnamed (a kindness) delivery company received an order for 12 barrels of lager - that’s 2,000 pints for those of you shouting at your monitors that we were off in the headline - to be delivered to Windsor Castle, a pub in Maidenhead, a town about five miles away from the royal digs. Somehow, the delivery guys missed both the address and the word “pub”, following Windsor Castle.
They showed up with the beer haul at the gates of Windsor Castle, but were told that the beer, which could have made for one jubilant jubilee indeed, had not been ordered by Good Queen Bess, and that Prince Philip damned their eyes for having the bloody nerve (In the interest of the historical record, we made that second part up).
The pub-owner, who had been expecting the booze to arrive for England’s football match with Croatia, was concerned that the order wouldn’t arrive before he received a call from an officer who had a confused delivery driver with him.
“I couldn’t believe it. I honestly thought it was a hoax but the officer insisted he was genuine and wanted confirmation that we were expecting a delivery,” he said. “We have received mail for the royal household here before but I think this is the first time they have received anything meant for us.”
As for the Queen, she was amused, well her spokesman at Windsor Castle was: “It was very funny. But there’s no way the Queen sits down in the evening with a pint.” It should be noted that she prefers a wee nip of whiskey in the evenings, as do her alcoholic corgis, whose exploits we chronicled in The Man Who Scared a Shark to Death: And Other True Tales of Drunken Debauchery.
Continuing our series on drunken shotgun violence (see Friday’s entry on a moose being sent to that hunting lodge wall in the sky [though the moose was the drunk party in that one]), we would be remiss if we failed to report on the case of a Milwaukee man who engaged in armed combat with that highly tempting target – a gas-powered lawnmower.
The duty to mow a lawn on a regular basis is enough to make anyone, even those who don’t break out into hives at the mere sight of anything green and outdoors, want to permanently live in an apartment. (And the sound of some inconsiderate lawn-loving prick starting up his lawnmower bright and early on a Saturday morning while you’re trying to sleep off a hangover should be a justifiable cause for homicide.)
When your lawnmower is a piece of junk that takes numerous pulls and expletives to get started, it’s not surprising that you might be tempted to do the thing grievous harm. And such was the case with our Milwaukee friend (Editor’s Note: Given its size, Wisconsin is amply represented on this website. See here for more), who had spent the morning drinking, decided in the early afternoon to mow his lawn (the best time), couldn’t get it started, and ended up shooting the thing with a sawed-off shotgun. A neighbor, of the rat-fink variety of neighbor, phoned police and he was arrested, charged with drunken disorderly conduct and also for having the sawed-off shotgun in the first place (the ‘sawed-off’ part makes it illegal).
The weapons charge is likely the one that sees him facing an incredible potential six-year prison term, however the defendant in this case offered a defence that we’d accept if we somehow were unable to dodge jury duty and found ourselves listening to this case. “”I can do that,” he told police. “It’s my lawn mower and my yard, so I can shoot it if I want.” And damn it, he’s right! It’s not like the shotgun blast ricocheted and fell some neighbor out trimming the bougainvillea. The only victim here was a crap lawnmower that had it coming anyway. And if a man can’t get drunk and disorderly in his own home, then where exactly can he? Being able to shoot up your lawnmower while pie-eyed before the PM is exactly what freedom is all about.
And as a tribute of sorts to our lawnmower man friend for sticking up for everyone’s right to get a bit ripped and reckless, we have compiled here some clips of others doing just that. As any seasoned emergency-room nurse will tell you, drinking and guns do mix and here is video proof of just how often:
First for those of you who need a visual to fully comprehend what the destruction of a lawnmower entails, here it is:
A scenic train ride in the Russian countryside isn’t complete unless you take a moment to fire a few shotgun blasts out the window. Bonus: the guy doing the shooting is a well known Russian politician.
Camping: An attempt to commune with nature while shooting up whiskey bottles and going on drunken wheelbarrow rides.
The William Tell legend but with two drunken buddies instead of the father and son and a stuffed animal in place of the apple. No word on whether this pair of Darwin Awards contenders continued to be as lucky.
And of course, a blog like this would not be complete without a mention of the patron saint of intoxicated people shooting up stuff, a man who spent the last quarter of his life pretty much doing exactly that, the good doctor Hunter S. Thompson. A classic clip from Conan O’Brien:
