Dumb Criminals

Gotta wonder sometimes. I once caught a pair of similar type morans trying to steal my bike. They were so busy fighting with the lock that they failed to notice me sneaking up behind them.

When I notified them with my presence (“What the fuck are you doing to my bike?”) they were startled and took off with one of them yelling “We didn’t want your shitty bike anyway.”

@ManchuCandidate: Buddy of mine caught a couple of thieves trying to steal his Escort GT in Newark – had the guts to whack them over the head and chase them off.

@blogenfreude:
Good for him. I prefer the startle’em and make’em run, but sometimes a bit of violence might be necessary (based on what little I know about Newark.)

@ManchuCandidate: And I remember the story told on Car Talk about the thieves that chained an ATM to their truck and tried to pull it out of the wall … ripped off the bumper. They took off, leaving the bumper behind.

Oh, and the license plate screwed into the bumper. An easy collar.

Are you really going to make me link to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrt2q6Mpeyc

@Serolf Divad: Glad you did …

At the symphony one recent evening a public school teacher pulled up a chair at my intermission table. Discussion of the evening’s repertoire devolved to exchanges on working lives and a clearly favorite tale of the teacher recovering her own car in mid-theft. She alighted from work to see her car was missing and hailed a colleague to take her to the local cop house. On the way, she encountered her car once, twice and then when she noticed it idling in front house, asked her colleague to pull over, whence she jumped into the hotwired Geo and lit on out home.

@FlyingChainSaw: A former colleague of mine was driving her car in Cleveland on a lovely spring day with her windows rolled down. She stopped at a signal, first in the line. Dude jumps out of nowhere and sticks half of his body and a gun through the passenger window and screams at her to get out of the car. She instinctively slams her foot on the gas (thank Flying Spaghetti Monster there was no cross traffic) and takes off. Dude goes flying off the car and in to the intersection, where he fell so bad that he was knocked out, which made it easy for the cops to apprehend him.

Travel TJ: SFO throws down the gauntlet to LAX in new ad airing in Australia and New Zealand. Having connected through LAX coming back on international flights more often than I’d like to remember, I can attest that SFO has a much more fabulous international terminal. Even when Mayor McDreamy isn’t walking around opening cab doors for hot Kiwi and Aussie chicks.

Related via including a brutal case of stupidity:

Retired general asserts that the Dutch suck at fighting because they let gays serve

@SanFranLefty: I remember stepping off the plane from an extended idle on the south island of NZ into the dystopian landscape of LAX and having to struggle not to just run to the ticket counter and run back. One of those days when the place was filled with refugees carrying their lives in hefty bags and the air was reddish brown.

@FlyingChainSaw: “One of those days when the place was filled with refugees carrying their lives in hefty bags and the air was reddish brown.”

You saw that as opposed to now? That’s what I saw at LAX last time I flew through there in November. Luckily the bars were open* and had plenty o’ vodka.

And may I add: It’s not LAX until you see a goat or goat parts coming or going to Manila or Accra.

*Don’t get me started on the dystopia of DEN when the flights are delayed and the bars shut down at 10 pm. It happened to me three times in the past year. Tip: Bring a huge water bottle, order drink after drink of vodka cocktails and pour them into the big water bottle. When your flight finally takes off at 2:37 am to SFO, as one of mine did, you will be in a FANTASTIC mood.

@FlyingChainSaw: I had a college work study job where I spent three months working for the Bureau of Land Management in a remote northern New Mexico federal recreation area building trails, painting outhouses, working the visitor’s center and helping the staff archeologist on a new find of petroglyphs, Pretty idylic. I lived in a trailer twice the size of a phone booth, got my NPR on a dipole antenna I made (I also made one for the girls for the TV in the big mobile home in front) and just lived a healthy life, shin splints nonwithstanding. The loudest sound out there was the Rio Grande a mile away and 1500 feet below the desert floor.

Went back to my basement apartment behind the Burger King and Baskin Robbins on the main drag in front of the University of New Mexico. The urban stress after being out in the wild gave me chest pains for about a month.

@SanFranLefty: I got caught one of those fucking eight hours of hell in the Denver airport coming back from Montana last year. I could have rented a car and driven to fucking Santa Fe by the time I boarded. I still had to gather up my gear and drive an hour to Santa Fe once I got it. Good thing I won that case, otherwise I’d still be hauling my ass up there every six months or so.

@SanFranLefty: @ManchuCandidate: @blogenfreude:

A young Nabisco set off for far lands, during which time he dreamed of returning stateside and his trove of childhood treasures, most particularly that bicycle he bought with his own money at the age of 14. Moms Nabisco sold the homestead and moved on, after which Nabisco comes home and asks for his bicycle. Bike stolen, Moms says. Didn’t have the heart to tell you while you were on walkabout. Insurance Moms? Well, deductible and all that, here’s a hundred bucks, young Nabisco.

Fast forward a coupla years. Driving through the Hometown, going to pick up tuxes for a family wedding. Nabisco spots the bicycle on someone’s front stoop. Still has fucking bike registration from the age of 14 in his wallet. Storms up to the door, encounters a stocky, East Coaster, demands the return of the bike, police summoned, Moms called about the obvious delay in picking up tuxes.

“Stand down”, orders Moms, “and return to base”.

Turns out Moms sold the damn thing, and for fifty bucks at that.

Lesson? No, nothing about theft (except for how handy those township bike registration drives are). Just that Thanksgiving always goes just a little bit better when you’re holding the shame card in your hand. Luv ya Moms!

@Nabisco: Young RMLwanted to roam the world and the stars but keeps hanging on here . Maybe I’ll learn something.

Sonic Youth, What We Know Check this shit out:

@redmanlaw:

you learn patience, responsibility and nurturing.
bakette was my ballast. i am a helium balloon.
now, with my fur children gone, i’m free again. where to next? not that we didn’t shlep them everywhere.
wanderlust. some things i read, i must see in person!

@SanFranLefty:

i swear to you the last time i was in MIA, there was a woman in line with me pushing a cart with 3 hefty lawn bags for luggage. so sorry i didn’t take a picture. and chickens. there definetly were chickens. and i’ll brave it again on the 7th of april. we used to charter planes…no more. if you have the opportuity to fly private, pass. it will embitter you forever towards public airports.

theft. when bakette was small, i had a very reliable babysitter while i was off working or sitting in class. (i went to 5 different schools post HS…the scenic route) i discovered a diamond necklace missing. i easily found out her boyfriend was an addict of some sort. i called her to babysit, and said bring the boyfriend! i had a few big friends over to squeeze my necklace out of hm, but no dice. i had the 2 of them sitting on my sofa for 12 hours. my friends started to mumble you can’t keep them here any longer…call the police…so that’s how it ended. he never coughed it up…it was long ago already pawned…3 days. i finally called the police and he denied telling me he pawned it. he was more afraid of me than the cops…heh.

@redmanlaw: Oh, yeah, I can imagine. Just the grease smoke from the Regurger King must have been enough to give you a heart attack. I lived in a tent for most of 7 months in the big national parks in NZ, mostly the south island. Cars and buses go to the gate – but the parks themselves are only navigable on foot or boat. You get used to total silence and your perceptions completely recalibrate.

@FlyingChainSaw: Indeed. 20 months myself in a fishing village of Republica del Banano, no lights or running water and the silence after nightfall was gorgeous. I swam in the Pacific every day when the others warned me off (the riptides nearly got me, twice), ate turtle eggs (a mistake: they call them “huevos de parlama” which I mistook for the paloma/dove), hissed Ronnie Raygun’s 84 victory speech on my shortwave, and had one hammock for night time and another one for company.

I confess to one luxury, however: the key to one of only two latrines in a village of 300 people (and 500 pigs). Well, and my passport.

Those literal bag handlers in MIA, Baked? Been behind them many times as well. I particularly enjoy the imigrantes who insist on bringing their Pollo Campero from back home because, well, KFC just doesn’t quite cut it.

@FlyingChainSaw: @Nabisco:

the reason i don’t have a pic is she was behind me. if she were in front of me, i would have photographic evidence. im glad you saw this too. who would believe it? and why did i spend so much on luggage? hefty should promote itself. trash AND luggage! win win !!

@FlyingChainSaw:
seems like you spend a lot of ime down under.
my dearest friend here is from NZ. she is so adorable and funny as hell.
what’s your take on NZ landers?
its high on my list..the 5 i’ve met are keepers.

but now with the new baby in miami, i can’t consider living there. lewis black recommends everyone get off and push it somewhere closer to the fucking civil world.

@baked: I lurv Kiwis and Aussies both, especially the wimminz. They drink and curse like sailors, by and large are of attractive stock and fun to be around, and have better teeth than Brits. Sorry Benedick!

@baked, Nabisco: I love NZ and am still researching emigration for when the Adkison Brigades take over the US of ‘Merikah and Talibunny/Beck are elected to the White House in 2012.

Gorgeous country, great wine, and hilarious and laid-back people who don’t take themselves very seriously.

@Nabisco:
yes! why i like them. drunken sailors!
benedick would be the first one to slam the english about teeth.

@ Lefty…i kew it! but it’s so damn far…
did you see our jon doing beck last night?
why are there so many raving lunatics on tv? scary.

@Nabisco:
you just popped up on skype…skype me!

and everyone besides mac users without skype are fucking retarded. i’m so tired of dragging people. this happened with uggs…i was wearing them long before oprah.

@Nabisco: Young Prommie went to land grant U, kooky Dad decided to live his lifelong dream and become a Gypsy, bought a Winnebago, dreamed of criss-crossing the country living in his kids driveways, rotating regularly (never did really understand that this idea of his horrified said kids). That was an awkward spring break, sleeping in the convertible dinette. But anyhoo, when mom and dad vacated the latest of the many many rented houses I lived in growing up, they simply left behind what would be about $2,000 worth of scuba gear, and “my things,” consisting of all my collected treasures from childhood, things I made in shopclass, letters from my little girlfriends from when I was 13 and such, notebooks of juvenile poetry (I still write juvenile poetry), pretty much everything I ever cared about. Nice. I have no hometown, never had a home. Never lived in the same place or went to the same school 2 years straight.

@baked: I like to spend time down under, but I think I may be thinking of something different when I use that term.

Theft and airport nightmares. Pretty much sums up my week.

@Prommie: Yes, we know about your boat’s plumbing.

@baked: I’m deep into a Weeds marathon after running the Top Dog Delegation circus most of this week. But you pop up on skype at some weird ass hours, sister, so I’ll hit you up tomorrow when it should be about 330 AM Eastern Stinque Time but “Baked’s on-line” appears on my screen.

I hear you on the early adopter thing. We were using Skype more than five years ago, I kept calling family and saying “download it! We can talk for free! You say I never call, now I will!”

I’ve been using macs since 1986, although this orifice-issued Dell drives me mad.

@Nabisco: That babe in Weeds sure do love to get nekkid, doesn’t she?

@redmanlaw: Their new shit is as good as the old, I just wish these headphones I have could go LOUDER. Must be fun to pound the skins to that one. JNOV needs to get her Thurston tuning down…

@Prommie: No complaints here…

@Mistress Cynica: Oh darling, I assume Untied Airlines still has no idea where your missing/stolen bag is? Maybe you can send HF or Flippin’ on a mission to the O’Hare lost and found and find it…

@SanFranLefty: UA? Ha. Hahahaha. hahahahahahahahhaha. They can’t find their butt with both hands.
I’d never send the kids into the belly of the beast. I’ve just written it off and sworn allegiance to Southwest, even if they do make me play games and sign songs.

The last bunch of burglars we had were probably kids. They went straight to Son of RML’s room and dumped spare change and fresh beater T-shirts into a skater back pack, which they left on his bed when they split. Must have seen me drive up. They also burned some playing cards on the floor. Totally strange.