Leslie's Omnibus: accident

Showing posts with label accident. Show all posts

Accident Report

Have you seen the story about the ~~idiot~~ ~~poor sap~~ young fool who didn't measure his rope before swinging down off Corona Arch in Utah?

I know it's sad. I feel terrible for his family. And at the same time, I can't stop myself from comparing him to...

I just know I'm going to burn in hell for this.
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Update: And if I do go straight to hell, I'll be in good company. Heh.

Road Rage

~~Giggle~~ Belly Laugh of the Day:

A huge tip of the cap to the Sweetheart of Shell Knob, MO. That made my day!

Drive-Bys

I rarely buy books that aren't on Kindle, but I'm making an exception for one. According to George R.R. Martin:

I'm delighted to be able to announce the forthcoming publication of a new, deluxe, limited edition of A GAME OF THRONES, to be published by my friends at Subterranean Press, and illustrated by the massively talented TED NASMITH.

Ted is widely considered to be one of the "Big Three" of Tolkien illustrators; along with Alan Lee and John Howe, he has brought Middle Earth to life like no one else. And he he is no stranger to my own world, either. Ted painted the all of the wonderful landscapes for the gorgeous 2011 Ice & Fire calendar, with what I consider to be THE definitive depictions of thirteen of the great castles of Westeros.

Zing! Right to the top of my wish list with a bullet.
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Speaking of GRRM, cartoonist Bill Amend clearly thinks like me.
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Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!! There's only one Baby and only one Johnny Castle.

Leave It. The Fuck. Alone.
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A new study finds that most people hit by cars in the city are in a crosswalk

Oh really? That's news to me...
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Gouda, Bacon and Pear with Balsamic Onions Sandwich. Ooooooo!

Drive-Bys

My Magic Cheezburger and I have awesome predictive powers when I comes to Carol Mosley Braun's chances of landing her butt in the Mayor's chair here in the Windy City.

I'm giving her style points for her latest blooper:

At a debate on Sunday at Trinity United Church of Christ, Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins said Braun was returning to Chicago politics after having been “missing in action and lost somewhere” — and Braun responded by saying, “Patricia, the reason you didn’t know who I was for the last 20 years is because you were strung out on crack. I was not strung out on crack. I don’t have a record.”

Watkins, who has acknowledged using pot and coke as a teenager, says she’s been sober for 25 years and has demanded an apology.More comments from around the town on Braun's

“This says a lot about her character,” Watkins said.

Or lack thereof.

More comments from around the town on Mosely Braun and her big mouth:

P.S. -- I asked my Magic Cheezburger what were Mosley Braun's chances of beating out Emanuel and Chico in the mayoral race. Cheezburger sez, "SRY. I EATED IT." (I'll bet you the leaders of the black community that pushed so hard for her to be the "unity" candidate wish they had a Magic Cheezburger of their own and had consulted it a long time ago.)

Update: Ms. Mosley Braun offers up an apology to everyone but the one person she owes it to."

I want to apologize to her, to the congregations and members of Trinity United Church and of New Pilgrim Missionary Baptist church and all of the families and friends of those who are or who have been caught up in the tragedy of drug use. I meant no disrespect of the sanctuaries in which campaign tensions spilled over.

She gives the word "ungracious" a whole new face.
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One hundred and eighty degrees in the opposite direction of black women in Illinois politics is Toni Preckwinkle, on whom I am developing a tremendous girl crush:

“The proposed budget represents the first step of a restructuring of county finances for a long-term plan that will address the structural deficit and lay the groundwork for the rollback of the sales-tax increase,” Preckwinkle said. “We must break the habits that got us here. We must build a new foundation to stabilize our finances.”

You go, girl! (Can we clone her a couple of times and send one to Springfield and the other to the White House???)
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While this news is not good, it does not in the least take away from the fact that a toddler would not be dead if his mother hadn't left him alone to play in the hallway of a hotel while she fooled around with her boyfriend:

A switch used by a 2-year-old boy to open an elevator door before he fell down the shaft last week should have been locked up, Joliet’s chief building inspector said Monday.

David Mackley said the exposed switch in the Plaza Hotel elevator car was a code violation. He told a city council committee that the switch either should have been in a shielded case or the device should have required a key to operate.

This whole mess saddens and enrages me in equal parts.
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Cool Quotes of the Day:

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The last living WWI veteran, Frank Woodruff Buckles, turns 110 today. God bless him!
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In the middle of the biggest recession in a long time, Caterpillar's workers take this brilliant step:

Union members at Caterpillar Inc. facilities in Illinois and three other states have authorized the United Auto Workers to strike if necessary.

This is why it took my father-in-law 30 years to get fully vested in a 20 year pension/retirement benefit.
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I'm heading home. Wish me luck.

More later!
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Update: Strike that heading home thingie. I'm on the reception desk until 5:30 p.m. Yahoo.
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Anyone who thinks having the Muslim Brotherhood in charge in Egypt seriously needs to rearrange their thinking:

A leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt told the Arabic-language Iranian news network Al-Alam on Monday that he would like to see the Egyptian people prepare for war against Israel, according to the Hebrew-language business newspaper Calcalist.

There's your religion of peace for you.

And, by the way...

If Egypt 's President Hosni Mubarak is toppled, Israel will lose one of its very few friends in a hostile neighborhood and President Barack Obama will bear a large share of the blame, Israeli pundits said on Monday.

This is unbelievably awful foreign policy on the part of the U.S.
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PSA

A little tip I read about today that I thought I'd share:

If your car has had any work done, you should check to make sure the hood is properly closed [before you drive it out of the shop or off the lot].

Yikes!

Drive-Bys

Oooo! Add this to my birthday/Christmas/no-reason-whatsoever gift list, please! Moose and squirrel -- they're particular faves of mine.
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Giggle of the Day:

Dr Teddy Wu, who is currently working in the neurology department at Christchurch Hospital, said he believed it was the first time someone had been hospitalised by a "hickey".

I nearly wet myself laughing.

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Explosive Road? Sheesh! Naming it that was bad karma waiting to happen...
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Excuse my French, but where the f*ck were the parents here?

The boy and his sister, believed to be about 4 years old, were playing in the elevator when the incident occurred, according to residents at the Plaza Hotel, 26 W. Clinton St. in downtown Joliet.

The accident happened around 3:30 p.m Sunday. The toddler left his family's room on the second floor of the Hotel Plaza and got into an elevator, according to Joliet Police Lt. Jeff Allbert. The boy apparently started playing with the elevator's buttons, he said.

The elevator rose, then stopped, leaving a 10-inch gap between the elevator and shaft. The toddler slipped through the gap and fell about 30 feet to the basement, Allbert said.

This is inexcusable parenting.
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How do I feel after having a day to cogitate on the Bears' loss to the Packers?

Two words: Good. Lord.

Yep.

(Read the whole thing. Morrissey nails it.)
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Seems like the folks down in Springfield have finally gotten the message:

The new push is a crackdown on the rising cost of health care for retired state workers. The program costs the state nearly $500 million a year, and more than 90 percent of the retirees and survivors pay no premiums....
The idea is to start charging the retirees who can afford to pay for their health care. And new state research shows some of the 84,100 retirees and survivors appear to possess the ability to pay — the average annual household income for a retired state worker younger than 65 was nearly $78,000.

The sizable rocking-chair income is the result of waves of state workers taking advantage of sweet early retirement plans that allowed them to walk out of government jobs in their 50s, start collecting pension benefits and still have time to start a second career.

The retirees are responsible for co-payments, even if nine out of 10 of them don't pay premiums. The state's costs rose more than 10 percent to hit $488.2 million in the last budget year, and that doesn't even include dental and vision expenses. Some of the increase is attributed to workers who have left Illinois for warmer climates. The cost for their care can be higher because they can't always get the group rate discounts of a managed-care plan when they move to another state.

Yes! It's about time those who can afford to pay for this are held to account. I don't begrudge those who can't afford to pay, but I do begrudge those who can and don't. Especially those who retire on more than I make in any given year.
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Drive-Bys

Giggle of the Day:

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Here's a great review of the candidates for RNC Chairman. Read up, then follow the links and go visit their sites.
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Joanie asks and I deliver. Go read this, and then offer up a prayer or two if you're of the prayerful persuasion.
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Chicago restaurant owners apparently have their knickers in a knot over the fact that we're finally about to get food trucks that allow cooking on the premises.

“If these things really work by social media, they could just go to food deserts. There are plenty of neighborhoods in the city that have a shortage of restaurants and grocery stores or late-night places to eat,” said the association’s president, Sheila O’Grady, Mayor Daley’s longest-serving chief of staff.

“The thing that appeals to people is they think some fabulous chef will be producing some amazing street food. They use Twitter to say, ‘I’m gonna be at this corner at this time. Come meet me.’ If that’s really how it works, people will follow you regardless of where or who you are.”

First of all, I can assure the owners throwing the biggest tantrums that someone who would choose to dine from a food truck on any given day probably didn't even consider a bricks & mortar fine dining restaurant as an alternative. Second of all, food trucks have been successfully integrated into the food scene in such cities as Los Angeles and New York with no harm at all to the B&MRs.

Suck it up, fellas. Offer a great product at a reasonable price and you've got nothing to worry about!
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Some people apparently don't know when to quit. Personally, I think the Spider Man musical is doomed to failure. When the Fates send you a message, you really ought to pay attention.

Drive-Bys

It's a trifecta of man vs. train within the past 24 hours:

One guy on the Pink Line during rush hour (try 'splaining to St. Peter that you met your end on the pink line);
One guy in San Antonio in the wee hours who traumatized an engineer, but at least didn't screw up rush hour; and,
A stupid teen who might just get lucky and pull through despite his best efforts to the contrary.

I shudder to think what the totals for man v. train will be here in Chicago by year's end.
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The hippiest, dippiest joint in Chicago appears to be in financial trouble:

The Heartland's financial problems are varied. Some might blame the service or the food. (I like the food.) [I do, too -- especially the fried brown rice.] The bigger problem, James and Hogan say, is the recession. Paying bills with money they didn't have, they accumulated huge overdraft charges. Their bank won't give them credit. Big city license fees are due.

"It's the first time someone could say 'You're not living within your means,'" Hogan said. "It's taken us close to two years to ..."

"Get it," James said.

They get it now. They've made changes they hope will help. And they're hoping that the same trust and instincts that made them shake hands on a far-fetched deal 34 years ago will get them through again.

I hope they do learn the lesson, because that place is a gem. In fact, this song pretty much sums it up:

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Don't blame the mobile phone -- blame the inconsiderate assholes who think their time is more valuable than yours. (And if a friend does it to you more than once, they're not a very good friend.)
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The first in a series of laws designed to completely eradicate smoking and tobacco use in Finland came into effect Friday, including possible prison sentences for selling cigarettes to minors.

Finland is the first country in the world to write into its legislation that it intends not just to reduce smoking but to end all tobacco use through law.

Actually, my argument all along here has been that if it's not illegal to sell them or smoke them, it's pretty hard to say you can smoke them here but you can't smoke them there. Pretty smart, those Finns...
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Seeing "pink testicle" at first glance here, instead of "pink tentacle" means I should think about getting my eyes checked, right? (And not that my Freudian slip is hanging down a mile...)

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What are we heading for here? Oh... maybe this:

Most families who are due to lose their child benefit are worrying about how they'll make ends meet without it.

But for Kelly Marshall, who has five children by four different fathers, the handout has never been about paying for nappies, food and other everyday expenses.

She saved her benefit money to help pay for breast enhancement.

And as many parents envisage tightening their belts after the Tories announced plans to cut the benefit for higher-rate taxpayers, she plans to save more of hers for liposuction and a tummy tuck.

Fasten your seat belts. I predict that attitude will find it's way across "The Pond" soon, if it hasn't done so already.
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Rules of the Road

Don't try this at home:

Teen Driver Crashes While Trying To Hold Breath
Driver No Stranger To Bad Luck

WHEATLAND, N.Y. - Police say four teenagers trying to hold their breath for the time it takes to drive through an upstate New York hamlet were hurt when the driver fainted.

Authorities say three 19-year-old men and a 16-year-old boy were traveling together late Monday night when they decided to try to hold their breath while riding through Garbutt, a rural Rochester-area hamlet that's just three-tenths of a mile long.

Monroe County sheriff's deputies say 19-year-old Bryan Parslow of Caledonia fainted while driving and his car hit a boulder.

All four teens were treated at a hospital and released.

Parslow is no stranger to bad luck. He's a paraplegic who was paralyzed in 2008 after falling out of a window in Brockport while attending college.

Police gave him a ticket for failing to stay in his lane.

Copyright MYFOXNY.COM/The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Right there is what you call a future Darwin Award Winner.

(They say the third time's a charm, dude. One more awesome stunt should do it.)

I, Heartless Bitch

Dear Lady...

... who almost walked your six-year-old across the railroad tracks while the lights were flashing, the cross-arms were down and the klaxons were louder than hell...

Don't expect me to apologize for shouting at you and making you stop. Did you look bad in front of your kid? Too bad.

It was your first time taking the train into the city and you didn't know any better?

GOOD.

I taught you both something.

That someone cared enough about your kid to make sure she learned that YOU DON'T CROSS THE TRACKS WHEN THE CROSSBARS ARE DOWN AND THE KLAXONS ARE RINGING.

You both got home safe tonight.

Some people didn't have a loud mouth like me to give them hell. And they never made their destination.

They never will.

Sorry if you're angry at me. I'm not apologizing.

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Update No. 3: I take back the previous two updates. Not her fault. But the gates not working right are VERY unusual circumstances.

A Bump in the Road

Aw, geeze! Apparently blogger Jim Treacher was hit crossing an intersection, and now the State Department is making up stories about when, where and how one of their vehicles and Mr. Treacher came into contact. The following sounds oddly familiar to me:

An agent in the vehicle, Mike McGuinn, did not identify himself to Medlock at the scene, or apologize for running him down. Indeed, Washington, D.C., police drove to a local emergency room to serve Medlock with a jaywalking citation as he lay prostrate in a hospital bed, while a man who identified himself as “special agent” stood by watching and taking notes.

Reached on his cell phone the following day by the Daily Caller, McGuinn refused to answer questions about the incident.

“I’m a federal agent and I’m not allowed to talk to the media,” McGuinn said, citing “liability.” McGuinn initially declined even to reveal which agency he works for. “You can refer to the [DC] police department report,” he said before hanging up abruptly. (According the police department, no report will be publicly available for at least three days.)

According to Medlock, who writes under the name Jim Treacher, he was struck at about 7:15 p.m. on Wednesday, while crossing M Street in downtown Washington. Medlock says he was walking within the bounds of the crosswalk, toward a blinking white signal, when a government SUV suddenly turned left and plowed into him, knocking him to the ground.

Bystanders tended to Medlock, collected his crushed glasses and called an ambulance. McGuinn, meanwhile, called The Daily Caller’s offices from the scene to tell Medlock’s colleagues about the incident. But he did not identify himself to them or to Medlock.

In my case, it wasn't a fed; however:

Last night I became a true Chicago cliche. I was hit by a cab while crossing the street, on a green light, with the "walk" sign flashing. He made a left turn right into me. Looking straight at me, too....

So there I am, sitting on my butt in the middle of the street. The Middle Eastern taxi driver gets out of his car, whips out his cell phone and starts making calls, speaking rapidly and animatedly in some type of Arabic. I don't know if he's calling 911 or his cab company. Probably both.

A couple of pedestrians come running up to see if I'm okay and tell me not to move. One woman drags out her own cell phone and calls 911.

In Treacher's case:

Curiously, the ticket says that Medlock was struck at an intersection four blocks from where the accident actually took place. And it claims that Medlock was walking diagonally across the intersection at the time. In one of his strikingly short conversations with the Daily Caller, agent Mike McGuinn acknowledged that Medlock was not jaywalking at all, but walking “outside the crosswalk when the incident occurred.”

In my case? Take your pick of the slew of falsehoods and new allegations that popped up when I showed up to testify in traffic court.

What is it with drivers who hit pedestrians with a clear right-of-way, don't offer assistance when the person they hit is clearly physically hurt and absolutely refuse to admit that they were at fault?

I take comfort in the fact that karma is a real bitch. And so is the fact that both Treacher and I had witnesses. My driver got a big ticket in traffic court, and I still may sue the bastard. Treacher's got his driver by the short and curlies, too. (And in another weird bit of almost-synchronicity, Treacher's real last name is Medlock; my maiden name is Morlock.)

In any case, I feel for Treacher. It's been almost two years, and one of my bruises still hasn't healed completely. Here's wishing Treacher rapid healing. Here's wishing karma, and lots of it, on Mr. McGuinn.

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see more dog and puppy pictures

Drive-Bys

I know Old Crankypants was a stone atheist, but I'm convinced he was surprised as hell to find himself hanging around in the ether after all.

Why?

Jan 19 2010
"My bagder's [sic] gonna unleash hell on your ass. Badgertastic!"

"No, not the cats. Don't trust them. Their eyes. Their eyes. They know too much."

"Just look at yourself. Yeah, now look at me. You don't stand a chance. It must suck to be you, I'm sure."

Robbie is whispering in the ear of the Sleep Talkin' Man every once in a while.

And that makes me smile.
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Why do I read Roissy? Sometimes he'll post something that just makes me grin. Like this. Brutally honest... but funny.
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I have Contagion on the brain. I can't figure out why, though...
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The Daily Douche Bag:

A Georgia woman is in jail after police say she forced her son to kill his pet hamster with a hammer as punishment for bad grades.

Lynn Middlebrooks Geter is an incredible Douche Bag.
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I am very happy to hear that my favorite Grouchy Old Cripple is healing fast. Geeze! He survives a bunch of drunken Jawja Blown-Eyes helping his own alcohol-fueled crippledy self down the stairway to Hell along side the Chatahoochee, but gets knocked upside the head when he's actually doing something relatively safely?

Yeah, he's another atheist, but I prayed for his recovery anyway. (He had to get better! He's the only blodger, Blown-Eyed or Blown Star, who brings me three bottle of wine to every blodgemeet. And he lets me sing harmony on occasion.)

Smooches, Denny!
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Great Reader is still on hiatus, so I'll say it for him: "It's Friday! Let's Dance!"

I don't know about you, but my toes are tapping!

Speed Bump

Argggggggghhh! Someone in my office broke my mug from Dingle Pottery.

Once I get over being major-league peeved about this, I guess I'll have to book my next trip to Ireland to get myself another one.

So there.

(Dammit. I loved that mug. And the pictures just don't do justice to how lovely they are.)

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I, Heartless Bitch

A Bump in the Road

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Jan 19 2010

Speed Bump

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