Crazy town

The chosen one from the land of the frozen sun
When drunk nights get remembered more than sober ones

That lyric has stayed in my head for the longest time. I love it. So I've made it — part of the hottest two minutes of music of 2005 — part of the lyric of the day below.

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Pittsburgh has been a pretty odd place as of late.

A couple of items have surfaced out of the Steel City in the last week or so that followed up the somewhat bizarre and entirely eyebrow-raising story of the deceased Steelers' fan that was placed on a stage decked in Steeler gear for visitation.

But hey, the Smoky City wasn't done there. Witness this little ditty which probably falls under the most unconscionable action of the week. Now, it would be very easy for me to make jokes here. But I won't.

(Instead, if you're hanging out with me at some point I'll just tell you them then.)

Then there was this impersonator who clearly hadn't thought out his plan too well. On one hand you're trying to impersonate Ben Roethlisberger who has become one of the most recognizable celebrities in the city and then you're trying to impersonate Brian St. Pierre, the Steelers' fourth stringer at QB and a man who even the most diehard fans couldn't pick out of a lineup — or care to for that matter — if he was wearing his jersey and throwing spirals too them.

I especially love his suggestion to one woman that she watch a game sometime.

HIM: Hey you should check out our game against Cleveland on Sunday, it's on TV, y'know?
HER: Oh really? Well I'd love to come. Think you can get me tickets?
HIM: Um, no. No I can't.
HER: You play on the team but can't get tickets?
HIM: They don't let us do that anymore. Yeah, Oliver Ross was really abusing that privilege, inviting cousins and neighbours and all that. Yeah, that's why we let him go.

A real Casanova, that one.

Still, as bone-headed as those two are, they are not nearly Darwin Award material, the annual benchmark for idiocy on the planet Earth. Let's have a look shall we?


1. When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a holdup in Long Beach, California, would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked....

And now, the honorable mentions:

1. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and, after a little hopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company expecting negligence, sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and lost a finger.  The chef's claim was approved.

2. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his Vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.

3. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies.

The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.

4. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

5. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer...$15.

(If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?)

6. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.

7. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher.  Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."

8. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked intoa Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at 5 a.m., flashed a gun, and demanded cash.

The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away.

A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER! When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline and plugged his siphon hose into the motor home's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges, saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.

Lyric of the Day
I want to be as free as the spirits of those who left
I'm talking Malcom, Coltrane, my man Yusef
Through death through conception
New breath and resurrection
For moms, new steps in her direction
In the right way
Told inside is where the fight lay
And everything a nigga do may not be what he might say
Chicago nights stay, stay on the mind
But I write many lives and lay on these lines
Wave the signs of the times
Many say the grind's on the mind
Shorties blunted-eyed and everyone wanna rhyme
Bush pushing lies, killers immortalized
We got arms but won't reach for the skies
Waiting for the Lord to rise
I look into my daughter's eyes
And realize that I'ma learn through her
The Messiah, might even return through her
If I'ma do it, I gotta change the world through her
Furs and a Benz, hypes wantin 'em
Demons and old friends, pops they hauntin' him
The chosen one from the land of the frozen sun
When drunk nights get remembered more than sober ones
Walk like warriors, we were never told to run
Explored the world to return to where my soul begun
Never looking back or too far in front of me
The present is a gift
and I just wanna BE
Common, Be from the album Be