Prisoners escape by covering hole in wall with girlie posters; warden says he's been meaning to watch Shawshank Redemption

See CNN article here. It looks as if two men, one in the slammer for manslaughter and the other for robbery and weapons offenses, "...removed cement blocks from two walls, squeezed through the openings, jumped to a rooftop below and then made it over a 25-foot-high fence."

That sounds vaguely familiar. Oh yeah! I remember where I've heard of this happening before! It's in every prison movie that's ever been made!

What's worse is, "The section they escaped from was supposed to be the most secure area of the facility."

Bad form Warden Gentles!

"The men helped cover up the break by placing dummies under their bed blankets, and hiding the wall holes with magazine photos of women in bikinis, authorities said."

Your tax dollars at work.

Fuzzy britches courtesy of here, Warden Gentles pic from here.

The fan mail keeps rolling in

Recently I've received a lot of fan mail (not really) from people of all walks of life thanking me for my contributions to the Internet and society as a whole (also not true). I thought I'd share just three examples with you.

E-MAIL ONE

Dear Dave,

I'm a huge fan of your site! Really, it's amazing. You're amazing. I'm a model and I know you're married and everything but I gotta tell you that you're really good looking. Not quite sure what you were thinking with that whole shaved head fiasco, but still, you're so hot you could pull off anything.

XOXOXO,

Christy



E-MAIL TWO

David,

The Other Drummer changed my life. I used to be a crack addict until I found your site. My cravings for The Blow completely disappeared once I subscribed to, and regularly read, your RSS feed.

Subsequently I became an upstanding citizen, eventually earning a six-figure salary. But somehow, I still felt unfulfilled. Then I started reading your other site, LivSimpl and it changed me. I felt so pure. So alive. Like swimming in the ocean with dolphins. Naked.

I promptly gave away everything I owned, spent months in solitude mastering myself through Zen techniques and then moved to West Africa. Here, I currently live amongst indigenous tribes distributing vaccines, helping dig wells and teaching agricultural principles to ensure entire cultures don't become extinct.

And it's all because of you.

With a debt of gratitude I'll never be able to repay,

- Mark

P.S. It just occurred to me that I could have given all my fortune and extravagant worldly possessions to you. Sorry I didn't think of that sooner.

P.P.S. I ran into Bono out here in the bush. He says hi.



And finally, in a slightly different vein, E-MAIL THREE

Dear Mr. The Other Drummer (if that's even your real name, which I really don't think it is),

You wrote about me recently. I sat across from you on the train and I you described me as a woman-ogling psycho who drinks his own blood and doesn't blink. I found your post about me, and this site in general, to be completely offensive and inappropriate.

How do you sleep at night?

As a French-Canadian living in the great state of Alabama I feel the need to point out that you are mean-spirited and completely wrong about everything you write about. Have you ever heard of journalistic standards and research? I think not.

Oh, and I do blink, just not very often.

I hope the Internet police shut you down. And quickly. You probably don't even have the guts to publish this. You are a coward.

- Felix (not my real name)


That last one's my favorite.

Yes folks, its messages like these that get me out of bed in the morning and motivate me to press on. Keep the love comin', and I'll keep changing the world.

If you could make a million dollars a year doing anything, what would it be?

The only stipulation is that it has to be considered a real job. For example, my ideal job would be to get paid $10 each time I kiss my wife. However, that's not a real job.

Which is a shame because I'd be filthy rich.

My ideal job would be to get paid to blog/write - mainly about tech news and products. Sort of as a quasi-journalist/columnist.


What would you do? Leave word in the comments.


Picture courtesy of this fishy site.

Scott Baio, Backstreet Boy get married

Congratulations to the happy couple. I had no idea Scott Baio was gay.


Via CNN's homepage.

Crazed fans line up for new Apple Store opening in New York

It was freezing cold and snow was starting to come down, but at 2:30 p.m. EST there were already several hundred people waiting in line at the new Apple Store on West 14th St. in Manhattan's Meatpacking District, which which opens at 6 p.m. One estimate put the crowd at about 600 people with several hours still to go. - CNET

For Pete's sake people! What's the point?? Are you planning on making a purchase? Order it online or go to one of the other TWO Apple Stores in the city. Do you want to see the store? Go tomorrow when the crowds have thinned out.

Also from CNET: "So why wait? Well, Apple's given some incentives. 'Come celebrate with us this Friday as we'll be giving away thousands of limited-edition posters and commemorative T-shirts,' the store's Web site invited tantalizingly."

Commemorative T-shirts? Heck! Why didn't you say so?!

*sigh*

Now, in the interest of full disclosure I will admit that I went to the grand opening of the Salt Lake Apple Store. HOWEVER...

1. I'd never been to an Apple Store before and the nearest one was several hundred miles away.
2. I showed up about a half hour before it opened.
3. I was looking at it from an integrated marketing perspective just as much as I was looking at it from a (then) Apple Fanboy perspective.
4. Yes, I got a t-shirt. No, I don't know where it is.

That being said, these guys are nuts. 15 hours in the bitter New York cold to walk through a store and look at products you already own.

Dare to break the rules

That's right Mr. Bird. Stick it to The Man.

Photo courtesy of here via Digg.

Hanukkah Ham

Waaaaaaaait a second...


Original story/photo here.