Daily Dose - 020113 - expensive car, Stupid Suits, elderly shut-ins, DDL, Hey Martha

A woman always wanted an expensive car -- a status symbol to drive around and be seen in. She scrimps and saves, goes to the BMW dealer, and plops down several years income for a brand new state-of-the-art, computer enhanced, kick-ass, dream mobile.

She's driving off. Decides she wants some music and searches for the radio. The dashboard looks like a control panel at NASA. She fiddles with this button, that gizmo... jiggles these and those, but finally gives up. Can't find the damned thing.

Furious, she races back to the dealership and screams at the salesman. Tells him they forgot to install the radio. He assures her it's right there in front of her. It's hooked into the onboard computer. All she has to do is tell it what she wants. He demonstrates: "Classical," he says. "Click" The car fills with the sounds of Paganini.

"Blues," she says, and "click" a B.B. King classic plays.

She drives off amazed. "Country," she says, and "click" a Garth Brooks tune comes on. "Folk" and "click" Joan Baez sings about the night they drove ol' Dixie down. "New Age" and "click" Yanni at the Acropolis snaps on. She's so captivated by this new toy that she isn't paying much attention to the road.

Another driver runs a light and cuts her off.

"ASSHOLE!!!" she screams. "Click"

"Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States."

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Stupid Suits

In 1994, a New Mexico jury awarded $ 2.9 million U.S. in damages to 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who suffered third-degree burns to her legs, groin and buttocks after spilling a cup of McDonald's coffee on herself.

This case inspired an annual award - The "Stella" Award -for the most frivolous lawsuit in the U.S. The ones listed below are clear candidates.

All these cases are verging on the outright ridiculous and yet (in the good old USA) with the right attorney you could win anything! (see OJ trial)

1. January 2000: Kathleen Robertson of Austin Texas was awarded $780,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running amuck inside a furniture store.

The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little prick was Ms. Robertson's son.

2. June 1998: A 19 year old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbour ran over his hand with a Honda Accord.

Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car, when he was trying to steal his neighbour's hubcaps.

3. October 1998: A Terrence Dickson of Bristol Pennsylvania was leaving a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up, because the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation.

Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food.

Mr. Dickson sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of half a million dollars.

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While working for an organization that delivers lunches to elderly shut-ins, I used to take my four-year-old daughter on my afternoon rounds.

She was unfailingly intrigued by the various appliances of old age, particularly the canes, walkers and wheelchairs.

One day I found her staring at a pair of false teeth soaking in a glass. As I braced myself for the inevitable barrage of questions, she merely turned and whispered, "The tooth fairy will never believe this!"

___________________________

DDL

There was a young lady of Dexter
Whose husband exceedingly vexed her,
For whenever they'd start
He'd unfailingly fart
With a blast that damn nearly unsexed her.

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"I want to share something with you -- the three sentences that will get you through life. Number one, "Cover for me." Number two, "Oh, good idea, boss!" Number three, "It was like that when I got here."
-Homer Simpson, THE SIMPSONS

***

"My girlfriend is at that stage when her biological clock is telling her it's time for her to be making me feel guilty and immature."
-Kevin Hench

***

"I guess I'm sensitive about my hair loss. I think everybody's making fun of it. I went to buy a VCR and the guy said, 'Four Head?' --I punched him in the mouth."
-Dan Wilson

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Hey Martha (true)

Wednesday, November 21, 2001

Inmate allowed to smoke pot

Activist doesn't get out of joint

By JOHN STEINBACHS-- Ottawa Sun

OTTAWA -- Retired Pembroke lawyer Rick Reimer believes he puffed his way to a pot-smoking landmark this weekend when Ottawa jail guards allowed him to smoke dope in detention.

Reimer, a marijuana activist, was arrested at a Saturday morning G-20 protest in downtown Ottawa and spent about 17 hours in a courthouse cell.

He said police grabbed him when he refused to hand over a gas mask to an officer.

When they got to the Elgin St. courthouse, he showed police a letter that gives him an exemption to smoke grass and demanded to keep his stash.

"I've got a right to this, I'm taking this with me," he said he told guards.

Reimer, who has multiple sclerosis, is one of a select group Canadians allowed to grow and possess a tiny amount of pot for medicinal purposes. He said it helps him fight nausea, ward off fatigue and generally improve his quality of life.

The guards relented and locked him away with only the four joints to keep him company.

But there was one hitch, he said.

"They wouldn't let me have matches."

So, after much hollering a guard finally arrived with matches and fired him up.

"That was the silver lining, they let me smoke marijuana in jail," he said. Reimer now believes he could be the first person to smoke up legally in jail. He's pretty sure he has the Canadian record and maybe the world record too.

Reimer only had 2-3 grams of marijuana with him when he was arrested, barely enough to make it through the ordeal.

Knowing he was in short supply, his girlfriend and a friend soon arrived at the front desk of Ottawa Police headquarters and asked that they pass along a little more to the caged crusader.

"She knew I'd run out," he said, adding that the bewildered front desk officer refused to pass along the illicit delivery.

Reimer was never charged and was released the next morning at about 4:30 a.m. He said he's concerned about his treatment and the basis of his arrest and has sent a letter to Ottawa Police Chief Vince Bevan, his MP and MPP to complain.

He's also concerned about the way police treated some of the young demonstrators at the protest.