March 11, 2010

SC Cop Stops Go-Cart, Arrests Man On Drug Charges

Union, SC (AP) A go-cart wasn’t much of a getaway vehicle for a South Carolina man. The Herald-Journal of Spartanburg reported that sheriff’s deputies have arrested 29-year-old Edward Matthew Sweezy of Union after they stopped him last week at an intersection in Union.
The deputy had heard a report of a stolen go-cart and turned on his lights and siren after spotting it less than a half mile from Sweezy’s home.

Sweezy is charged with resisting arrest, possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and public drunkenness.

The deputy’s report says the men struggled and the officer spotted a crack pipe and a bottle with three pills inside.

The sheriff’s report said they turned the go-cart over to Sweezy’s wife.
It was unclear if Sweezy had hired an attorney.

New Zealand Woman Sells Souls To Highest Bidder
Wellington, New Zealand (AP) The rare spirits that went under the gavel at a recent online auction in New Zealand weren’t aged brandies or hard-to-find liqueurs. Instead, two glass vials purportedly containing the ghosts of two dead people sold for $2,830 New Zealand dollars ($1,983) at an auction that ended Monday night. The “ghosts” were put up for bidding by Avie Woodbury from the southern city of Christchurch. She said they were captured in her house and stored in glass vials with stoppers and dipped in holy water, which she says “dulls the spirits’ energy.” She said they were the spirits of an old man who lived in the house during the 1920s, and a powerful, disruptive little girl who turned up after a session with a spirit-calling Ouija board. Since an exorcism at the property last July led to their capture, there has been no further spooky activity in the house, she said.

The auction attracted more than 214,000 page views and dozens of questions before the winning bid, Trademe auction site spokesman Paul Ford said Tuesday. The name of the winning bidder was not released. Woodbury said that once an “exorcist’s fee” has been deducted, the proceeds of the spirit sale will go to the animal welfare group the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Buttkiss Is 43 Years Old & Weighs 20 Pounds!

New York (AP) It sounds fishy but a New York City pet shop owner says it’s true.

Buttkiss, the black pacu he owns, is 43 and weighs 20 pounds. A pacu is a breed that’s related to the piranha (pih-RAH’-nuh).

Steve Gruebel owns Cameo Pet Shop in Queens. He got Buttkiss in 1967 when he was just a wee thing. He sold him a year later when Buttkiss was two inches long. But in 1970, Buttkiss was returned when he outgrew the buyer’s tank. Buttkiss lives in only a four-foot-long, 75-gallon tank. Gruebel says he’s afraid to move him because he may not survive the changing environment. Buttkiss is beginning to show his age. He has arthritic gills and glaucoma in his right eye.

Momma Always Did Say ‘Use What God Gave Ya’

Owensboro, KY (AP) A woman in jail for public intoxication was accused of assaulting a jailer by squirting breast milk at her. WYMT-TV reported that a 31-year-old woman was arrested Thursday on a misdemeanor charge of public intoxication. But as she was changing into an inmate uniform, she squirted breast milk into the face of a female deputy who was with her.

The woman now faces a felony charge of third degree assault on a police officer. Her bond was set at $10,000.

New Jersey Man Gets Even WIth The Po Po

Evesham, NJ (AP) Police said a cook put a body hair in the bagel sandwich of a police officer who had given him tickets in the past. The cook was arrested Feb. 21 in the kitchen of Good Foods to Go in Evesham. The police officer ticketed the cook in March 2009 when he failed to pull over for a traffic violation.

The cook spent four hours in jail before his wife bailed him out, and was fired from his job.
The Courier-Post of Cherry Hill reports police asked them not to report the incident for fear of copycat crimes. The paper published the story anyway.

It’s Bad Luck To Take Them
Back To The Same Store! Duh!

Bartow, FL (AP) A Winter Haven man was arrested after authorities said he took a winning scratch-off ticket back to the store he had stolen it from a day earlier.

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office reported that a 22-year-old man stole $70 worth of scratch-off lottery tickets from a Circle K store on Sunday.

One of the tickets revealed a $50 prize.

When the man went back to the store on Monday to claim the money, a clerk who was aware of the theft asked the man for his driver’s license and wrote down the information. The clerk called the authorities, and deputies went to arrest the man.

He was charged with retail theft and later released on $250 bail.

6th Generation Key West Resident Wins Contest

Key West, FL (AP) A sixth-generation Key West resident, who first blew a conch shell as a child, played two shells simultaneously to take top honors Saturday in the island’s 48th annual Conch Shell Blowing Contest.

Clinton Curry, 36, followed his two-toned toot with a portion of composer Aram Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance” on a single shell, earning applause from several hundred spectators. “The thing I like best about blowing the conch shell is that it helps preserve the culture of Key Westers,” Curry said. The contest drew more than 40 entrants, ranging from young children to seniors, who were judged on the quality, novelty, duration and loudness of the sounds they produced.

The top group entry and audience favorite was a self-described “Conchestra,” whose 22 members performed a conch-shell accompaniment and offbeat dance to a recording of The Village People’s “YMCA.”

The contest’s youngest entrant, 6-year-old Katie Worth of Big Pine Key, Fla., won the children’s division. The fluted, pink-lined conch shell has been blown in the Florida Keys since the early 1800s, when seafaring settlers used it as a signaling device. Native-born islanders are commonly called Conchs, and the Keys are known as the Conch Republic.