nitroglycol

This site has evolved into a place to post stuff that doesn't fit the theme of my main blog. Over there you'll find the more serious examination of current events; crime, entertainment, and the offbeat and weird stories that are hard to classify go here. Think of it as the "Life" section of the paper. There are also occasional posts about my own life; these are friends only. If you want to read these and don't have an LJ account, just sign up for a dummy one and leave a comment here to be put on my list (assuming, of course, that I know who you are and don't hate you).

What's worse than an extremely strong person, who can survive being hit by multiple vehicles, who has serious mental health issues and violent tendencies?

How about two of them:



Astonishingly, both survived. According to this the one that got hit by the 44 tonne semi spent several weeks in hospital; meanwhile her sister suffered only minor injuries. She did, however, get jailed for a day for assault, and then released... whereupon she killed somebody.

I do hope this is handled properly, by the way. As with Vince Li, it certainly sounds like she belongs in a hospital rather than a prison.

Edited to add: There's a lot more detail about them here. It seems they were living normal, sane lives, one in Ireland and the other in the US, until they reunited after many years apart, leading to the events above. Noteworthy too is the following quote from Garry Hollinshead, brother of the unfortunate chap who got killed:


At the risk of sounding insensitive, I think Tim McLean's mum could learn a thing or two from this guy.

OK, helicopters are really cool. They do have their quirks, though:


Disturbingly, this can happen with real choppers as well.

Slightly over three hours ago I posted this, and in that time I've had over 30 hits (more than I'd had in the previous week). I think the tawdry nature of the subject matter had something to do with it (though to be fair, a couple of the hits were drawn to this one instead). But nearly every other hit came from a search engine looking for "manitoba judge pics" or some similar set of words. I guess I should be happy that people are reading my blog... though it remains to be seen if any of them will become regulars.

In the course of my daily research of the news (environmental stories for work, and political, economic, and other serious news for here) I come across unusual stories fairly often. Here's a couple that caught my attention.

Firstly, any sports fan knows the feeling of disappointment when someone on your favourite team makes a really bad play. Maybe you've had the fleeting feeling that "that guy ought to be hanged for that!" Well, it looks like Pakistani cricket fans might have a chance of seeing that happen for real:


Source, my bold. Seems a bit excessive, but hey.

Next, consider this:

Naked photographs of a senior Manitoba judge engaged in bondage are part of a man's complaints to legal watchdogs about the judge's past and that of her husband, CBC News has learned.

A formal complaint was filed in July with the Canadian Judicial Council against Lori Douglas, associate chief justice of Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench (family division). Another complaint has been lodged with Manitoba's Law Society against Douglas's husband, Jack King, 64, a Winnipeg family lawyer.

The complainant, computer specialist Alexander Chapman, 44, alleges that King harassed him in 2003 by pressing him to have sex with Douglas, who was a lawyer at the time.

Over several weeks, Chapman said King showed him about 30 sexually explicit photos of Douglas, showing her naked in various forms of bondage, in chains, with sex toys and performing oral sex.

Source. Ouch.

Edited to add: Now that Douglas has had to step down from the bench, I've decided to tackle the issue on my serious blog.

Edited again to add: Checking my SiteMeter stats on the other blog, it seems someone found my blog by searching for "lori douglas photos" within minutes of my post. And no, I don't have the photos...

The idea is that it's full of sensors that detect potentially hazardous traffic and warn the operator. How well does it work? Well, let's see...


Thanks to swgprop in this iTulip thread for this one.

Over at my other blog I made reference to Barbara Ehrenreich's look at the modern obsession with "positive thinking", especially (but not exclusively) in the US. This being a more lighthearted site, I figure I'll give you Dave Chappelle's take on it instead:



Thanks to chr5648 in this iTulip thread for the link.

Not a huge lot to report right now. Nonetheless, a few things are worthy of note. For instance, yesterday, en route back from a meeting with atomicat I saw the following vehicle:



It's a Ford Frontenac. This car looks like it's been taken care of very well indeed. Except for what looks like a tiny bit of rust on the door, it looks as beautiful as it did when it rolled off the line. Which is to say, it's hideous; that makes its preservation more interesting.

Next I stopped by at my place and ditched the camera. Big mistake -- on my way to B & J's I saw a car with a Pedobear decal on a side window. It was in the LC parking lot in the West End, so there was no question of biking back home and getting the camera. Stuff like this makes me wish I had a little point and shoot in addition to the SLR; you never know when a worthwhile picture will appear.

Is it better to be loved or feared? Neko Case seems to lean towards the second:



Source.