Man Robs Restaurant Cashier; The Cashier Just Kinda Shrugs

In this image from a security camera, the guy in the blue
sweatshirt is robbing Jimmy John's employee Tuker Murray,
who seemed vaguely annoyed durng the whole episode. 

Tuker Murray has to be the most relaxed person in the world.

He's an assistant manager at a Jimmy John's restaurant in Kansas City, Missouri.

A few days ago, a guy came in to rob the place. The whole thing was caught on a security camera, which you can see at the bottom of this post.

The robber, after first pretending to order food, produces a gun and shoves it into Murray's face.

I love Murray's body language. Not this again!

He was wearing gloves food preparers use to prevent the spread of germs, and then this guy comes in:

As Buzzfeed News describes it:

"Murray took his damn time pulling off his gloves, slowly opening the cash register, and looking like he doesn't get paid nearly enough for this crap.

Murray told Buzzfeed News he 'did not get the feeling' the robber wouldn't actually shoot, so he wasn't scared - but he was pissed off."

In other words, Murray was just annoyed by the whole thing.

(Another manager, partly visible at the beginning of the video, went to another room and called police.)

The next day, police arrested Terry K Rayford, 54, and charged him with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Other charges are very, very likely pending.  Authorities say Rayford was on parole at the time of the Jimmy John's robbery and had several felony convictions for first degree armed robbery.

Murray told TMZ: "I was actually surprised when the detective told me that he had done like 12 other robberies and been to jail before, 'cause it was amateur hour."

After the robbery and the police left, Murray stayed at the restaurant to continue his shift.

Here's the video of a very chill Murray during the robbery:

Wacko Anti-Semitic Politician Scams Voters Who Hate Anti-Semites

Thomas Lopez-Pierre, a whack job running for New York
City Council, set up a fraudulent GoFundMe page
to raise money for his campaign

I have to agree with the New York Post: For an anti-Semite, Thomas Lopez-Pierre has a ton of chutzpah.

This idiot is running for New York City council. He doesn't have the slightest chance of winning, given he's running on a platform that calls for stopping "greedy Jewish landlord" from committing "ethnic cleansing" against blacks. 
 
Told you Lopez-Pierre is a whack job.

This guy is a Democrat. To nobody's surprise, Jewish groups and others are working to get Lopez-Pierre kicked out of the party.

A GoFundMe page called "Stop Thomas Lopez-Pierre Hate Campaign" popped up. According to the New York Post said the GoFundMe page raised $5,781.

Here's the chutzpah part. Says the New York Post:

"But anyone who donated hoping to actually stop Lopez-Pierre is going to be sorely disappointed. - because the page was created by the candidate himself to scam money from his foes.

'I call it bait and switch,' Lopez-Pierre actually bragged to The Post."

Yes, he's right. It's bait and switch all right. I wonder if he can also be brought up on fraud charges

On his campaign page, the candidate says he's a Christian "saved by God's grace."

Asked by CBS New York whether "grace should keep you from lying in such a flagrant way," he responded, "I'm a sinner."

He's right on that count, too.
 
Lopez-Pierre said he's going to use the money he fraudulently raised via GoFundMe for marketing expenses in his campaign.

Maybe not so fast. GoFundMe says it's frozen the account while it investigates, so this dude might not ever get the money.

As if anyone is going to vote for him.

Lopez-Pierre is trying to win a primary election for a seat in upper Manhattan.  An incumbent named Mark Levine, who happens to be Jewish, is extremely likely to win the seat.

Wild Boars Enlist Selves In War Against Terror

Wild boars like this one stampeded and killed 3 ISIS militants

I know terrorism and ISIS is not a laughing matter, given how many thousands of people these militants have killed.  

However, I can't resist a little sense of satisfaction about what happened to three ISIS fighters in Iraq recently.

The militants were hiding in some bushes, planning another ambush, when a herd of wild boars stampeded through, killing the three militants. 

The militants had executed a couple dozen people trying to flee the area, so these three militants got what they deserved.

This is an awful thing to say, but I hope their deaths by stampede was painful and terrifying.

Locals said the militants probably disturbed the notoriously short-tempered boars while they were setting up their attack.

I Could Get Rich Selling Muddy My Muddy Filthy Jeans Like Nordstorm's

You could buy these jeans covered with fake mud from
Nordstrom's for $425 a pair, but why would you want to?

One of my johs is a gardener, and I get right into the work.

By the end of the day, my jeans, or Carhartts, or shorts, or t-shirts are caked and mud, dirt and sweat.

You wouldn't think that's so attractive. Or stylish.

However, I learned today that Norstrom's is selling something called the Barracuda Straight Leg Jeans for a whopping $425 a pair.

What makes these jeans so special? They've covered in fake mud, or what Nordstrom calls "caked-on muddy coating," which makes the jeans look like you spent the day in a mud pit or something.

According to NBC26, Nordstrom says the jeans "embody rugged, Americana workwear that's seen some hard working action," and that when worn, the show "you're not afraid to get down and dirty."

Sorry, but I can assure you anyone who spends $425 on a pair of jeans has never worked in the dirt a day in his or her life. It would ruin the $1,000 manicure.

Surprise! Pretty much everybody, including me, is totally mocking these jeans.

However, some of the criticism is overwrought.

Says NBC26: "When he discovered the product this week, 'Dirty Jobs' host Mike Rowe posted about them on his website, saying the Nordstorm jeans were proof of 'our country's war on work.'

'They're a costume for wealthy people who see work as ironic - not iconic.....Jeans made to look like you work hard so you don't have to.'"

Rowe is right that the few rich idiots who would buy these jeans are trying to be ironic. But they're also stupid.

However, in my experience, it's rare to see people mock workers who do manual labor. Who genuinely get dirty to get the job done right. Who make people's homes, businesses and such look and be perfect. Or as close to that as a human can muster.

I have both an office job and an outdoor gardening job. Whe people see the gardening work I do they are impressed with it. They sometimes note my dirty clothes, but in an admiring way. That I got into my work. That I wasn't afraid to tackle the task at hand.

I think Rowe has too little faith in Americans' admiration of hard physical work, despite Nordstrom's stupid jeans out there.

Then there's the question of who would actually wear these jeans. I agree with the Daily Beast when the said this:

"Who is Nordstrom's target market for them? You would not wear the mud jeans in the city, because you would look ridiculous, and people would edge away from you. You would not wear them in the country, because people would kow you were a total fake. In both places, you would look like an ass."

I know this is all a media stunt. Nobody is going to actually buy these $425 mud jeans. Nordstrom's is just trying to get their name out there, and I'm as complicit as the next guy in this endeavor.

I also noticed since I started working on this piece, ads for these Nordstrom mud jeans are following me around the web. As if I'm going to buy these stupid things

In any event, I'm always looking for ways to make more money. I think I can outsell Nordstrom by offering a bargain.

I'll wear jeans or Carhartts or something while I'm doing particularly strenuous and dirty garden work. Then I'll sell those pants to some rich fool for the low, low price of, say $300 a pair.

A big buzzword in advertising these days is authenticity, and what could be more authentic than my own Carhartts covered in good old Vermont mud and dirt?

True, they can't put these clothes in the washer, because they'll get clean.

But rich people have disposable income, so they can dispose of the jeans when they get done with them. Or they can give them back to me so I can use them again. Then, these rich fools can just buy another pair of muddy pants from me for their next night on the town at some fashionable, swinging hot spot in Manhattan or wherever.

Any takers among you fakers?

This Awesome Worm Eats The Scourge Of The Earth: Plastic Bags. Seriously!

Will it be waxworms to the rescue in the war against
those awful plastic grocery bags?

The latest thing on environmentalists' hit list is all those plastic bags you take home from the grocery store or wherever.

They don't break down easily. They get caught in the wind and hang themselves up in trees and wires and such and look horrible. They waste space in landfills.

A lot of local and some state goverments have either banned or are considering banning these bags. It's the lateset environmental movement du jour.

Even if we stopped providing all those plastic bags tomorrow, what about the zillions of them that already exist? What do we do with them?

One answer: Wax worms.

Bear with me on this one.

According to Atlas Obscura, scientists have tried to get bacteria and fungus to break down these plastics, and they can, but the process is painfully slow. So slow that it's not worth the effort.

However, was worms are awesome. Says Atlas Obscura: 

"Frederica Bertocchini, a biologist at the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology in Spain, noticed wax works had managed to eat their way through the plastic bags they were kept in. While other organisms can take weeks or months to break down even the smallest amount of plastic, the wax worm can get through more - in a far shorter period of time. 

The researchers let 100 wax worms chow down on a plastic grocery bag, and after just 12 hours, they'd eaten about 4 percent of the bag, according to findings publishes Monday in the journal Current Biology. 

That may not sound like much, but that's a vast improvement over fungi, which weren't able to break down a noticeable amount of polyetheylene after six months."

The theory is that if you get a HUGE crowd of wax worms working together, they can make real progress in the plastic bag wars.

By the way, the worms aren't just good chewers. They break down the plastic into ethylene glycol, which you can use to make polyester or antifreeze.

Great. Maybe the wax worms an also produce ways to keep your car running when it's 30 below, or create tacky 1970s-style fashion.

Awesome!

Pentatonix Made Me Cry Today (In A Good Way)

A Pentatonix cover of "Can't Help Fallin In Love" has me
thinking of my late dad, my marriage and how well things have
worked out. An essay in this post. 

I totally admit I'm a Pentatonix fan boy, having posted a few entries into this blog thingy about them and their a capella music.

Today, Pentatonix made me cry a bit.

Because I'm a sentimental fool.

Pentatonix dropped a new video today. It's their rendition of "Can't Help Falling In Love."  You can see and hear the video at the bottom of this post.

Zillions of people have performed this song.  Perhaps Elvis Presley is the most famous example.

"Can't Help Falling In Love" was one of our wedding songs when me and Jeff got married. As I like to tell anyone, my wedding was by far the best one I've ever attended. (Duh!) And I'll always remember like it was yesterday that moment when they sang "Can't Help Falling In Love" at our wedding.

So yeah, I've got an attachment to that song, to say the least.

I think it's interesting that Pentatonix released this video today on what would have been my father's 97th birthday.

Dad died a year and a half ago.  But here's the thing. Dad always worried about me. Would I do OK? I had some rough times as a kid. Would I slip back into trouble? Would anybody be there for me if I needed someone?  Would someone catch me if I fell?

There was a very noticeable change in how my father regarded me after I connected with Jeff, and after he met Jeff.

Dad still loved me as much as ever. But I could tell dad had stopped worrying about me.  Because I had Jeff. Jeff would protect me. Jeff and I would protect each other. Everything would be OK. And it is.

When I watch the video of my wedding, there's a great moment before the ceremony started. My dad was already seated, and Jeff's dad came in.  You can hear my dad loudly and warmly greeting Jeff's dad by saying, "I saved a seat for you."

Jeff's dad and my dad instantly connected and bonded. They were fast friends.

Jeff's dad is now gone, too. I like to think that my dad and Jeff's dad met up again somewhere in the afterlife, and they're having a great time. And neither of them is worried about us because Jeff and I are doing just fine.

And here I am on a routine day when nothing special is going on, and I'm getting teary-eyed over Pentatonix singing "Can't Help Falling In Love."

It's 5:15 in the afternoon as I write this. I can hear Jeff snoring softly as he takes an afternoon nap. The dogs are curled up with him, just quiet and happy. I'm trying to summon the energy to go out and work in the garden, a garden that both Jeff and I love and are building together.

Everything is OK. I can't help falling in love with Jeff every day.

Dad was right, as always. I'm OK. I guess I'm writing this because I miss my dad on his birthday. But everything is OK. Dad and Jeff made sure of that.

So watch the video below and if there's anybody in your life that you love, and makes everything alright, hug them and tell them everything is OK.

Oops. Looks Like This Ferry Operator Didn't See That Wall There

The smushed up bow of a large ferry that crashed into a
wall in the Canary Islands in the past week.

Here's one way to come ashore. Or one way to have a bad day. To make it worse, it was all caught on video.

According to local media in the Canary Islands, the ferry with 140 people on board slammed into a wall recently in those Canary Island.

Luckily only minor injuries have been reported.

The captain of the ferry lost control of the ship very soon after leaving port, on his way to Tenerife because the ferry's electrical system broke down big time. You can see the video at the bottom of this post.

It looks like the pier suffered quite a bit of damage. The ferry isn't too bad off, but the bow is battered.

Here's the video. It looks like he's intentionall ramming the wall, but he's not. The ferry was just out of control.