Oh No She Didn't!!!

Woman Burns Down Friend’s House For Defriending Her on Facebook

One day, years from now, Jennifer Christine Harris will scroll back to this week on her Facebook Timeline and regret everything she sees. (She'll also be, like, "I still don't get the point of Facebook Timeline. The interface is so confusing and the pictures are way too big!") The Des Moines native was arrested for having allegedly set fire to the home of Nikki Rasmussen, an old friend, while Nikki and her husband Jim were fast asleep. The person Jim instantly suspected was Harris, with whom his wife was having an ongoing dispute. It had played out on the pages of Facebook.

A police report says that when an officer asked Nikki Rasmussen about Jen Harris, Rasmussen said "… the two are no longer friends due to a dispute over Facebook. According to Nikki, Jen is angry with her because she ended their friendship on Facebook."

It's not as simple as just that. Were that it was! But, like Facebook itself, this story gets way too complicated and bogged down in the everyday minutia of narcissistic and profoundly lonely people with way too much time on their hands:

"Things were posted on Facebook," [Detective Jack ] Kamerick said. "Jen asked Nikki to create an event on Facebook for a party. Nikki did that. As the date for the party approached "there were a lot of ‘declines,' on Facebook, the detective said. It was looking like the party might be a bust. The dispute apparently blossomed. So when the garage went up in flames, Harris became the first name that occurred to the victims.

Luckily, the couple emerged unscathed. This had the potential of being the deadliest social-media-invite-related act of vengeance since The Great Evite Christmas Party "Maybe" Massacre of '03! And as for Harris, she is currently being held in Polk County Jail on $100,000 bond. It's probably not the poke she was hoping for. [desmoinesregister.com via The Daily What, Mugshot via Polk County Jail]

With all of the bad news in the world, it's nice to read such a refreshingly INANE story. Seriously? This sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit. How are you going to justify setting someone's house on fire simply because they 'defriended' (made up word, awesome) you on "The Book"? Could you even imagine what this broad would have done in retaliation for a serious, legitimate offense? 

Something tells me a mental health evaluation is going to be ordered as this case progresses and Ms. Harris will fail horribly. With behavior like this, it's no wonder that people weren't accepting e-vites to her stupid party. They were probably concerned for their safety. (Also, she probably asked Ms. Rasmussen to sent out the invite because had it come from her she already knew what the responses would say).

I wonder if Ms. Harris will be barred from Facebook now? If not and you happen to accept a friend request from her, just remember what might happen if you change your mind. Make sure your homeowner's insurance is up to date!

-KC Jones

Big Ran Note:  Two things:

1.  Imagine if Left Eye Lopes had been defriended by Andre Rison?  Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.  She burned down his house way before facebook.

2.  Cue the music...


Talking Heads - Burning down the house by Dan_of_the_Land

Friday Mutha F*ckin' Jam

Please Bieber, don't hurt 'em!  I told you, I'm on the Bieber Bandwagon.  I'm with Biebs!

It's Friday!  Throw 'em up, throw 'em up, throw 'em up!

-Big Ran

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Takeover Mailbag

OK, so we got an e-mail from a reader that I think strikes a chord with a lot of people: 

One of my coworkers eats carrots every day. He is at least 10 feet away from me - I'm in my office and he is in his. The sound of his crunching is so loud and unbelievably distracting to me. Like nails on a chalkboard. I feel I need to address it, but have no idea how. 


I can totally understand this.  One of my friends from a previous job had this problem.  Initially, she thought she just hated the sounds of people eating, but then she narrowed it down to being disgusted by people she didn't like when they were eating.  For example, we were friends, so I could eat something loud like an apple next to her and she didn't have a problem.  However, if someone she didn't like was eating something near her, she would be on the verge of throwing up.


I feel this way a lot too.  If there is someone I don't like, everything they do will piss me off, but if someone is a friend, even mildly annoying things will get a pass.  So, my advice would depend on how you generally feel about this person.  If you generally like them and you get along, you could just say something to the effect of: "Hey, I know this is going to sound crazy, but for some reason, the sound of people eating drives me nuts.  Again, I know this is crazy, but do you think you could close your door or warn me when you are going to eat something crunchy?"  If a friend were to say that to me, I really wouldn't mind and would just make fun of them for it, but would close my door or go somewhere else to eat my carrots.  PS:  this dude must have night vision if he is eating this many carrots everyday.


However, if you don't like them, that's another story and will depend on your office culture.  Personally, I am a dick, so I would totally start doing passive aggressive things.  For example, whenever they start crushing carrots, you could start playing music really loudly in your office, or slam your door shut.Now, I know you can't do this all the time, or in every office, so that makes it tougher.


You could always bring a loud food in and when this dude starts eating carrots in his office, you go in there and bust open some Sun Chips and just shovel them into your mouth while you talk to him, maybe grossing him out a little but.  Fight fire with fire.


-Big Ran

Catching Up...So Biebs Knocked This B!tch Up?

I don't know all the details, so has this kid been born yet or what?  Honestly, I don't care.  Here's my theory on this though:  No way is it Bieber's kid.  Look at this chick.  Biebs could pull any tween tail from his concerts that he wanted (plus their moms too), so why would he choose this thing?  Also, she was yapping about how it only lasted 30 seconds.  Dude, he's like 12 years old, that's what happens.

So, I guess I'm on Team Bieber.  Never thought I would say that.  I guess I'll have to grow some floppy hair and start listening to his music.  I'll start slow by putting my haircut off to next week and adding a Bieber station to Pandora.

  

-Big Ran

KC's notes: Big Ran, I'm kind of disappointed---I was expecting to see the below clip somewhere in this post! You know JB is praying for this outcome....otherwise, awesome post---we've missed you and clearly my motivation to blog was with you in South America...but, we're BAAAA-AAACK!


-Big Ran Note:  Damn, I totally screwed up, this was the clip to post.  This is one of my favorites of all time too.  This is why we need two bloggers.  Checks and balances.

Enough of These Mutha F*ckin' People on these Mutha F*ckin' Planes!

OK dudes, I'm back.  I was just on a business trip where I was in 9 countries and on 15 flights in 17 days.  Let me tell you something: regardless of the country or region of the world, people are f*cking stupid.  I should have written down all the bizarre things people do on planes and could have pretty much written a book by now.

My first flight of the trip was heading to Sao Paulo, Brazil.  I paid the extra $75 to sit in the first row of the section, not have anyone sitting in front of me and have extra leg room.  The flight was like 12 hours and overnight, so I figured it would definitely be worth it.  The plane was one of the 2-3-2 set ups in terms of seats across the cabin.  Again, this was an overnight flight, and most people were trying to sleep, so all the window shades were closed.  I was sitting in the window seat next to an older Asian man and his wife was to his right in the middle section.  At one point, I dart awake in the middle of the night because someone had thrown open the window shade and the sunlight shot right into my grill.  When I come to, the older Asian woman was leaning over me, opening the window.  Are you f*cking kidding me?  Is this real life?  On what planet is this acceptable behavior?  If I had an Asian Granny fetish and wanted a lap dance, I would find a club on my own, I don't need that type of action on a plane.

Now, granted, I am completely jaded by the flying experience.  I fly about 20 times a year, so everyone's idiosyncrasies just annoy the sh!t out of me.  I am also the douche bag that gets visibly irritated when I am watching a movie and the flight attendants make an announcement.  I don't give a sh!t that you will be taking duty free catalog orders, especially when you make the announcement in three different languages, pausing my movie for 10 minutes.  DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?

Anyway, I digress.  What always pushes me to the point of screaming, "Everybody strap in.  I'm about to open some f*cking windows," is when as soon as the plane pulls up to the gate and stops, every f*cking person on the plane unbuckles their seat belts and bolts for their luggage in the overhead compartments.  WHERE THE F*CK DO YOU THINK YOUR GOING?  If you want to stand nut-to-butt with people for 10 minutes before they finally open the door, be my guest, but don't touch me or push me out of the way to do it.  When the line finally does start to move, these jack asses don't let you out of your own row.  We live in a society people, let the people in font of you out first.  I just get really aggressive and cut some a$$hole off that wasn't going to let me go, get my bag from the overhead and let EVERYONE in the rows in front of me out first out of spite.  I'M AN AMERICAN, LET ME SHOW YOU THE WAY!

Anyway, I'm glad to be back.  I should have plenty of irrational and marginally entertaining posts for you.

-Big Ran

PS:  This is how I take my coffee too:

Cock-a-Doodle-Doo!

Cockfighting Raid in California Uncovers Children Living in sheds, $1M Meth Stash

LOS ANGELES –  Sheriff's deputies serving a search warrant at a cockfighting operation near Los Angeles found children as young as four living in squalid sheds and a methamphetamine stash worth $1 million.

Authorities also recovered 100 roosters and several firearms during the raid at the site in Antelope Valley, Calif., the Los Angeles Times reported.

Police arrested six adults on suspicion of narcotics violations.

The seven children, aged between four and 17 years, were turned over to child welfare officials.

Read more

I wasn't planning on blogging tonight, but then I stumbled upon this. When I first saw the headline, I thought I had accidentally logged onto "TheOnion.com", not "FoxNews.com". I double-checked and saw that I was indeed on the Fox News website and naturally had to open the link.

How could this be? Calfornia? Had it just been a meth stash uncovered,  I would have believed it. Had it been dog-fighting, I could have believed it. Had sheds not been mentioned, I could have believed it. But with cockfighting and children living in sheds, I would have said West Virginia, Arkansas, or one of those other 'odd' states. How could ALL three of these things happen in any one place, especially in Los Angeles!? I know it's a major city with typical issues; drugs, poverty, violence, joblessness, etc, but roosters? Cockfighting? And kids in sheds? This just doesn't make any sense to me. Did the kids think that the roosters were just their pets? Also, who was on meth? The adults, kids, or even better, the roosters? I have a very active imagination, and this story just set it off!

As I read further and noticed that the actual site of the raid was a place called "Antelope Valley", it started to make a little more sense. So, with that being said, I'd like to ask all news sources to be more specific when reporting the "where" at the beginning of a story. Antelope Valley  (read more about it  by clicking here!) is probably as similar to Los Angeles as Pittsfield, MA (the boonies, Western Massachusetts!) is to Boston!

On a side note, any time I hear about cockfighting (it's infrequent, but every time it DOES come up), I remember the episode of Seinfeld where Kramer has a 'pet' rooster involved in a cockfighting ring. Hilarious. Almost as hilarious as my mental image of what was going on in Antelope Valley. I know Big Ran will remember this and agree with me.

-KC Jones

The Boston Red Frauds

Yup, keep smiling, dickheads.

Look at these three jerk offs.  You're looking at three of the major reasons the 2011 Red Sox imploded.  I'm not going to go into all of the details of the Globe story about the epic collapse, so I'll just hit a few of the highlights.

First of all, it is so amazingly clear, that someone from upper management or ownership of the Red Sox fed the Globe all this information, that I am frankly, disgusted.  The Globe is owned by The New York Times, which is a part owner of the Red Sox.  Yeah, that doesn't seem shady at all, does it?  That's like GM owning NBC or Westinghouse owning CBS.  You think those news outlets will ever let management of those companies look bad?  Yeah, me neither.  Seeing as how the article made the players and Terry Francona look awful, so I'm thinking I smell a management rat.

Secondly, the stories about Beckett, Lackey, Lester, and Buchholz crushing beers and fried chicken in the club house during games?  Friggin' priceless.  Beckett is an overpaid diva that isn't consistent enough to be called an ace and is amazingly high maintenance.  Lackey is just awful in every way.  The best thing that ever happened to his wife was him filing for divorce.  Lester is a major disappointment here.  He referred to Francona as a "second father," so I sure hope he feels like crap over what happened.  I just think Buchholz is dumb and would do anything an older player told him to do like they were a cool kid in high school.  Way to stay in shape as a professional athlete and support your teammates.

The part that really chapped my ass was the fact that someone fed The Globe stories about Francona being separated from his wife all season, abusing pain killers, and how that affected his job.  I call total bullshit on that.  Today, Francona acknowledged that he and his wife are separated and were for the entire season.  So, I guess that his separation from his wife affected him for the first 12 games of the season and the last month, but not the four months in the middle of the season when they were the best team in baseball.  Not sure about that logic.

Francona also addressed the pain killer topic.  He said that he was given pain killers due to a recent knee surgery and took them to deal with the pain of having blood being drained from his knee five times during the season.  He also said that one of his kids came across the pills and asked him about them, so Francona went to the team doctor to see if it was still OK for him to be taking them.  The doctor said absolutely.  So, as I have said before, I am a huge Tito Francona supporter, so to keep it simple, here's what I say to whoever was feeding these tories to The Globe:  Eat sh!t and die.

I guess we just wait for the Red Sox smear campsign of Theo Epstein next week.

Tito is my homeboy.

-Big Ran

Irrational Rant....Who's Your Daddy?

Tori Spelling has been on my mind ever since I heard about her giving birth to her third pony, oops, I mean child. This is an irrational rant, but most people probably despise this broad as much as I do. Try as I might, I cannot find ANYTHING redeeming about her. From her horse-like features, to her emaciated body (allegedly because you're 'stressed'), to her home-wrecking tendencies that resulted in her current marriage to the BIGGEST TOOL in the chest, to her HORRIFIC INABILITY to act & everything in between, I just need to vent. I also wanted to let her know that on the next "World Population Day", she's going to be on my chopping blog...oops, I mean block! (Get it? Yup, I'm awesome)....

She should thank the Lord God each night that she is Aaron Spelling's daughter, or else she'd most likely be working at Forever 21 right now, trying to save money for her next cosmetic procedure.She was horrible as Violet Ann Bickerstaff, atrocious as Donna Martin, and even more offensive in her biggest role as a human being (or barnyard animal--the DNA test results haven't been revealed yet). I don't know about you, but even though I get sucked into trashy reality TV, I can proudly say that I've NEVER seen her show and NEVER will (except when it's been mocked ruthlessly on "The Soup").

I hope Big Ran already ate breakfast! At least the bump takes away from the bump growing out of her neck.

When breast augmentation goes horribly wrong...again, on the positive side, at least this takes away from her face!

"Donna Martin Graduates!" I guess that's what happens when you're daddy is the creator of the show.... Good thing is that after serving his time lip-locking on screen with Mrs. Ed, Brian Austin Green ended up with Megan Fox....

As Violet Anne Bickerstaff, Screech's love interest in "Saved by the Bell"...no coincidence her father was a producer/writer for this show as well, right? Sadly, this was probably when she was at her best! P.S.- Hey Brian Austin Green, I guess this means you've made out with Dustin Diamond as well--contact the CDC!!

There are so many other things I could say, but the pictures speak 1000 words, and I think they really drive the point home, so that is all...

-KC Jones

They Like Us, They REALLY Like Us, Part 2

I'm going to be honest, I read Christine's e-mail like four times, then read KC's post another couple of times before I realized that Christine actually designed an phone app.  So, first, that kind of blew my mind.  Let's put it this way, I use twitter just to creep on people and don't check the ol' facebook that often, so the fact that Christine designed her own app makes her approximately 870% more likely to make a respectable living than I am.

With that said, whatever helps people out is good in my book and that will be something slightly different for everyone.

For me, I can get pretty competitive and love doing things out of spite.  For example, if someone tells me they don't think I can do something, then forget it, I will make it happen.  Not so much to improve myself or do something positive, but so that I will force you to be wrong and look like a schmuck.  I've got problems.  Last year, our company had an employee fitness challenge.  Four of us from our office joined because we planned on crushing people.  I didn't really care that I would be working out more and in better shape, I wanted to win, and I wanted to make other teams feel bad about themselves in the process.  I have the mind set of a professional athlete with none of the ability, so at least I have that going for me.

So, Christine, I would say what you are doing sounds great because it will certainly work for a certain sect of people.  Ultimately, if it helps people achieve goals, it is a success. 

 

-Big Ran

PS:  If you get rich off this app, can I holler at you?  Can I holla, can I holla, can I holla?

P.P.S. With Big Ran's comment, "For me, I can get pretty competitive and love doing things out of spite.", I know that there is NOTHING else I can offer. See why we've been friends for so long? It's simply out of spite since I told him we wouldn't be!

Tuesday Trivia...

Straw Poll.......

I've heard this phrase so many times in regards to politics, but I have no idea what it means or where it comes from. I always mean to research it, but then something more interesting (like watching paint dry), comes up.

However, I feel that I owe it to myself, and more importantly, to Big Ran & our "Takeover" readers to shed some light on this mystery. I also owe it to our blog readers to get back to some of our regularly scheduled posts, such as "Tuesday Trivia"....so, here we go!

See below for Wikipedia's definition and explanation (because we all know Wikipee is ALWAYS the most reliable source!)


A straw poll or straw vote is a vote with nonbinding results. Straw polls provide dialogue among movements within large groups, reflecting trends like organization and motivation.^[1][2] In meetings subject to rules of order, impromptu straw polls often are taken to see if there is enough support for an idea to devote more meeting time to it, and (when not a secret ballot) for the attendees to see who is on which side of a question. 

However, Robert's Rules of Order prohibits straw polls, calling them "meaningless and dilatory" because they subvert the deliberative charge of deliberative bodies.^[3] Among political bodies, straw polls often are scheduled for events at which many people interested in the polling question can be expected to vote. Sometimes polls conducted without ordinary voting controls in place (i.e., on an honor system, such as in online polls) are also called "straw polls".

The idiom may allude to a straw (thin plant stalk) held up to see in what direction the wind blows, in this case, the wind of group opinion.^[4][5][6] Other possible origins include allusion to the insignificance of straw as in "straw man".^[7]



So basically, it is nothing more than a creatively named survey....which is huge waste of time in reality. Clearly these are useless as an August 'straw poll' for the 2012 Republican Primary showed Michele Bachman winning.  Hmmmm...now, I'm not a fan of Obama, but I can say that if that looney tune winning were a real possibility , I'd be out campaigning for him right now!

Ok, so now that that great mystery has been solved, I'm going to get back to some slightly more interesting things....like staring around my gray cube walls.

-KC Jones