PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. — Police charged a Pennsylvania man with public drunkenness after he was seen trying to resuscitate a long-dead opossum along a highway northeast of Pittsburgh. State police said several witnesses saw a 55-year-old man near the animal, refuting earlier reports it was Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.
One witness reported the man kneeling before the animal and gesturing as though he were conducting a seance. Another saw him attempting to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Police said the animal had been dead for quite a while.
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Police in Michigan released a copy of a 911 call where a suspected drunken driver chats with an emergency dispatcher for 20 minutes before she is pulled over and arrested.
At the onset of the phone call the dispatcher asks, “Are you intoxicated?”
The woman replied, “Absolutely.”
The dispatcher pleads with the woman to pull over; she tells him she “shouldn’t be driving.”
The woman was issued a citation for operating while intoxicated and faces up to 90 days in jail. Fortunately she has an unlimited minutes calling plan and does not have to pay overage minutes the time spent speaking with police.
KINGSPORT, Tenn. — A man who has been charged with making a naked dash through a Tennessee supermarket told police he was “bored and didn’t have anything else to do.” The Kingsport Times-News reports that a man entered an IGA store Friday night and–wearing nothing but a face mask–ran around the aisles. He had neither pants or coupons.
Officers found the suspect in the bathroom of a nearby Hardee’s restaurant, which he entered wearing nothing but an orange hooded sweat shirt. Rather than a sandwich he asked if anyone could lend him clothes. An employee gave him a pair of athletic shorts but no extra fries.
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — Who doesn’t want to be a millionaire? A 43-year-old unemployed bachelor who lives with his elderly mother in Russia–and who won $1 million for solving a problem that has stumped mathematicians for a century. Which begs the question: When is someone so smart he’s dumb?
Grigory Perelman won the Millennium Prize awarded by the Clay Mathematics Institute of Cambridge, Mass. and, after thinking about it, refused the award money.
Perelman, a recluse, is as famous for his math genius as for his refusal to accept awards for mathematical brilliance. He has a history of refusing big prizes; in 2006 Perelman made headlines when he was due at a ceremony in Madrid to receive a Fields Medal, often called the Nobel prize of mathematics. He never showed. He stayed home in St. Petersburg instead.
Perelman has been without work for four years and has declined all job offers. He previously worked at the Steklov Mathematics Institute. When he left, I wonder if he took extra pencils.
Former Philadelphia Phillies baseball star Lenny “Nails” Dykstra is selling investment advice for $999 a year. Dykstra is not a registered financial advisor but he does have opinions. Nails filed for bankruptcy last July to stave off more than 20 lawsuits against him for entrepreneurial ventures gone bad. In November a bankruptcy judge denied Dykstra the right to reorganize his debts, converting his case to a chapter 7 liquidation. Nail is, however, now open for business. A free signed baseball for every new customer.
And lastly…somewhere near a kitchen in Japan, computer hardware engineer Toshio Yamamoto is celebrating 15 years of tasting and cataloging all the Japanese ramen (instant noodles) he can find. He archives all ingredients, rates the noodles for texture and flavor, tracks prices, and issues each its own ramen noodle “star rating.” In case you’re jealous and want in on the action, you better get busy. There’s a lot of ramen out there. Yamamoto has eaten over 4,300 different varieties and used to eat ramen for breakfast seven days a week but has recently dialed back to five. For his sake, I hope he’s discovered Dunkin’ Donuts.
Have a good weekend. It’s perfect for a random act of kindness.