A GOOD MAILMAN

October 28, 2009 at 6:17 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Monday morning the letter carrier is riding through the neighborhood on his usual route, delivering the mail. As he approaches one of the homes he noticed that both cars were still in the driveway. His wonder was cut short by Derek, the homeowner, coming out with a load of empty beer and liquor bottles for the recycling bin.

‘Wow Derek, looks like you guys had one hell of a party last night,’ the mailman comments.

Derek, in obvious pain, replies ‘Actually we had it Saturday night. This is the first I have felt like moving since 4:00 am Sunday morning. We had about fifteen couples from around the neighborhood over for some weekend fun and it got a bit wild. We all got so drunk around midnight that we started playing WHO AM I.’

The mailman thinks a moment and says, ‘How do you play WHO AM I?’

‘Well, all the guys go in the bedroom and we come out one at a time with a sheet covering us, with only our ‘family jewels’ showing through a hole in the sheet. Then the women try to guess who it is.’

The mailman laughs and says, ‘Sounds like fun. I’m sorry I missed that.’

‘Probably a good thing you did,’ Derek responded. ‘Your name came up seven times….

THE NEWS

Appeals court upholds 4060-year sentence: “A Texas state appeals court has affirmed the 4060-year prison sentence given to a US man last year for sexually abusing three teenage girls. The Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth issued its opinion regarding the 43 guilty verdicts and unprecedented prison sentence for James Kevin Pope of Springtown, Texas. Pope, 44, was convicted by a Parker County jury in July last year on 40 counts of sexual assault of a child and three counts of sexual performance of a child. “It is my understanding that the defendant will be appealing [against] this ruling to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, our state’s highest criminal appellate court,” Assistant District Attorney Eddy Lewallen said. Mr Lewallen added that a review by that court “is at their discretion except in death penalty cases”. “They will typically grant review in situations where there is a novel legal issue, a difference of opinion between the courts of appeals on a particular issue, or when there is a dissenting opinion on the particular case, which there was not in Mr Pope’s appeal.” Pope will not be eligible for parole until 3209, Parker County authorities have said. The 4060-year penalty – almost 1.5 million days – has been called the longest stacked sentence handed down in Texas history. Jurors took about three hours to convict Pope on the 43 charges. The jury gave 100 years for each sexual assault conviction and 20 years for each sexual performance conviction.”

NJ: Jersey City woman [above] accused of watching TV after break-in: “The Jersey City woman who police say broke into a home and then began watching TV early Saturday morning made her first appearance in court today, but her bail couldn’t be set because she has prior criminal charges pending. Crystal Kelly, 30, had been out on $20,000 bail on charges of receiving stolen property, having a fake auto insurance card and hindering apprehension. At 1:40 a.m. Saturday, police were called to the Danforth Avenue home and found Kelly, of Gautier Avenue, walking down the steps as the 56-year-old resident and his wife told officers she had broken in and attacked them, police said. The husband, who had scratch marks on his chest and bruises on his face, told police his 16-year-old heard someone in the house and when he went downstairs he found Kelly sitting in the living room watching television. When he took hold of Kelly’s wrist to put her out she attacked him, grabbing objects and striking him in the head with them, reports said. His wife was also attacked before the family was able to get Kelly out the house, reports said. Kelly, who was sent to the Hudson County jail in Kearny, appeared in Central Judicial Processing Court on aggravated assault, burglary and criminal mischief charges.”

Asteroid smashes into atmosphere: “An asteroid exploded over Indonesia with the force of three Hiroshima bombs – and no one on Earth knew it was coming. The New Scientist website reports the dramatic explosion over South Sulawesi, Indonesia, on October 8 underscores how blind humanity is to the danger of giant space rocks. NASA estimated the explosion was the equivalent to 50,000 tons of TNT, making it one of the largest asteroid explosions ever observed. However, this time we were lucky – the blast caused no damage on the ground because it occurred at high altitude, 15 to 20km above Earth’s surface. While the explosion was heard by witnesses in Indonesia and picked up by international nuclear explosion detectors, the asteroid only became visible after it exploded. Video images of the sky following the event showed a dust trail characteristic of an exploding asteroid, according to the New Scientist. Researchers believe the asteroid was about 10 metres wide – too small for even our most powerful telescopes to spot. But Tim Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center, in the US state of Massachusetts, warns even an asteroid of this size could cause a lot of damage on the ground.”

Australia has a drunken chair driver [above] too: “Taking couch potato to a whole new level, a man has lost his licence for driving a homemade vehicle dubbed “the chair” while over the limit. Luke Hopgood’s hotted-up one-seater was pulled over by police while at racing event Geelong Cup, who subjected him to a breath test and found he was over the legal driving limit of 0.05. Cops slapped the 22-year-old with two fines totalling $1000 and suspended his right to drive in Victoria for a year, the Geelong Advertiser reports. “I was barely a few metres from the racecourse, I’d just done a U-turn to put the thing away, when I got pulled up,” Mr Hopgood said. “The cops were nice about it, but I was devastated about the fact that I didn’t know … there’s not much I can do about it now.” Mr Hopgood said he made his beloved contraption by combining a four-wheel motorbike with a run-down old chair in his spare time. He said he felt crushed after being hit with the long armchair of the law and had no idea his petrol-powered contraption, dubbed “the chair”, could be classifed as a motor vehicle under the Road Safety Act.”

Airline offers extra elbow room – for a small fee: “Canadian airline WestJet has announced plans to leave some middle seats vacant on selected flights for the sake of greater passenger comfort. The airline is planning a trial project to keep 16 to 20 middle seats empty in the front rows of its single-aisle planes and may charge a fee of at least $US20 one-way for passengers wanting to sit in those rows. It means passengers can purchase some extra stretching room without having to buy a whole extra seat. The airline plans to implement the empty seats plan on non-stop flights between Calgary and Edmonton and Hawaii next year. “This is a test from a non-stop perspective, as well as a test if this is something that is worth either a premium or just something that’s worth it as value-added for guests,” spokesman Richard Bartem said. It will make the plane lighter, saving on fuel costs.”

And don’t forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go.