IRVINE A man is dead — and his wife and son injured — after his daughter’s ex-boyfriend allegedly took the family hostage for five hours beginning late Friday, police said. — OCRegister.com That’s the second murder in town in the last two weeks! PACK YOUR BAGS HONEY! WE’RE MOVING TO SANTA ANA! Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Murder
I Got a Passport
I got my first passport yesterday. I can go anywhere! The world is my oyster! Although I really don’t like to travel . . . Some people get annoyed with me when I say that, including members of my own family. It doesn’t make sense to them. My mom, for example, has been to like 30 countries. Maybe 50, I can’t keep track. For me, I start out thinking I’d be happier somewhere else but after I’ve spent all the time and money to get there, I realize I’m still the same person with the same problems I had at home. Not to mention the possibility of being drugged, robbed and killed, or hit by a tsunami. I’m not saying there’s nothing positive about travel. It’s just not worth the investment . . . Read more →
To Live and Die in Irvine
IRVINE – A group of solemn people sat around tables at a fast-food Chinese restaurant off Jeffrey Road on Wednesday night after a man was shot and killed while sitting in a white Lexus parked behind the eatery. — OCRegister.com At least he died in a nice car. It’s Irvine, Jake! This happened a stone’s throw from my house. Well, more than a stone’s throw but let’s say a hard 5-iron with a good bounce off Trabuco Road. I’ve been to that Chinese restaurant many times. (It’s a dine-in restaurant, not a fast-food place, despite what the Register says.) Don’t worry about me though. Irvine is still the safest city in the country. That guy must have gotten himself mixed up in some kind of trouble . . . Read more →
Another Reason I Like to Just Stay Home
Bat Out of Hell
And I ran up the stairs to my parents’ bedroom Mommy and Daddy was sleeping in the moonlight Slowly I opened the door, creeping in the shadows Right up to the foot of their bed I raised the guitar high above my head And just as I was about to bring the guitar Crashing down upon the center of the bed, My father woke up, screaming “Stop! Wait a minute! Stop it boy! What do ya think you’re doin’? That’s no way to treat an expensive musical instrument!” “God Dammit Daddy! You know I love you, But you got a hell of a lot to learn about Rock ‘n Roll” — Meat Loaf, “Wasted Youth” Read more →
With Friends Like That . . .
Ouch! What did he do to people he didn’t like? Read more →
Another Reason I Like to Just Stay Home
That was Then, This is Now
Oct 3, 1995 Oct 3, 2008 Read more →
What Do They Do to the Unpopular Professors?
Never Wait in Buffet Lines Again
We went to Souplantation for dinner tonight. I was really hungry but when we got there, there was already a line of people at the salad bar. I hate when that happens. Let me tell you what I did: I grabbed a tray and came in swinging, cracked a few people in the cranium, then finished them off with a serrated-edge knife from the silverware station. It’s a crude plan, but let me tell you why it works: the element of surprise. No one goes to Souplantation expecting to be knocked over the head and stabbed . . . Read more →
Responses to Tragedy
Dinesh DiSouza, a noted conservative pundit, was moved in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings to say this: Only the language of religion seems appropriate to the magnitude of tragedy. Only God seems to have the power to heal hearts in such circumstances. . . . Atheism seems to have nothing to say to people when there is serious bereavement or tragedy. That’s not true. For example, one famous atheist response to tragedy is this: So it goes. DiSouza also forgot to add that if you leave out platitudes, pleasant myths and happily-ever-after fairy tales, religion has nothing to say to people either . . . Read more →
What to Do If You’re Confronted With a Gun-Wielding Madman
Slate has some advice. Here’s how it’s done at USC. Fight On! Read more →
A Well-Regulated Militia
“People don’t stop killers,” writes the Instapundit. “People with guns do.” The idea is that if one of the Virginia Tech students had had a gun with him, he could have come to the rescue like Dick Dauntless, and shot the Korean. Well that’s true. But what if 300 students had guns, and they were all on the look-out for a student with a gun? I’m failing to see the genius of this plan, though no doubt I’ve overlooked something obvious. — Harry Hutton I wish I’d thought of that. I was just going to say that if you base public policy decisions on extreme, unrepresentative events, you may wind up with a cure that’s worse than the disease . . . Read more →
Some People Should Be Allowed to Work at Their Own Pace
Speaking of motivation, today’s Orange County Register has a story about a guy who really knows — or knew — how to light a fire under his employees. According to the story, Woo Sung Park, a landscaping supervisor, told day laborer Ernesto Avalos that he, Avalos, was not pulling his weight on the job. The pep talk so energized Mr. Avalos that he beat Mr. Park to death with a shovel and a pickax. This happened right here in Irvine! Tragically, one of my rich neighbors is now two men short on his beautification project . . . Read more →
Why I Don’t Own a Hatchet or a Gun
I’m in the processing of converting all the old content here into WordPress, which among other things, lets me assign categories to each item. I filed one item, principally about a woman who ran over her husband with a car, under several categories, including Murder and Kids. My son, who’s sitting next to me on the sofa doing homework, says, “You’re posting stuff about murdering kids?!” I say, “No, it’s about murdering husbands.” “You’re posting stuff about kids murdering husbands?!” “No, it’s about wives murdering husbands, which happens a lot, unfortunately.” “It would happen around here if Mom had a hatchet or a gun.” “That’s exactly why we don’t have those things.” Read more →
Great Moments in Parenting
Here’s a father-son moment I hope to avoid — telling a jury what a good boy he was during the penalty phase of his murder trial. Read more →
My Fantasy Football League Fantasy
My workplace is teeming with idiots who know more about some steroid-amped freak and how many yards he ran with a ball in his hands than they do about their own family members and whatever babysitter is raising their kids for them. Kee-rist! I wish I could go back in time and strangle them all in their cradles . . . Read more →
Antifreeze
A New Jersey woman recently pleaded not guilty to murdering her brother-in-law by serving him a blended cocktail of pineapple juice, maraschino cherries, and several ounces of antifreeze. Interesting fact: Although antifreeze is toxic, it actually tastes pretty good, making it an ideal choice for knocking off spouses and boyfriends. Read more →
A Perfect Murder
DURHAM, N.C. — A jury convicted novelist Michael Peterson Friday of bludgeoning his wife of five years in the stairwell of their Durham mansion. — CourtTV.com, “Novelist convicted of first-degree murder in wife’s staircase death” Peterson says his wife fell down the stairs. Coincidentally, another female friend of Peterson’s was found dead at the bottom of a staicase in 1985 . . . Read more →
If You Can’t Stand the Heat
LOS ANGELES — Murderess Vidilia Spragin, who is dying of cancer and won “compassionate release” after 20 years in prison, wants to be buried in a plot alongside the husband she killed in 1982. She was convicted of setting Mr. Spragin on fire. Read more →