I know, I know: my first reaction was also “WHO THE FUCK CARES?” (The headline, if you’re curious, is “Hilton ‘traumatized’ over jail sentence.“)

Well, sweet jayzeus, of course she’s traumatized! She’s had the misfortune of growing up rich, famous, and priviliged. Her whole life has been consequence free, and all of that privilige handed to her on a silver platter by the simple virtue of the accident of her birth. Hell, if I were her, I’d be traumatized too.

I feel sorry for Paris Hilton. I feel sorry that her parents never installed any discipline in her, I feel sorry that they didn’t try to teach her that her inheritance doesn’t put her above the law. In addition, I feel sorry we live in a society that rewards celebrities — or, in Paris’ case, “mockulebraties” — for their bad-behavior.

Hopefully, Paris Hilton’s prison sentence will install in her a sense of civic participation that she so far seems ignorant of. Also? Hopefully it’ll start soon so the front page of every fucking newspaper will stop talking about her efforts to avoid her impending jail time. Hey, Paris - shut the fuck up and do your time like a man.

Of the people who I think of that I’d cheer when hearing about the news of their death (John Gaumer, Osama Bin Laden, Gul Dukat, etc.), the Rev. Jerry Falwell isn’t one of them. It isn’t that I agree with him, or think he’s a good person, it’s just that, frankly, he seems to be more of a comedian than anything else. I mean, it’s hard to take the fellow seriously (and yet, so many did).

Well, if there is some fundamental religious truth, he knows what it is now (maybe he can go have a pow-wow with Pat Robertson) — if there is a God or there isn’t, if eternity is spent six-feet down or sixty-miles above, he’s got all the answers.

Have you ever seen the movie “Bad Boys“? Remember the scene where our hero cops get in a bad way in a convenience store? The clerk thinks they’re the bad-guys, and the situation seems hopeless, until they get the upper hand. My favorite line of the whole movie has to be Martin Lawrence’s “…and some skittles!” But it’s one of those things you have to see for yourself to appreciate.

If I could only have one candy for the rest of my life, just one brand, just one candy to enjoy for the rest of my life, it wouldn’t be Tootsie Pops or M&Ms or Reeces-Peeces (Pieces?) or Kit-Kat Bars. Fuck that shit, I’m all about the Skittles.

A man caught removing tires from a truck has been charged with stealing the tractor-trailer containing $250,000 worth of Skittles, police said.

Seven pallets of the 28 in the truck are still missing, authorities said. Alan Chavez, 22, has been charged with first-degree felony theft. It was unclear Monday whether he had a lawyer.

Chavez said he had paid someone else $500 for the truck’s rims and tires, police said. The truck has an estimated value of $85,000, and the trailer’s value is $30,000.

My Mad Math Skills inform me that $250k divided by 28 pallets means that the amount of the missing pallets totals sixty-two grand (give or take a few hundred bucks). So, what I gotta say is, “Who cares about the damn truck? Where’re the damn Skittles? You can’t taste the fuckin’ rainbow if it’s been fuckin’ stolen, now can you?!”

I like sleeping in a bed of $62.5k worth of Skittles and having sex with hot prostitutes who accept payment in Skittles.

(I’m serious about that - major spoilers. You might not want to read any farther…)

(more…)

Yesterday I happened to be listening to the Ed Norris show on the radio while taking a couple of deliveries. A caller spoke about having to use his phone while driving, and the most frequent complaint he got from the people he was talking to: “I hate when you talk on your phone while driving, because I feel you aren’t paying attention to me.” His response: “Of course I’m not paying attention to you — I’m driving!!!!”

I don’t much like talking on my cell phone when driving. I don’t have a hands-free-set for it, so I wind up setting it on speaker and placing it in the coin-holder. I can’t hold it because, well, I drive a stick, and that alone requires the use of two hands. I suppose I could try holding my cell phone with my penis (or steering with my penis, for that matter), but, nah.

So the news that Washington State banned text-messaging while driving made my clap my hands in joy. It’s one of those laws that I hate to see, because it is indeed confirmation that our nation is so blind to common sense that we have to have legislation take its place.

Hang up or pay up: Using your hands to talk on the phone or tap out a text message while behind the wheel of a car will be illegal next year.

Gov. Chris Gregoire signed the measures into law Friday, flanked by children who suffered serious injuries after being hit by distracted drivers.

Under the new laws, drivers who read and compose text messages or talk on a cell phone without a hands-free device could face a $101 ticket. The text-messaging ban takes effect Jan. 1; the cell-phone law will be enforced starting in July 2008.

Drivers are exempt in some situations, including emergencies, and neither offense will be enough to get a driver pulled over by the police.

But parents of children injured in collisions with such drivers said the new laws are still a major improvement.

Cindy Baker-Williams and her son Billy were among those who stood by as Gregoire signed the bills. Billy, 12, suffered a brain injury four years ago while walking to the school bus. Witnesses to the crash said the driver was talking on a cell phone at the time, Baker-Williams said.

“It’s a very emotional time,” she said. “Behind this bill, we see faces of people in our community who hopefully will never have to go through a pedestrian-car accident.”

Billy Williams, who was in a coma for nearly a month and suffered injuries to his brain’s speech centers, now helps his mom keep an eye out for distracted drivers.

“Every single time I see a person on a cell phone, I say ‘A person on a cell phone!’ I just, like, scream it out,” he said Friday.

I don’t care how good a driver you think you are — when you’re behind the wheel of a car, you’re behind the wheel of a massively heavy plastic and steel contraption which, if not properly controlled, is capable of killing you, your passengers, or anyone else unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity when you lose control. There is absolutely no excuse for anyone to be doing anything other than concentrating on driving while operating a motor vehicle, and I wish more people would wake up and smell the motor oil on this concern of mine.

I like people who take safe driving seriously!