Citizen Scandal: Black Widow Spider Found In Grapes

A woman in Seattle was recently surprised to find a black widow spider—the deadliest of American arachnids—at the bottom of a Costco container of California grapes. “I got to the bottom of it and all of a sudden…a spider came out! When I went online, it told me what it was—a black widow spider in my house.”

If the story sounds familiar, that’s because cases of spiders found nestled among California grapes have been growing more prevalent as farmers increasingly use the eight-legged freaks instead of pesticides to keep insects off of crops. “Some place in the U.S., almost every day of the year, somebody finds a black widow in a package of California grapes,” says spider expert Rod Crawford. Like those odds, organic produce fans?

The good news is that, despite their potential lethality, no one has actually died from a Black Widow bite in America since 1960. Those who would rather not encounter a venomous visitor from Cali should keep an eye out for suspicious webs when purchasing the fruit. Make sure you wash your produce in warm water—spider webs are poisonous, too!

This post was not brought to you by the grape industry.

Last September, 44-year-old Canadian stripper Kimberlee Ouwroulis filed a lawsuit, claiming that she had been wrongly fired from the New Locomotion club in Stouffville, Ontario. Two months later, the case has become an internet sensation, with Fox News asking its legal panel whether her claims of age discrimination had any merit. We smell a TV movie coming!

In an interview with the National Post, Ouwroulis says she only began stripping four years ago. “It is unusual to start the business brand-new at age of 40. It really worked for me, because I enjoyed it, and maintained a great attitude.” Ouwroulis is looking for $100,000 in damages, claiming that she made up to $8,000 a month at the club. She’s now working at another club, but—as far as has been reported—her case is still pending.

On Friday, A man in Lincoln, Nebraska was sentenced to a little over a month in jail for throwing an axe at another motorist. While it is unclear who cut in front of who last June, it has been established that the defendant then picked up a 3-foot axe and hurled it into the other driver’s open window. Thankfully, it was the blunt end of the instrument that struck the unsuspecting victim in the chest.

But as one rager is put behind bars, another is born on the street. A man in Port Orchard, Washington was arrested Friday for hurling a wrench at a motorist—and this time their window was closed. Witnesses report that the rager was speeding and weaving when he threw the wrench, shattering the window and hitting the driver in the shoulder. Police have been unable to discern why the wrench was deployed, but we’re guessing it’s because some people are jerks who won’t get out of his way.

These could be seen as isolated incidents, but it’s also possible that with fuel prices rising to the point that some commuters run the risk of spending more on gas in a day than they make at work, road rage will rise until rush hour looks like a scene from Death Race 2000. Consider yourself warned!

Thanks to the internet, anyone can go from chairbound and dateless to musclebound and shameless. Take David Pollard, whose three year marriage to Amy Taylor came to an end when she caught her hubby watching his avatar have sex with another avatar on Second Life. Said Taylor,

I caught him cuddling a woman on a sofa in the game. It looked really affectionate. He turned off the computer monitor and I turned it back on and demanded to look at his chat history. But he turned off the computer so the history was all deleted and I ended up going off in floods of tears.

He confessed he’d been talking to this player for one or two weeks, and said our marriage was over and he didn’t love me any more.

Taylor was first concerned when she caught Pollard’s avatar bumping virtual uglies with an online prostitute. “People find love in lots of different ways,” she said. “Ours was a very serious marriage. It may have started online but it existed entirely in the real world and it hurts just as much now it is over.” Taylor, who met Pollard in a chat room in 2003, now claims she’s met another man on Worlds Of Warcraft. Play on, players!

Carol Elliott, incumbent treasurer of Grafton County, New Hampshire, does not lose gracefully. After 20-year-old Dartmouth student Vanessa Sievers beat Elliott by 200 votes last week, the older woman—who served for three terms—did not wish the co-ed well. “It was the brainwashed college kids that made the difference,” said Elliott. “You’ve got a teenybopper for a treasurer. I’m concerned for the citizens of Grafton County.”

Sievers, the “teenybopper” in question, is the former treasurer for the Dartmouth College Democrats and a member of the college’s Undergraduate Finance Committee, with bookkeeping and investment experience. The end of the two-year part-time position coincides with Sievers’ planned graduation, and she plans to stay in town year-round to fulfill her position’s obligations—which are signing checks, receiving the town’s money and putting it in low-risk investments. Thrilling, no?

Don’t be a sore loser, Elliott! You should support young people getting involved in local politics. Just make sure you start a Facebook club if you run again in 2010.

[Photo: Dartmouth Staff]

Rev. Ed Young of the Fellowship Church in Dallas thinks the world would be a better place if people had sex a lot more often—married people, at least. “With the current financial crises, moral debates on marriage, growing divorce rates, and rampant marital infidelity, marriages and families are under siege; there is a lot of whining going on,” says Young. “We want married people to see their bedroom for what it is - a magnet of stability, something that draws them away from the dangerous pull of lust that derails so many couples.”

To remind the lawfully wedded that they can enjoy guilt-free rutting under the eyes of the Lord, Young is calling for “Seven Days Of Sex,” starting Nov. 16th. Married believers, including Young and his wife Lisa, will do their damndest to get freaknasty for seven straight days. “We want to turn whining to whoopie!…We want couples to intentionally walk, even run, toward the marriage bed and away from sin city. By experiencing a sexual relationship the way God intended it, we hope couples will begin to see things with greater clarity.” Funny, we always heard too much sex makes your eyes go fuzzy.

And yes, there is a toilet on the stage in that video clip. Young’s sermon last Sunday (”Leaving Lust Vegas”) had him comparing extramarital sex to drinking toilet water. Having a crapper on stage made perfect sense.

The family that drinks together annoys police together. When 24-year-old Kelli Thompson of Indiana was arrested early Saturday morning for DUI, Lake County Police called her husband, Robert Dereamer, to pick up their 1-year-old child. When Robert The Reamer arrived at the scene, he was visibly intoxicated and promptly arrested.

The cops then called the grandparents, who—surprise!—were also drunk. Luckily, Grammy wasn’t over legal limit, allowing police to escort the elders home. Maybe the family could put a “sober nanny” schedule on the fridge…or just make mom drink at home. Enjoy those genes, kid.

[Photo: Ebaums World]

Metal detectors, we get. See-through backpacks, too. Dress codes? Understood. But banning ice? Is this really necessary? All frozen water has been removed from the Titusville High School cafeteria in Florida after a group of students threw ice at each other. Jeez, you’d think they were stabbing each other with icicles or something.

“There isn’t a need for ice,” said principal Lori Spinner. “We’ve had a few incidents, and they result in messes in the buildings and the potential for students to slip on the floor.” You know, Ms. Spinner, the same criticisms could be applied to water—that’s what the kids are actually slipping on, you know—and any other food or liquid. Not only are you denying teenagers cool beverages, you’re giving ice a bad rap.

There, now you’re even.

[Photo: WireImage]

A group of Mexican scientists were chilling in the lab, making diamonds by diluting ethanol in water and using “pulsed liquid injection chemical vapor deposition techniques” (obviously). Eventually, a discovery was made. The percentages of ethanol and water used were similar to the ratio found in tequila.

“To dissipate any doubts, one morning on the way to the lab I bought a pocket-size bottle of cheap white tequila and we did some tests,” said Luis Miguel Apátiga. “We were in doubt over whether the great amount of chemicals present in tequila, other than water and ethanol, would contaminate or obstruct the process, it turned out to be not so. The results were amazing, same as with the ethanol and water compound, we obtained almost spherical shaped diamonds of nanometric size. There is no doubt; tequila has the exact proportion of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms necessary to form diamonds.”

• Hear that, dudes? Forget that “two-months salary” bullshit. We can make diamonds for our ladies using tequila. Check out the easy three-step process below.

(more…)

They’ve been saying it for centuries, but Massachusetts sure knows how to party. First they legalized gay marriage—leading to a boom in tourist dollars and massive benefits for the wedding industry. Now they’ve decriminalized marijuana, which should inspire a drastic increase in the number of out-of-state college applicants.

While possession is still illegal after yesterday’s passing of Question 2, those caught with less than an ounce of the sticky-icky will only have to pay a fine of one hundred dollars and give up the grass (they will not receive a criminal record). Underage enthusiasts will be fined $1,000, do some community service and receive counseling. Despite opposition from state politicans, the initiative passed 65% to 35%. Again, Massachusetts sure knows how to party.