Up: Who hasn’t made that mistake?: Reuters reported this week that two burglars in central Florida were arrested for, amongst other things, breaking into a Silver Springs Shores home and stealing two urns filled with the ashes of a man and two dogs. Then, mistaking them for cocaine or heroin, the two men proceeded to snort some of the ashes before realizing their error. According to police, the burglars considered returning the ashes once they discovered that they were human remains, not drugs, but instead decided to throw the urns into a lake. A few thoughts:

1: As these thieves clearly understand, the average person usually keeps heroin or cocaine in a non-descript container above their living room mantle. I also bury a 22-inch serrated knife in the candy dish, and routinely keep weapons grade Plutonium on the spice rack (next to the cumen!)

2: Who creamates a dog?

3: How much did they have to snort before they realized it wasn’t cocaine? I once snorted 164 ounces of crushed red pepper in the hopes that it was heroin, and went on a 3-day bender in Juarez, Mexico. I killed four people and ate a live donkey. Whole. That’s only partially true.

4: You can’t argue with their logic, though. If I thought my neighbors were keeping drugs / candy in an urn, I would burgle the shit out of them.

5: I sort of appreciate that they considered returning the ashes, but in the end, “actually, let’s huck this into a lake” has to win out over returning to the scene of the crime. That’s basic thievery 101, people.

Down: This too: DAMN IT, Sven Koppler, you stole my small business idea. Accordng to Reuters Koppler, a German national, was arrested and charged with smuggling for sending 247 Mexican Red-Kneed tarantulas through the mail. Under international law, Koppler could serve a maximum of twenty years in jail for the crime, which I found mind-boggling until I considered the fact that if one of the packages were accidentally sent to my address, and I opened my mail to find hundreds of tarantulas, I would shit my pants and be pretty upset with Koppler. This all falls under the “Please Don’t Scare Ryan Peters” provisions of international trade law.

Two things: First, “The Mexican Red-Kneed Tarantula” was my amatuer wrestling name, so I’ll be suing for copyright infringement. My patented moves involved gluing red broom straw to my body and biting my opponent. Second, this is eerily similar to my attempts to mail live otters via Fed-Ex to otter-depleted countries. Turns out no one likes otters.

What?

Up: It’s the Headline of the Week!: This comes from US News & World Report: “Where To Keep Your Important Financial Records.” The article went on to say:

“You should put all your important financial documents–including tax stubs, bank records, your Social Security number and your ATM pin number–in a large manilla envelope with a big dollar sign or the words “Cha-Ching!” written across the front in marker. Be sure to place the envelope in a secure place, like underneath a giant pile of scrap paper on your desk, or between the pages of your favorite section of last week’s newspaper. Then, carefully close your eyes and plug your ears with your fingers, and count to 1000. TA-DAAAA!”

Down: Good thing nobody uses water for anything! Or, wait.: A new report from an environmental watch group this week suggests unsafe levels of a carcinogen –hexavalent chromium — in the tap water of as many was 31 U.S. cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia, and some major suburbs of Washington. The carcinogen is the same one that was the subject of the 2000 film Erin Brochovich, which is good because I personally have Julia Roberts pre-taste all of my consummables for traces of poison and/or human pee.

Fortunately for me, I only drink grain alcohol with all of my meals. But the rest of you are fucked.