It's not easy being a drug cop.
You're constantly dealing with characters who can be less savory than mud pie. And then you discover that some of these people have vast amounts of money.
Who amongst us would not, therefore, in the midst of a raid on a suspected drug dealer's house, avail himself of the suspect's loot? Consider, for instance, the suspect's Wii.
In some highly entertaining footage from WFLA Tampa, cops appear to have been caught red-fingered by a security camera they missed in the home of Michael Difalco, an alleged drug dealer who was already in custody.
The footage shows these Polk County officers getting frightfully excited. One chap, on finding what he claims to be a bag of meth, performs a celebration that might normally only be seen in a late night bar after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have actually won a game.
However, the real joy seems to have been delivered by a little Wii bowling, conveniently displayed on Difalco's rather expansive television.
One male officer is so consumed with glii after he knocks down some virtual pins that he looks like Kevin James celebrating the fact that he's met a girl who finds him attractive. It could not be described as either rhythmic or aesthetically appealing.
One lady drugbuster is cataloging evidence, but is overcome by her need to Wii several times.
Naturally, this footage has caused a few people to be somewhat bowled over. Defense attorney Rick Escobar, for example, seems to believe that the officers violated the terms of the search warrant.
However, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, while acknowledging that the bowling was not good behavior, told WFLA: "We executed that search warrant appropriately from a legal sense."
You might be wondering how it is that the officers didn't realize they might be being filmed. Well, apparently, Difalco had a security camera that looked like a speaker. It was hooked up to a computer.
And the police didn't, for some peculiar, no doubt un-Wii-related reason, seize the computer.
One can hardly wait for the case to come to trial. Drugbusters by 20 is my betting line.
Sex is wasted on the young. Or was that youth? I can't quite remember.
In any case, the youth of the United Kingdom seem to be so keen on unprotected sex that local health authorities are offering various tech gadgets as incentives for STD testing.
According to the Daily Mail, medical professionals believe that 10 percent of those between the ages of 16 and 24 in the U.K. have chlamydia, a nasty bacterial infection that appears to be spreading faster than foreclosures.
The big problem with chlamydia is that it doesn't generally come with sores, cankers, or pain. This means that sufferers can carry it for many years entirely undetected.
Local health authorities are therefore attempting to bribe callow youths into their clinics in order to be tested.
And what better way to bribe them than with gadgets?
If you commit to an inspection in Camden, North London, you could win an iPod.
In Northamptonshire, your prize could be a Nintendo Wii.
Whereas in Nottinghamshire, they really feel the need to offer something more meaningful to counteract the after-effects of a night of meaningless sex. Yes, you could be the proud owner of a Fujitsu laptop.
If caught early, chlamydia can be treated with a relatively straightforward course of antibiotics. However, if it is allowed to take up long-term residence, it can lead to infertility and other problems.
Of course, any number of tech incentives cannot substitute for something rather more simple--a little education.
"Unless you change primary behavior and you teach the young that the only safe sex you can have is with someone you know well enough to trust, then treatment is just a sticking plaster solution," Dr. Trevor Stammers, a spokesman for the Family Education Trust told the Mail.
Still, it's heartening to know that iPods and Wiis are doing their little bit to help young Brits not pay too high a price for their undisciplined ways. I blame the colonial heritage.
I know Wii remotes have already been used to control coil guns and extremely unsettling black widow spiders, but now you can actually have fun mowing the lawn.
A group of highly domesticated scientists at the University of Southern Denmark decided the world needed to be spared from the pain of shortening grass until the next unseasonal downpour. So they created a lawn mower controlled by a Wii remote.
They've called it Casmobot. And just when I thought this name might have an allusion to something vaguely Viking, I was disabused by the explanation that the "Casmo" part stands for Computer Assisted Slope Mowing.
The design is quite simple. The Wiimote is connected by a little Bluetooth to a computer and a bunch of robotics in the machine.
Depending on how much fun you want to have, you can either keep tilting your Wiimote to direct the mower or you can just guide it around the perimeter of an area and it will automatically cut all the grass inside.
... Read moreHow do you measure your own happiness?
These are, apparently, Howdy gadget cases. Might these make you feel happier about your gadget?
(Credit: CC Yvonne (bijoux and crafts))Do you gauge the tingly feeling in your fingers? Or perhaps the slightly giddy sensation just above your belly button? Do you wait until you cry before you know you are really happy? Or do you merely wait until you are drunk?
I only ask because something called the Gadget Helpline surveyed 2,500 of its most helpless customers and discovered that the Nintendo Wii is the electronic device they would most like to marry.
OK, so the actual measure was this nebulous concept called "happiness."
Naturally, the Gadget Helpline cobbled this survey together in order to gain a little publicity. And it makes me excruciatingly giddy in the pit of my digestive system to help them with this.
Now for the more substantive point. Did people say it was their Wii that made them happiest because this is the gadget that gave them the most social pleasure? With the Wii, you are often playing with someone. Any joy experienced, therefore, is often shared. You can talk about your rasping forehand afterward in the pub. Or in the clinic. Or, for that matter, bed.
While the second-place Apple iPod is a fine device, the people who might share it with you are those on the 7:30 train who might not appreciate your fondness for the Stranglers.
In case you were wondering, placing third on the happy-gadget survey was Apple's very singular iPhone 3G, while fourth place went to the still-sociable Microsoft Xbox.
So I would like you to go home this weekend and really think very, very deeply about which gadgets make you the happiest and why.
You see, in the survey, ninth place was enjoyed by the TomTom 930 Satellite Navigation System. How can a navigation system ever make people happy? Unless those people were a post-nuclear holocaust Lewis and Clark.
So, here it is. All members of your target sex have been destroyed. Somehow, all the world's gadgets have survived. Which one would you marry?
How closely does your Mii resemble the real you?
I ask only because it seems that police in Japan decided to dispense with the services of a sketch artist--who knows, perhaps he was too temperamental--and used a Wii to create their own impression of a man they wanted to question.
The Mii feature on Nintendo's Wii video game console allows you to create your own avatarish persona on games such as Wii Sports. So the wise policemen in the Kanegawa prefecture apparently decided they could swiftly create a Mii of a man who may have been involved in a hit-and-run road accident.
There is no word whether the residents of Kanegawa are rushing around their neighborhoods, brandishing this supposed likeness of a young man with long brown hair, glasses, and Heidi Klum's cheekbones. And there is no word that this avatar has been re-created on many thousands of Kanegawa Wiis and is trouncing untold numbers of Roger Federer look-alikes.
But it's lovely to think that such frivolous games are now being used in the serious cause of truth and justice on the Miin Streets of Kanegawa.
Laptop-related repetitive-strain digit injuries have nothing on this.
It appears that the latest technology that is maiming society is the wonderfully engaging Wii.
Yes, the medical profession is adopting the brace position in expectation of Wii-aggravated knees, elbows, backs, fingers, and thumbs this holiday season. All fueled by humanity's obsessive need to gift and conquer.
Deep-thinking medicos at Leeds Teaching Hospital in the U.K. have already identified a condition they call "Wii knees."
And doctors from all over the Kingdom have claimed they are recognizing injuries that they themselves have sustained in an effort to keep up with their children, their illicit lovers, or their vast, eternal Wiigos.
It seems to me that before considering whether there might be a possibility of sustaining a wee touch of Wii knee, players this holiday season should first consider whether, before beginning to play their 12-year-olds, they are not already legless.
I am more inclined to believe that an excess of fizzy liquid might be the cause of most supposedly Wii-related sprains, rather than actual excessive physical exertion.
So remember, don't drink and drive. Don't drink and serve. And, most definitely, do not even contemplate drinking and volleying.
You know I'm only saying this because I care.
What is it about the holiday season that makes retailers emit polls like burps at the company party?
I have just been assaulted by a profoundly scientific effort, stimulated by cashback.co.uk, the "site that pays you to shop." (which seems less of a point of difference now than in other holiday seasons, as every retailer seems only too delighted to pay you to shop this year.)
I have not been able to find out just who the respondents were, but can only assume they were among the folks who earn $10 every time they introduce a friend to the cashback.co.uk family.
Whoever they were, they were united in their belief that the iPod would have been the chosen gift of the Three Wise Men. A spokesperson for the site told The Daily Telegraph: "The iPod has really taken the world by storm and is an ideal present for anyone of any age." Well, for anyone of the 150 million or so who doesn't already have one, perhaps.
Still, as humanity teeters on the curb of Destruction Drive, wondering whether to step into the middle of the road in order to be struck lifeless by reality, one really does wonder just what resides in these respondents' minds.
Because the second-best Christmas gift ever is, apparently, diamond earrings. The third is the quite indefatigably entertaining Wii. While the iPhone 3G languishes in some considerable pain and disillusionment at No 38.
What might these wise and thoughtful respondents have possibly imagined could be better than an iPhone 3G?
Well, at No. 30 they chose a Grease DVD. Which some might find a little "Travolting." Especially as No. 31 was a boxed set of 24.
But this travesty of intelligence and sensitivity is trumped into nanosignificance by the choice, at No. 18, of slippers.
Most will not be surprised that Barbie, having shaken off some difficult associations with Pamela Anderson and the spouses of certain politicians, stood rock solid at No. 10. However, the presence of pajamas at No. 33 might leave some wanting to disappear beneath their comforters until the End of Days.
And will anyone not feel involuntary spasms when discovering that following closely on the clasps of choice number 4--Tiffany earrings--is the gift that says "I love you" without the "I'd bankrupt myself for you"--a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates?
In case you still had lingering doubts that the respondents to this survey might have been either imbibing considerable amounts of Baileys Irish Cream Liqueur (yes, No. 23) or the bored inhabitants of an institution for those of indeterminate mind, might I direct you to No. 34?
Yes, four places above one of the most dazzling phones ever created, was that essential, exciting, heartfelt, 34th best Christmas gift ever--a bottle of de-icer.
All is not lost, though. The iPhone was 3 places above the Footspa.
A survey of 3000 pet owners has revealed that tech gadgets are proving hazardous to their pets' health.
No, this seems to be nothing to do with dangerous rays being projected from their electronics. Rather, it seems that our dogs, cats, and, goodness, guinea pigs, haven't quite got used to the rapid proliferation of domestic electronic playthings. Neither, apparently, have reptiles and birds.
For a reason that remains slightly unclear, iPods are, apparently, most likely to injure cats. I am not sure if this is because the cats are slipping the headphones into their ears and turning up the volume too loud. Or because their paws still haven't got the hang of the random shuffle.
However, Apple's wonderful invention comes top of the survey's "gadget most likely to injure pets" league table. 15% of respondents appear to have cited their iPod in pet accidents. While around 10% cited the laptops, remote controls, Plasma TVs and Wiis.
Perhaps the most moving example of pet pain is the story of Pugsley, the Jack Russell cross who cannot resist jumping at dogs that are displayed in the supremely realistic HD of his owner's Plasma.
His owner, Jemma Scott, appears to be so inconsiderate of Pugsley's instincts and feelings that she leaves her Playstation wired up to her TV. Naturally, Pugsley, having failed to make sniffing contact with the projected pooch, then bounces off the screen and gets entangled in the Playstation wires.
With a grim and repeated inevitability, the Playstation then falls on Pugsley's head.
This is clearly a huge and growing problem in our already troubled society. Which is why I am delighted to have discovered that pets can now have their own technological playthings.
Take the PetsCell, for example. Yes, a waterproof cellphone that attaches just under your dog's slobbery parts. The dog has its own number and you can call him whenever you like. To call him back to your side, or just to ask him how he is.
While only 5.8% of the survey's respondents actually said that their own cellphones caused injury to their pets (they swallowed them? they cut their paws on the keyboards?), you may be disturbed that the same number admitted that their pets had been hurt by their karaoke machine.
However, in the midst of all this anguish, you may also want to pause to consider who sponsored this fascinating pet gadget injury survey.
It was a company called Petplan.
You will be stunned to discover that Petplan sells insurance policies for pets.
Let's create our own survey here. How many of your gadgets have caused injury to your pets? Please be honest, now. Even those of you who are secret salamander owners and have a karaoke machine.
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