Archives for February 2012

You read the title and figured, “Okay, this is it. The big dude has finally lost it.” Everyone knows that Dr. King had a dream and not a star ship. Well, “everyone” knows lots of crap that’s wrong. Although it is true that Dr. King did not actually have a star ship, he did have a dream that powered one. And that dream led to the unlikely event of television’s first ever interracial kiss. Think of it in the pinball reality of how the water wheel powered loom led directly to computers. Which is true. As is the title of today’s blog. You see, once upon a time in a movie lot far far away, Lucille Ball and her husband Desi Arnez, via their company DesiLu Studios, bought the rights to a TV show that was going to be called “Wagon Train to the Stars.” While they were trying to come up with a better name they recorded the pilot episode. It was called “The Cage” and it was rejected for being too ethereal. But, and this is where history starts to rock, there was enough good stuff there that DesiLu ordered a second pilot. That one was called “Where No Man Has Gone Before” and it aired on September 8, 1966. And thus was Star Trek born.

Star Trek featured people from several races that had never appeared on TV in strong roles before. The Chinese guy wasn’t a cook, the Russian didn’t make hats and swill vodka, the black woman wasn’t a maid and so on. But, because this was America in the early 60’s, racism was overt and cruel. And now I’m going to let Nichelle Nichols tell you why she almost quit going to work because of the diseased jerks who taunted her and how Dr. King saved Star Trek and led to her locking lips with Captain Kirk.

Nichelle Nichols’ life has moved at the kind of warp speed her “Star Trek” character Lt. Nyota Uhura took for granted.

When television writer and producer Gene Roddenberry’s “Star Trek” science fiction series debuted on NBC in 1966, the Civil Rights Movement — under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — was in high gear, fighting the injustices of racial segregation, black economic oppression and discrimination and racial violence against African Americans.

And when Nichols landed the role of communications officer Uhura on the Starship Enterprise (see dual image below of her then and now), she had no idea that this was a breakthrough role for black women.

“It didn’t hit me at the time until somebody told me,” she told The Huffington Post. “I splashed onto the TV screen at a propitious historical moment. Black people were marching all over the South. Dr. King was leading people to freedom, and here I was, in the 23rd century, fourth in command of the Enterprise.”

Nichols vividly recalls how America reacted when her Uhura character first hit the television airwaves.

“Oh, man, there were parts of the South that wouldn’t show ‘Star Trek’ because this was an African American woman in a powerful position, and she wasn’t a maid or tap dancer.”

While shooting “Star Trek” episodes in the late 1960s, Nichols didn’t feel any discrimination on the set, but felt it in other parts of the studio, especially where she wasn’t allowed to enter the studio through a particular gate where the other actors could go through.

“That’s right. There were instances where I was turned away from entering the studio at the walk-on gate, and I had to go all the way around to the front gate, sign-in and come back. A guard on the set told me I had no right being there — that they had replaced a blue-eyed blonde with me,” she remembered.

“I went through crap, man. Racism was alive and rampant there. Some people said I wasn’t good enough, saying things like, ‘I don’t know how you got this role.’ And they kept waiting for me to complain and raise hell about it, but I decided to ignore it. I never went to Gene [Roddenberry] about it.”

She even said that the show photographer was a racist. “There are more pictures of me behind somebody where you can barely see me, but they also had to take pictures of me singularly.”

Unhappy with how things were going with the show, and feeling tugged to hit the Broadway stage in New York, Nichols told Roddenberry she was leaving “Star Trek” at the end of the first season. He asked her to think about it over the weekend, during which she attended a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People fundraiser that resulted in a life-changing close encounter for her.

“When I turned around, I was looking into the face of Dr. Martin Luther King, walking toward me with a big smile on his face,” she said about the civil rights leader, who confessed to being a “Trekkie” and her biggest fan.

When Nichols informed King that she was leaving “Star Trek,” he adamantly urged her to stay. “He said, ‘Don’t you realize how important your presence, your character is? This is not a black role or a female role. You have the first nonstereotypical role on television. You have broken ground.'”

“He added, ‘Here we are marching, and there you are projecting where we’re going. You cannot leave [the show]. Don’t you understand what you mean?’ I told him that when I would go on hiatus from the show, I could come and march with him and he said, ‘No! You’re an image for us. We look on that screen and we know where we’re going.’ It was like he was saying, ‘Free at last, free at last!'”

Nichols stayed with “Star Trek,” and it’s a good thing she did — otherwise she may not have had a chance to make history again by being part of the very first televised interracial kiss, with Capt. Kirk, no less.

It happened during “Trek’s” third season in an episode called “Plato’s Stepchildren,” where Kirk and Uhura were under the telekinetic control of some aliens.

While the script called for Kirk and Uhura to kiss, there were early concerns at NBC over whether or not such a thing should be shown on television in 1968.

“It had been OK’ed, script-wise, and we went into production for that episode,” Nichols recalled. “After the first take, the director yelled ‘CUT!’ and came over, saying, ‘Bill, what are you doing? You actually kissed her!’ And Bill said, ‘Yeah, I can’t get her to let me do it any other way except that it was written in the script. So, what’s the problem?’ And the director said, ‘The South — they’ll kill us.'”

After it was decided that Nichols and Shatner would shoot the kissing scene two ways — with and without the kiss — they tried it half a dozen times, with Shatner always kissing Nichols at the end of the scene.

“Bill would say, ‘Just once more. I feel there’s an intensity that we’re not getting because (the aliens) are causing us to do it with their telekinetic powers.'”

In the end, NBC executives decided to leave it in the episode, and thus was born the famous first interracial kiss on television.

That kiss has become one of the most famous moments in television history. Even more than Uncle Milty’s early drag act. I know guys who still need to take a personal lube moment when they think about it. Star Trek truly captured the possibility of racial harmony and unity in that moment.

No, the world did not change overnight. It still hasn’t changed as much as rational people would like now. But it did change. Incrementally I admit. But suddenly people were talking about something that was, previously, relegated to tawdry barn stories or stuff the French tolerated.

It could happen here. Everyone knew that because they’d seen it on TV.

And, for one brief, shining, moment, everyone was right.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbXGsvCtVyU&w=420&h=315]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Friday morning around 9:10!

Originally published on February 14, 2011.

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Ah, Valentine’s Day. A day steeped in history and tradition. A day festooned with jewelry, chocolates and flowers. And don’t forget the mushy cards. A day when perfectly sane women will gush and swoon over a stuffed animal. A day forever associated with the disease of love. A day where men the world over, except in Japan – which I’ll get to in a bit, need heart medication and bourbon to squelch the feeling of doom that they’ve, somehow, screwed the pooch.

Again.

Yes, this is a glorious day in which we celebrate the Lupercalia. What? You have no clue what a Lupercalia is? Well, if you’re celebrating Valentine’s Day, then you’re celebrating the ancient Roman feast in honor of a heathen god. Well, “heathen” might be a bit harsh, let’s go with “nontraditional.” On these occasions, amidst a variety of ceremonies, the names of young women were placed in a box, from which they were drawn by men as chance directed. Truly a lottery worth winning. Buy a ticket, win a virgin!

Nevertheless, the pastors of the early Christian Church endeavoured to do away with the pagan element in these feasts by substituting the names of saints for those of maidens. Since the Lupercalia began near the middle of February, the pastors appear to have chosen Saint Valentine’s Day for the celebration of this new feast. Because nothing says “LOVE” like a dead, defiant, monk. Anyway, the custom of young men choosing maidens for valentines arose in this way.

Now you know.

Even though it’s been proven that, with the right life partner, it really doesn’t matter what you give, this is a holiday of ramped up expectations.

A day that was set aside to celebrate love and fertility has somehow become an excuse to shell out $36,000 on a Fendi 24-Carat Gold Python Bag. And you can’t forget the $60,000 Vacheron Constantin Quai de L’Ile watch that goes so nicely with it.

Personally, I think that love and fertility can be celebrated with a bottle of Ripple and a box of Trojans. But I have been accused, wrongfully I believe, of being unromantic.

We all know about the Western traditions for Valentine’s Day. At least the basics. Show up clean, bring something nice, pay for an expensive dinner, shut up and pretend you enjoy the chick flick. Get it right and get a prize. Get it wrong and it’s monkey spanking time.

Nuff said.

So let’s take a gander at the Eastern variant. T. Ramune, an American woman who worked in Japan, wrote a wonderfully succinct blog about it all, so I’ll share that with the class.

Valentine, Valentine, Valentine’s Day in Japan!! Did you already prepare for your special loved one on Valentine’s? Valentine’s in Japan is a little bit different than in the US. It is mega marketing in Japan. On Feb 14, consumers purchase 25% of the total annual chocolate sales in Japan.

As a young lady, I used to work for a Japanese company in Tokyo and on February 14 I would carry tons of chocolate to the office, running to each floor and giving chocolate to my boss and my male co-workers. Yes, this is the day for men in Japan, not for us women. This is called “Giri Chocolate”. The word Giri means obligation in Japanese and we jokingly use this term to indicate that giving the chocolate is something that is expected.

We of course buy chocolate for our special loved one too. This will be more expensive and very special chocolate. Japanese department stores prepare two kinds of chocolate gifts; one for Giri-chocolate and another for Honmei-Chocolate (only for a serious love). Obviously, Japanese women spend more money for Honmei-chocolate. Limited chocolate from Europe by air can cost about $200 US.

Men, if you receive chocolate from Japanese woman which cost less than $3.00, I’m sorry, that is likely Giri-chocolate and she is not so serious about you, but she meant to say thank you. (However, my husband loves this chocolate, he claims Japanese chocolate is not so sweet and has a real cocoa taste.)

For school girls, this is a more serious tradition. This is the day to tell their Honmei-person (person they have a crush on) that they like them, to confess her feelings to him with Honmei-chocolate. On Feb 14, a school boy will know how popular he is in school. Some boys carry bags of chocolate back home while unfortunate school boys go home with none. This is heaven and hell for all school boys in Japan.

To balance the gift giving, another holiday called White Day is celebrated on March, 14th. On White Day, men return the favor to women who purchased chocolate on Valentine’s Day for them. Gifts from the men can be chocolate too, but sometimes lingerie may be given. In Japan, a man may even give lingerie to a female co-worker on this day. This is not really a serious invitation, it’s just for fun. On one White Day I received two gifts of lingerie from bosses of mine. The new Christian Dior slip and panties were most appreciated. I was happy to receive them but it wasn’t personal as most women in the department received similar gifts.

In Japanese culture this exchange of gifts on Valentine’s Day and White Day smoothes relationships between coworkers and friends, giving us an entertaining break from our busy and stressful jobs.

Wanna be my Honmei Homie?

I do, however, wonder if we could spruce up company morale by handing out lingerie to the female staff members here at Nude Hippo. I know it would do wonders for the men in the office.

But that does bring us, albeit clumsily, to March 14th. Not to be outdone by the Japanese White Day, which actually does sound like fun, a God fearing, red blooded, American male came up with the perfect counterpoint to Valentine’s Day. And, like its Japanese equivalent, it’s celebrated on March 14th.

Naturally, I’m talking about (name altered to be more family friendly) farm fresh meat and fellatio day. This is a much less stressful holiday for women. All they have to do is show up naked and bring beer. I’ll cook the steak.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4r41vPTF8k]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Friday morning around 9:10!

Sometimes at the World News Center we are tasked with impossible assignments. Like the time we tried to get Ashley Lobo to go undercover in an illegal “all nude” mud wrestling ring. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, the story was quietly shelved and numerous lawsuits were averted. Other items, like the time we tried to get Nick Rosario to recreate Evel Knieval’s legendary bus jump, were immediately killed by those stick in the muds at our insurance company. But sometimes an idea, although wildly irresponsible and dangerous, gets greenlighted and foisted you on, gentle reader. Today is one such day. Despite the fact that I am twice divorced and once had sex on top of a police car on a first date, I have been asked to write a column about love and relationships. As the very funny lady, who shared breakfast with me today, noted, “Next week they’ll get Svengoolie to talk about subtlety in humor.”

Ha freaking ha.

Of course she gets to trot off to her day gig while I’m stuck trying to make this into something useful for you. So, since I cannot serve as a shining example, allow me to serve as a warning sign.

If you decide to make a public display of your wedding proposal make sure the woman is going to say yes. Since her saying no on a Jumbotron is freaking humiliating. I’ve always wondered about the pinheads who did stuff like this. Unless they have made prior arrangements they are, when you think about it, trying to humiliate the girl into saying yes.

“You can’t say no, people are watching!!!!”

Even if you get shot down in a church the basic idea is the same. You’re an inconsiderate tool who’s trying to force his will on others.

Here’s a handy tip guys, make sure you have had at least one conversation with your intended about your intentions before you do what you’re intending. I can promise you that she will not think less of you for not making her look like a callous, vicious, slut in public. In fact, that little extra care and concern will go a long way to making her love you all the more.

And when you do get married, here’s another piece of advice, try not to end up in jail for beating on her. Not only does that make you a grade “A” jerk, it will also cause a judge to sentence you to a night at Red Lobster.

A Broward County judge has ordered a husband to take his wife out on a date and buy her flowers — a strangely gentle ruling for a domestic abuse charge.

According to an arrest affidavit cited by NBC Miami, Joseph Bray, 47, and his wife Sonja got into a fight after Bray neglected to wish her a happy birthday. Sonja told police he shoved her and grabbed her neck at their Plantation residence.

At the Tuesday hearing, Judge John Hurley asked the wife about her preferences for a night out on the town and sentenced the husband accordingly.

According to the Sun Sentinel, he ordered Bray to “flowers, birthday card, Red Lobster, bowling.”

He also requested that the Brays start seeing a marriage counselor. Read the Sun Sentinel for the judge’s comments on the light sentencing.

On the other end of the romance spectrum, last year a New York judge ordered a husband and wife to build a literal “divorce wall” in their house to stop the couple’s constant feuding.

According to NBC (Chicago), Google user Georgia Valente wrote that “of all the Red Lobsters in South Florida, the couple’s dinner destination is “quite possibly the best.”

So that’s a plus. As to the rest, you knew without even thinking that this happened in Florida.

Now, why Georgia Valente has been to every Red Lobster in South Florida is a question I never want answered.

All this being said, while the nice people at TRU TV may rail against the many Valentine’s Day traditions, such as champagne and chocolate, you and I both know that if they don’t pony up their next date will be a hand full of lube and a copy of Penthouse.

So don’t be a tool, communicate with your beloved, don’t beat on your beloved and try not to go cheap on the 14th unless it’s a mutually planned thing like grabbing a bucket of chicken and having sex all night.

You might even get by without the chicken.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soDZBW-1P04&w=420&h=315]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Friday morning around 9:10!

I couldn’t hop on the internet this morning so I was forced to wail and gnash my tooth in anguish that the world might be doing something interesting without me. HAH! Like that could ever happen. I am the most interesting thing in my universe. Well, the second most. Florida holds the main title. No matter how odd the things in my life may be they pale in comparison to things in Florida. I recently tried to explain Florida to some of our new Asian readers. It seems I made some inroads but they still have questions. And, to be fair, they are really good questions. The most common one is “what makes them act that way?” To that I have no ready answer. It is a behavior pattern that has been generations in the making. The biggest factor might be that Florida only attracted two kinds of people for many, many years; those that were avoiding the government and those who were going to die. Not exactly the best and the brightest. Certainly not that spark you need for the next generation. Or any generation for that matter.

So, when people in Florida commit a crime they tend to do it with a different flair than you’re used to. For example, lots of women shoplift. Very few tag-team to steal thongs. That they tried on first. That they tried to hide in their purses. In front of security. Who saved everyone some time and just arrested them.

See? Different.

Or, another example, men and women argue all the time. Sometimes some men will try and hurt their women. But only in Florida do they light themselves on fire after attacking a car. You’re going to have to read the whole story.

A Wesley Chapel man was critically burned after investigators say a plan to torch his estranged wife backfired.

From her upstairs apartment, Capitola Scott could hear her neighbor, 47-year-old Gloria Davis, shrieking for help and then saw Davis being chased. Scott opened the door, yelling at her to get inside.

Police say the man chasing Davis with a jug full of gasoline was her husband of 25 years, 50-year-old Matthew Wong. The two had been separated since October.

Detectives say Wong had apparently planned to ambush Davis. They say he rented a car and blacked out the windows. But Davis spotted Wong and immediately began to run, screaming for help.

As he frantically chased his wife, investigators say Wong inadvertently splattered gasoline all over himself, and when he went to torch the apartment where his wife was seeking refuge, it was Wong who went up in flames.

Neighbors used fire extinguishers to put out the fire that was consuming him and some nearby bushes. A scorched patch of grass now marks the spot where he fell to the ground.

Investigators say Wong was rushed to Tampa General Hospital with life-threatening burns. They say the couple has two older children who also live in the Bay area.

The incident comes just days after a high-profile trial, during which Chris Hanney was convicted of dousing his wife, Audrey Mabrey, with gasoline.

Investigators say they’re not yet sure if the timing of the cases is a coincidence, or if this was a copycat type of attack.

Well, if it was it was a bad copy. Which is good news for the woman who, I believe, just might be justified for not wanting to hang around with this guy any more. Don’t you agree?

Let’s try another. People get pulled over all the time for driving under the influence. Only in Florida would the driver blame her inability to function on her big breasts.

A Port St. Lucie woman facing DUI charges told arresting officers her “big boobies” were to blame for her inability to perform sobriety tests, according to an arrest report.

Maureen Jane Raymond, 49, was arrested in Jensen Beach on Jan. 29 after she was stopped by cops who responded to a reckless vehicle call, according to the Martin County Sheriff’s Office report.

According to the report, a deputy saw Raymond driving over 50 mph in a 35 mph zone in her grey Camry and crossing over the double yellow line twice before parking in two spots at a Walgreen’s.

The deputy smelled an odor of alcohol on Raymond and noticed she had slurred speech, glassy eyes and staggered when she walked, the report said.

According to the report, Raymond started drinking out of a glass, telling the deputy it was tea. A second glass found in the car smelled like an alcoholic beverage, the deputy wrote in the report.

Raymond was asked to get out of the car for tests and she started to give her top heavy excuse.

“When I told her we were going to do some roadside tasks she told me that I needed to understand that she is big chested and if I asked her to close her eyes and balance she is not going to balance well,” the deputy wrote. “She told me ‘big breast you don’t balance well.'”

Asked if she had any injuries, Raymond replied she had big breasts and whiplash, the report said.

The report said Raymond had a hard time following directions and that when she was asked to walk a straight line, she began to dance.

“When I told her she had to keep her hands at her side she stated hell no not with these. Telling me again she can’t do it, not with her big boobies,” the deputy wrote, adding Raymond “began to take her clothes off to show me her breast and I stopped her.”

Raymond was asked to count and “she seemed to sing the numbers while counting,” the report said.

The deputy arrested Raymond for DUI, and she was taken to the station for a breath test.

But before the breath test, Raymond insisted she pray, the report said.

“She told me she was praying and that I need to relax because she is praying and God is first,” the deputy wrote.

Raymond wasn’t able to provide a valid breath sample, and was booked into jail, the report said. She was released on bond the next day.

Ah yes, the “my boobs are ginormous and God is good defense.” Lawyers all over the world are anxiously waiting to see how this one plays out.

Sadly, for the lawyers tasked with representing Stanley B. Ramos, there will be no fun in the courthouse for them. You see their client was arrested for possession of drugs and related paraphernalia and showed up for his hearing with a crack pipe. So said the nice police officers who allowed him to be sentenced first and then arrested him.

Okay, one more for the road. Lots of people take those online quizzes. Some pass, some fail. Only in Florida do they try and kill a cat for being the reason of their failure.

The beating of the girlfriend was just a bonus.

A Gainesville man went to jail on a charge of animal cruelty after admitting to police that he tried to kill his girlfriend’s cat because he said it made him fail an online test.

In addition to the animal cruelty charge, the Gainesville Police Department arrested Marvelle Stephon Rucker, 21, of 1000 SW 62nd Blvd., on charges of false imprisonment and battery.

The cat’s owner told police that she found the animal lethargic and unresponsive when she got home from work around 4:50 p.m. Sunday. She also said Rucker cornered her and poked her in the face for 10 or 15 minutes until a roommate intervened.

Officer Keith Carlisle said Rucker admitted to poking the woman in her face, but said he did not think it was a crime if he was not beating her.

In an arrest report, Carlisle wrote that, when he asked Rucker why he put a pillow over the cat, Rucker “laughed as he said he was trying to kill the cat” because the cat made him fail an online test.

Rucker was booked into the Alachua County jail.

And ladies, word is he’s single again. I’m just saying.

Anyway, as you can see, two truths are self evident; (1) people in Florida shouldn’t be allowed to breed as rapidly as they do and; (2), your world is really empty without me.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVkUvmDQ3HY&w=420&h=315]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Friday morning around 9:10!

Kids all over the world get these completely wacky ideas and then bring them to the fore strictly for the wubba wubba reason that they wubba wubba wubba wubba wubba wubba wubba wubba try and drive their wubba wubba wubba wubba wubba wubba wubba wubba parents wubba wubba wubba wubba out of their ever wubba wubba wubba wubba wubba wubba wubba wubba loving wubba wubba wubba wubba wubba wubba DUB STEP!! HELL YEAH!!!!! Sorry, I’m okay now. I just sometimes have a Skrillex moment. I’m sure everyone can wubba wubba relate.

Of course kids tehse days aren’t just rushing to dub step, they’re rushing to get here in the first place. Deepti Hajeli reports that a baby was born on a New Jersey train.

A New Jersey woman got the morning commute of her life when she gave birth to her first child on a PATH commuter train to New York.

The 31-year-old woman, Rabita Sarkar of Harrison, N.J., said she had started feeling contraction-like pains, but didn’t think they were real because her baby wasn’t due yet. She and her 30-year-old husband decided to travel into the city to have her checked out Monday.

They didn’t want to drive and decided to take the train from Harrison into the city instead, thinking they could then take a taxi to Manhattan’s Roosevelt Hospital, where her doctors are.

‘This guy had other plans’

“It’s just that this guy had other plans, and he came out earlier,” Sarkar said as she held her infant son in her arms in the hospital. The couple declined to reveal the boy’s name or due date.

It was on the train ride that Sarkar started feeling her pains come more quickly, and she told her husband to check what was happening to her. He looked and saw that his son’s head had already started to come out.

With guidance from another woman on the train, her husband, identified in published reports as Aditya Saurabh, was able to deliver the baby around 10 a.m. Fellow riders offered encouragement, and the couple said one little girl offered her jacket to keep the baby warm.

PATH officials turned the train into an express, bypassing most stops so that it would get to its final stop, 33rd Street in midtown Manhattan, as soon as possible. Emergency services personnel met the train and took the family to the hospital.

The responding police officers said it wasn’t unusual for women to give birth in facilities run by the Port Authority.

The biggest issue was the winter temperature, around 30 degrees outside, and making sure the baby was warm, Sgt. Mike Barry said.

“That’s our biggest concern,” he said. “We know that baby’s body temperature is going to drop like a rock.”

For one of the responding officers, delivering a baby in these circumstances was something familiar — because it happened to him.

Officer Atiba Joseph-Cumberbatch said his son didn’t want to wait, either, and came out early — so Dad had to deliver him.

I guess it’s reassuring to know that this happens often enough that they have a plan in place.

But what about in a couple of years when that little tyke is walking and talking all by himself? Will he want the latest Tickle Me Elmo or a race car or space ship or a Skrillex EP or something else?

A young Milwaukee boy asked Santa for the coolest toy ever, a Koehler double flush toilet.

I s**t you not.

Some kids ask for Legos, others a train. But Dustin Kruse, 4, of New Berlin, Wisc., wanted something extra special this Christmas — a toilet.

Dustin Kruse loves toilets so much that it prompted one local company to grant the child’s wish for a top-of-line, double-flusher.

“They did it right after his fourth birthday. Delivered, installed it, everything,” said Michele Kruse on Newsradio 620 WTMJ’s Wisconsin’s Morning News.

Kruse said her son is so fascinated with toilets that he wanted to ask Santa for a particular type of Kohler toilet, a dual-flush brand that allows people to either make a full or a half flush.

According to the Journal Sentinel in Milwaukee, Dustin encountered his $380 porcelain dream during a trip to the Kohler Design Center where he was able to touch the high-end model.

“He flushed it,” Michele Kruse told the Journal Sentinel, “and he’s like, ‘Mom wouldn’t that be great if I could have this? Could you imagine all of the things I could do?’ And then he’s looking up in the air and he’s thinking. He’s like, ‘I am asking Santa Claus for this.'”

Dustin’s mom said she didn’t want to flush away her son’s hopes, so she wrote to Kohler, explaining her son’s interest — and Kohler obliged.

Michele Kruse called her son’s fascination a mere interest and far from an obsession.

As she put it: “It’s fun.”

Fun? Really? Milwaukee must have fallen further away from civilization than I feared.

But he question you’re all asking is this; “what kind of teenager blossoms from a toilet loving toddler?”

The kind that goes next door and kills their neighbor and then writes what a cool thing murder is.

A Missouri teenager who admitted stabbing, strangling and slitting the throat of a young neighbor girl wrote in her journal on the night of the killing that it was an “ahmazing” and “pretty enjoyable” experience — then headed off to church with a laugh.

The words written by Alyssa Bustamante were read aloud in court Monday as part of a sentencing hearing to determine whether she should get life in prison or something less for the October 2009 murder of her neighbor, 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten, in a small town west of Jefferson City.

Bustamante, 18, sat silently — occasionally glancing at those testifying about her, often looking down or to the side — as law enforcement officers, attorneys and forensics experts read aloud her inner most thoughts that she had recorded as a 15-year-old high school sophomore.

The most poignant part of Monday’s testimony came when a handwriting expert described how he was able to see through the blue ink that Bustamante had used in an attempt to cover up her original journal entry on the night of Elizabeth’s murder. He then read the entry aloud in court:

“I just f—— killed someone. I strangled them and slit their throat and stabbed them now they’re dead. I don’t know how to feel atm. It was ahmazing. As soon as you get over the “ohmygawd I can’t do this” feeling, it’s pretty enjoyable. I’m kinda nervous and shaky though right now. Kay, I gotta go to church now…lol.”

The journal entry was presented to the judge not long after Elizabeth’s mother and other relatives pleaded with Cole County Circuit Judge Pat Joyce to impose the maximum sentence. Bustamante pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and armed criminal action last month and faces at most a sentence of life in prison with a chance for parole. The least she could get is 10 years.

Elizabeth’s mother, Patty Preiss, described her daughter as “happy, little girl,” when she left her home about 5 p.m. after begging to go play with Bustamante’s younger sister. Preiss said she told Elizabeth to be back for dinner at 6 p.m. but never saw her again.

“So much has been lost at the hands of this evil monster,” Preiss tearfully said, with Bustamante sitting several feet away. “Elizabeth was given a death sentence and we were given a life sentence.”

With Bustamante looking at her, Preiss said: “I hate her, I hate everything about her.” The judge cut off her testimony when she described Bustamante as “not even human.”

FBI agents seized the journal from Bustamante’s bedroom during a search of her family’s home the day after Elizabeth went missing as hundreds of volunteers scoured the rural area around St. Martin’s.

Bustamante suggested to FBI and the Missouri State Highway Patrol officials that the girl had probably been kidnapped and that whoever had done so deserved to be convicted.

At one point, law enforcement officers discovered a hole in the ground in the shape of a shallow grave near Bustamante’s home. They testified that Bustamante acknowledged digging it but said she just liked to dig holes. It was only later that Elizabeth’s body was found concealed under leaves in another grave in the woods behind the Bustamante home.

At a hearing in 2009, Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. David Rice testified that the teenager told him “she wanted to know what it felt like” to kill someone.

Defense attorneys Monday highlighted Bustamante’s troubled childhood as part of their argument about why she should receive leniency. They referred to numerous references in her journal in the two months before the murder, describing her suicidal feelings and the urge to hurt herself and others.

At one point Bustamante had written that she intended to burn down a house and kill all the occupants, but she never followed through with that. On Oct. 14, one week before Elizabeth’s slaying, Bustamante had written that she was unable to use her cell phone because the charger had died, which meant she couldn’t talk to anyone about the depression and rage she was feeling.

“If I don’t talk about it, I bottle it up, and when I explode someone’s going to die,” she wrote in a journal that was read to the court by her defense attorney, Charlie Moreland.

Yeah, that was a bit of a dark turn. Even so, if your kid develops an unhealthy toilet fetish, you might want to keep this in mind.

Down the road a bit in Madison a man didn’t read his lottery numbers correctly and almost threw away a ticket worth $14.3 million. But he didn’t and now he can get a kidney and so on. It’s one of those tear jerking stories I avoid like the plague.

But I figured you might need a pick me up after the young lady above.

Of course when I need a pick me up or a good laugh I just aim my mouse south of the Mason Dixon line and see what pops up. Police in Savannah Georgia had just the thing for me today.

Authorities say a Georgia man is recovering after accidentally shooting himself in the leg at a Savannah gun show.

Police say 26-year-old Charles Lake was leaving the gun show at the Savannah Civic Center around 5:10 p.m. Sunday when he discharged a round into his leg while re-loading his pistol.

Savannah-Chatham police spokesman Julian Miller says Lake bought the pistol at the gun show on Saturday and had returned Sunday to purchase another gun. Police say he was re-loading the pistol in the parking lot because loaded guns weren’t allowed inside the gun show.

The Savannah Morning News reports Lake was taken to Memorial University Medical Center with an injury not considered life-threatening. No other injuries were reported.

Savannah-Chatham police are investigating the incident.

Wait, really? He was in the parking lot of a gun show and didn’t feel safe until he loaded his gun? So he had to fumble around with a weapon in said parking lot instead of just going home and being able to reload the gun safely? And if he was so worried why didn’t he leave one gun locked and loaded in the car?

I’m sure the Savannah police all had a good laugh after they stopped the bleeding.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHcIEHrq_ps&w=560&h=315]

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Friday morning around 9:10!