Archives for March 2012

Union Station in Chicago is a crowded, busy, place. Even more so when a train is running late. Such was the situation yesterday. I was standing between the Amtrak entrance and the escalators by the northern Metra tracks. The backs of my legs were pressed up against a bench. I was not going anywhere. In front of me was a young couple. He was a Marine, in uniform, and she was a young lady of, maybe, 20 or so. She was prattling on and on and on about how happy mom and dad were going to be when they saw the ring and how much grandma loved him and how sad it was that grandpappy wasn’t here for this because he had served in Nam and it was around this time that the young Marine bent down to fix the laces on his boots. She continued blissfully on, mentioning an Aunt Esmeralda three times, when she hit this line; “Oh, Ricky, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me!” and spun around with her eyes closed to plant a big, wet, …. did I mention that the young man was kneeling down and tying his shoe? ….. kiss right where his lips would have been. Which was now where my lips were roughly positioned. Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of being kissed by a beautiful woman. However, even in my feeble brain, I realized that this would not be a good time to respond in a positive fashion. So, instead, I kept my lips tightly closed and tried getting her attention by talking out of the side of my mouth. It was then that the young man noticed the commotion and turned to see what was happening. He uttered a clear “Krystal, what the hell are you doing?” as he stood up. She, realizing that a mouth that should have been full of Krystal shouldn’t be able to pronounce words so clearly, opened her eyes. It may have been the first time in my life that seeing a look of horror in a woman’s eyes was a good feeling. I politely introduced myself and watched with mild amusement as they quickly found new places to stand, away from me and the several people standing around me laughing. However, we all agreed it was cute and that they now had a story that will last them the rest of their lives.

Hippoteers, allow me, as someone who has train-wrecked two marriages, to give you a small bit of advice; go and give your significant other a deep, wet, slow, kiss right now. When he/she asks why you are suddenly so romantic, just say that B3 (a/k/a Big Bad Bill a/k/a me) told you to do it. Do this once a week or so at random intervals and it will remind you of why the two of you got together in the first place. It’s better than any little blue pill as well. And, when the day comes that your significant other starts talking about how your long, slow, kisses remind her of a pool boy who recently moved in down the block ….. well, then you know it’s over and you can move on.

Besides, if you don’t treat your significant other with love and respect, the vampire moms of Mexico will come and rip out your arteries.

You knew that already though, didn’t you?

This vampire’s hungry for change.

Maria Jose Cristerna, the 35-year-old “Mexican Vampire Woman,” lives a normal life at home, waking the kids up for school, making her hubby breakfast, and getting ready for work at the tattoo parlor.

But she can’t forget how her childhood was ripped apart by domestic violence — it led her to express herself through body modification.

Now, she wants to join the fight against abuse in the home.

Don’t worry, I have more.

Maria Jose Cristerna, 36, a mother of four, a tattoo artist and a former lawyer, sits in her tattoo parlour and boutique after getting 3D body implants inserted in her lower arm in Guadalajara February 4, 2012. Cristerna, who is dubbed “Vampire Woman” but prefers to be identified as “Jaguar Woman”, had her first tattoo when she was 14 and decided to physically transform herself after having gone through 10 years of domestic violence in her first marriage. Women in Mexico celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8.

(She) decided to physically transform herself after having gone through 10 years of domestic violence in her first marriage.

Mexico has a serious problem with domestic abuse. Some believe it is condoned by the church, it isn’t, others blame it on the yo-yo economy and no one is helped by the drug lords who treat all women like cattle. People like Ms. Cristerna may be odd but do a valuable service by shining a very bright light on this subject.

Of course it’s not just women who get abused. Mexico also has a problem with people tossing dwarfs into bullfighting rings.

The little-known sport of dwarf bullfighting has raised a red flag for America’s little people.

The sport, which has dwarf toreadors battling baby calves, is a popular attraction in Mexico and other countries where bullfighting is popular. There are as many as 20 different troupes, according to NBC Sports, but some little people such as Clinton Brown III fear dwarf bullfighting is blurring the line between entertainment and exploitation, especially because the bullish battles are carried out for laughs.

“These guys are really taking their life in their hands doing this,” Brown told The Huffington Post.

“Frankly, it’s a shame that these folks do have to resort to it.” Brown, who is a 3-foot, 3-inch tall financial analyst on New York’s Long Island, isn’t against little people engaging in athletic contests. In fact, he is also manager of the New York Towers, an all-dwarf basketball team that has won two national championships in the Dwarf Athletic League’s annual tournament.

Still, Brown thinks that the troupes — and the media — would be better off if they promoted the athleticism of the bullfighters and not their “wackiness.”

“Bullfighting is deeply entrenched in many societies around the world, and I’m sure some of these little bullfighters do it because they grew up watching it, not because they ‘need’ the job so badly,” he said. “It would be so nice if [the media didn’t focus] on the ‘wow’ factor of the story [and instead] focused on a human interest story in that community on someone that loves what they do.”

This fits in with the mission statement of Little People of America, a support and advocacy group for Americans of short stature as a result of dwarfism.

The group’s president, Gary Arnold, said the real problem he has with dwarf bullfighting is that its main purpose seems to be offering spectators the chance to laugh at little people.

“To me, that’s the issue,” Arnold told The Huffington Post. “We need to move away from employment opportunities that are specifically for little people and move into integrated employment opportunities.”

Dwarf matador Javier Landa of Mexico, however, says that’s not the case.

“They may think we go out there to be laughed at, but that’s not the case,” Linda told USA Today. “If a little person can fight a bull, he can do anything. That’s what we’re trying to prove.”

Danica Aldrich, 21, a little person who studies fine arts at the Art Institute of Boston, said that while she personally finds dwarf bullfighting demeaning, Landa makes a good point about little people being able to do anything. She fears that his audience is missing that message.

“The fault is not with us little people, but it rather falls upon the audience. It is the audience’s perception of the event as either simple entertainment or a freak show,” Aldrich told The Huffington Post.

“I find the most offensive reaction to performances like this are associations that people hold for little people as just being ‘miniature freaks’ when we are presented ‘packaged,’ such as little bulls for little bullfighters,” Aldrich said. “It is akin to making a presumption about the entire Italian culture from the show ‘Jersey Shore.'”

But recent dwarf bullfighting stories such as ones recently posted by Metro.co.uk and Buzzfeed come at a time when the prejudices faced by little people are receiving mainstream attention. In January, actor Peter Dinklage used his Golden Globe acceptance speech for “Game of Thrones” to raise awareness about Martin Henderson, a dwarf who claims he was partially paralyzed on his birthday when a stranger lifted and heaved him onto the hard ground outside an English pub.

The recent controversial discussion about little people between Rosie O’Donnell and Chelsea Handler is truly making little people speak up for themselves, Arnold said.

“More than any other time I can remember, the community rallied together and demanded a response,” he said. “In the past, what Rosie and Chelsea did might have been written off as a joke, and people in the general population might have thought that the dwarfism community was being too sensitive. But a lot of people showed empathy and rallied behind people with dwarfism as if we were a community of people who deserved to be treated like others.”

The public outcry forced O’Donnell, who initially tried to brush off with an apologetic tweet her controversial remarks about being afraid of little people, to invite Chicago-based musician and little person Chris Errera to her show on Wednesday to discuss her remarks.

For her part, Handler has yet to respond to her comments that sleeping with an adult little person would be “child abuse,” and her spokesman, Stephen Huvane, doubts one will be forthcoming.

“Chelsea is not one to respond to any particular complaint made by any group,” Huvane told The Huffington Post by email. “She saves whatever reaction she has for her own show. If there is something funny to say, she will figure it out.

Thing I learned that I did not know before;

(1) Someone actually watches the Rosie O’Donnell show. The O-Network will be thrilled to learn about that.

(2) Chelsea Handler thinks she’s funny? Well, that makes one person I guess.

(3) Career day for dwarfs must be freaking surreal. “Why, yes Mr. Johnson, with your Masters degree in astrophysics I’m sure we can get you a job with the finest dwarf tossing bar in Miami.”

Who says you never learn anything here?

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

Before we begin I know there are real scientists who read this blog. I ask them for a mulligan today. I am well aware that I am going to be using allegories, simplifications and raging generalizations. Many of our readers, thanks to modern education, have little or no background in science and tend to take popular fiction at face value. Kind of like the people who learned all they knew about religion by reading The Da Vinci Code.

This blog will show that problem clearly.

I recently wrote about the WOW! signal. During the article I pointed out that I had learned that it was highly unlikely aliens would first be exposed to our culture via television and radio broadcasts. I received numerous emails pointing out that Carl Sagan, a real scientist and not some douche-bag blogger, had said that it would be our broadcast of the Berlin Olympic Games that would first be seen by our little green cousins. In order, yes, Carl Sagan was a real scientist. And, no, he never said any such thing. What he did do was write an excellent fiction novel, called Contact, which was made into a very good film of the same name, based on the concept that aliens would find out about us via our pop culture transmissions. It is one of many ways that science has discussed when it comes to figuring out how we will eventually make contact with an alien race. The fact that Professor Sagan utilized that one shows that he had a knack for understanding a good story just as much as he understood the math. Let’s face it; the fact that Hitler could be the mascot for Earth is a compelling story line.

Hitler, Hitler He’s Our Man, If He Can’t Conquer It No One Can! YAAAAY ADOLPH!

Can’t you just picture Ashley and Anne in those cute SS Cheer-Trooper outfits?

But it’s very unlikely that will ever happen. And the reason has a lot to do with the phrase “bumping uglies.”

Oh, come on, you knew a sexual metaphor played a role somewhere.

You see a majority of scientists now believe that all radio and television transmissions occur in what’s called “The Hydrogen Band or Line.” Click on the link to learn all about it. Simply put, it’s the range where radio and television broadcasts can transmit easiest. Scientists please go back to the opening paragraph, inhale slowly, count to ten and then continue on.

Anyway, all of our broadcast channels fall into that range. The WOW! signal was also in that range but was clearly broadcast with far more intensity than the surrounding noise.

And that gets to the crux of the issue.

You see, all of our episodes of I Love Lucy and everything else are probably using the same frequencies as Bloort Lorkles Zoonox (or whatever show is popular in Alpha Centauri). So, at some point, our signals will bump uglies with their signals and the whole thing will be a wash. Each will cancel out the other.

If there was some way to send an antenna a hundred or so light years from here to get in front of our signals then we might be able to hear what passes for humor on another world. I bet I’d be a comedy god on Jhornox V. But faster than light travel is still just a dream so we have to make do with the limitations we have.

And one way to get around those limitations is to broadcast a signal many times more powerful than the surrounding noise. To punch through the flotsam and jetsam of our culture and theirs to send a clear signal stating “We are here.”

Which begs the next question, “Do we want to do that?”

There are some very interesting arguments pro and con. They will tug your heartstrings and make you think far deeper thoughts than you may have previously.

I’ll make it easy for you. Yes we should.

Here’s why.

Depending on which scientist you get drunk, the closest solar system that is likely to contain intelligent life is at least 70 light years away from us. That means that the absolute fastest we could get a response would be in 140 years. 70 to get our message where it’s going and 70 to get an answer back. Much has changed for us over the last 140 years and much more will again.

For example, depending on where you lived in the U.S., 140 years ago an interracial couple like Lucy and Ricky would have either been frowned upon greatly or simply deemed illegal. Either way they wouldn’t have been lauded on a national stage and sponsored by Winston. We make our progress in baby steps, but we do seem to keep making it.

Besides, if the fear mongering crackpots rise to power then it won’t matter what the answer is since there won’t be anyone with enough education to understand prime numbers anyway. But, and I’m being hopeful here, if they don’t then we may as well get our answer as soon as possible.

It would be nice to finally know if Bloort really did Lorkle Zoonox like Ricky loved Lucy or if it all was just for show.

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

Today is a day of extremes. I woke up this morning in a great mood and walked outside only to have a roof’s worth of ice and slush fall off my neighbor’s garage and onto my head. So I went back inside, dried off, put on clean clothes and tried again. This time I was met by a process server. I am being sued. I think. I’m named as a defendant but nowhere in any of the paperwork am I actually mentioned. Not even by rumor. Not even that wonderful “Person A.” In fact I haven’t even seen the plaintiff since 2003. I called my lawyer, he got a good laugh out of it (as long as one of us did) and told me not to worry. Forgive me if I worry anyway. I’ve read enough Kafka to know that a parking ticket can get you the death penalty.

Oh well, let’s talk about funny stuff. Scientists and linguists are thrilled to have found ancient “Yo Mama jokes.”

3500 years ago, a student in Babylon did the inevitable and carved jokes about “beer,” “intercourse,” and “your mother” into a tablet. Now researchers have done the inevitable and published an elevated dissection of said jokes in a reputable journal. In recognition of the great future minds who will a millenia from now ponder “Two And A Half Men,” let’s give due attention to this tablet, shall we? It’s pretty awesome.

Discovered by the archaeologist J.J. van Dijk in 1976, the tablet has since been lost without a trace, like so many single socks. Fortunately van Dijk left images behind, which researchers Michael Streck and Nathan Wasserman were able to analyze in a recent paper for the journal Iraq. Streck and Wasserman call the 6 riddles within “wisdom literature,” or aphorisms, but the structure of them isn’t far off from our modern-day jokes. Due to the tablet’s less-than-perfect state, the translations are a little patchy. Still, behold, an alcohol reference:

In your mouth and your teeth, constantly stared at you, the measuring vessel of your lord.

(-What is it?)

Beer.

True, it’s not what you’d call a knee-slapper, but “your teeth,” according to Streck and Wasserman, could also be read as “your urine.” And everyone knows “urine” is “funny.” Moving on, a twosome concerning those twin foci of late-night talk show hosts: sex and politics. Number one:

The deflowered (girl) did not become pregnant.

The undeflowered (girl) became pregnant (-What is it?)

Auxiliary forces.

This one is “unclear,” according to Streck and Wasserman. We call it “surrealist.’

And:

He gouged out the eye:

It is not the fate of a dead man.

He cut the throat: A dead man (-Who is it?)

The governor.

This is apparently a reference to a Bayblonian governor’s power to sentence people to death, according to Streck and W. In the comedy world, “speaking truth to power” commentary is often more direct than clever (see Louis CK’s tweets about Sarah Palin), so…perhaps this is the Babylonian equivalent of a “Politically Incorrect” intro? Finally, we come to the jewel in the crown, a joke that foreshadows the greatest MTV show to star Wilmer Valderamma. Say hello to “Yo’ Mama: The Streets Of Babylon.”

…of your mother is by the one who has intercourse with her. What/who is it?
[No answer]

“Your mother”? “Intercourse”? If this isn’t a precursor to the greatest take-down since McCarthy’s “You know how I know you’re a communist?” series, we’ll eat our most ancient hat. Thank you Babylonian school system, for requiring your students to perform very important joke documentation for future generations.

How many avant-gard artists does it take to change a lightbulb?
Blue fish.

I would have killed in Babylon.

No word on how they felt about nasty, loud, Catholic school girl sex. However, given the fact that they procreated enough to lead to you and I my guess is that they were in favor of it. The same cannot be said of Lindsay Blankmeyer.

A New York woman has filed a lawsuit against her former Roman Catholic college in Boston, claiming administrators didn’t do enough to help her when she complained that her roommate was having too much sex in their dorm room.

Lindsay Blankmeyer said in a federal lawsuit that she suffered from depression and attention deficit disorder before she enrolled at Stonehill College, but was driven into a suicidal depression after school officials wouldn’t give her reasonable housing alternatives to get her away from her roommate at the school in Easton, Mass.

Blankmeyer said her roommate had sex with her boyfriend while she was trying to sleep just feet away and also participated in “sexually inappropriate video chatting” while Blankmeyer was in the dorm room.

After trying unsuccessfully to persuade school officials to force her roommate to move out or to give her an acceptable private room, Blankmeyer ended up living at a hotel, according to the lawsuit filed earlier this week.

“Stonehill refused Lindsay’s request for a single room and in the following weeks and months Lindsay fell into a dark and suicidal depression requiring her to take a leave of absence from school and undergo extensive psychiatric and medical treatment,” the lawsuit states.

Blankmeyer eventually completed her final semester of school at her home in New York and received a bachelor’s of arts degree in September 2011. Blankmeyer enrolled as a freshman in 2007 but the lawsuit said problems began her senior year.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Boston earlier this week, seeks unspecified damages.

Stonehill spokeswoman Kristen Magda said the college responded “swiftly and professionally” to Blackmeyer’s complaints about her roommate, first trying to resolve the dispute through mediation with a residence director, then by giving Blankmeyer “multiple options” for campus housing, including a private room.

“At no time did the student notify college staff that her concerns involved her roommate’s sexual activity,” Magda said Friday.

Blankmeyer’s lawyers did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

In the lawsuit, Blankmeyer says the college offered her two options, one was moving to another dorm where she would live in a room that was previously used as a study lounge and was a “small cubicle-like space.” The other option was to move to a dorm with a reputation as a “party dorm” to live with a girl Blankmeyer did not know.

Ah, I see, they thought that the young lady was making a lot of noise studying stellar-cartography.

“OH YEAH BABY! QUASARS!”

Oh well, police in Florida, of course it’s Florida, are reporting that they arrested a young couple who had a novel way of keeping each other happy. They stole bras.

Thousands and thousands of bras.

A pair of prolific bra thieves who police say stole thousands of dollars’ worth of brassieres from South Florida stores are behind bars, authorities said Thursday.

Tysheka Pink, 29, and Katina Summerset 39, were arrested Wednesday on charges of grand theft and organized scheme to defraud for the bra theft spree that dates back to October, according to the Boca Raton Police.

Boca Raton Police began investigating the case on Jan. 20, when a unknown woman distracted a clerk at the Victoria’s Secret store at 6000 West Glades Road while her accomplices stole over $3,000 in bras.

Detectives learned the bras had later been returned to another store. They also learned that two hours before the theft, Pink and another woman had returned stolen items from another theft to the Miami Beach Victoria’s Secret, police said.

The two women were wearing the same clothing as the women who ripped off the Boca store, police said.

Victoria’s Secret Loss Prevention Manager Osmany Benitez told police that Pink and the other woman had been returning merchandise worth over $6,000 to various stores between October 2011 and January 2012.

Boca police also learned that Boynton Beach detectives had active warrants for Pink for similar thefts.

On Wednesday, Benitez called Boca police to say he was following Pink and Summerset at the Town Center Mall, and officers arrived and took the two into custody.

Police said the pair had entered the Victoria’s Secret earlier in the day and left with a shopping bag filled with 90 stolen bras worth $4,500.

When detectives questioned Summerset, she told them she and Pink had been stealing clothing from different stores in Boca and Boynton for months, and that they either kept them or returned them, police said.

Yes, Pink is her legal name. Everything else just follows.

Of course, as every male reader here knows, the best way to get a girl to love you is to rob her.

A Pittsburgh-area man has been ordered to stand trial for robbing a girl he later called to ask for a date.

Twenty-six-year-old John Jardini was held for trial Thursday in Allegheny County Court for the alleged bus-stop robbery earlier this month.

KDKA-TV reports Jardini was arrested after he allegedly stole $60 from a girl at the bus stop while she waited for her mother.

Police say the Carrick man soon called the victim on her cellphone asking for a date. Investigators say he later assaulted her and her mother after spotting them in a store while police tried to track him down.

Jardini faces charges of robbery as well as simple assault and resisting arrest.

That’s right ladies, he’s still single!

Can you believe it?

Okay, I’m not a complete curmudgeon. Here’s a nice story about a man who went to buy a bicycle and ended up riding the woman selling it instead.

Online classifieds ended up getting Tyler Newman far more than he bargained for. While looking for a good deal on a road bike, the 27-year-old Riverton man ended up with a wife, too.

“I thought it was a great deal,” he said, standing hand-in-hand with Michelle Oliverson Newman, 22, at the Salt Lake LDS Temple. The two were wed Friday, following almost a year of courtship, which began with an advertisement posted online last May.

Newman had been looking for something to help him train for an upcoming triathlon and a used Dawes Lightning bicycle he found on ksl.com seemed to have the perfect price tag — just $300. Several other callers had inquired about the bike, but Oliverson said she held onto it for the seemingly “serious” first caller.

“Turns out I was really serious,” Newman joked.

When he showed up to check out the merchandise on a May day in 2010, Newman said he had a hard time keeping his eyes on the bike. Upon meeting, Tyler liked what he saw in both the bike and the seller.

The two exchanged a few questions and Newman soon became a little uncomfortable with the fact that Oliverson was acquainted with a former girlfriend of his, and had recently waited on his father at a jewelry store where she worked.

“She knew all these random things about me and I knew nothing of her,” he said. “I was pretty weirded out at that point, so I decided not to ask her out, even though I had wanted to.”

Although the ad indicated she was willing to negotiate, Oliverson said her customer just handed over cash for the asking price and walked away.

“I ran downstairs after and said, ‘Dad, this cute boy just bought my bike,'” she said.

It wasn’t too long before Newman mustered the courage to give her a call, pretending to have a question about the bike. … And the rest is history.

“She was really outgoing and I could tell she just loved life and had a good attitude about things,” Newman said about a first impression he recalled of his bride.

The story goes on to offer relationship advice that would get most people killed since it all comes down to “Go ahead and date random strangers.”

Don’t.

We’ve grown quite fond of you and would hate to have to identify your body.

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

Well, now that we got the furniture all arranged and have the shiny new stripper pole, complete with a shiny new stripper, firmly installed it’s time to get back to work. You may have noted the Girl of The Day feature. It’s new. I have, over the years I’ve been doing this, gotten earnest requests from young lasses to publish a Nude Nude Hippo calendar. Sadly that will never happen. A World Nudes Center might be workable though if there’s enough interest. I also get asked where are all these pretty women I talk about when I mention our smoking hot readers. I can handle the latter one. Friends, fans and people on Facebook who have sent us pics will be duly honored in the space to the left. Due to the fact that I don’t like being sued there will be no new nudes for you. Still, now that I’ve stopped walking into the new lamp near my desk, and – yes – it’s a cool lamp, I can concentrate on getting you the news you need.

We’ll start with a bank robber.

I’m kidding. I mean we’ll start with a bank robber from Florida who used the stolen money to play the lottery.

Ronald Paul Silva must have been feeling lucky and banked on getting a winning lottery ticket.

Cops say Silva, 60, robbed an Orange City (bank) then took stolen loot — all $130 — to a Kangaroo store down the street where he blew his wad on losing lottery tickets, reports The Daytona Beach News-Journal.

Silva did, however, get a ticket to jail.

The bank only had $130 in it? Kids, feel free to panic about the economy now. At least in Florida.

Of course, only in Florida could a knife fight break out over a dispute involving Taco Bell & harmonicas.

Bruce Richard Hood gave someone a lift home from a bar. But on the way to the passenger’s home, they stopped at Taco Bell and the passenger got a bag of tacos, reports the Sarasota Herald-Tribune

When the passenger got out of Hood’s car, he said he may have accidentally grabbed a bag containing harmonicas — instead of the bag of tacos.

Now Hood will have to face the music after getting a bit out-of-tune and allegedly stabbing the other man in the wrist and chest for “stealing” his harmonicas.

There are other differences between Florida and humanity as well. For example, all over the world people steal stuff. Only in Florida do they steal your stuff and then move into your trailer.

The owner of the Marathon trailer had been staying at her other residence in Naples for a couple of months. But when she returned to her trailer, it became apparent to her that somebody had moved in while she was away, according to a news release from the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.

There was evidence of a Goldilocks burglar.

These are bandits that break-in to your place and make themselves right at home: The owner found CDs and DVDs that weren’t hers, bottles of liquor in the freezer that weren’t hers, used condoms in the trash and numerous other items belonging to someone else. She said when she got her water and electric bills, they were much higher than normal, according to the report.

A few days later, the trailer’s owner caught a break — a man had come to her door yelling for someone named “Kenny”.

The pawprints from inside the trailer belonged to Kenneth Lucious White, a dude with a history of burglary, the report stated.

White, 20, was arrested and charged with burglary and grand theft.

More proof that Floridians don’t think like us can be found in this lovely story about a woman who needed some light and burned down one of the world’s oldest trees.

Another casualty of drugs in Florida: A majestic tree.

Authorities have arrested Sara Barnes for setting the fire that burned The Senator, one of the world’s oldest cypress trees, which stood at Big Tree Park near Longwood, reports the Orlando Sentinel.

The 26-year-old Winter Park woman allegedly told authorities she did it because she was taking drugs and wanted light to see what she was doing, investigators said.

Barnes reportedly took photos of the flames of the 3500-year-old tree with her cellphone, according to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Now, guys, some dating tips from Florida. If you want to get a woman to have sex with you you have to threaten to show them naked pictures of themselves.

I bet you never thought of that.

A Golden Gate man is accused of attacking a woman and telling her he would show her husband naked pictures of her if she didn’t have sex with him.

David Carrillo-Rodriguez, 33, of the 1700 block of 40th Terrace Southwest, was arrested Tuesday by Collier deputies at home.

The victim told deputies that while she was walking home she was approached by Carrillo-Rodriguez, who she stated she had a sexual relationship with in the past and ended it because she was married.

Carrillo-Rodriguez told her he wanted to talk but she refused, according to reports.

However, Carrillo-Rodriguez didn’t take no for an answer.

He then grabbed the woman and pulled her behind a house where he told her that he wanted to have sex with her and if she didn’t he would show her husband naked photos he had of her, deputies said.

The victim said she still refused and was able to kick him and get away.

Carrillo-Rodriguez faces a charge of domestic battery.

See? That’s where he screwed up. Threatening to show the husband is just bragging at that point.

How bad are things in Florida? The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office has dedicated a web page to stupid criminals. Wait, did I say “web page?” I meant an entire Facebook site.

Just FYI, when you call a number you know to buy drugs and get talked to by a person you don’t know, odds are you are talking to a cop. Cops are laughing now because they know the people I’m directing this to are too stupid to read so I’m doing no harm.

Thankfully, they’re right.

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