Quick Links for April 14th

It's time for everybody's favorite lazy space filler, Quick Links!

Isn't this how movie supervillians start?

Well, it finally happened. Alan Pettet's most credible supporter, his lawyer/friend Ron Stein admitted that his involvement in the Stockton Armed Gang Militia was meant to be satirical. Because, you know, the Record's basically an unfunny version of the Onion at this point. Yes, in a move that seems to indicate backlash from his employer/clients (or somebody just smacking him on the back of the head and saying "what the matter with you?"), Stein called the proposed militia ridiculous and is "off the ship". Which we can imagine his pal Pettet loved.

There's no way to know how this truly went down, but I like to imagine a meek Stein walking into a dark, cavernous room and saying "Al, I can't do this anymore. It's too risky." While an already corrupted by power Pettet slowly turns around in his electric wheelchair while petting the cat in his lap and says "Too risky? It's too late for too risky! You've seen the attention this thing's gotten! I'm gonna be on Limbaugh! We have hundreds of followers! Hundreds! We can't turn our backs on them now!" Then a cowering Stein says, "But, but Alan, I thought we agreed this was just a joke. It's getting out of hand. Nobody takes me seriously as a lawyer anymore." Which would naturally be followed by an enraged Pettet saying "Joke? This is no joke. It's bigger than the both of us now. You want to leave? Fine. You disgust me." Then he would turn back around and gaze longingly into the fireplace while descending further into madness.

Yes, I have too much free time on my hands.

Why must you crush my dreams Record!?

Well, after cleaning up the awards last week, this week crime statistics continue to decline. While auto theft isn't a violent crime, it does show that crime in general is on the decline. Plus, the article later states that, just in the first 3 months of 2009, violent crimes are down 11%.

This was a big list though. This isn't just auto theft rate in California, this is a nationwide list. And we let fucking Modesto beat us. Modesto. It's hard to see such a promising ex-champion fall from grace like this. Especially on such a grand stage. But we'll be back, I have faith.

On a side note, with violent crime down 11%, property crime down 21.4%, and auto thefts down 27% do we really need a group of vigilantes patrolling the streets? Crime's not exactly on the rise and throwing a bunch of dudes on the street with guns can really only raise the crime rate...wait a minute. That might just be the thing to salvage our title chances! Militias for everybody! 200+ homicides has to bring the title home. It just has to.

This might just save newspapers

Sometimes, in pursuit of an angle to a story or a gimmick, we forget things. Since we started our crusade to end the string of Lori Gilbert penned stories about old people, we forgot that in the right light old people can be downright adorable. Stories about how old people are still useful aren't adorable and are frankly kind of insulting to our county's elderly. What is adorable? Old playing video games. Serious, go look at the main picture attached to this story and tell me that old lady with her tongue sticking out in deep concentration isn't the cutest thing you've seen since myRecord.

I'm deeply disappointed there wasn't a video to compliment this story as watching two old dudes engage in a friendly bout of video game fisticuffs would have been the best thing Recordnet's ever produced. Seriously, tell Tara Cuslidge to stop acting as the word's most expensive tape recorder for reporters and have her start videotaping these bowling matches. Speed them up to double speed in post and add the Benny Hill theme, post it to the Online Blog and you've got yourself a bona fide viral video. It'll be the funniest thing on that blog since Cuslidge's "Sandra Cantu happened to me!" post, only this time it'll be intentional!