Catty Neighbors
When Victoria Amith, 18, headed to college last fall, she couldn’t take along her beloved cats, Tina and Louise. And her dad, Troy Good, 43, couldn’t keep them at his new apartment in San Jose, Calif. So, rather than abandon them, Good did what any doting daddy would do: He rented them an apartment of their own. Tina and Louise now live in a 400-square-foot studio apartment behind the Willow Glen home of David Callisch, who told The San Jose Mercury News: “They’re very quiet, obviously. The only problem is they stink up the place.” Good pays $1,500 a month rent, and Callisch stops in every day to feed and play with the kitties.
‘Africa’ for the Africans!
Namibian artist Max Siedentopf, 27, has placed an installation in the ancient Namib Desert, consisting of six speakers attached to an MP3 player projecting the song “Africa” by Toto—over and over and over, for all eternity. The song, released in 1982, has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity and was one of Spotify’s “Top Throwback Songs” of 2018. Siedentopf told the BBC that solar batteries will keep the song playing forever: “I wanted to pay the song the ultimate homage and physically exhibit ‘Africa’ in Africa, but I’m sure the harsh environment of the desert will devour the installation eventually.”
Don’t Give McDonalds Ideas
Around 7 a.m. on Jan. 6, at a McDonalds in San Francisco, a man carried a dead raccoon into the restaurant and laid it on a table, then sat down with it. Restaurant patron Chris Brooks captured the spectacle on Facebook Live, recording as the man stood from his seat and walked around the restaurant, talking with people. Another man, wearing gloves, then picked the raccoon up by its tail and took it outside to a garbage can, trailing blood all over the restaurant’s floor. San Francisco police responded to the restaurant and released the unidentified raccoon owner after speaking with him. McDonalds closed the store immediately and reopened two hours later after sanitizing the dining room. One patron wrote on Twitter: “I’ve had worse than a dead raccoon at McDonalds.”
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Arrested Development
Was it love at first... arrest? That appears to have been the case for 27-year-old Ashley Keister of Nanticoke, Penn., when she was apprehended by a West Wyoming, Penn., police officer last year. Ever since, Police Chief Curtis Nocera told the Associated Press, Keister had been harassing the officer with sexual messages on social media and would call 911 just to try to reach him. On Jan. 7, police said, Keister took her infatuation a step further, using a large cigarette butt receptacle to break through the door of the West Wyoming police station around 1 a.m., looking for the officer of her affections. Keister was charged with aggravated assault on a police officer, burglary and vandalism.
Weird Texas
• Isaias Garcia, 30, of Garland, Texas, pleaded guilty in a Bridgeport, Conn., courtroom on Jan. 10 to reduced charges stemming from a bizarre kidnapping scheme last April. Garcia had abducted a 21-year-old Fairfield man and was demanding $800 in ransom, the man’s aunt and father reported to police on April 6. Police told the aunt to request a photo to guarantee the young man was still alive, and when the photo arrived by text, ctpost.com reported, it showed the victim lying face down in a bathtub with a three-foot-long alligator on top of him, mouth agape. In a subsequent phone call, the victim told his aunt: “They got (sic) this alligator on me, and they saying (sic) that if no money is given they are gonna have him chewing on me.” Police and the FBI were able to trace the phone calls to a hotel room, where Garcia was apprehended. He faces a year in prison.
• In Williamson County, Texas, Sheriff Robert Chody has employed a new cadre of deputies to help deter speeding. Interestingly, they all look alike. The cardboard cutouts, which Chody has placed along roads where speeding is common, depict one of the department’s real-life deputies pointing a radar device at the roadway. “It’s a creative way to solve the problem without really working the problem,” he told KTCB-TV. “Slow down, because you never know if it’s the real deal or not,” he warned. The sheriff said he tested the idea in school zones and, “We didn’t get one speeder.”
© 2019 ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
