Philippine police with bad teeth got something to grin about Monday when President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (news - web sites)’s husband handed out free dentures to improve the confidence and public image of the national force.

Boost their confidence? How about boost their ability to get a date?

There is an article on jsonline today about how intoxicated fans are becoming a greater liability at sporting events. The article references the whole Detroit Pistons/Indiana Pacers basketball episode earlier this year, and another episode where a 2-year old girl was paralyzed from getting hit by a drunken fan who had attended a New York Giants football game. The result of this is that professional sports teams are beginning to “reassess” their alcohol policies so that this sort of thing doesn’t happen in the future.

Just as a reference, here are the policies for selling liquor at sporting events in Wisconsin:

Any College Sporting Event: Alcohol sales are not permitted
Green Bay Packers: League policy that all alcohol sales are stopped after the third quarter of the game
Milwaukee Bucks: Beer sales are cut off with 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter. Sales of other alcoholic beverages end with 6 minutes left in the third quarter
Milwaukee Brewers: Beer sales are cut off exactly 2½ hours after the first pitch

I have mixed feelings about this. While I think that professional sports teams have a responsibility to maintain a safe and appropriate atmosphere, they also have a right to earn money and provide a fun atmosphere. For many people alcohol is a big part of the “fun.” Yes, I think it’s sad and unfortunate that this poor little 2-year old girl had this happen to her. But how is the fact that this man was at a NY Giants game relevant? Is it any different that the guy being at a bar or even at his own home drinking and then getting behind the wheel? I just think there is a certain point where we, as a society, need to stop placing the blame on the organizations providing the alcohol and start placing the blame on ourselves. If you’re drinking alcohol, you should be an adult and take the responsibility of your actions.

Stop pointing the finger and start pulling the thumb.

This combination photo shows a model presenting a creation as part of Cavalera’s 2005 Fall/Winter collection show during Sao Paulo Fashion Week, January 25, 2005.

Good news, my hip friends…

Assless pants are back in style. Looks like I can FINALLY pull mine out of the closet and wear them with pride.

jsonline reports…

After electronically monitoring the every movement of a group of self-described couch potatoes around the clock for days, scientists came to this conclusion: obese people spend a lot more time sitting than thin people.

REALLY?? Fat people sit on their butts more than thin people? Who would have guessed??

I am going to add another category to my website–”Inappropriate Acts of my Friends.” As you can see, Tim is at it again, this time using a different name and age. But don’t worry, Tim, we know this was you.

THURSDAY, Jan. 27, 2005, 12:35 p.m.
Man charged with lewd act via IM

A 40-year-old Milwaukee man has been charged with exposing himself via a web camera to a 16-year-old Mequon girl while she was doing homework on her personal computer.

According to a criminal complaint filed in Ozaukee County Circuit Court, Kevin J. Albert made contact with the girl via an instant messaging system at 12:30 a.m. on Dec. 16. He told the girl he worked with her mother.

After about half an hour, Albert activated his Webcam, saying he wanted to show her his living room. After a while, Albert performed a lewd act in front of the camera and began speaking suggestively to the girl.

Police were notified the next day and reported the incident. Albert confirmed the girl’s story to police, according to the criminal complaint.

Albert has been charged with one felony count of exposing a child to harmful material.

Ok, I can’t decide if this guy is extremely smart, or just stupid. Either way, the guy is $37,375 richer than I am…

Co. to Advertise on Neb. Man’s Forehead

OMAHA, Neb. - A Web-page designer who auctioned off the use of his forehead for advertising space is letting it go to his head.

Andrew Fischer, 20, of Omaha, who put his forehead for sale on eBay as advertising space, received $37,375 on Friday to advertise the snoring remedy, SnoreStop.

Fischer will display the SnoreStop logo on his forehead for one month.

“I look forward to an enjoyable association with Andrew — a man who clearly has a head for business in every sense of the word,” SnoreStop CEO Christian de Rivel said.

“People will always comment on something out of the ordinary,” Fischer said in his sales pitch. “People like weird.”

But there were limits: He refused from the outset to be the conduit for any message or product deemed tasteless or unacceptable in traditional advertising formats.

Ok. Another annoying bathroom peeve with me that I need to talk about.

Toilet paper comes in rolls. Very rarely do I ever see it in single sheets of paper (besides maybe some grade schools) anymore… it’s ALWAYS in a roll.

So, can someone please tell me WHY the people that make the toilet paper roll holders now are making them in an OVAL shape? A roll is of toilet paper is circular. Not ovular (is that a word?) unless it’s stepped on. So, the maintenance people of the world are stuck putting circular rolls of toilet paper on holders that are ovular. Sure, they fit and their work is done. But, I sit down and go to pull off some tp to use, and I get two sheets. I don’t know about all of you, but I need more than two sheets of toilet paper to wipe myself. But, because of the size problem with the rolls/holders, you can’t just pull off a big string of tp. You have to do it 2 pieces at a time.

Does it GET any more annoying? Or am I the only one that this is a problem for…

One of Mike Sherman’s biggest flops this past year was trading up to draft a punter in the 3rd round who turned out to do absolutely nothing for the Pack… and yet we still kept him on our roster all year long!

His worst showing was in the preseason (because we didn’t play him at all DURING the season) against Tennessee when he shanked a FIVE YARD PUNT off of his food that went OUT OF BOUNDS. FIVE YARDS. I could kick it farther than that. Heck, I could throw it RIGHT HANDED (I’m left handed) further than that… and still keep it in bounds.

Even this weekend when the conditions in Philadelphia were HORRIBLE, Atlanta’s punter, Chris Mohr, kicked into a 28-mph wind in the freezing cold… and still managed to punt it eight yards. EIGHT. Bad, yes… but not as bad as our punter who can’t kick it further than 5 yards in the middle of the summer.

Yup–I feel good about our punter next year. I’m sure he’ll be the starter…

I messed up. Neill showed me this fancy way of deleting all of the spam from my site… but I typed something in correctly when I was doing it, and it deleted any comments from my site where the person didn’t list a URL (webpage) when they wrote their comments.

So… I deleted a LOT of comments. Sorry. Neill banned me from doing it that way, so it won’t happen again. Carry on with your commenting and I’m sorry for those of you whose comments were deleted.

Speaking of bars on Water Street, did people hear about the $39,000 fine that “The Corner” received this past Saturday for being overcrowded? I guess the bar had 180 people in it, and it’s only supposed to hold 100 according to the fire code. That’s not just one or two people over, that’s a lot of people. I have to agree with the bar owner though in the article when he says that every bar on Water Street (with a few exceptions) is probably over capacity… how else would they make money? But this is what I don’t get:

Schwartz said the department recently brought back “tavern cars,” patrols dedicated to policing bars for issues like overcrowding and underage drinking.

The stepped-up effort stems from tragedies around the world in which people were killed in overcrowded bars, Schwartz said.

Oh, that’s right. In a metropolitan area like Milwaukee, why wouldn’t we focus a chunk of our police force towards tragedies in overcrowded bars? It’s such a huge problem for our city and is causing a ton of riots, shootings and promoting alcoholism.

And let’s talk about the story that wasn’t covered by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Cory, a friend of the infamous Urban, was in Fitzgibbons Pub on Water a few weeks ago. If you’re familiar with Water Street, I’m willing to bet that Fitzgibbons isn’t on your top 5 places to go on Water for a night out. It’s pretty empty most of the time and doesn’t have a very youthful crowd. So, Cory is sitting there at bartime with probably 6 other patrons and the bartender, finishing up their drinks, and the cops come in. No, they don’t ticket Fitzgibbons for overcrowding… they ticket THE PATRONS in the bar for being in that after bar time. Are you kidding me??? When you are at a bar, how often are you keeping an eye on the clock to make sure you’re out of the bar by 2am. I don’t think I’ve ever turned to one of my friends and said “hey, it’s bar time, we’ve got to go” unless the bar is kicking us out. Obviously, Fitzgibbons wasn’t kicking people out just yet, but the cops felt the need to come in and feel all cool by ticketing the patrons. At least ticket the bar–it’s their fault for serving the liquor, isn’t it?

What do you think about this whole police thing in Milwaukee bars? Do we need that higher presence, or are the police just spending too much money for stupid things?

As I’m sure many of you have noticed, Tim’s favorite club to pick up underage girls, 1225, was erased from the Water Street Scene back in October.

Well, looks like they are finally done renovating the space and are soon going to be opening up a new place called “Swig.” They don’t have any details posted about it yet, but onmilwaukee.com says that it should be opening up by the end of January. Keep your eyes peeled for more news…

This past Sunday, January 16th, marked the 10 year anniversary of my brother’s death. For those of you that didn’t know, my brother, Jeremy, passed away in 1995 at the young age of 19 in a tragic car accident. He was a US Marine (if you couldn’t tell that from the picture) and on his way back to Tennessee, where he was stationed, after a visit home to Kenosha. He fell asleep at the wheel and was killed instantly.

Hard to believe that 10 years have went by since I was a 15 year old sophomore in HS just taking my first finals ever and having this happen to our family. I could go on all day about my feelings about this, but I thought I’d just leave everyone with the Eulogy that my dad read at my brother’s funeral. I miss you, Jer…

If you are a frequent visitor to the Target on Chase Avenue in Milwaukee, there is probably a good chance you’ve seen a sign directing you to the Historic Hide House. A few weeks ago, I had some spare time and decided to check out what exactly this was. What I came across is what looked like a run down old tannery.

After doing some research online, I found out that the Hide House is actually a lot more than that. From their website, I found out that the place used to be the Greenbaum Tanning Company until that closed in the 1940’s. It basically sat there and decayed for 60 years until a company bought it, renovated it, and it is now used to house artists and musicans from Milwaukee that need practice and office space. They have held numerous gallery nights, dance recitals, and even wedding receptions there.

I know Milwaukee is known for our breweries and being a “blue-collar” town, but I had no idea that we had this many tanneries. I know of at least 3 now, and I’m sure there are plenty more–look for my tannery research in an upcoming article here at tarapfeifer.com.

Alright–for everyone from Wisconsin that gets annoyed with Illinois drivers, this is the ultimate satisfaction.

Headline from jsonline today:
Da speeders: Illinois pair cited 4 times in 1 day in Wisconsin

I won’t copy the entire article here, but basically, these people were pulled over FOUR times in just over three hours in Wisconsin over New Years this year. Speeding all 4 times (with a few seatbelt violations thrown in there) at speeds of 77, 84, 100, and 108 mph. Smart move, FIBs.

Ok, now I know that the police are a little more lenient in Illinois with speeding, because the majority of the time, you have to speed to keep up with traffic. But who in the world gets stopped FOUR times. Once, fine. Twice… maybe. Three times, no way. Four times, what the F is wrong with your head?? I’ve only been caught speeding ONCE and that was enough for me. But Four times… in ONE NIGHT. It just blows my mind. The guy, Piotr, isn’t even sorry about it. He says that in his native Poland, he’s been driving since he was 9 (he’s now 21).

NEWSFLASH for ya, Piotr: YOU’RE NOT IN POLAND ANYMORE.

To show how smart he really is, he then goes on to mention in the article that he just hopes that his parents don’t find out about the tickets, otherwise he’ll really be in trouble.

“”My father kicked my ass” after the first ticket, “so I can’t tell him about this stuff in Wisconsin,” Pac said.

Well, sure, Piotr. That’s why it makes sense that you go out and agree to interview for an article for a NEWSPAPER, with your first quote being “I’m Famous!”

We’ll see how famous you are in a few days when your father kicks your ass after these next 4 tickets. High fives all around, Piotr.

Some of you may be familiar with the infamous Milwaukee Wing Tour. This is a website that Tim, Neill, Erica and I set up last spring as we travelled around the Milwaukee area to find all of the best tasting wings and wing deals for you, the consumer. The site was on hiatus for a while, but now we’re back on track and ready to review wings.

Check out our latest stop last night by clicking on this link. If you have any suggestions of new places, let us know!!