The City of Milwaukee has had it’s fair share of homocides this year. WAY more than last year. At the time of this posting, there have been 122 homocides in Milwaukee this year, as opposed to 88 last year. And for all I know, the 123rd homocide could have happened this morning. Yes, it’s a sad thing that is happening in the city that I live in, but honestly, it hasn’t affected me too much. After all, most of these are happening in parts of the city other than where I live. Not that these people deserve it, but it just makes me feel a little safer knowing that they usually don’t happen where I live.

Until last night.

45-year-old man shot, killed during robbery
Three men demand money from cashier while one waits in car

A 45-year-old man working the counter at Wong’s Kitchen, 9201 W. Capitol Drive, was killed during a robbery Wednesday night, said Capt. Eric Moore of the Milwaukee Police Department.

Three men wearing masks, or covering their faces with articles of clothing, rushed into the restaurant about 5:15 p.m., demanding money as a getaway driver waited in a car out front, Moore said.

One man jumped over the counter, demanding money from the cashier, Michael R. Tabbert.

Before Tabbert could give him any money, the man shot him once in the torso in front of several other employees. The gunman then fled the restaurant with his accomplices, Moore said.

Tabbert died at the scene.

Police squads were saturating the area late Wednesday, looking for the four men involved in the robbery, Moore said.

They are believed to be driving a dark General Motors four-door sedan, possibly an early 1990s Pontiac Grand Prix.

Tabbert’s mother, Darleen Tabbert, said she often worried about her son’s safety when he worked at the restaurant. She said her son had a wife and an 8-year-old daughter.

“It was so useless because they didn’t even get the money,” Darleen Tabbert said of the robbery. “I just hope they find them.”

“It was so useless.”

Yes, it was, Darleen. Why in the WORLD would you shoot this poor man? They always taught us in retail that if you were getting held up, you give that person all the money you have in the drawer. Sacrifice the store’s profits, not your life. From the way the story is spun, it sounds like this poor guy didn’t even have enough time to get the money out of the drawer before they shot him in the chest. And for what??

And when I say close to home, I mean, CLOSE TO HOME. This was a few blocks away from my house in what I still feel is a safe neighborhood. Does it worry me a bit that these guys are still out there? Sure… but even when they are caught, something needs to be done to curb the homocides in the city. I wish I had some ingenious plan of how to do it, but someone has got to do something…

My post regarding the world’s ugliest cat has been the most popular post on my website as of recently. It’s nothing like Neill’s uvula post, but it’s all I have.

So, I’m hoping to garner even more hits by posting the Ugliest Dog picture.

Sam, the poor little bugger, died this past November 22nd of a failing heart. RIP, Sam, RIP.

You be the judge… funny or sad…

A photographer has come under fire in China for his pictures of a man falling off a bicycle.

The man came a spectacular cropper in Xiamen city after his bike hit a pot-hole submerged in rainwater.

But photographer Liu Tao was accused of lying in wait to take his pictures instead of warning people of the danger.

Readers of the Beijing Youth Daily, which published the shots, wrote in to express their feelings.

One wrote: “The pictures are well shot, but the person who shot this is disgusting. He knew there was a pit, but was waiting there for someone to fall over.”

And another said: “The photographer should really be condemned since he knew there definitely would be other victims.”

Liu defended himself, saying: “I just knew that the city government has paved the pit, and without my pictures, the pit would not be noticed by the government, and there would perhaps be more people falling over.”

Better late than never… here are my pictures from my Christmas Dinner (click on that link) back in the beginning of December. Sorry for being slow in getting them up!

I had no idea what this guy’s name was until I found out that he passed away today. I remember watching this dude in movies and thinking that he was one weird dude. Easy to be typecasted for roles that he played. Here are some movies that he was in:

Ghost (The subway ghost telling Patrick Swayze to “get off my train!”)
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Mr. Vargas, the science teacher)
Batman Returns (the organ grinder)
Bride of Boogedy (Lazarus)

He was only 57 and died of lung cancer. Now we have to find another droopy-eyed person to play those weird roles. Any suggestions?

There are so many things wrong with this picture (and the story, for that matter!)…

LONDON (AFP) - Schoolchildren as young as 12 are to be offered nicotine patches to help them kick the habit, according to health officials.

“It does not take long for young people to be addicted to nicotine,” Iain Miller, a smoking cessation adviser with local healthcare provider Derwentside Primary Care Trust (PCT) in northeast England, said Tuesday.

The PCT has teamed up with the Government’s Sure Start scheme — which aims to improve the health of the nation’s children — to provide patches to 12- to 17-year-olds at six schools.

Seven percent of boys and 10 percent of girls aged 11 to 15 smoke, national statistics suggest. Almost a quarter of 16- to 19-year-olds smoke, figures show.

“By the time they have overcome the spluttering start to smoking and learned to smoke three full cigarettes, inhaling the smoke properly, they can be displaying the key signs of addiction,” he added.

“Young people deserve the same opportunities to break their addiction as older people do.”

So, Kindergarteners are watching santa hotbox a cig AND he’s got an empty liquor bottle in front of him. What’s up with that??

Don Banks of cnnsi.com wrote of his 5 favorite Monday Night Football memories in his column today. Obviously, this is because MNF is going into it’s last game on ABC next week. I think it’s neat that 3 out of the 5 games had the Packers staring in them:

5. Denver 17, Green Bay 14, Oct. 15, 1984
2. Packers 12, Bucs 9, in OT, Dec. 12, 1983
1. Vikings 37, Packers 24, Oct. 5, 1998

Ok, so the Packers didn’t sound too stellar in any of the games, but I liked his description of the Packers/Bucs game.

This isn’t a game that’s going to make anyone’s list but mine, but I was there in Tampa Stadium that night that Howard Cosell called his final Monday night game from ABC’s booth. But that’s not what made this late-season game between two also-rans memorable.

Leave it to Bucs head coach and noted quipster John McKay to do that. Tampa Bay, headed for a 2-14 season, lost to the Packers thanks to kicker Bill Capece missing both an extra point and a 35-yard fourth-quarter field goal attempt. Green Bay capitalized on Capece’s miscues and tied the game on a Jan Stenerud field goal late in regulation, and won it on another Stenerud three-pointer early in overtime.

After the game, McKay was asked about his struggling kicker and got off one of his most inspired lines: “Capece is kaput. There will be no more field goals kicked by the Bucs this year, no matter what the score is. I’m tired of being crucified.”

Capece was cut soon after, and the next week, new kicker Dave Warnke missed a field goal and an extra point and shanked three kickoffs in a three-point loss at Detroit. Fed up with kickers, McKay then had 300-pound offensive tackle George Yarno kick the Bucs’ final PAT of the season.

Ha! Can you imagine that sight? Imagine Gilbert Brown or something kicking a PAT. That’s funny.

In a different Sports Illustrated picture/article, thankfully they mentioned the MNF game that had the Packers vs. the Raiders on Dec. 22, 2003. Just a day after his father died, Brett Favre came out and threw for 399 yards and four touchdowns to lead the Packers to a 41-7 rout of the Raiders. That was a hell of a game to watch.

Why does it seem like it’s always the fish that come out of the water deformed? It’s never a worm, or a starfish with 7 legs… it’s always a fish.

Double-Mouthed Fish Pulled From Neb. Lake

LINCOLN, Neb. - This fish didn’t have a chance. A rainbow trout pulled out of Holmes Lake last weekend had double the chance to get hooked: It had two mouths.

Clarence Olberding, 57, wasn’t just telling a fisherman’s fib when he called over another angler to look at the two-mouthed trout. It weighed in at about a pound.

“I reached down and grabbed it to take the hook out, and that’s when I noticed that the hook was in the upper mouth and there was another jaw protruding out below,” said Olberding.

He said in his 40 years of fishing, he’s never seen anything like it.

Don Gabelhouse, head of the fisheries division of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, said a two-mouthed fish was new to him, too.

“It’s probably a genetic deformity,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it.”

The second mouth didn’t appear to be functional, Olberding said. He has plans for the fish, which don’t included mounting.

“I’m going to smoke it up and eat it,” he said.

Got this in a forward today and got a few chuckles, so I thought I’d pass it on. These are entires to a Washington Post Competition asking for a rhyme with the most romantic first line, but the least romantic second line.

Love may be beautiful, love may be bliss
But I only slept with you, because I was pissed.

I thought that I could love no other
Until, that is, I met your brother.

Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you.
But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl’s
empty and so is your head.

Of loving beauty you float with grace
If only you could hide your face.

Kind, intelligent, loving and hot
This describes everything you are not.

I want to feel your sweet embrace
But don’t take that paper bag off of your face.

I love your smile, your face, and your eyes
Damn, I’m good at telling lies!

My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife:
Marrying you screwed up my life.

I see your face when I am dreaming.
That’s why I always wake up screaming.

My love, you take my breath away.
What have you stepped in to smell this way?

My feelings for you no words can tell
Except for maybe “Go To Hell.”

What inspired this amorous rhyme?
Two parts vodka, one part lime!

For those of you that are drivers in Milwaukee, I hope you all saw the Journal-Sentinel’s article on speeding today. Here’s the highlights if you didn’t see it.

Almost 16,000 speeding tickets were issued on Milwaukee County’s freeway system in 2004, and Richards said the number easily could have been much higher. An analysis by the Journal Sentinel of the tickets issued in 2004 shows:

• The No. 1 spot for nabbing speeders is on I-94 near the W. Layton Ave. exit. More than 1,000 speeding tickets were issued there. In fact, five of the top 20 spots where speeders were ticketed were on the south side of I-94 between College and Rawson avenues.

• Only one of the top 20 hot spots was on I-43 north of downtown.

• Although law enforcements officers are loath to admit it, speeders who travel at 14 mph or less over the limit have little chance of getting a ticket. About 98% of the tickets were written to those going 15 mph or more over the limit. Those traveling 10 mph or less over the limit have virtually no chance of getting nabbed. Of the more than 14,000 citations in which the driver’s speed was recorded, only seven listed the driver as going 10 mph or less over the limit.

• Fifteen people were ticketed for racing at 100 mph or more on the freeway, including a Milwaukee man clocked doing 137 mph in a 55-mph zone. The fine for doing 45 mph more than the limit is $494.50.

• Beware Sunday drivers: Sunday is the day of the week when most tickets are issued.

• Most tickets are not issued during the rush hours. In fact, between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. is the most likely time for speeders to be stopped.

It’s nice to see this sort of stuff in writing every once in a while. Not that I ever do an excessive amount of speeding, but it’s always nice to know where the hot-spots are and what days you’re more than likely to get a ticket.

I know you faithful readers in Milwaukee have been pulled over for speeding. Where and if you don’t mind me asking, how much were you going over?

I’m pissed off. Not at any of you, but at the players on my fantasy football team. I went from a strong, going to make it an Indy season, 9-0, to finishing the regular season 9-5. 5 straight losses AND I lost first place in the division. Ok, so I head into the playoffs with the 2nd seed. Not horrible.

Until I pull out a measly 48 points this week. What the h?

So, for all of you NFL players that read my blog, I have some words for you:

So, I’m going to go from playing for 1st to playing for at most, 5th. Fantasy football officially sucks.

I received this idea from another blog called “The Story of Why.” What you do, is take the first sentence from the first post of every month from the past year and lump it into one paragraph. Thus, my year in review:

I know you all have been dying to know, so here’s the latest headline from the sports world. Once again, I feel it’s my job to remind everyone that it can always be worse. As with the ass-less pants that I posted about a few weeks ago, once again I am ecstatic about the new fashion trends. The front page of cnn.com is filled with great stories today. Another cabin weekend come and gone, and another weekend of stupid human tricks. Since I graduated high school, I have moved 8 times. Sorry for the week-long delay in postings here, but I’ve been on vacation to New Hampshire and had to take a hiatus from both my website and emailing for an entire week. I read an article in Friday’s Business Journal regarding some alternate plans for Pabst City now that the big proposal was shot down last week. I’m not exactly sure how this thing works just yet, but I do think it’s an interesting invention. Good news everyone: I got my annual postcard from the Green Bay Packers yesterday and I am number 52,500 on the waiting list for season tickets. Jonny Hammer forwarded me this article and said that it made him “think of my website” for some reason, so I feel obligated to post about it. At first, I couldn’t believe that we have scientists that are working to find a cure for Cow farts.

Maybe if I wrote more about my “feelings” and what I was thinking on a given day, this may have turned out a little better. I’d imagine Heraldblog’s site would have one of the strongest political paragraphs EVER known to man. How does your site turn out?

I read about this on another website, so I thought I would give it a shot and see what happens. What you do is go to google, and type in your first name then the word “needs.” See what comes up. Here are the top 10 that came up when I typed in “Tara needs.”

1. Tara needs… to control her abandonment anxiety. (I didn’t even know I had that!)
2. Tara needs… Sinn Féin supporters for next week. (Yes I do. What is Sinn Féin anyway?)
3. Tara needs… volunteers helping with promotion. (I’m too cheap to pay)
4. Tara needs… to hoist those puppies up a bit. (What? They’re not big enough to need to hoise them!)
5. Tara needs… some Dove firming cream from the looks of these photos. (What photos?)
6. Tara needs… understand a lot more about Troy’s mysterious life. (I agree. Tr0y is so mysterious, I don’t even know who he is!)
7. Tara needs… to be in one place long enough to establish a trusting relationship with a good, interested, capable therapist. (Who thinks I need a therapist??)
8. Tara needs… a drink! (AMEN!)
9. Tara needs… no introduction to the readers of History Ireland. (You hear that, Harrington??)
10. Tara needs… Madge’s pilate sex toy. (I had no idea there were sex toys for pilates!)

Try out your name and let me know some of the funny ones that come up for you!

Pregnant Skydiver Survives Face-First Fall

SILOAM SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) — Shayna Richardson was making her first solo skydiving jump when she had trouble with her parachutes and, while falling at about 50 mph, hit face first in a parking lot.

Although badly hurt, she survived - and doctors treating her injuries discovered she was pregnant. Four surgeries and two months later, Richardson said she and the fetus are doing fine.

“Just this last week we went and saw the doctor and we’ve got arms, we’ve got legs. We’ve got a full face. The baby is moving around just fine. The heart rate looks good. So not only did God save me but he spared this baby,” she said.

Richardson, 21, of Joplin, Mo., was skydiving in Siloam Springs on Oct. 9 when her main parachute failed.

“I heard a snap and I started spinning and I didn’t know why. I didn’t know what to do to fix it. I didn’t know how to make it stop,” Richardson told Fort Smith, Ark., television station KFSM.

She cut away her primary chute so her reserve could deploy, but it didn’t open all the way. She spun out of control, heading straight for the asphalt below.

“At the end I said, ‘I’m going to die. I’m going to hit the ground. I’m going to die,’” she said. “I don’t remember it. I don’t remember hitting the ground. I don’t remember the impact or anything that came with it.”

Rescuers got her to a hospital in Fayetteville, where Richardson underwent surgery. She broke her pelvis in two places, broke her leg, lost six teeth and now has 15 steel plates.

“”To hit the ground belly first - that’s dangerous. I mean at any stage of pregnancy that’s dangerous. That’s not something you want to do let alone at 50 miles per hour,” Richardson said.

Her fall was videotaped and Richardson said she was able to watch it, without qualms.

“I wanted to watch it,” said Richardson. “And the whole reason I’m comfortable with watching it because I know how it ends.”

Richardson said her due date is June 25. She plans to make her next parachute jump in August.

What the heck? Most people wouldn’t even survive the fall, much less have a fetus survive. And I don’t think I’d be comfortable watching a videotape of me falling face-first into a parking lot at 50 mph–even if I knew what was coming. Lady is nuts…

Early in 2006, the City of Milwaukee will celebrate it’s 160th Birthday. In correlation with that, the Milwaukee Press Club is having a poll asking What makes the City of Milwaukee such a great place to live, work and play?

The public can vote on their top 10 things that make Milwaukee Special. Go to www.gemsofmilwaukee.com to vote. Make sure you vote for Mount Mary College and The Gas Light Building, as that is where certain people and myself work. Go vote!!