If a man liberates a loaf of bread from its rightful confines, that is stealing. But if a topless woman begs him to take the loaf of bread, can the same still be said? What if the loaf of bread is his penis, and the woman is an undercover police officer?

It’s penetrating philosophical questions like these that jab painfully at the mind when one reads this article, wherein the intrepid police force of Columbus, Ohio put the scenario to the test.

The lady cop in question, who I have to assume didn’t ace her policeman’s exam, was given the task of sunbathing topless in a park by a street in a suburb every day for weeks. Normally I’d say that’s a great use of my tax dollars, but this wasn’t just an innocent “spruce up the neighborhood” effort.

No no; something far more sinister was going on. The bathing Bathsheba was mere pervert bait, set out to trap the kind of sick, twisted male mind that would be so craven as to look at a woman’s bare tits when they are innocently flaunted for weeks on end.

And, what do you know, it worked! The cops finally busted someone for indecent exposure, but only after the topless cop flirted with him (initiated physical contact to boot) and “asked to see his penis.” How are cops allowed to do that?! Ask someone to commit a crime and then arrest them for it?!

There’s a word for this type of thing: Entrapment, and it’s more than just an underrated Sean Connery heist movie. It’s sexist. If she can flaunt her funbags shamelessly, why the hell can’t I take my guy out for a breath of air? What is this, the Ritz?

The whole thing is an over-the-top ridiculous waste of time, money, and manpower, and while there admittedly isn’t a lot for cops to do in Ohio, you’d think they could come up with something a little more constructive that causing crimes for them to solve . Oppress minorities, something.

So be warned, kids: don’t take your cock out in Columbus. Although it is heartening to know that topless sunbathing is legal there. Almost makes up for the giant blank square of nothing that is the rest of Ohio.

While the writer’s strike has ground all of Hollywood to a halt and rendered all televisions blank and featureless save reruns of Good Times, another, perhaps less glamorous strike is plaguing the Big Apple some three thousand miles and several levels of national interest away. Brace yourselves:

The stagehands have struck.

They’re striked. It’s stricken.

There are no more people in New York City willing to move objects from point A to point B, haul flats from point B to point C, or preset the Grinch’s Mazzila-mazoo. Need that prop moved from that table to that other table, Mr. Director? TOO BAD. There is literally no one who is willing to do this for money.

And judging from the fact that there are currently only eight shows still running on Broadway, they’ve basically got the theatres by the balls. After all, they are one of the industry’s most powerful unions. You know how most unions are called “Local Seven Hundred Eighty-Three?” The stagehands’ union is called Local One.

That’s right; they are the FIRST UNION, the one union to rule them all. Remove their dental plan at the risk of plunging us all into an era of darkness and orc-warfare.

As the strike wears on, we must face a grim possibility: doing things outside. Conan and The Daily Show are on hiatus, and Wicked and The Lion King promise no salvation. And honestly, how long can you read internet blogs before your eyes eat themselves?

In the interest of pre-eminently alleviating such an epidemic of ocular auto-consumption, here are three fun things you can do outside with your whole family:

Awesome Video Of The Day

Helpin’ People Is Cool (Go G-Hog!)

When I was growing up, me and my friends always used to talk about how health care careers were “lame” and “for total douche nozzles.” After watching this commercial, I see now how wrong we were. Maybe if we’d had viral web videos featuring rapping groundhogs back then things would have turned out better for me - I’m basically a vagrant now. Do you have any idea how much plasma I’ve sold this month? I’m cold pretty much all the time.

According to this article, the commercial was thought up by Shannon Powers - a press officer for Pennsylvania’s Department of Labor - for “Health Careers Week.” Powers cowrote the rap with another officer, and it was performed by an undisclosed state worker. I wonder why they didn’t give their name? This could have been their big break.

With totally sick flows like “flexible hours, competitive wages / many jobs at different educational stages” and “chances for advancement, you’ll never be a zero / choose a job in health care, become a health care hero,” I don’t think they’re gonna have any problem staffing Pennsylvania hospitals for a while. From now on their only concern is gonna be finding the tightest, freshest beats… and trying to think of something that rhymes with “defibrillator.”

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She may not be the greatest actress, or director, or producer, but everyone can agree that Salma Hayek has one attribute no one can argue with—her mind.

Specifically, she was smart enough to ask God for some world-class gazongas:

My mom and I stopped at a church during a road trip we were making from our home in Mexico. When we went inside, I prayed for the miracle I wanted to happen. I put my hands in holy water and said: ‘Please God, give me some breasts.’ And he gave me them! Within a few months, I developed a growing spurt, as teenagers do, and I was very pleased with the way I grew outwards.

Unfortunately for her fellow citizens, while the Hombre Upstairs was expertly sculpting Hayek’s tetas del Dios, He was too busy to intervene in the 1985 Mexico City earthquake which killed 9,000 people or Mexico’s crushing quarterfinal loss in the 1986 World Cup, not to mention the tragic death of a small Oaxacan child who was destined to cure cancer and banish world hunger had he not been trampled in 1983 by a herd of rabid llama.

But—¡ay, qué melones!

Moby is fuming after a co-op board rejected his application to move into a 7.5 million dollar California Penthouse. The composer of South Side and other things I don’t listen to told reporters:

“Co-op boards should be abolished. I just spent five months having a buyer’s application rejected for no reason.”

No reason? I find that very hard to believe. I mean, come on, things change. There was a time people thought it was cool to buy music they first heard in car commercials, but that time has passed. Indeed, I can think of several reasons Moby’s application was rejected:

*Neighbors feared collateral damage to the building from a potential Moby/Eminem slap fight.

*It became clear that former friends like Gwen Stefani and David Bowie actually didn’t visit him very often. Or at all.

*Moby left several significant sections of the application blank, opting to fill the space with mellow keyboard generated overtones instead of actual words.

*There is a Michael J. Fox “You must be this tall to enter the Penthouse” sign at the entrance gate.

*During the board interview, Moby responded to questions, repeatedly, in the sampled voice of an old dead black woman.

*The Penthouse’s music room is only 98.7% soundproof.

Awesome Video Of The Day

Mike Rowe Selling Katsaks on QVC

It’s kind of weird to think there was a time when Mike Rowe, current host of Dirty Jobs, was hawking things like “Katsaks” on QVC to pay his rent, but you know what’s even weirder? THERE WAS SOMEONE OUT THERE TAPING IT. Who in the name of God tapes the “Quality Value Convenience” channel?! Were they huge Mike Rowe fans, or did they just not want to miss seeing all the products that were available for purchase? Maybe they had the VCR set to the wrong channel or something.

If I were Mike Rowe and wanted someone to hire me for a new show, I’d just show them this clip. Not only would it prove that I could handle myself with grace under pressure, but it also shows that when I had a show on QVC, THERE WAS SOMEONE OUT THERE TAPING IT. If that isn’t a surefire indicator of future success, I don’t know what is.

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Conan O’Brien is six foot four, weighs roughly the same as a Cornish game hen (uncooked), Has hair the shape of a baguette and, as he has mentioned occasionally on his show:

Is extremely pale.

Stalking him is a little like trying to find Osama Bin Laden: It sounds really easy, and yet no one seems to be doing it. TILL NOW.

Yes, for over a year a priest has been stalking Conan O’Brien. I’m assuming it took this long to arrest him because police could not be dissuaded from the idea that this was a merely a filler bit on O’Brien’s program before he threw it to commercials. Preperation H Raymond; The Raccoon With a Jetpack; The Stalking Priest. You’ve got to admit, it’s not that easy to identify the odd one out.

The guy sent O’Brien a series of increasingly threatening letters (a la Eminem’s “Stan,” but without any follow-through) and was finally arrested by NBC security after trying to attend tapings of the show. Apparently Roman Catholics love the masturbating bear. It reminds me of when the Pope called that day of mourning after Andy Richter left.

In his letters, Father Ajemian says he’s been stalking Conan since they went to Harvard together 25 years ago. What foresight! The guy I stalked in College is a mechanic now. Booooring!

Ajemian calls himself Conan’s “most dangerous fan” and makes vague, movie-related threats about shooting and/or kidnapping him. Watch it padre. I’m a Conan fan, and I’ve killed a man with his own hair. Can you say the same?

Apparently, Father Ajemian has also stalked John McEnroe and Faye Dunaway, and during an interview about his legal trouble vis a vis O’Brien, stated “I’d like to meet Paul Simon.” Rule number one Ajemian: FOCUS.

If you want to be taken seriously in the stalking world, pick an object of affection and stick wit it. You’ve already got the practice; after all, being a priest is basically just stalking God. Translate those skills to O’Brien, and try to keep from being distracted anytime an aging rocker releases a new album or a fading pro athlete makes a comeback. You might just make it yet.

Or, you know, get put in an insane asylum.

Rock nerds everywhere were devastated today at the news that the long-rumored musical meeting between Paul “File Not Found” McCartney and Thom “the extra ‘h’ is for handsome” Yorke is not happening:

Paul McCartney was desperate to collaborate with Thom Yorke—but the Radiohead star turned him down. The former Beatle claims Yorke rejected an offer to work on an album with him—because he wants to solely concentrate on his band. McCartney says, “…I asked Thom to do a duet, but he said he couldn’t because he only felt happy working on his own and Radiohead’s material.”

… or so he says. Yorke’s refusal to cooperate with Operation Pauljuvenation could also be due to the following factors:

• McCartney’s insistence on working with archaic art form known as “songs”
• Lack of enthusiasm among target demographic for first single, “I Get By with a Little Help from My Genetically Modified Robotic Angst”
• Yorke insisted that consumers be able to download the album at a price of their own choosing, whereas McCartney preferred to release it on 8-track tape and Edison cylinder and sell it from the back of his van
• The banshee-like quality of Yorke’s anguished wailing was lost as sound waves were repeatedly absorbed by Paul’s wrinkles
• Scheduled recording date had to be scrapped after McCartney failed to show and was later discovered unconscious in a dumpster with a prosthetic leg-shaped indentation in his groin
• Fan excitement dropped sharply after it was determined that time travel technology is not yet ready to arrange a collaboration between 1968 McCartney and 1996 Yorke
• Audio testing revealed that the sound effects used on Radiohead’s last three albums could induce seizures, pacemaker failure, and incontinence in McCartney’s audience and McCartney

Although these two musical giants were unable to come to mutually agreeable terms at this time, plans are under way for a second, less publicized collaboration, between Thom Yorke’s singing garbage-man and Ringo.

Awesome Video Of The Day

Orangina Ad: Furry, French & Naughty

I’m going to try not to make a predictable, stereotypical joke about French people here, but it’s gonna be tough. Seriously - what the hell kind of commercial is this? You’ve got some weird bear getting ready to go at it with a smoking hot bikini-clad doe, and all these zebras are shooting off Orangina cannons all over some slutty-looking octopus, and then the sexy panda’s top falls off and you’re like, “Wait… WHAT?! SLOW DOWN!” Unless you’re French, in which case you’re probably used to companies using implied interspecial anthropormorphic sex to sell orange soda.

Can you imagine if this aired on American television during the Super Bowl? There would be rioting in the streets, but the rioting would be all slow and strangely erotic because everyone would be too horny and confused to riot properly, their minds clouded with weird fantasies about sexy pandas and exotic new brands of soda. What I’m saying is that I think it could be a hit, although I might suggest the following tweaks to prepare this spot for American primetime:

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The big news in Heroes-land this week was the apology from series creator Tim Kring for the slow pace of the season so far. Apparently, the show’s writers “aren’t very good” at telling love stories, and maybe the new characters were introduced “a little slowly” and also maybe keeping Hiro in ancient Japan for seven episodes was “not fucking very bright.”

Those quotes aren’t verbatim, incidentally.

I won’t be too hard on Kring here, because frankly it’s refreshing to see someone from a show be so up front about it’s weaknesses. Nevertheless, Tim, it probably would have been handy if you’d noticed these things sometime before all those episodes were filmed.*

*Here of course I’m assuming that Tim Kring regularly reads this blog, as do countless other Hollywood writers and producers - an assumption I feel comfortable making, having seen no evidence to the contrary.

Which brings us to Episode 8, the dawning of a new age in the Heroes world. According to the omni-present ads, all the mysteries of the past 4 months would be revealed. Will this mark a turning point for the franchise, or has it slipped forever from the attention of today’s ever-fickle youth? I hear the kids talking about that new Kelsey Grammer show a lot these days. Maybe that’s stolen Heroes thunder.

Things We Learned: (after the jump)
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