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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on May 31, 2006 0:59:26 GMT -5
DAPHNE, Ala. (May 29) - Worried about the safety of her family during a stormy Memorial Day trip to the beach, Clara Jean Brown stood in her kitchen and prayed for their safe return as a strong thunderstorm raged through Baldwin County.
Suddenly, lightning exploded, blowing through the linoleum and leaving a pockmarked area on the concrete. Brown wound up on the floor, dazed and disoriented by the blast but otherwise uninjured.
"I said, 'Amen,' and the room was engulfed in a huge ball of fire," she said. "I'm blessed to be alive."
Brown, 65, was hit by a bolt of lightning that apparently struck outside and traveled into the house Monday afternoon. She doesn't know how much time passed while she remained disoriented on the floor before Jamie Matthews, her 14-year-old granddaughter, discovered her after returning from the beach.
"I was just standing there when a huge ball of fire engulfed this whole room. I don't remember much after that," Brown said hours later as her family helped clean her home. "Concrete was everywhere."
Brown was at home alone when the storm hit, while her husband, James Brown, was at the store and her son and his family were on their way back from the beach.
James Brown said fire officials told him lightning likely struck across the street from the couple's home and traveled into the house through a water line. The lightning continued into the couple's backyard and ripped open a small trench, James Brown said. Pieces of concrete were scattered throughout the family's kitchen - ruining day-old brownies sitting on the stove.
"Never in my life did I think something like this could happen," James Brown told the Press-Register. "I always thought if you're in a house that you're safe. That's not the case."
Mrs. Brown said paramedics suggested she go to the hospital, but she chose to stay at home with her family.
"I'm blessed. That's the good news," she said.
Eric Esbensen, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mobile, said dime-sized hail and wind gusts of up to 45 mph were reported in coastal Baldwin County. As much as 3 inches of rain fell in some areas in three hours, he said
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on May 27, 2006 15:36:56 GMT -5
New Zealander's plan to sell his amputated leg has been tripped up by police and an internet auction website.
Shane Torrance (42), whose tattooed right leg was amputated 15 months ago, wants to sell it to cover his debts and raise money for his daughter who has diabetes, The Nelson Mail reported on Thursday.
He wanted to auction the limb, which he keeps in a freezer, on the auction website Trade Me with a reserve of NZ$3 000 (about R11 900).
But the leg was withdrawn from the website within hours of being listed.
A shocked Trade Me business manager Mike O'Donnell said the sale of body parts is not allowed on the site, mainly because it is distasteful.
Nelson Bays police area commander Inspector Brian McGurk said police will be looking at the legality of Torrance's actions.
"There's probably a significant public-interest factor in this matter to scope out the possibility of it being an offence under the Crimes Act or the Human Tissues Act."
The leg was amputated below the knee in February last year when it became ulcerated. Torrance has been a type-one diabetic since he was 20. -- AFP
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on May 27, 2006 15:32:36 GMT -5
People who smoke marijuana may be at less risk of developing lung cancer than tobacco smokers, according to a new study.
The study of 2,200 people in Los Angeles found that even heavy marijuana smokers were no more likely to develop lung, head or neck cancer than non-users, in contrast with tobacco users, whose risk increases the more they smoke.
The findings are a surprise because marijuana smoke has some of the same cancer-causing substances as tobacco smoke, often in higher concentrations, said the senior researcher, Donald Tashkin, a professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California-Los Angeles.
One possible explanation is that THC, a key ingredient in marijuana not present in tobacco, may inhibit tumor growth, he said in an interview.
"You can't give marijuana a completely clean bill of health," said Tashkin, who is to present the study to a conference of the American Thoracic Society. "I wouldn't give any smoke substance a clean bill of health. All you can say is we haven't been able to confirm our suspicions that marijuana might be a risk factor for lung and head and neck cancer."
About 1,200 adults under age 60 with cancer of the lung, tongue, mouth, throat or esophagus, took part in the study, as well as about 1,000 without cancer, between 1999 and 2003.
Marijuana use was found to be no greater or less in any of the groups -- 44 percent of those with lung cancer, 41 percent with head or neck cancers, and 42 percent of those without cancer, said Tashkin.
Other studies had suggested marijuana smoking was a risk factor for cancer, Tashkin said. Marijuana smokers inhale more deeply than tobacco smokers and often hold the smoke in their lungs more than four times longer, depositing more tar, he said.
The results of Tashkin's study confirm some earlier research, said Paul Armentano, a senior policy analyst at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, which advocates legalizing marijuana use.
It'll be surprising results in light of the way marijuana has been presented for many years by the government and the media, as a cancer-causing agent," Armentano said.
Dr. Bertha Madras, deputy director for demand reduction at the White House's drug policy office, said she couldn't directly comment on the study without seeing the details.
"There is strong evidence that chronic marijuana use can lead to adverse effect on lung function such as increased bronchitis and lung inflammation," Madras said.
The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Tashkin said.
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on May 27, 2006 15:30:25 GMT -5
Pop star-turned-doll maker MARIE OSMOND has launched a personal crusade to clean up the Internet after learning her two teenage daughters have been posting sexually explicit correspondence on their MySpace.com websites. The PAPER ROSES singer felt compelled to give a statement to US tabloid National Enquirer after the publication uncovered outrageous content on her daughters JESSICA and RACHAEL's blogs. On her site, 18-year-old Jessica, who was adopted by Osmond as an infant, claims she is a bi-sexual who craves sex "as many times as possible," while her 16-year-old sister describes herself as a "slut" and a "whore" in correspondence and opened up about her dreams of having sex with DAVID BOWIE. In her statement, shocked Marie, a devout Mormon, says, "I am saddened by some of the choices that two of our children have made. "The insidious potential for harm from adolescent Internet sites like MySpace.com only exacerbates these kinds of problems. "If my being a celebrity figure is good for anything, let it be as a voice of warning to other parents that no matter how protective we think we may have been with our children in the past, we need to become more knowledgeable and even more vigilant now in order to protect them."
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on Feb 4, 2006 21:23:59 GMT -5
NEW YORK (AP) -- Al Lewis, the cigar-chomping patriarch of "The Munsters" whose work as a basketball scout, restaurateur and political candidate never eclipsed his role as Grandpa from the television sitcom, died after years of failing health. He was 82. Lewis, with his wife at his bedside, passed away Friday night, said Bernard White, program director at WBAI-FM, where the actor hosted a weekly radio program. White made the announcement on the air during the Saturday slot where Lewis usually appeared. "To say that we will miss his generous, cantankerous, engaging spirit is a profound understatement," White said. Lewis, sporting a somewhat cheesy Dracula outfit, became a pop culture icon playing the irascible father-in-law to Fred Gwynne's ever-bumbling Herman Munster on the 1964-66 television show. He was also one of the stars of another classic TV comedy, playing Officer Leo Schnauzer on "Car 54, Where Are You?" (Watch scenes from Lewis' life -- :41) But Lewis' life off the small screen ranged far beyond his acting antics. A former ballplayer at Thomas Jefferson High School, he achieved notoriety as a basketball talent scout familiar to coaching greats like Jerry Tarkanian and Red Auerbach. He operated a successful Greenwich Village restaurant, Grandpa's, where he was a regular presence -- chatting with customers, posing for pictures, signing autographs. A ponytailed Lewis ran as the Green Party candidate against incumbent Gov. George Pataki. Lewis campaigned against draconian drug laws and the death penalty, while going to court in a losing battle to have his name appear on the ballot as "Grandpa Al Lewis." He didn't defeat Pataki, but managed to collect more 52,000 votes. Lewis was born Alexander Meister in upstate New York before his family moved to Brooklyn, where the 6-foot-1 teen began a lifelong love affair with basketball. He later became a vaudeville and circus performer, but his career didn't take off until television did the same. Lewis, as Officer Schnauzer, played opposite Gwynne's Officer Francis Muldoon in "Car 54, Where Are You?" -- a comedy about a Bronx police precinct that aired from 1961-63. One year later, the duo appeared together in "The Munsters," taking up residence at the fictional 1313 Mockingbird Lane. The series, about a family of clueless creatures plunked down in middle America, was a success and ran through 1966. It forever locked Lewis in as the memorably twisted character; decades later, strangers would greet him on the street with shouts of "Grandpa!" Unlike some television stars, Lewis never complained about getting typecast and made appearances in character for decades. "Why would I mind?" he asked in a 1997 interview. "It pays my mortgage." Lewis rarely slowed down, opening his restaurant and hosting his WBAI radio program. At one point during the '90s, he was a frequent guest on the Howard Stern radio show, once sending the shock jock diving for the delay button by leading an undeniably obscene chant against the Federal Communications Commission. He also popped up in a number of movies, including the acclaimed "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" and "Married to the Mob." Lewis reprised his role of Schnauzer in the movie remake of "Car 54," and appeared as a guest star on television shows such as "Taxi," "Green Acres" and "Lost in Space." But in 2003, Lewis was hospitalized for an angioplasty. Complications during surgery led to an emergency bypass and the amputation of his right leg below the knee and all the toes on his left foot. Lewis spent the next month in a coma. A year later, he was back offering his recollections of a seminal punk band on the DVD "Ramones Raw." He is survived by his wife, Karen Ingenthron-Lewis, three sons and four grandchildren.
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on Jan 31, 2006 19:54:20 GMT -5
A man who was stopped for driving erratically on a divided highway was distracted because he was looking at pornography, authorities said.
David Kennedy, 33, of Nashville, was charged with felony reckless endangerment after motorist Deborah Dotson reported Friday afternoon that he nearly ran her vehicle off State Route 840 several times.
Rutherford County Deputy Tony Hall pulled over Kennedy based on Dotson's report.
"When I made contact with the driver of the suspect vehicle, a Mr. David Kennedy, there were several pornographic magazines on the seat next to him," Hall said in his report.
A hearing on the charge is set for Feb. 22 in General Sessions Court in Murfreesboro, a Nashville suburb.
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on May 10, 2006 10:42:28 GMT -5
Is that where the missing member of Lard Ass has been?
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CBS/UPN
Jan 25, 2006 0:13:14 GMT -5
Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on Jan 25, 2006 0:13:14 GMT -5
Those networks were still on the air?
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on Jan 20, 2006 14:25:43 GMT -5
LOS ANGELES, California (Hollywood Reporter) -- They're throwing a wake of sorts for the Rhino Records store Saturday and Sunday.
Founded in 1973, the venerable record shop officially closed its doors after the turn of the year, hard on the heels of the folding of crosstown competitor Aron's Records.
But, in a final gasp of Rhino tradition, old customers will gather at the Westwood Boulevard location to paw through boxes of CDs, LPs, DVDs and videocassettes at the store's final parking lot sale.
Rhino, a Westside institution for three decades, never recovered its footing after moving into a large new space about five years ago. The old shop, left open as an outlet for used and budget product, closed within a year. A partnership with the Golden Apple comics store failed, and an attempt to rebrand the shop as Duck Soup with the addition of high-priced collectibles never caught fire.
These stabs at instilling new life into Rhino coincided with a precipitous decline in the music business. Owner Richard Foos says: "As bad as it is for everybody, it's much worse for independents. I don't know all the reasons. It's so complicated. There's literally hundreds of reasons."
Foos adds dispiritedly: "There's too many other things to do and too many ways to get your music without paying $18 for a CD. ... I don't see a great future for physical product."
The demise of Rhino hits home on a very personal level for this writer. For years, it was my neighborhood record store, conveniently located between my Westwood Village apartment and the Santa Monica Boulevard office of the film exhibitor I worked for.
It was the hip shop on the Westside -- one of the few places you could buy that hot import album or that cool local punk 45. There, music obsessives gathered to buy their records, socialize and, frequently, argue with the store's highly opinionated clerks. In a gambit worthy of "High Fidelity," Rhino for many years maintained a "Worst Customers List," posted prominently behind the counter; the more obstreperous patrons -- including, on more than one occasion, myself -- were duly namechecked there.
As combative as things could get, the store also spawned its own tightly knit community. When Rhino's fledgling record label wanted to promote one of its early novelty acts, the Temple City Kazoo Orchestra, the store drafted some of its regulars to march through Westwood Village, where they serenaded passers-by with kazoo renditions of "Whole Lotta Love" and other classic-rock chestnuts.
The era when music lovers on both sides of the retail counter bonded is long gone. Foos notes with some astonishment that there are now no free-standing independent stores selling music between West Hollywood and Santa Monica. The options are Best Buy, Borders and Barnes & Noble.
"The days of going into a place like Rhino and saying, 'What's the cool new import?' -- forget it," Foos says.
Things aren't any better for the big mall music operators: Witness the bankruptcy filing last week of the 869-store Musicland chain.
Does this reflect a paradigm shift? Of course, but, if a new study from England's University of Leicester is to be believed, it also reflects a basic difference in the way consumers are looking at music. The school's psychologists noted last week that music had "lost its aura," and was now viewed as simply a commodity.
Says Foos with a sigh: "It's really sad and dangerous. Everybody's like a silo."
Ave atque vale, Rhino Records. For some, you were a way of life.
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on Jan 20, 2006 1:28:44 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum, clothes are optional of course
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on Jan 19, 2006 10:40:38 GMT -5
LONDON (Hollywood Reporter) - More than 100,000 out-of-print European tracks recorded by such artists as Marianne Faithfull, Eddie & the Hot Rods, Nirvana and Chris de Burgh, will be made available exclusively via Internet digital download, Universal Music Group International said Wednesday.
The first group of 3,000 tracks, available from mid-February, will be recordings made over the past 40 years in the U.K., France and Germany. Other artists featured include Brian Auger & Julie Driscoll, Big Country, Jacques Brel, Nana Mouskouri, Eddy Mitchell and Brigitte Bardot.
"Over the next three to four years, we aim to reissue perhaps as many as 10,000 albums for downloading, which amounts to more than 100,000 tracks. This program will offer material that, in some cases, goes back to the early days of recorded music," said Barney Wragg, senior vp of UMGI's eLabs division, in a statement.
He said the program is open-ended and will involve "the excavation and digitization" of older, rare analog material.
"This 'digital archeology' program represents a serious commitment to go further into the past, and to begin to take advantage of the benefits for artists and for music fans of digital download technology," Wragg said. "Hopefully, the first round of recordings selected for this initiative will start to satisfy consumer demand, as more and more people buy their music online."
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on Jan 18, 2006 11:33:39 GMT -5
Wednesday, January 18, 2006;
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Seventies teen idol Leif Garrett was being held without bail after authorities said he was suspected of carrying narcotics and not having a subway ticket.
Garrett, 44, was arrested by sheriff's deputies Saturday on the platform of the Pershing Square Red Line station when he didn't have a ticket, authorities said. Deputies found suspected narcotics during a search, officials said.
He has not been charged and is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday, according to the sheriff's Web site.
Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, said Garrett was being held without bail because he had violated the terms of his probation for a previous offense. He pleaded guilty in March to attempted possession of cocaine-based narcotics and was placed on probation, Gibbons said.
A judge last month issued a bench warrant for his arrest for an unspecified reason, she said.
An e-mail sent to a spokeswoman listed on Garrett's Web site was not immediately returned early Wednesday.
Garrett has appeared in three dozen films, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s, and has released 10 music albums.
In 1979, he rear-ended another car while driving a Porsche, leaving his passenger disabled.
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on Jan 18, 2006 11:23:03 GMT -5
Funny, that's what Shatner said too I think
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on Jan 18, 2006 10:54:33 GMT -5
LOS ANGELES - An online casino has a piece of Capt. Kirk.
Actor William Shatner has sold his kidney stone for $25,000, with the money going to a housing charity, it was announced Tuesday.
Shatner reached agreement Monday to sell the stone to GoldenPalace.com.
“This takes organ donors to a new height, to a new low, maybe. How much is a piece of me worth?” he said in a telephone interview.
GoldenPalace.com is noted for its collection of oddities, which includes a partially eaten cheese sandwich thought to contain the image of the Virgin Mary.
“This is a bold new addition to our fleet,” GoldenPalace.com Chief Executive Officer Richard Rowe said in a statement.
The money will go to Habitat for Humanity, which builds houses for the needy.
“This would be the first Habitat for Humanity house built out of stone,” joked Darren Julien, president of Los Angeles-based Julien’s Auctions, which handled the sale.
Shatner, who played Kirk on the original “Star Trek” TV show and won an Emmy for his role on “Boston Legal,” passed the stone last fall.
The stone was so big, Shatner said, “you’d want to wear it on your finger.”
“If you subjected it to extreme heat, it might turn out to be a diamond,” he added.
Shatner said the idea of selling the stone came up after “Boston Legal” raised $20,000 for Habitat for Humanity. With the money for the stone, Shatner said there is about enough funding to build half a house.
GoldenPalace.com originally offered $15,000 for the stone but Shatner turned it down, noting that his “Star Trek” tunics have commanded more than $100,000. His counteroffer was accepted.
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on Jan 18, 2006 11:27:50 GMT -5
Well I went and saw Walk the line ! Great movie if you ask me not just because it is about Johnny Cash but this shows stuff that happens to a lot of people as they grow up and so on also is good because it shows the roots of Classic rock in country music ! if you grew up in the South this is like a trip down memory lane from back in the 1950s and 60s..kind if surprised me that all of the people watching the movie as I saw it were older people like 60 to maybe 70 years old. Yeah, well those people were in their 20's and 30's, and teenagers when Johnny got big first time around, so to them it'll be like us going in our walkers when they release a movie about Zeppelin, Sabbath or someone else in the future. Of course, with us, they'll probably have to have subtitles because we ain't gonna be able to HEAR the damn thing
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on Jan 14, 2006 0:43:05 GMT -5
50's and 60's for the most part. Haven't seen any rain for about three months or so, Sunshine nearly everyday, not that I see much of it Should start warming up here soon. Of course one day it could be 70, then a day or two later it could snow lol
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on Jan 14, 2006 0:16:35 GMT -5
All of those mall stores like Musicland and Sam Goody suck . Even Suncoast for videos sucks. Overpriced as hell and nothing besides the usual crap. Mediaplay used to be decent but they closed the one they had here years ago, so good riddance to them. I'd rather buy CD's and DVD's on the internet, better selection and better prices. If you look as Pickle said you can get 4 or 5 for around $20, plus shipping, and a lot of times they're brand new, so fuck em'. Wait a minute, I guess that makes me gay for buying online..but not as gay as HIM's vocalist ;D
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on Jan 7, 2006 17:08:43 GMT -5
I'd like to clarify my earlier statement just a little. There are hundreds of great bands out there, playing great music, but the major labels aren't interested. They cater to the teenage crowd, and totally disregard anyone over the age of 30, unless it's to hype up the latest "grand statement" from Sting or some crap like that. It's like okay, you're not a teenager anymore, you're not supposed to rock, and we'll just ignore you and put out another rap album. IF the major labels signed good bands and got behind them, promoted them, got the word out, people would buy them. I don't believe for a second that all the people that used to buy millions of rock albums just went away all of a sudden, they've just been ignored. If they knew of a lot of the Sh*t that's out there, they'd love it. This is what they get for catering to kids, who have the attention span of a fruitfly. If video games can make them forget about music, then they're not true fans of music, and perhaps they're focusing on the wrong audience? Most of the people I know would rather have a CD to keep instead of just an MP3, so we're not the ones who are hurting sales, it's the kids that don't know any better. Also, the music idustry made billions and billions of dollars reselling us albums we already owned when they made the big switch to CD's. That went on for YEARS, until pretty much everything has been released or re-released several times over. How many times do you have to buy 'Dark Side Of The Moon' for example? I think pretty much every household has bought a copy of that at one time or another it seems. Of course album sales are going to be down, we already have all the albums. I look for the industry to push for another format change in the not too distant future so they can try and make us buy everything all over again
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on Jan 7, 2006 14:15:03 GMT -5
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. music album sales last year slid to their lowest level since 1996, squelching any hopes that the recording industry's long downward spiral may have bottomed out, according to sales data issued on Wednesday. Tracking firm Nielsen SoundScan, which measures point-of-sale purchases across the United States, said total album sales -- including current and catalog titles -- fell 7.2 percent from 2004 to 618.9 million units, the lowest since 1996, when they were 616.6 million. After enjoying a rare "up" year in 2004, prompting predictions the worst was over, sales flagged during 2005, hurt by competition from illegal downloads, rival forms of entertainment such as video games, and a lack of breakout musical acts. ndeed the top album was from veteran pop singer Mariah Carey, who sold almost five million units of her comeback release "The Emancipation of Mimi." By contrast, the top album of 2004, R&B singer Usher's "Confessions," sold almost eight million copies that year. The industry counts CDs, cassettes, vinyl records and digital releases as "albums." Nielsen SoundScan said overall music sales, which includes albums, singles, music videos and digital tracks, jumped 22.7 percent to just over a billion units in 2005. The rise was fueled by a 194 percent increase in digital downloads. Industry leader Universal Music Group was the top distributor with 31.7 percent of album sales, up from 29.6 percent in 2004. The unit of France's Vivendi Universal SA released both Carey's album and the year's second-ranked album, rapper 50 Cent's "The Massacre," which sold 4.9 million units. Sony BMG Music Entertainment, a nascent joint venture between Sony Corp (NYSE:SNE - news). and Bertelsmann AG, was second with 25.61 percent, down from 28.4 percent in 2004. Its top album was inaugural "American Idol" winner Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway," which ranked No. 3 for the year with sales of 3.5 million copies. Third was Warner Music Group Corp., with 15 percent of the market, up slightly from 2004 when it had about a 14.7 percent share. Album sales were led by punk trio Green Day, which sold 3.4 million copies of "American Idiot," the year's No. 4 release. EMI Group Plc. was last among the "big four" major labels with 9.5 percent, down from 9.9 percent in 2004. Its top act was British band Coldplay, which ranked No. 6 on the albums list with sales of 2.6 million copies for "X&Y." Here's a novel thought : Why don't you put out music that doesn't actually SUCK, and perhaps people will buy it?
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Post by HARD ROCK UNIVERSE on Jan 7, 2006 5:01:57 GMT -5
RIFLE, Colo. -- A bit of online searching helped crack the case of the condom in the filbert nut. Police chief Daryl Meisner said it appeared no crime was committed when somebody put the condom-containing nut in a bin at a Wal-Mart Supercenter.
"This looks exactly like what I found on the Internet," Meisner said. "The condom was new and unused, so it probably wasn't anything malicious. I can't find where any law has been broken."
Dian Geist of Silt bought a bag of unshelled nuts from an open bin at the store. She said she and her husband, Brian, had a good laugh when the bright yellow condom popped out of the nut.
"I really don't want it, but my husband wants it back for some reason," she said.
The couple took the nut -- and its contents -- back to Wal-Mart, where an assistant manager photographed it before the Geists took it to the police.
"Whether someone thought it was a joke, we take it very seriously," said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Karen Burk. "This is a food-tampering issue."
Meisner said someone had drilled a hole in the nut, emptied the shell and then plugged the hole with wood putty after the condom was inserted.
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