Gainesville Police Prove Unfathomably Bad At “Where’s Waldo?”

Today’s great moment in police buffoonery comes to use from lovely Gainesville, Florida.

Police are looking into details surrounding the death of a Gainesville engineer, whose body was discovered just this week in his car although the vehicle had been ticketed seven times since the man was last seen alive.

Officers want to know how John Waldo, 42, got from Calico Jack’s Oyster Bar on SW 2nd Avenue and ended up dead in the backseat of his 2001 silver BMW 330i in College Park.

Waldo was last seen alive at the business on Feb. 11.

There could be a million explanations for this. My favorite, though, is the one where he returned to his car and died there. As opposed to, say, being dragged through the streets in broad daylight, possibly while ticket #4 was being penned. Oh, look at me being all Occam’s razor-like. I’m sorry.

“We know that he was out by himself but then he ended up with a couple of people when he left CJs,” Halvosa said. “We don’t know if he drove or if someone else drove him there,” he said about Waldo’s car being found in the 1900 block of NW 2nd Avenue.

Waldo was found seated face-forward on the passenger side of the backseat. He was fully clothed and had the car’s ignition key. A loaded pistol was discovered in the trunk of the car.

Boy, for his sake, I hope it was registered legally.

City records show a ticket officer issued seven tickets to Waldo’s BMW. The first ticket was issued on Feb. 12. Police have speculated that illegally dark window tint may have prevented ticket officers from noticing someone was slumped over in the car.

Tinted windows. This man clearly had no respect for our constitution! Dare I say it? This was a deserved death. And that handgun registration isn’t looking too likely now, either. Obviously the officer was taking it easy on poor Waldo.

Great job, guys.

Nightmarishly Bad Photoshops: Olympics Edition

Apparently I’m not alone in this, but I’ve found the 2008 Summer Olympics to be surprisingly watchable thus far. Obviously, the big story from an American standpoint is Michael Phelps destroying his competition at will while adding to his extensive gold medal collection. And since your average American has no problem basking in the reflected glory of an incredibly dominant athlete, particularly in international competition (even if that athlete is a pretty obvious cheater), it’s pretty clear to whom NBC should attribute the ratings boom.

But give Joe American credit. He’s not just willing to hop aboard the bandwagon, he’s also willing to find a way to exploit the bandwagon. Unconfirmed reports (I made this up) have the prices of swimming lessons up $20 an hour. American flags, miniature and otherwise, are at their highest cost in nearly seven years. Clearly, there’s a buck to be made here. That’s the beauty of capitalism.

Likewise, there’s another beauty we Americans have called freedom of expression. You can find that bad boy in a number of places. One of them, provided your content is neither stolen nor inclusive of tits, is YouTube. The beauty of YouTube is that you can post whatever message you want to share with the world and distribute it for free! What a deal.

And the offer isn’t just limited to Americans. No, even people in countries that aren’t The Second Most Powerful Nation in the World are free to post about whatever trivial matters concern them. War, famine, all that bullshit. I’m not quite sure what China’s deal is.

Anyway, this brings me in a roundabout way to the work of paintmaster343. Purportedly based in Saudi Arabia, Mr. (call it a hunch) 343 recently posted a video that grabbed my attention:

Toiletpalooza ‘08 Revisited

As mentioned here, I recently ventured out to Yankee Stadium, Red Sox cap in tow, for a pair of games involving the 26-Time World Champion New York Yankees and the…shit, let’s go with Two-Time World Champion Toronto Blue Jays (the Toronto fanbase isn’t quite as forthcoming with this statistic, but I’m pretty sure their back-to-back wins in ‘92 and ‘93 were the franchise’s only titles).

I was originally supposed to only attend Tuesday’s game, as I rushed to my computer and bought a ticket for the game on Friday when it was announced that the Yankees were going to fuck their own world up by transferring relief ace Joba Chamberlain to the starting rotation. They had originally planned to have him make this transition in spring training, but then decided, nah, we’ll leave him in the bullpen. About a month later, though, they realized their starters suck, and concluded that they’d made a huge mistake by leaving Joba in the pen. But there was a solution! They could progressively build up his endurance by facing Major League hitters in high-stress, late game situations! Surely, this plan could not fail.