Not your average daily news

I’m calling a time out. I’ve absolutely had it with all of the bickering and political nonsense that dominates the news and the conversation in our country today. Seriously, enough already!

So the rich guy we elected this time has a fragile ego and a bad comb-over…can we please talk about something else … anything else? Just for today let’s stop arguing about which news is fake news and take a look at some weird news for a change.

For example, did you know that police in Cleveland finally arrested a carjacker because the moron couldn’t drive a stick shift? Yup, it’s true, but that’s not even the funniest part of this story. According to police reports, this rocket scientist pointed a gun at the car’s owner, jumped into the driver’s seat and started grinding gears in an attempt to get away.

After a few minutes of listening to this idiot tearing up his transmission, the car’s owner approached and tried to explain the use of a clutch to this hardened gangster who then gave up on the car and stole the owner’s cellphone and ran off. The cop’s brought his crime spree to an end after using a highly sophisticated crime-fighting technique called “find my phone.” I said the guy was a carjacker. I never said he was a good one.

Meanwhile, a Russian car insurance company recently sponsored a curling tournament, which isn’t weird or news until you consider that they were using cars instead of curling stones to slide down the ice. Those whacky Russians!

For some reason an insurance agent in a place called Ekaterinburg thought that watching local fat guys in spandex competitively sliding cars down a huge slab of ice would inspire spectators to buy auto insurance. Buying insurance wasn’t the first thing I thought about when I watched the video ... but I didn’t have vodka n my Cheerios this morning so I probably don’t think like your average Russian.

Obviously, you can’t have guys running in front of a sliding car sweeping with magic curling brooms to guide each shot … that would be silly. Instead, they strap a teammate behind the wheel and have him try to steer a car with no brakes or engine closest to the target. What could possibly go wrong?

If car curling Russians and carjackers who can’t drive aren’t weird enough for you, let me tell you about public bathrooms in China. That’s right. I went there. Officials at the Temple of Heaven Park in Beijing have been combatting the wanton overuse of toilet paper in the public bathrooms. It seems that so much toilet paper was disappearing from the park’s facilities that attendants could only surmise that people were taking the toilet paper home.

The responsible party officials jumped into action and used advanced technology to combat the abuse of the toilet paper by an ungrateful public. They installed facial recognition devices in each stall that scans the user’s face for three seconds before it automatically dispenses a “proper ration” of toilet paper. According to the Chinese government 24-27’ inches of two-ply TP is an adequate portion to finish your paperwork … so to speak.

The machine will not dispense for the same face twice or to anyone for a full 9 minutes, so you’d better hope you can complete your administrative duty (Do you see how I managed to work in the word duty which sounds like dooty? Hilarious, I know, but don’t try this at home, I’m a professional.) And you thought the ladies room lines were long at Disneyland!

As much as I hate to admit it, getting felt up at TSA and being spied on by my microwave aren’t nearly as bad as having to use a face scanner to wipe my butt. This is so intrusive that even the Chinese people are complaining that the government has gone too far this time. These are the same Chinese people who accepted being restricted to having only one child per couple so suffice it to say that getting scanned while sitting in the dumper is a really bad idea.

I’ve managed to write an entire column about news from around the world without calling anyone a libtard or an orange skinned tyrant. Who knew that was possible in 2017? You know it’s real news because not even CNN or Sean “Spinmaster” Spicer could ever make up facial scanners in the pooper but it would make more sense than some of the crap they peddle … see what I did there?

Rick Seley is an award-winning humor columnist. He may be reached at news@lahontanvalleynews.com.