At Least You're Not Them: Weird News Stories

Let's face it. Life is hard. Everyday you wake up, you're stressed out, and you just want the day to be over but before that happens you have to deal with morons on the street and idiots in the office. It's hard for us all sometimes and when I became a journalist that became harder because everyday I would get up, get my coffee and start reading what came through on the wires.

And everyday I would sit there and get depressed at everything that came in. It was certainly hard for a little while until I started to give myself a new perspective. Everyday I would look for stories that made me feel a little bit better about myself and my life. I would look for those stories about people who had done something so completely stupid and idiotic that I couldn't believe that I had to report on it as legitimate news. I consoled myself on those stories by telling myself 'well, at least I'm not them' and soon I ended up laughing and realizing how it could be worse.

So now I am creating what I hope will be a weekly newsletter where I want to offer my findings of stories that may have slipped through the cracks. I take my inspiration from Lewis Black's segment on The Daily Show and the weekly newsletter, This Is True. Hopefully by the end of this issue you'll be able to sit back, take a brand new look at your life and realize that it could be worse, you could be them.

Woman Arrested After Staging Four Abductions of Her Son

Last week a story was reported on by a newspaper in . The story was about a woman who was arrested along with five accomplices that included her 15 year old son after they had staged the kid's abduction four times in order to get ransom money from the man she is separated from. The plan worked the first three times and the woman was able to get $1.26 million in ransom from the guy but when the son was kidnapped for a FOURTH time, he got suspicious and hired a private detective. - You think maybe she tried to dip into the well once too often?

Terminally Ill Woman Released from Prison After She Killed Her Son… Goes Home and Kills Her Husband

In 2005, a woman in was arrested, tried and convicted in the murder of her son. She killed him with a garden hoe while he was asleep and was sent to prison for 15 years. While she was in prison it was discovered that she was terminally ill with cancer and so prison officials decided to release the 57 year old woman so that she could be with family during her final months and seek treatment. What a touching sentiment. Unfortunately it didn't go nearly as well as planned because when the woman got home she killed her husband by stabbing him in the throat. When arrested she was heard saying that the next time she's released she'll kill her other son. She is currently awaiting a new trial. - Who says that family values are dead in the world?

Police Follow Trail of Beer Cans To Suspect's Home

A man in Calgary was arrested for theft and fleeing the scene of an accident last week in

Calgary . Now, this isn't the part that is newsworthy. Man does a crime, is tracked down by a cop and K9 unit and is arrested for the crime. Seems pretty cut and dry doesn't it? The part of this that is amazing is that after the man stole the truck and then crashed it, he left a trail of empty beer cans, clothing, a hand cart and a cooler right to his apartment. Cops got there but before they could enter his apartment to make the arrest, he was seen climbing out of his window onto the building's patio roof. That's when he was finally arrested without incident. - Anyone else think that this had to be the easiest night of the year to be a K9 unit in

Calgary ?

Homeland Security: Keeping You Safe from 14 Year Old Girls

A 14 year old girl in

Sacramento was recently pulled out of class by secret service agents representing the Department of Homeland Security regarding some graphics and comments that she had left on the MySpace anti-Bush group that she moderates. The graphic in question had the words 'Kill Bush' written with a very cartoony graphic of a knife stabbing him in the hand. Everyone admits that what she did was wrong but everyone also admits that it's a little strange that government agents would question a 14 year old girl at school without her parents present. The Department of Homeland Security aren't commenting on the case or even confirming that an investigation took place. - They are the SECRET service after all.

The Gift for the Person Who Has No Brain

Earlier this month a legitimate product hit the market and with the holiday season quickly approaching, I felt it important to get the word out there for those who were having problems coming up with the gift for the hard to shop for relative. The gift in question? An automatic DVD rewinder for those people who don't want to rewind DVDs manually or are tired of DVDs coming out of their player not already rewound. Yes folks, for only $16.49 you can own a device that will rewind your DVDs leaving you with all that extra time to look for your intelligence. - I'll admit this one isn't aimed at any one person, it's more aimed at any idiot who buys this gift without realizing that it's a novelty item… and trust me, there will be at least a couple of them who do.

That's it for this week. If this takes off, I'll be back next week with more stories that fell through the cracks and will make you glad that at least you're not them!