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An online friend writes in telling us he went into Bank of America looking for a cashier’s check or money order, and the teller was so embarrassed of his bank’s high fees — for customers, mind you — he recommended he buy one elsewhere. He writes:

I recently moved and started a checking account with Bank of America. I needed to send a friend who is incarcerated some money for commissary so he can buy food.

Bank of America - fees STUPID!

I went to BoA and asked for either a cashier’s check or money order whichever was cheaper as the prison will accept either. The cashier told me that it would be $7.00 for a Cashier’s Check or $5.00 for a Money Order. Sympathetically she suggested that I go to the post office and get a money order there for $1.10

These are the changes BofA applies if you have an account. If you don’t have an account they will simply refuse to provide either a money order or cashier’s check.

Props to the BofA teller for the customer service that went above and beyond. So, Consumerists, is Bank of America alone on these exorbitant fees, or have any of you found yourselves in similar situations while trying to give prisoner friends money for cigarettes and shivs — uh, I mean food?

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Mickey Dee's next incarnation!

Would you like some drugs with that?

 A Charleston, S.C., teen says he was given a loaded handgun and bags of marijuana in his McDonald’s drive-thru order, WCSC-TV reports. The 18-year-old and his cousin received the .45-caliber handgun and the pot on Aug. 29 at a McDonald’s on Savannah Highway.

“The gun and the marijuana was inside of a brown bag sitting inside of a McDonald’s bag,” said Kathy Rivera, the mother of the teen. “And they noticed they had three bags, and there were only two people in the car, so when he opened it, he noticed it.”

 The gun and drugs were meant for the car behind theirs in the drive-thru line, police said. The car followed the young men to a gas station, where one man approached the teen and demanded he give them the McDonald’s bags, which the teen did. He told his mother about the incident the next day, and she contacted the restaurant.

 A police report was filed. Charleston police state they’re still investigating, though no arrests have been made.

Sheriff: So the question here is – We have all received at times a bag of Stupidity in Drive Thru’s. Food order not complete, extra stuff given. What was the stupidest thing you ever got with your order?

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Stupid Patrol Sheriff: I think I may have found my next Job, and yes kids being the Sheriff of Nottingham can be a reality, albeit a stupidly difficult job to get. Watch out Robin Hood – ima gonna git ya!

The Sheriff of Nottingham

 The role of the Sheriff in welcoming visitors to the city is often less formal than the Lord Mayor’s. The Sheriff has an ambassadorial role which is especially relevant to the promotion of Nottingham’s historic associations and links with the legends of Robin Hood.

 Role of the Sheriff

• To promote Nottingham as a destination for visitors for short breaks, conferences, business and shopping.
• To encourage local residents to use and take part in cultural/leisure activities opportunities in the city and county.

Key tasks of the Sheriff

•  To support the tourism strategy for the city and county.
• To welcome tourists and visitors to the city at various events, including conferences and entertainment/hospitality venues.
• Hosting welcome receptions in order to promote the city, in particular for conference delegates and journalist familiarization visits.
• To work with Experience Nottinghamshire at promotional events such as tourism and destination exhibitions.
• Opening new retail, entertainment or visitor attractions in the city and county.

Biography of the Sheriff of Nottingham

Councillor Leon Unczur is the current Sheriff of Nottingham. He was installed as Sheriff on May 11th 2009. 

The Current Sheriff of Nottingham

Leon was born in Nottingham and although he has lived in different parts of the world, he has always returned to the place of his birth. He is the youngest of ten children and is of English, Lithuanian and Mongolian origin. 

Leaving school at fifteen, he worked successfully in retail management for twenty five years. His work has taken him all over the world and he was actually working in Berlin when the Wall came down. 

Leon became a Councillor in 1993, representing Aspley Ward and still continues to do so, he says that working with the community is the most gratifying part of the job. During his political career he has held some senior positions, being Chair of Leisure in 1999 and then Executive Member for Culture and Community in 2001, before moving to be Portfolio Holder for Adult Services in 2007. 

Leon was the originator of the Core Cities Culture Group, which shares ideas and good practice within the major cities in England outside of the capital, including fellow members of the Euro Cities Culture Forum. He also created the Open and Green Spaces Group, which has helped develop policy on issues that relate to the use of public space in the city. 

He has also represented the Council as a member of The Local Government Association and The Local Government Information Unit, although his favourite is the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE), an association which advises 280 local authorities on a wide range of issues and lobbies National Government, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly on behalf of its members. Leon was National Chair of APSE during 2007. 

Leon has enjoyed an interesting life, he has travelled extensively around the world, using various modes of transport including planes, trains and automobiles, as well as the occasional horse or canoe. His most ambitious project to date was cycling across the United States of America whilst taking in parts of Canada and Mexico. He has also cycled in Britain, Europe and Rottness Island off the west coast of Australia. 

Leon has a partner, Jonathan, who is of Mauritian, Scottish and Irish origin. Their Civil Partnership was held in the Council House in July 2006. Jonathan is a Cambridge Graduate, former Local Government Officer and Professional Fundraiser for the Third Sector. Then five years ago he decided to do something totally different and became a comedian.

The Sheriff’s Lady

Leon will share his year with his friend Adela as Sheriffs Lady. They both enjoy meeting people and welcome everyone to the great city of Nottingham.

The 'good' lady of Nottingham

The Sheriff’s Lady is Adela Hampson.  Adela was born in Nottingham and was educated at Robert Shaw School, Glaisdale School and Bilborough College, she then studied English and Archaeology at the University College of North Wales before moving to London to work for an oil exploration company. She then returned to Nottingham, has two children and is now a proud grandmother. 

Whilst bringing up her children Adela helped to run the family business and has worked for Nottingham City Council for the last seven years in research roles, as PA to Executive Members with a variety of portfolios and also a Corporate Director; thus providing her with a real insight as to how Local Government is run.

Adela is passionate about Formula 1 racing and has always had faith in Jenson Button! She is a keen supporter of the Arts and has a great interest in History, especially that of Nottingham. She is also a bit of a sporty individual and a bit of a daredevil, she has parachuted more than once, but now confines her extreme sports to her Wii Fit!

For more information please contact the Civic Office on 0115 9155230 or email louise.thompson@nottinghamcity.gov.uk and check out The Nottingham City Homepage.

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ZURICH (Reuters) – German anatomists plan a new show dedicated solely to dead bodies having sex as part of the Body Worlds exhibitions.

Gunther von Hagens and his wife Angelina Whalley show corpses prepared using a technique invented by von Hagens called “plastination,” that removes water from specimens and preserves them with silicon rubber or epoxy resin.

“It’s not my intention to show certain sexual poses. My goal is really to show the anatomy and the function,” Body Worlds creative director Whalley told Reuters in an interview, adding the sex exhibition may open next year.

Body Worlds exhibitions, visited by 27 million people across the world, have been criticized for presenting entire corpses, stripped of skin to reveal the muscles and organs underneath, in lifelike and often theatrical positions.

Von Hagens has already triggered uproar with a new exhibit which shows just two copulating corpses.

German politicians called the current “Cycle of Life” show charting conception to old age “revolting” and “unacceptable” when it showed in Berlin earlier this year because it included copulating cadavers.

The way a plastinate is exhibited can vary from country to country to reflect local sensibilities. A vote of local employees decided that one of the copulating female cadavers should wear fewer clothes in Zurich than was the case in Berlin.

“Switzerland is the first country that already said from the outset that we could show whatever we wanted,” said von Hagens.

“Zurich is ready … but it’s maybe not so easy in every other town,” he said. “We have discussed whether it is proper to show homosexuality and in what way. This is a very delicate subject.”

Von Hagens and Whalley said they both intended to donate their bodies for plastination, but would not leave instructions about how to display them, dismissing this as vanity.

Plastintated Human Specimen

“I find it a great opportunity to give something to others by donating my body, namely self-awareness,” said Whalley.

Von Hagens said he and some other body donors even saw plastination as an alternative to burial or cremation, giving them more certainty about would happen to their bodies after death.

“Cremation for me is hell,” he said.

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Actor from Welcome Back, Kotter brings theater expertise to students at G-STAR school

PALM SPRINGS – Arnold Horshack is back, this time as a high school teacher.

Fans of the popular 1970s TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter may be surprised to learn the latest role for the actor who played the goofball student is that of a serious educator in Palm Beach County.

Ron Palillo, whose Horshack character brought laughter to millions of viewers, is in his second week teaching freshmen acting classes at G-STAR School of the Arts for Motion Pictures and Broadcasting in Palm Springs.

None of his 110 students resemble the unruly students called the Sweathogs, who carried on at the fictional Brooklyn high school setting for four seasons of Kotter.

“These kids want to be here,” Palillo said during a campus interview. “You don’t have to fight to jam something down their throats. They want to know and it shows.”

During Monday’s class held in a black box theater, he led a discussion of the acclaimed Tennessee Williams play, The Glass Menagerie. Wearing a purple shirt and khaki pants on his still-slender 5-foot-7-inch frame, Palillo paced back and forth, asking students to appreciate the clever dialogue in the first act.

“That’s why you like doing theater, because you can say some really terrific words,” said Palillo, who wrote, produced and acted in several plays since Kotter ended in 1979.

Palillo — at school he uses his birth name Paolillo — says he is moving permanently to the county from his longtime residence in New York City.

The gray-haired teacher declines to confirm his age, listed as 60 on several websites, because he says actors don’t reveal such details. Palillo said he’d prefer to avoid media attention today, but agreed to a round of publicity because of the attention his celebrity status could bring to G-STAR.

The six-year-old charter school, with 880 students in grades 9-12, bills itself as the largest film, TV and acting high school in the nation. Palillo, who has coached actors over the years, said he became enamored with G-STAR and its students after recently performing in the school’s latest feature film, It’s a Dog Gone Tale: Destiny’s Stand.

“It’s been exciting having him here,” Greg Hauptner, the school’s founder and chief executive officer, said of his star teacher.

A University of Connecticut graduate, Palillo says his acting and stage projects will continue when classes are not in session.

“I love to teach, that’s paramount,” said Palillo, who signed on to teach the school year at a beginning teacher’s salary.

Xavier Turner, 15, said he’s enjoyed the class so far.

“I didn’t even know he was on the show,” Turner said. “I was very impressed and honored to have him in our class. It’s better to know an actor is teaching us.”

While Palillo is best known for Welcome Back, Kotter, he later appeared in numerous television pilots, shows and movies, and he has illustrated children’s books. His resume includes guest stints on episodes of One Life to Live, Murder, She Wrote, and Ellen.

Palillo says he’s happy that Arnold Horshack lives on in Kotter YouTube clips and DVDs. And he doesn’t mind when his students quote his nasally voiced lines or raise their arms with “Ooooh! Ooooh! Ooooh!”

“It’s history,” he said. “It’s flattering.”

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — You would think the word “education” is pretty easy to spell. Well, think again.

It was a costly and embarrassing mistake made by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ Career and Technical Education Department when they decided to hand out some freebies to teachers.

Another great 'Eduction'

“That’s pretty bad if they approved that and it’s not even spelled correctly,” said Louise Wood, a parent.

The misspelled version of “education” was printed on 1,800 beverage coasters, the kind that you use in your car.

Last week, they gave about 500 of them to teachers during a teacher appreciation meeting. It wasn’t until after that meeting that school officials realized the mistake.

The “a” in “education” was missing — spelled “eduction.”

We tried to get Superintendent Peter Gorman’s take on it.

“No idea what you’re talking about,” Gorman said. “Haven’t seen it, haven’t heard of it until just this second.”

A CMS spokesperson told us the company that printed the coasters, Ad Concepts, didn’t catch the mistake and neither did CMS when they approved the proof.

That’s hard to believe for some parents.

“Nobody picked it up? Nobody was able to proofread this?” asked parent Talia Goldman. “It doesn’t make me happy.”

CMS did not foot the bill for this mistake. CTE paid for it using donations. It cost them $1,500 for the 1,800 coasters.

“You know what? I always say everybody makes mistakes, but it’s what you do with that mistake that counts,” said Goldman.

CMS is trying to work out some kind of deal with the vendor.

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PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (Reuters) – Fast food giant McDonald’s on Tuesday lost an eight-year trademark battle against a Malaysian curry restaurant after the country’s highest court allowed the latter to use the prefix ‘Mc’.

Malaysia’s Federal Court dismissed an application by McDonald’s Corporation to appeal against an earlier Appeals Court judgment which allowed McCurry to use the prefix.

Mc Donalds? NO! McCurry!

Chief Judge of Malaya Ariffin Zakaria, reading the verdict of the three-person Federal Court in the administrative capital, said McDonald’s had failed to properly frame its questions when applying to challenge the Appeals Court’s earlier verdict.

“It is unfortunate that we have to dismiss the application with costs,” Ariffin said.

McCurry, which is short for “Malaysian Chicken Curry,” serves Malaysian staples including fish head curry, according to the company website (www.mccurryrecipe.com).

“We feel great that this eight-year legal battle is finally over, and we can now go ahead with whatever we plan to do such as opening new branches,” McCurry owner P. Suppiah told Reuters after the court decision.

McDonald’s, which has 185 outlets in Malaysia, first sued the curry restaurant in 2001 and a High Court ruled in favor of the international fast food chain in 2006.

McCurry then took the matter up to the Court of Appeal, which ruled in favor of the Malaysian restaurant. McDonald’s subsequently took the matter to the Federal Court.

The McDonald’s operation in this country of 27 million people is run as a franchise and wholly owned by McDonald’s Corporation.

(Reporting by Royce Cheah; Editing by Sugita Katyal)

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CANBERRA (Reuters) – Exhausted Australian doctors have been told to drink up to six cups of coffee a day to stay awake during extended shifts, building pressure on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to seize control of state-run hospitals. 

Big Coffee

A document on fatigue management released by health officials in Queensland state recommended doctors ingest 400 milligrams of caffeine to stay awake on the job, or the equivalent of six cups of coffee, after warnings that patients were dying.  

“For management to just say go and have a cup of coffee and get over tiredness, it cheapens the whole issue,” Australian Medical Association Vice President Steven Hambleton told Reuters.

“We are talking about serious issues here, and this is not just a serious suggestion at all. It can’t be a weakness to say you’re dog tired,” he said. 

The recommendation followed warnings from a union representing Queensland doctors this week that public hospital patients were dying because dangerously tired medics were being forced to work up to 80 hours without a break.

Australia’s national center-left government is under pressure to seize control of the nation’s ailing public hospital system, currently managed by state governments with federal funding support, in a $20.5 billion takeover.

With fresh elections a year away, repairing the health system was a key promise that helped underpin the 2007 victory by Labor over rival conservatives, with Rudd campaigning tirelessly on health and promising to fix public hospitals.

Rudd last month delayed a decision by six months, but said the option of a “full monty” takeover was still on the cards.

In advocating the use of caffeine by doctors, the health department document said that compared with other psychoactive drugs, such as the prescription-only stimulant modafinil, caffeine was more readily available and less expensive.

Salaried Doctors Queensland, representing medicos, countered that pumping doctors full of caffeine was not an effective way to deal with fatigue and doctor shortages, often filled in Australia through recruitment overseas.

Queensland Labor Health Minister Paul Lucas said the state was aiming to train more doctors and cap hospital work shifts at 12 hours over the next two years, but had no immediate solution to fatigue and staff shortages.

“If the doctors are not there, we can’t do it,” he said. “We can’t say we’d rather not have it as it is and create doctors out of the air.”

(Editing by Jeremy Laurence/Reuters)

(Further Editing by by nyctech/stupidpatrol.com)

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Daily Stupid Joke – September 09, 2009

Bill worked in a pickle factory.

He had been employed there for a number of years when he came home one day and confessed to his wife that he had a terrible compulsion.

He had an urge to stick his penis into the pickle slicer.

His wife suggested that he should see a sex therapist  to talk about it, but Bill indicated that he’d be too embarrassed.

He vowed to overcome the compulsion on his own.

One day a few weeks later, Bill came home absolutely ashen.

His wife could see at once that something was seriously wrong. “What’s wrong, Bill?” she asked.

“Do you remember that I told you how I had this tremendous urge to put my penis into the pickle slicer?”

“Oh, Bill, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did.”

“My God, Bill, what happened?”

“I got fired.”

“No, Bill. I mean, what happened with the pickle slicer?”

“Oh, she got fired too.”

Submit your stupid jokes! We love reading them, publishing them, and lauging at the stupidity behind them. And we always give credit where credit is due – submit your joke with your link (within reason – no SPAM!) and we will publish the joke and link.

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