It's a Dry Heat!

According to weather.com, Monterey Park was supposed to be a good 5-10 degrees cooler than Tarzana for the weekend. Well, it sure didn't feel like that yesterday. Also according to weather.com, Monterey Park was supposed to be in high 70s. Well, it sure doesn't feel like that today! Add on to the fact that both my sisters made me help them with washing their cars (at 2pm, a primo time to do it!), and it's a surprise that I'm not in a hospital room right now.

(I should point out that I don't do well with heat. To paraphrase fat man/comic John Pinette, on really hot days, my kidneys start to fail while others don't even break a sweat!)

Here are a couple news stories that piqued my interest, while I was sipping on my morning coffee:

- An Inglewood man allegedly stole 26 different cars in order to visit his girlfriend since the month of January. He had apparently taken cars from Inglewood, abandoned them in Santa Barbara, and taken other cars vice versa. Question: if he stole a car to go from Inglewood to Santa Barbara, why didn't he take the same car back to Inglewood? Why steal a second car? Also, how lucky is this guy to be able to find a car in each city to get to his girlfriend's house and back, as the article suggests (if he had stolen an odd number of cars, that would suggest that he had to take alternate transportation, or perhaps he did wise up and take at least two cars on a round trip)? By the way, not only does the guy not own his own car--as if that wasn't painfully obvious--but the guy doesn't even have a driver's license! My favorite quote from the article:

His girlfriend, who was not arrested, told authorities she had been trying to dump him.

Obviously, she didn't do a good enough job! Maybe the crook can sue the girl, on the basis that she did not completely end the relationship, causing him to act irrationally? In this litigious world we live in, would such a lawsuit really be that far-fetched? And where's Florida nutjob...er...lawyer Jack Thompson to argue that this guy was probably driven to steal (pun intended) by Grand Theft Auto?

- Can a car thief also win a Good Samaritan award? Police in Jacksonville, Florida are looking for a man who allegedly stole a 2002 Nissan Altima, only to return it when he noticed that an 18-month-old boy was sleeping inside the car. Quoted from the article:

According to the police report, the mother had gone into the store to buy some oil, leaving her sleeping son and the keys in her car. She was in the parking lot when the thief returned and yelled at him as he ran away.

According to witnesses, the thief yelled back, "That's what you get for leaving your kid and keys inside of your vehicle."

Another witness heard him say, "You're lucky you had your kid back there. I ain't gonna do that with a kid in the car."

I guess the woman was using her kid as an anti-theft deterrent. Either that, or the guy didn't want to have to deal with changing the kid's diapers. At least the thief had a heart, but I gotta ask: if the woman left a puppy in the car, would the thief have had the same reaction? The "thief" is being charged with kidnapping and grand theft auto, while the woman may be charged with leaving a child unattended and leaving her keys in her car. Leaving your keys in the car is a misdemeanor? What about leaving one's keys on one's front door (something I, admittedly, have done in the past)?