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The skinny

By TIMES WIRES
Published August 2, 2007

METROCARD MAYOR

BLOOMBERG'S COMMUTER CRED IS IN QUESTION

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is pretty proud, and vocal, about the fact that he often takes the subway to work with common folk. But the New York Times followed him around for five weeks and now questions the mayor's commitment to public transit. According to the paper, the mayor's townhouse is a four-block walk from the nearest subway station. But that's a local train, with a bunch of stops. So the mayor has his driver take him 22 blocks - about a quarter of his commute - to the nearest express station. "He goes to various stops depending on where he is going and where he is coming from," said Stu Loeser, the mayor's spokesman.

DUMB CRIMINALS

Bad checks were a really bad idea

The Dominion Post in New Zealand reports that Darryl Connor was a pretty easy criminal to catch. Connor made off with about $900 cash and $150 in booze by writing stolen checks at liquor stores. His diabolical scheme unraveled, though, when the stores asked him to write his name, address and telephone number on the backs of the checks. And he did. All eight times. That made him way easier to find. He has been convicted and will be sentenced Sept. 6.

FORGET ANYTHING?

No skeleton in closet, but in the fridge ...

When you move out of an apartment, it's always good to give it one final walk-through to make sure you got everything. You'd hate to leave a favorite shirt in the closet, or a cherished set of dishes in a cabinet, or a dismembered body in the refrigerator. Well, the previous owner of an apartment in Kuala Lumpur got the shirt and the dishes, but left quite the surprise for the new owner in the fridge, according the Malaysian Star. "When he opened the door he suspected something amiss when he smelled a strong stench," said investigator Ku Chin Wah. Police have arrested a woman. They believe the body was that of her husband and had been in the fridge for about a week.

24 TONS OF WHAT?

Man thinks slow cleanup just stinks

An 18-wheeler was chugging through Norridgewock, Maine, when it rolled over last Thursday, throwing its cargo all over Richard White's yard. It gets worse when you learn the cargo was 24 tons of chicken excrement. Two cars were destroyed and there is still ... stuff ... hanging from the trees and a mailbox. "There are still so many flies; I hate flies," White told the Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel. The trucking company is still working on cleaning it up, but White says it's not fast enough though, how could it be? "They think I'm a hick and don't matter. But my life didn't smell like this before. Why should it now?" he said, rhetorically.

Compiled from Times wire services and other sources by staff writer Jim Webster, who can be reached at jwebster@sptimes.com.

[Last modified August 2, 2007, 00:06:22]