Watercooler Stories

Specter cracks 'em up in Washington

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., is the second-funniest person in Washington -- coming in second in a humor contest.

The 77-year-old Specter came in second to Joseph Randazzo, assistant editor of the parody newspaper, The Onion, at a charity event Wednesday night, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Most of the performers at the event -- which benefited VH-1's Save the Music Foundation and the Institute of Musical Traditions -- were much younger than Specter and were members of the media.

Specter drolly assessed his jokes as ranging from "the questionable to the highly questionable to the highly, highly questionable," the newspaper said.

Here's one of his hits: Democratic presidential contenders Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are comparing dreams they've had. After Biden said he dreamed the Lord came to him and predicted he would be the Democratic nominee, Obama replied God had, in fact, visited him and said he would not only be the nominee, but the next president. Said Clinton: "I had a dream and I don't remember telling either of you those things."

Nooses a no-no for garbage truck driver

MUNCIE, Ind., Oct. 19 (UPI) -- An Indiana man found out the hard way nooses are not funny, not even at Halloween time.

The Muncie city garbage truck driver, who city officials declined to name, was slapped with a 30-day suspension without pay for decorating the inside of his trash-hauling rig with two ropes with sinister-looking loops tied at the ends.

Officials at the Muncie sanitation district, where 60 percent of the employees are black, didn't appreciate the white Halloween-loving driver's attempt at gallows humor.

"We're pretty well convinced this was not racially motivated," said Bill Smith, the department's interim administrator. "Having said that, it was very insensitive."

Reaction among the man's co-workers was mixed. One black driver, Fred Lewis, said he and many others assumed the nooses were meant to be a hate message. But others, including Barnell Vance, were willing to cut their colleague some slack, saying he doesn't deserve suspension.

"He's always been a good dude," Vance said.

Norse brewer monkeys with 'champagne'

TROMSO, Norway, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- A Norwegian brewer avoided a potential lawsuit by using a chimp to rename and relabel a drink that sounded too much like champagne.

Mack -- located in Tromso, Norway, and billing itself as the world's most northern beer brewery -- also produces a "fruit champagne," a popular non-alcoholic soda, Aftenposten reported Thursday.

But in France, farmers in the protected Champagne district zeroed in on products using the name, and Mack has decided to try to avoid legal problems by renaming and relabeling its non-alcoholic offering.

In its marketing for "fruit chimpanzee" -- "frukt sjimpanse" in Norwegian -- the new label shows a French-inspired stylized chimpanzee painting over letters in the last half of the product name.

"A lawsuit could have been expensive and taken years. We would rather use our resources on something constructive," said Mack marketing director Siri Hamnvik.

Even though the outside has changed, "the contents are the same and I think most of our customers will see the comic side of it," Hamnvik said.

Some Vegas weddings may be null and void

LAS VEGAS, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- Anyone married at the Garden of Love in Las Vegas April 7 entertaining second thoughts may be able to back out because of allegedly forged witness signatures.

Chapel co-owner Cheryl Luell, while trying to get her business license reinstated Wednesday, testified she was out of town that day -- meaning someone must have forged her signature as a witness on 19 marriage licenses, The Las Vegas Sun reported.

Nevada law requires a witness to be at the ceremony, and it's possible even more marriages may be at risk of being declared null and void, other chapels told the newspaper.

The city yanked the Garden of Love's business license after numerous complaints culminated in a police report labeling it a "public nuisance." The chapel also has come under fire from at least one couple who claim it failed to provide a $3,000 reception as promised; by competitors in the quickie-marriage industry for aggressive marketing tactics; and from resort casinos for allegedly falsely intimating to customers it has a business relationship with them.