Today the DMV sent me the registration for renewal on our ‘03 Honda Accord. The total was not too bad at $175.00, down from when the former Governor had set the fees so incredibly high. The great news was that I was able to renew my tags for the car simply with an On-Line service at the DMV Sacramento office.

Now that is service! No waiting in line or sending through the mail where things get lost. Just the cost of the stamp alone is worth the 3 minutes it took to complete the renewal process. It was very cool renewing the tags this way.

Next year I may have to do the smog check thing so maybe the process will be a little different then. If I am not mistaken even those forms have numbers that are sent to the Sacramento office so the on line renewal may still be possible. More will be revealed.

Rebecca is my dear sweet niece from China that is visiting for summer vacation. She says she is very “Cool” and she wears jeans with holes in them so I guess she is cool indeed. Anyway here is a little story from her to me today.

Rebecca says, “The lips live with teeth”. This is a famous Chinese saying meaning what? Rebecca says, “If you let your neighbor country be attacked without helping and the country falls to its enemies then you will be next to be attacked. So the moral is that when your neighbor meets difficulty you must help.” This is her explanation for why China helped Korea during the war with the US. Now I am really confused.

Today was special. Xiao Hui and Rebecca were able to accompany me on a little field trip to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). We went through the permanent exhibit and toured the grounds. But first we all went to the UCLA campus for a little tour. Rebecca is thinking of coming to Los Angeles for college and I wanted her to see the wonderful UCLA campus. To be fair I plan on taking her to the USC campus as well.

Rebecca seems to be very camera shy but I was able to catch her at the museum.

Xiao Hui did enjoy visiting the LACMA again. The weather here has been extremely hot but the museum is well air-conditioned and we were all very comfortable. Xiao Hui and her daughter will be here visiting us foranother month and we plan on several little trips. This week we will all go to Solvang if the weather is not too hot.

Yes, it’s that magical time of the year again when the Darwin Awards are bestowed, honoring the least evolved among us. Here then, are the glorious winners.

Darwin Award Winners:

1. When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked….. And now, the honorable mentions:

2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and, after a little hopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company expecting negligence, sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and lost a finger. The chef’s claim was approved.

3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his Vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.

4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn’t discovered for 3 days.

5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he
got from the drawer…$15. (If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?)

7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he’d just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.

8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, “Yes, officer, that’s her. That’s the lady I stole the purse from.”

9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at 5 a.m., flashed a gun, demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn’t open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren’t available for breakfast . The man, frustrated, walked away.

A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER!

10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline and plugged his siphon hose into the motor home’s sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges, saying that it was the best laugh he’d ever had.