Lake Country Weekend Post

6 • LAKE COUNTRY WEEKEND POST • FEBRUARY 2, 2013 WWW.GMTODAY.COM How to Find Perfect Gifts for Birthdays & Special Occasions CALENDAR • ComedySportz, 5 p.m. family show & 7:30 teen show Sat., Oconomowoc Arts Center, 641 E. Forest St., Oconomowoc. www.theoac.net. $18 adults & $10 for students. • Live Music at Roots, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sat., Roots Coffeebar & Cafe, 124 E.Wisconsin Ave., Oconomowoc. 646-7071; www.waukeshacountyparks.com. • Public Skate, noon to 2 p.m. Mon. to Fri., 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sat. & Sun., Naga-Waukee Park Ice Arena, 2699 Golf Rd., Delafield. $6 adults, $4.50 juniors & seniors, $2.50 skate rental. • W.I.N.O.S.Wine Tasting, 6 to 8 p.m.Tues.,Vino Etcetera!, 120 E.Wisconsin Ave., Oconomowoc. $15 per person, $10 per member, members please RSVP. Garages | Hobby Shop | Farm Building | Equestrian | Commercial | General Purpose S A VE B I G During Building Value Days For 110 years, we have provided exceptional quality and dependable buildings that have stood strong for generations. Now through the end of February, join the legacy and take advantage of the biggest sales event of the year. Call now for big savings! Locally at 920-261-9151 • Pinewood Derby, 12 p.m. to 3 p.m., Sat., Ewald Auto Group, 36833 E.Wisconsin Ave., Oconomowoc. Event is hosted by Summit Elementary's Cub Scout Pack 49. • Our Savior's Smorgasbord Meal, 3 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.Wed., Our Savior's Lutheran Church, 145 Lisbon Rd., Oconomowoc. Tickets $10 for adults, $5 for children ages 12 & younger & children 3 & younger free. www.oslc-wi.org. • Honor & Valor Event, 6 p.m. Sat., Olympia Resort, 1350 Royale Mile Rd., Oconomowoc.Tickets $50. www.honorandvalor.org. Featuring Big Al & the Hi-Fis. (To submit an item, email enterprise@conleynet.com.) (StatePoint) When it comes to birthdays, anniversaries & other gift-giving occasions, finding the perfect present can be daunting. A recent survey commissioned by Groupon, a daily deal website, found that 60% of respondents consider "finding the right gift" a top shopping challenge. "Shopping for presents doesn't have to be a burden," advises Emma McKee, a Grouponcierge, one of Groupon's gift-giving experts. "There are many ways to ease the pain of finding the right gifts, no matter who you're shopping for." According to McKee, new tools & old tricks can help you solve this age-old conundrum. • Go Local: Not all presents come wrapped. Help people you love discover the towns they love. Concert tickets, cooking classes, helicopter rides -- the gift of experience is one they'll never forget & certainly beats another tie or scarf. • Travel Made Easy: Score brownie points by arranging a weekend getaway for someone. Doing so doesn't need to require extensive planning on your part. By subscribing to a daily deal website, like Groupon, you'll get complete- mortonbuildings.com Certain restrictions apply. ©2013 Morton Buildings, Inc. A listing of GC licenses available at mortonbuildings.com/licenses.aspx. Ref 324. 230436003 ly planned travel deals sent to your inbox. Impress a tough crowd like your in-laws with minimal effort! • Gifts that Keep on Giving: Don't let your present go softly into that good night. Daily deal websites like Groupon run frequent deals on gifts that just won't quit, such as magazine subscriptions & memberships to wine of the month clubs. Your recipient will remember your generosity all year long! you or them -- many have special contribution options for gifts. • Get Help: Tired of brainstorming? Don't be afraid to get help. New resources can help you find an appropriate present for those tricky recipients, such as your "sort of" boyfriend or girlfriend, your boss or your 10-year old nephew. Send a tweet to @groupon for real time gift suggestions. Just send a note with the #groupongifts hashtag & say who you're shopping for, where they live & what their interests are & you'll get a message back with a suggestion. • Avoid the Stores: Brick & mortar stores can mean lines & headache. Rather than muscle your way through multiple stores in pursuit of the perfect With the right strategies, present, try a one-stop-shop shopping for anyone can be a that you can visit from home. stress-free experience. A daily deal website can help you save on the newest toys, gifts for the home & gadgets. Purchases from mobile devices are more popular than ever as people buy on the go. • Charitable Gifts: Some people truly have it all. Instead of giving such friends & family one more thing they Maridav - Fotolia.com don't need, support a A recent survey commissioned by Groupon, cause in their honor. a daily deal website, found that 60 percent Choose an organization of respondents consider "finding the right gift" that's meaningful to a top shopping challenge. A NIGHT OF COMEDY 230610001 with Anita Renfroe Saturday Night SOLD OUT We've added a SECOND SHOW! FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15 7:00 PM - Tickets $15 Purchase Tickets at: www.crosspointwi.com or 262-567-5311 Don Weltzien/Special to the Enterprise OCONOMOWOC – annual Creative MemoMarlene Layfenberg of ries Scrapbooking Waunakee arranges her retreat. family sports photos at the Creative Memories Scrapbooking retreat at Olympia Resort last weekend. There were 110 scrapbookers from around the area that attended the the 10th Puzzle on Page 3 NEWS OF THE WEIRD BY CHUCK SHEPHERD THE CORNERSTONE OF YOUR COMMUNITY PUSHING THE PERSONHOOD ENVELOPE ■ California activist Jonathan Frieman finally got his day in court in Jan., but a Marin County judge quickly rejected his argument that he is entitled to use the state's carpool lanes accompanied only by a sheath of corporate papers in the passenger seat. (During the 2012 Republican primaries, Mitt Romney famously asserted a corporation's general right under the law to be treated as a "person.") The judge decided that the state legislature's carpool law was intended only to reduce traffic clutter & that driving with no passenger except corporate papers was unrelated to that goal. Frieman told reporters that he had been carrying the papers around for years, hoping to be challenged. CULTURAL DIVERSITY ■ The U.S. Congress may suffer dismal popularity ratings (less savory than head lice, according to one survey), but it is saintly compared to India's legislatures, which contain 6 accused rapists at the state level & 2 in the national parliament. Thirty-six local officials, as well, have been charged with sexual assault (according to India's Association for Democratic Reforms). In fact, the association reported in Dec. that 162 of the lower house of Parliament's 552 members currently face criminal charges. The problem is compounded by India's notoriously paralyzed justice system, which practically ensures that the charges will be unresolved for years, if not decades. ■ Many Japanese men seem to reject smartphones in favor of a low-tech 2002 Fujitsu cellphone, according to a Jan. Wall Street Journal dispatch – because it can help philanderers keep their affairs from lovers' prying eyes. The phones lack sophisticated tracking features – plus, a buried "privacy" mode gives off only stealth signals when lovers call & leaves no trace of calls, texts or emails. A senior executive for Fujitsu said, "If Tiger Woods had (this phone), he wouldn't have gotten in trouble." ■ China's national legislature passed a law in Dec. to establish that people have a duty to visit their aged parents periodically. China's rapid urbanization has not developed nursing homes & similar facilities to keep pace with the population, & sponsors of the law said it would give the parents a legal right to sue their children for ignoring them. LATEST RELIGIOUS MESSAGES SUBSCRIBE TODAY www.gmtoday.com ■ Redemption! Senior pastor Claude Gilliland III was forced to admit to his flock at the New Heart church in Cleburne, Texas, in Jan. that he is a convicted sex offender & that he and his ex-wife had worked in the pornography industry. Gilliland, 54, served 4 years in prison in the 1990s for sexually assaulting his ex-wife, but in Jan. was nonetheless defended by his congregation. "If we believe in the redemptive work of Christ," said one parishioner,"then this man is a miracle." (Gilliland believes he needs no redemption for the assault, for he was innocent of that – but that he had done other bad things during that time that did require redemption.) ■ God & Shoes: (1) "Prophet" Cindy Jacobs said in a Jan. Internet broadcast that God has revealed Himself to her by mysteriously removing critical shortages in her life, such as her car's wellworn tires that just kept rolling. "I remember one time that I had a pair of shoes that I wore & wore & wore & wore & wore & it just – for years, these shoes did not wear out." (2) Dublin, Ireland, inventor David Bonney recently decided to change the marketing of his new shoes to "Atheist Shoes." Two years earlier, he had started the business with the idea of selling "Christian" shoes that contained water in the soles so that wearers could walk on water. QUESTIONABLE JUDGMENTS ■ 4 days after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., officials at Public School 79 in New York City decided it would be a good time for a full-blown lockdown drill – with no advance warning. Though P.S. 79 is a high school & not an elementary school, it is composed of about 300 students with special needs (autism, cerebral palsy, severe emotional disorders) who, with their teachers, were startled to hear the early-morning loudspeaker blaring, "Shooter (or, possibly, "intruder"), get out, get out, lockdown." One adult said it took her about 5 minutes to realize that it was only a drill. Still, said another, "It was probably the worst feeling I ever had in my life." ■ Neighborhood observers reported in Dec. that the asbestos-removal "crew" working at the former YWCA in Middleburg Heights, Ohio, consisted merely of volunteer teenagers who are students at the local religious Buckeye Education School. State regulations require that asbestos (known to cause deadly respiratory illnesses) be handled only by certified contractors using hazardous-materials gear. Buckeye and other officials, while emphasizing that the students were volunteers, declined to say who authorized them to work. ■ In Nov., Tokyo's Kenichi Ito, 29, bested his own Guinness World Record by a full second (down to 17.47 seconds) in the 100-meter dash – on all fours. Ito runs like a Patas monkey, which he has long admired, & which (along with his self-described monkeylike face) inspired him 9 years ago to take up "four-legged" running. He reported trouble only once, when he went to the mountains to train & was shot at by a hunter who mistook him for a wild boar." PERSPECTIVE ■ Generally, clients are held to account for their lawyers' errors because the lawyers are their "agents," but death row inmates might be treated differently, for they usually do not select or pay for their lawyers – & because the stakes are so high. Alabama, though, looks at the problem unsympathetically, according to a Jan. New York Times report. When an Alabama death row inmate misses an appeals-filing deadline only because of his lawyer's error (in murder client Ronald Smith's case, only because lawyer C.Wade Johnson was an often-incapacitated methamphetamine addict), the client forgoes the appeal. The Smith case is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. (Alabama also remains the only state in which judges overrule juries & impose the death penalty instead of life in prison.) FETISHISTS ON PARADE ■ William Michael Martin, 45, was charged in Jan. with burglary of the East Texas Medical Center in Lufkin, Texas, where he went apparently in search of women's underwear & employees' personal photos, which police said he used as masturbation aids. At his home, police discovered a cache of women's underwear & several beach balls, which officers learned from photos were so that Martin could put them under his clothing & pose as pregnant. LEAST COMPETENT CRIMINALS ■ Benjamin Greene, 22, was charged in Dec. with shoplifting a nude blow-up doll from a Spencer's Gifts store in Spartanburg, S.C., but on closer inspection, the doll was less than met the eye. It was one of the manufacturer's "Super Star Series" of dolls, suggesting resemblances to celebrities like Jessica Simpson and Lindsay Lohan, but which are apparently all the same generic plastic doll resembling no specific human. The packaging on Greene's $19.99 "Finally Mylie! Love Doll" suggests singer Miley Cyrus ("finally" presumably to honor Cyrus' having recently turned 18 & "legal"), but it, too, was the generic plastic doll. READERS' CHOICE ■ (1) In Dec., the Illinois Times reported that emergency workers were called to a Springfield, Ill., church to rescue Father Tom Donovan, who said that he had been playing with a pair of handcuffs in the rectory & accidentally got stuck. He was also wearing "some sort of gag," according to the police report. The church told reporters that Father Donovan immediately went on administrative leave & was unable to answer questions. (2) Donald Blood III, 55, was charged with DUI in Dec. in Dorset,Vt., after driving into a yard, thinking it was a parking lot. It was actually historic property: the 1852 home in which Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, was born & which is "a place of sanctuary where people can come to give thanks to God for their new lives." Thanks This Week to Peter Smagorinsky, Scott Huber, Neb Rodgers, & John McGaw, & to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors. (Are you ready for News of the Weird Pro Edition? Every Monday at NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com & www.WeirdUniverse.net. Other handy addresses: WeirdNews at earthlink dot net, www.NewsoftheWeird.com, & P.O. Box 18737,Tampa FL 33679.)

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