The Entrepreneurial Spirit: In the last few years, Taiwan entrepreneurs have opened restaurants with motifs such as prisons, zombies and Mao Zedong, but the latest is Eric Wang's "Marton" in Kaohsiung, whose theme is the toilet. All seats are what you would think, with food served on a glass tabletop resting on a bathtub, and some of the delicacies are presented in miniature toilet bowls (among them, curry hot pot, and disturbingly, chocolate ice cream).
Leading Economic Indicators: New York state Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat (Manhattan) introduced a bill in June to require a minimum wage for comedians (at least $125 per 20-minute show at comedy clubs on weekends and $28 on weekdays).North Carolina correctional officials began rethinking inmate manufacturing programs recently when they discovered that, even though they pay prisoners only $3 a day in their T-shirt-making concession, suppliers in Bangladesh can make the shirts for 38 percent less.
London's Housing Market: Agence France Presse reported in May that an agency had just rented out a 54-square-foot apartment in Notting Hill (loft bed over a kitchenette, closet and shower) for the equivalent of $1,065 a month. And in the Haringey Park neighborhood, developer Andrew Markey proposed to convert the kitchen and hallway of a house he owns into its own two-story townhouse (producing a living room that's 21 feet by 8 feet). Agents said such a house might go for the equivalent of $325,000, but in June, the local council rejected his initial plans.
Man's Best Friend: In March, Mark Allen Shook, 43, attempting to flee (with his dog) Mountain Ranch, Calif., police officers who had come to arrest him on a domestic violence charge, was captured after a chaotic fight during which the dog bit off part of Shook's ear. And in Eltham, England, in May, a family's dog, chasing a ball, bumped the ladder on which a man was standing to trim some bushes with a chainsaw, causing him to fall and fatally slice the neck of his wife, who was holding the ladder.
More Things to Worry About: Five Buddhist monks in Bangkok were defrocked in May after a street fight culminating years of hostility between two temples, according to a Reuters dispatch. Said one, who used brass knuckles, "When an ordinary person is given a middle-finger sign, he will be mad. So will I." In May, a 1,500-pound camel named Poon, roaming around his home at the Mayle Farm in Shinnston, W.Va., decided to sit down on top of a woman who was painting a fence. No one could hear her muffled screams, but she managed to call 911 on her cell phone, and help arrived just as Poon had begun to bite her.
Least Competent Criminals: Easy identifications: Awiey "Chucky" Hernandez, 20, was arrested when he went to the 90th Precinct station house in Brooklyn, N.Y., to check on the status of a pal and inadvertently stood directly in front of his own "wanted" poster (on robbery and drug charges). The in-custody pal Hernandez had come to inquire about was Huquan "Guns" Gavin, 18, who appears with him on the poster. Charles Cross Jr., was arrested on the street minutes after allegedly robbing a Fifth Third Bank in Louisville, Ky., in May, because he displayed the effects of having been looking directly into his stash bag at the moment the red-dye device exploded.
Thinning the Herd: A man fell to his death from an overpass onto Interstate 5 in Seattle, the loser of a who-can-hang-the-longest game with a friend (May). And a 22-year-old intoxicated man from Aberystwyth, Wales, accidentally fell through a window and fatally landed on a spiked fence after having pulled down his trousers and screamed to no one in particular, "Who wants some of this?" (April). And in Frederick, Md., a judge convicted Ben Meacham, 23, on two misdemeanor counts for his role in the death of a 21-year-old pal, who had said he wanted to do something unusual on his motorcycle because it was about to be repossessed. With Meacham videotaping, the pantless pal did a wheelie before losing control and accidentally, fatally, ramming a parked truck (June).
© 2005 CHUCK SHEPHERD
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