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Cindy Anthony Wins Yostie & Caseys Life
July 07, 2011
Well, every year when summer arrives, a young man's fancy turns to to something we can't talk about in a family newspaper. But that fancy also turns to another interest as well an interest in seeing who will end up the big winners in the annual Yostie Awards. (Note: You may already be a winner.)
So, with no further to do, let's get right to the Yostie Award winners for the last 12 months .
Dumbest robbery attempt. This year's Yostie for the stupidest robbery attempt easily goes hands down to the Greensboro Apple store's "ninja" robber who smashed a car through the front plate glass of the Apple store at Friendly Center, making a giant commotion, setting off the alarm and rousing a security guard who stays in the back of the store every night for just such an occasion.
According to news reports, the man who crashed into the store and immediately fled was wearing a "white ninja suit."
Look, if he's a ninja, he's like the worst ninja of all time. Ninjas are supposed to be stealthy, but this guy's entrance was like well, like a car smashing loudly through a giant plate glass storefront.
As one blogger on an Apple site put it: "Driving a car into an Apple Store? Really? Could you be any more un-ninja??" He also pointed out: "There were witnesses that saw the ninja. Everyone knows that the only time that you see a ninja is right before you die."
So, as anyone can plainly see, there was a lot very wrong with that ninja's robbery attempt.
Runner up Yostie for stupidest robbery attempt. Stephanie Moreland of Bloomington, Minnesota. She's the rather large woman who stole a $6,500 mink coat or rather tried to by hiding it in her underwear and keeping it hidden there for three days while in jail.
Finally, she broke down under police interrogation, and pulled the mink coat out from her underwear, where it had been for three days. The police returned the coat to the store, so, if you're in the market for a mink coat, I'll bet you anything they'll give you a deal on that one.
Congratulations on your Yostie, Stephanie.
Anyway, there's a lot more to that messed up story, but it's more complicated than I can explain here; so look it up online if you want to know more about that mastermind's mink coat caper.
Worst shooting: The Piedmont Triad International Airport worker who gunned down the airport bear. Yes, I realize that airport officials claim the bear appeared to be reaching for a weapon or whatever but it's still unfathomable to me they gunned down the bear in cold blood.
Look, at first, when I heard about it, I was willing to cut them some slack until I found out that, before the shooting, the airport worker who shot the bear recited Eastwood's lines from the opening scene of Dirty Harry, replacing the word "punk" with "bear."
"You gotta ask yourself, 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, bear?"
Best shooting. Seal Team Six. The headshot for the kill into Osama bin Laden's left eye. Ever since Sunday, May 1, the world has been a better and happier place and people have been stepping a little lighter.
By the way, in this shooting too, the authorities said the victim seemed to be reaching for a weapon but, guys, come on now, in this case no one cares.
For all we care, Bin Laden could have been stark naked on his knees with his hands in the air screaming in pigeon English, "I'm unarmed! I'm unarmed!" and he still deserved to have his skull blown to pieces.
There are a lot of things in this world people need an excuse for, but, trust me, shooting Bin Laden in the head and dumping his body in the ocean isn't one of them.
Bin Laden probably did go out of this world sobbing and pleading like a frightened schoolgirl. If you remember, that's how Saddam was when we found him literally in a hole in the ground.
High-level terrorists always act very tough when they're hiding in a cave dreaming about getting with all those virgins by the river of milk and honey, but as soon as they see we're about to give them their one-way ticket to paradise, they squeal and sob like little baby girls who have wet their diapers.
Best Guilford County commissioner. Bill Bencini, District 2. Bencini is our newest county commissioner he took office in December 2010 so he hasn't learned yet from the other commissioners that commissioners in this county are simply supposed to constantly phone it in.
That's the overwhelming practice of most of the Guilford County commissioners. Most of them have been on the board for forever, and most win reelection easily year after year no matter how badly they've done running the county.
Since most of the commissioners are guaranteed their seat again, half the time they come to meetings without having read through the things they're voting on. You can tell by the questions they ask usually it's questions about stuff that's clearly stated in their information packet if they had taken the time to read it.
It was funny to watch the first December meeting last year when Bencini showed up on the board, because there was a zoning issue on the agenda one of those things the board would usually simply rubber-stamp because staff was requesting it. But then Bencini started asking all these good and relevant questions and the planning people were taken by surprise.
They probably figured the board would just rubber-stamp it like usual, but, instead, staff was franticly thumbing through their material looking for answers to his questions, and asking others in the meeting room if they knew the answers.
The Yostie backfire of the year award. Commissioner Paul Gibson. This at-large commissioner may have been too clever by half this year by being the only Democrat who publicly backed the Republicans' effort to reduce the size of the board.
Gibson advocated for a board with six districts and three at-large seats, but after the politicians in Raleigh began tinkering with the bill the county ended up with only one at-large seat and now none of the at large are elected until 2014.
Political mastermind Skip Alston somehow hijacked the process, and the end result is one that's likely to leave Gibson Alston's long-time political arch-enemy out in the cold and off the board, at least for a couple of years.
Yostie lifetime achievement award. Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple Computer. You know, if you think about it, almost no one in history has changed the way people live their lives to the extent Jobs has.
In my mind, Jobs has surpassed Thomas Edison as this country's greatest inventor. Here are just five products Jobs has given us (with a little help from his friends at Apple).
(1) The Macintosh computer (1984)
(2) The iPod (2001)
(3) The iTunes Store (2003)
(4) The iPhone (2007)
(5) The iPad (2010)
I saw a special on Steve Jobs on CNBC the other night and Guy Kawasaki, who was one of the first Apple employees, said he thought that, in the future looking back, the iPad would have more impact on society than the original Mac did. I don't know about that, but I do know it's all good if it has an Apple logo on it.
Steve Jobs has completely changed the way we interact with the world and I haven't even included Pixar and a few other things.
Most boring Guilford County committee meetings: Over the last year, the county has been holding these long committee meetings on animal tethering.
I haven't been this bored in meetings since three years ago when county officials spent literally half a year trying to decide whether or not to allow fox trapping in Guilford County.
Look, everyone wants to stop puppy mills, and I get that, and I like puppies like the next guy, and I'm on your side in that but I don't think the way to fix that is by passing a law that says no one can tie up a dog for a little while.
Is that where we're going? Really? You won't be able to tie your dog up in Guilford County? So then poor people who can't afford to fence in their yards will have to get rid of their dogs?
Worst prediction of the last year. American Christian radio host Harold Camping. He gets the Yostie this time around for his prediction that the world would end on Saturday evening, May 21, 2011.
From everything I can tell, it didn't.
This was really a boneheaded prediction if you think about it as everyone knows, the world is ending on Dec. 21, 2012. Uh, hello? They even made a movie about it.
Most exciting fair food of the year. A few years ago, the Yostie for fair food went easily to the deep-fried Snickers bar; in the most recent fair season, however, the Krispy Kreme bacon cheeseburger took the cake and brought home the bacon in this category.
Worst present. My brother Mark Yost, for one of his Christmas presents to me. He gave me a scratch-off lottery ticket that, after I'd scratched it off, said I won $10,000. The only problem was that it was a gag ticket, and he only decided to tell me that after letting me be utterly convinced for about five minutes that I'd just won $10,000 with that lottery ticket.
There's nothing funny about that.
The shooting star rock star from Mars warlock award. Charlie Sheen. Sheen both flamed in and flamed out of the public consciousness earlier this year. His one-man show tour ended in May and, believe it or not, TMZ reported that Sheen was in talks with a major network to do a show that could air as early as January 2012. And he still lives with two porn stars as far as I know, so, yes, he is crazy but he's crazy like a fox.
July 4th-related words that aren't really words that most need to go away. Tie: "Stay-cation" and "Sale-a-bration."
Smartest triad TV reporter: Katie Nordeen, Fox 8 News. Julie Luck is very smart, but she's an anchor and therefore she doesn't qualify to go up against Katie in the reporter category. Katie moved here from northern Minnesota, but I can't really detect a Fargo-esque accent when she speaks. I know Fargo isn't in Minnesota, but the people from both places usually sound strange in the same way.
Bob Buckley is smart too, and I like him and his work but he's not as hot as Katie and, anyway, he already won a Yostie a few years ago.
Most talented newsperson: Eric Chilton, News 2. Not only can he predict the weather with amazing accuracy, he can also sing like nobody's business. Eric Chilton and his group "Eric and the Chill Tones" are very good despite having the worst band name since Limp Bizkit or, perhaps, Foghat.
Most anticipated addition to the county: The flock of African penguins announced last fall by the Natural Science Center that are scheduled to be here in almost exactly one year.
Best concert to come to Guilford County in the last year: Taylor Swift. And I'm not just saying that because she's still very fresh in my mind and I'm still singing her songs in my head.
Listen, if you ever get a chance to see Tay-tay in concert, go. It's one of the closest things to a Frank Auman birthday party that you can find outside of the month of November.
Honorable mention: Bob Seger. I wasn't really all that excited about it before the concert, but he can still bring it and I forgot how many monster hits he's had over the years. He must be 80 now, but he can still get the crowd going.
Yostie liar, liar pants on fire of the year award. Cindy Anthony, mother of Casey Anthony, on the stand in the Casey Anthony murder trial.
"Oh yes, I forgot before, when the police asked me the first time, but, now that I'm on the stand, it all comes back to me: I did Google, 'How to chloroform your baby to death,' and, 'Best ways to dispose of a two-year-old's body so the police won't find out.' Oh, and yes, the funny thing about that is that, in between those searches, I took some time out to check Casey's Myspace and Facebook pages."
OK, that's it for now, but if you didn't win this week, you're not completely out of the winners circle yet, because this year there were simply too many winners to get all of them into one week.
There will be another round of this year's Yosties handed out soon so don't cry like a captured terrorist or anything if you didn't win one this week.