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21 year old Justin Grant decided that he didn’t quite like the food in prison where he was serving time in Australia. So the guy decided to casually split when he was being transferred to a hospital for a hand injury. I don’t know how he wasn’t noticed within the first minute of his escape, wearing a shirt emblazoned with ‘correctional services’ and being handcuffed (duh) but that’s not our story. Apparently, Grant went underground where he continued to taunt the police with Facebook status updates. At one time, he even decided to invite friends to a poker game using the social networking group!  But it seems that Grant missed being behind bars, because he eventually became careless and was arrested in the parking lot when he went to buy fish and chips. Guess he’ll be having lots of time on his hands to play poker these days….

In the spirit of dumb crooks, here’s a true story all the way from Colorado:

A guy walked into a little corner store with a shot gun and demanded all the cash from the cash drawer. After the cashier put the cash in a bag, the robber saw a bottle of scotch that he wanted behind the counter on the shelf. He told the cashier to put it in the bag as well, but he refused and said “Because I don’t believe you are over 21.” The robber said he was, but the clerk still refused to give it to him because he didn’t believe him. At this point the robber took his driver’s license out of his wallet and gave it to the clerk. The clerk looked it over, and agreed that the man was in fact over 21 and he put the scotch in the bag. The robber then ran from the store with his loot. The cashier promptly called the police and gave the name and address of the robber that he got off the license. They arrested the robber two hours later.

I’m all for protecting the planet and I’ll even put my shopping in those green canvas bags instead of clogging our environment with more plastic bags. But sometimes commercial groups take their eco-messages one step closer to the ridiculous. I read this week that the new Playtech powered Casino del Rio has announced that it is to become the world’s first ecological casino. According to one article, “Casino Del Rio tries to protect the environment by balancing the CO2 emission so they introduced eco-friendly features that will contribute to achieve the goal of reaching a 100% carbon-neutral status that they adopted. The design features used for the entire online casino help monitor energy-wastage but first of all Casino Del Rio promised to plant one tree for every new casino player.”  Um. Ok. Apparently, the casino is also in partnership with a group called New Green Group which promotes and supports environmental activities.  Is it only me or is this concept a little bit OTT?

A couple of green jokes to get us going for the day:

• 17 trees are saved by every ton of existing paper recycled. That means if we pulped every Harry Potter book we wouldn’t be able to see the sky for foliage.
• Tom Cruise is set to sign up to a new, high tech, eco thriller called Mission Compostable.
• Is a vegetarian allowed to eat animal crackers?
• And finally a quote by Jay Leno – “They say if the warming trend continues, by 2015 Hilary Clinton may actually thaw out.”

I like the spirit of the French, especially when they feel that an injustice has been done. These guys have no problems shutting down their entire transportation system, for example, just to have their rights heard. This fighting spirit was carried over to the gambling world recently when French poker players learned that they will now by charged extra at their favorite online poker sites because the French government is charging a 2% tax on all rakes. What did these guys do? They simply occupied all the tables at these poker sites and refused to play – essentially shutting down sites such as Poker Stars in France! Kudos to the French poker players for their ingenuity and fair play!

I have to reiterate that I love the French, but I couldn’t resist a few jokes at their expense – no offence, guys!

Q: Why don’t the French barbeque?

A: The snails keep slipping between the grills.

Q: How do you get a French waiter’s attention?

A: Start ordering in German.

Q: How do you stop a French tank?

A: Say ‘Boo’!

Q: How do you get a Frenchman out the bath tub?

A: Throw in a bar of soap.

Q: How many jokes are there about the French?

A: One. The rest are true.

The record for the quickest appearance and disappearance of an online gambling site was without a doubt broken by PlayNow .com, the new site launched by the Canadian British Columbia Lottery Corporation last week. It was a PR nightmare – to say the least – when the site had to be taken down only hours after launching because… wait for it… it couldn’t handle the onslaught of players who were keen on trying it out. I mean, seriously, if you’re going to all that trouble to launch a brand new gambling site in a virginal market at a cost of millions of dollars, and you want to make a good first impression – surely you have the infrastructure to support a crowd or more than two players??

In honor of that spirit of ambiguity, here’s one courtesy of 101 Fun Jokes: “An Englishman, a Canadian and an American were captured by terrorists.

The terrorist leader said, “Before we shoot you, you will be allowed last words. Please let me know what you wish to talk about.”

The Englishman replied, “I wish to speak of loyalty and service to the crown.”

The Canadian replied, “Since you are involved in a question of national purpose, national identity, and secession, I wish to talk about the history of constitutional process in Canada, special status, distinct society and uniqueness within diversity.”

The American replied, “Just shoot me before the Canadian starts talking.”