I Said, Pass the Ketchup, Please!

An 86-year-old Oregon man on trial for the shooting death of his wife carried out the attack after a series of grievances with his family. Prosecutors said he was upset his step-daughter forgot to wish him happy birthday and his wife put the lid on the ketchup bottle too tightly.

The D.A. said he made criticisms about his family during questioning and that he planned the murder of his wife. The defense attorney claims he was (and is) delusional and had no idea what he was doing or for that matter, where he was.

Just my opinion. He knew where to find a gun and how to use it.

Remember the Costa Concordia shipwreck?

Ex-Captain Francesco Schettino, told his trial in Italy that as the Concordia came perilously close to the rocky coast of Giglio island, he ordered his helmsman to steer to the left, but the crewman reacted slowly and did not carry out the maneuver.

"In my experience, there wouldn't have been the crash" had the helmsman promptly and properly carried out the order. "If it weren't for the delay and error ... the ship would have stopped" before slamming into the reef, which left a 230-foot gash in one side of the ship's hull.

Schettino has previously said the reef was not on his charts and that the company should shoulder some blame. If convicted, he could face 20 years in prison.

The helmsman, Jacob Rusli Bin, is one of five Costa employees who were granted plea bargains in return for mild sentences in a separate hearing.

Investigators have said that language problems between the Italian captain and the Indonesian-born helmsman might have played a role in the botched maneuver.

It seems the captain is putting the blame on anyone and everyone he can.

We sail Princess and Celebrity, lots of English spoken on those ships. I want the person getting orders to understand the person giving them. Especially when my life is at stake.

A wheelchair-bound man was arraigned on charges he rolled through New York City restaurants, bars and hotels stealing wallets and purses.

Police said Matias Moreno-Boza, 25, of Perth Amboy, N.J., was arrested and charged with four counts of grand larceny.

Police allege that in the past month, he took billfolds and purses containing cash, credit cards, a necklace and an iPad from victims in the Japanese restaurant Nobu 57, the Cuban restaurant Havana N.Y. and the Spanish restaurant Txikito.

Prior to his arrest Moreno-Boza was seen in McDonald's Time Square trying to swipe a Happy Meal.

Are you stupid or something?

A Swedish barber caught at the airport in Gothenburg with a crocodile packed in a cardboard box says he bought the animal believing it to be a lizard.

Customs officials said the reptile was a Nile crocodile, which can grow to be 15 feet long and weigh as much as 1,000 pounds, making it the second-largest living reptile after its cousin, the saltwater crocodile. 

While the crocodiles when grown subsist on animals like gazelles they have been known to bite humans, sometimes fatally......Now that's a shocker.

I wonder what the barber was planning on doing with a thousand pound crocodile?

What? My wipes?

Increasingly popular bathroom wipes — pre-moistened towelettes that are often advertised as flushable — are being blamed for creating clogs and backups in sewer systems around the nation.

Waste-water authorities say wipes may go down the toilet, but even many labeled flushable aren't breaking down as they course through the sewer system. That's costing some municipalities millions of dollars to dispatch crews to unclog pipes and pumps and to replace and upgrade machinery.

The National Association of Clean Water Agencies, which represents 300 waste water agencies, says it has been hearing complaints about wipes from sewer systems big and small for about the past four years.

That roughly coincides with the ramped-up marketing of the "flushable cleansing cloths" as a cleaner, fresher option than dry toilet paper alone. A trade group says wipes are a $6 billion-a-year industry, with sales of consumer wipes increasing nearly 5 percent a year since 2007 and expected to grow at a rate of 6 percent annually for the next five years.

One popular brand, Cottonelle, has a campaign called "Let's talk about your bum" and ads showing people trying to wash their hair with no water. It ends with the tagline: "You can't clean your hair without water, so why clean your bum that way?"

Manufacturers insist wipes labeled flushable aren't the problem, pointing instead to baby and other cleaning wipes marked as non-flushable that are often being used by adults.

"My team regularly goes sewer diving" to analyze what's causing problems, said Trina McCormick, a senior manager at Kimberly-Clark Corp., maker of Cottonelle. "We've seen the majority, 90 percent in fact, are items that are not supposed to be flushed, like paper towels, feminine products or baby wipes."

Waste-water officials agree that wipes, many of which are made from plastic, aren't the only culprits but say their problems have escalated with the wipes market.

I'm in a strange mood this morning. I can't shake the blahs. An old man shoots and kills his wife because she "put the ketchup lid on too tight." It must have put him over the edge after his step-daughter forgot his birthday. I guess she doesn't use Facebook.

The Concordia captain blames lots of others for the terrible wreck. I have yet to hear him say anything close to "It was my fault. Ultimately the ship is my responsibility."

A man in a wheel chair probably blames someone for his misfortune which makes stealing much easier.

No one company will accept blame for clogging up sewer systems. There's too much money involved. And to think the product that's causing the problem is totally unnecessary. The fix is an easy one, DON'T USE WIPES.

I don't know why I should expect anything different. Like the cartoon character Bart Simpson always says, "I didn't do it."