UPDATE, 2/7: A talked to a source close to the original post, who said that the author intended it to be more than a little bit sarcastic and tongue in cheek. Frankly, that makes a lot of sense. And the person was very nice, so keep that in mind as you read it. Perhaps my Portlandia comparison was less newsworthy than just… taken at face value?

Excuse yet another non-movie-related digression from me, but this was just too perfect not to share. So I’ve been apartment hunting here in San Francisco for the past week, and I love this city, but man, many of the stereotypes about us are true, and never are they laid more plain than when you’re scrolling through Craigslist ads. The “vegan household seeks non-meat-eater,” the “we don’t have a TV in the common area and we’d like to keep it that way” – you’d think you were looking for a drum circle instead of a room. There are plenty of non-noteworthy “only in SF”-type posts (and even typing “only in SF” makes me want to kick my own ass), but the one I’m about to share manages to combine nearly every stereotype into one, magnificently un-self-aware post. If Portlandia was about San Francisco, the person who wrote this would be one of the characters.

I’m trying to leave out identifiers and not link the post so this poor girl doesn’t get a million emails, but here’s the text (names have been changed):

It’s 7:14am and the sun is beginning to reach through the window, around your curtains, gently rousing you from an undisturbed night of rest. Sitting up, you hear the jingle of a bell – it’s Bambina the cat, scurrying towards her food bowl. You know that your lovely roommate, Marina, will soon follow, rubbing the sleep from her eye and muttering about the “little bastard” under her breath. Minutes later, Kyle walks past with one of his many bicycles. You wish him a nice day as he heads out the door to his job at an ad agency.

Stepping into the newly remodeled kitchen, Marina asks if you would like to taste some of the kale smoothie she just made…it is surprisingly delicious. You sip the delicious smoothie and look out onto the garden where a hummingbird is gracefully sipping it’s [sic] own breakfast from a flower.

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Great news, our scientists have finally done it, they’ve discovered the most Florida story ever told. It’s about a naked carny who broke into a house, pooped in it, and jacked off in a child’s bedroom, all while the homeowner shot at him. This story is Christmas, Chanukah, and the birth of a child rolled into one.

Fort Myers, Florida – Gregory Matthew Bruni, 21, [a carnival worker] is facing charges of damage to property, burglary, battery and resisting an officer.
The victims told the Lee County Sheriff’s Office they were inside around 6:50 p.m. when they heard noises on the roof.
They went outside and saw a naked man, later identified as Bruni, on the roof, according to a Lee County Sheriff’s Office report.
They said the man then jumped off the roof and onto one of the victims, knocking him down.
The man then ran into their home and pulled a 72-inch television off a living room wall, breaking it.

I love that they identify the television, but don’t give names, ages, or descriptions of the victims. BUT WHAT WERE THEY WATCHING?!

The victim told investigators he yelled for his wife to get a gun as Bruni continued to thrash around the house, knocking over a wet/dry vacuum and spilling its contents on the floor.
The wife fired three shots from a .38 caliber revolver at Bruni, but missed and hit a wall.
Bruni then fell to the ground and began masturbating in the living room before he ran into the victims’ son’s bedroom and began rubbing his face with clothing, according to the report.
The male victim retrieved his shotgun from the master bedroom, but never fired at Bruni.
Deputies arrived on the scene and tried to detain Bruni, who started flailing around on the ground and speaking, but not making sense.

Maybe he’s an alien God-king from the future, sent to save us from the impending apocalypse like Leelu from The 5th Element. Who else could masturbate in a hail of bullets? We must! Try! To understand! MULTI-PASS! MULTI-PASS! (*gets frustrated, wipes ass with house cat*)

Deputies said Bruni sucked up the water that had spilled from the vacuum and spit it out. They said he tried to flee several times and had to be Tased as he was taken into custody.
Deputies later discovered Bruni defecated near the front door and in a hallway inside the residence.

Okay, so the pooping was before the shooting started, or during? Because if this guy jacked off AND shat while he was being shot at, we should make him president. At the very least, we know he’s a guy that isn’t going to lose his cool during a crisis.

He was transported to Lee Memorial Hospital for observation. Doctors advised deputies they couldn’t identify “what Bruni was on” and were conducting further tests, according to the report. [WTSP via HuffPo]

When this guy goes to AA, the other addicts should have to pay admission. “Gather round, kids, let me tell you about the time Uncle Greg climbed a roof, jumped on a guy, escaped a firefight, jacked off in some kids’ clothes, sh*t on the floor, and chugged a vacuum. CHAAAOS REEEEEEIGNS…”

But wait! One outlet even has a transcript of the 911 call. It’s Fox News, with the perfect Fox News headline, “Naked burglar terrorizes couple, but they fight back.” Yes, what an uplifting story of successful home defense. Who knows where else he might have masturbated had the family not been armed!

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In a heartwarming story of people helping people and triumph over adversity, police helped a blind British novelist recover 26 pages of her book when she continued writing without realizing that her pen had run out. Unless of course her book turns out to be Twilight fan fiction, in which case the story is a Kafka-esque nightmare about the inevitability of horror.

The above triptych shows an unauthorized restoration of a 19th-Century fresco on the wall of the church of Santuario de Misericordia in Spain, recently completed by an unidentified 80-year-old woman. It may not look as good as your average Banksy, but hey, let’s see that limey poser work without stencils like Grandma Picasso over here.

Three separate photographs of “Ecce Homo” by painter Elias Garcia Martinez show extensive damage caused by an elderly woman who decided the masterpiece needed a little refurbishment.
But in a time of austerity, rather than calling in a professional to complete the job, the unnamed woman attempted to restore the mural herself – at a devastating cost.
The result was a botched repair where the intricate brush strokes of Martinez were replaced with a haphazard splattering of the octogenarian’s paint. Years of carefully calculated depth of expression simply washed out by copious amounts of red and brown.
The damage was discovered after the 19th century painter’s granddaughter made a donation to the Centro de Estudios Borjanos in Borja, Spain, a couple of weeks ago. The Centro holds an archive of regional religious paintings with regularly-updated photographs.
After receiving the donation, employees at the Centro went to check on the mural at the church of Santuario de Misericodia only to find it drastically altered.
An original photograph of the painting taken in 2010, shows only minimal deterioration with Jesus crowned in thorns clearly visible in the portrait. There is slight white speckling across the piece.
Large white patches appear in a second photograph of the painting taken in July this year, possibly scrubbed off as the octogenarian began her project.
A final photograph reveals a portrait transformed beyond recognition.
The amateur restorer said she had undertaken the project “with good intentions” but, as culture councillor Juan Maria de Ojeda said, “she had gotten out of hand”. [Telegraph]

Well hey, you know what they say, you gotta have hobbies. Normally, I’d say destroying a priceless piece of art is never funny – even that scene in Borat (which I otherwise love) where he’s smashing the Civil War-era china makes me break out in hives – but this comes pretty damned close. What was once a realist portrayal of Jesus now looks like Edvard Munch’s The Scream in a furry hat. I’d call it even money.

I’d like to think this lady now wanders around the nursing home “fixing” the drawings from other residents’ grandchildren, charging collectors thousands for them.

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Troy Kenneth Campbell was having your basic drunken day in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada, when he was arrested for “dancing in the middle of University Avenue with a beer in one hand and a cheeseburger in the other.”

Whoa whoa whoa, officer, I didn’t know you could get arrested for being awesome at partying. So then he got thrown in the drunk tank, but otherwise, so far so good. That is, until he tried to do a little dance, make a little love, and generally get down that night. That’s when it all went wrong.

When he arrived at the correctional centre he was placed in what corrections officials refer to as a dry cell.
Dry cells generally have no running water and are used principally for prisoners   suspected of having ingested illegal goods or other contraband which would come out of the body in a bowel movement.
When Campbell was exchanging his clothing for jail issue clothing he asked the guards if they had ever seen Cyril Sneer. Sneer was a pink cartoon aardvark with a very prominent snout.
Campbell proceeded to tuck his penis between his legs, bend over and jump up and down in the cell.

Weird, I always called the reverse Silence of the Lambs the “Fruit Bowl,” but this “Cyril Sneer” has a nice ring to it. “And then I gave the whole volleyball team the Cyril Sneer. Megan Reynolds even hurled, it was righteous.”

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