slices

Thanks to "This Is True" for these slices...

WE INTERRUPT THIS PROGRAM: Normally, Scranton, Penn., TV station WNEP televises the season opener for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons minor league baseball team. But this year it refused to televise the game because it was scheduled on the Friday before Easter. "Good Friday is not an appropriate day for us to do that," explained C. Lou Kirchen, WNEP's president and general manager. So what aired in its place? Local news, the tabloid show "Inside Edition", "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition", and "Primetime", featuring a story about children being abducted and forced into prostitution. (Allentown Morning Call) ...Making the most "appropriate" move being to turn off the TV.

GREENER THAN GREEN: "We're people for whom recycling is no longer enough," says John Perry, founder of the Compact, about 50 people in the San Francisco, Calif., area, who have pledged to buy no new products for a full year, not counting food, health and safety items, and underwear. "We had a little crisis when Matt and Sarah had to replace their shower curtain liner and we said no," he said. "But we put the word out and someone found one for them." Whew! Everything the members will buy for the year will come from thrift shops, yard sales, and swaps. Perry says fighting consumerism is hard, since he loves to shop. (San Francisco Chronicle) ...The hardest part: finding used gas for their SUVs.

CRIME DOESN'T SAVE: "He took clothes and meals," said Washington County, Mo., Sheriff Brian Rahn. "Whatever he was finding in those refrigerators, he was filling up on it." He was speaking about a burglar who likes to make himself meals, take showers, and pick out changes of clothes from homes he breaks into. But they have a fresh lead on the burglar's identity: he also helps himself to home computers, where he surfs the Internet and checks his e-mail. On one recent caper, Rahn said, "He never logged out." Detectives say that helped them discover his identity, and his arrest is pending. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) ...But it'll take awhile, since the cops are still on dial-up.

SPRING BREAK-IN: While his schoolmates went to beach communities for spring break, Drake University sophomore Skyler Bartels went somewhere else. The student from Harvard, Neb., camped out in a Wal-Mart store in Des Moines, Iowa, living there for nearly three days straight, catching a few hours of sleep in the garden department or the men's room. Late at night "it's just me and the stockers," he said, "and every once in a while somebody who needs a Swiffer at 2:00 in the morning." He killed time by putting out-of-place items back on the right shelves, figuring "at least I was being productive and beneficial to the store." He had planned to stay longer, but after about 41 hours he noticed that managers were on to him, and left when managers called a meeting -- apparently to discuss what to do about him. "I should have stuck it out, at least to see what the meeting was about," he said. (Des Moines Register) ...Whether or not the store had to pay him.