Police Beat Roundtable XX

The XXieth installation of our ongoing look at that most charming column of the Daily Universe. Previous installments can be read here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, and here.

This week: GST, SB2, KJ, AG and SE duke it out.

On Saturday an unexpected skydiver landed in the north end zone bleachers during the Stadium of Fire and caused considerable damage to the metal bench. A 19-year old visitor sustained the brunt of the impact. The victim complained of sore arms and legs.

Adam: Told you you shouldn’t have ditched the MTC, Elder.

Ken: The unexpected skydiver was Rudolf Hess, on a secret mission to meet with BYU administrators.

Adam: I didn’t know metal benches even had arms and legs.

Ken: Police Beat seems awfully concerned about the poor metal bench. The human victim (NOT BOUGHT WITH TITHING FUNDS FROM OLD PERUVIAN LADIES!!) is an afterthought.

Steve: Nobody expects the Mormon Inquisition!

Adam: This is why I always wear sunscreen.

GST: Next year, organizers promoted it as Stadium of Sore Arms and Legs.

Steve: The 19 year old in question is well known in the workout rooms for his love of rock and roll and his incredibly steely demeanor. “Metal Bench” is that kid’s nickname.

Adam: I guess the morgue or the corpsarium or whatever they call it was running low on limbs.

Ken: When you really want to see Sean Hannity (plus speical guests Osmonds: The Next Generation), I guess no quantum of time or expense is too much.

Steve: do I need to repost what I wrote? It was incredibly witty.

Ken: Was it the Metal Bench thing? Because we all saw it .

Adam: No, on both counts. Moving on — Superman needs some guidance control.

GST: It was The Greatest American Hero.

Ken: It’s not his fault! The aliens didn’t give him the instruction manual!

Adam: Down, down, and away!

Steve: Believe it or not, George isn’t at home!

GST: Where could I be?

Ken: This was the last time they ever tried to use good old “George Q” for human cannonball tricks at Stadium of Fire.

Steve: Takes some real balls to do a commando parachute into a Stadium of Fire.

Ken: I fell in to that burning stadium of fire…

Adam: My legs were getting sore, but the flames kept getting higher. I never went to the stadium of fire myself.

Steve: me neither – it smacks of ritual sacrifice, and I already lived near Branbury.

GST: It was probably the deaf Osmond. Didn’t hear all of the fireworks exploding.

Adam: as I understand it, it combines the attractions of a Las Vegas lounge act and a 4th of July parade? If Las Vegas lounge acts had unexpected skydivers.

Steve: There’s a deaf Osmond? Not just tone-deaf?

Adam: No, its the name of a metal band – the Deaf Osmonds. They’re rad.

GST: Yes. Yes, but Rahm Emmanuel calls him the “[something something] Osmond.”

Ken: The song “One Bad Apple” was written about the deaf Osmond, and how he ruined the act.

Steve: Deaf Osmond and the Metal Bench Band.

A live hopkinsia rosaces was stolen from the ESC either Monday or Tuesday. The owner, a 22-year-old student, was using the mollusk for her master’s degree thesis project. She was studying the reproductive habits of the creatures. The mollusk, valued at about $100, is one inch in diameter, pink in color and might be pregnant.

GST: Slut.

Ken: If the little plus on it is pink, BACK AWAY! It might be pregnant!

Adam: These fanatics give the pro-life movement a bad name.

Ken: Wait, do you pour mollusk pee on a rabbit to find out if it’s pregnant, or pour rabbit pee on a mollusk? I always do this wrong.

Adam: Blue molluscs that might not be pregnant are worth, what, a buck fifty?

Ken: Everyone knows hopkinsia rosaces are born pregnant, like tribbles.

GST: It’s very important to find the mollusk and determine whether in fact it is pregnant. If so, the student can confidently find that “MOLLUSKS GO ALL THE WAY, BABY!”

Adam: If your reproductive activities have got to the point of being habits, you might be pregnant.

Steve: The reproductive habits of the hopkinsia rosaces are fascinating indeed. They tend to mimic their environment. In the case of the mollusk in question, remnants of an ice-cream social and ticket stubs from Movies 8 were found in the tank.

Ken: It’s always a shame when good young mollusks have to get married in an aquarium in the relief society room. How do you look their parents in the eye?

Adam: So, uh, were any boy molluscs involved? The report only mentions the one.

Steve: You can’t study the masturbatory habits of a mollusk. Takes two to tango in a slimy, disgustingly erotic mess.

Adam: You can’t, Steve, that’s true. Blame the terms of your early release.

Ken: The grad student is the father.

Adam: You know, some of my best friends are molluscs, but I wouldn’t let my daughter date one.

GST: By the way, I appreciate how the PB item presumes that we all know what hopkinsia rosaces is, only casually mentioning that it’s a mollusk later.

Ken: PBR respects our intelligence as readers.

GST: “hopkinsia rosaces” What is a dirty, fornicating bi-valve, Alex.

Steve: it puts the bi in bivalve.

Ken: I think this -valve was only bi-curious.

Adam: It appearls so.

Ken: Just that one time at summer camp…

Steve: I saw a hopkinsia rosaces once, slutting it up in a geoduck bar.

GST: This item made me both hungry and horny.

Adam: Eww.

Steve: Stay out of my pantry!

Adam: GST’s weird obsession with 22-year old science girls is TMI.

Ken: I want to go home and serve my wife on the half shell and then make love to a big bowl of clam chowder.

A box containing 50 viles [sic] of hormones was apparently stolen from the John A. Widstoe Building between June 30 and July 5. The Super OV hormones, worth $2,000, are used in the reproduction of cows.

Ken: Okay, some Utah County Dr. Frankenstein is clearly mating mollusks and cows over at the ESC. They’re going to be called moo-lusks.

Adam: Pride of lions, viles of hormones. Hypothetically, if I stole some valuable cow hormones, where do I sell them? Flea market or pawnshop?

Steve: You don’t sell them, Adam — you USE them.

Ken: There is always a brisk black market up at Wyview, newlyweds wanting to try them on their frigid brides.

Steve: You haven’t lived until you’ve been to a Super OV Rave.

Adam: In case I want to reproduce cows. Hey, honey, this kid might be a surprise. Just saying.

Ken: Oh man, I’m coming up on that next tab of Super OV…MOOOOO!!!

Steve: I wonder what happens if a human takes it. Exploding egg sacs?

[GST’s internet crapped out, apparently.]

Adam: Too many viles, probably.

Steve: should we wait for GST?

Steve: He’s on the phone with me now. He sounds utterly emasculated. He needs some Super OV.

Ken: Can he suggest jokes to you by phone?

Steve: Yes — but the quality will be the same as ever, sadly.

Ken: I have Bruce Vilanch on the phone with me here. It’s not helping.

Adam: I have my sister-in-law on the phone with me, telling me about my nephew’s eye tumor. Its riotously funny. No, really.

Steve: It’s not a tumohh!

Adam: Steve and transliteration. Two good things that have never been successfully combined.

[GST rejoined.]

Ken: Ta da!

GST: I have returned. Begin the funny.

On Friday night, five suspects threw a large doll attached to a rope off of the overpass in front of the law school to startle people driving past. Three juveniles and two visitors were questioned and apprehended for creating a hazard. They were banned from campus for 72 hours and released to their parents.

GST: I don’t see cause for being startled. It’s not like the doll wasn’t on a rope.

Adam: The visitors weren’t juveniles and the juveniles weren’t visitors? Eh? C’mon, GST. You know as well as I do that the strange fruit on western overpasses usually ain’t dolls. It’s kumquats. Very dollicious.

Steve: Visitors was supposed to be capitalized, e.g. Visitor, thereby distinguishing between human adolescents and reptilian aliens bent on our enslavement, principally achieved through modest pranksterism.

Ken: I have to say the 72-hour ban doesn’t seem like much of a deterrent.

Adam: And the campus was safe for three seasons of 24. Is the overpass even on campus?

GST: Jack Bauer does not mark his days by our reckoning.

Ken: It just means three carefree doll-free days before the startling nightmare begins anew.

GST: I think they mean the footbridge from the law school to the WILK.

Ken: A day unto Jack Bauer is like a season to us, because CTU is on Kolob.

Adam: And long may it remain there.

GST: God is always setting up perimeters.

Adam: That’s a rather pedestrian prank then.

Ken: It’s true that “startling” is a pretty weak criminal enterprise. Notice that there is no Batman villain called “the Startler.”

Adam: Dear Teller, hand over your cash and I won’t shout Boo.

Ken: Stan Lee Presents… WHEN STARTLES THE STARTLER!!!

Adam: What can get your heart-rate up a little? The STARTLER knows.

GST: Back to the Startle-lair!

Ken: Startle is sort of a funny word when you say it a lot. Startle. Startle. Startle.

Steve: Also an incredibly lame Pokemon. Startler, I choose you! Attack with somewhat surprising boo-power!

Adam: A dark night in the provincial city. High above the campus street, the Startler broods over the pedestrian foot path he is sworn to brood over. With apologies to the Tick.

Steve: He’s not the Startler Provo wants, but the one it needs.

Adam: Hard to rhyme, startle.

Ken: The item never mentions that the doll was actually an effigy of Merrill J Bateman in women’s clothes.

GST: His favorite econ blogger is Megan McArdle.

Adam: Halt! In the name of Jane Galt!

Ken: In Utah only, “startle” and “portal” rhyme.

Adam: What’s the Startler’s origin story? Spanked as a baby?

Ken: Balloon popped at his first birthday party.

GST: And killed his parents.

Adam: Bitten by a surprise beetle

Steve: hold on. We need a nerdy woman to settle this.

[Cynthia has joined.]

Ken: Huzzah!

Steve: We were just talking about you, Cynthia.

Adam: I didn’t expect that!

Steve: were you… STARTLED????

Ken: Good, a woman. This should end the stupid comic book jokes

Adam: Cynthia, you are my skydiver.

Cynthia: yes, you all SUCK.

GST: Cynthia, any comment on the randy mollusk heist that you missed?

An 18-year-old male living in Robinson Hall received eye injuries Monday when a piece of wood struck his eye. His 18-year-old roommate was hitting wood with numchucks [sic] and a piece flew up and struck the victim’s eye.

Cynthia: wait I want the randy mollusk one!

Steve: too late. You can consider the slutty shellfish on your time. Remember — Cynthia has to remark first!!

Ken: Maybe his roommate should take the nunchuk out of his OWN eye first. Oops.

Steve: DAMN YOU KENNETH!!

Cynthia: lolz!

Ken: lolz doesn’t count as a joke, we’re still waiting.

GST: As far as nunchucks are concerned, wood splinter in the eye is a feature, not a bug.

Cynthia: I think a great name for candy would be “yumchucks.”

Ken: Kneeling drago attack! Drunken crane attack! Annoying splinter attack!

Adam: Hitting wood with numchucks is something you can’t study in molluscs.

Steve: “hitting wood with numchucks” strikes me as a fairly regular occurrence in the dorms. Maybe not with your roommate present.

Adam: Never with splinters, though, Steve. Though I’m glad they clarified he got eye injuries.

Cynthia: [minutes later] then if your kid throws it up, well, it’s just going with the theme.

GST: BTW, they could have left out the “male” part of the description. Not a lot of 18 year-old female nunchuck enthusiasts in college dorms. Nunchicks, if you will.

Steve: “nunchicks” is apt for the Y dorm women.

Cynthia: maybe with you, Steve. The other guys might have a different experience…

Adam: True.

Cynthia: (I’m just still bitter about starting w/o me)

Adam: My Y dorm women were mostly Mormon.

Ken: Hey baby. How’d you like to get out of that robe and habit and into a dry martini?

GST: I mean, you’re not really “married” to Jesus, are you?

Adam: Is that the Host or just a mollusc?

Ken: It’s a modern marriage. We can see other people.

GST: He’s cool.

Steve: or, in the case of co-eds, get out of that muu-muu and cape and into a large Frosty.

Cynthia: a really crafty date could turn those splinters and notepaper into a martini umbrella.

Adam: CL, crafty doesn’t mean what you think it means.

Ken: Maybe it’s another missing capital letter…the attack was from Splinter, the ninja turtle mentor.

Steve: Who had the ‘chucks again? Mikey?

Adam: Machiavelli – crafty. Cardinal wossname, also crafty.

GST: Machiavelli was expert with a hot glue gun and pipe cleaners.

Steve: Richelieu.

Adam: Feng. Kremlin.

Ken: Richelieu loved tole painting.

Adam: His gowns were fabulous.

Cynthia: give little Nicolo some wood and paint, and you’ve got a centerpiece

Adam: Totally handmade! I’m not saying Nicolo M. was, uh, playing for the other team, but he did write a book called Prince. Formerly called Prince.

GST: The City-State Ruler Formerly Known as …

Steve: The Little Prince was St-Exupery’s attempt to convey the principles of sprezzatura to kids.

Cynthia: I don’t want to know what “sprezzatura” means.

Ken: Italian for “scrapbooking.”

Steve: it’s a flavor of Gelato, vanilla with chocolate. Might be strachiatella. who knows.

Cynthia: I said DON’T want to know, dangit!

Ken: Strachiatella is food poisoning I think.

Steve: Strychniatella.

Adam: Gelato being eye-ty for numchick [sic]

Derogatory remarks were written on a chalkboard in room 323 TMCB Sept. 22 at 5 p.m.

Steve: “This classroom has too much chalk!”

Adam: Modern chalkboards come with a timestamp. Cool!

GST: Good thing someone called the cops.

Ken: “I didn’t want to erase it until you had a chance to case the scene, officer.”

Cynthia: You know this “self-esteem” thing is getting out of control when putting a kid’s name on the board constitutes a “Derogatory remark.”

Ken: Well, the teacher did put a check-mark next to it the second time he talked. A CHECK MARK!

Steve: “I hate you fascist pigs! DO NOT ERASE”

Cynthia: That’s what Jason should have put at the end of his comment: “DO NOT ERASE.” Unlike whatever verbiage he did include, “DO NOT ERASE” is legally binding.

Steve: The author of the derogatory remark chalk-dusted off his feet.

GST: He could have dusted off the erasers on you.

Adam: That’s all it said, ‘DO NOT ERASE’. Everyone knowns shouting is disrespectful.

Ken: In trying to reconstruct the crime, the authorities made a chalk outline of the chalk in question.

GST: You just blew my mind.

Cynthia: those BYU cops must be just aching to make a chalk outline.

Adam: Meta-derogatory chalk outlines were written on a chalkboard. 5:01 PM.

Steve: The BYU Metacrimes lab is investigating. An investigation of the investigating investigator is pending.

Ken: I bet the made an outline of the overpass doll, just to keep in practice.

Adam: Hangdoll–a great way to spend Sunday School. Back when.

Ken: It’s true, the “derogatory remarks” could have been left over from a Sunday school lesson. Our classes always end with a list like -PRIDE -SELFISHNESS -FORNICATION -DEMOCRATS

Eighty lily pads and blossoms were taken from the botany pond between Oct. 6 and 9. The lily pads would cost $3,000 to replant.

Adam: Getting better, guys and gals. Really cookin’ with bovine Super OV.

GST: This is the biologic materials heist version of PBR.

Adam: Maybe they were toiling or spinning. It’s their own fault.

Cynthia: Eighty lily pads is a little-known equivalent to 1000 paper cranes.

Adam: The song 80 days of Christmas sucks.

Cynthia: That is so not a real song.

Adam: Dude, thanks for the lilies and the mollusc. NOT.

Steve: Police are looking for a frog in connection with the crime. Possibly Kermit, possibly Robin.

GST: 50 vials of bovine hormones…

Ken: That’s like $35 a pad.

Adam: 4 sore limbs.

GST: FIVE GOLDEN NUNCHUCKS.

Adam: On the 80th day of Police Beat, my true love stole for me…

Cynthia: The BYU PD staff aquatic botany experts–how were they able to come up with an estimate so fast?

Adam: Practice.

Ken: I hope they get more cash for the one that has the little frog playing the banjo on it.

GST: That’s low Blue Book value on the lily pads.

Ken: Let’s see, I have my lily pad price guide right here. Were they all in “near mint condition”?

Adam: Mint? NO, aren’t they a nightshade?

Ken: What unholy creature is being bred out of bivalves, beef hormones, and lily pads? What monstrosity will emerge from the botany pond the following night?!?

Adam: I would rather the Mint stuck to coins.

Cynthia: AG, that was a total groaner. ON THE RECORD!

Adam: And. That’s what she said.

A mannequin known as CPR Annie was taken from the University Press Building between July 30 and Sept. 13. The mannequin is valued at $170.

Cynthia: oh wow. [censored]

Adam: Choose Pulmonary Resuscitation.

GST: She was then tied to a rope and thrown off the overpass in a plot by The Startler!

Adam: Woah, that was unexpected.

GST: That’s the point.

Ken: I think CPR Annie is trying some new forms of mouth-to-mouth right about now, if you know what I mean.

Steve: See how it all ties together, all these unrelated stories? This is the BYU version of the PT Anderson movie Magnolia.

Cynthia: maybe whoever took Annie also took the lily pads and was trying to fashion clothes for her.

Ken: Then frogs fall from the sky and land on the stolen lilypads.

Adam: The PB Blue Book is awesome. Pink, pregnant molluscs, 80 lily pads, mannequins names Annie, its all in there. Probably alphabetically.

Steve: Poor Annie. It’s a hard-knock life.

Adam: It’s hard knock life with a compressible bust.

Ken: Just remember, whoever has abducted Annie, we beg of you: press 30 times, blow twice. That’s how she likes it.

Adam: Yeah, I’m blushing.

Ken: But when you’re lonely and you can’t find a quadruple amputee at 11:00 at night, CPR Annie is always there. And she never judges you.

Adam: Amputee-chic and mollusc musk are things you keep to yourself.

Cynthia: here’s a question: what’s the University Press doing with their own CPR doll?

Steve: Not sure what you can do with Annie outside of stringing her up and dangling her off the overpass. I mean, all she does is demonstrate what it’s like not to breathe. Auto-asphyxiatingly erotic I suppose.

Cynthia: isn’t that more of a nursing school type accoutrement?

Ken: She used to be called “CPR Michael Hutchence”

Adam: Cynthia, Daily Universe and hyper-ventilation are not alien to each other.

GST: This is the University Press, not the Daily Universe.

Adam: thin disguise.

Cynthia: see while all you guys were drooling over Annie, I was busting this case WIDE OPEN!

Ken: Hey, I helped. I went on TV. “We just want our little girl back!”

Steve: Annie Alert?

GST: Daddy Warbucks put up the reward. Punjab bought out the 8 o’clock show.

Adam: CPR Daddy Warbucks.

Ken: Oh man, the Rooster and Miss Hannigan tracked her down again!

Adam: CFO, CEO, COO. CPR-Chief of Public Relations. GST can calm down now.

Cynthia: Tomorrow! TOMORROW! PBR will be funnier to-MOR-ROW!

Steve: The jokes’ll come out tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, this’ll be fun.

Adam: Tomorrow’s only a gay mollusc away.

Steve: It wasn’t a GAY mollusk, just a promiscuous one. although again, bivalve, so.

Cynthia: (I am dying to see what this is all about)

Adam: Just another molluscnapping, CL.

Ken: It was all a bunch of (a)baloney.

Steve: pearl[-makers] before swine.

Cynthia: when I was in the dorms, the rule for having pets was thus: has to be able to live underwater for >= 5 minutes.

Adam: I take it CPR Annie doesn’t get out much.

Steve: Are you kidding? She makes out with everybody. Though I imagine you fail your St Johns Ambulance test if you french the doll.

Ken: Weird. No breathing for 5 minutes was also Michael Hutchence’s dating rule.

Steve: Rimshot, Ken. That joke never gets old. The devil inside, I guess.

Adam: Ken goes there.

Ken: If I’d used David Carradine instead, we could have done a callback to the nunchuk guy.

GST: Grasshopper, snatch lily pad from botany pond.

Adam: 80 time.

Cynthia: Tongue is ok in an ambulance, but it has to be ambulance tongue, not porno tongue. (Wedding Singer, anyone?)

Steve: define “ambulance tongue” pls thx.

Adam: Calf tongue, Steve. u wlcome.

Steve: That joke was Super OVious. COME ON!!!!!

Ken: Super OV was actually my DJ name during my hip-hop career.

Adam: If no one else will say it, I veal.

Cynthia: Fun fact I learned at the zoo today: (for real) mammals generally have 1 inch of tongue length for every 8 inches of height. You’re welcome.

Steve: That’s it. I’m closing the thread.

[author deleted]: So, frenching legless Annie is no fun.

Steve: Not for her, anyways.

Cynthia: Frenching Legolas, on the other hand… yowza.

Steve: Same with those trampy Cabbage Patch Dolls.

Ken: Cabbage Patch Dolls are sluts. Two words: ass tattoos.

Adam: Can my name please be changed for this PBR. Seriously.