Apparently My New MP3 Player Can Kill Me

Yesterday my new MP3 player finally arrived.

Tempering my joy at having a new electronic toy to hold and pet and play with and love, was the message I found tucked inside the package, printed in tiny letters:

California Proposition 65 Statement
WARNING: Handling this product may expose you to chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm. Wash hands after handling.

California and its darned propositions really know how to spoil a good thing lately.

Family Barbecue

News from California today about a mother and son team who cremated their mother/grandmother this past December in a homemade barbecue pit.

Afterward, they continued to cash her retirement checks, eventually collecting approximately $25,000. Both were arrested and are in custody.

Additional reports say the daughter, 50-year-old Kathleen Allmond of Tehama County, California, constructed a necklace from parts of her mother's skull.

In related news, as part of the research I'm doing for a novel, I interviewed a funeral director earlier this week. During our conversation he confessed that ever since entering this line of work, he's been unable to eat ribs.