WORTH YOUR EYEBALLS

"Ah," as Ed Peaco is known to say — something good to read. Ed's blog, The Wine-Jazz Nexus, is outstanding. Give it a whirl and see if you don't concur.

And when you do, don't forget to yell "Bem!" Ed would approve.

A FETISH TOO FAR

Rough sex gone wrong. After seeing that headline, who's not going to read more?

The skinny: Man loves woman. She loves him. They drink, heavily. They have rough sex. He asks her to "carve artwork" into his chest. She picks up a knife. Things go awry.

Thank God the Winnipeg Sun is around to provide details:

A court order has prohibited the young lovers from communicating with each other since the February 2007 incident. That order was lifted yesterday and the couple left court together, smiling. ...

Court heard the 25-year-old woman and 24-year-old man had known each other since grade school but had only become romantically involved four weeks prior to the accident.

The man was rushed to hospital in critical condition after suffering a stab wound to the left ventricle of his heart.

"Hospital staff thought he was going to die, he was very close to death," said Crown attorney Larry Allan, adding the man has fully recovered. ...

"He said they engaged in dangerous play, and due to her intoxication, was not precise with the knife and punctured his heart," Allan said.

The man told police the stabbing was an accident and that the two routinely cut and scratched each other with knives. The man showed police several wounds, including a heart-shaped scar on his back featuring the woman's initials.

McCammond said it was the victim who introduced the woman to "body modification" and asked her to carve another heart on his chest. The woman was complying when the man asked her to press harder, said [the woman's lawyer, John] McAmmond. ...

Judge Brian Corrin said the woman was "clearly remorseful and unlikely to be reinvolved."

Corrin ordered the woman to participate in alcohol counselling while on probation.

Nothing so sweet as young love.

MOM, BEER AND A BB GUN

Angelique Vandeberg is this month's Top Mom -- and just in time for Mother's Day. Police say the Wisconsin woman (mugshot here) shot her daughter in the leg with a BB gun. Reason? To win a $1 bet.

The Sheboygan Press reports:

Police began looking into the incident Wednesday after a school counselor reported it to police. The girl was shot three or four days earlier, but a circular bruise with a white-colored point in the middle remained visible on her thigh, the counselor said.

The girl said the shooting occurred in her mother's bedroom, where Vandeberg was with her boyfriend after she had consumed 10 to 12 beers.

The boyfriend bet Vandeberg $1 she wouldn't shoot the child, then handed her the BB pistol. Vandeberg took it and shot the girl. The bullet, which did not break the skin, bounced off her leg and struck her 7-year-old brother, who was not injured.

Wonder what she'd do for five bucks?

DEATH BY BEER-FILLED BACKPACK

Climbing over a chain-link fence, he didn't take into account the added weight of a dozen 40-ounce beers in his backpack. Straps on the pack get tangled around his neck. Lights out.

According to The Associated Press:

Police in Vancouver, Wash., say 51-year-old James Francis Henry had been drinking beer Tuesday night while walking with his girlfriend, 38-year-old Kelli Jo Barkley. They were returning to their homeless encampment from their roadside panhandling site.

Barkley says he fell while trying to scale a 6-foot chain link fence, got his neck caught in the chest strap of his backpack and said, "Help me! Help me!"

By the time she got a nearby resident to call 911 and emergency crews arrived, Henry was unconscious and could not be revived.

And you thought four 40s were killer.

THIRSTY SHOPLIFTER BEATEN DEAD

That'll teach him. Reuters says the shoplifter -- a man in his 50s or 60s -- stole two beers from a supermarket. The manager caught him in the act, dragged him to the back of the store, east of Tokeyo, and beat him before leaving him in the road:

A passer-by called an ambulance, but the man later died in hospital, the agency said.

"I never thought he would die," Kyodo quoted the supermarket manager as telling police.

Imagine the penalty for pilfering a six-pack.

ERNEST GALLO, 97

Other Brother Robert gets the point and a bottle of Thunderbird for alerting us to the death of this icon. From The New York Times:

Somber, secretive and seemingly humorless, with little more than a high school education, Mr. Gallo — working closely with his brother, Julio — created a wine empire that became one of the world’s largest.

While Julio, who died in an auto accident in 1993, preferred the winemaking, Ernest had a head for business. His entrepreneurial skills, instinctive command of marketing and distribution, and his compulsive need to be the best at what he did, created the large company that he controlled at the time of his death.

And the company, entirely family controlled, was indeed large. Industry analysts estimate that Gallo produces some 80 million cases of wine a year, which is about 220,000 cases or 2.64 million bottles every day. The company reportedly owns 10,000 acres of vineyards in California and buys grapes from hundreds of independent growers.

At his death, Gallo was worth an estimated $1.2 billion.

THE ULTIMATE HANDJOB

Shiver yer timbers, fine fellows, as you read this cautionary from North Carolina involving alcohol, an argument and castration. The Dunn Daily Record reports:

Rebecca Ann Dawson, 34, of 700 Stockyard Road who is listed in Harnett County Jail records as Rebecca Arnold, was arrested by Lillington Police Officer R.D. Bass after she allegedly attacked Kevin Russ during an argument.

Lillington Police Chief Frank Powers would not release details about how the incident happened, he said, until the case is investigated further.

"Some of the witnesses were intoxicated, so we have to do more investigating," he said.

"It was a domestic situation and she attacked him with her hands," Chief Powers said. "There were no weapons involved."

Chief Powers said Officer Bass also charged Ms. Dawson with resisting arrest.

"She resisted a little," he said.

Chief Powers said Ms. Dawson spit on the officer while being arrested.

Ms. Dawson was arrested on four charges. She faces felony counts of assault causing serious bodily injury, malicious conduct by a prisoner, injury to personal property and malicious castration.

As opposed to charitable castration, of course. Dawson is free on $50,000 bond. She's scheduled to appear in court on Jan. 17, 2007.

COPS: HUBBY KILLED OVER WARM BEER

The shooting happened over the weekend, in a home without electricity. The Associated Press reports:

A St. Louis man was shot to death by his wife after giving her a can of warm beer, police said. The shooting happened Sunday. Names have not been released. The woman was taken into custody. The wife allegedly admitted shooting her husband, who was about 70 years old, in the kitchen of their home. The man was shot four or five times in the chest after giving his wife a can of warm Stag beer. The house was among thousands in the St. Louis area that lost power after a winter storm hit the region Thursday.

Putting the beer in the snow would have solved the warm problem. But it's still Stag, owned by Pabst, the company that also makes Schlitz, Colt 45 and Olympia.

MAN KILLED BY BEER KEG

Dude, not cool. The News-Times from Danbury explains:

A 22-year-old local man was killed and seven others injured early Sunday morning in an explosion that erupted after a partygoer at a pig roast tossed a beer keg into a fire barrel.

Witnesses said the 3:13 a.m. explosion that killed Sean Caselli reverberated as far as a mile or more away from the Aspetuck Ridge Road festivities.

"It was an unbelievable explosion,'' said New Milford High School hockey coach and neighbor Robert Greco, a physician's assistant who rushed to the scene to offer assistance. "It rattled the street.''

Caselli, who lived with his family on North Valley Road about a mile away, died after being struck by a piece of flying metal in the neck, police said.

The empty keg reportedly cooked for a couple hours before exploding.

DRUNK? YOU BET

So drunk she decided to show up drunk in court for an appearance on a drunken-driving charge. The Associated Press reports:

A Little Rock woman facing her fifth drunken-driving charge in the span of a year -- and third in less than a month -- showed up to a court appearance drunk Tuesday morning, a court official said.

Susan Marshall, 55, was arrested for contempt of court after a brief appearance in Little Rock District Court, said chief probation officer Sheila Farley. Marshall later had a blood-alcohol level of 0.147 percent, Farley said. The legal limit for adult drivers in Arkansas is 0.08 percent.

Marshall said she did not drive to her court appearance and had no keys when arrested, Farley said.

Marshall, who had three drunken-driving arrests in September, was taken to Pulaski County Jail. She was scheduled for another court appearance Wednesday, Farley said.

Well, thank God she didn't drive to court.

CRAZY FOR BBQ

We've heard of parties like this one. From The Local, in Sweden, a report of a meat party gone awry:

Inga-Mai Björkman, her partner, and his brother were having a relaxing BBQ dinner in their summer house near Mora when the guest from hell arrived.

The neighbour drank and drank until he was asked to leave the party.

They thought the 46-year-old guest had given up and gone home.

"I asked him nicely to go home," said one of the guests. "Instead he sat on his four-wheeled motor bike and drove over the lawn furniture and a house camper. My partner and the house owner were forced to run for their lives around the garden."

This time they really thought the man had given up.

"It was just luck that I saw him on his tractor and was able to yell for everybody to run out (of the cabin)," said a guest, according to Aftonbladet.

"They were just able to make it out; otherwise several of them would have been crushed. The wooden beams flew through the room."

After the man hit the cabin with his tractor once, he backed up and gassed it for another go.:

The main course was reindeer steaks.