Naper News

In our top story today, we look to Yahoo!News:

Boy Gets Stuck in Animal Game Machine

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. - A 7-year-old boy had to be rescued with the help of a locksmith Saturday after crawling into a supermarket's stuffed animal game machine while his father talked on the telephone.
"He was sitting right in there with the stuffed animals," said Shift Commander Mark Zittel of the Sheboygan Fire Department.
He said the boy, whose name was not released because he is a minor, crawled through about an 8-inch-by-10-inch opening to get into the glass enclosure via a chute where the toys come out, but when he tried to get back out his way was blocked.
The stuffed animals are prizes that can be hooked by players with a crane-like device.

He said the boy stayed calm and didn't panic as firefighters responded to the Piggly Wiggly store and then moved the game machine to the back of the store and got a locksmith to open the main loading door. The process took about an hour.
"There was no panic," Zittel said. "We could have broke the glass if there "His dad was three feet away at a pay phone," Zittel said. "He was talking on the phone and he said the next thing he turned around and the kid was in the thing." was an emergency."
The boy was not injured or traumatized but desperately had to go to the bathroom, he said.
But rescuers hadn't figured out how the boy was able to crawl into the game, or why no one in the store's busy lobby spotted him and stopped him before he got inside.

I'm sorry, this is one of the funniest news stories ever. It reminds of me of the Simpsons episode where Homer accidentally traps Maggie in the newspaper dispenser. I also love that it happened at a Piggly Wiggly.
However, the best quote on this issue comes from reader Angie of Joliet:
"I was like, if he wanted his son back so bad, he shoulda just spent the damn quarter and tried to win him."

Last night I ventured out of J-town and headed up to Naperville with Shannon and Joe to get our eat on. We had dinner at Mongolian BBQ. Now, my favorite food in the whole world, next to potatoes, is stir fry at any sort of make-your-own-stir-fry kind of place. The best of these restaurants is Flat Top (aka "the promised land"), which has locations in Evanston, Chicago, and Oak Park, but Mongolian is also awesome, especially with their new sauces. Mongolian has the added bonus of the little show that the guys who grill the stir fry put on. They're usually very animated and do a lot of singing; last night featured, "You've Lost that Grilling Feeling." One of the grillers bore a remarkable resemblance to Sam from Lord of the Rings, but there was no Frodo (and, I'm very sad to report, no Pippin and Merry) to help him flip the pea pods and other veggies. On the celebrity tip, Shannon astutely pointed out that one of our fellow stirfry eaters, who was wearing the dreaded trucker hat, looked like the result of what would happen if Ashton Kutcher and Justin Timberlake mated (provided this was biologically possible, of course). Another odd moment with a Mongolian BBQ employee came while we were eating. We were sitting at the table, and I was in mid-sentence when I looked up to the right and saw a bespectacled employee hovering over us, rhythmically polishing a bottle of chili sauce. Taken aback, I weakly said, "Hi," but he didn't respond, or cease his bottle polishing. We were overcome with amusement/fear, and Joe wondered if the bottle was getting turned on. Eventually this stopped and I said that I was surprised that the bottle didn't explode at the end of the encounter. We decided to do a test and put our own bottle of chili sauce up on the ledge. Soon after the employee returned and started polishing it. Again overcome with fear/amusement (more fear this time), we decided it was time to go up for our second bowls of stir fry. At some point the man finished with the bottle and started talking on his cell phone, and we left the restaurant, shaken but not stir. . fried. Sorry, worst pun ever, but it's gotta happen sometime.

Though we were pretty full, we decided to head over to what I like to call "Dessert Mecca," Coldstone Creamery. For those who haven't been there, this place has the best ice cream ever (tying with the rainbow cone at Walt's). The website used to show that we would be getting franchises in Shorewood and Plainfield, but it doesn't show this anymore, so hopefully this will still be happening. Apparently it was singing night at the dining spots of Naperville, as the employees of Coldstone would sing whenever they got a tip. I asked if they took requests, and they told me that once they tried "Jingle Bells" and it didn't go well, so I refrained from suggesting "Milkshake." Anyway, the best ice cream at Cold Stone is by far the Cake Batter flavor, it's heaven in a bowl, but last night I tried the Monkey Bite, which is banana ice cream with pecans, crunch bars, banana, and coconut, and it was also quite tasty. While eating our ice cream, we noticed a poster on the wall featuring a person holding an ice cream cone. Amused by the fact that the person looked like he/she was going to shove the ice cream into his/her temple, Shannon and I noticed something odd: we were unsure of the gender of the ice cream model. The eyebrows were too groomed for a man, not groomed enough for a woman. The lips were definitely covered in some high beam lip gloss. The picture was an extreme close up so we couldn't tell what kind of hair the person had. The three of us discussed the picture for a while until one of the Coldstone staffers overheard and came over. She informed us that she, too, had been confused by the picture, and was joking about it on a day that one of the Coldstone corporate officers came in. Mr. Coldstone asked her if she was referring to "Corey," and informed her that he had picked out "Corey" (apparently a male) to model for the poster. We were happy to hear that we were not alone in our confusion and went home with full stomachs.

Perhaps not my most exciting entry ever, but I'm fulfilling my every weekday this week goal. More tomorrow!!!