A farmer's last rooster dies leaving his 200 hens unable to produce chicks. He logs onto roosters.com, finds a highly-touted and high-priced specimen, clicks "order" and the next day, FedEx delivers a rather ordinary looking rooster named Randy.
Before releasing Randy to the chicken coop, the farmer tells him, "You were one danged expensive rooster and I've got a couple hundred chickens here for you to service, so take your time and do a good job." Randy acts as if he understands, but as soon as he is released he attacks the hens with a vengeance, working his way through the entire flock, not just once, but three times without pause! The farmer can't believe his eyes. Then Randy runs out of the hen house, sees a flock of geese down by the lake and services all the geese.
The farmer is distraught, worrying that his expensive rooster won't make it through the night. Sure enough, the next morning when the farmer wakes, he sees Randy lying dead, buzzards circling overhead. As the farmer bends over to retrieve his costly loss, he shakes his head and says, "Damn it, Randy! Didn't I tell you to pace yourself?" Randy opens one eye, looks at the circling buzzards and says, "Shhh. They're getting closer."
In a modern-day evocation of David's slingshot triumph over Goliath, a couple of foreclosed homeowners in Naples, Florida reportedly foreclosed on a Bank of America branch last week, their attorney actually having moving trucks pull up in front of a Naples branch to execute a foreclosure judgment against the bank.
What must have seemed to observers like a scene out of a parallel universe - you can see some video here - was actually the fair and logical conclusion to a situation which, the court had ruled, had an unfair and illogical start. In 2009, retired police officer Warren Nyerges and his wife, Maureen Collier, paid $165,000 cash for their 2,700 square foot home in the Golden Gate Estates subdivision, and never took a mortgage out on it. So imagine their surprise when, in Februrary of 2010, Bank of America initiated foreclosure proceedings against them. The Nyerges hired an attorney, Todd Allen, to defend them against the wrongful foreclosure, and the Bank eventually abandoned the matter.
But not before the Nyerges incurred $2,534 in attorney's fees, which they requested informally from Bank of America multiple times before resorting to the courts, which ordered the bank to make the couple whole. When B of A still had not paid the judgment after five months of phone calls and letter writing by Allen and the Nyerges to the bank insisting that the court order be obeyed, Allen took the next step in the legal collection process, obtaining an order of foreclosure against the bank.
"They've ignored our calls, ignored our letters, legally this is the next step to get my clients compensated," Allen stated during an interview with CBS News.
Allen then reported to a local branch of the bank with sheriff's deputies, who he instructed to remove cash from the tellers' drawers, furniture, computers and other property. Approximately one hour later, the Naples News reports, the bank manager produced a check for $5,772.88 to satisfy Allen's fees and additional costs.
"We apologize to Mr. Nyerges that there was a delay in receiving the funds," read the bank's written statement to the Naples News. "The original request went to an outside attorney who is no longer in business."
A four-year-old Melbourne girl is drawing fans in New York with her first solo art exhibition. Aelita Andre is said to be the youngest professional painter in the world, and has been compared to the likes of artistic giants Picasso and Jackson Pollock.
Her work is already commanding top dollar, with a Hong Kong collector last year paying $24,000 for one of her pieces. Now her colourful paintings are on display at the Agora Gallery in Manhattan.
Gallery director Angela di Bello says Aelita, who produced her first meaningful body of work before turning two, is a talented artist. "What's interesting about her work is that I also I find that it is abstract expressionism, but that she's also surrealist in the way she includes objects in her works and how she includes those objects," she said.
"She is completely and utterly innocent, just with an innocent eye almost coming to a canvas," said her father Michael. Andre's solo exhibition, aptly named The Prodigy Of Colour, runs until June 25.
