Pribek

Seven time Formula One Champion Michael Schumacher made the news for driving fast but not in a sanctioned event. This is from a Breitbart/Canadian Press piece.

Cab drivers are best known for giving hair-raising rides, not being taken on them.

But when one cabbie in southern Germany apparently wasn’t driving fast enough, his customer, former Formula One champion Michael Schumacher, took the wheel himself.

“It was sheer lunacy,” cabbie Tuncer Yilmaz told the Muenchener Abendzeitung newspaper. “He took the curves with full speed, but you couldn’t even notice it. He just knows how to do it.”

You know how it is when a cab driver is just poking along. There’s nothing more frustrating than sitting in the back of a cab, when you have important business to do and some guy, that you are paying to drive you around, is taking his own sweet time tooling down the Autobahn. What would you do? I wouldn’t stand for it. Michael Schumacher is an important man and I’m sure he’s very busy.

Schumacher’s spokeswoman, Sabine Kehm, confirmed the story Wednesday. She said Schumacher had flown in from Switzerland on Saturday on his private jet to buy a puppy from a breeder in the town of Gesuelz.

A puppy???!!!!

That’s right a puppy. You got a problem with that?

Listen Cabbie, there’s three things you gotta know. I’m Michael Schumacher, I am picking up a puppy and I’m in a hurry. Got that- Cabbie. So, move over.

Try that one in Chicago or N.Y.C.

Cab drivers in Gesuelz are cut from a different cloth, evidently.

Yilmaz said he would never forget the ride.

Nor the tip. On top of the US$88.03 fare, Schumacher gave him $146.72.

Yilmaz’ only regret is that German photo radar didn’t catch Schumacher speeding, which would have produced a ticket with a photo that would have been sent to Yilmaz, as the car’s owner.

“I so much would have loved to get a speeding photo of this ride,” Yilmaz told the Abendzeitung. “I would have gladly paid a ticket for that.”

At least he tipped and Tuncer will have a story to tell his Enkelkinder.

Another story of reckless behavior in Germany, this one from Breitbart/AP.

A man nearly died from alcohol poisoning after quaffing a liter (two pints) of vodka at an airport security check instead of handing it over to comply with new carry-on rules, police said Wednesday.

The incident occurred at the Nuremberg airport on Tuesday, where the 64-year-old man was switching planes on his way home to Dresden from a holiday in Egypt.

New airport rules prohibit passengers from carrying larger quantities of liquid onto planes, and he was told at a security check he would have to either throw out the bottle of vodka or pay a fee to have his carry-on bag checked as cargo.

Instead, he chugged the bottle down—and was quickly unable to stand or otherwise function, police said.

A doctor called to the scene determined he had possibly life-threatening alcohol poisoning, and he was sent to a Nuremberg clinic for treatment.

The man, whose name was not released, is expected to be able to complete his journey home in a few days.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve gotten on to a plane with a bottle of Egyptian Vodka. Nothing is more fun than going to Egypt and doing it up right. You know, you go to the pyramids, see the sphinx, eat some yogurt, maybe a falafel or two, and then you grab a bottle of the potato juice for the ride home. Who hasn’t done this?

Nothing is more refreshing than a liter of Egyptian vodka on an international flight. Unfortunately, security doesn’t allow it. What’s a guy to do?

Now, he could have paid extra and checked the bag, enjoyed his bottle of Gaza grain when he got home. But c’mon, what are the chances that it makes it through the baggage guys in one piece? So, he did the only sensible thing; chugged it.

The only problem is, when you chug a liter of Vodka it makes you “quickly unable to stand or otherwise function”. Quickly, that is. The standing part, you can do without but, the otherwise functioning is necessary for a plane ride. Got to otherwise function.