The Jaffe Briefing - March 30, 2017
EDISON – As if New Jersey isn’t scary enough: Here comes “HorrorCon.” There’s a red carpet opening tomorrow for this three-day horror/sci-fi movie convention at Crowne Plaza Hotel. No big-name scream queens like Jamie Lee Curtis or Sissy Spacek. Instead, its headliners are bizarre filmmaker John Waters and the Amazing Kreskin. B-list celebs will be hawking film kitsch to geeks brave enough to venture out of their parents’ basements for the first time in 2017. There’s 1986 Penthouse Pet Patty Mullen, star of the cult classics “Frankenhooker” and “Doom Asylum.” There are also actors from “Back to the Future II” who played “grown-up” George McFly and Mayor Goldie Wilson. And, plenty of celebs from low-budget flicks like “100 Acres of Hell,” and, oh yes, “Curse of Chucky.” Grab autographs at HorrorCon; you can also likely hire these “celebs” for light handyman jobs.
FREEHOLD – No more poking around body cavities and strange orifices for Monmouth County’s corrections officers. They work in New Jersey’s first county jail to use full-body X-rays to look for contraband hidden inside inmates. The jail’s new gizmo – used along with pat-down frisks and handheld metal detectors – zaps inmates with less radiation than the average dentist uses to find a cavity. Sheriff Shaun Golden tells NJ.com that the jail’s $168,000 scanner has already helped guards find heroin, cell phones, a knife and other objects that can be concealed, er, everywhere. And, think of all the money saved on those latex gloves.
WOODBRIDGE – Township school officials are celebrating a super-easy win, as about 75 percent of voters in a special election on Tuesday gave the thumb’s up for a no-brainer of a plan to upgrade the public schools. The district, with strong support from the mayor’s office, threw out the kitchen sink here: A mega-plan that creates full-day kindergarten, upgrades school security, builds a new elementary school, renovates a middle school and offers plenty of other goodies. Total cost to taxpayers? Zero. A whopping six percent of voters showed up at the polls on Tuesday. Final tally: 2,428 Yes, 793 No.
LYNDHURST – Prison, not penance, awaits a thief who swiped $6,000 from an office safe at St. Michael the Archangel Church on Monday. It’s the second time since February the same Catholic church has been robbed. The latest thief – caught on surveillance cameras – showed up at St. Michael’s rectory posing as a hungry man in need of food from the church’s food pantry. When a secretary went to retrieve groceries, the man cleaned out an unlocked office safe and then calmly waited to get his bag of groceries before leaving. That doesn’t sound very Christian.
EMERSON – An Emerson family will gleefully get their revenge this Thanksgiving, after a 30-pound turkey crashed through their windshield. The family had rented an SUV and was heading to an airport in Chicago, after visiting a daughter at Notre Dame. About 25 miles west of South Bend, Ind., some crazy turkey crashed through the windshield, getting lodged in there and making for a real turkey surprise. The turkey didn’t survive, but, reports The Indianapolis Star, the four people in the SUV were OK, but stunned.
IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS
EASTON, Pa. – You know you really suck at golf when you actually generate fines in municipal court for the golf course. Check out the Morgan Hill Golf Course, which was slapped with a $1,000 fine because of some half-blind, half-deaf golfers who repeatedly smack balls into people’s backyards. The 13th hole is particularly dangerous, as a local couple says more than 50 balls have ended up on their property, prompting the course to relocate the pin. But, still, golfer accuracy remains a challenge. The Morning Call says a judge now wants the course to install a camera that documents bad golfers, and their god-awful shots, on the fatal 13th. Hopefully, no turkeys get in the way.
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
It was this day in 2011 that Peru was able to reclaim 45,000 Inca artifacts that had been taken by Yale University more than 100 years ago, forcing fraternities to find something else to guzzle booze from at the spring “Inca Mixer.”
WORD OF THE DAY
Transpicuous – [tran-SPIK-yuh-wus] - adjective
Definition: Clearly seen through or understood
Example: One may think today’s briefing is terribly transpicuous, so banally boring.
WEATHER IN A WORD
Steady