FROM THE PLANET CYBERTRON COMES A HEROIC PETERBILT 379
A butt-kicking giant alien robot disguised as a 2006 Peterbilt 379 is the hero of this summer’s action spectacle Transformers. The movie’s website calls the Optimus Prime character “the personification of courage, strength and integrity.”
“the personification of courage, strength and integrity.” When the original Hasbro toys were launched in 1984, Optimus was a cabover, but now he has an extended hood. Meanwhile, villain Barricade takes the form of a police car “to subvert the public’s trust in authority.” Barricade, that ship has sailed.
WHEELCHAIR GETS A 50-MPH PUSH
Ben Carpenter, 21, was crossing the street at a traffic light June 6 in Paw Paw, Mich., when the handles of his motorized wheelchair snagged the grille of a Freightliner. When the light turned green, the trucker drove off, not realizing he had a most unwilling passenger. Other drivers noticed, though, during Carpenter’s four-mile ride to the Ralph Moyle Inc. terminal. “The phone lines lit up,” said Trooper Mike McKay of the Michigan State Police. Carpenter wasn’t hurt; the trucker wasn’t charged.
CROSS-BORDER LOVE DELIVERIES
New on DVD is the 2005 documentary “Cowboy del Amor” (Genius Entertainment, $25; www.cowboydelamor.com) about self-proclaimed “cowboy Cupid” Ivan Thompson (in shades), who makes a living helping American men land Mexican wives. A focus is the courtship efforts of Richard (right), a Texas car hauler who says, “American women – most of them, not all of them – are too hard to please.”
SOUNDS LIKE A DEAL
– A volunteer firefighter’s T-shirt spotted at the Iowa 80 truck stop in Walcott.
GOT ANY TYLENOL?
“It feels really strange to have a truck run over your head.”
– Bicyclist Ryan Lipscomb of Madison, Wis., tells The Capital Times about falling in front of a delivery truck; the rolling tire crushed his helmet but left his head intact.
FUND HIGHWAYS, NOT SKI SLOPES
“State and federal representatives claim that trying to raise the gasoline tax would be political suicide. That’s nuts. Gasoline prices jump 30 cents a gallon in a week or two, with much of that money going overseas so that Arab sheiks can build ski slopes in the desert, and nobody even blinks an eye.”
– Columnist Jay Bookman in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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