Westside Joe

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - Police have arrested a man on suspicion
of stealing anti-impotence drugs from dozens of pharmacies in the past year
and were seeking his accomplice in what they are calling the "Viagra
gang." One was arrested and we know the other one's identity and are looking
for him," a Rio de Janeiro police spokesman said on Wednesday.
The men are suspected of holding up more than 35 pharmacies in the same drugstore chain. Police said they stole anti-impotence drugs such as Viagra as well
as money from registers. The chain estimated its losses at some
$220,000. Police said the partners sold the drugs on the black market and
were so successful that they drew criticism from an unlikely source -- the
criminal underworld. Taped phone conversations show members of a powerful
drug gang from the same slum where the two lived complaining that their illicit
business was drawing too much police attention to the shantytown near Rio's
famed Copacabana Beach.

TORONTO (Reuters) - A Canadian man was handed the keys to a three-bedroom house Wednesday, exactly a year after he offered a red paper clip online, asking to
trade it for "bigger or better" things. In his latest trade, Kyle MacDonald,
26, swapped a bit role in a Hollywood movie for a house in the small Western
Canadian town of Kipling, Saskatchewan.

When he started his quest with the paper clip, MacDonald said getting a house was his goal. He traded in the paper clip for a fish pen and eventually moved up to an afternoon with rocker Alice Cooper before snagging the Hollywood movie role in his 14th trade. Wednesday, the mayor of Kipling presented MacDonald with the house in return for a role in the movie "Donna on Demand," starring Corbin Bernsen. Kipling, population 1,140, will give the role to the winner of a contest it plans to hold in September. "We're getting some very positive attention, and that never hurts any community," Mayor Pat Jackson said in a telephone interview. Local businesses have donated housewarming gifts such as flowers and wine, and a 12-foot red paper clip has been erected in the front yard. The town plans to build "the world's largest red paper clip" at a yet-to-be-determined location. MacDonald, who lives in Montreal, has become an Internet and media sensation during his series of swaps, garnering interviews and attention from as far away as Japan.

He said on his Web site that he and his girlfriend will move into his new house before September and plan to throw "Saskatchewan's biggest housewarming party ever."

// posted by Dirty~Kash @ 3:10 PM