DT WTF Wednesday: Strollers & Syrup

Some quick, headscratching news stories from around the strollerverse:

• The Albany Times-Union reports that Miguel Angel Rodriguez, 20, was arrested on attempted [!] grand larceny after an employee at Hollywood Video saw him pack "more than $1,000 worth of games" into his stepdaughter's stroller, confronted him in the parking lot, got the games back, and then trailed Rodriguez through Wal-Mart until police showed up. Free legal advice from a non-lawyer is probably better than this guy'll get, but how many games are we talking, and what was their real price? What kind of stroller can offer even a hope of swallowing 30 bubble packs undetected? It just don't add up. [timesunion.com via dt crime beat correspondent ponch]


• I say that because once, I rolled $27 worth of Diet Coke 12-packs home in a Maclaren Volo. But when I added $16 for a new front axle, plus $4 roundtrip on the train to Service Center in SoHo, I might as well have had it delivered from the deli one can at a time.


• WTF? A story from the Taunton Gazette about someone not named Stone Cold Derek Lindsay getting arrested? While pushing a stroller down Main Street in Winchester, MA [above], Luis Anaya and a ladyfriend were arguing. Police asked if there was a problem, and--talk about Stone Cold--the lady goes, "Please stop him, he assaulted my daughter and there is a warrant out for him for assaulting my daughter already." So what does Luis do? Naturally, he pushes the baby & stroller into the street, takes off running, strips his clothes off "in an attempt to disguise his appearance," and then gives the cops a fake name when they catch him. Did I say "naturally"? I meant "allegedly." [tauntongazette.com via obscurestore]


• Pinnacle Food Group, proud keepers of household family traditions since 1887, is pleased to announce that "Log Cabin is the first brand in a long time to bring innovation to the syrup category by removing high fructose corn syrup." HFCS fans won't need to worry, though, because Pinnacle's other syrup brand, Mrs Butterworth's, will certainly take her own sweet time to make the switch. [press release, though the NYT reported it as a done deal last month]


• In the previous bullet point, I might have implied that Pinnacle Food Group has been around since 1887. This is incorrect. Log Cabin was introduced in 1887, sold to General Foods in 1927, which was acquired by Philip Morris in 1985, which then acquired Kraft in 1988 and merged it with General Foods in 1989. Log Cabin was sold in 1997 to Aurora Foods, which had acquired a bunch of non-core brands from KGF and Pilsbury. Aurora's management then lied about their financial performance, went to jail, and the company was acquired in 2003 by Pinnacle, which had been Vlasic, founded in 1998 to acquire a bunch of non-core brands from Campbell's. Pinnacle was acquired by The Blackstone Group in 2007 for $2.16 billion. In 1988, GF dropped the maple syrup content of Log Cabin from 15% to 2%, which was still higher than the industry average of 0%, and HFCS took off like a shot after 1975, when pharma startup Novo developed the industrial scale production of the enzymes needed to convert cornstarch. Which means Americans have been eating fake maple syrup made with HFCS for thirty years. Daddy Types regrets the error.


• And I almost forgot: He'd approved it before, but his lawyers were whining--also, almost no one showed up to the preview. NO ONE.--so the Michael Jackson Neverland Ranch auction was canceled. Freaks and zoetrope table wanters will have to go elsewhere. [nyt]