Idiot Needed? Look No Further!

I was talking a few months ago with one of my closest friends about blogs. Both of us have our pet peeves about bloggers, and Kylie has a beef with Facebook. As I listened to her tirade, I started to get worried. Noticing my face, Kylie smiled and said:

"But I love your blog, Elena. Yours is just a collection of random thoughts that pass through your head. It's so amusing."

I'm pretty sure that was a compliment.

Well Kylie, here is a random thought that has been passing back and forth in my head like a bouncing screen saver for the past week:

I really want to fly to Paris and whack several people in the city's bureau on the head. What is wrong with these people?!

Okay, here's the scoop: last Thursday morning the Paris Museum of Modern Art was broken into. I saw the headlines when I was browsing through the morning news and was immediately rivetted. After reading several articles, this is what I learned:

• five paintings were stolen: a Picasso, a Modigliani, a Matisse, a Braque, and a Leger. Some writer's see this as a trajedy because the Braque and Picasso in particular were considered masterpieces of the 20th century. Most people I have shared this story with however, shrug it off and say they don't like modern art.


• the collective value of the works taken amounts to about $123 million (US).


• it's suspected this was an inside job.

Now here's the kicker:

• the paintings are supposed to have been taken by a single thief. This person appears to be quite clever, and didn't even pull of the job in Danny Ocean style. The thief snapped a single padlock, smashed a window, and then went in to help themselves; having time to carefully remove the paintings from the frames without slicing. Miraculously, the thief also managed to escape all three security guards, who didn't notice anything until they looked at security tapes in retrospect.


• four years ago, 15 million Euros were spent to update the museum's security system. This top of the line burglar alarm has been broken for two months.


• this morning I also learned that Paris officials admitted that none of the paintings were insured because "their huge value meant no one would take the risk of stealing them."

Science, I would now like my time machine. My first stop as vigilante will be to find the idiots who made the decisions leading to this.

Then I think I would go meet this art thief, although I'm undecided as to whether this person deserves a whack on the head, or a cupcake for making everyone else look stupid.