CentreSquawker

Single and sticky in State College

CDT crime reporter Pete Bosak is taking a breather this week.

And so, as I keep track of crime and court news in his stead, I'll try to post an occasional weird item. The idea is similar to Pete's blog.

With that in mind -- get this:

A woman in State College is accusing her ex-boyfriend of pouring maple syrup all over her mattress. The damage: $300.

Police got the call shortly after 6 p.m. Sunday. It came in from a West Fairmount Avenue address.

No signs of forced entry there, police said.

Word is, the woman's roommate let the guy -- the ex-boyfriend -- into the residence.

But he says he didn't dump the syrup.

Hard to make a clean break, I guess, when stuff gets sticky.

'Munich' to arrive in Centre County

Maybe, just this once, I spoke too soon.

The new Spielberg movie "Munich," I'm reliably informed, will be shown locally this weekend.

Squawker moaned and groaned late last month when the movie didn't appear here during its national debut.

Color me happily silenced.

PSU trustee to be tapped for state Supreme Court

According to reports today on the Web sites of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Cynthia Baldwin, the chairwoman of the Penn State board of trustees and the first black woman elected to the Allegheny County bench, is expected to be nominated by Gov. Ed Rendell to replace state Supreme Court Justice Russell Nigro.

For more on this story, see Saturday's Centre Daily Times.

Link: Allegheny Judge Baldwin tapped for Pa. Supreme Court.

State High alum featured on TLC

Susan Crandall, a State College Area High School alumna, will be the subject of tonight's "What Not to Wear," a makeover TV show on TLC.

That's Adelphia channel 45 in the Centre Region.

Crandall, who graduated from State High in 2001 and went on to Syracuse University, is now affiliated with Teach for America. She teaches special education in New York.

Tonight's hourlong show, focused on a fashion makeover given to Crandall last month, will air at 9 p.m. and again at midnight.

"I've never really cared about clothing or being a girl," Crandall told me this week. "I don't know how to shop."

She said a colleague secretly nominated her to be on the show. And it turned out that the show's producers really dug her.

Being a target of the program, she had to throw out her entire wardrobe. It was replaced by $5,000 in new clothes, courtesy of TLC.

Known for her thrifty streak, Crandall told me: "I realized it's really OK for me to go shopping or to buy a pair of shows without being a consumer whore. ... I don't have to be a martyr person all the time."

Crandall and I knew each other through our high school years, both serving on the school newspaper and broadcast staffs. To me, she always seemed the ultimate altruist. So I was a little surprised to learn she went along with the TV show thing.

But she said the whole ordeal gave her family and friends a grand chance to gather together -- for the finale of the show production. "I was just so thankful to be able to have all these accumulated friends," Crandall said.

Plus, she added, all the attention was -- well, she loved it. 

Paternoville scores a theme song

"Wastin' away again in JoePaternoville."

So go the lyrics of a brand-new song that debuted this morning on WRSC's morning show.

An ode to the residents of Paternoville, it's a take-off on Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville."

Legendary WRSC host Kevin Nelson and his friend Bob McDonald wrote the song, which is sung by Nelson and Theresa Nelson, his wife.

"This has just been developing a life of its own," Kevin wrote in an online chat this morning. He said the WRSC morning audience has been behind the song "all the way."

As of this writing, just about 9 a.m., the Web site that hosts a digital version of the song has drawn nearly 100 hits, Kevin tells me.

Hear the song right here.

To download the lyrics, click on this Microsoft Word download: Download JoePaternoVilleLyrics.doc

And for the latest Paternoville news, read the Front Row blog.

Rumored ticket scam said to target Beaver Stadium

First, let's be clear: We've seen no direct evidence that this is true.

But we hear that a new ticket-selling scam is afoot at Beaver Stadium.

Word is that it works this way:

The legitimate ticket holders enter the stadium, then drop or slip their tickets to associates outside the stadium. The associates then sell the tickets -- at inflated prices -- to random people milling around outside the gates.

When those random people take the tickets to the stadium gates, the electronic ticket scanners won't accept them. The electronic equipment says that the holders of those tickets have already entered the stadium.

And so the victims -- the random people who paid inflated prices -- are blocked from the stadium. This reportedly happened last weekend.

Anyone else hear of this?

Councilman quashes political rumors

I don't when or with whom they started, but rumors aplenty hint that State College Councilman Jeff Kern will soon make a bid for a higher office.

The speculation has gained fuel in the last several weeks, as Kern took a lead position in the ongoing debate over the borough's business privilege tax. He's a strong voice on the council and has deep roots in the community -- and a lot of allies.

But, Kern said this afternoon, he has no current plans to seek higher office.

An independent, Kern used to be a Republican and was once a mayoral candidate in the borough.

Overheard in therapy: a beatdown wish

The wife of a very high-ranking Penn State athletics official was overheard scoring a dig today against the CDT, according to a reliable Squawker informant.

She -- the spouse of the official -- was in physical therapy when a therapist asked her to simulate punching someone.

"Oh," she said, "as in a reporter for the CDT?"

At the informant's request, Squawker is keeping the woman's identity confidential.