Move over Borat, Knoxville …

Man found asleep in Mary Tyler Moore’s Minneapolis TV home

BETTER THAN BORAT: We’re living in a time when some sort of cross between a comic and a performance artist seems to be all the rage – performers like Sacha Baron Cohen and shows like Jackass come to mind – but a Minneapolis man has managed to one-up them brilliantly without doing much more than drinking too much and letting common sense influence him too little.

According to a Minneapolis Star-Tribune story, a man was arrested on Saturday morning, asleep in the second-floor bedroom of a house that had recently undergone a US$3.62 million renovation. The 19th century Queen Anne Victorian in the Kenwood neighbourhood was fully furnished, with a plasma TV, but the intruder only had the remote control for a ceiling fan in his pocket, and his shoes were found on the third floor of the house.

Owner Don Gerlach said that he only heard about the break-in after a cleaning crew arrived at the house and found the glass in the front door broken. “That’s a big chunk of my life put into this,” he said on Monday. “It’s disillusioning.”

The house is considered something of a Minneapolis icon because it’s the mythical site of Mary Richards’ first apartment in Minneapolis, featured on the credits until she moved to a high rise apartment in season six. The 24-year-old man who was arrested for breaking and entering was probably looking for Mary’s swinging ‘70s open concept pad with the sunken living room, the built-in bookshelves, the sofa bed and the big “M” on the wall, but judging from where he left his shoes he was probably sidetracked looking for Rhoda Morgenstern’s attic apartment with the exposed roof beams.

The intruder has no criminal record and friends claimed to be surprised at his behaviour. “He seemed stunned,” Gerlach told the Star-Tribune. “He says, ‘I’m sorry. I was drunk in the middle of the night and friends put me up to it.’ I don’t know if I can believe him, but that’s what he said.”

A DOG’S LIFE: On the same day that the unnamed young man was arrested in Minneapolis, TV chef and daytime talk show host Rachel Ray was attacked by a dog while walking Isaboo, her own dog, in Manhattan’s Union Square Park. The ownerless animal initially went after Ray’s pet, but bit Ray on the leg when she tried to intervene.

Good dog.

DEF AND DUMB: Xbox Live subscribers are apparently being given exclusive access to a High Definition episode of South Park for two weeks, the first time the series has been made available in HD. Note to Xbox Live subscribers: They’re making fun of you.