Willy Wonka Meets Doctor Who

Kerste Milik, 16, poses with the gingerbread spaceman that she helped to build for the holidays.

By Socrates Paparazzi
Arts & Entertainment Reporter
MIDDLETON, CONNECTICUT - The traditional gingerbread house is too mundane for the Miliks.  In past years, this creative theater arts family has used holiday candy to build things such as the Eiffel Tower and Hogwart's school of magic.  This year, they built a 14-inch-tall gingerbread Dalek.
      For those who are not sci fi fans, the Daleks are the arch enemies of the BBC time traveler Doctor Who.   The cyborgs are known for hysterically screaming, "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!" as they ride around in mechanized war machines that look like tricked out salt shakers.  Despite their genocidal tendencies, the power crazed aliens just seem funny to little seven-year-old Aeris Milik.
     "She's not scared of them at all," according to her father, Christian.
     When they noticed that Lindt chocolate balls look like the bumpy grill of a Dalek war machine, the idea for this year's Milik holiday project was born.  He said it took about five hours over one weekend to bake, build and decorate their unique creation.  A candy cane serves as the Dalek's ray gun and a lollipop has been substituted for the cyborg's plunger-like arm.  However, Christian said the greatest challenge was cementing together gingerbread panels to build the sides of the hollow war machine.  They used royal icing.  Christian said the whole sculpture is edible and is still being devoured.
     "People have just been, kinda, breaking off pieces," he said.

If you enjoyed this story, please use the buttons below to email it, Share, Google, Tweet, Twit, squawk and quack it to all your friends. Thanks!

Will Steal for Tips

By Scoop Cooper
Crime Reporter
WEST HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT - The economy must be pretty bad when thieves start to steal jobs.
     On Friday night, a delivery driver left his car idling while he ran inside Bristow Middle School to deliver some Chinese food.  He emerged to find his car had been stolen.  He called the Chinese restaurant to tell his boss.  The restaurant called the three remaining customers to inform them that their orders had been stolen with the delivery vehicle.
     That's when the crime took a strange turn.
     One customer reported that their stolen food had just been delivered.  The restaurant gave police the addresses of the remaining two deliveries.  Sure enough, police arrested the suspect while making a second delivery of the stolen food with the stolen vehicle.  The car thief was pocketing payment for the deliveries, and, hopefully, the customers were counting their change.
     Police allege that the suspect was also arrested in possession of a crack pipe, a joint and a paper bag full of a prescription anti-psychotic drug.  So, let's see now ... altogether, the suspect is being charged with possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of less than a half ounce of marijuana, failure to keep prescription drugs in their original container and, oh yeah, third degree larceny of the car.  The busy boy cannot be accused with a lack of ambition.
       Let this be a cautionary tale for anyone who doesn't feel like getting out of bed in the morning.  You'd better report for work every day, or you just might find someone has stolen your job.