Mostly Harmless

One of my fave new shows is “It Takes a Thief” on The Discovery Channel.

They drive through a neighborhood, select a promising target, and convince the victims homeowners to let them break in and rob their house. Once the producers have set up a bunch of cameras a “reformed” thief proceeds to break in and trash ransack the house while the victims homeowners watch, in absolute horror, from the comfort of a van parked across the street.

It’s awesome.

It never takes the thief more than a minute or two to get into the house and he generally spends only 10 minutes trashing looting the place. The amount of destruction is impressive. Almost everything that was on a shelf or in a drawer ends up on the floor — except for the valuable stuff, which he hauls off in their own suitcases (which he packs up in their own car if he finds the keys).

This week he not only stole the homeowners’ van but he took their dog too, because it was so friendly.

Like I said. Awesome.

After all of this the homeowners get their stuff back, more or less in one piece, and get a bitchin’ security system installed. A couple of weeks later the thieves come back, unannounced, to try to break in again. Usually someone will leave a window or door unlocked… so the thieves are waiting inside the house when the owners come back, at which point they receive a stern warning from the crooks to actually use all of the security measures next time.

Good stuff — with many useful security tips. It’s, like, educational, or something.

Less good, and less educational is “Impossible Heists” on CourtTV. I’ve decided it’s lame and won’t link to it. They appear to have chosen the teams based on their complete inability to work with other people for more than 20 seconds without having some sort of argument. If you’re planning some manner of extravagant jewelry heist it might be useful to you.