Archive for August, 2008

Quick Headlines – Democratic Convention (2008)

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

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Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, Jr., Starts Slogan Chant Without Intending To

Denver, CO – Bob Casey, Jr., senator of Pennsylvania wrote his speech quickly and it showed.

“I realized as I was speaking that I had some embarrassing repetition in (the speech),” admitted Casey. “I said, ‘We can’t have four more years of the same Bush-style policies; just four more months’ when I spoke about the prospect of (Senator John) McCain becoming president. I got some great cheers on that, and was pretty excited. But, then, I said, ‘We can’t have four more years of tax cuts for the wealthy while the least of us suffer; just four more months.’ When I realized I said the four more months thing again, my stomach dropped. How amateur is that to use the same phrase two sentences in a row? Then the crowd starting chanting, ‘Four more months!’ They were making fun of me!”

As a matter of fact, Casey said the same phrase in the next three sentences straight, each time, the crowd repeating it back at him. It soon came to the point that the crowd repeated “Four more months” to such volume and insistence that Casey found it difficult to continue to the next passages in his speech. Frustrated by the oversight of having included the same phrase in his speech five sentences in a row and of being mocked, Casey seemed to hit a turning point.

“Shut up! Shut the f*** up!” Casey screamed at one point, storming to the front of the stage and swinging his Pennsylvania-born fists at several in the front row.

Those Named Big Business Upset By Building Negative Connotation

Spirit, NH – “I get nothing but grief for my name,” said Big Business MacCready, 24-year-old accountant in this small town in New Hampshire. “And the Democratic Convention isn’t helping matters. If I was to believe those politicians, apparently big business is the core of all evil in this country.”

MacCready was given the contentious first name when his mother, who wanted to name him Shamus, and his father, who thought Ryan had a nice ring to it, couldn’t agree. After days of arguing, they finally settled on a name they both could live with even if they didn’t love it.

“And, at the time, in the early-80s, Big Business wasn’t such a pariah,” sighed MacCready as he walked to the Starbucks counter to pick up his latte, enjoying the slight respite of the barista mispronouncing his name as “Bij Busyness.”

Holy Key-Ryst! New Elders Video!

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

Quick Headline – Friday Night Lights

Monday, August 11th, 2008

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Man’s Car Stereo on Fritz; He Copies “Friday Night Lights” Theme Song Down on Post-It

Juneau, AK – William Forester, Flash animator for the Caribou Winds Hospice in Juneau, Alaska, was distressed to find on one cold, dark, early morning as he drove to work that the stereo system in his 15-year-old pickup had died during the night like some priest who had been tortured by scalding coffeeboarding and comes-to only to find that he’s been left naked in mid-air about 100 feet directly above a swimming pool full of shattered glass and good assassins.

“The ‘Friday Night Lights’ TV theme song is the only thing in my life. The only thing. When I realized I wouldn’t be able to listen to it over and over on my way to work, I was about to point a gun to my heart,” said Forester.

But Forester did the exact opposite. That night, he sat at his kitchen table and pointed his not-gun (a Sharpie) to his not-heart (a Post-it note) and wrote an approximation of the evocative moody guitar piece: “Berr-er-er-er berr-er-rer-rer wah wah wah wah.”

“I put the the Post-it on my dashboard, and at stop lights or things sort of like that, I look at that note and the nostalgia sweeps over me. I think the song was literally written by angels,” Forester said.

NOTE: Mr. Forester was mistaken about the author of the “Friday Night Lights” TV series theme song. It was not angels, but rather a person.

“Friday Night Lights” character Buddy Garrity (played by someone named Brad Leland)

Today Yesterday!

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

Let’s see what I can write in 10 minutes!

On August 7 of years past, these historical things happened (then)!

945 – The mirror rod was invented by Scot Frederick Shaun. It was a half-inch diameter cylinder covered in reflective surface, created so Shaun’s wife could see herself sort of if she squinted and sort of rotated the rod, and was okay with seeing only little parts of herself at any one time, etc. as she prepared her face for the day’s events. Many people of the time considered the innovation to be second only to the mirror as a means to see one’s reflected image.

1891 – Dr. James Naismith gathered 10 Springfield, MA, young boys to, in two teams of five, set fires to one another’s parents’ homes. It was this game that Dr. Naismith came to refine over the next several months into the game we now know as basketball!

1947 – Crooner Frank Sinatra

Michael Jordan, a basketball player