Day: May 22, 2009

You Missed It: Unofficial beginning of summer edition

I know you’re not reading this. You, just like everyone else, have already left the office, packed up the ol’ station wagon and headed out for your Memorial Day Weekend adventure. You probably won’t even read this until we’re back on Tuesday. I don’t care. It’s my job to write these things, and I know you’re going to miss this all weekend. If you were busy chasing down historical artifacts that come to life at night, odds are you missed it.

When you think ‘hip’ you think of the Vatican
Pope Benedict XVI wants to be your friend. Well, not really, he’s got plenty already. They’re called followers, and not the Twitter kind. But the pope is trying to save your soul with a new Facebook app. Our cool pope even has an iPhone app with the latest pope-related news, a YouTube channel, and a Catholic wiki. Just in time for World Communications day, His Holiness launched a website Pope2you.com (where “Pope” is capitalized, but “you” aren’t). The Facebook app lets you keep in touch with the Holy See through the wonders of social networking. Now Pope Benedict can send you messages like “I know what site you’re planning on going to after this. See you in confession tomorrow.”

Helps make sure they still have the Right Stuff
Sure, Atlantis may have been grabbing the headlines last week, but the crew of the International Space Station is laying the headline smackdown this week. Fixing space telescopes? Please. These astronauts get to drink recycled water that came from their own pee. (Wait–what?!) Every six hours, an astronaut produces about a gallon of water from their urine. It gets recycled and purified and presto! Good to drink again. There was a time when I wanted to be an astronaut. Today, I am pleased that that dream never came true.

Also, Count Duckula’s new album drops next Tuesday
Danger Mouse (the DJ in Gnarles Barkley, not the eyepatch-sporting cartoon) has made a career out of doing strange things. First, he mashed up the Beatles with Jay-Z, then he produced that horrible Gorillaz album. Now, he’s dropping a new album. There’s just one thing, the album is not on the CD being sold. Sure, you get the case, insert, all that good stuff, but the CD is blank. In fact, it’s a CD-R. Danger Mouse wants you to buy his album, then illegally download it, burn it to the CD, then enjoy. Because, you know, that makes way more sense than just illegally downloading it and put it on your iPod.

Swine Flu? More like Swinging Flu, am I right?

We’re not here to make a big deal of something that shouldn’t be a big deal. Yes, the swine flu has hit Japan, despite all their efforts to block it. The areas of Kobe and Osaka have been hit hardest, according to reports. The Little Island That Could now has over 260 reported cases. It’s a high count, but cases have been mild for Japan, and no one has died from it.

Yet.

In theory, the students could be as cautious as the media and disease control agencies want them to be, but instead, they would rather go out for karaoke. More than 4,400 schools, colleges and kindergartens have closed for the rest of the week to help slow spreading, but these students are enjoying the time off anyway. In Osaka, students have formed long lines in front of karaoke clubs. Being obviously so in tune with the kids these days, we guess that they’re rallying to sing away the disease, probably based off some hippy disease a la “Hands For Peace.”

Of course, some club owners don’t want business from kids from diseased or closed schools. One karaoke joint owner put up a sign saying that students from closed schools were not welcome inside. Someone will take their business, though. And they’ll all sing their flu-y voices into the same microphone.

Obtuse Alabama beer law sudsed

Alabama Governor Riley has signed HB373 into law! Isn’t that awesome?!

…

Oh, you don’t know what that means.

Alabama law previously outlawed any and all beer with an above 6 percent alcohol content. This limited unfortunate citizens of the state to nothing stronger than a Budweiser.

With the passage of legislative measure HB373, that limit has been raised to 13.9 percent. We can drink foreign and microbrew beer now!

(Of course, we could already legally drink hard liquor and wine, both of which contain more alcohol per serving, but let it never be said that Southern law was based on practicality.)

The state owes a special thanks to Free The Hops, a netroots organization that helped bring the issue to public attention and get the measure passed once and for all. Gentlemen, feel free to take Monday off.

In Other News:
Dildos are still illegal in Alabama because they are the disembodied penises of Satan, wantonly giving our wives and girlfriends those “orgasms” we keep hearing so much about.

Boston PD: Ready to do battle with the undead

When the zombies come, (and trust us, they will) you can depend on the Boston Police Department to tell you about it–unlike other government agencies, who cover up the zombie threat because they want to keep us dumb and sheep-like.

This revelation comes to us by the hotbed of pointless banter unreliable intelligence important announcements, Twitter. The Boston Police Department tweeted that one of its officers was being treated at a hospital for a human bite on May 19. Boston Police follower willcady responded, asking if it was a zombie bite, would the police tell the public.

The response: “@willcady Yes, absolutely.”

There you have it. A new era of government transparency has swept through the ranks of Boston’s finest. If the zombies hit Beantown, BPD will tell you wicked fast. Same goes for if the Aqua Teen Hunger Force plant bombs around the city.

(via Consumerist)