Day: September 12, 2011

The McBournie Minute: A decade of self-importance

A lot of people recently thought back to where they were 10 years and one day ago, and most of them, including myself, don’t really have anything significant to offer. We weren’t at any of the sites, we didn’t have loved ones involved and we weren’t supposed to fly that day. So, I’m not doing a retrospective on where I was on Sept. 11, 2001.

Instead, I’m looking back on where I was Sept. 12, 2001, the day I saw my byline printed for the first time. Self-indulgent? Perhaps, but I don’t see why I shouldn’t get to do this once a decade. Ten years ago today, I became a published writer, and I did it by beginning my own humor column in my college newspaper.

To be honest, it kind of sucked. Continue reading The McBournie Minute: A decade of self-importance

Old man cancels newspaper subscription, makes news

40 years after The New York Times began publishing the leaked Pentagon Papers, the Gray Lady has set a new milestone in print journalism: finally getting Donald Rumsfeld to cancel his subscription.

Over the past year, the Times has tried cheering for an upcoming torture lawsuit against Rumsfeld, and then panning his autobiography, but they just couldn’t shake him off. It took a column by Paul Krugman — in which he vaguely invoked a sense of shame at how he remembers everything after 9/11 — to finally make the former proponent of DIY body armor become a Post-only man.

This is a bold move considering how most newspapers are bending over backwards to maintain subscriptions. The paper, however, believes it will recoup (and possibly make a tidy profit off of) their loss with Rumsfeld’s newsstand purchases of the paper to maintain his daily dose of outrage.

It’s an animal eat rock world

We don’t ask for a lot in this world. Some good booze, nice food to eat, some money, a place to walk on and no Nickelback. That’s it, nothing else. And yet, we have animals that try to ruin those simple wishes (and we’re not just talking about the destructive Proboscis Nickelmonkey of East Canadia).

A pug, the dogs that do not want to live, is eating rocks and rocks and rocks. And now, the canine is nearing his centennial piece of gravel. Even worse, his owner is encouraging the act, apparently in a desire to win an oddest pet insurance claim competition.

We at SG don’t understand or condone this behavior. Not because of the idea that we think it’s cruel to the animal. Far from it! Have you ever seen or heard a pug? They are unfit for living. A pug without any appendages is simply a furry grub. We don’t condone these actions simply because those rocks could be used to far better uses, such as propping open doors or lining walkways.

Legal defense of the day

Defrauding the government is one of the worst things a person can do, just short of being a member of Congress. But sometimes, what if it really isn’t us doing bad things, what if we have evil twins out there, doing things harmful to our names, without our knowledge.

A former Indiana state employee claims to have just such a problem. You see, it was her evil twin, not her, who defrauded the state government out of over $15,000 in welfare funds. She said the evil twin altered her pay warrants to get more money, so really, they should be after that person, not her.

Protip: You can always tell an evil twin because they look exactly like you, only with a goatee.