Day: September 21, 2012

You Missed It: Oral history edition

Fall will be upon us in hours, and that means changing leaves and crappy movies. But most importantly, it means that it is acceptable to drink fall beers. I don’t like how beer companies large and small try to rush us through the seasons by putting out their new brews weeks early, and that goes for Oktoberfest-style and pumpkin beers. Alcohol may make time go by faster, but it doesn’t trick me into thinking it’s another season. If you were busy getting busted in Texas for possession of hash this week, odds are you missed it.

Remember when an affair was the country’s biggest problem?
It was 1998 when we all learned that President Bill Clinton had been hooking up with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Today, Lewinsky is 39 and doesn’t have a job or many friends because of the stigma of the scandal. So she’s decided to cash-in and write a tell-all book about her time being the president’s humidor. Booksellers say Lewinsky’s book could make millions of dollars in 1999.

Long lines for a longer phone
The iPhone 5 hit shelves today, and as is tradition, people with money to burn and a lot of free time on their hands lined up outside stores across the country to be the first to get the newest intelligent cellular telephone. Unfortunately, none of them were able to find their way home after glitches in Apple map app directed them into the Atlantic Ocean.

The gloves come off for Mittens
A video released this week of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney shot at a May fundraising event sparked controversy over remarks made about the 47% of Americans who rely on the federal government, which he said will never vote for him. He also made reference to “those people,” but since it was a Hispanic Mormon from both Michigan and Massachusetts, no one’s really sure which minority group he was referring to.

Bilbo Baggins turns 75, doesn’t look a day over 50

The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkein’s prelude to the Lord of the Rings series, turned 75 years old today. It was first published in the United Kingdom in 1937.

This year also marks the premier of Peter Jackson’s movie adaptation of The Hobbit, which will comprise three movies and include material that was mentioned in the Lord of the Rings appendices. So, if you’re wondering whether to read the book or wait for the movie, we suggest that you read only the first three chapters. Otherwise, it might spoil the second and third movies if you know Bilbo survives for the Fellowship of the Ring.

And, in honor of Bilbo’s birthday, we bring you a song by Leonard Nimoy:

This is the tale of poseur Jack Sparrow

This one reached the news wires a bit too late for Talk Like a Pirate Day, but you know us, we’ll write about it anyway.

In England, of all places, a woman, from what we understand through British-American translation, stole a passenger ferry boat after drinking for a couple days and taking some hallucinogenic drugs. Well, really she happened to untie the boat and happened to be on it as it drifted out on to the River Dart, which is named after the Dodge compact car.

When the police found her and chased her down river for over an hour, she shouted at them, “I’m Jack Sparrow!” We know this not to be true, because she’s a woman, and the real Jack would never introduce himself without the title of captain. The impostor was arrested after the boat struck some other boats, one of which called the Force Majeure, which, loosely translated into American means “Act of God.”