Day: March 15, 2013

You Missed It: Army green edition

Harry Morgan will not be reprising his role as Col. Sherman Potter.
Harry Morgan will not be reprising his role as Col. Sherman Potter.

You should probably be reading this with a beer in your hand. After all, it’s St. Patrick’s Day weekend. You never see superheroes celebrating holidays anymore. You never see Spider-man snatch a pint of Guinness with his webslingers. Why is that? I’m sure Superman and Captain America used to be all about Christmas, but are now more secular. The only one who has a good excuse is Batman, because someone always seems to be causing trouble for him around Halloween. If you were busy locked up in conclave this week, odds are you missed it.

A return to arms
This week, North Korea declared the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War invalid for the third time in 10 years. The country cited provocation from a war exercise with the U.S. and its allies in the Pacific Ocean, and U.N. sanctions for North Korea’s nuclear testing. But really, we all know that Kim Jong Un is really just doing this to get another season of M*A*S*H.

One cardinal gets a new hat
The College of Cardinals elected Ramón José Castellano from Argentina as the new pope. Pope Francis is known for is opposition to his country’s movement to allow gay marriage. While addressing the crowd that gathered at the Vatican, he moderated his views on the subject, saying he might come around if his son comes out of the closet.

Hockey. Get excited
The NHL approved a realignment this week that it hopes will shake things up and get more fans excited. Under the plan, some teams will be shuffled around into slightly different regional groups, which the league hopes will cut down on time zone conflicts when the big games are on. The NHL is also considering an aggressive “Hey, we exist!” ad campaign and a reboot of the whole franchise.

The gorilla in the kitchen

In keeping with this week’s theme of animal escapes, this one comes from Canada, and luckily it doesn’t involve killer dolphins.

At a Calgary zoo, several gorillas escaped their pen and went on a snack run. It appears that a zookeeper didn’t properly close a “gorilla-proof” door, and like velociraptors in Jurassic Park, they learned how to open doors and enter the kitchen area. The zookeeper was fired, and yet there had been no punishment for the untold number of gorilla escapees.

Clever girl.

Escaping danger has never been more fun

When we watch action movies, we’re always given the impression that the escape from the danger is harrowing, thrilling, an adrenaline-rush, more stress-inducing than our body might be able to take.

China, the country stereotypically for being full of mirth, thinks that getting out of buildings that have caught on fire should be a lot more enjoyable.

What the smurf ‘smurfing’ means

"We cook my way this time, Jesse Smurf. Or I walk."
“We cook my way this time, Jesse Smurf. Or I walk.”

At long last — after 55 smurfing years of Smurf comics, cartoons and dolls — we finally know what the smurf those smurfing Smurfs were smurfing about.

Thanks to a recent anti-meth campaign in Missouri, we’ve learned that “smurfing” means “to buy the legal limit of pseudoephedrine-based products and sell them to meth cookers.”

‘With the anti-smurfing campaign, Missouri leaders are coming together … to send an unmistakable message: If you’re buying this product for a meth cook, you are committing a serious criminal offense and could end up behind bars,’ [Missouri Attorney General Chris] Koster said.

And we all know what happens next after locking Smurfs up behind bars: they’re melted into gold for our privatized prison system. Things are looking up for Warden Gargamel, indeed. But they’re also looking much, much darker for Smurfette, who’s doing smurf-knows-what for her meth.