Category: In the News

update on the Swedish Christmas goat, 2008

For the new readers here, I want to let you know about a Christmas tradition in Sweden involving a giant straw goat.  And by giant, I mean over 40 feet tall.  And part of the tradition is that the goat gets burned down by arsonists almost every year.  However, last year they started putting some serious flame-retardant materials on it, so it hasn’t been burned down since.

Here’s what I wrote on it last year: the Swedish Christmas goat.

The city officials there probably think they’re quite clever in their current plans to prevent the giant goat from burning.  But what they don’t realize is that if the goat never burned, it wouldn’t be famous at all.  So with each year that it isn’t burned, it will become more obscure to the rest of the world.

And for the record, I could make it burn…  Nothing is truly fireproof, if you have the right stuff for the job…

And as you might’ve read in some recent comments, plans are underway to start a similar tradition in Mango-Man’s yard.  He doesn’t see the awesomeness of this plan yet, but we’ll eventually convince him (or just build it anyway and let him witness it first-hand).   🙂

impressed by throwing shoes

The other day an Iraqi journalist in Baghdad, Iraq, took his shoes off during a speech by President Bush and threw them at the President (and now faces up to 15 years in prison).  That’s crazy, right?   But the story has taken an even crazier turn.  An Egyptian man was so impressed that he has offered his 20-year-old daughter in marriage to that journalist.  The father said, “I find nothing more valuable than my daughter to offer to him.”  The daughter is okay with this idea, saying, “This is something that would honor me.  I would like to live in Iraq, especially if I were attached to this hero.”

To that, I have to say, WHAT?!?

Even if you agree with the journalist’s idea of throwing your shoes at President Bush, how can you support it THAT much?  That guy is NOT a hero!

The world is a crazy place…

plastic surgery for the dead

A growing trend in America is people buying plastic surgery for their dead relatives.  Some of the corpses are being treated with drugs like Botox to reduce wrinkles.  Is this the next big waste of money scheme?  This is stupid.

Although, I wonder if these people are afraid their relatives are going to return as zombies.  Perhaps this last-minute plastic surgery will help them look better if they return from the dead.  Because, as you might know, the undead have a history of looking very ugly and deformed.

Although, if zombies start looking like normal alive people, that could be quite dangerous!  This new trend must be stopped!

a fantastic name

A 19-year old British man has officially changed his name to “Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine The Hulk And The Flash Combined”.  His previous name was George Garratt.  He changed his name by deed poll, paying the required fee, so it’s now his real legal name.

That’s kinda cool, although I think I would choose something even better.  His name doesn’t really make sense.  I mean, it’s neat to use superhero names (although the potential for a huge lawsuit just increased), but I think he could’ve come up with something better.

BTW, his grandmother is no longer talking to him.  I reckon the elders would get upset when you refuse to carry on the family name.  I suppose that’s the price you have to pay to be weird / dorky / cool-to-a-few-people.  🙂

While reading up on this, I read of a girl born in Texas in 1984 who has the name of Rhoshandiatellyneshiaunneveshenk Koyaanisquatsiuth Williams.  Yes, that is her actual name.  I wonder how old she was before she could spell it or even pronounce it!

If you were going to change your name, what would you choose?