Cocktail Chatter: Bigfoot
Having a bar conversation is hard. You have to, like, know stuff about the news and be able to communicate that stuff in a way that doesn't make you sound like an idiot. Throw alcohol into the mix, and it's a recipe for disaster. Good thing I'm here to help. Here are ten stories from this week to assist your barroom chatter.
2. This isn't so much "topical" as much as "the coolest thing I saw all week." Artist Mark Crilley rips a playing card into four pieces and proceeds to draw a perfect 2-D representation.
3. Plenty of stuff to do in L.A. this Labor Day weekend, but the most fascinating may be the Cinecon Classic Film Festival taking place over at The Egyptian, five days worth of silent and early sound films straight from the vault.
4. "Jersey Shore," no more. The MTV show that offered the counterpoint to everyone who felt America is progressing in the positive direction as a society will end after six tanning-bed/drunken-brawl-laden seasons.
5. Heading to Atlanta? Want to die from a heart attack? Why not head over to The Nook and try "The Bloody Best," a new culinary monstrosity that's a Bloody Mary with two hard-boiled eggs, two pieces of bacon, toast, blue-cheese-filled olives, some tater tots, a few peppers, and a skewer of steak? That'll get you going in the morning.
6. Hooray! We can all feel safe to travel to Glendale again, since Meatball, a wild bear who just can't seem to distinguish the difference between "nature space" and "residential space," was captured by the California Department of Fish and Game. He was lured into captivity with a McDonald's Happy Meal and French fries as bait. Oh, Meatball. You're incorrigible.
7. So... two attendees of the Republican National Convention apparently felt it was their duty to throw peanuts at an African-American CNN reporter whilst saying "this is how we feed animals." Yeesh.
8. Speaking of politics, did you catch President Obama's "Ask Me Anything" Q&A over at Reddit? Unfortunately, he failed to answer the vital "Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck" question. Always refusing to answer the tough ones, that guy.
9. In sports news: Lance Armstrong stopped fighting the various doping charges he's being accused of, which has two immediate effects: (1) The arbitration process ends, meaning we won't get to watch a sure-to-be-extremely-long-and-drawn-out release of evidence; (2) Armstrong is forfeiting his seven Tour de France titles. Which begs the question: Just who won those titles now anyway?
10. In the margins of most "wacky news stories" that go viral is a strongly-worded lesson to the readers. Sometimes it's a little hard to figure out, while other times it's right there in your face. For this amazing story out of Montana, the lesson is blatant: Don't try to fake a Bigfoot sighting. You will die.