News You May Have Missed, But Shouldn't Have
It's been an edge-of-your seat few months in the news. We've weathered the huge SARS scare, we've learned that our state of Minnesota is in such dire financial straits most college student credit card debts look applealing by comparison, and there was some sort of scuffle over in some country called Iraq, or something.
Given our preoccupation with such gigantic news stories, it's understandable that other important news items just slipped through the cracks. But, fear not! As a dedicated journalist, and a marginally humorous columnist, and a smoking hot specimen of male hunkiness, I'm here to catch those jilted stories and bring them to you, my valued readers. I mean, sure, the war in Iraq was a pretty big deal and all, but in my opinion it should have shared front page ink with a story about 87 nude passengers on a flight to Cancun.
According to a May 5 Associated Press report out of Miami, Fla., a Houston travel agency specializing in clothing-optional getaways organized the trip. Passengers paid $499 for the trip, with many heading to Cancun's El Dorado Resort & Spa for Nude Week.
I guess, to me, the real news here isn't the concept of a clothing optional flight so much as the revelation that there's a place on this great earth that celebrates "Nude Week." Now THAT'S a week worth observing.
"These are professionals who lead very stressful lives and are ready to let it all go," said Donna Daniels, co-owner of the Castaways travel agency and an in-the-buff traveler on the inaugural flight. "They are adventurers and risk takers. They don't even want clothes as a constraint."
Well, if nudism is a sign of an adventurous risk taker then, judging by all the nude pictures of me as a baby and a toddler, I was Evil Knievel. You can't flip through my photo album without seeing at least one picture of my bare bottom on every page. I'm sure my parents were forced to wonder on occasion, "what is our child smoking?" Well, I'm here to tell you, I wasn't smoking anything, and if I was, and somebody stole it, I certainly wouldn't report it to the police like SOME people.
According to a Yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=757&e=10&u=/ap/20030508/ap_on_re_us/bus_driver_marijuana">May 8 Associated Press report out of Dublin, Ga., a school bus driver who reported an apparent burglary at his home, also told police someone took his marijuana.
Okay class, what's the most alarming part of that sentence? Hint: school bus driver. And here everyone in Dublin, Ga., just thought it was coincidence that that one bus was always travelling so slow and stopping at every fast food drive-thru in town.
John Randolph, 29, made the call Monday, according to a Dublin police department report. When officers arrived, Randolph said a thief took four "dime bags" of marijuana, along with a .22-caliber pistol, a gold necklace and $30 in change. Randolph told the officer he was "saving the marijuana to smoke when school was out," according to the police report.
I really can't add anything funny to that excerpt. Some comedy just simply writes itself, which is more than you can say about six monkeys in front of a computer.
According to a Yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=817&ncid=757&e=10&u=/ap/20030509/ap_on_fe_st/britain_monkey_authors">May 9 Associated Press report out of London, researchers at Plymouth University in England reported this week that primates left alone with a computer attacked the machine and failed to produce a single word.
This groundbreaking research was meant to test the theory that an infinite number of monkeys in front of an infinite number of computers would eventually, out of sheer coincidence, produce works comparable to Shakespeare. Lacking an infinite number of monkeys and an infinite number of computers, however, the researchers had to settle for a single machine and six Sulawesi crested macaques. The results were less than encouraging.
"They pressed a lot of S's," researcher Mike Phillips said Friday. "Obviously, English isn't their first language. Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard."
I guess I can empathize with the monkies on this one. Many is the time when, confronted by writer's block, I was sorely tempted to simply press a lot of S's and then defecate and urinate on the keyboard. Granted, I held back, but the strong urge was there nonetheless.
"They were quite interested in the screen, and they saw that when they typed a letter, something happened. There was a level of intention there."
That's more than I can say.
Posted by Ryan at May 13, 2003 12:06 PM
Stumble It!
