Tag: news

HEADLINE OF THE DAY

Courtesy yoscott. Also: these people need to hire a specialized employee called a “newswriter.”

FLYING HOG HITS VAN
By Rosa Duarte
WSLS NewsChannel 10
Thursday, October 5, 2006

A family van catches on fire after hitting a flying hog.

Only charred remains is all that’s left of the van. Lisa Hancock says she was driving back home from church Tuesday night with her husband and son, when a 500 pound hog crossed the road in front of them on Route 21 in Wythe County.

Another car, driving in the opposite direction hit the hog first, sending the animal flying on top of the hood of the mini van.

Lisa says the flames began to spark out of the hood after the impact, that when she and her family got out. The driver of the other car wasn’t hurt, both cars were totaled.

The person responsible for the damage is the farmer who owns the hog, the farm is down the road from where the accident happened.

WEEKEND UPDATE (HEADLINES ONLY)

THE ROADS IS UNSAFE ON ACCOUNT OF HOW THEY NEEDS MORE GOATS (BBC News)

LOCAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE TELEVISION AD: “Oceans of opportunity is available at Golden West College” (OCWeekly blog)

STEW FOR 30,000 MADE WITH BACKHOE: INCLUDES WAY TOO MUCH TARO FOR MY TASTE. (pinktentacle via neatorama)

BANKSY GITMOS DISNEYLAND; IT COULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED TO A NICER COMPANY (wooster collective)

BUTTER. OCTOPUS. BUTTER OCTOPUS? BUTTER OCTOPUS! (webshots)

didja hear didja hear didja hear

There should be a word for news items which you know, the moment you see them, will be all over your LiveJournal and blogroll and feeds for the next 48-72 hours and will then become part of the permanent library of events referred to in these media.

Not “meme” but something that is more specifically limited to stories reported in mass media. Examples have varied in real-world importance from gigantic world-changing disasters or triumphs of good over evil down to pointless “oddly enough,” but there’s some characteristic quality that I can’t identify here that makes me say “well, I’ll be seeing this shit on my friends page for a while now” when I see it.

My guess at the moment is that certain stories flick a switch that makes us say “I must tell others about this and talk about it” that is independent of any judgment about the importance of the story or the likelihood that you’ll be the first to tell anyone about it. I bet if they ever localize this thing in the brain it’ll be in the same nerve bundle as whatever makes us talk about the weather.

The item that sparked this line of thought was of course today’s death of a minor celebrity, which is almost entirely at the trivial end of the scale, only escaping the “oddly enough” silliness because it involves one actual death of a human.

Sociopathic Soccer Moms Kill 3

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_1237890.php

1. Drunk driving mom in her big fast Lexus passes on the right at 90, hits guardrail, kills her 6 year old son by hitting it so hard that the seatbelt is ripped out of the car and he’s ejected.

2. Hapless hamburglars running from botched auto theft get run over on freeway. Woman calls cops from a bar some time later to say that there was clothing and human remains stuck to the bottom of her minivan and she “may have been involved in an accident” earlier.

I’m not including the other news story about the woman whose tire blew up and her 12 year old kid was ejected due to no seat belt, even though three other occupants of that car had no seatbelt either, because for all I know she could have been yelling at them to buckle up when it happened.

Area Newspaper’s Police Blotter Weird This Week

Newport Beach:

Island, 300 block: suspicious circumstances, July 7. A resident found that an envelope had been placed in her mailbox with her name printed on it. The envelope contained a vibrator, a battery and a note.

Costa Mesa:

Location undisclosed: arrest, July 11. James Norwood Branch, 45, of Newport Beach, was arrested on suspicion of rape of a drugged victim and lewd and lascivious acts.

Police are investigating the cause of a loud explosion and several broken windows at a Costa Mesa apartment building late Monday. Police responded to the 2100 block of Elden Avenue at 9:30 p.m. to reports of a loud explosion, but did not see any evidence that an explosion had occurred. Tuesday morning, one resident found a piece of metal on the front porch and two other residents said their windows were broken, Costa Mesa police said. Arson investigators and the Orange County Sheriff’s Bomb Squad Tuesday morning found evidence that a destructive device was exploded outside the apartment building.