Balloon Boy really Attic Boy!

If you were anywhere near twitter or a TV yesterday afternoon, you heard about young Falcon Heene, the boy who everyone was led to believe was floating above the earth in an experimental balloon his father was making.

You also heard how young Falcon was later discovered (after the balloon had landed mind you) to be hiding in the attic above their garage and not in said balloon.

This story captured the twitterverse and the facebook world as people updated their statuses with links to live video, news articles and jokes about the boy in the balloon. It went on for a while as the air above Denver was cleared of all other aircraft to ensure his safety. After the balloon landed and it was discovered that the 6yr old wasn’t even on board, people feared the worst, worrying that he had fallen out shortly after take off.

Needless to say the whole thing was a hoax and one that the Family might have done as a publicity stunt at that as Falcon commented on CNN last night “You guys said we did this for the show.”

Was it all a stunt?

Balloon Boy

I was sitting there minding my own business trying to decide if Dollhouse was really any good (or at least better then the new Knight Rider) when a family face appeared. Matt Keeslar “The Middleman” of the show of the same name, was playing a psycho path hired to kill echo. Skipping past the Dollhouse I began to wonder when my favorite show from last summer would be appearing again. Only to stumble upon this “The Middleman” Is Dead.

There is nothing more to say about this. Other then that totally sucks, harder then your mom, yes even when she takes out her teeth. The witty dialog and oddly natural banter between the characters made the show highly enjoyable. Although I did always wonder if it was on the right station. It was a bit more adult then the other fare on the station and far more intelligent. Stupid ABC Family. Say you support the show, say you don’t want anything on the show to change, say we are not doing the originally planned 13th episode so we can make the 12lth even better, say you love it. Then say sorry its canceled.

For those that have no idea what or who “The Middleman” is or was or will be, you truly missed out on one of the smartest shows of recent years. It threw together a nice eclectic mix of current and past pop culture with quick witty dialog surrounding unbelievably believable events. Kind of a weird hybrid of X-Files, Chuck, and the Gilmore Girls.

Will Dub Dub ever find  out the truth about her father? Will Lacey ever find out what’s in the middle of the middle man? Will Noser ever actually complete the lyrics to anything?

And now onto the regularly scheduled programming.

Talk about having some balls, but apparently a younger gorilla snuck in and did the dirty deed with one of the elder gorilla’s concubines. In the gorilla world this is apparently doubly taboo as not only was the gorilla younger, but it seems that most male gorilla’s are not allowed to mate until the are at least 12 yrs of age.Brass Monkey, that funky monkey. He just snuck right in there and got what he wanted.

I may have misled you a bit with the title. Sorry, I have very little money so it would do you no good to try and sue me for false advertising, besides which I did say not exactly a talking, flying donkey. However the donkey was very much treated like a human. It got into a fight, beat a few people, and was thrown in the pokey until its bail could be paid. I am not sure which had more to drink, the police, the donkey or the people assaulted by the donkey. In either case, I bet that’s the last time they give him the worm. Or perhaps the Chiapas police are not real police, but are in fact animal control officers in disguise as police.

So the donkey didn’t talk (it didn’t really fly either), but the parrot sure enough did. Trained to repeat its owners address if lost. Nice. Just one question, how did the owner teach it to recognize when it was lost? Teaching the address is one thing, but teaching it to recognize when it was lost is another. Unless of course they simply taught it to respond with the address when prompted with a certain question or questions. And it refused to talk to the police. Perhaps it has watched too many crime drama’s and wanted his lawyer present before he said anything, just in the off case he say something to incriminate himself. “yes, I stole the crackers. I can’t help it. That dry bland salty goodness just drives me over the edge.”

Take for example: Paging Dr. Jones: Crystal skull stolen from New Age shop near Los Angeles
A store had on display a crystal skull. No, not an original crystal skull, as they admit it is perhaps only around 500yrs old (which I still find a little hard to swallow). In any case, the store had it on display and someone decided to take it. It was not the most valuable item in the store, or even on the alter on which it was being displayed, yet it is the only thing that was taken.

And in a throwback to “Temple of Doom”, Nepal king makes animal sacrifices to power goddess. I thought Indy had taking care of this little problem already. He killed the bad guy, got the stone with the three lines, and returned the children to the village. And Didn’t remove Cate Capeshaws heart in the process. But apparently the great Kali’s power (which make sense since she is the Hindu god of power) reaches beyond the fictional world of movies and still drives people in the real world. As long as they don’t force me to drink that nightmare blood and there is no giant lava pit nearby, then things should be OK if you are taking a trip there.

Thus the SAM LSD, aka Self Actuated Mechanical Linear Sand Disclocator. That seems to be suitably gewgaw.

So now for the final SAM LSD (and you will have to forgive the shoddy camera work, I was using a hand held usb webcam and you may want to turn the volume down as the sound can get rather annoying).

 In the mean time enjoy this joke:

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Sushi.

Sushi who?

So she lost her keys.

 I must say it worked rather well. Everyone that went for a doughtnut had to do a double take before they realized what it was. One person actually thought they were still edible. Which I suppose they are, they may taste bad but they are at least non-toxic. Got a pretty good reaction from everyone. Nice middle of the rode prank that didn’t offended anyone.

 Here’s a pic of the prank doughnuts. Yes someone actually took one.

Second year at the same job. Actually that was back at the end of February. But the point is things are fairly stable at my job. I finally feel comfortable pulling a mild practicle joke. It helps that I get along fairly well with my immediate coworkers.

I was trying to figure out what would make for a good joke. I thought about baking something with a fould taste. I just can’t do that. I like to cook and it would be a shame to make something on purpose that was awfull. Then it hit me. Just buy some doughnuts and ask for a second box.

Take the second box and fill it with cheap plastic doughnut rings from walmart. Leave the fake box out on the table. Sit back and wait for people to come up and go to take a doughnut.

Nice, simple, harmless, and you get to enjoy some doughnuts. And we already know, I loves me some doughnuts.

 Now I admit it is not much of a joke. And I may do more little things as well throughout the day. Like a post-it not under the mouse, sticky side on the mouse. Works well for both laser and ball mice. You could always go with the prank email, but those can be tricky. You have to be carefull with the content and wording.

I am certain there are other “work place safe” pranks so lets hear them.

The article is much funnier if you read it incorrectly, as in Steven Seagal not Seagull. But basically Steven returns the Super 8 for his doughnut. I loves me some doughnuts. If someone gave me a free doughnut every day, damn straight I’m going back for another one. The employees argue they don’t give him any other food, but he keeps returning. Well they keep giving him more doughnuts. Apparently if noone answers he taps on the glass. If too many people are there he starts squaking and making noise until his doughnut needs are met. One of these days he is just going to whip out one of his super awesome karate moves. Although I am certain it would not be as awesome as if it was Chuck.