Lawsuits are very trendy these days. Gigantic ones too. From ownership of a baseball to the deserved winner of a MVP award to obesity caused by eating McDonalds for all meals, it seems that suits are all the rage. In the end, though, only the lawyers and the makers of Sue plates will benefit from all these suits. Anyway, let's see what weird things happened in the not-so-distant past.
Many musicians today are being criticized for bringing down society. Maybe it is their lyrics, their lifestyle, or the cost of going to these concerts. When you go to a concert, often you have to pay sky-high prices for concessions. This is not the case at an Austrian band's concerts. This unconventional band plays its music using instruments made of vegetables such as carrots, cucumbers, eggplants, pumpkins, etc. After the concert is finished, the vegetables used during the concert are cooked and the attendees can have a taste of what the performers played during the show. I guess the parents of the band members forgot to tell them that they shouldn't play with their vegetables. It is truly an unique experience if one gets to enjoy it. Well, as long as your after-concert meal is not the mouthpiece of the "saxophone" used during the concert.
There are many stories about identical twins separated at birth having very similar lives. Relatives have battled against each other in elections, sporting events, and talent searches (not likely in the Kennedy or Bush families) numerous times, but seldomly does the outcome indicate that both come up winners (or losers). In an election in Northern Greece, two cousins received the exact same number of votes for one position in council. The people in the village said that they supported the cousins evenly and had a hard time deciding who to vote for. The winner would be decided by a coin flip, but the result wasn't published (thanks a lot). If you read this column regularly (which is difficult because it is an irregular column), you would know how I feel about important decisions based on coin flip. A better way to determine the winner is a rock-paper-scissors match. That way, we would know whose mind is better.
The dating scene is like a rough voyage in the sea. More often than not one has a bad experience. One rarely knows what to expect from one's date, but I think none of you has ever been handcuffed on a date [Unless you're into that kind of thing...—KreasEd]. A German man committed a crime but left his phone number at the crime scene. The police discovered it during their investigation and a policewoman devised a plan to catch the criminal. She phoned the criminal and claimed that she had the wrong number. However, a conversation developed and the two agreed to meet each other for a date. The man even dressed up for the date, thinking that he had gotten away with the crime, and a good-looking date to boot. During the date, the police, who posed as other patrons, took action and arrested the criminal. So the next time you pick up the phone and some stranger is on the other end of the line, make sure you do a background check before doing anything.
Voter turnout seems to be on the decline in this country in recent years. Here at UW, sometimes students have to be begged to vote (even then, participation is very low). While many jurisdictions are trying to increase voter turnout, some are resorting to changing long-forgotten rules. In the recent American election-athon, the voters in New Mexico had a chance to amend its Constitution so that a group of people may be allowed to vote. Now this group is no ordinary group. The N.M. Constitution, which was drafted before WWI, prohibits "idiots" and "insane persons" to vote in elections. The proposed amendment was subsequently defeated. Sometimes one has to wonder if suffrage is denied to the wrong people. There are crazy people on every political party and it is hard to deny "insane people" the right to vote when we have an alleged "moron" running a country and a hard-to-understand man running another here in North America. [For those of you that don't know, there's been a commotion recently over one of Chretien's aides calling Bush a moron—KreasEd]
News about companies offering money for people to change names after their products is not as unusual as it was a year ago. Now companies are going one step further and try to persuade cities and towns to change names. One such instance happened in northern California. The California Milk Processing Board offered a sum of money to any town that changes its name to "Got Milk?" to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the slogan. 20 towns considered the offer. Biggs, a community of about 2000 people, was one of them. The plan was rejected by the officials of the community. One may think that the town is absurd to turn down the offer, but it would be strange for a rice-growing community to be called Got Milk? Besides, it would be quite an chuckle if it is revealed that the people of Got Milk? don't drink milk.
Jason "the Screamer" Lau
Do I need to find something else to do?