The Deep Ones From The Great Lakes?

Police, residents and experts are baffled by the origin of mysterious booms and shaking that have been plaguing the 5,000 residents of Clintonville, Wisconsin for the last three days.  There may be a hint in the picture...

 The Clintonville Police Department said they have received over 250 calls about noises from underground shaking homes in the northeast corner of the town, which is near Green Bay.  "I think we can rule out that standard earthquake activity, [that] some swarm of earthquakes is happening in that region. It also really looks like it's not connected to, say, unusual drilling activity or some other kind of real obvious human induced signal," said Harold Tobin, a geoscience professor at the University of Wisconsin.

He says it does appear the sounds are either coming from the surface of the ground or just underneath the surface, but they must continue to study the phenomenon. The city has so far managed to rule out problems with the water and sewer system, elevated gas levels, area blasting or mining, industrial businesses, and even military operations. 

I'm sticking with the Elder Gods as the cause.  I do hope they do spare the state until after September...Scarlett and I have put a lot of time into our wedding.

Old Will-waukee

You're the Pabst Brewing Company (in Wisconsin), and Will Ferrell approaches you about making a series of commercials for Old Milwaukee beer for free - but, he wants to shoot them in Davenport, Iowa, and that's the only place they can be aired.

Yeah, they went for it.

Bad Neighbor

Minnesota hacker Barry Ardolf earned himself an 18-year term in a federal prison for the massive retaliation against his neighbors filing a police complaint against him.

His awesomely overblown response was triggered in 2008, when neighbors, Matt and Bethany Kostolnik's 4-year old son wandered over to their Ardoff's property shortly after moving in. Ardolf had reportedly picked the boy up carried him back to the couple and then kissed the child on the lips, prompting the police report.

Ardolf downloaded a Wi-Fi hacking program to tear into his neighbors WEP encryption, and created a fake Myspace page as well as several fake emails for Matt Kostolnik. He then posted child porn on the Myspace page and emailed the same child porn to co-workers at Kostolnik’s law office. And as the federal-crime-cherry-on-top, Ardolf sent death threats to Vice President Joe Biden and other politicians from Kostolnik’s Yahoo account, prompting a visit from the secret service who had traced the emails back to his IP address.  His campaign against his neighbors lasted two years!

Kostolnik's law office hired a firm to poke around the Wi-Fi network and install a packet sniffer to figure it all out. Eventually Ardolf’s name and Comcast account were found, which gave the FBI a reason to obtain a search warrant for Ardolf’s house, where they found massive evidence supporting charges of of identity theft, making threats, possession of child pornography, and distribution of kiddie-porn.

There was evidence that Ardolf had staged a similar attack against another family for parking their cars in front of his house. For his vengeful ingenuity, he'll be slapped with lifetime-sex-offender registration and be supervised for 20 years, as well as have restrictions when working with computers. Next time, just leave a flaming bag of dogshit on the doorstep...

Exotic In All Aspects

Sam Mazzola lived and died an exotic lifestyle.

Mazzola had been in trouble for years for mistreating the wild creatures he kept captive, and in 2009, the USDA fined him more than $13,000 and permanently cancelled his federal license to sell or exhibit exotic animals. Yet that didn't prevent a black bear he owned from mauling to death a 24-year-old woman who helped take feed and take care of animals at "Mazzola's World Animal Studios". The bear was later put to death, and almost a year later, Mazzola was found face down on his waterbed by a teenage co-worker.

Coroners in Ohio have determined Mazzola's death was an accidental choking, during a consensual sexual act, and have ruled out both suicide and homicide. He was found dead with "an object in his throat" and a "leather mask with the eyes and mouth zipped shut and a two-piece metal sphere covering his head" while "handcuffed to chains that were attached to the bed and the floor" along with padlocks. The examining coroner said there was someone else at the home who helped Mazzola complete these acts, but, had left before he had died. So they left him bound and gagged, and took a smoke break that they never returned from? Odd, but if this is an accidental "unattended death" according to Ohio, so be it.

As of March, Mazzola had four black bears, a coyote, three raccoons, a skunk and a red fox. Now they're free!

The Murderous Spirit Of St. Louis

St. Louis overtook Camden, N.J., as the nation's most dangerous city in 2009. Great...now what's Camden going to be known for?

The study found St. Louis had 2,070.1 violent crimes per 100,000 residents - nearly five times the national average of 429.4! Camden, who topped the list the previous year, had hoped to make another back-to-back title, like they accomplished in 2003 and 2004. Michigan proudly filled in the next two spots with Detroit and Flint, with Oakland filling out the top five. On the opposite end of the rankings, Colonie, N.Y. was the safest city with more than 75,000 residents for a second straight year, mostly due to the fact that nobody knows where the fuck Colonie, N.Y. is.

The rankings are based on population figures and crime data compiled by the FBI annually, though some criminologists question the findings, mainly because they don't like data and statistics compiled for these types of rankings. Boo-hoo, babies!

A Spokeswoman for the St. Louis Mayor's office was quick to point out the city has been getting safer over the last few years, with crime decreasing each year since 2007, and down 7% from last year. Which makes you think about what a dangerous murdertrap it used to be.

Juggalos Have Gathered

You had the preview, now here's the review:

Splendor And Eternal Slumber

To live and die in Cleveland...highly unpleasant stuff. But for comic book writer and autobiographer Harvey Pekar, it was true American splendor.

The cult favorite and subject of a 2003 film starring Paul Giammati, was found dead in his Ohio home this morning, by his wife, Joyce Brabner. Pekar had been suffering from prostate cancer, asthma, high blood pressure and depression. He chronicled his life and times to much acclaim as a rumpled, depressed, obsessive-compulsive “flunky file clerk” engaged in a constant battle with loneliness and anxiety.

Adds the Cleveland Plain-Dealer:

“American Splendor” carried the subtitle, “From Off the Streets of Cleveland,” and just like Superman, the other comic book hero born in Cleveland, Pekar wore something of a disguise. He never stepped into a phone booth to change, but underneath his persona of aggravated, disaffected file clerk, he was an erudite book and jazz critic, and a writer of short stories that many observers compared to Chekhov, despite their comic-book form.

“American Splendor” had its roots in Pekar’s friendship with R. Crumb, the seminal underground comic-book artist, whom he met in 1962 when Crumb was working for American Greetings in Cleveland. At the time, Crumb was just beginning to explore the possibilities of comics, which would later lead to such groundbreaking work as “Mr. Natural” and “Fritz the Cat.”

When Pekar, inspired by Crumb’s work, wrote his nascent strip in 1972, Crumb illustrated it. Crumb also contributed to Pekar’s first full-fledged books, which Pekar started publishing annually in 1976.

He also wrote “Our Cancer Year,” the book-length comic, about being diagnosed with lymphatic cancer in 1990 and the subsequent treatment.

Love Is A Battlefield

A St. Paul man charged with beating up a woman admitted that he hit her, but only after she hit him first. By the way, she's a quadruple amputee.

A criminal complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court said that Jacoby Laquan Smith got angry at his girlfriend Tiesha Bell because she blocked his view of the television in their East Side apartment. He threw her to the floor and punched Bell in the face more than 10 times in the March 22 incident.

But in a telephone interview, Smith said the dispute with Bell started with an argument over whether she was seeing another man. "I had been dealing with her cheating on me," Smith said, proving that men will fuck anything, even a quadruple amputee with a boyfriend.

Smith said the argument escalated after "I turned on the TV and she got mad." "She punched me in the groin". He said Bell also hit him with a coffee canister and a bedpan. And yes, "It was full of pee," he said.

In response, "I hit her once and that was it," Smith said. "Maybe twice."

Although Bell had both hands and part of both legs amputated because of a childhood illness, Smith said she can still be violent when she loses her temper. "She'll swing, push me down and choke me with her nubs," Smith said. He said she also hit him with her wheelchair. Wow, there is a fine line between foreplay and violence.

Bell agreed there was hitting on both sides. She said she plans to marry Smith and doesn't want him to serve jail time. "We both need anger management," she said. And someone needs prosthetics. Smith has been charged with fifth degree assault, a misdemeanor, and interfering with a 911 call, a gross misdemeanor. He said he plans to turn himself into police later this week.

Kings And Princesses Weekend

Big, busy weekend with a trip to the Magic Kingdom and the opening night of the Kings 09-10 season. I've already mentioned their offseason activities and the preseason, so all I'm going to say is I hope the prognostications are right and the team does better than last year (which it has been a slow climb out of the suck hole). If Jack Johnson and Ryan Smyth can play on the same team after this crushing hit, it could be a good year.

Best of the week: Playing Doctor.

An Arizona man who allegedly stole the identity of a San Francisco physician and posed as a doctor running a West Los Angeles sperm bank was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting two men.

Jeffrey Lynn Graybill (40) is accused of pretending to be "Dr. Robert Richardson" and soliciting sperm donors for the nonexistent Fertility Clinic of West Los Angeles. Investigators believe that there may be more than two dozen other victims in California and Arizona.

Although he had no medical license, Graybill allegedly advertised himself as a physician through internet listings on Craigslist and solicited potential clients, offering up to $4,000 monthly for sperm donations for "stem cell and other research."

Graybill, a property manager, had been trained as an emergency medical technician and used leftover medical equipment such as a stethoscope and blood pressure monitor to convince men that he was a doctor. He arranged to meet the first victim at the man's home, the second at an apartment Graybill managed. No, that's not a tip off... After Graybill failed to pay the men, one of them filed a complaint with Los Angeles police in June, triggering the investigation. Phoenix police also are investigating Graybill in connection with several similar assaults on men there. Prosecutors have charged Graybill with 11 felonies, including practicing medicine without certification, identity theft, sexual penetration and sexual battery by fraud.

Also: Seriously, WTF?

The folks at the Wisconsin Tourism Federation couldn't possibly have seen how the interweb would change the lingo when it was established in 1979. But now that it's been pointed out, the lobbying coalition had to rethink using an acronym in the logo. To most anyone online, WTF has a different meaning these days...and probably not the kind of thing you want visitors thinking about when they think Wisconsin.

A quick check of the tourism board's website, and lo and behold, they've bowed to pressure and changed their name to the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin. The old logo lives on, however, at the Internet Archive. No word on the actions of the World Taekwando Federation.

And: Death from above!

The public information leaflets dropped by the C130 Hercules over a rural area came in boxes designed to open in mid-air, thereby scattering the leaflets over a wide range. But on June 23rd, they didn't. The box failed to break apart in mid-air and landed on top of the girl who died later in hospital. Oops! The British Ministry of Defence apologized for the actions of the Royal Air Force and is carrying out a full investigation. And here's a little history for you:

Leaflets have been used by militaries since at least the Napoleonic wars, when the British navy dropped them over France using kites. And they continue to be employed, because leaflets have some advantages over other media. Radio and TV are fine if the audience happen to be tuned in at the time, but printed matter is durable.

As the U.S. Army’s Psychological Operations Field Manual explains, "A printed leaflet has the advantage that it can be passed from person to person without the message being altered. It can convey a complex message which can be reinforced with pictures if the recipient is illiterate. And a leaflet can be hidden and read in private, and shared around with others."

Delivery methods have ranged from artillery and mortar shells to loose airdrop by hand to “leaflet landmines.” The M129E1/E2 Psychological Operations Leaflet Bomb weighs 200 pounds and can disperse some 60,000 to 80,000 leaflets which are scattered by a length of detonator cord.

I have a hard time believing something could fall from the sky and hit you unaware, but it has happened in the past...

Worst of the week: American Idolatry

If only they would disappear like the Sideshow Bob looking Justin...but they don't. And just like J. Butt and her husband Skeletor, Jennifer Hudson acts like she's the first person to ever have a kid, but she's making ridiculous assumptions, like he could be following in her singing footsteps.

"He seems like he's very interested in music already," she told Us Magazine. "The other night he was having a fit and screaming and sometimes when I play music, he will just calm down. I was exactly the same way." When she put on "Let It Be" — a tune she recorded with Rod Stewart — Hudson said her son "literally just shut down. It was like he just gradually fell asleep." Sometimes when he cries, she adds, "I try to harmonize!"

Though he was born Aug. 10, her son already "does a whole lot," she said. "He's turning over, he lifts his head up, he's trying to hold his own bottles! Sometimes I swear he talking to me — or trying to. I think he's a very rare newborn. He's the cutest thing in the world, I promise you."

Listen, cow, that chip off the fat block is an eating, sleeping, shitting, crying machine - no different than any other. Next time you open that piehole, just go back to shoving food in there and keep the retarded comments to a minimum. Like zero.

But the bar-non dumbest thing said was by E! on-line news.

“Adam Lambert is like a modern-day Braveheart.”

In no world that we live in, under any circumstance, could there be a single, possible correlation between Adam "Cupcake" Lambert and William "Braveheart" Wallace. There's not even a tie between Lambert and Mel Gibson. That those words were ever written have brought society one step closer to ruin.

Intolerant Lactose, Or Cheeseheads Bowed

Circle October 5th on your calendar.

If there's anything or anyone left alive after that game, the Packers and Vikings have a rematch November 8th, this time on the Lambeau tundra. Green Bay fans have rued today, as Flip-Flop Favre about-faces yet again and joins their nemesis. While Scarlett, her family, Herr Docktor's sister, and the state of Wisconsin seethe, fans in Minnesota hope the grizzled QB can boost their team the same as he did the New York Jets last year.

My feeling (since you asked)? Get over it. Loving me some hockey the way I do, players end up getting traded from your favorite or signed by teams you hate. I would never want to see any of my Kings end up playing for those dickbags in Anaheim, but I'd still like the player, even if I hoped the team went down in a plane crash. It's a fact of sports, and more importantly, a key way you team is going to get better - by getting that good player from your opponent. What comes around goes around, so deal with it.

The real travesty with this is Favre's second spin on the maybe / maybe-not express. I happen to like Favre the QB, but Favre the decision making athlete is a fucking jerk. Stop changing your mind and don't keep making choices you're going to flip on right after. You have lost your cred. The NFL is filled with felons, ranging from murderers, drug traffickers, cheaters, and animal abusers, but for all those acts, I still think less of Favre with his bullshit "Peter and the Wolf" act. Criminal as they may be, at least they were committed to what they did. Athletes should be role models, and a double murderer like Ray Lewis (acquitted) has more of my respect than a whining pussy who keeps quitting and coming back like Favre.

Extremely Poor Vision

An Illinois man was accused of stealing more than $45,000 worth of eyeglasses from suburban Milwaukee stores because he enjoys being around eyewear. And yet, he could have just gotten a job in a eyeglass shop.

Jerry Lowery (38) was charged with three counts of armed robbery and one count of fleeing an officer. The charges carry a maximum penalty of more than 120 years in prison and a $310,000 fine. And yet, he could have just gotten a job in a eyeglass shop.

Prosecutors said Lowery walked into three shops between April and July and said he had a gun. They say he took more than 500 pairs of high-end glasses including Prada and Gucci brands, but didn't take cash. And yet, he could have just gotten a job in a eyeglass shop.

The criminal complaint quotes Lowery as saying he "really likes to be around glasses." He told investigators he tries them on in front of a mirror and then discards them. And yet, he could have just gotten a job in a eyeglass shop.

The Heat Of The Week And Weekend

I have to head into work this weekend, which if I pretend is a sauna, almost makes it feel like a vacation...that I didn't want to take.

Best of the week: WWTDD had this to say about the hysterically unfunny mess that is Douchefest Entourage:

I could put my keyboard on the ground and then step on it for 22 pages, and when I was done not only would my “script” have a better plot than the best “Entourage” ever, it would, by default, have much funnier jokes as well. Thankfully more and more people are finally waking up to this indisputable fact, and top Hollywood funnyman Seth Rogen would agree. Movieline says...

In one of its typically late-to-the-game, random cultural broadsides, the writers of Entourage went after Seth Rogen in last night’s episode, calling his “ugliness…oddly fascinating” in a debate over whether the actor could land a Katherine Heigl-type in real life. Behold, (Rogens) amazing response when asked about the incident for E!’s Daily 10; “Yeah, those guys are assholes. I actually ran into Matt…Kevin Dillon in a Starbucks. And he’s like ‘you know, I’ve got to kind of apologize because apparently the guy who created our show doesn’t like you so much.’ And I said ‘well I have reason to believe because I think [showrunner] Doug Ellin is a moron from all I can understand so it makes sense he doesn’t like me.’ Luckily I never have and never plan on watching Entourage.”

I don’t mean to nitpick, but Entourage is about 4 thoroughly unlikable and goofy looking poser fags who get tons of hot ass, so it might not be the best idea in the world to point out how unrealistic that is. But when you have a joke so timely, only two years after the movie came out, that’s a chance you have to take. Rogen better cover his ears in 2011.

Entourage Cliche Character 1: “He was in that movie Funny People.”
Entourage Cliche Character 2: “Yeah, right, more like NOT Funny People!”
Entourage Cliche Character 1: “I heard that bro! Let’s go shoe shopping!”

(You can have that Entourage. That one is for you.)

Worst of the week: Three people have been accused of letting rats bite a 6-week-old girl and chew off her toes at their cluttered Ohio mobile home. Ohio, you're getting dangerously close to challenging Florida for the tarnished crown of shame.

Pike County prosecutor Rob Junk (kudos on your awesome name) says the baby's toes on one foot were gone when sheriff's deputies went to the home over the weekend after receiving an anonymous tip. The baby is in fair condition at a Columbus hospital. A married couple and the 18-year-old boyfriend of the baby's mother are charged with felony child endangering and will remain jailed pending a plea hearing in two weeks. They all lived in the mobile home west of Piketon, a village noted for its old uranium enrichment plant. Nice. Even better? The baby's mother is a juvenile, and still may be charged.

Runner up: The race card got played a whole bunch over the week, and as the story unfolded it was an issue of being black while American which turned into a case of reverse racism and overreacting.

Was there unnecessary suspicion over Henry Gates Jr. because he was black? Perhaps. But was he overly inflamitory and stiring up the racial tension? Absolutely. Find me a black man over the age of 45 who doesn't get fired up over any contact with a white authority figure, and you've got yourself a black Republican - which is essentially a white man. The gasoline poured on the blaze by the president's opinion helped very little, since it only hung the racism sign over the Commander-in-chief. His comments, while at their base ring true about the black experience and racial tension, ultimately were made without much insight into the circumstances.

With black policemen, school officials, and government heads all backing the white policeman's conduct, all that's left is the embarassing gaffe by the president to respond before researching the situation. While Gates can prattle away in the same Sharpton / Jackson vein, which can be discounted as soon as it's said, it's the finger of blame which falls with more force now that the scope of the stoy had widened. Though the misstep should quiet down in another few days, it is no less embarassing to invoke racism and bias when you've got an expert on race profiling being charged.

Puppy Lover

Police found about 150 dead dogs packed in freezers in the basement of a Michigan house littered with feces and trash where more than 100 live dogs, mostly Chihuahuas, were rescued this week. A 43% live dog rate is not such a good record.

Officials said the 56-year-old man in the suburban Detroit home with the animals may have been living with an increasing number of dogs for up to three or four years. "The house was in complete disarray, very cluttered and, with 100-plus dogs running around in there, very filthy." A criminal investigation was under way at the two-story brick home, and the case could be forwarded to prosecutors for possible animal-cruelty charges. I wonder how they're going to find a way to build that case...

In total, 112 live dogs had been removed from the home and five more may be hiding inside. Authorities declined to release details about the breed of the dead dogs. why do you want to know anyway? They're dead. The man living in the house was taken to a local hospital for observation. He had no health insurance and a mental impairment that stemmed from rubella as a child, and had lived for years alone in the home after his parents retired to Florida, said a lawyer who was acting as a family spokesman. More like got fed up and abandoned him. "I think this is a very human story of a guy who had some very severe mental issues," the lawyer said.

Forty-two ailing and feces-covered dogs were rescued. Crews returned yesterday and found more than 60 dogs, plus 10 more were rescued today. They may have been small dogs, but damn, how do you not see those other 70 dogs the first time you get in there? Neighbors in the past had complained of an odor at the Dearborn home, which had a neatly cut lawn and manicured bushes. But this week was the first time officials got inside, and crews needed masks to breathe. The smell, noticeable from the street, may have been contained previously because windows were closed and covered. Trash was piled from floor to ceiling in places, and feces and urine was throughout the home. What a terrific idea in home decor...

Return To Shit Mountain

After the awesome train-wreck of a video I realized that there was so much more to hate about Attack Attack!

Wikipedia tells me that "Someday Came Suddenly" is the first studio release album from post-hardcore (is that the genre name for shitty?) band Attack Attack! - though they are using the the term "studio release" about as liberally as possible. Half of the album's tracks are actually remastered (which means re-engineered, not re-recorded) songs from their EP "If Guns Are Outlawed, Can We Use Swords?".

The barely 30 minute "album" is only 12 tracks, nine of them are full songs (and by full I mean 2 ½ to 3 ½ minutes) , plus an intro, outro, and interlude, which is originally from one of the guy's side projects. And to punish myself while protecting you, I will listen to their masterpiece of shit, only because even adolescents I've asked, who are clearly the target audience, refuse to go anywhere near that crap.

Track 1 - "Hot Grills and High Tops": There's nothing more that emo kids like than some crunk-y beats and keyboards! Shout out to your club dance music side project! This basically undoes the groundbreaking work of Anthrax with Public Enemy in rock and hip-hop.

Track 2 - "Stick Stickly": Yes, this was titled in reference to the late 1990's Nickelodeon summer block show of the same name. When these guys were all 11. Go back and watch the video if you hate yourself.

Track 3 - "Bro, Ashley's Here": Did you think they weren't going to do more songs with screaming, cuts between nu-metal beats and pop-punk, vocoded vocals, and cheesy synths? Possibly the worst name of a song. Ever.

Track 4 - "Shred, White & Blue": Ever see a YouTube clip of somebody playing Guitar Hero and you're thinking "How could somebody have written such a horrible song yet still get onto a major video game? What is this garbage and where did it come from?" Well, now I'm pretty sure it's bands like this who are responsible.

Track 5 - "Party Foul": I'm going to say music foul. The best thing so far was the opening track, and that's only because it was the shortest.

Track 6 - "What Happens If I Can't Check My MySpace When We Get There?": Okay, this is the worst name of a song. Ever. If those words ever come out of your mouth, just keep it open and put a shotgun in.

Track 7 - "Interlude": If listening to this music didn't make you gay enough, this out-of-the-blue techno club track will push you over the edge. While it's a break from the last five identical sounding songs, it's still a huge turd.

Track 8 - "The People's Elbow": The signature move by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson finally gets it's own song...that has nothing to do with it. Unless he wrestled and was heard saying "Always thought that you would be the one, but baby just give me a chance". Nah, didn't think so either.

Track 9 - "Kickin' Wing, Animal Doctor": The name was borrowed from the nickname used in the movie Joe Dirt for the Native American firework salesman. Joe Dirt called and said now they don't want it back. There is an excellent chance that when they were putting the titles of the songs on the album for printing, they just wrote down whatever they saw or heard around them.

Track 10 - "Dr. Shavargo Pt.3": Somehow, this is an indirect reference to the movie Dr. Zhivago, which I guarantee none of the band members have seen. If only we heard parts 1 and 2 to get the full scope of what they're trying to do...

Track 11 - "Catfish Soup": I would rather eat a cold bowl of catpiss soup than have to listen to any more of this.

Track 12 - "Outro": This must be what it feels like when criminals get out of prison...and I too promise I'm never going back.

Verdict: Destroy Columbus, Ohio, where the band came from. Burn their fields, raze their buildings, enslave the children, and kill everyone. Sorry, but you fuckers allowed this aural abortion to come together right under your noses and didn't snuff it out when you had the chance. Thanks (for nothing), you assholes.

Boom.

With Leather found this awesome bus race footage from Ohio, of all places. Yes, you read that right, and the bizarre tingly awesomeness I feel from watching a bus plowing into another bus simply cannot be described. It’s like watching Optimus Prime give a prostate exam to a Tyrannosaurus Rex, only with more debris flying around and more profanity. And even that visual image doesn’t do it justice.

Chuckle-Off

In keeping with the theme of my present trip, I give advance notice of the ComedySportz 25th Anniversary World Championship, coming to Milwaukee this summer.

Founded in Milwaukee circa 1984, ComedySportz crossbred the laughs of theater games with the mood of athletic competition. For the uninitiated, a match is performed before an audience with two teams of comedy ‘actletes’ competing for laughs and points, moderated by a referee who keeps things moving and calls fouls. An average of seven to twelve games are played during a match, drawn from a repertoire of over a hundred improv games. Many of you have seen something similar if you're familiar with the show Whose Line Is It Anyway?, but ComedySportz is actually funny.

Comedysportz has spread around the world, with theaters springing up from Los Angeles to New York and from Houston to Manchester, England. Starting July 6, 20 teams will gather in Milwaukee for a weeklong anniversary celebration and improv tournament. The final championship match goes down Saturday, July 11 with the winning team named ComedySportz Improv Comedy World Champion (for what that's worth).

I was with the Santa Barbara team for over five years, and even competed in one of the national tournaments...let me just say the Quad Cities area was pretty fucking beat, and I doubt much has changed in 10 years. Nonetheless, CSz rules, and I have to give props...

Wisco Week...and Weekend

Scarlett returns to the land of her birth, and I am going in tow! Here's a little about Mequon, Wisconsin that I'm sure we both didn't know.

Mequon (MEK-wan) is a city in Ozaukee County. It had a population of 21,823 at the 2000 census, and as of three years ago, an estimated population of 23,820. In July 2005, listed Mequon 19th among its 100 Best Small Cities in the United States, ranked jointly with Thiensville, a village completely surrounded by Mequon.

The area was originally inhabited by the Potawatomi and Menominee Indians. European trappers, explorers and traders used the Milwaukee River through the middle of what is now Mequon as a means of transportation. The name "Mequon" is thought to have come from the Native-American word "Emikwaan" or "Miguan," meaning ladle. This refers to how the Milwaukee River curves like a ladle in the Mequon area. The spelling was undoubtedly influenced by the French in the area at the time.

Between 1834 and 1836, Brink and Follett surveyed the land to create the town of Mequon. Around this time, settlers came from New York and England, soon followed by German and Irish immigrants. In 1839, a group of immigrants from Saxony settled near the Milwaukee River. In the same year, twenty families from Pomerania founded Freistadt (German Free place) in the western part of the Town of Mequon. The first Lutheran church in Wisconsin was built by these families in 1840.

John Henry Thien, a wealthy immigrant from Saxony, traveled north from Milwaukee and settled along the Milwaukee River, where his family built a dam and grist mill. This area, one square mile in the middle of Mequon township, was later incorporated as the village of Thiensville in 1910. The Town of Mequon was incorporated as a city in 1957.

Thanks, Wikipedia! I'll be back on Monday, but through the magic of interweb, there will still be posts through the week as usual, and still the daily damage with DMFG at Velvet Glove - Iron Fist.

Weekend Recap

You're not late to the party, it's just that things happened over the weekend...

Stenson Shoots 66 To Blow Away Field At Players - The lengths athletes will go to now just to win. Sportsmanship. Ability. Perseverance. These are things of the past.

Leno Takes Comedy Show To Jobless Ohio Residents - It's bad enough to be unemployed, but then to have Jay Leno force his "comedy styling" upon you? They can't catch a break out there in Ohio.

Pastry Chef Receives Double Hand Transplant - No word on whether he'll continue to lick his fingers to sample the food...or if that blender is going to finally get a safety guard on it.

Bronx Man Killed After Graduating From College - Education...not as well respected in the community as you may think. I think he would have preferred an internship or part-time job over death, but sometimes those are you options...

Flu Exposes Flaws In Mexico's Health Care System - The jewel in the country's crown, tarnished! Not like the drug cartel war against the police exposing a flaw in their civil safety system. Or the countless illegals roaming free across the border exposing the flaw in their national security or emigration system? I could go on and on. Is there a single system in their country that's not hopelessly flawed?

Pakistan Says 200 Taliban Fighters Killed In A Day - What did the Guinness people do today? Weigh the largest toe clipping? Or see how many text messages a teenager could do blindfolded? Here's a real feat you suckasses. Try keeping up with true records.

Cheney Backs Limbaugh Over Powell On GOP Future - Satan backs his puppet minion over this former puppet lackey. He's right - the bloated, hypocritical husk of Limbaugh is who will continue to drive the headless, aimless weakened party further into disarray.

Fido, Frequent Flier, Gets His Own Airline - Let's not have this sickly economy keep anyone from chartering flights for pets only. Besides, would you rather give that money to charity? I think not!

Judge: Men Can Slap Wives Who Spend Lavishly - Is that the only time? Come on Saudi Arabia, go bold! give us the full rundown.

Lost Tourist Search Turns Up Seven Corpses - Congratulations, you now have eight unhappy families!

Iran Moves To Reduce Number Of Executions - As long as they can reduce the number of homosexuals and infidels, they're pretty confident they can execute less of them people.

Storm Nixes Amy Winehouse Comeback, Fans Thankful - Even Mother Nature doesn't want to hear a junkie rip off 60's Motown tunes.

Indonesia: Ruling Party Wins Most Votes - Hmmm...militant theocracy maintains power through elections? But of course! (just kidding - it's a unitary presidential republic - like you know the difference)

Venetia Phair Dies At 90; As A girl, She Named Pluto - Great, you're dead, and your main accomplishment is de-emphasised.

Raab And Cleveland (Again)

Jazzy Robots, Misdirection, And Cleveland...Rocks?