My downstairs neighbor, whom you might remember from past episodes of KOT, held a garage sale out of the carport we share over the past two days. One item caught my eye, but I didn't buy it.
He had a big, bright orange pitching machine up on a tripod, though, looked like it could handle softball sized projectiles. That thing looked like it could do some damage from a distance to those unpleasant barking mongrel dogs downhill across the way. But I didn't really know how to ask "Can this thing safely launch water balloons filled with the urine of a 36-year-old man who's eaten asparagus at breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a week?"
So the $75 asking price (it was more than the dryer he was trying to sell) was a bit too steep for such an unknown. But then some guy walked off with it about noon yesterday, and now I'm kicking myself.
What would you try to fire out of a pitching machine? I can imagine an entire episode of Mythbusters for this one.
Busy yourself with that thought and with these. I know all them have been picked up by the mothership at Gawker.com in some form over the past 24 hours, but good God almighty was it a fucked-up day in news.
- Let's clear something up right now. President Obama did not appear in the video for Tag Team's 1993 single "Whoomp (There It Is)."
- What do Al Bundy, J.R. Ewing, Knight Rider and Remington Steele have in common? They've all been reading the same goddamn prop newspaper for nearly 30 years.
- After killing pornographic acting colleague Tom Dong with a samurai sword, the porn actor Steve Driver held LA cops at bay atop a cliff for much of Saturday, threatening to stab himself with the same weapon. He ultimately leaped to his death.