Archive for: August 2014

Fire to Strike a Home for Those Guys

By Thomas Steven John, future news reporter
A rare tragedy will turn even more depressing Saturday when fire strikes Coma’s home for recently divorced men.
A Place for Those Guys will suffer extensive structural damage–but no injuries–from a fire that will start in a lower storage unit, this reporter has learned in a peyote-fueled fever dream.

A Place for Those Guys is largely filled with man cave style rooms with daily laundry service available.

A Home for Those Guys is largely filled with man cave style rooms with daily laundry service available.

The generally middle age residents of the condo complex and assisted living facility will ignore the fire alarms that will sound at around 11:30 a.m. as most sleep off hangovers.
Although the fire will be quickly controlled, firefighters will face their sharpest challenges in removing belligerent drunks from the many smoke-filled and trash-strew man caves in the complex.

Raging Bitch pale ale is a sponsor of A Place for Those Guys and will play a large role in providing comfort for the men as the rebuilding process begins.

Raging Bitch pale ale is a sponsor of A Home for Those Guys and will play a large role in providing comfort for the men as the rebuilding process begins.

“So no one’s going to be hurt? Well, I’m sure it’ll be fine then” Dr. Jimmy, a development resident, said when told of the impending tragedy. “If nothing else, it should at least get this place a new coat of paint.”
The fire, which will be started by an errant cigarette thrown into a paper-filled trash can, will destroy most of the painful mementos of happy times past held in the development’s storage unit, as well as the vast cleaning supply/personal services closet.
“The fire’s gonna burn up the mobile massage table over there?” said Marlee Bumgartner, who works nights as a masseuse in the complex. “It’s probably for the best–you can only take so much.”

Downsizing Family Conflict

by Coma News Staff

Micah Horncraft doesn’t raise his voice at home anymore.

Despite that, every entreaty for his family to “get off the internet” and “stop typing on your iPhone” can be heard in every room of his house.
Horncraft’s new ability did not stem from his acquiring godlike omniscience but from him acquiring a tiny house.

Funny-Micro-House-Design-Ideas

Sometimes a micro house can be so tiny you find you can’t fit in it. It is possible that a tent would be a better option for these people.

“My wife and I were looking for better ways to connect with our child and the only solution was a tiny house,” said Horncraft. “In a regular house you can run away from each other and slam doors. In a tiny house there’s nowhere to go unless you want to go outside to wash your clothes in the river.”
Horncraft and his wife, Cindy, became the first Coma owners of an 80 square foot tiny house this summer. The move was prompted, he said, by his desire to repair his marriage after accidentally selling his wife’s hair on eBay.
Horncraft hopes the close quarters also brings a closer relationship with his teenage son, Sean, who blames Horncraft for “ruining my life.”
“Yeah. It’s great,” Sean said about the new house. “I’ve started spending more time inside my car.”

Before micro living in a tiny house became popular people would simplify by living inside their cars.

Before micro living in a tiny house became popular people would simplify by living inside a car.

Other Coma residents have echoed Horncraft’s desire to unplug from technology and to return to a simpler time.

“Why not cut off devices and talk to one another?” Robert McGuiness wrote recently as his Facebook status.
Many of the Facebook responses to McGuiness rejected the idea that a great way to communicate would be face to face but some suggested that bringing back notebook paper notes might be a good ‘retro’ idea. Other Coma residents maintained note passing creates paper waste.
Micah said the first weeks of life in his tiny house have “gone great.”
“Communication is a lot clearer, and my wife and son have developed a tremendous love for the outdoors,” he said

Training Camp Full of Surprises

By Coma News Staff
California dreaming became a New Jersey nightmare for several Coma youth football players during August training camp.
Seven-year-old Truck Williams thought he saw a cloud shaped like a character from Mine Craft–just before he was blind tackled by fellow PeeWee player Sabre Michaels.

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Williams was uninjured but confused why players would tackle him during a tackle drill.
“I gotta pee,” Williams said when asked about the play.
The outdoor practice setting provided a wide range of distractions for the youth football players, as well–including circling hawks, loud passing cars and anything growing on the ground.
“The ability to focus on the game is obviously a learned skill,” said Jax Owen, a parent and assistant coach. “But the focus of a bunch of youth players on a suspected pile of dog poop is apparently in-born.”
Coaches expect players’ attention to sharpen this fall, as players take on classes, homework, tightened schedules and melt-downs from school exhaustion.

 

The Coma Youth Football League is hoping to beat the puppies this year in the annual puppies vs Kids bowl. Last year they lost by two touchdowns while Little Willie Watkins cried for his mommie.

The Coma Youth Football League is hoping to beat the puppies this year in the annual puppies vs Kids bowl. Last year they lost by two touchdowns while Little Willie Watkins cried for his mommie.

The Weather Channel TV Show Is Hard to Follow

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Stan Bargmeyer is an intern with Coma News. He is also self appointed historian and comments on popular culture and trends in his opinion column for Coma News.

Stan Bargmeyer

Recently, a Robert Smith-Smith told me about how much he enjoyed watching The Weather Channel because it’s so real to life. Since I only recently got Comcast cable on the TV, I thought I would give the show a chance since I didn’t have anything else to do and ‘How I Met Your Mother’ is no longer on air. I was really confused by the Weather Channel’s format and realized quickly that I was completely lost in all the different story lines.

I was ready to give up on it but then thought that maybe previous seasons were available on DVD (Digital Video Disc). If that was the case, I could catch up by watching the older episodes to better learn about the characters, story arcs, etc.

Boy, was I disappointed. Made me want to go back to only reading things on paper.

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It’s hard to know who the good guys or bad guys are on the weather channel. Who are these characters? Like the ones in the picture? Who are they and how do they relate to the story?

It turns out you can’t find ANY previous season of The Weather Channel on DVD anywhere! Way to go, makers of The Weather Channel. Apparently, the only people that can watch your show are people that have been watching it from day one.

You’d think they would have an episode summary available on the internet but that doesn’t exist either. So I have no way of knowing what happened to Storm Front or Partly Cloudy or Typhoon or any of the other confusing characters on the show.

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So guess who won’t be watching The Weather Channel TV show anymore? That’s right, me, Stan Bargmeyer. Not until they release all of the episodes on Netflix or Amazon or something else.

Stan Bargmeyer is a local historian, Coma News intern and opinion columnist.

Construction Crew Breaks Ground to Reverse One-Way Street

By Coma News Staff

 

Traveling north through downtown Coma should be a smoother affair by October. That’s when town workers expect to complete construction to reverse the town’s only one-way street.

Massive traffic delays near Lane Street Blvd have many wondering if it was necessary to rip up the street just to put in the same street going in the other direction.

Bidirectional One Way Street Sign

Concerned motorists weren’t sure which direction to travel on Thursdays.

“It was impossible to have new paint and signs delivered to our office at the opposite end of the one-way street entrance. It also came to a dead-end, which we aim to fix. Because nobody could get out.” explained Chase Donovan, former Coma News Intern and now Assistant Social Media Manager of Public Works.

“We tried to have the one-way street run Northbound on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and Southbound on Tuesday and Weekends, but motorists didn’t know what to do on Thursdays.” Coma Mayor Dave Anderson added, “This grave mistake was overlooked by the Coma Town Council. At least the Punctuated Stop Signs were an honest blunder. ”

Locals may recall transportation officials christened the street Lane Street Blvd in honor of Lane Street, a construction worker who was tragically buried beneath the asphalt during the initial North to South project. Mr. Street was discovered alive and well by children playing hopscotch in the middle of rush hour traffic. The surprisingly upbeat Lane had been trying to escape from the caverns of Coma’s long lost underground railroad by burrowing out, but construction workers kept accidentally pushing him back in and fixing the potholes.

Unfortunately, current plans for the Southbound reversal do not call for the rescue of Mr. Street. Canned goods are still welcome and can be donated to Lane, along with peanut M&M’s and material for him to smoke through his badger pipe, through a small hole in the street.

To add personality to the project, art students at Coma Elementary have been commissioned to paint the pavement markings on the roadway after construction is completed and the road is re-opened to vehicles traveling at least 45mph.

Mystery Solved: How to Keep Breathing While Using the Internet

Editors’ note: The following excerpt of blog by a Coma resident is presented as a community service.

Marybell Davis, awesome blogger of awesome things

Daddy Warbucks: How’s the job search coming Marybell? Did you get the job as a tour guide at the Coma Landmine Museum?

Me: Daddy, I went there but it wasn’t nearly as fun as solving mysteries on the internet.

Sometimes bad things happen to good people while you are just sitting around watching Kim Kardashian on Twitter. And before you know it you are so upset about how a person you don’t know affects your life that you forget to breathe.

A lot of lists have come out recently on the internet about how to grieve for people you didn’t know directly .

But because breathing is pretty important I thought I should post a top five list of ways to keep breathing while using the Internet since grieving has been covered by multiple experts on the subject.

1) It’s okay to type and breathe. Typing is rough. It’s really rough. Don’t give up, though. Just keep breathing. And typing.

2) How do you keep breathing when you forget? It’s easy to forget to breathe while reading the Internet. It’s not your fault. How do you flip back and forth between Facebook and Twitter or your LinkedIn–where old wrinkled men email and ask to meet for interviews over lunch at a darkly lit Applebee’s?

nancy-drew-breathing-internetAnswer: Take it slow. Keep breathing. Just focus on the Internet.

3) Number 3 is I don’t even have five things to tell you. Five things just sound more list-y. JUST. KEEP. BREATHING.

Mostly, remember that tragedies happen on the Internet more often than they happen in real life. Like when you can’t figure out where you put your shoes and you need to tweet about it or when you can’t figure out what to do about how juicing diets make you go to the bathroom. ALL. THE. TIME.

And that solves the mystery of how to keep breathing while using the Internet for this Private Dick (gross).
Daddy Warbucks: Did you find a job Marybell?
Me: Not yet Daddy, but I may have just saved someone’s internet life.

A Walk in the ‘Project’

By Coma News Staff

Ready to put a curse on diabetes?

If so, Coma residents should get lost in the town’s newest walking park: Blair Witch Park. The pedestrian park, which is designed to echo the woods-based themes of the popular horror movie, has one mike of overlapping walking trails on a one-acre wooded lot.
“It’s time to get this town of Teletubbies moving.” said Mayor Anderson. “And by moving I mean running and or walking in circles around the town because someone can’t read a map.”
If the scary movie theme and asphalt walkways are not enough to get your heart racing then follow a trail to a Starbucks store, seven of which will surround the park.

The walking park is a family affair. No one knows if this child made it the Starbucks or not.

The Blair Witch walking park is a family affair. No one knows if this child made it to the Starbucks or not.

“They say all roads lead to Starbucks, so why not, you know?” Anderson said. “Make sure you note I’m not being paid by Starbucks–although they are enlightened corporate citizens.”
Natalie Peters, Town Council member and avid tambourine player, applauded Anderson’s “vision” of a park “On further explanation I saw the mayor’s vision,” where instead of getting lost in the woods and getting scared, people can obtain high quality coffee.

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Not all residents were as excited about the park.
Sadie Cracker, a resident and independent coffee shop owner, was concerned that the new Starbucks stores could overwhelm coffee demand in a town that already has four coffee shops.
“How about we surround the park with ice cream store–like an effort/reward thing?” Cracker said.
The mayor disagreed and in his initial proposal for the park stated that the attraction of Internet “hordes” who “believe the Blair Witch is Real” will fuel unprecedented coffee shop demand and possibly some movie theaters that specialize in foreign films.

Bear’s Biker Bar owner Bear Odum is excited about the prospect, “Once tourists have walked in circles for days and had unlimited espresso they will be able to spend hours drinking alcohol and enjoying the sub par bar music and food.”

Mayor Reassures Citizens “Lord of the Rings” Can’t Happen Here

By Coma News Daily Staff

Coma Mayor Dave Anderson assured citizens this week that the events that unfolded over the course of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy could not happen in Coma.

“We have no reason to believe that the horrific events that occurred in those films could happen in our community,” the Mayor told a crowd at a recent luncheon for Corporate Bigfoot business leaders.  “There is no evidence that anything that took place in the films were based on true events.  In fact, we are positive the movie is not a documentary.”

The film series, which debuted more than a decade ago has recently caused a stir in the small town as many people have just viewed it for the first time on The Netflix.

Lord of the Rings is a mythical story and not a documentary as some Coma citizens believed.

Lord of the Rings is a mythical fictional story and not a documentary as some Coma citizens believed.

“Everything looked so real when I watched it on my iphone,” Micah Horncraft said. “Hobbits don’t seem small at all on my phone screen.”

Not all members of the community are impressed with the series or with the idea that it could happen. Dee Collins, Coma’s resident screenwriter, feels the series has been “done”. “There’s no real prequel or sequel to be done with that series.” she said. “Peter Jackson has really gone overboard with that series and not leaving much to the imagination.”

Dee Collins screenplay, "Money Ball 2" is sure to be a success once a movie professional in Los Angeles takes the time to read it.

Dee Collins screenplay, “Money Ball 2″ is sure to be a success once a movie professional in Los Angeles takes the time to read it.

Collins has yet to sell any of her popular screenplays using traditional advertising but also understands that “the movie biz” is tough and that makes it hard for “movie people” to see the genius in her script writing. “You have to imagine that they are getting really bad scripts on a daily basis so by the time they see a classified ad for a great script like my prequel to The Sixth Sense they are tired of reading.” said Collins. “Imagine having to read Lord of the Rings with all the prequels and sequels? How could you read anything genius after that?”

Other Coma citizens remain hopeful that the Mayor might create a “Lord of the Rings” walking park similar to “The Blair Witch Project” walking park which has been successful to getting the town exercising with a minimal loss of children.

The walking park is a family affair. No one knows if this child made it the Starbucks or not.

The Blair Witch Project walking park is a family affair. No one knows if this child made it the Starbucks or not.