Archive for: October 2014

Coma Weekly FREECYCLE Digest

Freecycling is when a person passes on, for free, an unwanted item to another person who needs that item. From silverware to mobile homes, people worldwide are choosing to freecycle rather than discard.

 

[FreecycleComa] OFFER: cat litter box

We are offering a new (used) cat litter box.  It is a Petmate jumbo deluxe hooded pan. Willing to give away the cat as well.

If you are interested, then please send me a message.

Michelle

 

[FreecycleComa] OFFER: Comedy activities for kids

Our son has been doing a standup routine for the last two years and we think it’s time for him to think about doing something productive like school work or just have some friends. We are giving away his stage, microphone, laugh track and knock knock joke book. These would be good for parents who aren’t looking for their kid to be employed or move out any time in the near future. The microphone and stage have been used for multiple bathroom performances. Please pick a date and time during the day as he doesn’t know we are “giving away” his stuff. If you have any normal children’s toys you’d like to trade we’d love anything like a jump rope, dirt bike, medical instruments, books on how to grow up and be a doctor.

 

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Want to contact the FreecycleComa moderators?  Write to us at townofcoma (at) gmail.com .
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Please always use:

– OFFER: old couch– did not sleep with my ex on it (Downtown/courthouse/ in a cell/ on top of a mountain)
– TAKEN: old couch strange stains [to be used to withdraw an OFFER for any reason; only to be posted by the member making the OFFER]

– WANTED: stapler or false teeth [Please use this one sparingly]– Cannot be “wanted mate” or “wanted sex” or “wanted a hot chick”
– RECEIVED: stapler [to be used to withdraw a WANTED for any reason; only to be posted by the member making the WANTED]

NEED, PPU, REOFFER, RE-OFFER, etc., are not acceptable keywords, and nothing other than the keyword should appear before the item description.

Mayor Warns of Season Change

By Coma News Staff

Mayor Dave Anderson assured concerned citizens in the Town of Coma this week that the Sun, everyone’s favorite ball in the sky, is not permanently flying away from our solar system.

“This happens every fall,” Mayor Dave said about a recent flurry of resident concerns. “Next year I’m bundling the phone-book with a farmer’s almanac”

Calls to Anderson from concerned residents began after a public screening of “The Day After Tomorrow,” which was subsequently banned from all libraries and the remaining video store in Coma.

This year’s fear monger was Chase Donovan, who alerted the police when he first noticed that the days were getting shorter and the weather was cooling.

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“I totally forgot about the town hall meeting we had last year explaining seasonal change,” Donovan said. “But whatever they say, there’s nothing natural about leaves turning blood red.”

This year’s concerns arose despite  town-sponsored education campaign on seasonsonal changes.

A recent poll showed 74% of Coma residents think the Sun should be around for the same amount of time for 12 months of the year and that the Moon wasn’t a good substitute.

“I work full time all year long and so should the Sun,” Jax Owen, a car dealer said. “Is that too much to ask?”

Like it or not, the fall season is here to stay for a few months before it is replaced first by winter, then spring and summer–as the remorseless cycle of seasons continues.

Queries & Quislings

An advice dispensary presented as a community service by Coma News publisher Davis Montgomery III.

Dear Query Guy,
How can I make my son become a professional football player? I’ve tried everything to make him good at it: I got him everything Under Armor. I cheer for him every morning when he eats his breakfast. I pause the TV on Tom Brady and say “That guy married a super model.” But my son’s four and he just doesn’t care. Is there anything I can do to make him care? I played football in high school, married a cheerleader, divorced her when she got fat, and married a 7-Eleven clerk. Now, I coach at the high school and sell insurance as my day job. More than anything in the world I want my boy to love everything I do. How do I get him to care?
Man, I Love Football

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Dear MILF,

The common notion that “You can pick your nose, you can pick your friends but you can’t pick your family” encapsulates both your problem and solution. The problem is not that you are fixated on an obdurate offspring, but that you are fixated on an nonviable aspiration.
Try focusing yourself on an achievable objective, which in your case may be a son that is a secondary school graduate or who earns enough to subsidize your dotage.
These are not glorious options but they may prove more realistic than the lottery – based retirement plan or dream hooptey repair enterprise, about which you have droned on endlessly to family and co-workers.
More likely to occur is the thoughtful solution cultivated by my delicate petunia: Hit it with a hammer.

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In your case, my dear MILF, this is likely to occur to you–not by you–in a dark alley behind a liquor emporium.
Good luck and good riddance.
QG

57 to Win ‘Running Of The Candidates’

By Thomas Steven John, Future New Reporter
Fifty-seven Coma residents will outrace the unusually large slate of mayoral and Town Council candidates during Saturday’s annual Running of the Candidates.
The results of the Coma tradition, which unleashes political candidates to chase gathered residents through five blocks downtown, came to this reporter through a peyote-fueled fever dream. Those who win by avoiding tagging with political stickers will get a free pot pie dinner at Dachshund’s Dinner.
One candidate asked about the impending run results focused on the 537 residents that the pursuing politicians will succeed in catching.
“It’s the only reliable way to separate the wheat from the chaff in this town,” said Jax Owen, a first-time Council candidate on the Organizing for Hugs ticket, who will catch 98 residents–all women.

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Other candidates emphasized the event’s expected health benefits.
“There is nothing as good for you as a brisk run–except maybe laughter,” said Councilman Bob Smith-Smith, who will chase fellow residents while wearing his clown costume.
Seventeen residents will be treated for cuts and bruises, as well as one “near-goring” when a campaign sign pole is used to attach campaign stickers to fleeing residents.
“The Party Pole has never hurt anyone and efforts to stifle its role in this election are offensive,” Council member Natalie Peters, a member of the Party for People Too Poor to Party, said when told of the pole – related injury.
Mayor Dave Anderson urged both calm and excitement in the run up to the race.
“As long as a horde damn bicyclists from the city don’t blow through here and run everyone down, we’ll be fine,” Anderson said.

Winless Condors Play For Pride, Candy

By Coma News Staff
The winless 6- to 8-year-old Coma Condors football team will play hard in their final game this Saturday for pride and bags of candy, according to the coach.
“You guys gotta reach down deep and find the strength–Kyle, stop sucking your thumb!” Jax Owen, one of the team’s coaches said when addressing the team at Monday’s practice.
Owen said the team’s winless record is “embarrassing” and the other pee-wee league coaches have been “pretty mean” to him about it.
Sadie Cracker, Condor team mom, said she hopes that the promise of a bag of candy may help motivate the team to victory.

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“We’ve tried stern speeches from their coaches, embarrassment from the scores and basically pleading with these kids to play harder but it’s possible that candy has the best chance of getting through to six-year-olds,” she said.
Jimmy Cracker blamed the team’s last loss against the undefeated Bealsville Barracudas on a bee.
“It almost stunk me,” he said.

Butter Sword Aimed to Revolutionize Dairy Industry

By Coma Historian and News Intern Stan Bargmeyer

In the fall of 1823, Coma farmer and noted inventor Arwel Hemington stood before a group of American military leaders on his farm just outside town to share what he called “the greatest military invention of the last six-to-eight weeks.” Hemington’s invention was nothing new, but the materials used to create it, he thought, would turn the dairy world, and military conflict upside down.

What Hemington shared on that dreary, cold afternoon on his 43-acre farm was a sword thats blade was made entirely from chilled butter.  Upon revealing his latest invention, the assembled group of generals gasped and gaffawed and for a moment seemed completely in awe of Hemington’s innovation.

Hemington's butter sword (above) was a promising econonmic windfall for dairy farmers.

Hemington’s butter sword (above) was a promising econonmic windfall for dairy farmers.

Hemington later wrote to friends “these men of might and brawn appeared to tremble like small school girls at the sight of the sweet-cream, buttery blade. I knew at once I had them in my grasp and before me I foresaw a future in which battlefields would be strewn with bits of the savory, delicate goodness.”

According to United States Department of Defense records, the United States Army ordered nearly two-thousand butter swords on the spot.  Hemington told the group he could produce the weapons at one-half the cost of the standard steel version.

Hemington, who quickly became a hero to dairy farmers throughout the region, delivered the butter swords to Washington DC in person the following spring.  Upon arriving in the nation’s capitol, and much to Hemington’s horror, the swords had been reduced to puddles of melted butter as temperatures soared to the upper 50s.

Ashamed and feeling dishonored, Hemington returned to Coma where he spent his remaining years in a self-imposed exile.  Although he continued to work on a series of inventions, including a suit of armor made entirely from duck feathers and a catapult that shot buckets of luke-warm water at enemies.  Hemington died in 1858.

According to friends, Hemington "failed to grasp the essence of warfare."

According to friends, Hemington “failed to grasp the nature of warfare.”

The Future Is Not Our Friend

by Coma News Staff

News media trends come and go but the core mission of truth telling and serving as a watchdog on the powerful in government and elsewhere continue. Of course, it’s easy to lose sight of such noble goals amid the growing number of desperate media trends, which have come to resemble not so much innovation as the spastic flailings of a drowning baboon.

Case in point: future news.

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The obvious challenges and pitfalls of reporting events that have not yet occurred led Coma News to sit down with our own expert in the craft, Thomas Steven John, to discuss the promise and perils of his future news beat.

Coma News: We’re glad you agreed to do this.

Thomas Steven John: I was kind of surprised you wanted to do this.

CN: Why? Didn’t you see this coming?

TSJ: No I didn’t. And I was surprised to be invited to Q&A about mind-numbing media trends and one of the most obnoxious recent trends is reporters interviewing reporters.

CN: I don’t understand your point. How about you tell us how you started reporting the future? Was it a concentration offered in your journalism graduate school?

TSJ: Reporting on the future basically came from these dreams I have. It started out pretty simple, like dreaming about some event coming up that I was really worried or excited about. But then I started dreaming about people I had never met and then I found out they were not only real but doing the things I had dreamed about earlier.

CN: Sounds exciting.

TSJ: Not really, It also involves a high fever, diarrhea and vomiting.

CN: But the future part seems pretty manageable. You just report on what you see, right?

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TSJ: No, I dream about all kinds of future events that are not newsworthy, like what kind of ice cream cone some kid is going to pick out at the store this weekend.

CN: So you have to be careful about what you report?

TSJ: Right. Like I can’t just report that some politician or sports team I dislike is going to lose or that a natural disaster is coming–just to terrify people into reading the story. I also don’t see things that would benefit me personally, like winning lottery numbers or whether I am going to get paid this week.

CN: So, do you see yourself as the last of a dying breed?

TSJ: Just the opposite. Future news reporting–mostly imagined–appears to be where all journalism is moving.

CN: Thanks, and happy tomorrows.

TSJ: We’ll see.

Like Mad Candy Yo

Editors’ note: Coma News does not endorse any of the activities in the following column and urges citizens to follow the law at all times.
Sometimes you can DIY a costume out of beer boxes, yo. Nothing wrong with a Beer Knight knockin at your door with some 3 year olds dressed as lady bugs.

Sometimes you can DIY a costume out of beer boxes, yo. Nothing wrong with a Beer Knight knock’in at your door with some 3-year-olds dressed as lady bugs.

Hey Peeps! It’s that time of year to get some! Candy! Don’t listen to the haters and stay true to yourself through these thug-o-licious steps to up your haul this Ha-ween.
Dress to Intimidate
Halloween is all about being in yo face scary. So why not pass da terrors on your way to extra candy? Pick your fav dictator and go crazy. No one’s gonna turn down that mad Russian Putin at their doorstep.
Threaten, Threaten, Threaten
If candy-having haters don’t step off and give up their load when you show up in yo get up, then blow em up. Keep a carton of eggs and TP handy–you can’t go wrong with the classics. They ain’t never gonna forget getting yoked by someone dressed like a Korean dictator.
Take by Force
Sometimes your bluff is gonna get called. That’s when it’s time to grab and go. Dressing up ninja-style should help you pull
this off.
Cute Em Up
A rugrat–related or borrowed–is another classic. Dress em up in an adorable costume (Disney Princess, insect, farm animal, bedsheet ghost) to maximize success. If you take an older shorty’s the can run a solid barter system.
The Waiting Game
Most convenience and grocery stores become a literal Candyland on November 1st. Its called a sale, playas! But leave the shorties at home because of their small hands and short legs will just slow you down.