By Thomas Steven John, Future News Reporter
Magic Results for the Week of August 10
– Tara Northcutt will incorrectly pick which hand Micah Horncraft is holding a coin in (Aug. 14)
– Micah Horncraft will successfully remove a 1972 silver dollar from the ear of Tara Northcutt (Aug . 16)
By Davis Montgomery III, publisher
It’s funny, but sometimes you can ride your horse to and from work every day for years, and a simple jaunt around the block at night can make you laugh like it’s your first time mounting horseflesh.
That’s what I love about the simple act of horseback riding – there’s so much room for unexpected joy. Things you wouldn’t see, places you wouldn’t go, if you weren’t on a steed–like down the middle of a busy country road!
Last night, my wife returned from an overseas shopping trip with some new shoes for me. They’re deliciously comfy and lightweight, and I wanted to see how they felt on horseback, since that’s an important factor for most shoes I wear.
I laced them up and had my man bring my chestnut yearling, Helena, around for a quick test-loop through the neighborhood.
I quickly realized that the shoes were great on a horse – surprisingly, despite being flexible enough for running or bike riding.
After I realized the shoes would work just fine, I stopped thinking about them and was just enjoying the ride. It had been a while since I’d done a night ride, and I had forgotten how exhilarating it can be. There’s something about galloping down a quiet Coma street, with slightly less traffic than during the day and only the screams of fleeing pedestrians for company, that puts a smile on my face like nothing else.
No more pretending to ‘Share the Road’ for this former street cyclist.
I ended up doing a second lap, and then a third. By this point I was laughing out loud at the sheer joy of flying down the street, the wind in my flowing mane. It was magic.
What began as a test of a new pair of shoes turned into pure, childish delight at the joy of a night ride.
So, I encourage everyone in town to mount their steeds for a similar nocturnal exertion. And for those in Coma who have yet to invest in a thoroughbred of their own, watch out for the road apples!
By Coma News Staff
Coma self proclaimed screenwriter and artist, Dee Collins, revealed this week that despite her best efforts, sales for her homemade baseball card collection have been “meager” at best. Collins began making the cards in her spare time nearly three years ago to assemble one of the most impressive card collections in the region while generating additional income through sales.
“Whoever said ‘the easiest path to making millions is to create homemade baseball cards’ was full of it,” Collins said.
Collins said she was surprised her hand-crafted cards have not sold considering each card is a “one-of-a-kind collectible”.
Above: This rare Albert Pujols card was created by Collins shortly after the all-star first baseman signed with the Angels last year
Collins first sale to Micah Horncraft of Coma fell apart at the last minute.
“None of the cards feature a holographic watermark that changes colors,” Horncraft said. “I only purchase authentic Fleer or Upper Deck cards because they have higher re-sell values.”
Above: Card for an unidentified Oakland A’s pitcher. Collins said she couldn’t remember who it was supposed to be but thinks it could apply to most of the pitchers on the Athletics’ staff
Collins, who in her mind is an accomplished writer, has completed nearly one-thousand screenplays and said she will likely try to bundle the cards with her screenplays to create additional value.
“I’m working on screenplay sequels to ‘Field of Dreams‘ and ‘The Natural,” Collins said. “Actually, I’m also working on a sequel to ‘Moneyball‘, which takes place in outer space and a prequel to ‘Eight Men Out.'”
In what organizers called a first-of-its-kind event, the inaugural Jean Racers track meet took place near Coma High School yesterday afternoon. Featuring athletes who compete in foot races wearing a variety of popular jeans, the event was organized by Coma physician, Dr. Jimmy and included nearly six participants.
“This is the future of organized sports,” Dr. Jimmy said about the event. “Jean racing combines humanity’s passion for foot racing with the undying desire to have denim close to one’s skin at all times.”
The new organization is officially called the JRL or Jean Racing League. Competitors can choose to compete in a wide range of races. Races are between 40 meters and 100 meters. Racers may participate in as many races as they like but must wear the specified jean style of each race. For example, yesterday’s first event was the 50-meter baggy jean sprint. It was followed by the 75-meter skinny-jean race, which ended prematurely after all four participants collapsed half-way through the contest. Instead of medals, JRL race winners are awarded stylish leather belts.
The event featured six male participants ranging in age from 13 to 54 years old. It was held on Jefferson Street, near Coma High School. Several events had to be re-run due to car interference. Dr. Jimmy said that while the event wasn’t perfect, he was encouraged by what he called a “promising start.”
Dr. Jimmy prepares for race at yesterday’s inaugural Jean Racing League event.
“While I don’t think it’s ‘Olympics-ready’ right now, I don’t have to stretch my imagination very far to see it going in that direction in the near future,” Dr. Jimmy said. “Unlike traditional track and field sprinting, you don’t need a giant stadium or fancy running clothes. Just show up in some amazing Wranglers or Levis and you’re racing.”
The league’s next event is planned for next Tuesday afternoon at 3 p.m. and will take place on Sixth Street, site of the former Grape Hut. The event is open to all ages and participants can register on the day of the event. Planned races for next week include:
– 50 meter Boot Cut
– 40 meter Boot Cut (no belt)
– 75 meter Wranglers
– 50 meter Baggy Jeans
– 63 meter Levi Classic (by invitation only)
– 20 meter Skinny Jean (NEW!)
– 100 meter Bell Bottom
– 100 meter Relaxed-Fit Relay
A participant warms up for a race.
By Thomas Steven John, Future Reporter
Wide-spread disappointment will dominate among participants in this weekend’s competitive mattress exchange.
“Coma Spring,” the annual mattress-based competition where participants bring a matress and the winners get to go home with the bed of their choice will be held this coming Saturday. Participants’ post-race views came to this reporter in a peyote-fueled fever dream.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Marlee Baumgartner, said about her impending disappointment with the used California King mattress she will win. “Still, if you don’t play, you can’t win.”
The race was started six years ago during the depths of the recession by Coma resident Sadie Cracker as a way to find affordable replacement beds. Winners have the highest combined score from five races, including the 50-yard mattess carry and three-legged race across a field of mattresses.
“If years of sleepless nights from blown springs and draw-dropping sticker shock from new mattress prices aren’t enough to motivate racers, then nothing can,” Cracker said about the race.
Marybell Davis will be one of many racers to drop out of the race after faceplanting on several mysterious stains.
“I have never been so uncomfortable and comfortable at the same time,” Davis will tell a friend after the race.
She will go home with a consolation mattress from the Coma Hyatt.
By Thomas Steven John
Coma News Daily Future Reporter
Two participants will suffer serious–although, not life-threatening–injuries in the town’s annual competition to place hats on local pets and wildlife.
Both injuries will entail damaged knees to local competitive hatters during the flightless bird segment of the annual Coma Hattin’ contest, during which contestants try to catch and “hat” a selected animal running free in a 30-feet-wide circular pen.
The coming injuries appeared to this reporter in a peyote-fueled fever dream.
Neither of the soon-to-injured competitors believed this reporter’s warnings of the imminent suffering.
“That’s the kind of anti-science zealotry that makes people distrust the media so much,” Natalie Peters said when told of her coming injury.
Peters will tear the MCL, LCL, and ACL in her right knee while chasing a clipped pigeon around the fenced Hattin ‘ ring. Instead of placing a tiny bowler hat on the bird’s head, Peters will be carted off the field in screaming pain.
The other soon-to-be injured hatter, Jax Owen, will suffer a sprained knee while trying slide tackle a chicken and place a small academic mortar board on it.
“What, did Bob put you up to this?” Owen said when a reporter told him about his looming injury. “No way that skinny S.O.B.’s gonna get me to drop out and forfeit the pot.”
Although Coma Hattin’ is a charity event steeped in the town’s pioneer history, illegal betting by spectators in bleachers surrounding the so-called thunderdome is rumored to total tens of thousands of dollars each year.
Betting among the illegal bookies in town will close abruptly after this article is published because it also reports that this year’s overall winner will be Mayor Dave Anderson.
The school day had already ended, but pairs of boys sat in a dimly lit computer lab at Coma Middle School, hunched over tablets as they worked their way through a series of games.
They were beta-testing a new program from the Coma company Smash-IT Games, which specializes in explosion-related games.
The game was “Blast Town,” based on urban fighting during the recently concluded Iraq War.
It featured challenges such as “Code Breaker,” in which they used logic to decipher a coded puzzle; and “Pipes,” which required connecting a series of pipe bombs.
Periodically during the hour-long session, Smash-IT programmer Robert McGuiness would collect feedback from the seven boys on what features they liked and didn’t like, and which worked well and not so well.
The event was a meeting of the ARRG Tech — Athletes Really Rule at Gaming — program at the Coma school. The program is designed to boost participation among middle school athletes in technology-related activities.
It was started after its organizers kept hearing from teachers that middle school athletes were losing interest in technology, said McGuiness.
Jocks approach technology differently from non-athletic kids, said McGuiness, whose childhood love of soccer in his native Scotland blossomed into a brief semi-pro career.
“These athletically inclined lads can react to losing more viscerally than most kids and smashed controllers can cut short a rich and rewarding digital experience,” he said
They also need to hear that IT careers are available to more than just the painfully uncoordinated “Marys” and antisocial stalkers, he said.
One local parent, Jax Owen, who was initially skeptical of the program, now counts himself as a leading supporter.
“While most IT jobs will never pay as well as typical jock professions like car sales, lobbying, and working as business professionals, the relatively non-existant stress and steady paychecks could provide plenty of down time hunting, fishing or just hitting the target range to blow off stream,” said Owen, who Owns Jax Used Cars.
Not only has technology changed a lot in recent years, but jocks today seem much more confident in using that technology than they were 10 years ago, MacGuiness said. The program brings in former athletes in tech-related fields to provide role models for the boys.
In May, a data scientist and former ultimate fighter will come talk to the boys, McGuiness said.
“It does spur their interest. It gets them to think ahead and to stop smashing things so much,” he said.
By Coma News Daily Staff
Who’s hot in the basement?
We have a better idea this week after the Coma Basement Association’s (CBA) long-awaited combine.
Standout prospects at the annual event to assess potential teammate’s for the CBA draft next week included Chase Donovan, whose hand-eye coordination impressed the league’s assembled coaches.
“We’re looking for switch players who can comfortably bounce back and forth between various video game platforms and old school events like ping pong, so Chase’s combination of finger dexterity and an ability to stand up shows potential,” said Jax Owen, head coach for last year’s CBA defending champions, the Digital Ballers.
The county-wide league of combined basement-based sports marked its fifth anniversary this winter. This season will feature several new European-themed events for teams to compete in, including foam-covered PVC pipe-sword fencing.
“It’s a wee bit more like wacking each other with broad swords than it is fencing,” said Robert McGuiness, the league’s first openly Scottish coach. “But the name gives it a bit of class.”
Whatever you call it, the latest event is likely to burn off plenty of insane winter-time kid energy, which is why the league exists in the first place.
“This league literally saved my life last winter,” said Sadie Cracker, a Coma mother of two young boys. “The boys seem to like it, as well, I guess.”
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