COLUMN: Wanna be startin' ... a religion

I read a few years ago how a growing number of people had started listing “Jedi” as their religion on their census forms. This makes perfect sense as a religion — it’s a powerful force for good and it’s open to everyone, as long as your midichlorian levels are high enough. And if you know what midichlorians are, George Lucas has you exactly where he wants you.

Still, it was starting to feel like it was time for a new fake belief system to pop up. Which is why I’m happy to report that a brand-new religion, “Cult of Michael Jackson” — yes, that Michael Jackson — has officially opened up shop in the heart of Jerusalem. Well, actually it’s at an art gallery in Brooklyn, but I’m sure when you’re there it feels like Jerusalem.

“We are the world, and if you are ready, you can be part of one of the most elite societies on the entire planet Earth,” claims the Cult, and I’m hoping that motto works better for them than it has for Scientology. According to their press release, “Leaders of the Cult … fully believe that the world would be a better place if everyone took Michael Jackson’s words to heart.” His actions, meh, presumably not so much.

Now, in the interest of journalism, I did some serious research into this organization, by which I mean I visited its Web site. And after looking at it for a good five minutes, I’m still not sure if they’re serious. But I guess that doesn’t matter — the Rev. Sun Myung Moon probably didn’t think people were going to take him seriously at first either, and now he spends his weekends marrying entire stadiums full of people, many of whom were only there to watch the ball game.

The religion’s legitimacy is also evident in the fact that the Cult of Michael Jackson has a Facebook page and, as of this week, 369 fans. (Well, they said it was elite.) This is exactly how Jesus would have done it if he were starting out today: “Peter, tonight before the rooster crows you will click ‘Ignore’ on me three times,” etc.

I have to admit I’m a little skeptical, though. If you’re going to pick a recently deceased celebrity to base a religion on, why not go with someone like Walter Cronkite? It’s very easy to picture acolytes in dark blue suits going up to people in airports with little Cronkitism pamphlets, asking, “Would you like to know the way it is?”

But besides Michael Jackson’s questionable personal decisions — the chimp, the hyperbaric chamber, the behavioral issues that have already proven problematic to certain other religions — there’s the fact that, like much scripture, his words were often inscrutable. For instance, I just listened to “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” at imeem.com, and I could swear that these are the actual lyrics:

Blubber, is the fill enough?
Fever, to put your swaz in now;
Powder, is the post office,
That makes it happen,
In eggs no question marks;
Paul McCartney, is evil, EVIL!

Actually, I just made up that last part. But you get the idea.

Granted, the Web site does transcribe some of the lyrics-based scripture, such as “You shall blame it on the boogie, knowing you are a danc’in machine.” But even that raises questions, such as: If I’m not pro-boogie, will I not get into Michael Jackson heaven? And more importantly, do we really need a religion that makes us feel guilty because we’re not following some arbitrary set of rules? (Another one, I mean.) And what’s with the apostrophe in the middle of “danc’in”?

Here’s what it comes down to: Personally, I think we should appreciate Michael Jackson’s vast contribution to popular music and mourn his untimely passing, but try to avoid, if at all possible, praying to him. I’m no religious fanatic, but I’m starting to think people should be pickier about who their deities are.

Which reminds me: May the force be with you.

Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England; this column appeared originally in North Shore Sunday. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. To receive At Large by e-mail, write to info@chianca-at-large.com, with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”

AT LARGE Fake News Tuesday: School Officials Protest iPod Nano Knife

CHICAGO (CAP) - The Association of American Educators (AAE) has lodged a complaint with the Apple Corporation over its new, fifth-generation iPod Nano, which includes a retractable 2 1/2-inch steel blade inside in the aluminum casing.

"The iPods were bad enough when they just distracted students with violent hip-hop music," explained Karl Sobczak, the association's secretary and assistant superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools. "But at least before you couldn't shank someone in the lunchroom with one. Well, not effectively."

Apple is downplaying the concerns, though, saying that the blade - which pops out when the click-wheel is spun rapidly counter-clockwise - is just one of numerous new Nano features, including a video camera, a voice recorder and a pedometer, as well as a GPS app that can locate the nearest coffee bar.

But a source close to the company, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said the blade was among several "strange" requests from Apple CEO Steve Jobs after he returned suddenly to the company recently, his head shaved and wearing an Under Armour camo fleece pullover in place of his trademark black turtleneck.

"The knife was just the start. We had to talk him out of the laser and the grappling hook," said the source, noting those will probably debut with the next iPod Touch.

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

COLUMN: I can buy a little help from my friends

I’ve decided I need more friends. No, not real-life friends, the ones that you see in person and who occasionally ask you to help them move. That’s far too much work.

I’m talking about Facebook friends, those people with whom your interactions are basically limited to finding out which musical instrument they are (“the sousaphone!”) and whether or not they’ve murdered anybody in Mafia Wars. Well, and sometimes they also put up pictures of their families. Those are the ones you “hide.”

Ha ha! I kid my Facebook friends. Currently I am stalled at 243 of them; some are even people whose actual company I used to enjoy before I realized how much more time-effective it was to maintain all your personal relationships over the Internet. (Which reminds me … Mom, check your wall for a post about sending more money.)

It’s a relatively miniscule number compared to the maximum allowed friend count of 5,000, so you can imagine how happy I was to get an e-mail with the subject line, “Facebook Friends Go On Sale.” I haven’t been this excited about an e-mail since the one that said “WORLD’S GREATEST COLON CLEANSER — SEE PROOF!,” although in that case I decided to take their word for it.

The e-mail refers you to a site called uSocial, which notes, “Since the inception of Facebook, people have been feverishly trying to get as many friends as they can in order to market their product or services to.” I’m pretty sure there’s an extra word in that sentence somewhere, but grammar aside, it surprised me — all along I thought Facebook was a way to connect with actual, real friends, so you could share your embarrassing pictures of your other real friends.

“But you don’t have a large following on Facebook, do you?” uSocial then asks, somehow sensing that we are all losers who might as well be marketing our product or services to the two dozen cats with whom we share our apartment. That’s where they come in.

“On average … every Facebook fan or friend you have is generally worth $1 to you per month,” they claim, proving once and for all that Facebook friends are worth more to you than actual friends. After all, how many real friends do you have that spent $1 on you last month? If they invited you somewhere and you had to bring a bottle of wine, that means they cost you $6.50.

So they say with your purchase of 1,000 friends for $177.30, you’ll earn back your money five times over. It sounds terrific, but still, the offer raises some questions — for one thing, who are all these uSocial people willing to be friends with anybody who has a spare $177.30? They have no problem playing Bejeweled Blitz in front of thousands of strangers? It sounds trashy to me.

Also, is there any way we can make this work to buy 1,000 actual, flesh-and-blood friends, each of whom can come over my house once a month and give me a dollar? If they’re willing to do that, they can be whatever the heck instrument they want.

Well, as tempting as the offer sounds, I think I’ll continue to keep my Facebook friends primarily to people I at least sort-of know. For instance, I recently used Facebook to help set up a real, in-person meeting with some old college friends and their actual real-life kids — we got together in my backyard and talked, which is sort of like exchanging status updates, except less pithy. No products or services were marketed, but the kids played baseball, which was somehow fun even though nobody got murdered or bejeweled.

Seems to me that’s a good use of Facebook, even with 243 measly friends. And I was able to use it afterwards to post pictures of us all getting together, so the real-life friends who couldn’t make it would at least see those.

Um … Unless of course they hid me. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen many “Likes” from Mom lately …

Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England; this column appeared originally in North Shore Sunday. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. To receive At Large by e-mail, write to info@chianca-at-large.com, with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”

Rejected Congressman Joe Wilson Obama heckle lines

You smell!

You stink!

Did not!

Did too!

That's retahded!

My dad can beat up your dad!

I'm rubber, you're glue, whatever I say bounces ... wait, whatever you say ... oh, you just stink!

What makes me think the congressman's secretary is going to have a long day tomorrow? (You can tweet him at @CongJoeWilson to share your thoughts on his performance tonight.)

AT LARGE Fake News Tuesday: Survey - Parents Don't Want Kids To Know Prez Is Black

WASHINGTON (CAP) - A confidential survey by CAP News shows that the majority of parents who are against President Obama's planned "speech to students" are trying to keep their children from finding out the country has a black president.

"I've managed to keep it under wraps for eight months," said 'Fred,' a parent of three elementary school children from Skokie, Ill. "I'm not about to let them blow it for me now."

Fred, along with many of the 1,000 people surveyed nationwide, say that it should be up to parents to decide when their children are ready to find out the president is black.

"I was furious when my [fourth grade] son came home from school last year and I found out they'd forced him to watch that so-called inauguration," said 'Sally,' a mother of two from Laconia, N.H. "Luckily I was able to convince him that it was just a movie starring a black man, like that funny Daddy Day Care with Eddie Murphy."

(Read the rest at CAP News.)

COLUMN: Zombie study is (un)dead on arrival

This may come as a surprise to my regular readers, but I’m here to report that I’ve officially stopped worrying about killer robots. I’ve decided there are much more productive things I could be doing with my time. With that in mind, I’ve decided to start worrying about zombies.

You may scoff, but it’s not just me who’s preoccupied with the pending zombie invasion. According to the BBC, researchers at the University of Ottawa in Canada have just completed a full-fledged scientific study into the possibility. This must be what happens after you figure out health care — your researchers can just sit around doing studies on imaginary subjects. Any day now we can expect the University of Saskatchewan to weigh in on the potential health benefits of the mist that rises off unicorns when they bathe.

The zombie study was mounted by Professor Robert Smith?, who, yes, legally added a question mark to the end of his name. Given that Prince once changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol, I’m guessing this means Professor Robert Smith? is sort of a researcher rock star — when he walks into the college cafeteria, you can bet all the other less cool researchers trip over themselves to offer him a seat and share their Ziploc bags full of carrot sticks.

But the researchers claim the zombie exercise isn’t just for fun — it “could help scientists model the spread of unfamiliar diseases through human populations,” they say. And you can bet they spent a good 10 minutes high-fiving each other when they came up with that one, knowing full well the guys in the next lab were studying which diseases cause the most open sores.

Personally, though, I’ve been thinking about the zombie problem for what I see as an equally compelling reason: because it beats thinking about things that exist in real life, like escrow. And if you know a guy who claims he’s never thought about how he’d go about barricading his home should his neighborhood ever be overrun by zombies, he’s lying. Next he’ll tell you he’s never thought of what it might be like to be bitten by a radioactive spider.

Also, it just so happens that I recently read the zombie novel “World War Z” by Max Brooks, because I’m a student of fine literature, but also because it paints a very realistic picture of the type of person who might best survive a zombie invasion. And it turns out that it’s a person who is, wait, let me check my notes … the exact polar opposite of me.

Yes, it seems people who sit at computers all day, particularly the ones with no aptitude for fashioning weapons out of shovels and scrap metal, will almost immediately be overtaken, bitten and subsequently turned into zombies. The zombie armies will apparently be teeming with newspaper editors, who frankly will not notice much of a difference.

But luckily we have the Canadian researchers, who concluded through their research that — this is the part where I’d encourage the faint of heart to sit down — “it’s important that zombies are dealt with quickly.” See, this shows the grant money used for this study was more than justified, if only to counter the burgeoning opinion that we should be taking a “wait-and-see” attitude when it comes to zombies, or possibly offering them free tuition to our state colleges. You know who you are.

No matter what, the Canadians seem to be proud of their results, even if it seems obvious they undertook the study more to blow off scientific steam than to actually prepare for a zombie plague. And good for them, but let’s face it: At the end of the day, the whole endeavor was pretty much unnecessary.

The killer robots should make short work of the zombies in no time.

Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England; this column appeared originally in North Shore Sunday. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. To receive At Large by e-mail, write to info@chianca-at-large.com, with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”

AT LARGE Fake News Tuesday: Exploding iPods Part Of Microsoft Revenge Plot

SEATTLE (CAP) - In what some are labeling an elaborate prank and others call corporate sabotage, sources close to the Microsoft Corp. say the software giant may actually be behind the rash of exploding iPods and iPhones reported throughout Europe.

Cases in both France and the UK have resulted in users being sprayed by shards of glass, and in Leicester, England last week, where a number of iPods and iPhones exploded at once, one of the city's trendiest coffee shops was practically leveled, leaving several overstuffed couches burning in flames.

"We jolly well can't have people's mobiles exploding while they're yakking on the blower, now can we?" asked UK Solicitor General Vera Baird, who has vowed to prosecute. "Rather bad form, what?"

(Read the rest at CAP News.)

On the road (movie) again

For my latest Farkakte Film Flashback over at Popdose.com, I look at some random examples of the venerable road movie, if To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar can be considered venerable. Other subjects of this random rewind include The Muppet Movie, which I propose could only be disliked by a sociopath, and From Dusk Till Dawn, which I theorize might have been made by a sociopath:

Technically this is only half a road movie, the other half being a people-turned-into-and / or-dismembered-by-vampires movie. I can’t say I actually like this movie so much as I’m fascinated by it: just when you think it can’t get any more amoral or disgusting, it throws in a scene where, say, a girl has to kill her own brother as he’s being devoured by vampire zombies. Who wants more popcorn?

See the whole darn thing here.

COLUMN: Back-to-school questions? Ask Mr. Education!

Each year around this time, we like to turn over this space to Mr. Education to answer your back-to-school questions.

***

Dear Mr. Education:

I’ve always driven my son to school, but he wants to ride the bus this year. Should I let him?

Hesitant in Harwich

Dear Hesitant:

Absolutely. He has to learn about human reproduction somewhere, and studies have shown that it’s cheaper to have him hear it on the bus than from HBO.

Dear Mr. Education:

I’m concerned because my kids love to play sports and their schools are increasing their “user fees.” What can I do?

Broke in Bennington

Dear Broke:

Never fear: Most school districts take multi-child families into account, and set rates accordingly. (For instance, one child, $200, two children, $400, three children, $600, and so on.) They also set “family caps,” in which you don’t pay more than a certain amount no matter how many kids you have, as long as you have at least 10.

Of course, some schools charge according to how much equipment is needed, which is why you should encourage soccer, swimming and/or naked rugby.

Dear Mr. Education:

I hear because of staffing cuts class sizes will be larger than ever this year. Will this affect my child’s education?

Concerned in Canton

Dear Concerned:

You may have heard the phrase “the more the merrier.” Well, that’s never truer than in a classroom when a teacher is trying to teach 27 kids of varying temperaments and abilities how to do long division. The “more” in this case refers to the amount of Xanax she is taking, but the principle is the same.

The only problem with larger classes is that overweight children sometimes can’t fit between the desks, but fortunately studies show that of all students, this only affects 70-80 percent. (Or 90, if you also include the ones who are just “big-boned.”)

Dear Mr. Education:

If childhood obesity is such an epidemic, why don’t they make school lunches healthier?

Skeptical in Saugus

Dear Skeptical:

Well, there are several reasons. One, the healthier the lunch is, the more likely it will be thrown at classmates, typically after being ground, with extreme prejudice, into a viscous paste.

Two, government subsidies are reliant upon the school cafeterias sticking to certain approved menus, meaning if they wanted healthier food they’d have to go up against the powerful breaded cheesy fish lobby, which is rumored to have killed Jimmy Hoffa, and then breaded him.

Dear Mr. Education:

I heard because of space limitations, some of my daughter’s classes will be held in school closets! How can she possibly learn in that environment?

Outraged in Ogunquit

Dear Outraged:

It’s disconcerting, but the good news is, most of the hazardous cleaning chemicals usually stored in these closets have been eliminated due to budget cuts. Many schools don’t even use cleaning products anymore — whenever something is deemed “dirty,” whatever janitor that hasn’t been laid off is instructed to simply pour sawdust on it, and wait for June to come.

Dear Mr. Education:

I’ve heard horrible stories about bullies in my child’s middle school. What can I do?

Nervous in Needham

Dear Nervous:

First of all, don’t worry. Most bullies rarely get beyond noogies and wedgies, although some guidance counselors do report seeing a resurgence of the purple nurple.

But you can still look for the signs. For instance, if your child comes home with his hair looking like the kid from Big Boy, you’ll know that, one, bullies have given him a “swirlie” by sticking his head in the toilet and flushing.

And two, they must have installed toilets on the buses.

Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England; this column appeared originally in North Shore Sunday. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. To receive At Large by e-mail, write to info@chianca-at-large.com, with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”

AT LARGE Monday Night Link Roundup

Just try to tell the real news stories from the satire. I dare you.

• I knew someday he'd go too far: "Dylan Christmas Album 'Last Straw' For Folk Festival Protestors."

• Was public grant money used for this? "Science ponders 'zombie attack.'"

• In case the literal video version left you wanting more, now we have "Total Eclipse of the Heart" -- Flowchart style.

• The Onion must have read my Youkilis column: "Mets Retaliate For David Wright Beaning By Murdering Pablo Sandoval."

• Didn't this happen in a Johnny Cash song? "Man stole motorbike -- part by part."

• It was only a matter of time: "Gangland murder tied to Facebook 'Goodfellas' quiz."

• What I do in my other life. OK, one of my other lives: "REVIEW: Springsteen has a steamy, spectacular first night in Mansfield."

COLUMN: Take me out of the brawl game

This past July my family and I had our best Red Sox experience ever: perfect weather, a great game, and we somehow got picked out of the crowd to be spotlighted on the big screen for their “Fan Stories” segment. Our only mistake was afterwards, when we didn’t sell our August tickets and start pretending baseball didn’t exist, like unicorns, or professional soccer.

Because as all parents know, when something goes that well it’s usually pointless to attempt to replicate it. And yet still we try, for the same reason George Lucas kept making all those Star Wars movies: the millions of dollars in merchandising. No, wait, it’s because we’re delusional and desperate.

So we traipsed into the Sox again last week, on what proved, unfortunately, to be the night of the bench-clearing brawl started by Kevin Youkilis. You might have seen it when it was shown on SportsCenter 5,000 times the next day, often in slow motion and sometimes with a commentator drawing X’s and O’s over the participants.

Of course, on TV a good brawl can break up the monotony of a particularly slow-moving baseball game, otherwise known as: a baseball game. But in real life, most of us have never seen anyone get assaulted, and it turns out it’s kind of ugly — particularly when the one doing the assaulting is Youkilis, who has been known to smash cinderblocks into dust with his gigantic bald head.

That was bad enough, but for my son and daughter, age 8 and 10, the crowd reaction was what really threw the night off. It didn’t help that we were stuck at the end of one of those typically Fenway-ish rows in the Grandstands, where the only way to get out of your tiny seat is by pressing yourself through a phalanx of people whose physiques are crying out for a facility with rows of tethered-together Barcaloungers. (Yankee Stadium?)

This is OK usually, but not so much when the 39,000 people around you start screaming “Kill him!” and “Hit him again!” while stomping their feet and waving their fists and other appendages. One minute you think you’re at a pleasant sporting event, and the next you realize you’ve brought your kids to a bullfight in a Hemingway novel, if Hemingway novels featured the F-word and giant beers.

Suddenly kids everywhere were bursting into tears and jumping into their parents’ arms, and mine were seriously rattled — even my diehard Sox fan son. “Why would grownups act this way?” he asked me, apparently genuinely concerned for their mental health, not to mention his own personal well being. I hate it when I don’t have answers for questions like that.

Unable to convince them that we weren’t surrounded by unstable maniacs, we wound up leaving soon after; as a result, we missed most of the game that had cost me, for tickets, food and parking — wait, let me check my records — one meeeellion dollars.

It was frustrating to say the least, and I know it’s too much to expect a crowd in that situation to rap firmly on their bowler hats and declare “Bad form, chap!” But you’d think it would be possible to keep the players from doing things that would, in everyday life, get them arrested. Seems to me if you let them commit assault and battery, the next thing you know they’re getting away with on-field arson, and Ponzi schemes.

My son still loves the Sox, although he now thinks they should trade Youkilis (for anybody — “We’ll take your worst player” is the strategy he says Theo should use), and he defaced Youkilis’ picture on the cover of his Red Sox yearbook in a manner that makes me think I should hide the spray paint when he reaches his teen years. His opinion didn’t soften much when Youkilis half-apologized for setting a bad example for kids: “He should have known kids were there to watch baseball, not a fight,” he said. “Stupid Youkilis.”

We’ll see if the incident has any long-term affects on my son’s feelings toward baseball in general, but it will probably be a while before we go to another game — which works out fine, since it will take me a while to save another meeeellion for tickets. But I hope he’ll believe me when I tell him this was an isolated incident that had nothing to do with what is essentially a fine, upstanding pastime.

Or maybe I’ll just fall back on the unicorns.

Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England; this column appeared originally in North Shore Sunday. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. To receive At Large by e-mail, write to info@chianca-at-large.com, with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”

Five observations about Canobie Lake Park in Salem, N.H.

1) At Canobie Lake, no caramel apple is so caramelly that it doesn't warrant also being covered in rainbow sprinkles.

2) Playing the Blues Brothers at 12:30, 3:30 and 5:30 at Canobie Lake is probably better than playing the talking bar of soap in Blues Clues Live, but not by much.

3) What sick bastard thought it would be fun to sit for three minutes in a gigantic spinning, swinging Frisbee? I want names.

4) If I'm spending $47 to win an 18-cent Homer Simpson doll, tell me again why the economy is in trouble?

5) Molly the Mouse is like Minnie's cousin with the good personality. I'm just saying.

Time-travel movies are on our side, yes they are

My latest "Farkakte Film Flashback" is up on popdose.com, and in honor of The Time Traveler's Wife, I'm doing a random rewind to great (and a few not-so-great) time travel movies of the distant past. No, not Back to the Future -- that would be too easy.

Instead, I'm talking about films like the classic Unidentified Flying Oddball (1979):

Full disclosure: I have not seen this Disney flick since I watched it in the theater when I was 10. Basically all I remember is that it featured an astronaut and his look-alike robot traveling back in time to meet King Arthur, the astronaut was played by a guy who’d been in every TV show ever made (although wisely didn’t use his real name in the credits to this movie), and that if smartphones had been invented in 1979, I would have probably spent the entire movie texting “WTF???” to everyone I knew.

See the whole piece here.

You know, you look just like that guy from 'Monkeybone'

Attention all Boston-area Brendan Fraser lookalikes! This is your big chance:

Do you look like Brendan Fraser? Boston Casting is seeking men who bear a striking resemblance to Brendan Fraser (THE MUMMY, JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH) for the film FURRY VENGEANCE. If you look like Fraser and are between 6? 2? and 6? 4?, e-mail a photo, contact information and height and weight to Ashley@bostoncasting.com by Friday, August 7.

For reference, look at the accompanying picture. I'll be applying, because it just so happens I look exactly like that.

Weird Al Yankovic is SO WEIRD (how weird is he?)

Oh, Weird Al, you've done it again!



The best part about this is the number of White Stripes fans who have no idea who Charles Nelson Reilly was, or vice versa. You're bringing people together again, Al!

(Make sure to watch to the end to see how to put yourself in the video.)

AT LARGE Sunday Night Link Roundup

Keeping up on satire, commentary and bizarre news from around the Web, so you don't have to:

• Absolutely, positively the best 1500 words you will ever read about a burrito.
• Uh-oh, Rush Limbaugh is not going to be happy about this. "Study: Most Of Stimulus Money Spent On Hookers."
  
• Oh good -- a language guide in which attractive women tell you how to get drunk and pick up men in foreign countries. Is it really that different than it is here?
• Best quote: "I don't think the toilet meant to scare them."
  
• The sad part is, I would actually go see this movie: "'Shawshank' Buddy Comedy In The Works."
• I think what this guy really needs is a proofreader.
• This reminds me of the time I had a six-month relationship with a Mallomar: "Snake befriends snack hamster."
  
• Where can I get me a piece of this action? "Goldman Sachs Engaging In Unregulated Baby Trading."

This is also what keeps postponing the James Blunt tour

Actual Press Release of the Day:

"It is with our deepest regrets to report the news that Jim Rose of Jim Rose Circus received a brutal beating with a metal chair, wielded by WWE wrestler Kizarny, at the Galaxy Theatre in Santa Ana this past weekend. 'His already fragile neck has been injured even further' reported doctors who have advised Jim to take the month off. The Jim Rose Circus Tour will be postponed until later this year. The Doctors say he should be healed and hopefully back on tour in September."

I hate when that happens.

The most vaguely disturbing 42 seconds of your day

Video of the American Standard Toilet Flushing Championships:

Please help, before it's too late

Welcome to my world.

Catching up with the column train

Some self-promoter I am. I've fallen shamefully behind in posting my recent columns, so my apologies to those of you who have been waiting for them (primarily relatives and shut-ins). Let's catch up now:

Life lessons from Charlie Brown? Good grief!:

There’s a particular type of person who relates to Charlie Brown. And if you’ve ever seen me try to kick a football, you know why I’m that type of person.

That’s not the only reason, of course. I’ve also suffered from an inability to talk to more than my share of little red-haired girls. And while I was never knocked flat on my back on a pitcher’s mound in my underwear, there certainly have been times when it felt like I was — like, say, my entire freshman year of high school.

Plus, my latest from GOODlife magazine, "Dad doesn't feel like a tool":

It’s always a slippery slope when one of your young children asks you what you want for Father’s Day. You can’t tell them what you really want, because it would probably deviate from the pre-approved list of fatherly gift items, made up almost entirely of things that will enable you to better fulfill your duties as man of the house. All that 72-inch wall-mounted television would do is make you into even more of a slacker than you are right now.

There you go, so you can stop sending me those letters of complaint. I'm talking to you, shut-ins.

I saw Cowboy Dan. I didn't like the look on his face. So I killed him.

Happy Fathers Day to all, and to all a good night.

Column: Things in space are getting ugly

There are certain things we simply do not yet know about interstellar space travel. For instance, once scientists finally invent warp drive, will it really look like the lasers in a Pink Floyd planetarium show? It’s just too soon to tell, although if it doesn’t turn out to look like that, somebody will have not earned his grant money.

But one thing we’ve always been able to say with relative certainty is that most space travelers will be — and I mean this in a completely dispassionate, scientific way — better looking than you. No offense intended, but if there’s one thing we’ve learned it’s that it’s very difficult to be taken seriously in space unless you look like Harrison Ford or Sigourney Weaver, especially in your underwear.

This is why new information from astrobiologist Dr. Lewis Dartnell is so shocking. According to the Telegraph of London, Dartnell says the effects of long-term interstellar space travel will actually leave astronauts looking short, fat and bald. No word on what Dr. Dartnell looks like, but I can’t help but wonder if he’s just jealous of the better-looking space travelers who got to make time with Leeta, the sexy Bajoran woman from episode 131 of “Star Trek: DS9.” Um … you, know, generally.

[Read the rest of AT LARGE by Peter Chianca here.]

At Large Wednesday Night Link Roundup

• This just in: Baboons love "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me." And what's not to love?
• Fozzie Bear made a surprise appearance in the opening of the The Late Late Show on CBS. I didn't know Muppets stayed up that late.
• I want to party with these people.
• Loved "UP" and agreed with the review at Entertaiment Weekly, but I found this reader comment troubling: "This movie and Drag Me To Hell are both AWESOME!"
• From Funny or Die: The Blue Man Group weren't always just Blue Men. Check them out before they were stars.
• You know who you are: "Concert Crowds Go Silent As Twittering Runs Rampant."

And finally, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Literal Videos may be the best pop culture trend since .... well, ever:

Column: Psst ... What does a yellow light mean?

I recently got an e-mail from someone at GMAC Insurance who asked the question, “If licensed Massachusetts residents had to take a written drivers test today, would they pass?” According to the e-mail, “that answer is up for debate,” by which I presume they mean, “not in a million, trillion years.”

Not because people from Massachusetts never really learn how to drive — it’s because the circumstances of driving here actually force you to forget. If you wind up being the only driver on the road who knows when not to pass, who has the right of way in a rotary and how to drive in the snow without panicking, the other drivers will all talk about you. Usually at the top of their lungs, with their middle fingers bobbing in the air like little flesh-colored danger buoys.

According to GMAC, Massachusetts placed 45th out of 50 states when re-taking the written test. Of course, the results might be slightly skewed, given that its primary respondents were probably shut-ins who found it on the Internet — had more actual drivers taken the exam, the National Guard would already be here forcibly shutting down our roads.

[For the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca, click here.]

At Large Tuesday Night Link Roundup

It's been a while, so here's an extra-long list of satire stories and real news stories you're going to wish were satire. See if you can tell them apart.

• I want one! "New iPhone App Lets Users Talk To Each Other"

• "Spanish study shows cocaine in the air in 2 cities." Hmm ... Has anyone tested Miami lately?

• This is why I love Joe Biden: "Biden Reveals Location of Secret VP Bunker." "Come on in and get me, I dare ya!"

• It was bound to happen eventually: "America's 6-Year-Olds Denounce The Wiggles."

• More to the Iran Facebook story than meets the eye: "Iran Bans Facebook After No One Friends Prez." Poor Mahmoud.

• Well, if this doesn't make the price increase worth it, nothing will: "Newsweek To Go All-Obama, All The Time."

• Exhibit A as to why you should never eat something that's a color that doesn't occur in nature.

• At least he was selling them, not assembling them in his basement: "Mortician sentenced to 5 years for stealing body parts."

• Was Joe Biden somehow involved? "U.S. Releases Secret List of Nuclear Sites Accidentally."

Column: What's in a name? Sometimes not much

My sister and her husband recently welcomed a new baby, a blessed event that was of course preceded by the usual litany of name suggestions from the rest of the family. For instance, my brother suggested “Bubba,” and I wish I could tell you he was kidding.

Naming a baby is always a challenge — I know when my kids (Jacqueline and Timothy) were born, our main goal was to not pick a name that sounded like it was invented in the last 20 minutes. I only say this because of the number of kids named after artificial sweeteners or a type of scarf, a figure that, if the names parents scream at the mall are any indication, I’d put at about 85 percent. (“Splenda! Aspartame! Stop making fun of little Pashmina!” etc.)

Case in point is the annual list of most popular baby names, which came out recently and which confirmed, among other things, that there is nothing that can’t be turned into a name with just a little creativity and a complete disregard for the child’s future mental health.

[Read the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca here.]

In their defense, Ludacris was the musical act, so maybe he drove them to it

Back when I was at Tufts -- let's just say it was post-Bee Gees but before college kids all had cell phones stapled to the sides of their heads -- the annual Spring Fling concert usually ended with authorities having to call an ambulance for some idiot freshman who'd ingested enough alcohol to power a twin-engine Cessna. Ah, those were the days.

Because now, apparently, the stupidity isn't limited to that one freshman. According to Wicked Local Medford, 30 (that's 3-0) Tufts students fell ill from drinking at the school’s Spring Fling concert last month -- enough to cause the Medford Police to declare a "Mass Casualty Incident."

Tufts implemented a new policy for the Spring Fling this year where any bags brought to the concert needed to be transparent. Not to be thwarted, many students reportedly drank their fill of alcohol before the show. The unseasonably hot temperatures of the day took care of the rest.

What's scary is ... these people were smart enough to get into Tufts.

Column: Making the most of your edu-vacation

There comes a time in every parent’s life when you realize that you want the family vacation to be about more than riding roller coasters or sitting on a beach. You want it to be educational and enriching, and to foster an appreciation for the importance of our heritage. This is of course a huge error, right up there with suggesting your kids exercise “independent thought.”

Because if you’ve already been to Disney World, finding yourself on vacation in, say, a huge (albeit historical) cemetery can be a hard sell for the under-10 set. And it turns out that telling them how much %$&#! money you spent to get them there carries way less weight with kids than it ought to.

With that, I thought it could be useful if I shared what I learned on our recent family vacation to our nation’s capitol, Washington D.C., a destination whose dearth of roller coasters is more than mitigated by its statues of dead guys. At least, that’s what we were banking on.

[Read the rest of AT LARGE by Peter Chianca here.]

At Large Wednesday Night Link Roundup

☛ Scientists engineer a glow-in-the-dark dog. Finally, a solution to the dire tripping-over-dogs-in-the-dark problem.

☛ New reports indicate that Yes-Asia tour promises to be this summer's most annoying.

☛ OK, I take back everything I ever said about "Footloose" being a bunch of baloney.

☛ I knew it! "Report: Cosmo Has Run Same Article Every Month For 27 Years."

☛ And finally, Thanks to my daughter's spot-on Jonas Brothers impersonation, I now have "(I Fell in Love With the) Pizza Girl" stuck in my head. The only thing would be worse would be if I had the video in there with it.



Darn it. There it is.

Column: Have you thanked your mother today?

It’s Mother’s Day, the time of year when children honor their mothers by taking them out to brunch. This way Mom can have a nice, relaxing meal, and still be back home early enough to do all the laundry, shop for groceries and vacuum up all the crumbs from the brunch doggie bags.

Of course, as a child you just take for granted that your mother will do all these things happily in exchange for that one meal a year and a construction paper sunflower you made in art class. It’s not until you have kids of your own that you realize being a mother can be a pretty thankless job, sort of like being Joe Biden’s press secretary.

With that in mind, I thought I would take this opportunity to thank my own mother for some of the things she had to put up with when I was a kid. Granted, I never came home with a tattoo on my neck or set the house on fire (the latter mostly just out of sheer luck), but I figure it still couldn’t have been easy putting up with the following:

[For the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca, click here.]

How reading newspapers can keep you from getting rabies

Amid the whole kerfuffle over the Boston Globe and its possible (and now apparently averted) shutdown, some people have wondered aloud why it is that we need newspapers. Is it because they are guardians of the public trust? Watchdogs of government malfeasance? The place where you can read “Wizard of Id”? Well, yes, all those things … But mostly it’s because newspapers save lives.

When Megan Kulikoski picked up her Saugus Advertiser on the morning of Thursday, April 30, she immediately panicked. A front-page story about a rabid cat that had attacked three other Saugus residents grabbed her attention. At that moment she realized she had been attacked by the same black cat on the morning of April 22.

Thanks to that newspaper report (which she noticed because it was on the top of the front page, not because she happened to click on a link somewhere), Kulikoski was able to get potentially life-saving rabies treatment — just a few more days and it would have been too late.

So the moral of this story is, all of you people who say that we don’t need newspapers will be singing another tune when newspapers are gone and you all have rabies.

My trip, Tweeted

I've been back for a week, but feel like I'm still catching up from our family vacation to Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Penn State. I thought going back to work would help me to relax, but people keep asking me to do stuff, even though my head is down on my desk and I'm making grunting noises.

Hence my lack of posts, but until I get back in the swing of things, you can relive my trip here if you missed these on Twitter while I was away:

11:52 AM Apr 21st: At the Vince Lombardi Rest Area - it's everything I dreamed it would be!

I had a $7 turkey sandwich there about which Mr. Lombardi might have said, "This turkey sandwich isn't everything ... It's the only thing!"

3:58 PM Apr 21st: Rainy Boston to NY - sun came out in NJ + now it's sunny and 70 in Baltimore. God bless Jersey.

Unfortunately the sun only lasted until right before the Orioles game started, at which point I was sure the entire grounds crew was going to be struck by lightning. I'm pretty sure we could have somehow credited Jersey with that too.

8:13 PM Apr 21st: Rain delay at Camden Yards - guy just came around selling hot chocolate. They're no fools.

In retrospect, it was more like warm chocolate.

7:14 AM Apr 22nd: Made it for the 7:15 a.m. White House tour! Later: a nap.

If you're doing the math, you'll realize that we had to make it to that 7:15 tour from Baltimore, meaning we left at about 5:15 a.m. But it was worth it, because my kids got to see a secret service agent walking Bo, the First Dog. He (the agent, not the dog) had a look on his face that seemed to say nobody had mentioned anything about this in secret service school.

11:07 PM Apr 22nd: Night tour of the monuments was fantastic! My camera picked up many interesting blurs.

It would help if they let us open the windows on the trolley.

9:08 AM Apr 24th: Museum of Natural History -- a little obsessed with the dinosaurs. I'm just saying.

I'm pretty sure the place is designed so that every time you turn a corner, there's the skeletal remains of something. It's like being in a Grateful Dead video.

8:16 AM Apr 25th: What I learned at Mt. Vernon: George Washington was DREAMY! At least according to the little movie.

It's true -- the movie was good, but I got a little uncomfortable when George started giving Martha the goo-goo eyes. Some guy in the back shouted "Get a room!"

9:10 PM Apr 25th: At Penn State ... When did they pass the law that college girls had to dress like Julia Roberts at the start of Pretty Woman?

This was what we got for going out after 9 p.m. on a day when it was above 60 degrees. If their shorts had gotten any shorter, they would have been halter tops. Luckily, I thought quickly and told my daughter they must all be going to a ginormous costume party, dressed as hookers.

10:37 PM Apr 26th: I go away for a few days and suddenly the whole world is swine flu crazy. And here I thought I had run out of things to worry about.

Did somebody just cough???

D.C. or bust!

Top 5 things I hope to see on our family vacation to Washington DC this week:

1. Michelle Obama's arms.
2. Fonzie's jacket, so my kids can say, "Who's Fonzie?" and I can launch into a 45-minute dissertation on "Happy Days" and its various spin-offs.
   
3. The Washington Nationals literally implode, so that they're just nine little piles of dust scattered around the diamond.
4. Nancy Pelosi freeze John Boehner into a solid mass of ice with her frosty glare, like Arnold Schwarzenegger did to to the T-1000 in "Terminator 2."
5. That Wonkette lady. I know she's there somewhere.

I'll try to live-Tweet my touristy travels around our nation's capitol -- follow me (@pchianca) on Twitter so you'll be the first to know when I meet Bo the dog, or Joe Biden.

Column: Every picture tells a story, unfortunately

Last week my mother, who is now retired and as a result finally has time to go through her closets, presented me with a large box of photographs from my teen years that I had apparently abandoned there when I moved out. Looking through them was an eye-opening experience, similar to what I imagine it must have been like for Nick Nolte when he first opened the paper and saw his mugshot.

Mostly, I was struck by how many of the events in these pictures were completely foreign to me now. Have I actually gotten so old that there are huge swaths of my almost-adult life that have disappeared completely from my memory? After all, it wasn’t that long ago, no matter what my bushy mane of ’80s hair and my seemingly slavish devotion to vertical stripes (in colors that disappeared forever during the grunge era) would seem to indicate.

But sure enough, there I was participating in activities I had no recollection of whatsoever. For instance:

• Whooping it up with the high school Celtic Society. I was in the Celtic Society? Since I’m not the least bit Irish, this must have either been to pad my resume for college applications, or because of my almost unhealthy fascination with U2.

• Participating in some sort of field day event that involved a tug of war. It looked vaguely familiar, but if there wasn’t a picture of it I would have just assumed I was remembering an episode of “Battle of the Network Stars.” I kept scanning the line of tuggers for Robert Conrad.

• Standing next to a life-sized cardboard cutout of Ronald Reagan. At least I think it was cardboard — if it actually was Reagan then I’m going to assume my memory was actually erased by the CIA.

[For the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca, click here.]

AT LARGE Wednesday Night Link Roundup

» The latest sign of the impending apocalypse.

» In honor of Easter, here's a web site full of old Jews telling jokes.

» Speaking of Easter ... What about those poor abandoned pet bunnies! Good thing we have Popeyes.

» From Friend of At Large Jeff Vrabel: "So, wait, pirates are jerks now?" (Related note: In the old days, did pirates have spokespeople who talked to the press?)

» Finally, a plan! "USA Today To Run Only Pictures Of Attractive People."

And in conclusion, the reason I didn't go into TV news:

Column: My kingdom for some cable!

During the ice storms this past winter, we didn’t lose power or heat, have to move to a shelter or take refuge on the roof to wait for rescue boats. So it would probably seem silly for me to complain about the two weeks we were without cable TV.

That said … Those were the worst two weeks of my life.

OK, so maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. It’s just that I’d never realized the comfort we took in the soft glow coming off Larry King’s wrinkled face, or that the kids got from the canned laughter taking up the empty crevasses of our household via the Disney Channel. Without it we were faced with an unexpected need to fill that void with something else. Like, you know, conversation.

So you can appreciate the severity of the circumstances.

At first I thought we could fall back on the hundreds of kids’ DVDs we’d accumulated over the years — silly me. “But those are BORING!” they declared, in that way they have of talking in unison whenever I suggest something really stupid.

[Read the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca here.]

AT LARGE Wednesday night link roundup

» Oh good, now there's a toddler robot. Because that robot fashion model wasn't creepy enough.

» Iowa marriage ruling hits a (fake) bump.

» New Segway no less geeky than the last one, just shorter and wider.

» Cruise and Travolta as Butch and Sundance? Better would be Clooney and Pitt. Or Bert and Ernie.

Column: A pizza vending machine? Sounds cheesy

I’ve been trying to eat healthier lately in anticipation of my annual physical, but the whole world seems to be conspiring against me. For instance, every time I open the refrigerator, there’s food there.

The latest obstacle to my quest for a healthy lifestyle is an invention out of Italy that, in retrospect, has probably been a long time coming: the pizza vending machine. Darn it … I figured I was safe when I conditioned myself to resist the one that dispensed egg salad sandwiches.

And the machine doesn’t just sell the pizza — it’s actually a mini pizzeria that kneads the dough, spreads the toppings and bakes a personal pizza in just three minutes as you watch through a little window. The only downside is you have to get it out of the machine with a metal claw.

[Click here for the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca.]

AT LARGE Wednesday Night Link Roundup

» Like "Dead Man Walking" ... but funny!

» Sad news from fake political circles: "Gov. Jindal Incinerated While Visiting Alaska Volcano."

» Stop everything! Weird Al Yankovic is on Twitter! (Yes, Al remains the most famous person I've ever interviewed. At least until Bruce Springsteen starts returning my calls.)

» "Serenity now!" See 99 Seinfeld references crammed into one poster. Maybe if we all close our eyes and clap our hands as hard as we can, that show will come back on the air ...

» I know it's April Fool's Day ... But who can joke when poor Robin Williams is suffering at the hands of an irreverent, clown-nosed doctor?

Remember that scene in 'Alien' when the creature pops out of the guy's chest? This is worse.

God help us all.





















There's more at nymag.com ... if you dare.

Column: At 40, the eyes (don't) have it

They say when you turn 40 everything starts to go. I figured this was a myth until I turned 40 and woke up to find I had made a Kafkaesque transformation into Ernest Borgnine.

First of all there’s my struggle with vitamin D deficiency, which has been well documented previously in this space. I’m happy to report that my levels are now approaching normal, thanks to daily vitamin supplements and getting more sunlight, primarily by sticking my head out the car window like a golden retriever.

But now I have another problem, one that I’d hoped could be attributed to the fact that I hadn’t cleaned my computer monitor since “twitter” was still just a nervous tic common among schoolgirls. Instead, it’s my vision that’s made me have to pump up my screen font to comical proportions, so that everything I work on looks like a children’s book. All that’s missing are the colorful watercolor drawings of frogs in pants.

[Read the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca here.]

AT LARGE Wednesday Link Roundup

☛ Better, stronger, faster: Man replaces lost finger with USB drive. A whole new meaning to "pull my finger."

☛ Watch Statler & Waldorf's appearance on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon." Frankly, they should have given them this slot.

☛ Wait, is this possible? "Non-A**hole Discovered On Twitter." Sounds like an urban myth to me.

☛ Finally saw a picture of the robot model and found her vaguely attractive, in a department store mannequin kind of way. Disturbing.

☛ Oh, good -- I thought this might have been a gag. That would have just been cruel.

Update: US is kicking Japan's robotic butt

You may recall my recent concern over the robot teacher being tested in Japan. I was worried that it might not be as effective as a real teacher, and also, it might represent the first wave of our eventual enslavement by killer cyborgs. Taken together, those things spell "red flag" to me.

But as it turns out, the Japanese aren't even all that when it comes to robotics. Right here in the good ol' USA -- at U.C. San Diego, to be precise -- they've already overtaken the Japanese, designing a robot with 31 motors in the face, not just 19, that can READ facial expressions, not just mimic them. All at the bargain price of $75,000! If it could only play baseball you could replace the entire Red Sox starting lineup for less than we're paying Manny Delcarmen.

And as if that weren't enough, it doesn't look like a QVC host like the Japan model -- it looks like Albert Einstein! See the amazing and yet still vaguely creepy video here. And the best part is, you'll notice it has no arms and legs, making its potential role in world domination marginal at best.

Column: So these two Romans walk into a bar …

The problem with historians and archeologists is they’re always turning up things nobody really needs, like clay pots and pieces of old wallpaper, rather than items that could actually be useful, like all-powerful Arks of the Covenant. I’m speaking generally here.

That’s why I was excited to read about the latest historical discovery out of Cambridge University: the world’s oldest joke book, featuring gags from the Roman Empire. Professor Mary Beard told the Guardian of London that the book would dispel the myth that Romans were “pompous, toga-wearing bridge builders,” although I never really thought of them that way … Seems to me a culture has to have a sense of humor if it can manage to go 500 years without pants.

Here’s one of the jokes, which is apparently typical of the lot: “A man buys a slave, who dies soon after. When he complains, the slave seller replies, ‘Well, he didn’t die when I owned him.’” Ha ha! It’s funny, because it’s true!

Still, the concept of the world’s oldest joke book piques my interest for several reasons, not the least of which is that my late grandfather was a stand-up comedian back in the days when comedians really told jokes — mostly other people’s jokes. In fact, he bequeathed to me his copy of “The Complete Comedian’s Encyclopedia” by Robert Orben, which I think may have been the world’s second oldest joke book.

[Read the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca here.]

[Need some joke suggestions? These will make you the life of the party.]

The wearing of the green

Happy St. Patrick's Day from everyone's favorite green celebrity. (Sorry, it's not the Hulk.)

Column: That's MR. Roboto to you

Even in a poor economy, we’re always going to need teachers. Because someday things are going to get better, and someone has to teach children the skills they’ll need to ruin everything again when it’s their turn.

But now it seems even teachers have to worry: It just came out that scientists in Japan are testing an actual robot teacher at a primary school in Tokyo. Yes, I’m referring to a teacher created entirely in a lab, and presumably programmed not to get burnt out, surly or despondent over the fact that smoking is no longer allowed in the teachers’ lounge.

According to the Telegraph of London, the robot can “carry out roll calls, set tasks and make facial expressions — including anger — thanks to 19 motors hidden behind her latex face.” That last part strikes me as wholly unnecessary, given that some of my best teachers had pretty much only one facial expression, hovering somewhere between incredulity and bemused indifference. (They know who they are.)

[Read the rest of this week's AT LARGE by Peter Chianca here.]

It's less creepy that that Burger King guy, but only vaguely

So Jack in the Box got hit by a bus, was in a coma for 2 weeks, and is now giving away free fries? How did I miss this?



Maybe it's because all we've got around here is Wendy's.

Column: Looking for a few good (piano) men

Has anyone noticed that our elected officials keep talking nonstop about the impending economic Armageddon? Whatever happened to all that hope we were supposed to have? These days it’s pretty much limited to hoping that everything you own isn’t foreclosed upon in your sleep, so you wake up lying in the middle of a field in your underwear.

But never fear, everything’s about to get better. It turns out Billy Joel and Elton John are coming back to town to help you forget about your troubles with their finely crafted pop nuggets. Since they’ll be playing football stadiums, you should probably note for future reference that Billy Joel will be the little bald dot, and Elton John will be the pear-shaped dot that looks like it’s had the most expensive hair transplant known to man.

Now, I should mention that in my youth I had what you might call extreme affection for these two men and their music, particularly Billy Joel. I had all his albums, and when I was in high school he married Christie Brinkley, an action that gave great hope to all of mankind. Or at least the segment of mankind that looked like Billy Joel.

So call it a desire to relive my youth, but I actually thought about trying to get tickets to their upcoming tour, which stops at Gillette Stadium in July. And then I saw the ticket price, $179.50, and my fond nostalgia was immediately replaced by a desire to paddle both of them furiously in the buttocks with an overstock vinyl copy of “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy.”

[Click here for the rest of this week's At Large by Peter Chianca.]

Column: Requiem for a Newspaper

In the newspaper biz these days, to say we open up forwarded e-mails from our colleagues with trepidation is an understatement. There’s always the chance that the next one you click on will bring with it the news that the entire industry has collapsed in a cloud of dust and tumbleweeds, and we should all just pack up our AP Style Manuals and head home.

And sure enough, I got one last week that hit me particularly hard: Turns out the community weekly that covered my childhood hometown of Carmel, N.Y., had closed for good, a victim of the Journal Register Company’s recent bankruptcy.

The Putnam County Courier was pretty much the only paper that had any idea of what the people there were up to — the local daily, at least when I lived there, seemed to consider us a quaint little extension of Westchester that was only really worth dipping into if someone was lucky enough to get run over by the Metro North train on its way to New York City.

[Click here for the rest of this week's At Large by Peter Chianca.]

Ryan DID start the fire

If you watch "The Office," you must watch this:

Column: Confused about commerce? Ask Dr. Business!

This week, we turn our column over to Dr. Business, our expert on finance and the economy, to answer your business questions.

Dear Dr. Business:
What will the proposed merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation mean for concertgoers?

Music Fan in Mashpee

Dear Music Fan:
Well, essentially the merger will create an entity so powerful that it will be able to make you see any concert it wants, so be prepared to be sitting in the 12th row for the Dexy’s Midnight Runners reunion tour, having paid $300 for your ticket and not knowing what hit you.

Also, all tickets will be sold by auction, meaning admission to a Madonna or Bruce Springsteen show might wind up costing thousands of dollars. But on the plus side, if you go see Journey with the fake lead singer, they might wind up paying you.

Dear Dr. Business:
What will the new stimulus package mean to me and my family?

Hopeful in Hopkinton

Dear Hopeful:
If you’re an average, middle-class family, you should wind up seeing an extra $13 per week in your paycheck. But if you really want to stimulate the economy, you should take that $13 and use it as a down payment on a $2,500 HDTV, and then when you find that you can’t make the payments anymore, just stop answering your phone. Trust me, I think that will work this time.

Dear Dr. Business:
I found out my credit score is in the high 500s. Do you think I’ll be able to get a loan?

Desperate in Dorchester

Dear Desperate:
It’s too bad you weren’t asking me that question a year ago, when you could have walked into the bank with that credit score and the loan officer would have issued you the loan, given you a case of fine champagne and, in some cases, kissed you full on the mouth, like the Bikini Girl did to Ryan Seacrest. But these days, she is more likely to take out her book of actuarial tables, look through it slowly and carefully, and then use it to bludgeon you to death.

Dear Dr. Business:
How might I know if my company is planning to lay me off?

Worried in Wellesley

Dear Worried:
There are a few telltale signs, such as being asked to cover the front desk so the receptionist can attend the all-staff meeting. But another thing to watch out for is if, while passing by your boss, you hear her mumble, “Dead man walking,” and when you say, “What?” she says, “Oh, nothing” and then snickers to herself. Boy, did I find that out the hard way.

Dear Dr. Business:
Is it true this is a bad time to try to sell my house?

Cash-Strapped in Canton

Dear Cash-Strapped:
Frankly, there is not much chance anyone will have an interest in your house at this time, unless you abandon it in the middle of the night and leave the door open and unlocked. And even then it’s unlikely, because people will figure you’re just setting a trap and plan to lure them into a pit in your basement.

It is, however, a good time to sell your car, assuming you’re selling it to be used as a house.

Dear Dr. Business:
I read how executives are complaining about having to limit their salaries to $500,000 if their companies take government bailout money. How can they possibly not afford to live on $500,000?

Skeptical in Scranton

Dear Skeptical:
You’d be surprised how fast that $500,000 goes. For one thing, they might need to buy concert tickets.

Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. Find more at North Shore Sunday, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. To receive At Large by e-mail, write to info@chianca-at-large.com, with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”

Luke, I have a bra dryer on my head

I'm a little concerned that the bra dryer looks like Darth Vader:

Publish Post

Wait, no, my mistake. That's Wall-E. Whoa, even more disturbing.