I miss my former co-worker and former fellow columnist Jennifer Christman. I was especially fond of a feature she ran periodically in her Spin Cycle column: "All the News That's Fit to Razz."
With her permission, I've drawn from the newsy events hanging out on the sidelines to resurrect Jenn's creation. Back, with a new author:
All the News
That's Fit to Razz
• Temperatures in the Siberian town of Verkhoyansk recently hit 100.4 degrees ... a record-high temperature in an area considered one of the world's coldest spots in the winter (as low as minus 90 degrees, and its average June temps usually reach only 68).
So, would this be a case of "heaven boiling over"?
• Twelve German postal workers received medical treatment and "dozens" more were evacuated June 20 due to a very stinky package that turned out to be a shipment of the Thai durian fruit. The fruit is prized for its flavor and texture, but its rotten-food/dirty-sock smell is so bad it's banned from lots of hotels as well as Singapore's subway system.
Somehow, "Durian, durian, the musical fruit. Good to eat, but smells like a ... " doesn't have the same charm as the original song about beans.
• Nearly 60,000 pounds of chicken nuggets are being recalled. Why? Because they might contain a rubber substance.
Wait, don't throw those nuggets out. Save 'em for when we can go back to having banquets!
• A ginormous prehistoric monument has been discovered near Stonehenge in England. "Archaeologists ... found evidence of at least 20 prehistoric shafts ... on the ancient site where Stonehenge sits," according to CNN. "The shafts combine to form a circle more than two kilometers (1.2 miles) in diameter" and has been determined to have been created about 4,500 years ago. "The first stage of Stonehenge was constructed around 3,000 B.C" ... a bit over 5,000 years ago. The archaeologists suspect the shafts, which are about two miles northeast of Stonehenge — "were built as a boundary to a sacred area or precinct associated with the henge."
And, millennia later, nothing's changed ... your average highway construction job and its ancillary projects take about 500 or so years from start to finish, too.
• A dissed restaurant worker gets some mad financial love. A Starbucks coffee server received nearly $80,000 in tips after being publicly shamed by a customer who was asked to wear a face mask, and who refused. The flipped bird and a few choice cuss words weren't enough; the offended customer shared a photo of the guy along with her social-media rant. A dude sympathetic to the Starbucks employee began a GoFundMe page on his behalf.
If this keeps up, some doctor, investment banker or rocket scientist may begin to think they're in the wrong line of work.
• Fellas looking for dates were recently advised not to post photos of themselves with cats if they want to attract the ladies. This advice comes from a Colorado State University study. Concluded the study's authors: "Men holding cats were viewed as less masculine; more neurotic, agreeable, and open; and less dateable."
Ah. So ... bring on those hyper-masculine, python-clutching, narcissistic, disagreeable, emotionally-distant treasures the ladies just love!
• "A Quebec man preparing to finally throw out his orphaned left hockey skate seven years after losing its twin discovered the long-lost ice skate hanging from a sign," according to a UPI.com story posted Monday.
Remember that story. Don't just check the power lines for your missing sneaker(s).
• A Louisiana man was recently video-ed going for a swim in the aquarium of his friendly neighborhood Bass Pro Shop in Bossier City. He told authorities he was making good on a promise to pull the stunt if he got 2,000 likes on TikTok.
Hear this, you Bass Pro Shop fishes: If you don't act right, you'll swim with the people.
• A 10-year-old lad in England set a Guinness World Record for solving 196 multiplication and division problems in a minute. He did this spending "some of his covid-19 lockdown time practicing math on the Times Table Rock Stars app," according to another story from UPI, posted June 26.
So he'll grow up to become a left-brained, well-compensated member of society ... but after seeing a story about a dissed coffee server garnering an 80-grand tip, he'll wonder whether he's in the wrong line of work.
All the email that's fit to send:
hwilliams@adgnewsroom.com