National Journal: House Burglaries Baffle Staff, Police
In each case, items stolen were high in street value. Computer monitors, cameras, and cash were taken most frequently; other items included blazers, personal iPods, and in three cases, alcohol. Lewis's office reportedly lost four signed baseballs, six bottles of wine, and a $200 set of presidential Easter eggs.What kind of monster steals Easter eggs???
TECH NEWS RUMOR INSIDER
Hey, I finally got around to fixing all the tags and stuff on Tech News Rumor Insider... as a reminder, the homepage has been preserved indefinitely, so be sure to check out the latest page or follow one of its many social network off-shoots for all the latest stories...
What the heck is the point of this? Is Twitter going to decide the election? Does that mean our next president is Justin Bieber???
INT. DAYCARE - DAY
A BABY is playing with some wooden blocks. A COOL TODDLER waddles up to him.
COOL TODDLER
Pfft, you're still playing with blocks?
The baby looks ashamed.
COOL TODDLER
You gotta get yourself some Legos, dog...
He reveals a box full of LEGO® brand bricks. The baby reaches out and takes one, eyeing it curiously.
COOL TODDLER
They're like Blocks Platinum...
I like that none of the female characters in B.C. have names or identities
I researched Mr. Pibb - did you know it's a product of the Coca-Cola company? - and discovered there's a Mr. Pibb fansite called pibbthug.com, which is the best possible name for a Mr. Pibb fansite.
After re-reading David Foster Wallace's "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" in preparation for this article - well, actually, finished reading after a long hiatus - I've come to the the conclusion that of all his eccentricities - the footnotes, his dictionary obsession, the stupid bandana, his memorization of shark fatalities - by far his weirdest quirk was his preference for Mr. Pibb over Dr Pepper:
And now as I'm getting ready to go down to lunch I'm mentally drafting a really mordant footnote on my single biggest peeve about the Nadir: soda-pop is not free, not even at dinner: you have to order a Mr. Pibb from the 5☆CR.'s maddeningly E.S.L.-hampered cocktail waitress just like it was a fucking Slippery Nipple, and then you have to sign for it right there at the table, and they charge -- and they don't even have Mr. Pibb; they foist Dr Pepper on you with a maddeningly unapologetic shrug when any fool knows Dr Pepper is no substitute for Mr. Pibb, and it's an absolute goddamned travery, or at any rate extremely dissatisfying indeed.89
Come on dude. Everyone knows Mr. Pibb is a cheap knock off of Dr Pepper. That's like preferring whatever the generic Wal-Mart brand of cola is called (Sam's Choice?) over the Big Three (Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and RC Cola). Not to say that Mr. Pibb and Wal-Mart Cola don't have their appeal, but claiming they're equal to or even superior to the real thing is madness.
I was reading up on Jeopardy! (been watching it regularly since I moved back to California) and I learned that for April Fool's Day in 1997*, Alex Trebek hosted Wheel of Fortune, with Pat Sajak and Vanna White as contestants. I managed to find the whole episode on Dailymotion. It's kind of funny to see Trebek awkwardly out of his element (he makes a big goof in the bonus round) and he also seems much younger than he does today, while Sajak and White generally look the same, although the footage is pretty grainy. Of note: Trebek says the last time he'd been on Wheel was "sixteen years ago" and at the end he jokes that he can't wait to be back in another sixteen years. If they decide to do it again next year, 2013, his joke will have come true 
*Same date as the Comic strip switcheroo, thereby making it The Best April Fool's Day
Some hockey fans chose to express their frustration with Washington Capitals forward Joel Ward scoring the game-winning overtime goal against the Boston Bruins (thereby knocking them out of contention for the Stanley Cup) with, let's say, heated language on Twitter. I collected some of the most egregious examples on Chirpstory (warning: racist language) and it's getting linked in a whole bunch of places, like USA Today, Washington Post, and Yahoo! Sports. I was far from the first to notice the tweets and I don't want credit for "curation," but I thought I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it here.
Wow... can't believe President Obama would associate with a known criminal who just recently got out of jail... and while he's running for office, for Pete's sake! Who approved this??
This is just... I can't even... 
... I can't decide which aspect is worst:
Gotta give Bruce Tinsley some credit, though... he can say a lot in very few words. (via)
Spacely Sprockets are a brand of Predator drone. George Jetson is one of the drone pilots. The button he always complains about having to push all day is the "LAUNCH MISSILE" button.
Had a great idea a few days ago for a video game... it's basically like the Super Smash Bros. series (or perhaps Nicktoons Unite!) only with NBC's Thursday lineup... someone is trying to destroy the NBC multiverse and characters from each sitcom/universe (Community, 30 Rock, The Office, Parks & Recreation) have to band together to stop it... also there's some fighting and kart racing involved. Each level takes place at a different locale from one of the shows (Dunder Mifflin, TGS soundstage, City Hall, Greendale cafeteria)... plus there'll be lots of bonus unlockable characters, including the casts of former NBC shows like Seinfeld, Cheers, Friends, etc. Still working out the details... please donate to the Kickstarter fund...
I didn't know nothin' about Ted Turner until I read his Wikipedia bio last night and now I think he's my favorite media mogul
Turner has a long-running grudge with fellow cable magnate Rupert Murdoch. This originated in 1983 when a Murdoch-sponsored yacht collided with Turner's boat during the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, causing it to sink 10 km from the finish line. At the post-race dinner, Turner savaged Murdoch, later challenging him to a televised fistfight in Las Vegas.[27] In 2003, Turner challenged Murdoch to a fistfight, and later accused Murdoch of being a "warmonger" as Murdoch was backing President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq.
I mean, come on!
It's kind of a shame he lost control of his empire
Hopefully by now you saw my April Fools thing which ended up being almost a day late. Since I've reused Tech News Rumor Insider a couple times since its introduction in 2006 (just realized that was six years ago... whoa) I decided I'd do things a little differently this time and have it be an actual, functioning blog that I can easily return to again whenever inspiration strikes me. But there were a bunch of errors that I couldn't fix in time (tags and search results are all janked up and the documentation is unhelpful), so most of the links don't currently go anywhere. Eventually I'll figure out what the problem is and fix everything, then maybe you'll start seeing new articles every once in a while.
In all the recent furor over pink slime, we've completely neglected green slime! Here is former You Can't Do That On Television co-creator Geoffrey Darby describing the origin of the green slime that became synonymous with Nickelodeon:
We went to the cafeteria and got them to give us a bucket of slop.We said, "We want you to take all the stuff that's left on plates over the whole day and put it in this bucket." And then we were going to dump it on the kid so that it looked like if he pulled the chain, sewage would come out.
We didn't get around to shooting the scene because you can't go into overtime with children. It's against the law. If you don't get the scene, you don't get the scene. We didn't get it shot.
So we put the set up again the following week to shoot that one scene...
The prop man came to me - literally, this is a completely true story - and said, "There's a problem." The problem was that he didn't get a new bucket of slop. He just kept the old one back stage. There was about eight to ten inches of green crud. Growing. It had grown on the top of this bucket of... stuff. There was mold.
So, we had to get the scene, right? We couldn't get more slop, because we couldn't! I said, "Dump... it... on... the... kid... anyway."
And that's how green slime was invented.
Mathew Klickstein of Splitsider has been doing a series of posts on the origins of early Nickeldeon shows - "Nick of Time" I guess is the title - including interviews with the people behind Doug, Pete & Pete, and Clarissa Explains It All. You should definitely give them a read.
RUBBERCAT.NET/SIMPSONS
Simpsons scoop of the month... I managed to confirm that comedian and former Simpsons writer Dana Gould is NOT a murderer.
