Whew! I need a break. You need a break. We ALL need a break. I don\u2019t know what I just witnessed, but the fight promoters \u2026 I mean debate producers \u2026 said it was supposed to be a presidential debate between the two leading party candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only, what I saw the other night when I wrote this was carnage. Like when you were a kid and glimpsed something on TV you weren\u2019t supposed to. How it left you chewing your fingernails, feeling dirty and kept you up all night muttering to yourself: \u201cI will never watch TV again! I will never watch TV again! I will never watch TV again!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, my good friends, with almost a month to go before the end of this mangy, molten fungal train wreck of an election in what has been a mangy, molten fungal train wreck of a year, I think you deserve a break. Something to get your mind off of it. To clear your head and refresh your soul. To give you hope and a sense of humanity. To provide you with some uplifting and inspiring news that isn\u2019t about polls or COVID or all-things presidential election-related.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And because I like you that much, I spent the last 20 minutes scouring the Internet for a bounty of spirit-boosting stories to get the bad taste out of your mouth:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Believe it: Politics CAN be about relevant and meaningful topics that actually relate to real peoples\u2019 lives. Like in North Carolina where Democratic Senate candidate Cal Cunningham took a controversial stand on an issue close to the hearts of many North Carolinians: BBQ. In a Tweeted photo of himself standing next to a GAS grill, he wrote: \u201cThere\u2019s nothing better than BBQ.\u201d Except, since he wasn\u2019t standing next to what looked like a smoking World War II-era submarine loaded with burning hickory chunks and a whole hog, Twitter erupted. That\u2019s not BBQ, they said. That\u2019s wieners on a grill. Some called for apologies, and others labeled it a scandal. One poet brought tears to the eyes of this amateur wordsmith when he wrote: \u201cYou sir, are grilling hot dogs and hamburgers. You are not slow cooking a whole hog over wood, which is, in fact, what BBQ is. Especially in NC, where you are running for a US Senate seat. Are you okay? What possessed you to tweet this?!\u201d Not only brilliant prose, but a good example of how politics can still touch on issues that matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 On the tech front, Amazon unveiled a new security video camera for your home that is actually a flying drone called \u201cRing.\u201d It will fly about your house and record footage from lots of different angles. And on the surface, this sounds really, really cool. Why rely on a stationary camera that burglars can easily dodge when they are, for instance, stealing your stationary camera? But a drone can cover your entire house, and as a bonus, get those pesky cobwebs dangling from your ceiling fan. Yet, I worry about privacy. Like how do we stop it from walking in on us while we\u2019re using the bathroom? Not even my extremely intelligent 14-year-old daughter can be taught to knock first. And more importantly, how can they ensure that every time I trip over the cat \u2013 who is deaf — and then berate him for sleeping at the foot of the stairs \u2013 which has absolutely no effect on him \u2026 because he\u2019s deaf! \u2013 this camera doesn\u2019t just upload the whole incident to TikTok where it goes viral? Otherwise, I\u2019m totally in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 In South Florida, there was a bidding war for a condo with walls and ceilings covered in Budweiser cans. Why the interest? I mean, like just go to IKEA. But I\u2019m guessing that several guys who were sick of their wives telling them to put their beer cans in the recycling bin saw this as a way to camouflage their slovenliness. Now home decorators are saying this could be the beginning of a hot new design trend. What\u2019s next? Pizza boxes and crumpled potato chip bag wallpaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 In the United Kingdom, a zoo had to move several of its parrots from a display because the birds were yelling obscene things at visitors. Guests to the park tease the animals themselves, but the minute they heard critters reply, \u201cHey fatty, do you really need that ice cream cone?\u201d or \u201cWanna\u2019 know where Polly\u2019s gonna\u2019 stick this cracker?\u201d it was apparently too much to bear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Scientists believe that they have found evidence of major underground lakes containing liquid water on Mars. This is incredibly exciting news in the search for possible life on the Red Planet. But even more importantly, these lakes would be one of only two foreign locations where American tourists are actually allowed to visit due to COVID-19 restrictions. The other one is a toxic sulfur pit in the Sudan, but they don\u2019t have boat rentals. So, this is REALLY promising!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, folks, I\u2019m afraid that\u2019s kind of it. I mean, I looked \u2026 a lot! So, I don\u2019t know \u2026 you all want to talk some more about that debate, or go grill up some BBQ hot dogs?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Whew! I need a break. You need a break. We ALL need a break. I don\u2019t know what I just witnessed, but the fight promoters \u2026 I mean debate producers \u2026 said it was supposed to be a presidential debate between the two leading party candidates. <\/p>\n
Only, what I saw the other night when I wrote this was carnage. Like when you were a kid and glimpsed something on TV you weren\u2019t supposed to. How it left you chewing your fingernails, feeling dirty and kept you up all night muttering to yourself: \u201cI will never watch TV again! I will never watch TV again! I will never watch TV again!\u201d<\/p>\n
Amen. <\/p>\n
So, my good friends, with almost a month to go before the end of this mangy, molten fungal train wreck of an election in what has been a mangy, molten fungal train wreck of a year, I think you deserve a break. Something to get your mind off of it. To clear your head and refresh your soul. To give you hope and a sense of humanity. To provide you with some uplifting and inspiring news that isn\u2019t about polls or COVID or all-things presidential election-related. <\/p>\n
And because I like you that much, I spent the last 20 minutes scouring the Internet for a bounty of spirit-boosting stories to get the bad taste out of your mouth: <\/p>\n
\u2022 Believe it: Politics CAN be about relevant and meaningful topics that actually relate to real peoples\u2019 lives. Like in North Carolina where Democratic Senate candidate Cal Cunningham took a controversial stand on an issue close to the hearts of many North Carolinians: BBQ. In a Tweeted photo of himself standing next to a GAS grill, he wrote: \u201cThere\u2019s nothing better than BBQ.\u201d Except, since he wasn\u2019t standing next to what looked like a smoking World War II-era submarine loaded with burning hickory chunks and a whole hog, Twitter erupted<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[576,572],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2020-nutshells","category-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2145,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144\/revisions\/2145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}