Roger W. Haworth, Wikicommons
When do you think this building was built, with its big windows and minimal designs? Looks like the kind of place that a Barnes & Noble would occupy, doesn’t it? 1927? 1948?
Weirdly New Old Buildings
Monthly Archives: December 2012
The most Swedish man of all time gets disability benefits for heavy metal addiction
Meanwhile in Sweden… Roger Tullgren, described as a man with long hair, tattoos and a penchant for jewellery that looks like skulls, after consulting three psychologists, managed to get his obsession with heavy metal music classified as a disability that qualifies him for supplemental disability benefits. The man, Roger Tullgren, has been unable to hold down a full time job between being compelled to “show his heavy metal style” and attend over 300 concerts last year alone.
Tullgren has been trying to get his heavy metal addiction classified as a mental handicap for the past decade. Now, thanks to Sweden being a utopia of both social democracy and metal, he will be awarded state disability benefits to supplement his part time dishwashing job.
Rock on Sweden, rock on.
What Happens When Christmas Goes Wrong
Now that Christmas is over, it is very important to remember what happens when Christmas goes wrong. Very, very wrong. Part of the documentary series from Rare Exports, the keepers of the original Finnish Father Christmas.
Where does Santa Come from?
Christmas time is the time of year when most people go get Dim Sum and go see Django Unchained, I think. Every year, all across the world, children ask where the Chinese food comes from, and every year, the answer is the same.
This year, we re-tell the story of the original Finnish Father Christmas.
Title And Author
Yes, I am a child. That is all.
Somali Terrorists: Sorry about that one guy who won’t shut up, we know he’s annoying
ABC News
Everyone’s got that one friend, who when you introduce them to new people, you almost instantly start apologizing, and feel shame (if you don’t know what we’re talking about, you’re that friend). It turns out Somali terrorists are Just Like Us, in that they’ve got that one guy from Alabama, too.
A self-identified spokesperson for al-Shabaab, a Somalia-based terror group, released a statement via Twitter Monday that is relentlessly critical of Alabama-born rapping jihadi Omar Hammami, also known as Abu Mansur al-Amriki, and assures everyone he holds no position of power in their anti-Western ranks.
“For months the Mujahideen [holy warriors] have been offering advice to Abu Mansur in private, without publicly rebuking him, employing every possible avenue to veil his faults, overlook his shortcomings and conceal the egregious errors he’d committed from the eyes of the Muslim Ummah[leadership]… It is regrettable, however, that all such efforts have been fruitless despite numerous attempts,” the statement says.
He probably keeps going on and on about how Leslie Neilsen was underrated (yeah, we get it) and then making inappropriate comments to women. He sounds awful.
This could be the greatest CIA terrorist plant since Carrot Top.
Watch This Three Ton Rolls-Royce Tear Up the Countryside
Why? Because Rolls-Royce, that’s why.
The 2012 Update of “The Hockey Sweater” We All Have Been Waiting For
For those of you who aren’t Canadian, The Hockey Sweater (Le chandail de hockey) is a short story about hockey and the Francophone, Anglophone lingual/cultural divide in Canada, and is such an iconic part of national culture than an excerpt from the story is on the $5 bill.
Well now, thanks to a segment on CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes, we have a modern edition, “The Lockout Sweater”.
Piece of Lovely Cake
O Fortuna lyrics, misheard.
New York Returning to Roots, Again, Thank God
In our second bit of news today about New York returning to be the city we all once knew and loved, comes the tale of an execution in Hell’s Kitchen. Yes, before the hipsters, before the crazy rents, before Giuliani came in and Cleaned Up This Town, we had executions. Today, a small part of that tradition came back:
Authorities said the incident happened just before 2 p.m. in Midtown at 58th Street between Broadway and Seventh Avenue.
The victim was shot execution-style in the back of the head in front of 202 West 58th St. — near the St. Thomas Choir School, according to authorities.
Police have identified the victim as Brandon Lincoln Woodard, 31, of 5934 Playa Vista Drive in Los Angeles.
As Woodard was walking down the street, the gunman walked up behind him, pulled out a semi-automatic silver pistol, and fired a single shot into the back of his head. The gunman then got into a waiting grey Lincoln MKZ and drove off, 1010 WINS’ Al Jones reported.
Maybe one day I can revel in the stories of 1970’s badassery, just like my father does me, and his father before him.
THE BALL-ĀBAN NEWS 