Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Online newspaper comment of the day

The story of the dead teenager found in Milton, Massachusetts keeps getting more and more like an episode of "CSI" or "Law & Order." At this point, I'm half expecting to see David Caruso and his stupid sunglasses in the background of a live news shot one of these days.

One of the big questions surrounding the disappearance of 16-year-old Delvonte Tisdale has been, "How the hell did he go from being in bed in North Carolina to being dead in Massachusetts in less than 24 hours?" An obvious theory is that he took a plane (as in, bought a ticket with an actual seat), then ran into some kind of trouble in Massachusetts.

A less obvious theory -- but one that's being explored now -- is that he stowed away in the wheel well of a plane, died at high altitude and then fell to the ground in Milton when the plane's landing gear deployed.

You may know that the airlines don't sell tickets for wheel-well passengers. They don't even let you go standby. To get into the wheel well of a plane, you have to do some pretty crazy stuff -- like, somehow sneak by airport security and then into the secure area of the airport, or get through the airport's security fences and onto the runway. Calling that a "major security breach" would be an understatement. Which brings us to today's online newspaper comment of the day, courtesy of "GomerPyle" on BostonHerald.com:
If a high school kid can stow away, unnoticed, in the wheel well of a commercial airliner, there is certainly no need for TSA to continue scanning and searching old ladies in the airport terminals.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Kenny Chesney Gillette tickets going on sale 9 months early

If you live in the Boston area, you may have caught recent ads for the Kenny Chesney Gillette Stadium concert with Zac Brown Band. They're airing on TV and even have a prominent spot on Boston.com.

Did you notice the date for this Kenny Chesney Gillette concert? It's Aug. 27, 2011. And tickets go on sale Saturday.

As in, this Saturday.

Nov. 20.

2010.

That's more than nine months in advance! You could buy tickets that morning, have sex that night and have a kid before the Kenny Chesney Gillette concert.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Beatles-iTunes news brings bad puns galore

It sure hasn't been a hard day's night for reporters covering today's Beatles-iTunes news.

Several journalists chose to lead their Beatles-iTunes stories with bad Beatles-related puns and references, like I just did. Here's a sampling of these Beatles-iTunes ledes:
  • Doug Gross, CNN.com: "It's been a long and winding road, this relationship between Apple and the Beatles."
  • Ethan Smith, The Wall Street Journal: "Steve Jobs is nearing the end of his long and winding pursuit of the Beatles catalog."
  • Jessica Mintz, Associated Press: "'Beatles for Sale' is finally for sale on iTunes -- along with the rest of the Fab Four's albums, from 'Please Please Me' to 'Revolver' to 'Abbey Road.'"
  • David Sapsted, The National: "The Beatles – with a little help from their friends at EMI –- have finally made it on to iTunes."
  • Neil McCormick, the Daily Telegraph: "It has been a long and winding road but they have finally come together."
These Beatles-iTunes references are all bad, but ones about "The Long and Winding Road" represent an even higher level of laziness, because it's the same pun Steve Jobs used in Apple's Beatles-iTunes press release. Way to be original, mass media!