Our psychic newspaper friends in Lincoln

Well, this actually hasn't happened, but the Lincoln Journal Star stands behind its ability to predict the future, we predict.

A story on the expected same-sex marriage ruling was posted to http://t.co/FIrQLPI4OA in error Tuesday night.
— Lincoln Journal Star (@JournalStarNews) February 25, 2015

And here are some other clairyoyant headlines from today's Journal Star (motto: "It's gonna happen, you just wait and see"):

* Obama tells press 'Yes, I am a Muslim from Kenya'

* Hillary Clinton becomes first woman president, sends Bill to Gitmo

* Ricketts lures Simonize factory to Lincoln

* Unicameral OKs Beercade franchise for old Senate chamber
 
* Sandhills ranchers cut off beef to 'uppity' Omaha eateries

* Omaha cop shoots mayor, thought she had gun

* Judge upholds ban on opposite-sex marriage

* JS reporter Pilger held in slaying of online editor


HAT TIP: Romenesko.

Polly want a divorce lawyer!

Forget your Smart TV, watch what you say in front of your cockatoo.

The adoptive owners of this cockatoo now get to hear all about her previous owners' acrimonious breakup a couple of times a day.

According to Elaine Sigmon of North Carolina, her Moluccan cockatoo Peaches once belonged to a couple who has since broken up. Today, the bird often breaks into loud (and possibly expletive-laden) tirades, dramatically moving her head from side to side as she screeches and "argues."

Sigmon told The Huffington Post that she thinks Peaches probably picked up her penchant for bickering from her previous owners.

"We had Peaches for several days when one afternoon she began ranting and raving as if blessing someone out," she said. "My husband, Don, was sitting in the chair near her perch and she began to aggressively point her head toward him just like someone pointing their finger while arguing ... We're not sure what she is saying, but she is really giving her opinion."

ON THE one hand, I can't stop laughing at this. On the other . . . that poor, traumatized bird!

I hope the Bickersons feel really good about their legacy -- the breakup that never, ever ends. No, we're not laughing with you, toxic original pet parents, we're laughing at you.

Portrait poses prob for Piyush

Somehow, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has found time to stumble into a huge controversy over his official (above) and unofficial portraits hanging in the state capitol. 

You'd think destroying an entire state wouldn't leave time for extracurriculars. Go figure.

Bigfoot lives, and he does social media!

The Boston Yeti enjoying #blizzardof2015 #Snowmageddon2015 #juno2015 pic.twitter.com/3uwTQ1gOZg
— Boston Yeti 2015 (@BostonYeti2015) January 27, 2015

Finally, a news organization not named The Star, the Enquirer or The Globe takes notice of Bigfoot, Yeti, Sasquatch, whatever you want to call him.

It's about time, CBS News!

In the midst of the potent wind and heavy snow, a yeti was spotted roaming around the streets of Boston Monday night.

As the blizzard of 2015 howled in, Bostonians were told to stay off the roads. But as tall figure dressed in a white, fluffy costume with grey gloves embraced the storm, documenting its trip and calling itself the @BostonYeti2015 on Twitter.

The mythical abdominal snowman started its journey in Somerville at 10:48 pm.

HOWEVER, I strongly object to the use of the word "mythical."

YOUR ON NOTISE, ZUKERBURG!!!!!!

Better safe than sorry. As of January 3rd, 2015 at 11:43 a.m. Eastern standard time, I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, or posts, both past and future. By this statement, I give notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, or take any other action against me based on this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, or posts, both past and future based on this profile and/or its contents. The content of this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, or posts, both past and future based on this profile and/or its contents is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law (UCC 1-308- 1 1 308-103 and the Rome Statute, not to mention Big Guido down the street). NOTE: Facebook is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this that Facebook is not authorized to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, or posts, both past and future based on this profile and/or its contents. If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once it will be tactically allowing the use of this declaration that you do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use this declaration that you do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use your pictures, information, or posts, both past and future based on your profile and/or its contents, as well as the information contained in the profile status updates. DO NOT SHARE. You MUST copy and paste.

Cop just beat the hell out of you

As much as it pains me to say it, my respect for Ole Piss Miss just soared to a new level.

All the way to grudging toleration.

After I've had a double bourbon or three.

Enjoy this scene of a sore-loser Alabama fan getting his after he throws a cup full of popcorn at celebrating Mississippi fans after the Rebels took Nick Satan Saban and his Crimson Tide down a notch or . . . four.

Bammer had it coming. Cue the LSU student section:

Around the bowl and down the hole, roll, Tide, roll!

Because SEC.



HAT TIP:  NOLA.com.

The LSU football season, explained

Well, that Auburn game was fugly.

Here's a handy guide that will explain LSU's football season thus far and, one hopes, provide a handy guide for what to expect as the Tigers stagger toward Thanksgiving and a merciful end to the 2014 campaign.

Above, we have a brief video recap of LSU's 7-41 non-triumph against That Other Football Team in Alabama.

But before that merciful November end, the Fighting Toonces have to get through six more Southeastern Conference games with nothing more than a defense without a clue and an offense without a prayer. So let's look at the remainder of the schedule, along with LSU's prospects in each.

NEXT UP is a trip Saturday to Gainesville, Fla., home of the FLORIDA GATORS. Here's a preview:



THEN, at home on Oct. 18, a much-improved KENTUCKY. Again, to the game preview:



OCT. 25, OLE MISS:



NOV. 8, ALABAMA:



NOV. 15, ARKANSAS:



NOV. 27, TEXAS A&M:

All's fair in love and war: LSU edition

You're liable to see just about anything at an LSU home football game.

Which brings us to Saturday's. Call it "crazy s*** white people do" -- everything from taking "falling in love" a little too literally to, well, not that.

What my alma mater needs, clearly, is a little, er . . . balance. And a better class of drunk-ass frat boy.

White folks: You just can't let some of 'em out in public.



HAT TIP: NOLA.com.

Vive la France! Vive la France!

Cheese-eating surrender monkeys, my ass!


HAT TIP:  Rod Dreher.

Goodness knows, Clear Channel blows

I don't care who ya are, this is funny!

Well, it's probably not too funny if you're Bob Pittman, but who cares? It's guys like him who have been ruining radio and throwing away the kind of talent who can produce one screamingly funny parody . . . while standing in line at the unemployment office, no doubt.

Then again, perhaps not

When Facebook's targeted advertising turns unintentionally really, really funny.

Mein Gott! Somebody maken ze Zenith go gesphincto!

Spicoli lives!

Last anyone saw of Jeff Spicoli, the dude was on the beach in Southern California, enveloped in an intoxicating haze.

Until today.

He's in Omaha -- absolutely. Because of the tasty waves on Carter Lake, no doubt. (Don't laugh. As windy as it's been around these parts lately. . . .)

Anyway, I didn't actually have an official Spicoli sighting, but I did see his handiwork while walking on the Keystone Trail today.

Look.

 

Spicoli was here.

 

And here.

And here.

And, for killer bud's sake, here.

When I find Mr. Spicoli, I shall prevail upon him to run for mayor. That would be totally bitchin'.

Dude!

Even Russia has a Mississippi

Иван пропустил Darwin Awards от это много.

(Translation: Ivan missed the Darwin Awards by this much.)

How, oh, how did I miss this when it appeared a couple of years ago?

That ain't convenient

I think I'll stick with the escalator, thanks.

Because Obama

Or . . . Second City goes yard, clears the bases.

By the way, does Vladimir Putin get his Nobel Peace Prize now?

Later's news now . . . or 'Sorry, Wong number!'

There's a birth announcement  you need to know about in today's Morning Deviate. It might be the biggest Louisiana news since all the courts recessed for the day at 4 p.m.

Take a look, because that's the way it is . . . this day in August, 2098.

It’s a boy for ex-Prefect Eli Wallace Edwards and his wife, Yob.

The couple welcomed T. Wong Edwards in Baton Rouge early Thursday morning just three days after celebrating their second wedding anniversary at an offshore strip club floating above the submerged ruins of New Orleans. Yob Bebe Edwards posted the announcement on her Spacebook page early Thursday.

“Everyone except me is getting to sleep. It’s ok though ... I’d rather just lay here and stare at my little Cajun prince!!,” she posted along with a photo of herself gazing into her son’s face.

Born at 12:52 a.m., T. is Edwards’ fifth child and his wife’s third son. The former prefect of the Louisiana Autonomous Region has four grown children. His wife has two sons from a prior marriage. T. weighs 6 lbs., 3 oz., and is 19 inches long.

The baby shares his name with his late grandfather, Edwin W. Edwards, a former American congressman who served four terms as governor in the second half of the 20th century.

Father and son came close to sharing a birthday as well. Ely Edwards will turn 86 next week.

Despite a difficult pregnancy, Yob Edwards was well enough to post updates on Spacebook as she awaited the baby’s arrival Wednesday afternoon and later announce his birth.

It was full house in her labor room at the oceanfront campus of Baton Rouge General Medical Center -- Bluebonnet Hoverway. A stereo-V crew hovered in the background, capturing the moment for the couple’s reality program, “The Prefect’s Squeeze.” A broadcast date for the program — which will air on the Booze&Poontang educational stream — has been pushed back several times.

Edwards, 85, met his 18-year-old wife while he was serving his sentence on holographic-cyborg-poker racketeering charges in a Greater North American Authority penal institution.

The couple said they wanted to share as many experiences as possible in the short amount of time they likely have together.

They live in a yacht anchored over the swamped family ancestral home where the city of Gonzales once existed.

Yob Edwards said their new son is a perfect little boy.

“F*** yeah, bitches! Mah lil schwing man got it goin' lol!” she posted on Spacebook about the new scion of the autonomous region's Zipper dynasty. Meantime, the proud geriatric papa -- popularly known as the Titanium Zipper, following his father the Silver Zipper --  was spotted passing out electronic cigars and holographic casino tokens on the medical center beachfront, buxom blondes on each arm.

Beer may be hazardous to your manhood

I could be wrong (though I really doubt it), but I think there's a metaphor for contemporary American society squirming around somewhere in this Ohio story.

Also everywhere in this story is a sharp sympathy pain down the groin of every living man . . . and probably a few dead ones, too.

Brace yourselves and read on. Or not.

Lorain Police say a homeless man was Life Flighted to the hospital after cutting off his penis.

Cops were called to the area of East 21st Street and Access Road Tuesday around noon after an unauthorized man was seen on CSX Railroad property.

Officers found the man with his hands and gym shorts covered in blood. He told officers that he had just cut his penis off. According to the police report, he said he tried to use an old rusty saw, but he used a broke bottle when the saw didn't work.

The man told police that "Busch (beer) made me do it."

YOU KNOW WHAT? I'd love to hear a contemporary Don Draper's sponsor pitch to the Busch beer people with that one stuck in his mind. And close to his heart . . . which you know if you're a Mad Men aficionado.

"Gentlemen, I'll probably never see you again, so I have to tell you something.

"I didn't enjoy Busch beer on a sun-splashed sandy beach with a blonde on each arm. That's what every American man would like to think of whenever he pops the top on a cold Busch. Get it? (leer) No, the truth is, I grew up in a whorehouse in Pennsylvania, and I was raised by a stepmother who didn't want me. 

"After I'd go through the pockets of johns while the whore were otherwise, shall we say 'entertaining' them, the girls would pay me off with a cold Busch beer. And I savored every golden drop of that cheap-ass beer because, gentlemen, your beer was the only thing that could kill enough of my brain cells -- dull enough of the psychic pain -- so I could somehow cope with growing up in a whorehouse with a stepmomma who couldn't care less if you lived or died, which, let me tell you, is kind of like cutting your own tallywhacker off with a busted beer bottle. Probably an old Miller High Life bottle. 

"Frankly, if I had my way, I'd tell you not to advertise your beer at all. Because if Busch beer is good enough to kill the pain of growing up in a whorehouse . . . if it's good enough to anesthetize you while you cut off your own tallywhacker, it will sell itself with no help from Sterling Cooper and Partners. 

"Gentlemen, thank you for your time. I'm going around the corner to get loaded."

Keep Lincoln weird

Sometimes, when you go to a ballgame, the least interesting thing is the ballgame -- am I right?

Never is this more true than a spring football game. One, you know your team is gonna win. Two, you're not gonna see much of the playbook.

Think of it this way: You go to Baskin-Robbins, only to find the 31 flavors have been reduced to chocolate, vanilla and strawberry . . . but you can get strawberry for only the first 30 seconds after you walk in the door.

That's your typical college spring scrimmage.

Saturday at Nebraska's spring game, you had little Jack Hoffman's touchdown run for the ages, and then. . . . Exactly.

So I was thanking God that at least He showed us the tender mercy of putting our state university in Lincoln, because them people there just ain't right. And when people just ain't right, things are about to get interesting.

Take the picture above, for example. Every coffee shop in the world has a wall o' fliers. Many people overlook walls o' fliers like this one at the Scooters in downtown Lincoln.

But this is Lincoln, and that would be a mistake.

I MEAN, the Kicker Country Stampede in Manhattan, Kan., or the Widespread Panic concert at the Pinewood Bowl might not be everybody's cup o' joe. People in Lincoln, a progressive and diverse state capital and college town, understand this. That's why Christopher H. Merritt of our fair capital city invites you to drop by his April 24 arraignment in Lancaster County District Court.

If we're lucky, there will be a little contempt-of-court action. If we're really lucky, maybe somebody'll get tazed, bro.

Let's just hope Mr. Merritt doesn't decide to play it like George Jones and not show up at all. Alternatively, though, let's do hope he plays it like George Jones and putts into the courtroom on a lawn tractor.

OK, I JUST as well confess that I'm all about the Husker-striped overalls.  I want me some scarlet-and-cream striped overalls.

But you can overdo it . . . or underdo it, as the case may be. I only wish that the kid had a really stupid tattoo on his chest or, at a minimum, a little hair. Maybe he should drink a little of my coffee -- that would help.

YOU WANT PROOF that this country is is dire need of a dictatorship of the proletariat, or at least a little Fabian socialism? Dude's probably only making minimum wage to wear a giant weenie on his head.

The running-dog bourgeois establishment clearly has gone too far this time.

Power to the people now! And let it begin in Memorial Stadium.

ON THE other hand, sometimes the people are freakin' idiots. Giving them too much power might not be the best idea.

I'm not sure what's worse here, the sentiment behind "I'd Rather Have A Lesbian Sister Then Be A Hawkeye Fan" or the violence done to the king's English. I am assuming that the dude is linguistically challenged and thinks that having a lesbian sister is a fate worse than death -- but better than being an Iowa fan.

Of course, it is possible that the shirt means what it says, and Joe Football really, really wants a lesbian sister and swings both ways when it comes to college athletics. After all, this is Lincoln, where all things not only are possible but, indeed, probable.

FINALLY, after the spring game, we headed to the outskirts of town and Pioneers Park. Saw a herd of buffalo . . . and this.

Luke A. Heritage hearts Jennifer. That's very sweet, and I'm sure Jenny is a lucky gal.

Now let's hope some of her luck rubs off on the lovestruck Luke. Otherwise, he's totally going to get his identity stolen. But at least he won't be able to blame me.

Because being from Omaha has its advantages.

Go (to) Big Red!

  
If your university is going to do a social-media campaign to create a little buzz and enhance the ol' profile, you just as well have a little fun with it. YOLO!

Wait a sec . . . I'm not sure I used "YOLO" (You Only Live Once) correctly. What University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Harvey Perlman is doing here isn't dumb at all. (See the YouTube video. Ol' Harv has a point on that particular catchphrase.)

What's a delightful surprise in these UN-L videos is this: The chancellor, 71, is a funny, funny guy. Not only in front of the camera, but as a writer, too. He rewrote everything that the ad agency and university marketing staff put before him, and if it says it in the Omaha World-Herald, it must be so.

Or good enough for newspaper work.

The “Perls of Knowledge” spots have been tweeted and re-tweeted and re-re-tweeted. The ad campaign has gotten a mountain of free publicity, courtesy of media outlets from Sioux City to San Francisco and from Columbus, Ind., all the way to China.

The jury is out on whether “Perls of Knowledge” will result in more students for UNL — Perlman, when he's not fighting zombies, has vowed to get UNL's current enrollment of 24,207 to a nice round 30,000 in the next four years.

But what seems clear is this: For $40,000, a tiny fraction of the university's marketing budget, UNL has gotten the kind of publicity that most wannabe Carly Raes — and most universities — would kill a whole zombie army for.

“It worked because of (Perlman's) really bitey sarcasm,” says Dan Kohler, UNL's senior assistant director for digital marketing and the aforementioned 27-year-old. “The tone actually speaks well to a younger generation ... and it's packaged in a way that takes a traditional brand and throws it into this very nontraditional environment.”

I figured I would pull back the curtain on “Perls of Knowledge” and learn that the chancellor was just a glorified prop in this digital marketing strategy, a willing and able participant in an experiment hatched and run by people younger than I am.

But the real story is stranger: Perlman himself came up with the general idea. He enlisted allies, including Amber Hunter, UNL's admissions director, and Kohler.

“He had been paying more attention to pop culture, spending more time with the admissions office — we're one of the youngest offices on campus — and asking a lot of questions,” Hunter says. “A lot of this comes from him just trying to understand how we could share something all over the country.”

They brought in Archrival, a Lincoln marketing firm that cultivates an edgy reputation.

Archrival employees and UNL's five-person digital marketing staff together wrote the video's scripts. And then Perlman took those scripts with him on a long, long flight to China. When he came home, he had rewritten every last one.

On taping day, Perlman nailed most of the scripts with one or two takes.

“He's a pretty funny guy,” admits Clint! Runge, Archrival's creative marketing director and a man with a “!” purposefully embedded in his first name.

 THE CHANCELLOR, as I said, is a funny guy. Dryly hilarious, even.

Almost as funny as putting an exclamation point behind your first name. YOLO!

Top that, KITT!

Behold pure awesomeness in action.

Obviously, your average fast-food worker hasn't ever heard of this: