Large Boulder The Size Of A Small Boulder Gives Us The Moment We Need

The boulder that fell on this Colorado highway
prompted a most glorious Tweet that
made everybody's day. 

This past week on a snowy mountain highway near Telluride, Colorado, a big rock fell off a cliff and landed smack dab on the eastbound lane of Highway 145.

Not exactly a national news story until the San Miguel Sheriff's office Tweeted to the public: "Large boulder the size of a small boulder is completely blocking eastbound lane of Highway 145 mm78 at Silverpick Rd."

Everybody, including me, said, "Huh?"  

This odd tweet went totally viral, as deserved.  The absurdity of it was a winner in a week of grim tweets over impeachment, coronavirus and other lovely developments.

Reactions were classic:

"Did a self-conscious small boulder write this?"

"This is how I want to be described in my obituary."

"Americans really will use any other system of measurement than metric won't they?"

Someone else explained why this incident happened:  "It came off a large mountain the size of a small hill."

One Twitterer helped the sheriff's department by providing this update to the situation on Highway 145: "Road is closed while emergency crews bring in equipment to break it into larger, smaller boulders." 

One person cautioned people on Twitter to "not take these things for granite," to which someone else replied, "I marble at your sense of humor."

That fun tweet also inspired lots of gloriously bad puns.

OK, I love bad puns.

Someone else wanted to delve into the technicalities by asking whether a large boulder the size a small boulder is heavier than a small boulder the size of a large boulder.

Personally, I'm glad that the San Miguel Sheriff's office never deleted the tweet, and only updated motorists about the situation on Highway 145.  

Even better, a woman named Susan Lilly who works in the San Miguel Sheriff's office disclosed she was the one who wrote the now-famous boulder tweet. On Wednesday, she tweeted: "I am the author behind this now viral tweet. I own my mistake and now I rock it."

Which is the second best tweet of the week, behind the original large, small boulder missive.

I love Lilly's attitude.  She explained that she meant to write that it was a "large boulder the size of a small car," but that would have made sense and would have been no fun.

As one person replied to Lilly: "You are the reason that Twitter became a lighthearted place for awhile."

Personally, I hope the Colorado road crews saved that boulder and will put it in a prominent place. It will be labeled the "Susan Lilly Memorial Large Small Boulder."

Crazed Man Holding Pillow Outside In Minnesota? Maybe

People in Jordan, Minnesota thought this was a deranged man
standing out in the street. It was just a cardboard cutout,
but I suppose the mistake was understandable

Police in Jordan, Minnesota got a weird call the other day.

It was freezing cold, and a person reported a deranged man standing motionless outdoors, with no coat on, hugging a pillow.

Police raced to the scene, only to find a cardboard cutout of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.

Well, that was an easy mistake. If you've seen any of the company's TV ads, he does look like he's a bit much. And the premise of the ad is something: A sleepy couple encounter Lindell inside their bathroom medicine cabinet.

I don't know about this company's pillows, but I do know if this medicine cabinet encounter happened to me, I'd probably never be able to sleep again.

According to Jordan, Minnesota police, "Those cardboard cutouts sure can look real from a distance and the caller certainly was not wanting to get too close thinking who is this deranged person standing outside in the cold hugging a pillow."

Or, for all we know, the person who called police knew it was a cardboard cutout but was still freaked out anyway. A plausible scenario, don't you think?

Irma Emergency Sign Language Interpreter Not Up To The Job

The guy in the yellow shirt was definitely not qualified to
be a sign language intepreter duirng an Irma briefing.  

Often during important announcements and press briefings, you'll often find a sign language interpreter there, too, relaying the crucial information to people who are hearing impaired.

In the video you'll see below, the interpreter clearly wasn't up to the job. You'll hear what the Manatee County, Florida emergency manager has to say, and what the sign language interpreter in the yellow shirt was relaying.

For instance, the emergency manager said, "You need to be safe." The interpreter came up with "Need to bear monster."

To be fair to the intepreter, he was not a professional, and he knew it. He was just some random guy who works as a marine rescuer for Manatee County who happens to have a hearing impaired brother.

The emergency operations center asked him to intepret, he said no because he was not qualified enough, but they coerced him into doing it, with disastrous results.  So it's not really the fault of the guy in the yellow shirt.

Advocates for the  hearing impaired said the county should have used the services of a company that provides certified interpreters. One was available, says ABC News.

But here's the video anyway:

Renamed George Mason University Law School Is Probably Not For Assxxxxs

The late U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia
might have reacted like this to the quickly
abandoned acronym for the George Mason
University law school named after him A 

George Mason University had what seemed like a great idea.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died in February, and George Mason decided to honor him by creating the Antonin Scalia School of Law.  

Sounds wonderful until you see the new law's school's acronym: ASSoL.

Probably not the intended message here.

According to Slate and a host of other publications, George Mason University is rethinking the law school name.

They still want to honor Scalia, but maybe in a different workding concept. We're noticing on its website, they're calling it the "Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.

That would leave us with the acronym ACLS.

A little better, but maybe a touch too close to ACLU for the late conservative justice's taste.

We'll see.

Sorry, Rhode Island Is Nothing Like Iceland

A Rhode Island tourism video had a skateboard
doing his moved near a really cool building, but
the building is not in Rhode Island, but in
Reykajavik, Iceland. Ooops.  

I've been to Rhode Island and it's a nice little state to visit, trust me.

I've never been to Iceland, but I'm told it's a wonderful, beautiful place to visit. I want to go.

However, it would be hard to confuse Iceland with Rhode Island, but a consultant for the Rhode Island tourism office did just that.  

According to the Associated Press, Rhode Island tourism unveiled a spiffy new video showing the wonders of visiting the tiny New England state on your next vacation.

Says the AP:

"The video's intro features a skateboarder outside a glass building and has a narrator saying, 'Imagine a place that feels like home but holds enough uniqueness that you're never bored.'"

Sounds great, but the glass building in question is the Harpa concert hall and conference center in Reykjavik, Iceland, and not something in Rhode Island.

The mistake was quickly caught by eagle-eyed people on social media who apparently have been to Iceland.

The Rhode Island Commerce Corporation, which released the errant video, said a local firm that was tasked with editing the video were told to use only images taken in Rhode Island.

Somebody there goofed, and accidently used images from elsewhere.

The video, which cost $22,000 to make, was promptly yanked and set up for a do-over, though the cost of the work will be on the editing company and not the state of Rhode Island.

The Associated Press had a better suggestion.

Maybe they could have kept the video and just touted the gorgeous wonders of "Rhode Iceland."

Texas Plumber NOT A Terrorist, But Terrorists Using His Old Truck

A Texas plumber discovered an old truck he'd traded
in is now being used by Islamic terrorists in Syria.  

Let's be clear: Mark Oberholtzer is a fine, upstanding Texan. By all accounts a proud American.

He's owned Mark-1 Plumbing in Texas City, Texas for 32 years. People like him and his work in the plumbing and contracting business. Lots of five star reviews of Mark-1 Plumbing out there.

A few people, idiots, actually, now think Oberholtzer is sympathetic to those horrible ISIS Islamic militants in Syria.

Why? Because there's a photo that originated on Twitter floating around out there of one of his trucks, with the Mark-1 Plumbing logo clearly displayed, being used by the militants with an anti-aircraft gun in the truck's bed.

Don't worry, Oberholtzer is not giving material support to the terrorists. He, and everybody who knows him wants to make clear he did not give or sell his truck to terrorists.

Somehow, after he traded in the truck three years ago to an AutoNation dealership, the vehicle ended up in the hands of terrorists. 

Oberholtzer says that usually, when he trades in one of his old work trucks, he removes the logo from the vehicles. This time he didn't because he assumed AutoNation would. But they didn't.

So now, in Syria, unfortunate victims of ISIS terrorists can see an advertisement for Mark-1 Plumbing before they are hurt or killed by the violent morons.

Nobody knows how the truck ended up in Syria, but it was auctioned off after Oberholtzer traded it in, and it probably went through a few owners before winding up in Syria.

Oberholtzer says he's gotten thousands of calls about the truck in Syria. He says some people have threatened him because they think he's supporting the terrorists with this truck.

Of course the people criticizing or threatening Oberholtzer are some of the world's biggest idiots.

He told television station KHOU:

"We have a secretary here, she's scared to death. We all have families. We don't want no problems."

 Luckily, there's a major backlash against the people unfairly targeting Oberholtzer and his business. You can see that nice, welcome backlash on the Mark-1 Plumbing Facebook page. 

In a way, it's free advertising, because some people are saying they want to have Mark 1 Plumbing fix their leaking pipes or whatever. Just to support the guy.

Hell, I'd have him do my plumbing, too. But I don't think Oberholtzer wants to travel from Texas to Vermont to look at the drip, drip in my basement.