Tag Archives: Bill Murray

You Don’t Need A Groundhog To Know Which Way The Wind Is Blowing

I forgot again. Every year I swear I will
write a Groundhog Day essay about my experiences working as a News
Writer in the CityPulse news room in Toronto on this day. However, the day always
seems to creep up on me. Maybe because I’d prefer to forget.

In the CityPulse [sic] News Room,
on BreakfastTelevision [sic], I was put on GroundhogWatch [sic] every year
because — after doing it just once — I already had experience writing
about rodent weather prognosticators. 

I think I wrote about Groundhog Day a total of 8
years in a row and it always seemed a lot like the movie.

Canada has its own Groundhog, of course. Wiarton Willie
is the buck-toothed mammal who Canadians turn to when they want to know
when Spring will end. This always complicated the story for me because
Wiarton Willie and Punxsutawney Phil made their predictions at THE EXACT
SAME TIME!!! This necessitated holding open two telephone lines, one to
Wiarton, Ontario, and the other to Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania,
waiting for word from the animal kingdom on whether there they saw their
shadows. Because Citytv had no budget to send people to Gobbler’s Knob
and Wiarton, I had to find — and then dragoon — news people in the
field at each scene who could relay the word to me so I could get it
before it hit the wires.

When I wrote all those Groundhog Day News Stories I tried
to include the words “Gobbler’s Knob” as often as possible

Because when you are covering
groundhogs YOU NEED TO BEAT THE COMPETITION!!! You not only NEED TO GET
IT RIGHT, YOU NEED TO GET IT FIRST!!!

Then there was that one
year when Wiarton Willie and Punxsutawney Phil were at (pun intended)
polar opposites in their predictions. It threw the entire newsroom into a
tizzy, but I’ll save that story for next year.

Since I got out of the Groundhog Game™, some new weather groundhogs have arrived on the scene. Shubenacadie Sam hunts for his shadow at the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park in the town of Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia.

However, all those Male Marmota Monax™ are going to have to move over for the new girl on the block. Dundas Donna is from Toronto and is taking the Weather World™ by storm. See what I did there?

Headlines Du Jour ► Sunday, January 19, 2014

Sadly, it happened. As I explained in yesterday’s Headlines Du Jour, my headline-collecting robot drones have become self-aware and are now controlling your refridgerator. That’s why I’ve gone back to collecting all headlines by hand. It’s safer. Having said that, let’s get right to today’s Headlines Du Jour.

FOLLOW THE MONEY:

Va. consultant Boyd Marcus’s case shows how money trumps principles in politics today

A BRIDGE/FLOOD TOO FAR:

Hoboken residents blast Christie
administration amid mayor’s
allegations of strong-arming

ANOTHER EXCITING EPISODE OF COPS GONE WILD:

Cops Get So Rough with
Straight A Student That
They Rupture His Testicle

SCIENCE IS COMPLICATED:

‘Bio-Bot’ That Swims Like Sperm Is An ‘Exciting Advance’ In Self-Propelled Biological Robots

MORE ON TROLLEYGATE:

How fed dollars for trolleys in Miami-Dade, local cities spurred civil rights investigation

From the Not Now Silly Archives
Soilgate Is Trolleygate Writ Large  ► A Century of
Coconut Grove Racism

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE:

Wal-Mart Wrote An Entire Guidebook On How To Silence Its Workers

THE EVER-PUZZLING STANDARDS AT FACEBOOK:

Facebook Claims Support For Black Films ‘Violates Community Standards’

THE LATEST NAZI ANALOGY:

WATCH: Senate Candidate Claims IRS is Training “Brown Shirts” to Enforce Obamacare Using Assault Weapons

LGBT NEWS:

Trans Woman Dares Bible-Quoting Councilman to Stone Her to Death

FREE THE WEED:

In Which Nancy Grace Debates Nancy Grace About Marijuana

Harry Reid, ‘We waste a lot of time and law enforcement going after guys smoking marijuana.’

Bill Murray Delivers Incredibly Persuasive Argument in Favor of Recreational Marijuana

Medical marijuana in Oregon: Post-prohibition liquor store in Portland now will deal in a new product

FROM OUTER SPACE:

Why are we fascinated by astronomy?

TODAY IN RELIGION:

Brownback To Rally Christian
‘Freedom Fighters’ To ‘Cause A
Revolution’ And Take Back America

 HYPOCRITE DU JOUR:

Rand Paul: ‘That’s what gave us Jim Crow’

VIDEO DU JOUR:


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