The Pit

All the exclamation marks you want!

You have to admire how fast things can change. Our good-intended column has, well, triggered the comeback of Philler, which, believe me, is a good thing. Now they even have a ".com" address and a website. Good god, will those wonders ever cease? (Like I said before, I have always admired them.)

Another major change is that Persephone, of all daughters of Zeus, has abandoned ship, making me the sole person to sail this darn thing. And well, since she never told me where the anchor is, there is nothing that will stop me now. Mwahahahaha…

So, lovely people, let's sail off. First things first, here is The Pit's brand new News FACTorial! (with the obligatory exclamation mark - ask your calculus professor) from the past week:

• A high school student from Cape Cod ordered a turkey and tomato sandwich from her high school cafeteria, and found a slice of thumb inside! A worker at the cafeteria had previously cut off her thumb in a slicer. That possibly best explains the "foreign object" in the food. The catering service apologized and the state health department assured that it is not a public health threat.
• A European Commission study shows that global spam (and we're not talking about canned processed pseudo-meat here) costs €10,000,000,000 of internet connection fees per year! That is $9,400,000,000 for all of you guys out there who can't think in euros. Before you hit that forward button to share the "oooh-that's-way-cool-everyone-has-to-read-this" jokes with everyone you know and don't, consider the delete button instead.
• A baby penguin was found wandering in the streets in Melbourne, Australia, and had to be treated for depression! Apparently the tiny birdie is not too excited about this excursion. Police spokespeople said that stress from the trip could make the poor thing very ill and could be fatal.
• Speaking of penguins, they actually do not tip over when they watch airplanes and helicopters flying by! British environmental research scientist Richard Stone spent weeks studying Antarctic penguins when helicopters flew by. They may run away in fear, they may stay completely silent, but they don't suddenly fall onto the ground.
• A fortune-teller from India was arrested for predicting another major earthquake! The quake-devastated country decided that it does not need any more spreading of rumors that shake people.

Okay, people, on with the journey. We'll now sail all across the Pacific to the far east. More specifically, I am referring to Hong Kong, the city that has seen multiple explosive telephone booths these days. Yes, I am talking about Explosive! Telephone! Booths! Some guy decided that it is funny to blow up phone booths here and there. At first, the spokesperson from Pacific Century Cyberworks (Hong Kong's telecommunications company) said it was caused by short-circuits in the booths; but then they "discovered" that it was actually vandalism a few days afterwards. Incidentally, the guy who blew up all those phone booths was arrested.

Next time you talk at a public phone booth, beware of the strange cord that sticks out of the machine…

Moving along, we sail across the Atlantic to South Africa. If you think that lightning strikes killing people was really 19th century, you're dead wrong. At least 17 South Africans died over the past week from lightning strikes! Last Wednesday, twenty-four people, who were trying to hide from a rainstorm, ran into a house which was then struck by a lightning. If that's not enough, two people from northeast South Africa (if you are confused by this, rest assured, you are not alone...) were struck dead on Saturday while walking on a field, and a priest from northwest South Africa was also found dead from a lightning strike. As the wonderful people from Guerilla Improv may put it in their next show, "behold the power of lightning!"

To wrap up this column, here's a message to Odin's Eye who's elsewhere in this paper: "public phone booths make noises as well." Until our next journey into the wide world of weirdness, feel free to send kudos or criticisms at technews@wpi.edu.