Holiday Contest Update, Dead Birds, Blogger Death & Homemade Burgers

• First, I would like to say that the entries for the 3rd Annual Swan Fungus Holiday Contest are rolling in, and I would like to thank everyone who has so far submitted a speck cover for Billy Corgan’s next book. They look great. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m asking all of you to Photoshop your idea for Billy Corgan’s next book cover, and the winner will receive a bottle of either Buffalo Trace or Elmer T. Lee’s bourbon. Because I love you. Submit as many entries as you want before Wednesday the 19th. Winner takes all. Whatever that means.

It’s a shame nothing exciting has happened in the news lately. It really makes this Weekly World (W)news posts hard to write when nothing is happening in the world. Well, nothing of Swan Fungus importance.

• I guess I should discuss the dead bird thing. After all, our trivia team name this week was “It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Nope…it’s definitely 5,000 dead birds.” According to MSNBC, tons of dead birds falling out of the sky is not a sign of the apocalypse. I could have told you that. Have you ever been to the Salton Sea? It’s not uncommon for tens of thousands of fish to die and wash up on the shores on any given day. Hell, once there was even a million-fish die off that didn’t seem as foreboding as 500 or 5,000 dead birds did this week. [story]

• Here’s a pretty morbid article about online identities and real-world death. A blogger died at the age of 34 and his friends rushed to save and preserve his online identity. Reading this article got me thinking…what would happen if I were to die in my sleep tonight? Would any of you rush to preserve my online identity? Would you bury all the negative, horrible things I’ve written about (in jest, of course) on this website, and promote the smart, pertinent things I’ve said? Do any of you care beyond the MP3s? Maybe I’ll just have to die in order to find out. [story]

• A psychic who won one-million pounds in the British lottery claims that she predicted her win, telling colleagues about a “feeling in her bones” just before winning some kind of stupid raffle on Christmas Eve. I hesitate to write about it, but I’ve had similar feelings before. Not about multi-million dollar lotteries, but little ones like the Pick-3 and Pick-4. I don’t know why I never act on these impulses. When I was younger I realized that numbers would pop into my head, and when I went to the little cafe near my house that posted all the daily lotto numbers I would see a lot of the same numbers that I imagined days earlier. It doesn’t happen much anymore, but I should try it out sometime instead of being such a lazy bastard. You never know. [story]

• Hey, I made some pretty tasty cheeseburgers tonight. One of which was the burger you see at the very top of this blog entry. I got a blend of 50% sirloin, 25% chuck and 25% brisket from Whole Foods and god damn if I didn’t griddle those things into near-perfection. Nice salty char, nice sharp Tillamook cheddar cheese perfectly melted, minced caramelized onions…I should do this more often, for more people to enjoy. What’s more is, I washed it down with a pint of Mikkeller Beer Geek Brunch Weasel, which according to the manufacturer, “is brewed with one of the world’s most expensive coffees, made from the droppings of weasel-like cievcats. The fussy Southeast Asian animals only eat the best and ripest coffee berries. Enzymes in their digestive system help to break down the bean. Workers collect the bean-containing droppings for Civet or Weasel Coffee.” Between you and me, I don’t know what’s better, the beer or the burger.