St. Louis News Blog

This Unreal does not understand: Somehow, stores in Boca, Cape Cod and Long Island are already stocking the Booty Pop. Come on, Ladue, what gives?!

It now comes with a half-hearted apology/introduction full of hillbilly jokes.

If you missed it when it debuted on the Interwebz last month, prepare to be embarrassed for Kansas congressman Bill Otto (Republican, duh), who composed an Obama diss track after returning from a family reunion in the Ozarks.

("Rapping" starts at 3:14)

flickr.com/photos/brj_bringin_the_shit_up_in_here_bitches

The Lady Byng Memorial Trophy would look swell on Unreal's desk, n'est-ce pas?

​Unreal thinks we are just as worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize as President Obama. We have just as frequently expressed our support for world peace, though it's true, we've never really done it on the record in places like the New York Times.

But now we really have to object. This Obama love has gone entirely too far. As blogger Con Chapman on Salon.com's Open Salon "reports":

NEW YORK.  The National Hockey League today awarded the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy to Barack Obama, saying that while the President had never actually played hockey, the first nine months of his administration had changed the tone and tenor of the game for the better.

photo courtesy St. Louis County Department of Health

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The swine flu is coming! Flu season is here! We're all gonna die! Everybody panic! Ahhhhhh!

(Unreal dons surgical mask, douses hands in sanitizer, takes a deep breath and...phew. Ok.)

Seriously folks, the St. Louis County Department of Health wants to raise community awareness for flu season and to that effect they have been busy bombarding local media outlets with press releases, creating a new website with the sole purpose of providing flu information, and staging photo-ops (like the one pictured above) with County executive Charlie Dooley receiving a dose of the ol' vaccine juice.

Mostly the campaign drills home the obvious: wash your hands, cover your mouth when you cough, don't go to work when you're sick. Duh.

There's also a fanatical emphasis on vaccination, especially for children and the elderly. It's a great idea, considering the flu kills about 36,000 people each year, mostly in those high-risk groups.

But what about other age groups? Teens, twenty-somethings, eighties babies, and everyone in between? If you don't want to hog that precious preventative medicine from the people who really need it, Unreal has discovered a way to make an effective* flu vaccine in the comfort of your own home...

 

Continue reading " An Unreal Approved Guide to"...

Tags: Charlie Dooley, Flu Season, St. Louis County Department of Health, Swine Flu, Vaccine

Unreal is as big a fan of Mad Men as anybody, but it seems so...capitalist-centric that it's set in New York. What about Don Draper's Communist counterparts, huh? OK, we admit, these thoughts only crossed our minds when we discovered this cache of Hungarian commercials from the 1970s and 80s. It was truly a golden age of advertising.

Doesn't it look like so much fun to be a worker?

si.com

Broadway Joe: The man least likely to pottymouth that other Joe

​This just in to the Unreal e-mail bag. The second installment of HBO's quarterly Joe Buck Live show's slated for Tuesday, September 22. Per the press release (boldface is ours):

In addition to a previously announced live gathering featuring three of the NFL's all-time great quarterbacks - Dan Marino (Dolphins), John Elway (Broncos) and Joe Namath (Jets) - Buck will host a roundtable discussion with newsmakers Jerry Jones (owner of the Dallas Cowboys) and Mark Cuban (owner of the Dallas Mavericks). Buck will also go one-on-one with former baseball star Curt Schilling, who is among the most opinionated observers on the sports scene.

The burning question, of course, is: Who'll take up the challenge Artie Lange threw down with his obscenity-drenched rant during episode one on June 15? If your memory's hazy, after Buck allowed that his favorite website is TMZ.com, pottymouthed comedian Lange posited that next on Buck's list was "suckingcock.com."

This time around, Unreal's money is on Cuban. Least likely? Namath.

Following is a poll, complete with the odds as we see them:

​ From the Hyde Park Herald, until last January the President's source for neighborhood news:

Hyde Park Herald

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The ladies' room at Shoji Tabuchi Theatre.

​ The results are in and the Shoji Tabuchi Theatre has won the coveted "America's Best Bathroom Award."

The Branson music hall features a ladies' powder room (right) boasting wainscoting, live cut orchids at every granite and onyx pedestal sink, stained glass, chandeliers and a ceiling reproduced from the 1890's Empire Period.

The men's lounge, meanwhile, features black lion head sinks imported from Italy, black leather chairs, a marble fireplace, and yes, even a billiard room with a hand carved mahogany pool table.

While dining on goat and fufu at a Nigerian restaurant this weekend, Unreal spotted a preview for a film called Hitler. Immediately, we fell in love and abandoned all plans of downloading an advance copy of New Moon. This is the film to see this year. We dare you to tell us any different.

Unreal knows we were not the only one completely captivated by JibJab's satiric take on last year's Presidential campaign. To refresh your memory, that was the one with all the candidates singing a little ditty called "Time for Some Campaignin'" (to the tune of "The Times They Are A-Changin'"). Yeah, yeah, the one where Barack Obama makes his entrance prancing through a pastoral glade with little woodland creatures and -- yes! -- a unicorn!

Now that a year has passed, we can finally admit that this disconcerting combination of politics and Lisa Frank haunted our dreams. But the only reason we can admit this is that Minnesota artist Dan Lacey has created a series of paintings of our chief executive riding the unicorn on various heroic missions, like wrestling Wall Street into submission.

Dan Lacey

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Ever hear of Casey Mulligan the ballplayer?

Perhaps you will in a few years. Mulligan is carrying an impressive 1.53 ERA this summer for the Cardinals Single-A club in Palm Beach and could be throwing in Busch Stadium someday soon.

For now, though, Mulligan might best be known for the YouTube video of him performing Michael Jackson's "Thriller" during a recent rain delay in Florida. The kid has moves.


 

flickr.com/photos/gregorio

Because we'd never be able to ogle (at 7 a.m.) at dozens and dozens of photos of pets in casts.

Which, of course, we can do each and every day at the website devoted exclusively to that topic, appropriately named:

fuckyeahanimalswithcasts.com.

Because  it's 7:00 a.m. I'm still a bit slap-happy, I present you this atrocious music video featuring the 1986 Los Angeles Dodgers.



That's former Cardinals outfielder Pedro Guerrero rapping at minute 1:05.

Thanks to the reader who passed along this little tidbit from the Daily Statesman down in Dexter, Missouri.

Now we all know that the economy is horrible. And U.S. car sales remain in the toilet. But the story below? You could say its for the birds. (Insert corny drumroll here.)



A month ago a robin began building a nest in the wheel-well of a used 2005 Chevy pickup that sits in an auto lot in Dexter. A few days later and employees at the dealership noticed eggs in the nest.

It's Monday, and the Unreal inbox runneth over.

At right is a solicitation for an upcoming St. Louis Post-Dispatch "special section" (a.k.a. "advertorial") "highlighting and honoring downtown's accomplishments, progress and future."

You just know it must be a critical and fair report detailing the successes and failures on the invariably pothole-pocked road to "the revitalization of downtown St. Louis and the St. Louis community" -- otherwise they wouldn't have included the ad rates.

Larger version after the jump...

This tidbit courtesy of St. Louis hip-hop blogger extraordinaire Byron Crawford.

I have no idea if the claim is true. Frankly, I don't care. To me, the real entertainment value here is watching radio hosts drink white wine from Dixie cups as they take the alleged tranny's story as gospel.

Wikimedia Commons

Perhaps picking out an NPR name is not as exciting as figuring out your porn star name, but Unreal thinks that the RFT should never pass up an opportunity to enhance its journalistic credibility.

This method of renaming was discovered by Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!'s Peter Sagal and broadcast to the world on his Twitter feed. The rules are thus, as explained by Linda Holmes on NPR's MonkeySee blog:

Take the first letter of your middle name and insert it anywhere you'd like in your first name. And then your last name is the smallest foreign town you've ever visited. Presto: You too can compete with Korva Coleman, Lakshmi Singh and Mandalit del Barco.

Well, it allows more freedom of expression than the Sarah Palin Name Generator.

Since Unreal has no middle name (alas) and doesn't get out much (even worse), we'll settle for renaming our beloved employer.

This has been Unreal, reporting for Rfiver Kinloch.

Latest promo spot for ESPN's SportsCenter features Albert "The Machine" Pujols...

Below are three screen caps -- to view the full thing, go to ESPN Media Zone and click "Video-Multimedia." Happy Friday.

You've heard the news. The bank bailouts, free-falling economy and global financial panic haven't stopped a few legislators from earmarking massive pork projects for their home states.

Chief among those free-spending law makers is Christopher "Kit" Bond. The senior senator from Missouri ranks sixth among his Senate colleagues when it comes to bringing home the bacon with public funds from the upcoming federal budget.

flickr.com/photos/jm999uk

Left, a bridge to nowhere; right, a highway in the desert.

The politically independent but anti-earmark group Taxpayers for Common Sense recently issued a lengthy report that outlines which senators signed on for special projects in their state -- a practice many fiscal conservatives characterize as wasteful spending of public funding.

Bond secured more than $85 million for projects. If you add the projects on which he partnered with other senators, the total comes to more than $248 million.

Meanwhile, Bond's fellow Missouri senator, Claire McCaskill,  earned praise from the anti-earmark advocates. McCaskill -- and eight other senators -- earmarked zero projects with public funding.

You can download a complete list of federal earmarks after the jump.

Wikimedia commons

Unless of course you're caught drawing a smiley face on the subway in New York's Union Station. Then you'll spend two days in jail, even if you're a renowned artist in town for a major gallery opening.

This just in from a loyal reader. I'm not sure of the origin of this photo, but I'm guessing Alton.

Unreal's inbox, as usual, overfloweth, so officially this should be yesterday's press release of the day, but what the hey...

It comes to us from the good folks at the St. Louis County Department of Health, and you can read it after the jump.

But first please permit us to note that not just any document possesses the attributes that distinguish a Press Release of the Day. In reading the health bulletin, see if you can spot the single element that pushed this baby to the head of today's class...

A couple awesome photos came through Unreal's inbox this morning...at last revealing a use for that craptastic hole next to Busch Stadium.

 

Anonymous genius

For a close-up, click on through...

Last month RFT  told you about the topless dive bars of our beloved Alton, Illinois.

Now a town in Maine is considering one better: Topless coffee shops. According to news reports, officials in Vassalboro, Maine, will soon hear a proposal to convert an old hotel into a coffee shop, sans shirts. Sorta gives new meaning to the question: Want some cream with that coffee, eh?

(For those of you who -- somehow -- can't imagine that, check out the video below of one fun-loving Eastern European barista. FYI: It ain't exactly work appropriate.)




-- Unreal

To its credit, the BBC receives praise from American media watchers for providing a different perspective, an international angle to the news of the day.

The British television network literally met its reputation for providing different angles to a story, with this video montage of the shoes being hurled at President Bush.

Here's a screenshot of one of several angles in the video. You've got to hand it to the president for being so agile.



(Actual video after the jump.)

A pal in the judiciary informed Unreal last week that legal eagles have been squawking about a cluster of campaign signs planted on the front lawn of a Missouri Court of Appeals judge. It seems that Missouri judges aren't supposed to broadcast their political leanings, per Canon 5 of the Supreme Court rule book.

We checked out the tip, and sure enough, Court of Appeals (Eastern District) Judge Kenneth Romines has four signs on the front lawn of his Webster Groves home. The beneficiaries (all of them Republicans): John McCain, Kenny Hulshof, Eric Schmitt and Randy Jotte.

Romines tells Unreal he wishes it weren't so. Here's the poop, er, scoop:

Unreal: Why is your front yard endorsing political candidates?
The Honorable Kenneth Romines: You'll have to ask my mother -- I mean, my wife and daughter. I have put nothing up. And I put nothing on my car. But my wife is a strong-willed person. I sometimes do not agree with what she puts out there, but she operates under her own rules.

Hmm. I guess since you both own the house, that might be kosher?
I believe the bank still owns it. I haven't seen the deed yet. I'm in hopes that I'll see it someday, before I die.

Well, did you have some kind of heated discussion with your wife about these signs?
She never talks about anything like that with me. You do not know my wife.

Am I the first person to ask you about this?
Yeah.

I see. So I guess if people are that upset, they haven't had the guts to confront you.
I would suspect it's probably some neighbor who brings their dog four to five blocks to poop in my front yard, and the sign's in the way of their dog pooping in my front yard.

So you're good friends with your neighbors?
Most of them. Except those who bring their dogs from four to five blocks away to poop in my yard.

-Unreal

A devoted fan of Sesame Street informs us that today, October 15, is "National Grouch Day" as proclaimed by America’s favorite grouch, Oscar.

So, miserable *!#&-ing Grouch Day to you. Now watch this terrible YouTube clip, ya jerk.

- Unreal

They're glum. They frown. The smack their hands against their foreheads in disbelief.

To help us visualize the tumultuous economy, most writers have mentioned the photos of sad stock traders that are splashed across front pages of newspapers and Web sites.

Well now there's a site that attempts to collect all those beleaguered financial men and women -- Sad Guys on Trading Floors. Complete with captions, a hilarious take on all those photos.

-Nick Lucchesi

Although we can’t really see John McCain as the sort of guy who voluntarily does the grocery-shopping.

-Aimee Levitt

It may be only 9:45 a.m. on the day of the debate, but if you're clamoring for some entertainment during the debate tonight, this drinking game may help.

Click the image for a high-resolution .pdf file.