Don’t bother giving your coffee an extra stir, or rubbing your eyes in disbelief, because you read it right! After missing last Tuesday’s posting of The Door due to a myriad of excuses I felt it only right that I make up for it by offering not one but TWO… Two…two (that’s an echo) items from The Door (of Shame, Blame and Brilliance) here at the Siuslaw News.
For those of you knocking on The Door for the first time…
Go Away!
Haha! Just kidding! The more the merrier! In fact, “the more the merrier” is what the fire marshal has deemed to be the maximum occupancy level, depending on whether anyone in the group has eaten lunch at the Enfermo Taco.
Before we begin, as always, we must join hands and repeat the following mantra in a slow, monotoned voice:
The Door serves as a beacon, drawing us into the jagged rocks of journalism.
OK, come with me now as we go back in time through The Door, where journalists here at the Siuslaw News have been taping and gluing their favorite newspaper faux pas since the 1970s.
Last week, we featured a fellow Oregon coast newspaper — The World — which seemed to have had a fixation with the word “probe” a few years ago. Today, just to be fair, we at the Siuslaw News are stepping into the spotlight to show we’re not infallible. It’s just that our infallibility doesn’t involve probing.
Exhibit A: This is the work of yours truly. Needless to say, I had some explaining to do. I just thought it was worth noting that, in a town where half of the population is made up of retirees, no one had died since Friday. WOW! Sadly, my editor didn’t share my enthusiasm…
Exhibit B: Because the reporter who pieced together this brilliant work of investigative journalism is still here, I will refrain from using Ryan Cronk’s name. Not that he’d mind, especially since he’s on vacation this week…
And there you have it! Tune in again next week for another edition of The Door, assuming She Who Shall Not Be Named hasn’t replaced my computer with an air conditioning unit…
Ned's Blog 
I think I dropped my motivation inside my cup of coffee this morning. I can’t seem to muster up enough gumption to post anything. So let’s just pretend I posted by you laughing at whatever you laughed at the last time you read something new on my blog. Deal?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH… Will that work? 😉
“Shoppers shopping at shops”??? They actually wasted paper to print that?? Sigh. . . .
I think the editor was gone (passed out) that issue… When the rest of us saw it, we gave him so much crap! It was several years ago and he’s still living it down. That’s what they teach in J-School, apparently… which is why I never went 😉
lol
What luck! The newspaper I used to work for has an opening for an editor! I bet I could do better than “shoppers shopping at shops”. lol Only problem would be finding actual words for all the curses I use!
As long as you can get your curse words to rhyme with something, it basically cancels it out, right? i.e., “Some drunk F**k was struck by a truck…”
I loved the obit notice and am now contemplating coming up with my own neighbourhood newspaper, just so I can make announcements when nobody dies and also when shoppers are shopping at shops.
LOL! If you need correspondents, you know where to look if you’re looking to look for them, especially if we’re not dead yet.
LOVE the obit.
I’m all about the shoppers shopping at shops where they’re supposed to shop instead of shoppers shopping somewhere they shouldn’t be, “Get away from here you shoppers. Shoo- get back to the shops!” Nothing is more bothersome errant shoppers.
The-door-is-a-bacon-,-draw-ing-us-into-the-jagged-rocks-of-journalism.
Another appropriate newsworthy question for the obituaries, especially in a town overrun by retirees, is “Who died in here?”.
Every time you do that, I freak out thinking I spelled “beacon” as “bacon.” Stop it! (Not really.) I love bacon and could definitely be drawn by its smokey, salty goodness to just about anywhere — which is how I ended up in a retirement town. Florida smelled more like old people cooked in coconut.
I am laughing and crying here and my eyes just about popped out — because I am sitting at my desk at work trying to laugh silently.
“Florida smelled more like old people cooked in coconut”. LOVE IT!!!
🙂 Just pound your chest with one fist and fake a heart attack. That should keep anyone from paying any attention.
Unfortunately the woman with bad teeth who sits a few cubicles down noticed. My vision is still blurred.
LOL!!
“Florida smelled more like old people cooked in coconut.”
Why has Tim Dorsey never thought to use this line?
You know how when you leave the house, then come back and only THEN realize how much the dog stinks because you’ve been around it all morning? I think it’s like that with coconut-cooked old people for Tim Dorsey.
Hmmm. I wonder what the old people in Arizona smell like.
I would imagine… Come to think of it, I’d rather not.
Shoppers shopping at shops is brilliant. Who? What? Where? If only he could have left out the superfluous “at”.
LOL! You know, even without the gratuitous “at” it still works 🙂
Thanks for cheering up my Tuesday
BTW, I nominated you for an award, I hope you don’t mind. http://talkaboutcheesecake.com/2013/04/30/awards-me-me-me/
Are you SERIOUS! I HATE being recognized for something — anything — by people whose work I enjoy and admire!! Damn You, Piper! 😉
Should be safe with my ole blarney then! 🙂
Maybe if you put frosting on it 😉
What really stands out to *me* in the illustrative “shoppers shopping” photos is the dog. Front and center, there for the whole world (or at least your corner of it) to see… Is a dog. A dog who is, as far a I can tell… Sniffing a man’s crotch.
(Or at least making a valiant attempt to do so.)
This being the case, I was expecting to read a brilliant piece of journalistic titling. Something more along the lines of “Shoppers Sniff Out Deals”.
Or some such.
We would have spelled crotch wrong.
Yes, I can see how “Dog Sniffs Man’s Crouch” could lead to all sorts of awkwardness. 😛
I think we were working on the different uses of the word “Shop” that week. “Crouch” is a little advanced 🙂
Shoppers shopping at shops has just killed my creativity. I may never write again….unless I can come up with a gem as cool as the obituary!! 🙂
Lol! Sorry about that; I know it’s equivalent to a creativity stun bomb! As someone pointed out, the shopping piece would’ve been literary perfection if the superfluous “at” had been omitted. There goes Ryan’s Pulitzer for “Best Use of Uselessly Used Information.” 😉
Lol….well done!! 🙂
I think “shoppers shopping at shops” was stolen from Hemingway.
Lol! Yes, I believe it was in his classic short story,”Banal Story” story…
Ned Hickson, ladies and gentlemen. And yes it’s true. They are indeed made of brass. Good job turning something negative into something positive. Thanks Ned.
Lol! *Appreciative nod* Many thanks, Tom. If you hear clanging, that’s me approaching 😉 And man — life’s too short; best to spend as little as possible in the negative.
i will need to read these in pieces, they are too much for me to take in and process quickly. i am especially taken with the eloquent ‘nobody died.’ i am in awe.
Lol! Yes, it is perhaps my greatest work. Sort of like Haiku without the “ku.”
“I want more photo features, dammit! And I want it this week!” Unfortunately, not a frolicking child nor community fun-day was to be had that week…
LOL! Yeah, this was apparently “slow news day purgatory”
So I had just gotten myself under control (and mopped up the coffee spewed on my keyboard) when I noticed this was posted under the “Recently probed (and potentially sore)” category. LOL!!! Good thing I don’t have any more coffee!!!
It could have been worse; you could have spilled your margarita 😉
Perish the thought!!! 😀
Thanks, as always, for the good laugh. Love the obits.
Love the “echo” too. Gonna plagiarize that – for the record. Sue me.
LOL! …Lol … lol…