All Entries Tagged With: "Ridgway"

State Plans 60 New Scenic Views by June

(Denver) Strategists here have decided to grace the state with more than 60 new scenic viewing pull-offs on Highways 50, 550 and 145 it was disclosed this morning.
The new construction is expected to hold up traffic for months despite the fact that most of the work is being done off-road. Crews from as far away as Mack will begin preliminary dozing as early as March 15.
“We plan to include bathrooms in the more upscale views,” said Melvin O’Toole, planner and recognized brains behind the effort. “When we’re done it oughta be damned panoramic around here!”
The scenic views are said to be repayment for all of the water stolen by Front Range communities since the 50s.
“It’s all very politically correct,” said Toole. “I love the smell of asphalt going down on a hot road. When we’re all done we’ll have scenic views looking on to other scenic views.”

Verbal Teas Dominate Market

(Manana) A revolutionary blend of verbal tea has nailed down a 35% beverage market share after only one week on the shelves. According to tea wizards at Terrestrial Seasonings, a Colorado-based herbal health concern, the initial impact was greater than expected leaving the cupboard bare for the time being.
“Out teas will help people to better express themselves, their inner feelings, their outer limits,” said Howie Spout, a spokesperson for Terrestrial. “As the name implies we are of the earth but looking into the cosmos for new direction, new awareness, new tea bag designs.”
Spout was quick to point out that Terrestrial was in no way associated with the Tea Party or any of its supporters.
According to the company’s official statement, a single cup of verbal tea will noticeably stimulate a drinker’s use of action words and spike his oral vocabulary. In lab experiments, researchers found that the rats chattered more clearly and carefully in conversation with other rats after sipping a saucer of verbal tea.
“Although these disease carrying, crop destructive rodents have no written language, communication within the cells and sects seems quite smooth,” said Spout, “and sophisticated in a highly evolved idiomatic manner.”
Verbs, of corpse, are the basic elements of sentence structure that provide action and movement – the caffeine of grammar. Terrestrial expects to stay with a winner and leave nouns, adjectives and adverbs to the other guys.
The verbal teas come in assorted flavors and phonetics such as Blackberry Past Tense and the popular Hibiscus Present-Perfect. The secret tea blends kindle the remote region of the brain cortex that is employed strictly for tantric eroticism, preparation of income taxes and conjugating verbs.
All of the teas are completely artificial and contain no natural flavors or ingredients. In the tradition of Terrestrial, the colorfully decorated boxes are covered with annoying sayings such as “You can’t change the world but you could change your underwear” and “Today is the first day of the mess of your life.”
Tea aficionados are encouraged to keep a wise eye out for Proverbial Tea this spring, a calming strain of Asian and Polar teas that incites drinkers to spurt out poorly timed and tiresome trivialities disguised as imperative directives and inspired declarations. We can’t wait.
– Fred Zeppelin

“Oh it looked about the way I pictured it. Flames, demons, not much to drink.” – Dante, remembering his visit to Hell.

Reading comprehension #611:

The following is a short test of one’s ability to understand and analyze prose. READ THIS SEGMENT ONLY ONCE OR FACE DISQUALIFICATION AND FORFEIT ALL PRIZE MONEY!

A bear and a rabbit sat on a log deep in the forest. The bear felt a great bowel movement coming on but was out of toilet paper. He turned to the rabbit and asked, “Do you have problems with things sticking to your fur?”
The suspicious rabbit asked why and then scurried away leaving the bear to his own devices, which most likely would have been a bush or some bark. The angry bear muttered, “You just can’t count on those damn rabbits when you need them.”
a.) What did the bear mean by things? Do they sell animal toilet paper?
b.) Are bears really all that concerned with personal hygiene?
c.) What happens if a bear, or other hibernating mammal has to go in the middle of the winter?
d.) Do rabbits and bears actually converse?
e.) Would the bear had been better off just grabbing the rabbit, without all the chatter?
Send your answers to Hunting Editor, San Juan Horseshoe, Box 615, Gunnison, CO 81230. If we use your response in our November issue we’ll give you a free subscription, a free T-shirt and a free roll of toilet paper. No phone calls please.

World could be out of bullets by 2020

(Colona Roundhouse News – April 10, 2015)

     Sources within the local Tri-Lateral Commission project the planet will run out of bullets by 2020. War as we now know it, says the secretive group, might be a thing of the past.
“Bullets have become a part of our very fiber,” said a member who demanded anonymity. I don’t want to be an alarmist but if something isn’t done to correct this oversight we could all find ourselves looking down the barrel of an empty chamber.”
War nets big profits for a small few and without little bullets the entire landscape expands and changes drastically.
“Can we expect angry combatants to go back to fighting with spears and arrows?” he asked, speaking now under the provision of unreliability. “What are they going to do…throw rocks at each other?”
Although no one knows exactly how this crisis emerged it is thought that someone earning minimum wage simply pushed the wrong assembly-line button or filled out an order sheet incorrectly.
“We do not believe this to be a terrorist action,” said the source.
“Man’s integrity will come forth when the time is ripe,” assured another member of the dictatorial commission. How do you think we developed the machine gun or the catapult?”
Ammunition enthusiasts are encouraged to learn new battle skills such as the digging of moats and the employment of hot oil on the parapets. Many smaller militias have already begun training recruits how to hurl pistols and rifles at opponents in hopes of hitting something.
“After all the violence and manipulation we never expected our realm to be threatened by the absence of bullets,” added the source. “I guess we just always thought they’d be there.” – Dag Katz

South Dakota Decriminalizes Tennis

(Bismarck) The athletic crowd, decked out in traditional white garb, sent up a rousing cheer this morning with the official announcement that tennis would no longer be an illegal pursuit in the Land of Infinite Variety.
At 10 am, just after an extravagant brunch, the state senate voted 49-3 to “halt all police actions, arrests and detainments formerly associated with the sport or game of tennis.”
Leading civic groups as well as the Deadwood Chamber of Commerce and the Dakota nation lauded the decision. Even the generally stone-faced Mount Rushmore Four cracked a smile when told of the news.
The legislation takes effect immediately and will be commemorated with a world-class singles match between Serbian Novak Djokovic and Spaniard Rafael Nadal. Both U.S. Open champions are longtime Black Hills aficionados and have close relatives in the South.
Rumors circulating the courts this afternoon suggest that Montana, North Dakota and even Wyoming may follow suit and relax restrictive ordinances and regulations regarding the controversial sport within their borders.
– Joshua Pim

The prominent San Juan peaks…

An interview at 14,000 feet

This interviewed has been compiled under duration by a crack team of investigative journalists trying to rationalize spending a good chunk of the long, hot summer stumbling around high in the San Juan Mountains. It in no way reflects the shortsightedness, political bias or intolerant stands common to this newspaper. The report is not intended to substitute for the eerie harbingers, half-truths, crisp dialogue, educational opportunities, fantasy time travel or twisted focus presented in the mainstream funny papers.
Patriotic readers are instructed to eat this article after consuming its content so that code data and shared intelligence do not fall into the hands of rogue governments and/or sophisticated international terrorist cells. Your support is essential. We could not be who we are without your negligence.

Horseshoe: (crawling up the last few feet to the top of Mount Sneffels) Good day, Ms Sneffels. I hope we aren’t intruding so early in the morning. Did you sleep well?

Sneffels: Sleep well? Up here, with sheets of bedrock? You must be kidding. It snowed last night. I’m soaked to the strata and haven’t even had time to fix my face. I must look hideous.
Horseshoe: On the contrary…you look…quite majestic.
Sneffels: Why thank you. How about a nice hot cup of tundra tea. I have it imported from the Sangre de Cristos.
Horseshoe: Sure. I guess you’re wondering what I’m up to here so early.
Sneffels: We don’t get a lot of visitors until about noon, then the lightning scares them off by two and things calm down again. (A rock falls down almost hitting me). Damn mountain goats. Clumsy bastards. No consideration. No sense of design. They never used to come up this high until the humans started the jeep tours and helix skiing.
Horseshoe: My publisher sent me up here to get a story on the Pacific Rim and climate change…
Sneffels: Well you’re 800 miles off course.
Horseshoe: But I came to talk to you and several other mountains here in the San Juans to get your angle on it all. Even though there are few actual volcanoes here, the whole place is the largest erosional remnant of a complete volcanic field. Scientists say the San Juans were created by five volcanic eruptions each with a magnitude ten times greater than Mt St. Helens.
Sneffels: When was all of this to have happened?
Horseshoe: About 35 million years ago.
Sneffels: Before my time.
Horseshoe: Did you ever meet La Garita Caldera?
Sneffels: I knew her during the Precambrian Era when we were a lot younger. She was an eruption waiting to happen. All talk-no action.
Horseshoe: Are there mountains like her in the San Juans today?
Sneffels: You mean volcanoes? Say it. It’s not so bad. Yes, Lone Cone still fancies himself an active volcano but most geologists laugh him off the stage when he starts in. He’s the only mountain in this range with enough hot air to almost pull it off.
Horseshoe: A real hot head, huh?
Sneffels: Oh he’s a genuine volcano all right…though extinct from what I hear. We don’t talk about that in front of him. You should stop and ask Old Man Wilson about him. They’ve been neighbors for millenniums. No love lost there. I’d go with you but I think I’ll just stay here and be high.

After crossing into the Western San Juans the hard way we finally reached the crest of Mt Wilson. We carefully ascended the steep rock face and scrambled up to the top of the magnificent 14er.
Horseshoe: Hello Mount Wilson. Are you there?
Mt Wilson: Yes I’m there. I’m here. I’m pretty much everywhere up here. But please get off my chest. It’s hard enough to do crunches when you’re made of metamorphic rock.
Horseshoe: Oh sorry.
Mt. Wilson: Men who move mountains, huh. What a crock of lava.
Horseshoe: May I speak with you for a moment about global warming and seismic energy and…
Mt Wilson: So you’ve been talking to Mount Sneffels? That bony broad doesn’t know if she’s coming or going. Not well grounded if you know what I mean. What did she say about me?
Horseshoe: Only that I should talk to you about Lone Cone.
Mt Wilson: So that’s it. I should have known. That Lone Cone gets all the attention. Don’t know what the ladies see in him. He’s always been a punk in my book. I knew him at Vesuvius Junior College. He was very active in a lot of underground volcanic activities there.
Horseshoe: Do you think he plans to erupt in the future?
Mount Wilson: He has too many faults and that crater face ain’t gonna win him any friends. His volcanic block along with his personal hygiene could dictate anything.
Horseshoe: When was the last time he blew his stack?
Mt Wilson: During the Haleyolithic Era he got all huffy about some pterodactyls using him for nesting. Up here…mind you. He shot a few rounds of steam and they split. If you don’t believe me, ask him yourself. He’s over there toward Norwood with his head in the clouds. Just do yourself a favor and don’t say anything about his faults. He’s also touchy about the word dormant…something about his twisted male ego.
Horseshoe: Thanks Mr. Wilson.
Mt Wilson: You betcha. Hey if you run into Last Dollar Mountain on your travels tell him he still owes me money from a poke game in 450, will ya.

We proceeded to climb the south ascent to Lone Cone despite warnings of electric fields and unfriendly ptarmigan. As we approached his conical mound he resembled a medieval castle. We yelled a greeting like before.
Horseshoe: Greetings Mr. Cone. We’re from the San Juan Horseshoe. I understand you’re a volcano.
Lone Cone: Well I’m not a Chevrolet.
Horseshoe: I’ve been talking a lot of your neighbors about volcanoes and global arming and I…
Lone Cone: Those ninnies over by Ouray? Bunch of angular nonconformists. I went to a barbecue over there a couple of hundred years ago and it took me three years to get home. Damn.
Horseshoe: Are you extinct like they say?
Lone Cone: I certainly was not that Fourth of July. It was a Carnival atmosphere. Extinct? I should say not. It started as an impulsive glance and ended in a landslide. I’m known as quite the ladies’ mountain you know.
Horseshoe: You know La Garita Caldera?
Lone Cone: Garita babe? We saw quite a little of each other during the Triassic Period, but the commute cooled things off. Have you ever tried to get a mountain into the back seat of a 57 Ford?
Horseshoe: Not recently.
Lone Cone: Oh a wise guy? How would you like a little eruption or maybe a landslide aimed in your direction? Didn’t your momma ever teach you any manners?
Horseshoe: Yes but I gave them up to go into journalism. But do you plan to erupt soon?
Lone Cone: Only if I get another real estate sign stuck in the side of my head. The other day some lady asked me for my listing. Was she coming on to me? You people ski all over our faces. You take our pictures. You gaze in our direction but when it gets dark you leave us out here…all alone. Lone as it were. Lone.
Horseshoe: So…the eruption potential?
Lone Cone: Yeah, I think I will. Imagine the attention from the rest of the world if I spewed out and made a mess. I’d probably qualify for federal assistance. A disaster area right here in the San Juans. The Andes and the Urals and the Alps would be green with envy. Maybe I’ll do it for Christmas. Back in the old days the tribes would throw me a virgin princess or two…to calm me down…but with civil rights and all I can’t expect that this go round.
Horseshoe: Those days may be gone forever. Thanks for talking to us. We’ll send you a copy of the story. – Gabby Haze