Aqua Teen Hunger Blah

The "tempest in a teapot" story of the century can be found right here.

I'm sure that most of you have heard about that by now (and by "most" I mean "3 of the 4 people reading this"), so I'm not going to write about all the details. I just want to vent about how idiotic the whole story is.

Let's start with this paragraph: "Assistant Attorney General John Grossman called the light boards 'bomblike' devices and said that if they had been explosive they could have damaged transportation infrastructure in the city."

By this logic, I could be arrested and charged with a felony for driving my car on a road in Boston. Cars can have bombs in them! If my car had a bomb in it it certainly could have damaged transportation infrastructure, right?

Never mind that these "bomblike" lightboards had been in the city for three weeks without any problem, or that they have also been in nine other cities (including Philadelphia) without incident. Nope. A couple phone calls to the police, and suddenly the bomb squad has to come out, shut down the whole area, and detonate a Lite-Brite of a cartoon moon man giving the middle finger in a controlled explosion.

But for now, let's go back to the news story for a second: "Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis called the stunt 'unconscionable,' while Boston Mayor Thomas Menino called it 'outrageous' and the product of 'corporate greed.' Democratic Rep. Ed Markey, a Boston-area congressman, added, 'It would be hard to dream up a more appalling publicity stunt.'"

Read that again: "It would be hard to dream up a more appalling publicity stunt."

Ed Markey may be lacking in the imagination department, but then again, he is a professional politician, so it's not that surprising (see, I can rag on Democrats too). Either way, that quote is pretty symbolic of the whole reaction to this. Or maybe a harmless viral marketing campaign that didn't affect a soul until the city of Boston went nuts over it is, in fact, the most appalling publicity stunt ever.

It makes me wonder what would happen if I called my local police and said, "Yeah, I'd like to report an emergency. There are all these big blue boxes with small openings at the top all over the place. There's one at 42nd and Pine, another at 43rd and Spruce, and still another at 43rd and Chester! And every night at 5:00 this guy in a blue uniform-type outfit comes and does something with it. Probably fine-tuning the timer in the bomb!"

Maybe I could get mailboxes removed from the entire city.

Meanwhile, you can bet that Aqua Teen Hunger Force will have the highest ratings of its entire run now, after news outlets across the country have been forced to offer some sort of explanation of what the show is.

Anyway, I'm sure somebody out there is thinking "I'd rather have this than terrorist bombings all across the country," and I guess I can't really argue with that, but it still wouldn't hurt to use a little common sense one in a while.