Byron rejects mandatory guns

The news was first reported as white smoke seen billowing over the town hall.

Foxy lady

Others signal key events in their lives by letting mange-addled wildlife into their homes. Hey, there’s a world beyond Twitter, you know.

O’ happy dagger!

So, I watched the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli version of “Romeo and Juliet” over the weekend and have since declared it the best movie of all time. This is not up for debate so you can just stop trying, Cohen brothers. And in honor of this masterpiece, I spent the better part of the week trying to speak Elizabethan. Thou art sucky at it. I figure maybe I’ll have better luck writing news stories in Shakespearean verse. After all, that which we call a diseased fox by any other name would smell as ghastly.

Carnival cruise deaux

Who knew riding off into the untamed ocean with a bunch of strangers could cause such misery? Magellan, that’s who. In the near future, Carnival cruises will be doled out as punishment rather than rewards. Anyone who tries to tell me that the DiCaprio version of “Romeo and Juliet” is a perfectly valid adaptation, for instance, will be sentenced to a weeklong cruise to Bimini. I bite my thumb at you!

The god particle

Scientists believe a newly discovered particle is the long-sought Higgs boson. What is the Higgs boson? Hint: You have some in your underpants.

Spit take

In Cape Elizabeth, city workers can no longer chew tobacco on the job. Another vice succumbing to the sanctimonious. Butt cracks are still allowed, though.

Happy St. Patrick’s

If any portion of this column seems even remotely funny, you’ve had too much green beer. Eat some crackers and go lie down.

No news is bad news

Google is laying to rest yet another application on which many of us have become dependent. This time, it’s Google Reader, an aggregator that allowed us to view all of our news in one convenient place. This may make some lofty business sense for El Goog, but for the rest of us, it’s just a huge pain in the Higgs boson.