TROUBLE. Hear me, people. There is trouble. Rhymes with rubble and tastes even worse (rubble tastes like McDonald’s). Are you troubled by this influx of trouble? You should be. It’s troubling.
1. HEY DO YOU LIKE TWILIGHT? WELL TOO BAD Rob Bricken of io9.com seems optimistic, but I can’t see how, because the Twilight franchise, that godawful horde of books and films that made the last decade so painful to experience, is coming back in the form of a short-film competition for women filmmakers. Actually, this seems like the best possible way to revisit Twilight: a series of short imaginative takes on the world created by Stephenie Meyer, and not a money-fuelled juggernaut rolling over our screaming souls.
2. IS YOUR SPERM SECOND-RATE? HAVE A DRINK. NO, WAIT A recent study has determined that even moderate alcohol use can result in low-quality sperm. And carbonated water makes your sperm all jumpy-like.
3. A BOX OF FLUFFY PUPPIES? YES Greg Zubiak was out walking in a field near Glaslyn when he found a box of 20 puppies! Yay! They’d been abandoned and left to contend with coyotes and the cold. Boo. But he gathered them up and took them to the Battlefords Humane Society! Yay! They’re stretched pretty thin right now with the sudden influx of fluffy puppies, so the Battlefords Humane Society is looking for donations of time, money and teddy bears, because tiny puppies need to cuddle with teddy bears, which is the world’s most adorable fact.
4. HOW’S THAT EBOLA DOING? GREAT, THANKS FOR ASKING Africa continues to be ravaged by the worst Ebola outbreak in history, with 3,400 dead so far and the disease neatly outpacing anyone’s ability to keep up. Meanwhile, the lone US patient is “fighting for his life” in Texas.
5. YOU THOUGHT THE HONG KONG PRO-DEMOCRACY PROTESTS WERE A GOOD THING THAT POINTED THE WAY TOWARDS A BETTER FUTURE, BUT REALLY THEY’RE JUST TROUBLE, ACCORDING TO A WIRE SERVICE HEADLINE I guess some “Hong Kong residents” are pushing back against the “protesters” (who aren’t residents?) and the police are the voice of reason? Hmm. The story mentions that the protests are hurting business, which I guess is more important than democracy and human rights now. This is going to end up like Tiananmen Square back in 1989, when pro-democracy protesters really slowed down tanks, sort of.