June 5-11, 2008
editorial@boulderweekly.com

Not thinkin’
A dude who allegedly ripped off a Starbucks over the weekend clearly hadn’t had his morning coffee when he went back to the same Starbucks on Tuesday wearing the same getup he’d had on when he’d allegedly robbed the place. It was just his shitty luck that a cop was there, questioning employees about the weekend theft. Naturally, the employees recognized him, and before you can say, “triple grande caramel macchiato,” the cop had him in cuffs in the back of a squad car.

If the dude had had his coffee first, he might have been awake enough not to return to the same place as the one he’d already robbed. He might even have had the presence of mind not to grab the same crap he’d worn last weekend off his bedroom floor.

(Yellow gloves aren’t exactly subtle, particularly when it’s 85 outside. He should’ve grabbed the pink ones.)
So what’s the moral of this story? Have your coffee before you return to the scene of your last damned crime.

Cell phone guardians
Ryan Disselhorst, a 20-year-old Boulder resident, has been arrested after an incident during the early hours of Friday, May 30.

Disselhorst, who police claim was in a severe state of intoxication, allegedly ran in front of a moving car, forcing it to a halt. He then allegedly reached into the female driver’s window to grab her breast, tossed her cell phone across the pavement and then attempted to strangle her. After she screamed, honked her horn and flashed her emergency lights, Disselhorst decided it was in his best interest to flee the scene — but not before stripping off all of his clothes.

After being caught and identified by Boulder police, the suspect faces multiple charges, including the following: second-degree assault; robbery; unlawful sexual contact; underage possession of alcohol; indecent exposure; and abuse of a telephone.

Abuse of a telephone? Seriously? While the other charges make sense, we had no idea that it was illegal to abuse a phone. Then again, this is Boulder. If we’re going to have laws that prohibit dyeing a poodle pink, we might as well extend such laws to include our most precious of inanimate objects.

But what constitutes phone abuse? Repeatedly dropping your cell phone? Being careless and losing it? Loaning it to some idiot who sends hundreds of moronic text messages or gossips? And what if the abuse is accidental, like getting drunk and dropping it in the toilet?

Then a whole set of troubling questions emerges. If phones receive protected status, what about pagers, PDAs and laptop computers? Or are they second-class electronic citizens?

Perhaps City Council should amend our ordinances and declare that we are no longer cell phone owners, but rather cell phone guardians.

How to save a dying phrase
A 57-year old Zion, Ill. man named Steve Kreuscher is headed to court this month to legally change his name. So what, right?

People change their names all the time these days. Well, it’s not really the fact that he’s changing his name, so much as what he’s changing it to. By the end of the month, Steve will be known by friends, family and the law as “In God We Trust.”

“The phrase ‘In God We Trust’ is like an endangered species, like the bald eagle,” Kreuscher told the Chicago Tribune. “By changing my name to In God We Trust, it is like I am taking one last bald eagle, for myself and for my family, and securing it as a permanent part of our heritage.”

And you know what, In God We Trust? We think you’re onto something. In fact, we’ve compiled a list of other endangered culturally relevant phrases that we worry might slip out of common usage, if they haven’t already — just the kind of phrases someone like In God We Trust could rescue from extinction.

Here’s a sampling:
—All that and a bag a chips
—Big whoop
—What’s the dillio?
—As if!
—Bling-Bling
—Boo ya!
—Eat my shorts!
—Gag me with a spoon
—Open up a can of whoop-ass
—Talk to the hand
—Who’s your daddy?
—Where’s the beef?
—I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up
—By the power of Grayskull!
—Thundercats, HO!
—Whatchu talkin’ ’bout?
—Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto
—All I wanna do is zoom-zoom-zoom-zoom and a boom-boom.

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