Hard to fathom that a meatball, milkshake, and container of french fries nearly got us into World War III, but that's exactly how it almost went down over a day ago. Homeland Security was on high alert yesterday when some commuters driving to work in Boston noticed several "bombs" sprinkled around town that had blinking lights and four "D" sized batteries with wires attached to it. Police were notified and they in turn notified the Bomb and Arson Unit who went to check things out. As it was, it was nothing more than an advertising gimmick for Cartoon Network. Aqua Teen Hunger Force is a silly cartoon that comes on late night as part of the channel's "Adult Swim" lineup. In the end, they found several black blinking boxes that were strategically placed in areas such as under bridges and overpasses and large buildings that see a lot of foot traffic. While President Bush was nervously sweating by his red telephone, the bomb experts realized nothing was in the boxes to detonate. In fact, upon inspection it turns out these things were put together on the same principle as the child's toy "Lite Brite". pegs in a board with a light source behind run by batteries! While all this was going on, nine other cities including Chicago were discovered to have the same devices. Two guys in Boston were arrested for dropping these boxes off and terrorizing Boston. It's a "Lite Brite" for God sakes! Toys R Us had better pull those things off the shelf! Funny thing is, these guys who only worked the Boston area got in deep doo-doo when all they were doing is what they were told to do. Boston's Police Chief and Mayor are already calculating the cost of the damage done and are asking these two guys who will pay the two million dollars for scaring the hell out of everyone. These two college kids are going to have to throw a lot of keg parties for the rest of their life! The guy behind it all is media mogul Ted Turner who has Cartoon Network as part of his arsenal. What happens now? He did what he set out to do: Get everyone talking about Cartoon Network and hping you'll tune in.
A quick note on what was reported on Dateline NBC's Internet Predators series and how SpongeBob Squarepants is connected. Earlier this week I tuned into Dateline and they had their show about the Internet again. Their "sting" operation caught 38 guys who drove miles and hours to the home of what they thought was a 12 year old girl looking for sex. It was actually an 18 year old actress playing the part. Of course, the guy rings the doorbell and they're immediately confronted by a Dateline reporter who reads transcripts of often explicit conversations and then tells them they can go home. As soon as they walk out the door they're ambushed by 20 cops and arrested. Of note that evening was a guy in his 20's who got busted. The interesting thing of note was while questioning him, police discover he does animation for SpongeBob Squarepants on Nickelodian. At the end it was reported that the guy no longer has a job or anything else for that matter. That's one hell of a mess for SpongeBob to soak up!
