Laughing

I am sitting here in the house alone, listening to talk radio on my city's admittedly podunk attempts at broadcast journalism. The guy who comes on at the top and bottom of the hour to read the news ("Several cows escaped from a farm enclosure on county road three-hundred north early this morning, blocking the passage of a school bus...") and every time I hear him, I wonder where on earth they found him. He has cultivated the ability to unaccountably emphasize random words and pause in extraordinary places in any given sentence, rendering his speech patterns to resemble nothing remotely close to modern English.

For instance, he just read: "Light snow OVERnight caused.....bridges, interstate onRAMPS....and other roads TO freeze. Causing......TRAFFIC mishaps during THIS morning's rush...... HOUR commute."

I like to play a game, a sort of solitaire, when I listen to the news, counting both pauses and oddly overemphasized syllables in each news bits he reads. It makes it even more fun that he has a pompous and nasally speaking voice. You just can't get this kind of premium entertainment on the bigger Indianapolis radio stations. They're all professional and never seem to feel the need to hit the cough button multiple times in one five minute segment to emit slight burps, courtesy of the onions and peppers on their lunch sandwich from Mancino's.