Frost On Our Punkins – And Spidey In Lafayette?

We’re out and about in the 24/680, staving off frostbite and a rising bile as our national paroxysm plays out and we hunt for a local story to keep our mind off things.

If we were to give you The Bullet – the quick and dirty brief we’d give an impatient desk editor tapping his fingers on the other end of the phone as we struggled to organize our notes in some pissy phone booth – it would be this:

Burglars and safecrackers are at work; we’re seeing almost nightly pursuits as crooks cruise our “smaller” villages; fentanyl is cutting a deadly swath through the populace; catalytic converter theft is the New Gold Rush and robbery crews are blitzing local businesses.

Sounds kinda bleak, we know, but we calls ’em as we sees ’em.

On the Celebrity Front… aha! We caught you veteran readers who know we never do celebrity stories… it appears that Spiderman actor Tom Holland and soooo-hot singer/gal pal Zendaya were sampling the best of downtown Lafayette recently.

We’re taking this on good authority (young folks who know such things), because we’re just not familiar with the lifestyles of the Young, Rich and Famous and because we haven’t seen the Spiderman movie. The pair apparently have local ties and are so so so in love and they’re adorbs and all, so we wish them well and hope they had a good time in our neck of the woods.

On the National Scene, a certain Former Dude’s “Major Announcement” turned out to be a plug for a line of self-promoting trading cards which should go over well with his disciples. But as one local wag said: “The only announcement I want to hear from that guy is ‘ouch, these cuffs are too tight.'”

It’s apparent, to us at least, that the country still has some major work to do before we can start waving those foam “We’re No. 1!” fingers again.

One thing that is working well is our Flash Alert system, set up to provide news alerts for those desiring them but turning into something else as our Flashers use the system to talk with us in real time – often as “stuff” is going down in our neighborhoods.

During one of those pursuits we mentioned yesterday, The Flash began to fire up with messages from subscribers keeping us posted about developments along the pursuit route:

“… The immediate warnings are impressive,” wrote Razor S – a moniker they said we could and should use – “I walked over to my window and waited 30 seconds. Suddenly, there it (the suspect vehicle) was! Amazing. Wish I had spike strips here. I could have stopped him!”

We know Razor was joking but, of course, we never recommend putting yourself in the line of fire during one of these things. Let the pros handle it, unless someone is in need of an emergency resuscitation or something and you have the skills. It’s impressive how many of our readers have actually jumped in to lend a hand during a life crisis and we appreciate your efforts on behalf of others.

That’s it for now. Headed back to The Bunker for a warming coffee and to catch up on your communications. We thank you all for staying in touch with us as much as you do.