I ♥ The Hippo

Hippo Press is the foremost freebie newspaper for the Manchester and Nashua area, as well as most New Hampshire towns. Katie is a fan. It is generally around 60 pages long, packed with funny and informative stuff, and did you hear me...it's free. It makes me feel more connected to my sometimes unlovable city because the writers actually discuss the issues that affect us on a daily basis, like the state of our parks and roads, instead of the ones at stake for local politicians.



This Hippo-------------------------------------------------------------------->Not this Hippo.



Like the big hysteria started by our Union Leader about stiffening the drinking licenses on local bars and making every frigging place smoke free. I mean, our state is officially red now, isn't it?! I didn't wake up amongst hush-hush but aggressive Conservatives, did I?! Did I?!

As for the big bad U.L., it kind of has a monopoly on the big news of the day. But we can catch those types of stories on the televised news, and heck, the internet these days. Most of what is seen on that thin paper is usually just a reiteration of what we've already found out at 6am when we're done checking our emails and channel surfing.

But, really, The Hippo is a weekly newsreel that mostly focuses on who's doing what during the weekend? and how do we feel about our city?

I decided to give you some excerpts from two of the latest issues of the Hippo, to further prove why I'm such a fan.


[[from the New of the Weird section]]

My Official Nickname, From This Day Forward.
Kevin Russell, 21, was arrested in Hobart, Ind., in February when he went to a chase bank and tried to cash a Bank One check for $50,000. The check was signed "King Savior, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Servant."

Draw Me A Time Machine, So I Can Come Back And Kick Your Ass.
Traditional Chinese celebrations have been mentioned several times in News of the Weird, including the annual Tomb Sweeping Festival in April, which calls on people to visit relatives' graves and leave offerings that will improve the afterlives of the deceased. Actual objects (such as jewelry and money) are no longer required, as paper representations are considered just as effective. This year, according to an Agence France-Presse dispatch, paper illustrations of dancing girls will adorn many graves, along with paper "Viagra" pills, and even more questionably, paper renditions of condoms.

This Puts A Whole New Ring To The Word "Concubine".
According to a Beijing Youth daily report distributed by Reuters News Service in February, an unidentified Chinese businessman posted an online job offer for a "substitute" mistress. That is, in order to save his marriage, he had agreed to allow his wife to beat up his mistress and thus needed a stand-in to absorb the whipping, to spare the real mistress. He offered equivilent of about 400$ per minute of pain.


[[from the Quality of Life Survey section]]

Four Seasons? Try Forty.
After about 16 hours of constant dripping and splashing and pelting of water and sleet, you think there must be an end in sight, but you wake up with statewide flood warnings and wind gusts that sound like the high-powered drying in the drive-thru car wash. You step outside and within five minutes it rains on you, and then ices on you. You start wondering how much of your back yard will drown, and if the yard is floating away, how are the farms and beaches holding up? And then you see the worms floating in puddles between ice floes in your driveway and you think, ewwwwww. Also, ice and worms? That's like having wrinkles and acne simultaneously... and although it does happen, it's just not fair.