Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper - August 31, 2006

 

Dear Boss,

It has been quite a while since you heard from me. Guess maybe you thought I was gone. No such luck for you. Ha ha. Today is the anniversary of the first of my little games, I thought I should say hello. It's been almost 120 years since my last job and no one still has any idea who I am or why I done what I done.

There are plenty of possibilities. Maybe I'm a surgeon. I sure know how to handle a knife, don't I? Maybe I'm a royal. Maybe I'm not even a man, but a lady instead. Ha ha. That would be a good joke on you.

One thing's for sure. Plenty of geezers have tried to imitate me but no one is more famous. Time to go. "My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance."

Yours truly,
Jack the Ripper

Suggested Sites...

• Casebook: Jack the Ripper - repository of Ripper-related articles, documents, speculations, and experts.
• From Hell is the Moby-Dick of Tabloid Murders - review of the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell.
• Chilling Modern Photos Show Jack the Ripper's London Crime Scenes - current photos of the locations of the Ripper murders.
• Wikipedia: Jack the Ripper - information about the murderer and his (or her) victims. 
• Jack the Ripper As the Threat of Outcast London - examines the social conditions that led to the creation of the Whitechapel Murderer.

"I Never Have ... " - August 31, 2009

 

One of our favorite things to do at The Spark is to compare notes with our fellow Yahoo!s -- and you, our readers -- on things that we have in common. In the past, we've polled folks about things we hate or which celebrities we had our first teen crushes on.

In researching items for today’s Spark, though, we noted that August 31st marks the 35th anniversary of the last network airing of The Partridge Family. 

Seeing this, I was reminded of the fact that I've never seen an episode of either The Partridge Family or The Brady Bunch. Now, I like to think of myself as something of a maven on popular culture, so how have I dodged these particular bullets for nearly 40 years? Well, it hasn’t been easy, I'll admit. As a kid, I just thought they were stupid (I still do, for that matter) and after a while, because of their endless reruns, it became a challenge to avoid them, and a point of pride (not to mention a great conversational gambit) to say I’d never watched them.

With that fun fact in mind, I decided to ask my fellow Yahoo!s to detail things they had never done; the kind of thing that, when they would mention them, the average person would probably reply "really?"

Looking at the list, it's surprising to me how many of them revolve around television. For example:  

Liz: I have never seen a full episode of either Sex and the City or Desperate Housewives.

Chandra: I have never watched The Simpsons. Are those characters supposed to be funny? (Maybe we should keep this one anonymous ...)

Micaela: I've never actually watched a whole episode of Lost. (I am a fan of Heroes, though! (Editor's note: I've never watched Heroes myself.)

Brian: I've never watched a single episode of Survivor, I think I should win something for that.

We're not just avoiders of television, though; there are other aspects of entertainment and pop culture of which we're blissfully aware:

Jasmine: I have never seen the original Star Wars movies, The Big Lebowski, or The Godfather. Thanks to my friends and family, who insist that I have thus far led an incomplete life, all of the aforementioned films are in my Netflix queue.

Richard: I've never danced the Macarena. I've also never seen Leo and Kate in Titanic. Of these minor accomplishments, I am boastfully proud.

And just what are you blissfully proud of? Tell us, and we'll be back tomorrow with more Things We've Never Done.

Suggested Sites...

• C’mon, Get Happy! - this means nothing to me.
• Brady Bunch Shrine - neither does this.
• Survivor Sucks - these people wish they hadn't seen the show, either.
• Wikipedia: I've Never Seen Star Wars - these are folks after our own hearts. 
• 30 People Confess About Ordinary Things They Never Experience - they either hang out with the right people or the wrong people.