Month: July 2011

John Barron, Inventor of The ATM

/ Jim Earl / Leave a comment

Morning Remembrance Portraits by Nathan Smith copyright 2011


John Barron, a Scotsman who over forty years ago invented the automated teller machine, is out of cash.

Witnesses say he died after an irate customer rammed a crowbar into his mouth-slot when he refused to dispense fifty dollars.

News of his death couldn’t be confirmed until four days after he was deposited at the morgue because the bank said they had to put a hold on his corpse.

Barron said he came up with the idea for ATMs after being locked out of his bank. He also said his invention was inspired by candy vending machines. Which begs the question: Which story is it, asshole?

In a recent interview, the 84 year-old Scottish inventor recalled how the original machines were so primitive, they only dispensed haggis.

Here’s an interesting factoid: the world’s highest ATM is located in Tibet at 5,000 meters.

The world’s lowest ATM is located 400 meters below sea level near the Dead Sea.

And the world’s stickiest is in Amsterdam. It is literally packed with semen.

Barron requested his body be dried and molded into a hard protective case containing four trays of twenty-dollar bills. Then placed near any dark area where people may gather to get robbed or kidnapped.

From The Archives: Susan Atkins, Born Again Christian

/ Jim Earl / 1 Comment

Morning Remembrance Portraits by Nathan Smith copyright 2011


Susan Atkins, whose fame stems mainly from the fact that she’s not nearly as cute as Squeaky Fromme, is dead

Atkins lived a quiet, middle-class existence during her early years, singing in her church choir and helping out with numerous charity stabbings.

After running away from home, the teenage Atkins was fortunate enough to meet up with our lord and savior, Jesus Christ, who asked her to live with him at Spahn’s Ranch.

It was there that Jesus taught her the finer points of robbery, murder, and pitching songs to music executives.

Atkins bragged that at the crime scene she tasted the blood of Sharon Tate. But what she didn’t know was that Tex Watson secretly replaced the blood of Tate with that of coffee heiress Abigail Folger. And believe you me, she could tell the difference.

Relatives and loved-ones can console themselves with the thought that Susan is now up in heaven giving gonorrhea to Dennis Wilson.

Frank Neuhauser, Winner Of The First National Spelling Bee

/ Jim Earl / Leave a comment

Morning Remembrance Portraits by Nathan Smith copyright 2011


Frank Neuhauser, winner of the very first national spelling bee in 1925, is dead. D-E-A-D. Dead.

A family spokesperson said Neuhauser died of Myelodysplastic syndrome, a blood disease so hard to spell many doctors refuse to cure it.

In 1925 the eleven year-old Neuhauser won first prize by correctly spelling the word “gladiolus.” He then promptly returned home to endless schoolyard beatings because he correctly spelled the word “gladiolus.”

First prize included a trip to the White House to meet President Calvin Coolidge, where he quickly learned the word “boring.”

Since then, it’s been a tradition for contest winners to visit the president in office, including George W. Bush, who still insists “LMNOP” is one letter.

Neuhauser also won $500 in gold and a bicycle, which in today’s values would be equal to around $500 in gold and a bicycle.

Neuhauser requested his body be used in a sentence and buried within two minutes and thirty seconds.

From The Archives: Betty James, Named The Slinky

/ Jim Earl / Leave a comment

Morning Remembrance Portraits by Nathan Smith copyright 2011


Betty James, the woman responsible for naming the Slinky, is dead after tumbling down a flight of stairs into a heating grate.

Apparently her momentum caused her body to bounce end-over-end from one step to the next -much to the delight of a girl and a boy.

Her husband, a ship engineer, conceived of the toy in 1943 after watching an iud pop out of Tallulah Bankhead while dedicating a minelayer.

Seventeen years later, the quite mad inventor abandoned the family to join a religious cult dedicated to worshiping those little springs you find in push-button pens.

Though it was developed to be a toy, U.S. soldiers in Vietnam liked to use the Slinky as an antenna. Similarly, the Viet Cong used the commercial jingle to torture John McCain.

During her lifetime, hundreds of millions of plastic Slinkys were sold to children around the world. You can now find them floating in the Gulf of Mexico wrapped around millions of pelicans’ necks.

James requested one end of her elongated body be twisted and then suddenly released in order to demonstrate transverse wave motion.