newsminer.com

It’s busy times for all of, and it is quite easy to lose track of what is happening in the world around us. As I do from time to time, I am pleased to present you with a recap of some of the biggest news stories you might have missed this week.

Local man puts “zero preparation” into borough assembly public testimony

Despite advice from communication experts who stress the importance of practicing public presentations before delivering them, local man Bert Thoopin said he “never practices” before testifying before the Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly.

“Never done it, never will,” said Thoopin. He said that he testifies in opposition of every ordinance proposed by the assembly, even though most of the time he has no idea what the ordinance is about.

“I usually don’t know what I am going to say until after I angrily give them my name and address,” he said. “After that, the words just roll off of my tongue.”

Thoopin said that he if is ever at a loss for words, he falls back on three main talking points.

“One, I compare the mayor to Hitler. Two, I tell the assembly members how they are all going to be voted out of office if they keep this crap up. Finally, I state that if any borough employee comes inspecting my property, they’re going to be looking down the barrel of my shotgun.”

Thoopin confessed that he does need to work on his timing a bit, as he almost always goes over the three-minute mark.

“But I put those assembly members in their place,” said Thoopin. “I know they know I’m right, because they almost never ask me any questions afterwards.”

In addition to being a “speak before you think” guy, Thoopin said he is also a “post before you think” guy, stating that he never thinks before posting a negative comment to every article on the online version of the Fairbanks Daily News Miner. Thoopin, who posts anonymously under the name “MadAsHellinAK”, said that most of the time he never actually reads past the headline.

Homeless man with one shopping cart aspires to be like homeless man with multiple shopping carts

Every person has a dream. For local homeless man Steve Fonner, that dream is to one day expand his fleet of shopping carts from one to a dozen.

“It’s not just a keeping up with the Jones’ kinda thing,” Fonner said one afternoon, while taking a break from foraging for food in a local dumpster. “I’m not trying to be greedy either. You see that one guy going around town with a convoy of shopping carts that he has turned into a box-train, and it makes you realize anything is possible.”

That “one guy” Fonner referenced is a local homeless man known by many as John the Baptist. A regular presence on the university side of town, his plethora of shopping carts loaded down with cardboard boxes has made him quite enviable in the eyes of fellow homeless people.

“It’s a rare night that I don’t fall asleep dreaming of what I would do if I had that many shopping carts and that much cardboard,” said Fonner, as he finished loading up his one shopping cart with a variety of discarded items from the transfer station.

Fonner said he is also envious of John the Baptist’s celebrity like status in town.

“He’s got a nickname and everything, and he’s got a visible prop with the bible that he carries around that just completes the whole image,” said Fonner wistfully. “I tried carrying around a phone book once, and would shout out random phone numbers to passing cars with the hope that people would start calling me Steve the Phone Book Guy, but it never took.”

When asked to comment on what it was like to be placed on a pedestal by his homeless colleagues, John the Baptist stated that in order to be accepted by the Saviour, one has to place a marshmallow on the petal of a daisy and sing the unsung song, verses nine through 15.

Then, pausing for a second to adjust a box that was falling off one of his many shopping cards, he added “It’s kinda cool, I guess.”

New Thai food restaurant owner fails to do market research on needs of Thai food restaurant in Fairbanks

Sanjay Jainkul, who recently moved from Thailand to Fairbanks with the dream of bringing “curried delicacies to the Last Frontier” admitted today that he failed to do any market research to determine if the town needed a Thai food restaurant.

“When my family and I were deciding where in America a Thai food restaurant would succeed, we figured there would be no better place than the middle of Alaska,” said Jainkul. “We figured a town where restaurants served nothing but moose burgers and salmon would welcome something as new and unique as Thai food.

“Businesses can usually succeed if they are the only show in town,” he added.

Jainkul realized something wasn’t quite right, when, one week after the grand opening of Farthest North Thai Restaurant, he had failed to attract a single customer.

“At first I attributed it to local ignorance,” he said. “I thought maybe that the people of Fairbanks had no idea what Thai food was and were reluctant to try it.”

When Jainkul checked to make sure his listing in the yellow pages was correct, he then discovered that he had some competition.

“There was page after page of Thai restaurants,” he said. “I had no idea I would be going up against places like the Thai House, Lemongrass Thai Cuisine, Pad Thai, Bahn Thai, Siam Dishes, Thai Cuisine, Sweet Basil, Simply Thai and Sawatdee Café.

“Also, Thai a Yellow Noodle Around the Old Spruce Tree, Thai Me Up, Thai Me Down, If At First You Don’t Succeed, Thai, Thai Again, and Thai It, You’ll Like It,” he continued.

“Not to mention a new drive-thru Thai stand called Curry in a Hurry.”

Jainkul said he will remain open and differentiate his restaurant from other Thai restaurants, including the four on the same block as his, by adding moose burgers and salmon to the menu.

Scott McCrea has been a columnist with the News-Miner for many years now. He will happily take your comments at scmccrea@gmail.com.