Happy Birthday Washington! 120 years of in-your-face beauty and “move if you don’t like it here” attitude!

The State of Washington celebrated 120 years of pure awesomeness on Wednesday. While Clambaker recovers from his all-night partying in celebration of his state’s complete superiority and dominance over the other, less-than awesome states, he thought it would be nice to share some historical perspective on life for our state brothers and sisters in 1889.

Some of the other happenin’s in Washington in 1889:

• Chinese slave laborers too sick and weak to work on the transcontinental railroad are transferred to the SR520 Evergreen Point Floating Bridge and Alaskan Way Viaduct projects. A personal diary entry of laborer Xiang Wi details the quality of construction.

“Very poor design…many doubts about longevity of materials…engineering quality dubious at best…much surprise if structures last to Christmas. Good smoked salmon readily available though, so Xiang not praying for death just yet.”

• Tim Eyman’s ballot initiative to rescind a state tax on codpieces fails, despite heavy support in Eastern Washington.

• Grover “Shingles” Cassidy, a tent-to-tent chicken salesman and amateur jug musician from Aberdeen, leads America out of its big-haired, long-bearded, glam-bluegrass days with a new angst-ridden sound called “grunge-grass,” 100 years before future Hoquiam rival Kurt Cobain.

• Eastern Washington residents, pissed at Western Washington’s liberal leanings, strong economy, temperate climate, and tolerance of each other’s differences, begin plans to secede from Washington to form a new state, named “Lincoln,” with an official state motto of “Fuck you jerks! Spokane is awesome! Freedom for everyone...everyone…everyone but gay people!”

• The Seattle Mariners finish their inaugural season a disappointing 10-152. Manager Jumpy “Jack” Stacks, blaming a lack of support from ownership and less –than-harmonious clubhouse chemistry, places a hex on the franchise, wishing them “mediocrity until the sun explodes...”

• Aplets & Cotlets production begins in Cashmere, bringing together a horrid concoction of jellied fruit, powdered sugar, and nuts, to the exuberant glee of old people across the state. Everyone younger than 70 describes them as “possibly the worst thing I’ve ever eaten…seriously…I’d eat a steaming pile of dog shit first.”

• At 5:28pm, literally one minute after statehood is officially declared, Californians begin moving to Washington by the wagon-load, inflating housing prices and creating a disdain among the local population that still exists today. Clambaker almost wishes this disdain had culminated in clubbing them over the head with a whiskey bottle and sending them back home to their crappy shithouse further south, but alas, Washingtonians have still yet to take the initiative. I kid, Californians…I kid…

Speaker Pelosi visits Seattle hospital and receives swine flu vaccine... in her face

Seattle, WA
Just two days after heading the health care reform bill through the House, Speaker Pelosi visited Swedish hospital on First Hill to receive what she claims to be a double whammy. The H1N1 inoculation should carry her health through the winter while injecting it in her face should help her snowballing aging effects.

"It's really not a new procedure," claims Dr. Jim H Vandy. "This is the same way we test the vaccine on the rats... and they look great!"

Rep. Jim McDermott added, "She's amazing. I don't even think she blinked during the procedure, but then she feels no pain. I'm just so tickled that she likes my purple tie."

Where’s your Swine Flu shot? Ask Mr. Twinkles…because he’s hoarding it.

Bellingham, WA.
As millions of Washingtonians scramble to find available H1N1 vaccinations, some extremely lucky Llamas are being given priority in the battle against this potentially dangerous yet extremely over-hyped virus.

For Llama-keeper Betsy Jorgensen and her live-in boyfriend Walter “Lucky” Harris, the danger to their Llama herd is nothing to sneeze at (haha…me make swine flu pun!).

“It’s important to inoculate these animals,” said Lucky. "Can you imagine the devastation a swine-flu pandemic would bring to the Llama population? It would be a game changer. Where do you think that Llama-hair coat you’re wearing comes from? Or that Llama-hair blanket you cuddle up all warm and cozy under at night? Or that Llamanade you’re drinking? That’s right! Llamas! Freedom isn’t free! And neither is this shot for Mr. Twinkles here by the way!”

As you might imagine, gaining the trust of these animals is both a delicate and hilarious process. “We drop a trail of candy corn that leads to the butchering pen,” said Jorgensen. “Don’t worry. It sounds ominous...but it’s more of a butchering kennel.”

For resident Llama “Mr. Twinkles,” the tactic is anything but new.

“Ah yes, that fucking candy corn,” said Mr. Twinkles. “It gets me every time. I followed a delicious trail of that goodness into this very same pen about a year ago. One minute I’m in candy corn heaven, and the next minute I’m hobbling back out to pasture, minus one pair of Llama testicles. It’s easy to stand there and tell me that I should be able to learn that a trail of candy corn is probably there to lure me into something I wouldn’t otherwise willingly agree to. And that’s a fair point. You got me there. No excuses.

But look, you’re a people...you make the candy corn…or you at least you make complex economic systems that import it from China. You have hands and fingers to carefully place the candy corn on the ground in the form of a trail that I will likely follow wherever its irresistible aroma takes me. Who bears the burden of guilt here then, I ask you? Me? A Llama? Or you, the peoples, who willingly do these things? These are curious and difficult questions, to be sure. Above all else, if there’s one thing I’d like to stress, it’s that……..OOOOOOOOO LOOK! CANDY CORN! YEA!!! AND IT’S IN TRAIL FORM! I WONDER WHERE IT LEADS! PROBABLY TO YUMTOWN!! POPULATION…ME!”

Post Office employees excited about new sign

Pt. Townsend, WA
In recent years, the self run Post Office has been trying to find new ways to stay profitable. After several stamp rate hikes, the Post Office decided today that it will no longer need employees to work the counter.

The local manager in this Pt. Townsend office explains, "We can buy a hundred of these 'Next Window' signs at the same cost as one employees coffee break. We should have thought of this a long time ago."

Expect longer delays this Christmas season.