Coffin takes blue ribbon

Charlottesville Daily Progress
Published: May 10, 2008

He’ll take it to the grave — his favorite beer, that is. Or, rather, it will take him.

Bill Bramanti will be buried some day in a Pabst Blue Ribbon coffin.

No, you can’t just go down to your local funeral home and pick one of these off the shelf. Mr. Bramanti, of South Chicago Heights, Ill., had this one custom-made for him.

The coffin in the shape of a beer can is designed in Pabst’s colors of red, white and blue.

“I actually fit, because I got in here,” Mr. Bramanti said.

Lots of beer fits in there, too.

Determine to make the coffin a multipurpose accessory, Mr. Bramanti used it as a cooler at a party he threw last weekend. He filled it with ice and, of course, his favorite brew.

“Why put such a great novelty piece up on a shelf in storage when you could use it only the way Bill Bramanti would use it?” said daughter Cathy Bramanti.

The 67-year-old administrator doesn’t plan on using it any time soon for its originally intended purpose.

But when he goes, he’ll go down smooth.

Suited up for business

What’s black and white and wet all over?

A penguin, of course.

But how about a penguin in a wetsuit?

Pierre, the penguin, was going bald, poor thing. No spring chicken at age 25, he was losing feathers around his rump.

Penguins rely on their feathers for warmth. So the denizen of the California Academy of Sciences was not able to get into the water with his flock and ended up shivering on the sidelines, instead.

A staff member got the idea for a penguin wetsuit, and a dive gear company was enthusiastic about trying to make one.

Sure enough, the suit allowed Pierre to get back into the swim of things.

Meanwhile, his feathers have grown back and he’s being weaned off the suit.

That’s a lot of zeros!

You think there might be something wrong with a check made out for $360 billion?

A Texas, man has been arrested on a forgery for trying to cash a check for that eye-popping sum.

Guess the 10 zeros on the piece of paper caught their attention.

We heard they did things in a big way in Texas, but this is ridiculous.