Business - Page 12

Yesterday morning, EPB expanded its Holiday Windows showcase to include a display just in time for the annual December 23 holiday Festivus.

For over 60 years, EPB has upheld a tradition to decorate the windows of its downtown office with ornate Christmas scenes using trees, animated characters and thousands of lights, and this year, it made a controversial decision to include Festivus, an alternative holiday to Christmas.

The Festivus display includes the traditional unadorned aluminum pole and animated figures engaging in Festivus activities, including the “Feats of Strength” and the “Airing of Grievances,” plus characters expressing amazement at easily explainable events which are called “Festivus miracles.”

After the announcement of Chattanooga’s own Walnut Street walking bridge as one of the top public places in America, a representative from the shunned neighboring Delta Queen Riverboat announced plans to relocate the boat atop the popular tourist attraction.

The Delta Queen has made news in recent months by being a target of Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke and his calling for the boat to be sunk to the bottom of the Tennessee River, where he would subsequently scuba dive to the depths of the river and urinate upon it.

After hearing this, it was reported that officials of the Walnut Street Bridge and Xanterra, owners of Delta Queen, met behind closed doors in one of the boats twin bed rooms to strike up a deal for the move. Experts believe the deal was sealed by late night intercourse, and was heard by patrons staying in nearby rooms through the paper-thin walls the vessel/hotel is known for.

“By relocating the Delta Queen to the Walnut Street bridge, Berke would be fucking with one of America’s best tourist traps if he decides to rid Chattanooga of the riverboat,” said Xanterra official Terrance Bridges, “I don’t believe the mayor wants that kind of blood on his pretty little hands.”

“We’re excited of the new possibilities this move will bring,” said Kathryn Davis, a spokeswoman for the Walnut Street Bridge. “Looking forward to Wine over boat over water in 2014!”

In celebration of their 4th year of providing world renowned Internet service, EPB officials announced they will begin offering 56k dial up, free of charge.

“We are using our state of the art smart grid technology to ensure every customer has unprecedented access to our wonderful new dial up internet service,” explained EPB spokesman John Pless. “We believe this to be some next level shit for what the Gig City has to offer.”

EPB also announced for the 4 year celebration an additional free email account for internet subscribers and RFDTV in high definition for the Fi TV lineup.

Many Chattanooga businesses have found themselves in the middle of a collective technical support crisis this weekend, with the temporary mass exodus of nerds from the city.

All computer and Information Technology nerds in Chattanooga and surrounding areas are simultaneously attending the annual Atlanta event Dragon Con, which gathers over 50,000 aficionados of science fiction, fantasy, anime, comics, horror, role-playing and video games.

“Our DNS server is down and our lead computer tech Wendell is down in Atlanta with his whole team, getting their photo taken with Xena, Warrior Princess,” said local CEO Timothy Chasington.

“I’ve been trying to get our firewall administrator Silvia to talk me through changing the VLAN trunk configuration, but she just keeps texting me back, ‘I just hugged the Fifth and Seventh Doctors!'” said Technical Manager Kris Terblanche. “Or she sends me photos of her dressed up as some character called ‘Hit Girl.'”

“We really should just temporarily shut down our business every year at this time,” said Terblanche.

ERRATUM (9/5/13, 10:46 am): We at the Chattanooga Bystander were informed that “DragonCon,” with no space between “Dragon” and “Con,” is an incorrect spelling of the event’s name. The proper event name is “Dragon Con: A Gathering For Nerds.” The Chattanooga Bystander regrets the error.

Following the announcement of making Chatype the office typeface of Chattanooga, Mayor Berke issued a mandate that all visible text within the Chattanooga city limits must be converted to the new font.

“Today marks a historic day in the history of Chattanooga, and even the world,” exclaimed Berke. “We must go Chaballs out and do this thing right!”

Chatype, which began as a Kickstarter crowd-funded project early last year, gained support worldwide for its uniqueness, being the first project of its kind. Many Chattanooga neighboring cities, such as Rossville, have tried such projects, but failed when the finished products produced botched versions of Comic Sans.

“I have created a new Chatype task force to vigorously and aggressively work around the clock toward the completion of the conversion,” explained Berke. “They will not stop until every street sign, graffiti tag, National cemetery headstone and manhole cover has been outfitted with Chatype.”

“We expect for all citizens of our great city to comply with the new mandate,” said Chattanooga Police Chief Bobby Dodd. “Those naysayers who fail to follow orders could be met with hefty fines, jail time or even have their MacBooks taken away.”