Longtime readers of the BrainDead Bulletin may remember that back on Wednesday a passing reference was made to the dearth of editorial content here in mid-summer. Well, wouldn’t you know it, but scarcely had the cooling fans on BDS’s servers spun down after dishing out that day’s issue when the good folks at Life Support sent a frantic “stop the presses” telegram to the newsroom here, imploring us to hold off pending some late-breaking administrative news. Alas, the Linotype had been switched off, and the crew in the basement had already turned the hoses on the great offset presses: the Bulletin had left the barn and was already streaking toward your mailboxes via our state-of-the-art acoustic coupler modem.

However, we are nothing if not flexible here, and accordingly the Editorial Board agreed to put together a special “EXTRA” edition, consisting entirely of the new material, which we promptly dispatched Jimmy, the new intern, to fetch. Unfortunately, he got lost on his way back to the first floor and—long story short—somehow wound up overnighting in a St. Louis cathouse. Following a misunderstanding with the Transportation Security Administration (he had forgotten to remove from his carry-on a cosh, a switchblade knife, a vial of industrial solvent exceeding the three-ounce maximum, and four ounces of Semtex made up to look like a bar of Irish Spring, all left over from a staff meeting earlier in the week. Pro tip: this sort of thing is regarded as contrary to the spirit of the courtesy “TSA Pre√” status offered to contractors), he was obliged to fly standby and then, following a sixteen-hour layover in Salt Lake City, Jimmy’s connecting flight was cancelled, and he was obliged to make the last leg to San Francisco via mule train over the Sierra. All this to say that a great deal of effort went into the special edition of the Bulletin that has just now touched down in your Outlook inbox, so we expect you lot to read it with commensurate attention. It’s attached, along with a couple of hangers-on, and backups have been stashed as usual at the SharePoint link.

Between the tight deadline and the fact that our staff historian is still in rehab, we’re skipping the “History Minute” this week, but have every expectation of resuscitating the feature with another thrilling tale ripped from the headlines of a former century come the next issue.