and at no point has anyone thought “maybe we should not build a giant flammable goat this year”
They tried fireproofing. And armed guards. And fences, and cameras… Sadly the wikipedia page has been cut down by super srs folks to remove all the awesome Keystone cops tales of the goat’s history (emphasis added by me)
1966 Stig Gavlén came up with the idea of a giant goat made out of straw. But it turned out that Gavlén organisation did not have enough funding for the goat. Then Harry Ström, who at that time was the chairman of the Södra Kungsgatan Ideella Förening (a non-profit society), decided to pay the whole cost for the goat out of his own pocket. The goat stood until midnight of New Year’s Eve, when it went up in flames. The perpetrator, who was from Hofors,Gästrikland, was found and convicted of vandalism. The first goat was insured and Ström got all his money back.
1967 Nothing happened.
1968 The goat survived. A fence was built around the goat. Previously it was popular for children to play hide-and-seek inside and around the goat. There was also a rumor that one night a couple had sex inside the goat. In subsequent years the inside of the goat was protected by a chicken-wire net.
1969 The goat was burnt down on New Year’s Eve.
1970 The goat was burnt down only six hours after it was assembled. Two very drunk teenagers were connected with the crime. With help from several financial contributors the goat was reassembled out of lake reed.
1971 The Southern Merchants got tired of their goats being burned and stopped building the goat. The Natural Science Club (Naturvetenskapliga Föreningen:NF) from the School of Vasa (Vasaskolan) took over.
1984Burnt down on 12 December, the night before Lucia.
1985 The 12.5 metre (41 ft) tall goat of the Natural Science Club was featured in the Guinness Book of Records for the first time. Even though the goat was enclosed by a 2 metres (6.6 ft) high metal fence, guarded by Securitas and even soldiers from the Gävle I 14 InfantryRegiment, it was burnt down in January.
1986 The merchants of Gävle decided they were willing to build the goat once again. From 1986 on two goats were built, the Southern Merchants’ and the School of Vasa’s. The big goat burnt down the night before Christmas Eve.
1987A heavily fireproofed goat was built. It got burnt down a week before Christmas.[21]
1988 Nothing happened to the goat, but gamblers were for the first time able to gamble on the fate of the goat with English bookmakers.
1989 Again, the goat burnt down before it was assembled. Financial contributions from the public were raised to rebuild a goat that was burnt down in January. In March 1990 another goat was built, this time for the shooting of a Swedish motion picture called Black Jack.
1990Nothing happened. The goat was guarded by many volunteers.
1991 The goat was joined by an advertising sled, that turned out to be illegally built. On the morning of Christmas Eve the goat was burnt down. It was later rebuilt to be taken to Stockholm as a part of a protest campaign against the closing of the I 14 Infantry Regiment.
1992The goat was burnt down eight days after it was built. The Natural Science Club’s goat burnt down the same night. The Southern Merchants’ goat was rebuilt, but burned down on 20 December. The perpetrator of the three attacks was caught and sent to jail. The Goat Committee was founded in 1992.
1993 Once more the goat was featured in the Guinness Book of Records, the School of Vasa’s goat measured 14.9 metres (49 ft). The goat was guarded by taxis and the Swedish Home Guard. Nothing happened.
1994 Nothing happened. The goat followed the Swedish national hockey team to Italy for the World Championship in hockey.
1995 A Norwegian was arrested for attempting to burn down the goat. Burnt down on the morning of Christmas Day. Rebuilt to be standing before the 550th anniversary of Gävle county.
1996 The first time the goat was guarded by webcams, nothing happened.
1997Damaged by fireworks. The Natural Science Club’s goat was attacked too, but survived with minor damage.
1998Burnt down on 11 December, even though there was a major blizzard. Was rebuilt.
1999Burnt down only a couple of hours after it was erected. Rebuilt again before Lucia. The Natural Science Club’s goat was burnt down as well.
2000Burnt down a couple of days before New Year’s Eve. The Natural Science Club’s goat got tossed in the Gävle river.
2001 Goat set on fire on 23 December by Lawrence Jones, a 51-year-old visitor from Cleveland, Ohio, who spent 18 days in jail and was subsequently convicted and ordered to pay 100,000 Swedish kronor in damages. The court confiscated Jones’s cigarette lighter with the argument that he clearly was not able to handle it. Jones stated in court that he was no “goat burner”, and believed that he was taking part in a completely legal goat-burning tradition. After Jones was released from jail he went straight back to the US without paying his fine. As of 2006 it was still unpaid. The Natural Science Club’s goat was also burnt down.
2002 A 22 year old from Stockholm tried to set the Southern Merchants’ goat on fire, but failed, the goat receiving only minor damage. On Lucia the goat was guarded by Swedish radio and TV personality Gert Fylking.
2003Burnt down on 12 December.
2004Burnt 21 December, only three days before Christmas Eve. The fire brigade quickly arrived on the scene, but the goat could not be saved. No new goat was built.
2005Burnt by unknown vandals reportedly dressed as Santa and the gingerbread man, by shooting a flaming arrow at the goat at 21:00 on 3 December. Reconstructed on 5 December. The hunt for the arsonist responsible for the goat-burning in 2005 was featured on the weekly Swedish live broadcast TV3’s “Most Wanted“ (”Efterlyst”) on 8 December.
2006 On the night of 15 December at 03:00, someone tried to set fire to the goat by dousing the right front leg in petrol (gasoline). The red ribbon on that leg was slightly burned and fell off. The lower part of the right leg was scorched, but the rest of the goat failed to light. The leg was repaired that morning. The Natural Science Club’s goat was burned at about 00:40 on 20 December; the vandals were not seen and got away. On the night of 25 December, a drunken man managed to climb up on the goat. Before the police arrived on the scene the man climbed down and disappeared. He did not try to set fire to the goat. The Southern Merchants’ goat survived New Year’s Eve and was taken down on 2 January. It is now stored in a secret location.
2007 The Natural Science Club’s goat was toppled on 13 December and was burned on the night of 24 December. The Southern Merchants’ goat survived.
2008 10,000 people turned out for the inauguration of one of the goats. No back-up goat was built to replace the main goat should the worst happen, nor was the goat treated with flame repellent (Anna Östman, spokesperson of the Goat-committee said the repellent made it look ugly in the previous years, like a brown terrier). On 16 December the Natural Science Club’s Goat was vandalised and later removed. On 26 December there was an attempt to burn down the Southern Merchants’ Goat but patriotic passers-by managed to extinguish the fire. The following day the goat finally succumbed to the flames ignited by an unknown assailant at 03:50 CET.
2009 A person attempted to set the Southern Merchants’ goat on fire the night of 7 December. An unsuccessful attempt was made to throw the Natural Science Club’s goat into the river the weekend of 11 December. The culprit then tried, again without success, to set the goat on fire. Someone stole the Natural Science Club’s goat utilizing a truck the night of 14 December.[36] On the night of 23 December before 04:00 the South Merchant goat was set on fire and was burned to the frame, even though it had a thick layer of snow on its back.[37] The goat had two online webcams which were put out of service by aDoS attack, instigated by computer hackers just before the burning.[38]
2010 On the night of 2 December, arsonists made an unsuccessful attempt to burn the Natural Science Club’s goat.[39] On 17 December, a Swedish news site reported that one of the guards tasked with protecting the Southern Merchants’ goat had been offered payment to leave his post so that the goat could be stolen via helicopter and transported to Stockholm. Both goats survived and were dismantled and returned to storage in early January 2011.
2011 The inauguration of the goat took place on 27 November. The fire-fighters of Gävle sprayed the goat with water to create a coating of ice in the hope of protecting it from arson. The goat was burnt down in the early morning of 2 December.
2012 The inauguration of the goat took place on 2 December. It was burnt just ten days later in the hours before midnight of 12 December, one day before Lucia.
2013 As in 2006 and 2007, the straw used to build the goat has been soaked in anti-flammable liquid to prevent it from burning in the event of an arson attack. The inauguration ceremony took place on 1 December. But despite the anti-flammable liquids the goat was burnt down on the early morning of December 21.
Any history of plots involving a DDoS attack on the security cameras, a plot to steal it with a helicopter and flaming arrows shot by people dressed as Santa and the Gingerbread man is just plain hilarious in my book.
I’m laughing so much about this goat. obviously if you build something big enough people are going to have sex in it and burn it down. obviously
what the fuck is going on in sweden
how will the saga continue this year
fascinating
The saga of the goat is the best part of the season.
For those curious about 2015′s goat:
It’s that time of year again
2016: Burned within hours of being built
2017: Survived
2018: Nothing yet…
WILL THE GOAT LIVE THIS YEAR
This year the goat is protected by knights
As in actual fully armed sword-carrying knights on horses
Man okay when I got my wisdom teeth out it was a fucking experience. Before the surgery wasn’t too interesting but as soon as I woke up I saw the nurse next to me and was all like “hey… i think… i died… and now I’m in a parallel universe… and i gotta go back to my house and kill the me from this universe” and he was just kinda like “alright, you do that”. And then the other nurse kept going in and out of the room to get things and I thought there was like 5 of her that kept coming out of the room, and then so when she was wheeling me out in a wheelchair I was like “damn… why are there so many of you… there’s like 5 many of you” and she was just kinda like “alright, you do that”.
Anyway I got to the car and my dad was there and he was like “how ya feeling son” in the dadliest way possible and I was like “MAN I AM PUMPED LETS GET SOME JUICE I’M STARVED” so we drove about 3 blocks to a jamba juice, whereupon I say “I’m good I can do this” and run/drunkstumble 30 feet to the door. I burst in the door like a viking returning from some fucking battle and holler “WHATS UP FUCKS” to everyone in the store, which was thankfully just the 2 people behind the counter, who looked probably as scared/confused as a jamba juice employee could look.
So anyway, as my dad explained the situation I looked up at the jamba juice menu and was utterly fucking lost in it. Like I swear I was looking at this menu board for a year, deciphering this Rosetta stone of fruits. I distinctly remember that I was looking at each item in a smoothie, thinking of how it tasted, then moving on to the next thing and thinking of how that tasted, and how they would taste together. Since most smoothies had 3 or 4 items, this took some thinking. So my dad sees me in this extreme brain blast state of mind and says “hey are you going to order or what”. Keep in mind I’m on the first fucking smoothie on the list here. So I just say “shush man I’m trying to do fruit science”, and then when I realized that this process could take literal years, I just said “yeah give me a smooth regular” which for the uninitiated, isn’t actually a real thing on any menu. Oh, also I asked them if the “boosted” smoothies would give me super powers and then pointed my fingers at them and made “lightning noises”.
So my dad just orders me the first thing on the menu and I go to sit down and stare out the window or some shit and my thoroughly amused dad just looks at me and says “how ya feelin?”. Now at this time I was feeling a lot of things, but most noticeable to me was the gauze in my mouth, so I just look at him and say “there’s these fuckin… tiny sheep in my head” which at the time was the best way I had to convey this feeling. Anyway about that time, the jamba juice guy brings us our drinks and he gives me a small thing of mario kart stickers and I swear I almost cried from the tsunami of emotion that gift made me feel (I still have them).
Anyway the rest of the story is we drove home and I explained this programming project I was working on to my dad in perfect detail somehow and then I came home and went on facebook and posted a comment on my friends status (because I couldn’t find the status update bar) that read: “i just took a lort of painkillers and yelled at everyone in a jambo juice”
This may be the funniest thing I have ever read. There are actual tears coming out of my face.
gather round, folks, that i may pass down the tale of Fuck-It Jonn, because that dude is just the GREATEST FUCKING CONMAN in the WORLD, and he WASN’T EVEN TRYING. he absolutely fucking STUMBLED ON ACCIDENT into THE SCAM THAT WOULD DEFINE HIS ENTIRE LIFE. the lie that transformed his ENTIRE EXISTENCE out of SHEER RANDOM BULLSHIT.
and his sole motivation was to EAT FINGER FOOD.
consider:
in the Wayback Days™ before i was born, the people who would later become my parents had this friend named… yeah, let’s say jonn. i’d rather not say his real name. bitches not snitches, and all that.
so. france in the late 80s. jonn and my parents had just finished school and all found jobs in computer engineering. (not that they STUDIED computer engineering, mind you. no, they were all studying how to become fish farmers or some shit. but those were simpler times, when knowing how to turn the fucking screen on got you a comfortable salary at the ripe old age of 24 years old.)
except that jonn, who was a chill hippie kind of dude, was bored to death by his desk job. so bored that he decided to just up and quit. “fuck it”, was basically jonn’s motto. fuck it, he’d find something better! fuck it, and things would work out! EXCEPT (as you may have guessed) THEY DIDN’T. for months and months he didn’t find another job. and so he ended up depressed, struggling, and eating dinner at my future-parents’ tiny apartment, three times a week, so he wouldn’t literally starve.
time went by. jonn was still unemployed. so before his resources hit rock bottom, jonn did the only logical, reasonable thing. what’s that, you ask? begged for his old job back? went back to school? crawled home to his parents? ha ha! obviously you do not share jonn’s ADVENTUROUS AND ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT. and also you lack his BIZARRE LOGIC AND PLAIN WEIRD APPROACH TO LIFE.
what jonn did was: say “fuck it” (again) and leave for thailand.
because you see, thailand was cheap by french standards. so cheap that even a penniless dude on unemployment could live there for weeks on end, spending much less than he would have in france, as long as he didn’t mind roughing it. and jonn didn’t mind! “fuck it”, he’d said. and by god, he would stand by his words!
so jonn gamely scrounged up the money for the plane ticket and then… yeah. basically bummed it out in thailand. for two months. seeing the sights. sleeping on the street. making new friends.
and one of these news friends turned out to be very adept at FORGING PAPERS.
huh, jonn said to himself (probably high at the time) this sounds not at all shifty and more like a ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY; what could POSSIBLY GO WRONG. my new thai best friend is even offering me a FAMILY DISCOUNT. for fake papers. fuck it! let’s have some!
as far as i can tell, jonn… didn’t even need fake papers?? like, he was literally just trying not to pass up on an opportunity here. so he smoked some more weed (i can only assume) and got A BRILLIANT IDEA. fake ID card? LAME. fake driver’s licence? HACKNEYED. fake medical degree? PEDESTRIAN. no! jonn got himself a fake press card.
but why??
well, OBVIOUSLY, just so he could get into cultural events for free – conferences, art premieres, etc – and eat all the finger food. that was his grand plan. stroll into press-only events, wave his poorly-made card around, and gorge himself on canapés. no more going hungry! ever! jonn would live off tiny slices of toasted foie gras and flutes of cheap champagne for the rest of his life!
so now jonn, Very Obviously Fake Journalist™, is back in france and he’s DOING THE THING. and guess what? this was before google. before facebook. before linkedin. impersonating a journalist was very easy. if people asked where you worked you just said you were freelance, then steered the conversation to current politics and stealthily devoured the entire buffet while everybody was busy debating.
and so. this is what jonn is doing. his monumentally stupid plan is actually working. this is how he eats. with thai-made fake papers and sheer fucking confidence. and of course people start noticing him eventually! jonn is always fucking there! at all and any events in paris! because, again, THIS IS HOW HE EATS! but it’s always the same people running around in these circles, anyway. so nobody’s surprised to see the same dudes popping up over and over again. jonn blends in! and jonn is very good at making friends. and changing the subject. and eating canapés.
and then ONE DAY
one of jonn’s newfangled journalist friends (a REAL journalist, mind you, who has NO IDEA that jonn isn’t What He Seems) basically goes: “dude i’m so swamped rn. everyone wants everything all at once. fuck. shit. are you swamped too?”
“oh, for sure,” jonn says through a mouthful of his twenty-ninth serving of canapés that night. “not a second to myself”
“god. fuck. tell me about it. shit. i’m just so damn swamped.” Real Journalist shakes his head. “if i could only find someone to cover for me on this one article.”
now, i know i said before that jonn was smoking weed. but i must confess now i said it for humorous effect. i have no idea if jonn’s ever been within five hundred yards of a blunt his whole life. but what you must understand is that jonn is Chill™ on like. a soul-deep level. his whole mind is one long exhale of smoke followed by the words “fuck it”. this is a man who left his job for no reason, lived in thailand on a tourist’s visa for two months, got fake papers there for the lol of it all, and is now living off press-only events in paris. jonn was BORN HIGH.
SO. when RJ asks him: “dude. jonn. you said you were working freelance. i know you’re busy but don’t you think you could maybe cover for me? just this once?”
jonn NATURALLY answers: “fuck it. sure”
then goes to an unemployment center and applies for one of their free one-week classes. on journalism. jonn spends ALL OF ONE WEEK learning How To Write An Article Like A Real Journalist With A Real Press Card. then writes the article. basically bullshitting his way through that thing. half-assing the life out of it. faking his heart out. because why not? FUCK IT.
i have NO IDEA if he actually did a good job or not. but it was in fact good enough for RJ who really must have been truly swamped, and was so truly grateful that he told all of their mutual journalists friends. who were ALL SWAMPED. i’m given to understand it’s the natural state of the journalist in the wild.
and so jonn is now REGULARLY COVERING FOR ALL SORTS OF JOURNALISTS.
not making much money i assume. but still, not bad for a dude who studied journalism for five whole days.
and well, it’s kinda fun! better than moping around at home waiting for the next free canapé press-only premiere. so jonn keeps at it. and eventually it occurs to him that hey! he spent two months in thailand. why not make an article out of that? so he writes himself a lil paper, retelling his Bumtastic Adventures in the Land of Thai People, Cheap Living and Forged Papers (That Last One Having Nothing to Do With Him Personally of Course). and he’s kinda proud of it. so much that he gives it to his journalist friends. can they maybe pass it around? see if anybody would be interested in publishing it? for a modest fee and some more canapés?
and yeah. someone was in fact interested in publishing it. and that someone was:
THE
NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC
(french edition.)
so jonn got a REAL press card. got a FULL-TIME JOB at the national geographic. and spent the REST OF HIS WORK LIFE traveling abroad for six months, then going back to paris the rest of the year to write about his wacky journeys. he’s retired now, having published several books full of his articles and photographs. he’s bought a b&b in the french countryside with all his money. and continues to say “fuck it” to any problem that comes his way like the absolute fucking legend he is.
as far as i know, none of his journalist buddies nor his boss ever found out about any of this.
After gaining the ability to see everyone’s red strings of fate tying soul mates to each other. You realize your string extends past the sky.
You’ve been able to see them for a while, and you haven’t said anything to anyone, because frankly you think you might be going crazy. Maybe you should mention it to someone, though, and by ‘someone’ you mean ‘a doctor.’
You’d never really believed in the red strings of fate thing before. Sure, everyone insists it’s a thing, but… it’s just always sounded so unlikely to you. Love takes work. It takes commitment. Saying there’s someone out there already predestined to be your soulmate has always seemed to devalue a relationship to you.
(You’re actually relieved to see that not everyone has a red string).
So i went on a date to a haunted house and made friends with the girls behind us. As we’re going through, one of them is holding my hand and a guy leaps out and separates us. I panic as my date is pulling me along, I reach back for her and grab her hand in a group of three other performers and start getting out if there. After a bit I look back to check on her and I discover I’m holding the hand of a six foot tall zombie creature and not a 5’2" girl.
Cue the most terrifying realization of my life.
I had basically kidnapped this performer from his section and abandoned the girl and her friend behind us.
Yes, I screamed. My date thought it was Hilarious.
Yes, we found the girls. Turns out when I grabbed the performers hand, he grabbed theirs so our group wouldn’t be separated. So there was just this zombie in the middle of our group line for like fifty feet
A Genie offers you one wish, and you modestly wish to have a very productive 2017. The genie misunderstands, and for the rest of your life, every 20:17 you become impossibly productive for just 60 seconds.
“Well, it was a nice day.” You kiss your sweetheart gently on the forehead and sigh as the last remaining seconds of 20:16 tick away. “See you at 8:18,” you say.
Then it happens. Every ounce of fatigue or hunger leaves your body. The face of your beloved is perfectly still, their expression exactly the same. The ticking of the clock on the wall has stopped. Once again, it’s 20:17.
You stretch your arms and walk to the table with the homework for the three doctorates you’re working on. The work is mentally stimulating and enjoyable, but it’s finished far too quickly. You check your pocket watch and see that not even one hundredth of a second has passed.
You knew it was too soon to be able to see any movement on the watch, but you can never quite help yourself from looking early on every 20:17. Time to move on.
You clean your home, do your budget, then go outside and fix a noise that your car was making earlier that afternoon. (Oh how you already miss afternoons.) Then you go back inside, boot up your computer (which magically speeds up to keep pace with you as long as you’re in contact with it) and check for any new orders.
You’ve set up a website for the small business you started called “Magic Elf Services.” People in your area can pay a modest fee on your site to have different tasks and odd jobs done by “The Magic Elf” at 8:17pm every day. It was a little slow to get started, but word has spread and these days you have a steady stream of clients.
The money that comes in from the business is nice, but you’re mostly grateful that it gives you a clear list of things to do. You print off your updated list of clients, step outside, and start making your way through the neighborhood with your to-do list.
There’s the apartments down your street where several neighbors have hired you to tidy up, do the dishes, and mop the floors. You do the windows too, just to see if they notice. There’s the large house across town that paid the “Magic Elf” to clean out the gutters. After the first dozen jobs are done, you manage to stop looking at your pocket watch.
As near as you’ve been able to determine in the past, 20:17 seems to last for approximately one normal year. But it’s not exact. For one thing, it’s hard to keep track of “time” when everything but you has crawled to an almost total standstill. For another thing, time seems to move differently depending on how “productive” your behavior is. One time you tried to spend all of 20:17 sitting at home in your pajamas, but that was getting you nowhere, so you eventually gave up and got busy. (Though you defiantly stayed in your pajamas the whole time.)
During 20:17 your body doesn’t get tired, hungry, sick, or injured. You’re essentially tireless and immortal for the duration of the “minute.” So sleeping or eating away your boredom has never really worked for you.
One of the houses on your list forgot to follow the instructions and leave a key for you to get in. At first you figure you’ll just send them an email telling them to pay more attention and that you’ll do the job tomorrow. Then you decide to go home, get your locksmith tools, and come back.
After finishing up all the jobs on your list, you go into several other homes and small businesses in the area, performing tasks you hope they’ll find helpful, and leaving a hand-painted business card at each one. (The business cards don’t contain your real name just in case somebody thinks “The Magic Elf” should be subject to breaking and entering laws.)
Speaking of laws, you head down to the local police station to pick up your case file. You’ve been in contact with a detective who’s been investigating corruption within their department, and your ability to investigate unseen and get in almost anywhere between the ticks of the clock has proven invaluable. You see that they’ve also added five missing person cases to your file this evening, which certainly raises your interest in the job.
You make your way through town gathering evidence, and start making your way to the outskirts of town. Since you happen to be out that way (and you’ve already solved three of the five missing person cases) you decide to swing by the stone castle you’re building and do some more work there.
The castle walls stand about 20 feet right now, but you know they’ll be much higher when you’re done. You’re far from any roads and pretty safely tucked away, so for now it’s your little secret. You’ve been excavating and moving all the rock yourself, which has been much easier than you first expected since your body doesn’t get tired or sore. You’ve also got a nice system of tunnels going underneath the castle, and you dig and build more of that network for a while.
All that time spent underground has left you feeling rather lonely, so you walk back home to see the face of your sweetheart. Their facial expression has moved ever so slightly since you last saw them, which is a comfort to you. Looking at them gets your imagination going and makes you dream up a story you’d like to tell, so you sit on your couch, plug in your laptop, and write a book.
After you finish editing the last chapter for the third time, you finally allow yourself to look at your pocket watch again. Three seconds have officially passed so far.
It’s gonna be a long 20:17.
Wow, Dave. You managed to take a concept that seems nice on the exterior and make it into a real nightmare. This is some good stuff.
I will be participating on a guacamole contest tomorrow at work. My objective is not to win, but to make every single one of the judges cry.
I will add every single chili I am able to find at the store, all of them.
All the chilis I could find at the store… i wonder if it will be enough 😛
Ready for the judges!!
So updates after the contest! I didn’t win.
This guacamole had the talent that when you take the first bite of your chip it isnt that spicy, but after a few seconds the feeling starts to spread. The judges bravely took a bite and were all happy and as I walked away from the table they started to gasp when the full force of the 6 different types of chili hit them at once.
People were free to taste it afterwards and every face of first surprise and then pain filled my heart with happiness.
I have never seen so much people enjoy suffering tho, because they finished everything so fast I even got time to make a second batch before the winners were announced.
Overall this was great and I had lots of fun making others suffer 😀
Procrastination Queen 