I suppose that since I am a blogger that I am therefore technically part of the media and have a duty to report breaking news as soon as I hear about it, even if it may or may not be true.

What's most important is to be the first to report it.

And my philosophy has always been that the truth should never ever get in the way of a good news story.

So what is this secret, this breaking news that no other media outlet has reported on?

Apparently, Cape Girardeau is gearing up to have a M A S S I V E Mardi Gras celebration. And I'm not talking massive spelled with lower-case letters, but MASSIVE all in caps with spaces in between the characters. It's potentially that big.

How else can you explain why the city is requesting bids for 16,000 pounds of glass beads? No kidding, 16,000 pounds. That's practically eight tons!

Now some people might say that the city is using those glass beads in the treatment of wastewater, but I think that's bull. Why on earth would you use beads to treat sewage? What a dumb idea. You might as well be flushing money down the toilet.

No, the only thing I know you can do with glass beads is to make Mardi Gras necklaces. Eight tons of glass beads will make a heckuva lot of necklaces.

By my calculations each pound of beads can make about 200 of these baubles which means the city is planning on distributing 3.2 million necklaces to the revelers. That's what I call one kickin' Mardi Gras party!

I don't know why it took the city so long to get on the Mardi Gras tourism band wagon. It's always been kind of a non-event around here. If you wanted a Mardi Gras experience you either had to go to New Orleans or to Soulard in downtown St. Louis.

But apparently the town fathers have seen the error of their ways and are going to hold a city-wide Mardi Gras celebration that is so grand it will likely rival the New Orleans event. Forget about The Big Easy for Mardi Gras, come to The Cape.

Of course, I am all in favor of this.

As many of you are aware I am a big proponent of tourism for our city. Considering that I am one of the founding members of the Committee to Promote the Historic Parking Lots of Cape Girardeau this should be no surprise. In fact, our committee is already in talks with the University to have complementary floats in the city's soon-to-be-announced Mardi Gras parade.

Southeast's float will feature a bulldozer made out of pom-poms that slides back and forth on rails while the CPHPLoCG entry will feature a scale model of the old Washington School that the University will be razing in the near future. Our float will precede theirs in the parade and whenever the Southeast bulldozer slides forward on its rails our model will be designed to collapse into a pile of rubble. It will be awesome!

I don't know when the city is "Officially" going to announce the big event, but it better be soon. It's going to take a lot of manpower to make 3.2 million necklaces out of those 16,000 pounds of beads. I think the whole town might even have to pitch in to get the job done in time.

I guess the city is waiting for bids on their other legal notice. After all, you can't make 3.2 million necklaces without a M A S S I V E amount of string. And I'm not talking massive spelled with lower-case letters, but MASSIVE all in caps with spaces in between the characters.

I wonder just how much 1300 miles of string is going to cost?