Surprises behind the crap tower

This “surprise” was a heron which scattered from behind a sewer tower and managed to get caught in my uplifting camera lense.

Squirrels, food

Even during World War II and the period of austerity that followed, the Ministry of Food valiantly promoted the joys of squirrel soup and pie.

World to end in plague of colorful blobs, not fire

Humans have long lived in dread of such nightmare scenarios in which swarms of creatures attack.

Magpie, destroyer of flesh

He said infections following pecking injuries were rare."Serious infections relating to trauma involving a bird have included septic arthritis of the knee after a chicken bite and a fatal brain abscess in a child caused by a rooster peck," Dr Wilson wrote.

It will harden and they will die

To the person who wanted to get rid of the carpenter bees: Go into the hole they've built and put plastic wood inside. Push it in there and mash it down and they should die within three or four minutes when the plastic wood hardens.

Apparently, it apparently was

Officials said the dolphin, called Sharky, hit the other dolphin during a Sunday show at SeaWorld's Discovery Cove. The accident was apparently a freak accident.

In these times of stress

In times of stress, some members of a colony respond by building thousands of toxin molecules and then burst open, killing off the unrelated E. coli around them. Their fellow clones survive, though, and thrive without the competition.

-NYTimes

The end, theoretically speaking

Doomsday from particle physics is part of the culture.

-NYTimes

Feral cat is evil cat

“It scratched where the veins are and sunk its teeth into my hand. I could have lost my hand. This cat is still roaming around causing trouble. Our four cats are too scared to go outside now. This feral cat has been causing trouble for three months.”
Wife Lisa, 24, said: “It is an evil cat. If it was a human it would be a drug dealer or some-thing!”

Help! My baby Gilbert's potoroo cannot extrude its penis!

A baby Gilbert's potoroo in its mother's pouch (Image: Rebecca Vaughan). Infected male potoroos suffer severe inflammation of the penis and have a bright green discharge from their bottoms.

Vaughan says in some instances the inflammation is so severe the male potoroos cannot extrude their penis, obviously making it hard for them to mate.

"We release the manta's that we screw back into the ocean"

"Almost everybody in the fishing business has had sex with a manta at some point," Makeburu asserts.

Apparently it's a ritual of manhood, done out of recognition of the dangers of life on the sea.

Before mounting one of these intimidating creatures, points out J.K. special, it is "absolutely essential" that its stinger be removed. Yes, that certainly would make sense.

"A manta's ... thing is kind of similar to a human's," Makeburu says.

Okay, well ... not exactly. More than a reproductive organ, it's basically an organ of elimination. So engaging in sex with a manta is basically an act of deep-sea sodomy.

"It's shallow and there's resistance at the other end, so the feeling isn't that good," is how he describes it.

At least the manta survives the violation. "With most fish, we just whack 'em, but we release the manta's we screw back into the ocean," Makeburu relates.

A curious Matsuzawa wonders ... if the captain had an STD, wouldn't the other crew members who had sex with the manta contract it too?

"That's right," grins Makeburu. "So some guys slip on condoms before they do it. Once I came down with the clap. But we were in port around that time and I did it with a woman, so I don't have any way of knowing if I picked it up from her, or from the manta."

Is it common, then, for marine students to lose their virginity to a manta?

"Well, no, actually it's more common for them to lose it to a moray eel," he confides.

What??!! Isn't that, like, dangerous, as in crazy?

"You can stick it in until it bites," he says. "But if you pull it away too fast the skin on your cock will tear."

Apparently once out of the water a moray becomes less aggressive. So you can force its mouth open with your hands, and then stick in your cock and let it chew on your chin-chin.

Of course you can't actually call that sex either; it's only oral sex. Or as an Italian fisherman might croon, "That's a moray!"

Should you happen to find yourself climbing on a seaside crag, you might come across a type of anemone known as "isoginchaku." And this, says Makeburu, bodes well for some fishy frolic.

The creature gets its name from the old Japanese coin purse called a "kinchaku," which puckers tightly in the center when you pull on the drawstrings.

"So if you stick in your you-know-what, it'll snap shut around it," he says. "You don't need any foreplay at all. Just ram the old avenger home. It feels goooood," he grins, rolling his eyes.

Alas, sighs Jitsuwa Knuckles Special, Japan's fishing industry is fading fast, and the charming old customs it spawned appear almost certainly doomed. Someday, perhaps soon, all that will remain are these titillating tales, about romances between the men who went to sea and the obliging creatures they encountered therein. (By Masuo Kamiyama, contributing writer)

Death courtesy Dale Rippy

Dale Rippy, a resident of Wesley Chapel, Florida, was pulling trashcans back to his house May 30 when he saw what he thought was a large cat. After realizing the animal was actually a bobcat, he set the trashcans down and prepared for an attack.

-FoxNews

Clearly, the man & his wife ate the baby owls

An old man in Hunan Province said an owl has taken a special liking to attacking his head. When he leaves home, the owl often starts pecking his head, forcing the man to wear a special hat, Changsha Evening News reported today.

"The owl began attacking me in March, when I was working in an orange grove," the 79-year-old Yang Decai said."I don't remember how many times it has attacked me, but the day before yesterday, it pecked me 20 times," Yang said. "It doesn't hurt but it is really annoying."

Yang wears a hat with nails sticking out of a piece of wood to protect himself from the owl. The owl sometimes cooperates with another owl – one hooting in a tree and the other swooping in to attack, the report said.

Yang's wife has also been attacked several times. Other family members have been left alone, the report said.

Yang said the owl may be seeking revenge because he removed a nest with two baby owls from his roof. "They must be the baby owls' parents and want revenge," Yang said. However, an expert from the forestry bureau in Huaihua City, Hunan, said the owl's strange behavior may be because it feels threatened or that Yang carries a special scent.

The expert suggested Yang ask local forestry officials to catch the owl or scare it away.

--Shanghaidaily.com

Man dies after magpie attack

A ROGUE magpie has been captured and destroyed after fatally injuring one man and seriously injuring a tourist. A Mildura man, 74, received severe eye injuries when a local magpie swooped from trees in the Victorian town. The man, who collapsed after the attack, died on Tuesday night at Melbourne's Royal Eye and Ear Hospital. A South Korean tourist attacked by the same magpie was taken to hospital. Department of Sustainability and Environment officers destroyed the magpie.

–news.com.au, 5 September 2003

Child hears what the spiders say

Jesse was given the spiders -- now both dead -- as a souvenir. He has taken them to school and his mother has taken them to work.

"It was real interesting, 'cause, two spiders in my ear -- what next?" Jesse said.

-Boston Globe

Fox rampage ends as teens kick animal to death

A fox attacked three people in Suffolk Thursday morning.

The first attack occurred just after 6:00 a.m. at Sonic in the 1600 blk. of North Main Street. The male fox chased a 17-year-old employee of that business.

Just after 9 a.m., the fox was spotted at Barton Ford and then back at Sonic’s drive thru. The fox attacked an employee of Barton Ford, who had been operating a fork lift at that location. The person was scratched on the leg.

Animal Control was unable to locate the fox and traps were set.

Then the fox returned to Barton Ford and attacked a second employee but didn't injure the person's leg.

Then the fox was spotted back at Sonic, where it tried to attack the 17-year-old employee again. That teen kicked it against the building and dispatched the fox.

Man sees cat, races to retrieve dart gun

When investigator John Stadler arrived and opened the bedroom door, "he saw a gray and white cat baring its teeth in attack mode," Gutschenritter said. "He shut the bedroom door and returned to his car for a dart gun."

Under city ordinance, cats may run free if they don't become nuisances.

-Boston Globe

Trees fly downards undgerground, US to blame?

"It is very dangerous. If a person had been in this disaster, he would have had almost no chance of survival. The trees flew downwards, under the ground," said Dmitry Zaitsev, a local Emergencies Ministry official interviewed by the channel.

Officials in Nizhegorodskaya region, on the Volga river east of Moscow, said water in the lake might have been sucked down into an underground water-course or cave system, but some villagers had more sinister explanations.

"I am thinking, well, America has finally got to us," said one old woman, as she sat on the ground outside her house.

Vicious insects settle in France

Swarms of giant hornets renowned for their vicious stings and skill at massacring honeybees have settled in France.

telegraph.co.uk; Feb 21, 2007

Whale-vomit expert not on staff

Larry Penny, 71, director of East Hampton’s natural resources department, said he had no way of making a definite determination, because “we don’t keep a certified whale-vomit expert on staff.”

nyt dec18,2006