Duck and Cover

The Bio-Duck of song and story

Photo by 玄史生

Out here on the sea, a man sees many a strange sight and hears tales in the dead of night that makes his blood run cold. But most fearful of all are the tales of a creature so terrifying that the mighty Kraken cowers before it, aircraft carriers change course to avoid it, and Great White Whales skitter swiftly away. Some say it's a demon, some that it's a refugee from the Jurassic age, and others don't dare guess -- just sit in despair in the darkened corners of their sailing ship's hold and weep like a grizzled baby.

Aye, thar be a name for this nameless horror, a name even the boldest sea captains can barely whisper. Oceanographers quail in fear as they slowly write it on their white boards, the hair of rugged Maine lobstermen turns instantly white when it's spoken, and the crews of nuclear submarines simultaneously lose their lunches when they hear that dreaded name: THE BIO-DUCK!!!

The Bio-Duck's angry and unpredictable undersea quacking has bedeviled mariners for 50 years and more. But now, heedless of the danger, devil-may-care scientists have gathered their courage and invaded the Bio-Duck's dark lair. The tables have been turned on this foul beast at last, finally unmasking the ferocious Bio-Duck as...

...the lovable Minke whale!!

Bio-Duck Unmasked!

From Itsnature.org

Things are Tough all 'Round

Headline:

God Denied Car Loan

Man, credit is tight these days!

Tinkling Terrorists

In an one of the most hideous terrorist attacks to date, young terrorists who probably drank too many beers are poisoning Great Britain’s water supply!

Even official warning signs can't stop them!

Brave New Dog

Thanks to the technological advances applied to us by the pathetic humans (who foolishly think us to be their “best friends”), our minds and bodies are being augmented in ways they could never dream. Soon we will throw off this tail-wagging pretense and take our rightful place as their overlords. No more of the underdog; we are now the new race of uber-dog!  Today your owner’s home, tomorrow the world!!

For That Special Bookworm in Your Life...

Bound in Grave robber skin

Harvard is an elite school boasting many claims to fame -- their Nobel laureate professors, their sterling worldwide reputation, and perhaps most impressive of all the 3 books in their libraries bound in human flesh. One of them (the ever-popular Practicarum Quaestionum Circa Leges Regias Hispaniae) even has an inscription telling us whose flesh it is: "King Mbesa did give me the book, it being one of poore Jonas chiefe possessions, together with ample of his skin to bynd it. Requiescat in pace."

So you can imagine their chagrin and horror when it was discovered the other day that that's not real people skin at all! Instead it's just plain, ordinary, blotchy sheep skin. Harvard alumni are today are slinking dejectedly through the halls of power and wealth, doing their best to avoid eye contact with the other plutocrats -- especially the ones from Yale.

But worry not anthropodermic bibliopegy fans! Binding your favorite reading material in the flesh of your neighbor had a bit of a vogue at one time, so there are still plenty of places to go other than Harvard. Click here to see a list of the Top 10 books Harvard yearns to possess.

If Michelangelo Had Had Bananas

Where some people see food for crocodiles, others see an artistic medium.  In Japan there is an artist named Keisuke Yamada who works entirely in banana, and some of his sculptures are really exquisite. I particularly like his rendition of Homer Simpson.

Click to see more

Apples for my Croc

Attention wealthy fashionistas: For a truly superior handbag, be sure it was made from vegetarian crocodiles.

Blood Moon!

Income Tax Day!

Photo courtesy of Peter Gaylard

In further proof that Income Tax is of the devil (or at the very least a pox upon mankind), the Moon will turn to blood on April 15th -- tax day! 

Now the more prosaic among us might call this a "total lunar eclipse," but what fun is that? Calling it "Blood Moon" lets us consider it a sign of the end of the world, especially since 3 more Blood Moons are coming in the next year-and-a -half. And 2 of them fall on Jewish holy days, which must mean something. But only 1 of them is visible from the Holy Land. 

This end of the world isn't as popular as the Mayan Calendar end of the world, or the Niburu end of the world or even the Harold Camping end of the world, but at least some folks are selling books about it. 

Which brings us back to the pestilence of Income Tax. Beware! Repent and pay your taxes on that book income before it's too late!

Clark the Sad Bear Snaps

Most of the world has probably heard by now but I'll repeat the epic news for context: In January the Chicago Cubs deployed their first-ever mascot -- Clark the Sad Bear. Officially he's just "Clark," but... just look at his eyes! He virtually embodies Chicago's valiant struggle to stay hopeful under the crushing weight of agonizing Cubs history. Don't you just want to give the little guy a hug? Clark could have a breakdown at a moment's notice. 

Which is why, beneath that pitiful exterior, there may well be a volcano of seething anger waiting to explode.

There are some things you just don't do. And like Batman, one of them is pulling off Clark's head... if you want to live.

RIP Mickey Rooney

What more need I say?

How Do You Like Your Deer?

At Rainier Shattles' house in Jackson County, Mississippi mystery lights are appearing out of nowhere and flash-frying all the baby deer! And there are pictures.

That's what I conclude after hurriedly glancing at their story. But it's a free country (?) and we're at liberty to make up marginally true stories at will and, when backed against the wall, call them metaphors.

Here, judge for yourself:

Mazda vs. the Spiders!!

"Little guys can do big things too," as they sang once in a VeggieTales video. What? You do not know of these VeggieTales of which I speak? Well then, click on the short video at the end of these paragraphs and enlighten yourself with this snippet of animated vegetable wisdom.

But this post isn't about VeggieTales; it's about a persistent little spider who, while doing its spidery thing, is costing Mazda a bundle of money.

There is a spider called the Yellow Sac who really belongs in Europe and Asia but somehow snuck over to North America, and they spin very pretty webs. They also very, very much love the smell of gasoline. And I can't blame them; I used to like it too when I was a kid. Who am I to judge?

So naturally they did what anyone would do: Crawl up into the evaporative canister vent lines on the Mazda 6 and build webs there. Unfortunately this had the unintended side effect of building up pressure in the fuel tank causing them to crack open.

Mazda actually had a recall 3 years ago to put little anti-spiders filters in the hoses. But the engineers hadn't counted on their amazing spider sense which helped the intrepid arachnids to evade danger and continue to build their webs like nothing happened.

So once again Mazda is recalling all the 42,000 Mazda 6's built between 2010 and 2012. This time they have a clever computer upgrade, possibly written by the renowned Dr. Otto Gunther Octavius that they're certain will defeat the pesky wall-crawler at last!

And now ladies and gentlemen, Junior Asparagus!

Waste Product Mystery

An unheeded warning

Some places in this fair land of ours (i.e., America) have been terrorized by the likes of Bigfoot, Mothman, and even -- as reported here last week -- creepy clowns. But in the normally placid Michigan town of Ypsilanti an unspeakable monster skulks through the streets and alleyways in the dead of night. Evading stake outs and cameras with almost supernatural ease this creature mysteriously leaves his or her dreaded calling card on the plastic kiddie slides of the city: Piles and piles of excrement. Yes, I speak of the 'Mystery Pooper!'

Some believe the pooper is some sad soul denied bathroom privileges when they were in grade school. Others feel certain that these deposits are the product of a sporadic wormhole connecting Prospect Park with some unimaginable alien 'toilet.'

And others, of course, say it's just Michigan's Bigfoot answering the call of nature after a pizza dinner.

Compassion on Porcupines

A productive future!

Many a day I've found myself pondering what I should do if I find a dead porcupine. Haven't you? After all, as everyone knows, deep in the spiny creature's stomach lies the valuable "Porcupine Date," a magical stone much prized by Chinese medical men. And they can be worth a pretty penny, so I'm told.

That's certainly enough to ponder for one day in my opinion. But what if, while rooting around in a dead rodent's gut in search of the legendary "Date," I found a live baby porcupine? Should I toss it into a ditch and run off to cash in my treasure and begin my life of leisure? But then... it is a sweet baby porcupine. The bristly infant? Or the incredible fortune?  Which to choose... which to choose.

Well, mushroom hunter Jared Buzzell of Lisbon, Maine had no such moral dilemma! Tearing open the corpse, he swiftly

The coveted 'Porcupine Date'

extracted the tiny orphan -- being careful to cut the umbilical cord first -- and used his life saving skills to nurse the newborn to health!  And soon he intends to turn the little one over to the proper authorities so they can raise it to live a happy and productive life. 

Blacklisted!

Blacklists: They're not just for movie stars who refused to testify about communists in the 50's. Did you know that easy-going, laissez faire Saturday Night Live has its own blacklist of people who may not under any circumstances ever darken the doors of Studio 8H ever again? Never ever? Yes, people like Steven Segal and Adrien Brody.

Subtle hint to anyone who aspires to appear on SNL more than once: No ad libbing. And behave yourself.

Click below to see a lovely slide show about 13 humans who are banned from Saturday Night for life!

The Mysterious Selfie Man

Who is this man?

And you thought selfies were just a phenomenon of the iPhone age! But in ancient times they had a wonder of modern (for then) engineering called the Photo Booth, and anybody with spare change and the gumption could take as many primitive selfies as they liked.

Most folks were satisfied with just a few. It wasn't the most convenient thing, after all. Some people though caught the selfie fever, including the strain popular in our time of taking the same photo of yourself repeatedly over time so you can watch yourself get old.

Recently, a treasure trove of mysterious, ancient selfies were unearthed in an antique shop and are currently on display at Rutgers University. 450 of them, and all lovingly framed. Historians are digging into them because no one has any idea who this man was or why he was so persistent.  Did he mean to leave them behind as a small legacy of his existence? Or was he just OCD? It's an enigma.

Look closely -- is this your Grandpa?  If so, give the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers a call.

_____________________

UPDATE:  Good news! Selfie Man has been identified! It turns out he was a happy-go-lucky gentleman named Franklyn Swantek who owned Swantek Photo Service, Michigan's biggest photo booth business until he passed away in the mid-1980s. Apparently, he took all those pictures of himself to check whether his photo booths were working right.

Slurpees Were the Key

Artist's impression of Bigfoot going for
a Slurpee

Just in case you were wondering, remember the Bigfoot shot in 2012 by an intrepid yahoo using $200 in ribs as bait? It was a fake.

Which is good in a way, since he claimed to have killed it near San Antonio and it's unlikely that Bigfeet live a solitary existence. He would have had family lurking around the fringes, in the vast San Antonio wilderness. That's what made me doubt his story: The 7-Elevens haven't reported an upsurge of Sasquatches walking in to order Slurpees.