Really Hungry Plants

Meanwhile, at the Honorable Society of King’s Inns in Dublin, Ireland...

Nom nom nom...

Image courtesy of Noel Donnellon

But this sort of thing happened much more frequently in the middle ages, so don't fret too much about it.

2017

Always remember: "Life is absurd. Dealing with that is how you get to Heaven."

Happy 2017 everybody!

"Fish Heads, Fish Heads..."

Photo credit: NewsOnJapan.com

The Space World ice skating rink in Kitakyushu, Japan wanted to do something different. They wanted to give visitors the chance to "enjoy skating under unreal conditions at an attraction both unseen and unheard of." And one has to agree that they certainly succeeded in doing that. Their strategy? Freeze 5,000 fish into the ice and let patrons do donuts around their tiny, icy heads.

The Japanese public, while admitting this was an 'unreal condition,' was quite unenthusiastic about the idea. Taken aback, Space World was forced to close the exhibit prematurely and issue this apology:

"We have received a lot of opinions such as 'Using animals as entertainment and in events is bad' and 'Poor fish'. We sincerely apologise."

The Odd 1970s & Florence Henderson (RIP)

How I remember Florence Henderson, regretably

Photo by David Moore @ Bionic Disco

Florence Henderson (aka Mrs.Brady) passed away yesterday due to heart failure. She was 82, and apparently in good health all the way up to the end. She had an impressive career on Broadway before she became the "lovely lady who was bringing up three very lovely girls." May she rest in peace.

Even though I grew up in the right era, I have to confess that I've never watched a single Brady Bunch episode, thereby missing a part of our precious television heritage that virtually everyone else shares. But what I did catch was the mind-boggling Brady Bunch Variety Hour, which sprang up after the original show was cancelled.

During a certain very odd period in the 1970s dozens of these variety shows clogged the airwaves -- Tony Orlando & Dawn, The Captain & Tennille, Sonny & Cher, Jim Stafford, and even the Starland Vocal Band (who I think only had one hit song ever!) had their own shows where they'd do lame skits and sing songs. The Brady Bunch Variety Hour was one of these, with the same attempts at dancing and the same gaudy costumes. But theirs seemed a little more surreal than the others.

Slave Ship

For one thing, they had just emerged from a world where they were an ordinary huge family in the suburbs. Now they had magically transformed into a troupe of singers and dancers performing bright, overproduced numbers and gamely tossing out awful jokes to amuse the crowds. I think the very first skit the Bradys did was one where the boys tried to persuade some professional singer to perform in place of Mr. Brady because they figured he wouldn't be good enough for the show.

That sort of encapsulates what I'm saying: All the other shows starred actual, professional singers up on stage doing their usual jobs -- partly, at least. The Brady Bunch Hour was the unremarkable, everyday Brady family suddenly and inexplicably catapulted into performing before millions of people! I always had the feeling that they'd been made slaves by someone and forced to amuse their captors with their antics. Or maybe they'd gotten an ultimatum from some surly TV bigwig: "Ok Bradys, it's the variety show or nothin', see? Get up there and dance till your toes are bloody or you'll never work in this town again!"

I don't mean to suggest that they were bad at what they did. Florence Henderson at least was broadway trained and you could tell that all the Bradys were just working their earnest little hearts out. But it was a strange time for TV (which I eagerly absorbed), and the Brady Bunch Variety Hour was the strangest of them all.

Respect Your Liquids

Please, don't be mean to the water!

Eating the future

Bacon -- it's the future, man!

Graphic buried somewhere deep inside this game

In the year 2020 we will all get our food by jumping on counters at fast food restaurants and yelling. What a utopian wonderworld that will be! We know this thanks to the helpful efforts of a man from that far-distant time with the strange futuristic name of Dante Rashad Anderson, who came back to show us how it will be done.

His first attempt to demonstrate the future occurred at an Oklahoma City Carl's Jr., but they did not understand his ways and ejected him. Undeterred, the time traveler walked across the street to Arby's, where the patrons were slightly more enlightened and allowed his demonstration to proceed after he shoved the manager up against a wall.  After the obligatory yelling, the visitor grabbed a fist full of bacon and chicken, thanked them all for their kind attention by breaking a window, and left.

Karate-kicking random cars as he walked down the street (possibly an obscure greeting gesture from his time), the man beyond time was found passed out at a taco restaurant due to the strain of passing through the Time Vortex without a TARDIS.

Oklahoma police were skeptical at first of the man's description of the future until they remembered that Donald Trump will have been President for 3 years by then. Hence, all bets are off.

Hungry for some airport!

Is the curry that bad?

Kids, don't try this at home!

Noticing the current trend of trusting the news more if it's delivered by comedians, ABC News decided to try some of that hilarious Bad Lip-Reading on the Prime Minister of Canada. But they really should have practiced more first.

Click here for more!

When Beeches Stop for Lunch

"Serves 'im right! Bloody humans... "

The trees of Ireland are evidently quite hungry. One was recently found to have eaten a corpse from the Middle Ages.  As if it wasn't enough to be beaten to death somehow, the poor fellow had to endure several hundred years of slowly passing through the alimentary canal (or whatever they have) of a beech tree. 

Life can truly be unfair sometimes.

Another Martian Beastie

As all good readers of A Few Paragraphs know, we chronicle the ever growing list of strangely rock-like creatures NASA keeps finding on Mars. Well, not really NASA per se; actually a few guys (Strangely, I've never heard a woman announce a Mars lizard, have you?) who spend their long, lonely nights incessantly staring at Mars probe photos in painstaking detail.

And when they spy one through bleary eyes, it is a cause of great rejoicing. Because it's just another proof of the massive space-lizard cover up that extends to the highest levels. The truth is out there, man!

You may recall my concise but fascinating expose of Sleestaks on Mars. Now, allow me to introduce the awesome findings of professional weird-stuff-researcher Scott C. Waring: One-eyed lizards from the Red Planet!

Apparently, he's also located a crashed spaceship and a reptile head!

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.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Clown

"He was just waving and holding balloons..."
Photo courtesy of Michael Leavy via SILive.com

How do feel about... clowns? Well a lot of people find them really, really creepy. So many in fact that there's a name for the intense fear of clowns: Coulrophobia.

If you happen to be a coulrophobiac and have plans to visit Long Island, you might want to change them due to the recent epidemic of Evil Clown sightings there.

And, just like Bigfoot, there are actual photos of him, such as this comforting portrait.

Prophetic Anteater News

In yet another sign that the end has come, a virgin anteater in Greenwich, Connecticut has mysteriously given birth. Hoping to head off a major pilgrimage, employees at the LEO Zoological Conservation Center pointed out that Armani (the anteater in question) technically wasn't a virgin virgin. "She has had 'experience,' if you know what I mean," a staffer at the Center's Odd Biology Lab explained. "It's just been a real long time. There is plenty of unlikely guesswork that could explain it."

But true believers would have none of it. Intense prophecy student and back alley preacher Hiram Pinemdown shouted from a housetop that, "This could be as significant as the famous John the Baptist cheese toast apparition of 1992!"

The Vortex of Brighton Wants Your Dog

Ah, merry old England! So many things to do here, so many great sites to see! Like the white cliffs of Dover, the Tower of London, the famous dog-eating, snake-filled vortex to another dimension of Brighton, not to mention the...??!! 

Ok, lemme check that Brighton travel brochure again...