Category Archives: Vicious Animals

January 10, 2012

Hybrid sharks and Hasselhoff crabs: Why the ocean is trying to kill you

By Jeff Vrabel

Science, yo

GateHouse — IMPORTANT AQUATIC ANIMAL POLL / DRINKING GAME, DEPENDING ON WHAT TIME IT IS ON YOUR INTERNET:

Would you rather find yourself swimming in the ocean with a shark that is a hybrid of two other sharks, or a crab that has been named after American acting treasure David Hasselhoff? And no you can’t say both, no matter how currently paralyzed you are by the urge to do so.

Before you make your decision, let us realize first that the ocean is, of course, filled shelf to shelf with hideous terrors, like those fish that make their own lights, giant goopy squid and giant goopy squid that make their own lights, probably to aid them in eating humans. (There are also eels, of which I do not approve one little bit.) I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason the ocean is there, to serve as a huge Hideous Terrors Production Machine, as well as serve as a super-convenient dumping ground for our industrial waste.

But this week we can add two new items to the list, which is good, because I I haven’t experienced a pants-dampening fear of swimming in the ocean in a while. (Full disclosure: I’ve been snorkeling one time, and it was in Hawaii, and I was nearly devoured whole by a monk seal, which is a lie because they don’t devour people, but it looked mean, and also the snorkeling reef than went from 30 feet deep on one side to 90,000 feet deep on the other, and a manta ray was staring at me with serial-killer eyes and making a slashing motion cross its throat with its manta ray fins, and I am not exactly filled with the desire to get back in the ocean anytime soon. Also once my wife tried to kill me with a shark. Long story.)

Yet, if I were to ever re-enter the deep blue sea, it would not be in Australia, which is where the planet’s most bloodthirsty predators go to practice being more murderous. DO NOT THINK YOU ARE FOOLING ANYONE, WALLABIES.

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4 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in GateHouse, Humor Columns, Quote-Fingers "Science", Vicious Animals

December 13, 2011

You almost certainly have snakes in your Christmas tree. Sorry.

By Jeff Vrabel

Type "Christmas snake" into Google Images. It's fantastic

GateHouse — There are things that are OK, and there are things that are Not OK, and there are things that are Super Not OK, and there are things that are So Not OK That They Make You Slap Your Face And Run To Your Momma, and that is what brings us to the headline “Two Families Find Live Snakes Hiding In Christmas Trees.”

If you needed any more evidence that it’s just wiser to buy a plastic, Taiwanese factory-produced tree at Lowe’s, slap it in a stand and be done in time for the Steelers game, may I present you with the notion that your fancypants Real Tree You Mightily Chopped Down In A Field With The Help Of A Bearded Woodsman Named Fjurg The Sweaty probably contains snakes.

Christmas trees, according to everyone, are the second least-favorable places you can find a snake, the first being, say it with me, the toilet. This is my fourth-greatest fear in life, snakes in the toilet, directly behind clowns, the Fox Business Channel and having my picture taken while scuba diving in the ocean but then having the photographer start gesturing wildly and flailing around because there’s a whale swimming up behind me. That scene in “Finding Nemo” where the whale fades into view and eats the neurotic fish and Ellen? YEAH, WORST FEAR OF LIFE. Most of my more acute fears in life end up in Pixar movies. Weirdest thing.

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10 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in GateHouse, Holidays, Humor Columns, Vicious Animals

December 5, 2011

I for one welcome our new walking octopus / monstrous insect overlords

By Jeff Vrabel

Abject horror from Gizmodo

GateHouse – The good news: The world will officially not end as a result of the disastrous tsunami of semi-coherent pepperoni-mouthed idiocy that would have defined The Herman Cain Presidency! The bad news: It will probably end as a result of one of the following:

  1. Octopi that walk among us, or
  2. Giant Air Jordan-sized insects that eat carrots and look like they could punch people in the face.

There are two horrendous animals you should check out on the Internet right now, which is weird, because the Internet is mostly used only for cute animals, such as puppies and kitties and squirrels playing harmonicas.

But in this case the Internet has given us a video in which an octopus at a marine reserve is seen swimming around in the water, which is where octopus usually go. The water is where octopi do octopi-like things, such as admire their own arms and destroy Captain Nemo’s submarine and make fun of those commercials where wankers buy each other Lexuses for Christmas. But in the video, after a few seconds, the octopus WALKS OUT OF THE WATER ONTO THE LAND, while onlookers gape and holler and burst into tears and riot and rightfully flee into nearby mountain terrain, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT THEY SHOULD BE DOING because octopi DO NOT WALK ON LAND, which you know already if you attended school, even ones in Kentucky.

(Incidentally I’ve just been told that it was actually a giant squid that destroyed Captain Nemo’s submarine, but I can’t think of anything unusually evil that an octopus has done in movies  so I’m leaving it. If anyone knows of some seriously evil octopus shenanigans, email me.)

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8 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in GateHouse, Humor Columns, Quote-Fingers "Science", Vicious Animals

October 11, 2011

I can’t help but notice that no one is fleeing in terror from the hairy crazy ants

By Jeff Vrabel

GateHouse— Before the hairy crazy ants came, everything was going pretty well: Ohio State was losing, the AL East was being proficiently escorted out of the playoffs, I dropped a 98-point monster on my friend Matt in Words With Friends (“QUAILS” — holla!) Michelle Bachmann’s candidacy was fading into that permafrost netherworld and the only people still paying attention were lunatic nonagenarians from Iowa. Oh, and get this I FIXED A TOILET, by myself, USING TOOLS, sort of, and it stayed fixed until the next day when it was clearly still broken, but man, that was a deeply satisfying 12 hours.

And then, with everything swimming along swimmingly, I learned that the South — one of America’s largest, most buttery regions — was being invaded by hairy crazy ants.

This is their actual name: “hairy crazy ants.” This is their actual name because coming up with any other name for them would be pointless; you could call them “formicidae inferi” or “streptococcus abugslifei” or “Stuart” and it wouldn’t matter because everyone would just say “SWEET CHILD OF HOSANNA WHAT ARE THESE HAIRY CRAZY ANTS DOING IN MY SCRAMBLED EGGS?” (Or I guess I should say “WHAT ARE THEY DOING ALL OVER MY NASCAR FUNNEL CAKES AND TAYLOR SWIFT MUDFLAPS” because, again, American South. On the plus side if they’re invading the South and least this isn’t one of those plagues sent to wipe out gay people trying to get married.)

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7 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in GateHouse, Humor Columns, Vicious Animals

August 30, 2011

If you ever find yourself dreaming there’s a spider on your neck, wake up and CHECK THAT RIGHT OUT

By Jeff Vrabel

Pretty sure this was the animal that was on my face

GateHouse — Important safety tip: If you ever find you’re having a dream in which there’s a spider crawling on your neck, wake up and check it out immediately. And I will tell you why.

(Yes I realize this is the second childish spider-related column in a few weeks for you regular readers — and hello again to Mom and whoever keeps coming across my blog looking for “drunk chimp” — but howsabout you wake up to find a spider crawling near your valuable face and offer me some judgey thoughts on topic selection.)

There I was, contentedly dozing away, adrift in an ever-shifting wonderland in my dreams and, if The Other People Who Live In My House are to be believed, snoring like a psychopath in the real world (IT’S A MEDICAL CONDITION, YOU GUYS ARE MEAN), when I noticed what felt like something foreign and small fidgeting about in my hair.

Now, this first happened when I was in a sort of half-dreamstate, the bleary, smudgy netherspace between Wide Awake and Apparently Being Chased By A Laughing Clown Through Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Ill. If memory serves, I was about halfway through a careening hellride on a roller coaster whose track had had not yet been completed  — apparently my dreams don’t have SAFETY INSPECTIONS — when I noticed, somewhere in the haze of anticipating an impending plummeting-based death, a sort of tickle taking place only my head. Having mastered inception, of course, I woke right up (#jokesfromlastsummer).

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9 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in GateHouse, Humor Columns, Vicious Animals

July 19, 2011

Large and possibly hairy spiders in your house: Squish or release?

By Jeff Vrabel

According to my son, this animal is not harmful to humans. So go ahead. Stick out your hand.

GateHouse — So I’ve found spiders crawling on me twice today.

Small spiders, sure. Un-fatal spiders, I think, although it can be hard to tell because spiders are cunning and often disguise themselves as non-fatal spiders in order to sneak into places and sometimes pass through airport security.

But twice I have looked down upon my own shirt to find myself being traversed by something with body sections, multiple legs and venom — or, if not venom, at least pincers, which is basically scientific code-word for “venom.” Either way this is not going to mean anything very positive for my evening’s sleep schedule.

Now, I pride myself on being powerfully and masculinely unafraid of most things, including inventing adverbs for pointless jokes. Most things, that is, except for spiders. And the at-least-two snakes who live in my backyard now. And that skywalk thing with the glass floors on the 750th story at the former Sears Tower in Chicago. Also, the spectral librarian from “Ghostbusters” and those dreams about rollercoasters and clowns. Otherwise, I’m good.

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27 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Culture And / Or News, Dad Stories / Parenting, GateHouse, Humor Columns, Vicious Animals

March 1, 2011

The Many Adventures Of The Drunken German Traffic-Snarling Schnapps Owl, And Tigger Too

By Jeff Vrabel

Look at this drunken fool. Embarrassing.

GateHouse — Not counting a grievous error in college involving two hamsters and a bottle we thought was marked “water” but which was actually labeled “vodka,” I have never purposefully gotten an animal drunk.

That said, I have frequently and snortiferously laughed at a great many drunk animals: Mojo the helper monkey; that chimp from the Burt Reynolds movies; Tom, whenever Jerry pours a full bottle of red wine down his throat; Michelle Bachmann. Frankly, that sunny day in college when we found Norm and Dan bumbling down the dorm hallway in their adorable little mouse-ball, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find the whole episode a small bit awesome. (Reassuring Epilogue: The hamsters survived and I believe were tougher for it, although I’m pretty sure they never drank from the water bottle in their cage again. Also, we think they ate their babies, which we initially chalked up to alcohol poisoning but it turns out is just something hamsters do.)

For this reason I wish I was in Germany a few weeks ago, not just for the lush beaches and abundant sunshine but because there was an owl who got loaded on schnapps and screwed up traffic for like an hour. If you can find a part of that sentence that isn’t awesome, we wouldn’t have much to talk about at lunch.

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AC/DC – Who Made Who

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1 comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns, Vicious Animals

January 31, 2011

Scientists are cloning mammoths and other huge prehistoric beasts, because that went so well with Gamera

By Jeff Vrabel

Pictured: Science

GateHouse — There are, on the face of it, tons of reasons why cloning a woolly mammoth is a magnificent idea, if not one so awesome you can’t believe that America’s feeble, short-sleeved inventors haven’t thought of already (let me know how it goes with that “high-speed rail,” nerdlingers, while me and 12 friends are riding my brand-new new mammoth around the infield at the Daytona 500). Just think of a glorious, mammoth-filled future, the convenience, the ease of cargo transport, the chance to finally have a huge meaty rib delivered via roller-skating waitress to the side window of your rock car.

But, as it turns out, there are evidently some loser reasons against mammoth cloning, and not just the usual worries about being gored to death, being trampled to death or being trampled to death while being gored by the early, unsuccessful trial-run mammoth clones from the practice machines. God knows what those abominations could have on them — wings, dorsal fins, mouse faces. I’m not sure if you’ve ever given serious consideration to what happens when an entire subterranean cloning facility full of failed, bucktoothed, emotionally unstable almost-mammoths run amok and inevitably slaughter their creators — which obviously happens every time anyone clones anything around here, jeez — but I’m sure the aftermath would be something you’d want to wear the old shoes to mop up. “MAMMOTH DISASTER IN SCIENCE LAB,” the headlines would scream, and on the plus I guess the headlines would pretty much write themselves, leaving copy editors with more time to spend fleeing into the countryside, crazed with murderous fear.

I’m talking about mammoth cloning – I know, again — because it turns out that having successfully cloned every other animal in that Darwin book from the library, and also having fixed every other problem on Earth, Science has decided to try cloning animals that technically don’t even have firsts anymore, calling into question whether the word “cloning” is even accurate here, but whatever, we’ll leave that to the poindexters from the AP Stylebook.

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The Roots – Clones

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9 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns, Quote-Fingers "Science", Vicious Animals

September 27, 2010

Well, I either have bedbugs or someone dropped an awful lot of raisins in here

By Jeff Vrabel

Seriously, every little twinge, every itch, every little fleeting sensation is one of these things, on your skin

GateHouse — Well, that settles it, I have bedbugs. Bedbugs in the bed, bedbugs in the pillows, bedbugs on the couch, bedbugs in the car, bedbugs in the other car, bedbugs in the amphibious assault vehicle, bedbugs in the panic room, bedbugs in the haunted nursery, bedbugs in the room that the clowns dress in. In short, the entire place is thoroughly infested with bedbugs, which, of course, brings up the crucial question: “Thoroughly infested” is totally redundant, right? Because I’d hate to squander my word count on superfluous adverbs.

I should point out here, by the way, that I don’t have bedbugs, not at all, though I hardly see what that has to do with anything. Because according to the web sites, TV reports and magazines that I come across — seriously, what the hell, Pro Wrestling Illustrated — I have bedbugs, and you have bedbugs, and everyone has bedbugs; basically every night you rest your valuable head on what is essentially a forever rustling, chattering dance party of clickering parasites who wait until you drift away to begin nourishing their tiny, bulbous tank-like bodies on your blood. That’s right. Every twinge, every slight rustle, every every tiny fleeting itch on your body? Absolutely every single one of them is a bedbug. Each time. Crawling. On you.

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10 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns, Vicious Animals

July 26, 2010

Now here’s something you probably didn’t know about tentacles

By Jeff Vrabel

Do you see how the jellyfish here look all graceful and calming? FALSE. THEY'LL EAT YOUR FACE.

GateHouse — There have been a lot of jellyfish in the news lately, and by that I mean it’s possible that there have been a lot of jellyfish stories in the news lately. I have no idea, really, but I’ve personally encountered the same jellyfish story twice in 48 hours, and since taking one’s own personal experience, writing about it at breathless, context-free length and behaving as though you’ve uncovered a massing panic of national consequence is how the media works now, I figured I might as well board the Journalism 2.0 train. So what I meant to say there was INVADING MONSTER JELLYFISH WILL DEVOUR US WHOLE, AND ALSO I THINK THAT THEY ARE RACIST.

Anyway, the jellyfish story arrived first via a Friend on my Facebook wall, who I am immediately calling out because he’s the sort of person WHO WOULD POST A JELLYFISH STORY ON MY FACEBOOK WALL, which, for those who know me and my deep disapproval of floaty viscous goo-blobs that sting your face when you’re trying to kite-surf, is the new Most Direct Path To Getting Unfriended By Me, besting the previous winner, Videos From Your Children’s Many Recitals. (Seriously, Gooey Dead Jellyfish Pictures is the new Heather Wants To Share Some Cranberry Bushels With You In FarmVille! Which is to say, delete delete delete.)

The story was then echoed Saturday night by the 11-year-old offspring of friends whose obvious repeating of the story over the past few days had not lessened his relish in telling it. It opened with something on the order of “DidyouknowtherewasajellyfishinNewHampshirethathad45longtentaclesand150peoplewentothehospital?” breathlessly reported at speeds that would qualify him for inclusion in OutKast in the superheated, wild-eyed manner available only to 11-year-olds who are reporting to a passingly familiar adult a recent event in which many people were badly hurt.

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  • Sting (with Jo Lawry) – You Will Be My Ain True Love


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6 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in GateHouse, Humor Columns, Vicious Animals

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