Tag Archives: 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 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

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

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

March 18, 2010

Art painted by dogs = Indulgent, sententious and smells like kibbles

By Jeff Vrabel

"You call that early 20th-century Fauvism, Cody? Get in your bed! GET!"

Island Packet — The dog we had while I was growing up was a scatterbrained, overcaffeinated Ewok named Cutty who had thick black fur, dragon breath and what could be generously described as scant bladder control. (Seriously, loved her, but the downstairs carpet was like a minefield of long-dried puddles. If I ever had a girl over, it would have been a problem. It was generally not a problem.)

Cutty could do a lot of things: She could smile on command, she could catch mice and she could consume an entire box of 12 chocolate Santas in one sitting, although the rest of that particular evening is something I’d like to forget.

But for all her positive traits, Cutty was a really lousy painter.

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27 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Culture And / Or News, Humor Columns, McClatchy-Tribune

February 26, 2010

Enjoy your final days before we’re all devoured by murderous pigs, or, Porky’s Revenge

By Jeff Vrabel

Pictured: Babe, age 54

Island Packet — We have had, it can be argued by most good people, a fairly colorful few months here in the swamps of Carolina. Our governor vanished for a week, another guy lost track of his Red Bull allowance and yelled something at President Kenya O’Islam on the TV, another dude and his grandma called poor people farm animals and then whined about being made fun of, some hilarious representative person introduced pointless nuisance legislation about banning paper money to make a point about small government and it’s still legal to marry your first cousin. There is also a story about a horse my editor won’t let me write about.

But even these many terrible people are mere hors d’oeuvres when compared with the greatest problem facing residents of South Carolina, which is that we are all going to be eaten and probably killed by feral wild pigs, which are running wild throughout the state and cannot be stopped at all, by anything, except maybe feral wild dragons, and I’m pretty sure we exported most of those already.

Indeed, according to a story right here in the Newspaper written by my cubicle-mate, Patrick Donohue, who spent all of Feral Pig Infestation Reporting Day growing increasingly unhinged by panic, “There may be no slowing the state’s booming wild hog population, experts say.” Moreover, it turns out our state is home to the nation’s sixth-largest population of wild hogs. (It is also home to the nation’s fourth-largest collection of owners of the DVD of “Wild Hogs,” which is equally troubling.)

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Bessie Smith – Gimme A Pigfoot

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4 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Humor Columns, McClatchy-Tribune, Vicious Animals

October 30, 2009

I cannot help but notice that no one is fleeing in horror from all of the giant snakes

By Jeff Vrabel
jake-the-snake-roberts

Jake "The Snake" Roberts, who could put an end to this whole thing in about two minutes.

Island Packet — Well, everything seems to be under control around here. Swine flu is getting good and vaccinated, at least among you chirpy, vivacious Younger People. Windows 7 is out, giving us Mac people another great many reasons to direct smug, self-important smirks at each other (try it, it’s fun). The Balloon Boy’s weird parents will soon be given over to torture, as they should be. Yep, everything would be pretty much as solid as could be expected, were it not for the small flotilla of behemoth Burmese pythons slithering their way from Florida to the Lowcountry to devour us all.

Now, unless you are aficionado of Celtic music or belts, there’s really no upside to learning that many thousands of snakes are en route to your town, and yet this may be the case, according to a story last week that has inexplicably not caused residents to scamper chaotically into the streets with curlers in their hair, slippers on their feet and mad rictus grins of horror frozen on their faces. Because, and I want to be absolutely clear on this, SNAKES ARE COMING TO KILL US ALL. You guys have your little slap-fights on the blogs about health care or whatever, I’ll be moving all my essential documents, potable water and slow, chewy smaller dogs to the top floor.

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4 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Humor Columns, McClatchy-Tribune, Vicious Animals

August 24, 2009

Camel’s milk is the wave of the future. Yeah, I said it, cows.

By Jeff Vrabel

malkGateHouse — I can’t be sure about you, but I know that every single time I come across a full-grown camel in my everyday travels, the absolute first thing I think is: I got to get me some milk from that.

Which makes this the best week ever, because I have just read that camels, in addition to being some of nature’s most gorgeously attractive beasts, represent the bright shining future of American milk production. You hear that, cows? Your days are OVER, jerks, with your incessant mooing and walking everywhere in groups and being easily seasoned. Camels are the way to go, as they can produce a cappuccino-esque beverage with magical properties and all you have to do to obtain it is tickle them a little bit near their udders. DONE.

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4 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in GateHouse, Humor Columns, Terrible Things People Eat, Vicious Animals

July 20, 2009

Sam Brownback’s Animal-Human Hybrid Theory, or, A Senate Where Apes Evolved From Man?

By Jeff Vrabel
Not the Little Mermaid, on purpose

Not the Little Mermaid, on purpose

GateHouse — Lest you worry that the only important work being done in Washington, D.C., last week involved a fellowship of Play-Doh-faced white guys from a panicking party fading faster than Marty McFly’s picture in the first “Back to the Future” spending four days asking Sonia Sotomayor if she was racist…

(fade in)

Lindsey Graham: Are you a racist?

Sotomayor: No, sir.

Graham (looking up from addressing a Thinking Of You card to Mark Sanford, in calligraphy): What about now? Are you a racist now?

Sotomayor: No, sir.

Graham (crossing “Be mad at John Ensign” off things to do list): Judge, others have said you have a temperament problem, and do you YOU’RE A RACIST AREN’T YOU SAY IT ADMIT IT FOR I AM LINDSEY GRAHAM, MASTER OF OCCLUMENCY!

(we fade to black)

… then I have good news, unless you are a centaur, in which case you are totally screwed, especially the horse part of you. Because last week, Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and the dark side of Neptune and 2008 presidential candidate for exactly 24 minutes (less time than Fred Thompson, just in case you were worried that was impossible), introduced legislation banning the creation of terrifying-sounding ANIMAL-HUMAN HYBRIDS, such as mermaids, or Perez Hilton. “Creating human-animal hybrids, which permanently alter the genetic makeup of an organism, will challenge the very definition of what it means to be human and is a violation of human dignity and a grave injustice,” Brownback said, adding, “A PLANET WHERE APES EVOLVED FROM MAN?”

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Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Awful Political Things, Culture And / Or News, GateHouse, Humor Columns

July 3, 2009

Alligators: nice and kind of friendly, as long as they’re completely taped up

By Jeff Vrabel

gatorIsland Packet — Here’s what I did at work last Friday: Held an alligator. With my hands. Both of them. That is an essential strategy, because holding an alligator with one hand is a terrible idea, because no matter how you do it the gator is going to be hanging in some fashion, and that is highly unsafe, especially if the hanging portion contains the mouth. So I used both, which was good news for the alligator, because when you’re being held by someone who is quivering uncontrollably, the effect is probably that of a pleasant massage.

I was holding an alligator because it was brought to the office by gator wrangler/guy who could snap my spine in half like a pretzel stick Joe Maffo of Critter Management, a company that specializes in the removal of alligators from things, such as pools, ponds, baby seats and refrigerators. If there’s an alligator that needs to be relocated — often, it seems, because of tourists trying to impress someone by playing a minivan version of “Man Vs. Wild” or attempting to snap a cool picture for the breakroom bulletin board — it is his job to do so, which is the mathematical opposite of my job, which involves trying to tap-tappity funnies at 2 a.m. for one of these “newspapers” that my grandkids will be asking me about in the way that I ask about, say, stegosauruses, like: “Wait, they really had those?”

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3 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Dad Stories / Parenting, Humor Columns, McClatchy-Tribune, Vicious Animals

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