Protip: Do not play around with hippos. Art by Netlizard.
At 27 years old, Paul Templer was swallowed by a hippo.
In 1996, Templer was giving a tour of the Zambezi river in Africa when his canoe was overturned. As Templer paddled out to rescue a fellow guide, he was swallowed by a rude hippopotamus.
Templer documented the incident in an article written for The Guardian in May 2013. Templer writes:
I reached over to grab his outstretched hand but as our fingers were about to touch, I was engulfed in darkness…I seemed to be trapped in something slimy. There was a terrible, sulphurous smell, like rotten eggs…My arms were trapped but I managed to free one hand and felt around – my palm passed through the wiry bristles of the hippo’s snout. It was only then that I realised I was underwater, trapped up to my waist in his mouth.
…I’ve no idea how long we stayed under – time passes very slowly when you’re in a hippo’s mouth.
After having a book about the experience published in 2012 (ironically titled What’s Left Of Me), he thought that his nightmare with the “rogue hippo”, as he calls it, was over.
The shocking video of a giant flipping golden eagle, soaring in like some kind of pterodactyl, which I can’t even spell, to snatch a toddler — well, that thing may or may not be a total fake.
Watch it and decide.
Not fake is this long nature video of a golden eagle killing and eating MOUNTAIN GOATS.
I am not making that up. Why bother hunting rats, rabbits, purse dogs belonging to Paris Hilton, wolves, tiny humans and anything else under 33 pounds — why even mess with such trifling things when you can take out giant goats, and do so using jedi bird mastery of gravity?
We should remember three things: (1) birds are feathered dinosaurs, (2) golden eagles are like mini velicoraptors WHO CAN FLY and (3) if you have one as a pet, I am not cleaning the bird cage.
Bonus video: a rundown, with all kinds of scientific numbers and such about the golden eagle, truly the honey badger of birds. (Though in a fight, I’m putting a purple euro on the honey badger.)
That’s right. It’s a “man bites dog” story, a reversal you just don’t expect.
This time, though, a man dives into the water to do battle with the greatest killing machine in the ocean.
Think you’re tough because you won a fist-fight in eighth grade with that neighbor kid? Yeah, whatever. Talk to me after you’ve dived into a tuna net and killed a great white shark.
The only way this could be more impressive is if the great white shark had a tag team partner, say a giant squid.
Bonus video: Once Bitten, Twice Shy by Great White
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Guy – Photo by Suhyoon Cho
Reformed journalist. Scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Wrote a thriller that was a finalist for some award.
It takes guts, monies and sponsors to float 25 miles into space and break the sound barrierskydiving down — then not going splat like the coyote in a Road Runner toon.
HOWEVER: I am equally impressed and entertained by this re-enactment of the space dive, done with Legos.
How did they do this so fast and so well? Stop-motion is tough, and so is strapping a tiny James Bond camera on an even tinier Lego man.
I salute you, Lego film-makers. Well done. GIVE US MORE.
You might ask why we’re having so many forest fires lately. I think maybe because it’s 98 degrees in October and hasn’t rained in forever. But I keep hearing that global warming is some kind of communist myth, invented by Lenin and still perpetuated by him (he and Elvis are living in Manhattan, growing their sideburns and wearing black berets). So I must be wrong. Rush Limbaugh says forest fires are caused by uppity feminists and that every time a woman earns a master’s degree, God sends a lightning bolt down on some trees. OK, I AM KIDDING WITH THE POLITICS.
Also: here’s related video of firefighter peoples in Florida using not just ping pong balls and helicopters, but also airboats, aeroplanes and paintball guns.
As a reformed journalist, these kind of stories make me (a) snort coffee through my nose, which is a tragic, because EVERY DROP OF JAVA is precious, (b) shake my head in awe and (c) wonder what other epic things are happening, every day, that we don’t hear about, because if a burger with onions makes a man like this go all Michael Douglas in FALLING DOWN, what happens if he gets into a fender bender? Will a SWAT team have to be called to Powell’s Books if somebody glances at the books he’s buying and raises one eyebrow, like Spock?
First, the story itself. Then we’ll analyze this, to see what it tells us about onions, and burgers, and America.
Burger with onions ignites ‘McFury’ at McDonald’s by KING 5 News, KGW KTVB.COM Posted on September 26, 2012 at 10:49 AM
GRESHAM, Ore. — A Gresham, Oregon man is accused of going on a violent rampage in a Portland-area McDonald’s fast-food restaurant Sunday.
Jayme Leon will be charged with harassment and criminal mischief following the violent episode in which police said he threw a soda in the face of the McDonald’s manager and smashed a cash register.
According to the Oregonian newspaper, Leon’s rage ignited when he received a Quarter Pounder with onions. He reportedly asked for no onions.
After placing the order, police said Leon called the restaurant to complain. He was told to bring the burger back for a refund, but said he had already eaten it.
Leon returned to the restaurant, upon which police are quoted as saying he went into a “McFury.”
Police arrested him a short distance from the McDonald’s. He was booked into jail but released on his own recognizance.
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What stood out to you?
For me, the icing on the McFury cake was this fact: he ate the offending burger with onions. All of it.
Then he went back to raise hell, break things and get arrested.
Normal people would peek at the burger, notice the onions and tell the 16-year-old at the counter hey, this is a mistake. Be great if you could fix it. And any restaurant will fix it. Everybody on the planet knows this. Maybe in Stalinist Russia around 1955, all burgers came with onions, and YOU WILL LIKE THE ONION BURGER, but I’m making that up.
You could be the mousiest, least aggressive person in the world, saying something like, “I think maybe I sorta ordered a burger without onions, and it’d be great — not to trouble you at all, because you’re busy and underpaid — it’s just be great to have a plain old burger, and if that’s a bother, I’m happy giving this one away to a starving person outside and handing you another buck and a quarter to buy a separate burger without onion, since there’s a 1 percent chance I maybe ordered it wrong, though that’s not what my receipt says.”
Even if you went all nicey-nice, they’re gonna replace your burger. Probably give it to you free and throw in some french fries or whatever.
That’s why this story jumps the shark.
People get mad all the time. There are brawls in the parking lots of Waffle Houses, apparently so often that fark.com may retire that as a meme. People rob gas stations all the time, so it isn’t news until a rednecks in Florida start a trend of dressing up like ninjas to rob 7-Elevens, which still resists using AP style and going with Seven-11. Listen to Patrick Stewart: resistance is futile.
The other reason this story jumps the shark is normal people, like you and me (OK, maybe just me) do a little cost-benefit analysis before resorting to Things that Will Get Us Arrested and Mocked throughout the Series of Tubes.
What is the benefit of raising hell at McDonald’s and trashing the place? Maybe they give you a replacement burger … except they won’t, because they’ll be busy looking for mops to beat you with and talking to dispatchers on 911 instead of frying up a new pattie of cow.
Weigh the benefits (zero) versus the costs (whoah, dude) and the decision for you and me is easy. But maybe you and I don’t harbor a deep-seated hatred of onions.
If you show people an iPhone 4s, and tell them it’s the new iPhone 5, how will they say it compares to the last iPhone?
The crazy thing about this video is some of these people can’t tell the difference even though they OWN an iPhone 4s, and are holding it in their other hand as they say, “Oh, this is much lighter and faster.”
Also, this:
Funny? Yes. Accurate? Well, yes. There is much Truthiness in here.
So I see this on the interwebs, and my brain says, “Ah, here we have James Cameron, busy at work on AVATAR 2: BLUE MONKEYS VERSUS HUMANS AGAIN, BECAUSE I WANT ANOTHER BILLION DOLLARS.”
But no, this is a real animal here on Earth instead of whatever that Avatar planet is named, though I believe this blue dragon would be something the blue monkeys ride if they’re traveling by sea. Also, it probably eats unobtanium for breakfast, because blue dragon mollusks munch up deadly poisons from prey and recycle that stuff with a shrug. Can you do that, Mr. Top of the Food Chain? I DON’T THINK SO.
Here’s a photo:
Have you ever seen this animal before? Me, neither, because it just arrived in a space ship from the water planet Xenu.
And before we get to video proof that this isn’t some PhotoShop job, or some kind of sasquatch prank by college kids who got all Dr. Frankenstein with two oysters and a bunch of model paint, here’s the Wikipedia page on blue dragons, which boffins (scientists) call “glaucus atlanticus” for some boring reason involving science and such.
HOWEVER: Some people call these “blue dragon sea slugs.” Even if they are related to sea slugs — say, sea slugs are their ugly uncle — it’s wrong to call these beautiful little guys “slugs.” No. They’re 5.92 bazillion times cooler than boring gray slugs, which don’t ingest deadly toxins for breakfast and can instead be killed by plain old table salt. No self-respecting thing can stroll into a super-hero bar and say, “Hey, my super power is, like, crawling all over plants to get my slime on them, but my super-weakness, uh, is, you know, table salt.”
The blue dragon mollusk, now, can float into that same bar looking awesome and not have to say a word, because if you disrespect it, say hello to a little free dose of deadly toxic whatever.
You have questions, random peoples of the Series of Tubes, and do I have random answers? Maaaybe.
Question: Where can I buy a blue dragon mollusk?
Answer: At the blue dragon mollusk store. No, I am kidding. These are not pets. These are aliens from the planet Xenu, and if you try to keep them as pets, their buddies show up in a wicked spaceship and zoom off to find more venomous things to eat for breakfast.
Question: Does the blue dragon mollusk really eat deadly venomous animals?
Answer: Yes. They eat stuff like the man-of-war, which is only found in the ocean, and not pet stores, making it even harder for people to feed their kidnapped blue dragon mollusk they’re trying to keep as a pet. Though I think the plural should be “men-of-war” or “men without hats,” who are only found in Australia. I also believe they eat peppers, like the ghost pepper, in their salsa. Sour cream and guacamole is too nancypants for them.
Question: What other insane animals don’t I know about?
Answer: These things.
This is a real animal, an aye-aye, not an extra from a bad horror movie.
The dumbo octopus, also a real animal that I did not make up. He’s buddies with the blue dragon mollusk, but not the honey badger, who he believes is a bit too aggro.
On to the footage: blue dragons in the wild.
More blue dragon footage, because I’m still not convinced.
OK, I’m convinced, and want some for pets, as long as they don’t evolve into those giant VW-sized facehugger things from PROMETHEUS.
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Guy – Photo by Suhyoon Cho
Reformed journalist. Scribbler of speeches and whatnot. Wrote a thriller that was a finalist for some award.
"In my insomniacal Twitter meanderings I find the miracle of @speechwriterguy. Follow him. He makes energetic sense about words. And life."
@CharlesCrawford / Oxford area, England / Former British Ambassador turned speechwriter, writer, mediator, trainer, blogger. Founder member of ADRg Ambassadors LLP
"Informative, funny, blunt & quirky, @speechwriterguy 's blog is a must if you really give a damn about language & communication."
@DavidWeedmark / Ottawa, Canada / Acclaimed poet & novelist with a penchant for dark roast coffee; passionately curious.
