Conventional wisdom about writing is conventionally wrong.
Update: TV news reported today a car hit a cougar on the highway near Montesano, so yeah, they’re out here, and yes, they do their business in our backyard.
Pretty sure the Hound of the Baskervilles was freaking out a 1 a.m. the other night because a cougar was out there. I got a decent look at it. But hey, the big ones are actually the least dangerous — they only grew big because they avoided people and stayed out of trouble. Not that I want to walk up and try to pet one.
What’s a wombat? I HAVE NO IDEA.
Looks like some kind of mythical beast, an extra from some Peter Jackson film. But it’s cool, and apparently friendly.
Related: tying a bow tie is a pain. No wonder Daniel the Craig runs around with the stupid bow tie undone.
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.)
This video proves one powerful thing: math and science are seven separate flavors of awesomesauce.
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
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.
# # #
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.
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.
And before we get to proof that this isn’t some PhotoShop or CGI thing, 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 wussy for them.
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.
This is a local otter, in the Tacoma, and I HAVE SEEN IT.
It may even be the same otter I shot (with the Nikon of Infinite Beauty). That photo got picked up by the world’s greatest collection of otter photos, maybe because it’s the only place on the web that obsesses about cute photographs of otters.
Here’s my photo.
And here’s the blog of otters, otters and, for variety, more otters.
Why a blog devoted entirely to photos of otters? Three reasons: (1) why not? (2) no animal is cuter than an otter and (3) you can’t spell awesomesauce without “aw.”
The Red Pen of Doom 