The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, the Stupid, and World Cup Idiocy

The Good.

Meryl Yourish could have used this a couple of summers ago. Gotta' say I wish I had one of these little suckers at Halloween. Would have taken care of those greedy little brats a lot faster than my Wolfman impression.

"The BIRDS-AWAY Attack Spider® is a battery-operated device that will chase away damage-causing woodpeckers. Activated by sound, the spider drops down on an 18 inch string while making a loud noise. Then it climbs back up the string, ready to attack again. This unusual solution is both very inexpensive and highly effective. Woodpeckers cannot stand them!"

The Bad.

Tennessee. 'Nuf said. Oh, yeah. There's a bear involved, too.

"For all the frightening bear news in Tennessee in recent months, Rela Foshie didn't know what to do when a black bear she said had recently visited her back porch [in Chuckey, TN] decided to let himself in on Thursday.

"It came in the back door," she said. "I don't know how it got the door opened, but it did. He was in the hallway where the dog food was." The bear was apparently attracted to food for the couple's six-month-old puppy, Buddy. "He took the whole thing, the 50-pound bag of dog food and the plastic tub it was in, and dragged it though the backyard," she said. "That makes two bags. One last week and now one this week."

Make that a fat bear.


The Ugly.

There's a man-made lake down the road here that we used to like visitin' to watch the fireworks on the Fourth of July. Okay, AHM liked watchin' the fireworks. The rest of us were doin' our best Chicken Little impression. We don't go any more 'cause a bunch of Canadian geese moved in. (Gotta' admit it was fun for a while watchin' those silly geese freak out every time a firework exploded.) Anyway, silly humans let their kids scatter bread around for the geese 'cause they thought it was cute. Ya'd think a bunch of humans with kiddies would remember what goes in has gotta' come out sometime—somewhere…

"Officials are looking to capture some of Lake Tahoe's biggest polluters: Canada geese. A sewage spill at the lake last summer "is nothing compared to what's happening with these geese," said Jack Spencer, a federal Department of Agriculture wildlife biologist. Spencer said the bottom of Lake Tahoe is covered by up to two inches of goose feces in some areas."uce four pounds of nitrate- and phosphate-rich feces every day it waddles across the beaches, lawns and golf courses of Tahoe."

The Stupid.

We visited a place once that had peacocks on the lawn. They made the most gawd-awful screechin' I ever heard—they could've stripped the hide off a rhino. Guess their brains aren't much better.

"It is a love affair destined to end in frustration. Mr P, a lonely peacock, has devoted the past three years of his life to romancing a petrol pump. Every day the eight-year-old peacock saunters the quarter mile from his roost in a tree to the busy garage forecourt, where he spends the day showing off his flamboyant plumage in front of the row of pumps…

"He is one of three peacocks reared from eggs by Shirley Horsman from Brierley, in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. His two brothers are also showing signs of confusion when it comes to finding a mate. One appears to have a crush on the family cat, and the other has been seen attempting to mate with a garden light."

World Cup Idiocy.

Sometimes there's a definite need for…fe-lyings.

"A flock of the birds dressed in soccer jerseys showed off their dribbling and shooting skills at a Japanese zoo as football fever gripped the nation. The four young carrion crows at Tokuyama Zoo in western Japan used their beaks to dribble a miniature ball toward a soccer goal, sometimes tackling each other for possession before scoring, according to head zookeeper Satoru Tanaka…

"We tried to coach owls and falcons as well, but the crows were the best. They're such intelligent creatures," he said. The birds have only received about a month's training, he added. The zoo is now trying to teach the avian team to pass and take free kicks…"

posted by Harrison at 12:44 AM