Category: zany, offbeat humor

Posted in zany, offbeat humor

Alien Abduction Checklist

Posted on by George Gillson

A few days ago I had nothing better to do so I went over my To-Do list which includes things like rearranging my sock drawer, trying to figure out witty comments to make about the posts that Dave Barry is putting up on his new Substack and last but not least, updating my Alien Abduction Checklist.

With the threatened disclosure of sealed UFO files from the 1950’s and also the discovery of things like ancient Mesopotamian Cylinder Seals, you can’t be too careful these days. Everyone needs to be aware of the possibility that you, your accountant or maybe even your Congressperson/Member of the Legislative Assembly has been the victim of an alien abduction.

Ancient Mesopotamian Cylinder Seal

See that creature to the right that looks like the love child of a praying mantis and a donkey? That is almost for sure an alien, getting ready to probe the unsuspecting Mesopotamians. Or it might just be another Mesopotamian standing on his/her/their head. How can anybody know for sure?

The Daily Mirror may know for sure because it recently featured an article listing six signs that might point to an alien abduction. The signs are: tiny bumps under the skin (possibly indicative of implantation of sensors), nosebleeds, strangely realistic memories such as being “probed” by reptilians, time gaps/lost time, and development of psychic powers such as the ability to know when your dog wants to go outside.

That’s all fine but I have my own list, which I feel is way more accurate than the Daily Mirror’s list-not that I’m biased. The key is to look for abrupt changes in behavior and the acquisition of new abilities other than mind-reading.

Here goes:

One of the most common indicators is when a SOAP (Survivor Of Alien Probing) abruptly ditches their pet for a new, more menacing, more alien-looking creature. One example would be swapping out a goldfish for an alligator gar. Clearly, the alligator gar (on right) did not originate on Planet Earth. It can be found in Texas, though. And Texas isn’t all that far from Nevada. (Note: these fish are disgusting, They can be 7 feet long, weigh over 200 lbs and will eat small mammals including unsuspecting toddlers. I’m probably lying about the toddlers.)

Anyway, Geography aside, another example of abrupt pet-upgrading would be ditching an innocent, normal-weight zebra finch for an imposing, underfed shoebill crane. Equally clearly, the shoebill is also not of Planet Earth. It is not found in Texas, either.

shoebill doing yoga

OK, enough about pets. Yet another behavioral clue is an abrupt change in handedness which can happen any time the person in question is under acute stress such as being in the middle of a sword fight. Jut don’t make the mistake of accusing someone who is ambidextrous of being a SOAP. Also, please watch The Princess Bride if you don’t know what the hell I am talking about.

What about food? Take cheese for example. There are many well-documented cases of sudden changes in cheese preference following an alien abduction, e.g. switching from Velveeta to Casu Marsu, a soft cheese which requires living cheese fly larvae (Piophila casei ) for its taste and liquidity . This cheese is banned on most planets but not California. Which explains a lot. If you need to throw up in your mouth, go ahead. I’ll wait…

SOAPs have also occasionally displayed a sudden hankering for a dessert featuring dried elephant dung. I swear on Julia Child’s gastroenterologist that I’m not feeding you B.S.

E.S. maybe but not B.S.

I could go on with a few more random SOAP “tells” and in fact, I’m going to do that right now. It’s too late to turn back.

Abruptly gaining the ability to sort laundry to your spouse’s satisfaction will probably lead to this comment. “Who are you and what planet are you from, even?”

A sudden propensity to start wearing a curlew costume and then walking 53 miles is another dead giveaway. The 53 miles is very significant because the B-52s wrote a song called “53 Miles West of Venus.” Coincidence? I think not.

If you get the following message when you open a Fortune Cookie, it might also raise your index of suspicion that you yourself are a SOAP:

The “others” are deeply moved-read unsettled-because they probably feel kind of naked: they know you are reading their minds. And their dogs minds.

Lastly, finding a copy of an alien abduction insurance policy on the desk of a SOAP suspect at the office would pretty much clinch things in my book. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to broker Allan McNulty, commenting on a potential new offering by the Apollo on-line insurance company:

“Similar to key man or key woman life insurance coverages, if you lose an essential contributor to your organization — potentially to another galaxy — this could be disastrous for your business,” commented LeGear Pelling Agencies commercial & specialty markets broker Alan McNulty.

McNulty added that alien abduction coverage would bridge the “intergalactic personal risk gap challenge.”

Like I said at the start, you can’t be too careful these days.

With that admonition, I’ll wrap this post up. I have to go wipe my nose anyway. It just started bleeding for no reason. Plus I think my dog is telling me he wants to go outside.

Posted in zany, offbeat humor

Just Chew It (With Apologies to Nike)

Posted on by George Gillson

A couple of weeks ago, my oldest son Drew sent me a link to this article:

In his defense, Drew grew up on a steady diet (pun intended) of Dr. Seuss, Monty Python and The Princess Bride. Therefore, Drew is attuned to the silliness and the oddities of life, so he sends me this stuff. Truth be told, Drew’s sister and younger brother are also just as silly. The three of them must have gotten that from their mother.

Anyway, in light of all the uncertainty in Ottawa these days, all of us probably need to enhance our cognitive functioning and critical thinking in order to keep track of things, Chewing on hard materials such as diamond, shoe leather and stale bagels might help us get some answers to these pressing questions:

When is Trudeau stepping down? When will Carney take the reins? And for how long? What’s Freeland going to do for a living now? I’ll bet she’s not going into modeling. (OK, that was mean. Strike that from the record.)

Will Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Federal Conservative Party, be the next Prime Minister? Will people learn to pronounce his name properly? (Poy-lee-ev-ruh is the Parisian French pronunciation but if you’re not in France you can probably get by with Poy-lee-ev. Just don’t say Paw-lee-ver.)

It’s all so confusing.

And speaking of confusion, what person in full possession of their faculties would ever fork over $1800 for a French Fry? Even if it WAS shaped like the Nike Swoosh? And what would that person do with it? Put it in a special sealed display case pressurized with an inert gas like Argon, Xenon or maybe the political rhetoric that is venting on both sides of the 49th parallel?

I don’t know about you, but if I bought that French Fry I would for sure stick it in a time capsule somewhere…

First Archaeologist, opening time capsule in distant future: “Heaven’s to Betsy! What in tarnation is THIS?”

Other Archaeologist: “Well, it looks to me like a French Fry that has assumed the shape of a Nike Swoosh.”

First Archaeologist: “Knock me over with a feather! What in blazes is a Nike Swoosh? And what was WRONG with those people?”

Other Archaeologist: “A fair question but here’s an even fairer question: why are you using those archaic expressions?”

First Archaeologist: “It was that cache of DVDs I dug up a few weeks ago: the one containing all 14 seasons of Bonanza. I couldn’t stop watching them gol-durned Cartwight’s.”

Other Archaeologist: “Right. What’s a DVD?”

Inhabitants of the Cartwright Family’s Ponderosa Ranch strolling the streets of Virginia City, Nevada or possibly DOGE enforcers on the hunt in Washington, D.C.

Okay, moving right along here, it turns out that researchers have been intensively studying the relationship between chewing and cognitive function over the last couple of decades. A few sporadic papers on the topic appeared between the 50’s and late 80’s but then the number of papers started to rise exponentially.

I attribute this to the advent of smartphones in the early 2000’s. After that, instead of reading books or doing something productive, people of all ages began mindlessly scrolling their phones and sending memes to each other. Cognitive function was taking it on the chin so research on the effect of chewing and cognition accelerated.

Pub Med publication history for “cognition,chewing” search term.

It seems that chewing increases blood flow to the brain and per the citation above, brain antioxidant levels also increase. The harder your masseters, aka jaw muscles, have to work, the more blood flows to the brain. More oxygen to the brain: more antioxidants: more high octane thinking: more cognitive speed. Apparently cows are the exception in this.

I ran into a bit of a mental block at this point so I got up, fished out a pack of gum and started chewing away. Sarge, too, was looking a bit mopey and sluggish so I gave him a couple of beef rawhide sticks to give him a bit of a cognitive jump start. Here he is in mid-chew:

He’s not that big on chewing treats. It’s more like he swallows them mostly intact, kind of like a furry python. Anyway, it seemed to help: Sarge perked up and challenged me to a game of tic tac toe. Fortunately I won, although it was close. Sarge should’ve done more chewing and less engulfing.

Well, I could go on but it’s time to wrap this up: my gum is pretty much chewed out and it’s making me hungry. My masseters are also shagged so I’ll probably have to eat something soft.

French Fries might be a good option.

Posted in zany, offbeat humor

We Need More Art Critics

Posted on by George Gillson

Well, here we are on December 2nd, exactly 56 days since my last post was visited upon the unsuspecting public on October 7th. But in my defense, I was busy.

Back in the Mists of Time, thousands of seconds ago, the principal scientist (aka me) in the “What In the Hell Was I Thinking” division of the Lateral Thinking Department, hit upon the notion to do something novel related to the impending 20th wedding anniversary of me and my wife, Jeanette, on November 27th.

Unbidden, the mental image of the impressively large mound of cards that Jeanette and I have exchanged/accumulated over the years suddenly popped into my head.

You know the cards I’m talking about:

Christmas cards, Valentine’s Day cards, “Have You Seen My Glasses Lately? And Also My Pronouns?” cards, Easter cards, Mother’s Day cards, Father’s Day cards, “I Just Got Out of Jail Today” cards, “I Wish You Wouldn’t Splash Water On Your Side Of The Bathroom Mirror Even Though We Now Have Two Sinks Since We Finished The Reno” cards, “Just Because I Love You But Having Said That, I Still Need To Point Out That I Wish You Would Quit Squirreling My Stuff Away In Places That Don’t Make Any Sense To Me” cards, Run-on Sentence Day cards, “Why Are You Even In The Kitchen Anyway?” cards, “Honey, Why Don’t You Go Hang Out With Your Geezer Friends From High School For The Weekend?” cards, and last but not least: “I Hate It When You Remind Me That I Might Be A Tad Tetchy Because There’s A Full Moon Tonight” cards.

We’re talking about hundreds of cards here, just so we’re on the same page.

Now where was I? Yeah! Back to the Mists of Time. On that same day, thousands of seconds ago, after the cards popped into my head, I got the idea to make montages by taping together same-themed cards out of our hoard. For good measure, I also decided to throw in some montages composed of photos and memorabilia from various trips we’ve taken over the years.

Let’s face it: we can’t have enough sentimental montages: or enough Art Critics, for that matter, if we’re really honest with ourselves.

Before we get into these montages, I should note that we initially got married October 22nd, in front of a Justice of the Peace, because we thought it would speed up Jeanette’s immigration stuff. About a month later we got married again, together with family, in front of a pastor at Jeanette’s sister’s house. When people ask me why we got married twice in the space of a month I always say it was just to lock things down a little tighter. These days you can’t be too sure.

Anyway, here’s us:

And here are some of the montages. The one immediately below was Stop #1. These things were all over the place, scattered in various rooms, stuck on walls, doors, mirrors, an ironing board, and a ladder. They were hanging off the telescoping pole I use to diddle with the outdoor Christmas lights and one was hanging off a curtain rod.

Not shown at the bottom of the Stop #1 display were flowers, champagne in a bucket of ice and a lit candle with our wedding invitation on the side of it, courtesy of Freda (my Mom). I swear on the Hallmark Christmas Movie franchise that I’m not making any of this up.

Alert readers will notice wedding photos between the J and the G

Anniversary cards
Alert readers will note that sometimes we sent the same cards to each other.
Left to right: Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Mother’s Day/Father’s Day.
Alert readers will wonder why the Mother’s Day/Father’s Day montage (at right) is circular.
I couldn’t think of a different shape.

Easter card montage.
Alert readers will probably already have reached that conclusion.
They also probably noticed at least one pair of duplicate cards.

Observe the card up there at the North Pole of the egg.

You can’t see the inside of the card so I’ll show you:

This next one was living on the Valentine’s Day montage down in the lower left edge of the heart, just in case you were wondering:

Once again, I’ll satisfy your curiosity about what was written inside:

I feel like I want to meet the people that write these things. Seems like maybe the people who wrote these two cards in particular went to the same School For Greeting Card Writers. Or maybe it was the same person. You never know.

Moving right along, here’s a brace of cruise/beach resort montages:

Here’s another card montage. I promise not to show any more of them.

The one on the right is obviously a house.
The other one was supposed to be a tiered birthday cake (sans candles.)

Don’t judge. I feel like I should get at least a B+ for effort. Maybe an A.

It took me 18 rolls of Scotch tape and somewhere between 80 and 100 hours of work to:

a) find the cards in their various repositories

b) sort them and try to date them

c) tape them together so that as the montages rolled off the assembly line, they could accordion-fold and live in the rear storage compartment of my Tesla, underneath the inflatable paddleboards, safe from discovery.

Basically, Jeanette had no clue what I was up to for the better part of two months but on several occasions along the way she noted that I seemed distracted and agitated at times.

Ya think so, honey? I never thought I would get done in time. But I did.

: )

And now you know why I missed the November LTD post.

Finally, to close off the topic of greeting cards, I’m reprinting this little ditty, from “What Da Heck?” an LTD post that ran a couple of years ago. That ditty, in turn, was taken from a post written back in the Emedics days:

The School For Greeting Card Writers

Here at The School for Greeting Card Writers, things are looking pretty solemn.

We regret that though we’ve wracked our brains, we couldn’t come up with a column.

SQUIDS, newts, warthogs, SPAM; our topics are diverse.

But tonight our heads are empty; every hour it grows worse.

At first we thought we’d talk of pigs, but that proved way too boaring.

Before we’d written twenty lines we both were soundly snoring.

 “Humanitarianism for beginners” seemed like a hopeful topic,

But we couldn’t think of much to say; we were feeling misanthropic.

Week in, week out, it ain’t no picnic, writing this stuff for free,

And we know that no one’s counting posts, but this is number forty-three*.

Some of you don’t get our jokes and this we are aware of.

But it doesn’t really bother us because we are a pair of:

Rugged individualists, trying to mimic Ogden Nash,

The only difference being, he traded words for cash.

Now we’re feeling really tired; we have to wrap this up.

So Merry Christmas, don’t pig out or else you will throw up.

(*It was actually post number forty-four but that didn’t rhyme.)

And just FYI, I was kidding about us needing more Art Critics.

Posted in zany, offbeat humor

Turns Out That The Cerebral Cortex Is Highly Overrated

Posted on by George Gillson

Just so you know, here in the Department of No Longer Babysitting Organic and Inorganic Mass Spectrometers (As Well As Immunoassays), I have more time on my hands to read articles from outfits like Quanta Magazine.

Here is their Mission Statement, in case you were wondering:

“Our reporters focus on developments in mathematics, theoretical physics, theoretical computer science and the basic life sciences. Even the best traditional news organizations often provide fake narratives about applied areas of science such as health, medicine, technology, engineering, your sock drawer and the environment. We strive to complement and augment existing media coverage.

Our work often resembles journalistic alchemy — we mash together the complexities of science with the malleable art of storytelling in an attempt to forge a precious new alloy. It can be a mind-bending enterprise, but we relish the challenge.“

OK, OK. I apologize for this being such a long Mission Statement but also for probably lying about the fake narratives bit. These days you can never know for sure. Remember this: “Only your hairdresser knows for sure“.

But speaking of mind-bending enterprises, consider the following conversation taken from this book:

ATTORNEY:   Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS:      No.
ATTORNEY:   Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS:      No.
ATTORNEY:   Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS:      No.
ATTORNEY:   So, is it possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS:      No.
ATTORNEY:   How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS:      Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY:   But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS:      Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

Don’t laugh.

Yet.

I recently read an article entitled “Can Consciousness Exist Without a Brain?” by Yuhong Dong M.D., Ph.D. which referenced another article by Thomas Verny MD. In that article, Dr. Verny discusses his “embodied mind” hypothesis:

“I started to explore this subject six years ago, when I read an article reprinted from Reuters Science News entitled, “Tiny brain no obstacle…” It seems that in July 2007, a 44-year-old French man went to a hospital complaining of a mild weakness in his left leg. When doctors learned that the man had a spinal shunt removed when he was 14, they performed numerous scans of his head. What they discovered was a huge fluid-filled chamber occupying most of the space in his skull, leaving little more than a thin sheet of actual brain tissue. It was a case of hydrocephalus, literally—water on the brain. Dr. Lionel Feuillet of Hôpital de la Timone in Marseille was quoted as saying, ‘The images were most unusual … the brain was virtually absent.’ The patient was a married father of two children and worked as a civil servant apparently leading a normal life, despite having a cranium filled with spinal fluid and very little brain tissue.”

Now you can laugh.

Here is Official Brain Dogma (OBD for short) straight from the Cleveland Clinic (Mission Statement: “Caring for life, researching for health, and educating those who serve”):

“Collectively, your cerebral cortex is responsible for the higher-level processes of the human brain, including language, memory, reasoning, thought, learning, emotion, intelligence, personality and decision making including deciding not to feed your cat before you go to bed and then regretting that decision when it (the cat) starts scratching on the bedroom closet door at 5 AM because it’s hungry.”

Basically, in his article, Dr. Verny is refuting the Cleveland Clinic OBD and is saying that there’s more to consciousness than a bunch of grey matter. He continues:

“In the animal kingdom, vast ranges in brain size fail to correlate with apparent cognitive power. Crows and ravens, for example, have brains less than 1% the size of a human brain, but still perform feats of cognition comparable to many politicians and also to those people who dream up the stupid trade names for prescription drugs.

Take Ondansetron for example. That sounds like the name of Megatron’s fraternal twin brother. What about Skyrizi? Is that some kind of rice-containing Greek recipe? And what about Zygarde? Whoops! Zygarde is actually a Pokemon. But it could also be the name for prescription deodorant or maybe tick repellant.

Anyway, don’t get me started. Where was I?

Oh yes!

They (the crows and ravens) are also able to put themselves in the position of others, steal hairs from the tails of unsuspecting animals, draft legislation, recognize causalities, and draw conclusions. Pigeons can learn English spelling up to the level of 25-year-old humans educated almost exclusively by TikTok. Behavioral studies have shown that these birds can fashion and use tools including chainsaws, soldering irons and in a pinch: post hole diggers. They can also recognize people on the street and poop on the ones they don’t like—things that even many primates fail to accomplish.“

Note: I have it on the highest authority that chimps and gorillas can fling their kaka at people with deadly accuracy. They just can’t fly.

I skipped the next bit in the article. It was about octopuses and I already wrote about them a long time ago. Never leave your pantry unattended if you own an octopus. It will get into the pantry, find the peanut butter jar, open it and eat every last speck. Just saying.

OK, where was I?

Oh yes!

Undaunted, Dr. Verny forges on to cite research on 600 people with hydrocephalus. (‘Is Your Brain Really Necessary,’ Science 1980 Dec 12;210(4475):1232-4.  doi: 10.1126/science.7434023.) Of those 600, the brain fluid took up 95% of the available space in 60 subjects. Of those 60, approximately half had above-average IQs. Many were lawyers or civil servants.

So far, we don’t have a lock on how any of this is even possible but theories abound.

Some people think that when the cortex is missing, neurons from other structures, including but not restricted to the genitals, can be recruited to take over executive functions. That’s the “neuroplasticity” theory.

Then there’s the microtubule theory. Microtubules are tiny tubes present in all cells including neurons. They play essential roles in cell division, movement, and intracellular transport of information. The networks formed by the microtubules are posited to form “quantum devices” that act as a bridge between the quantum world and our consciousness. The networks may act like antennas, capturing and amplifying quantum signals, organizing them, rearranging our sock drawers and somehow generating conscious awareness. Quantum-entangled photons spawned by vibrating lipid molecules may also be involved.

Information radiating from the quantum foam into my sock drawer

Last but not least: what about the embodied mind hypothesis?

The good doctor, Verny, continues:

“I suggest that people with missing brain tissue who appear to act quite normally perform as well as they do, not because of “neuroplasticity” or “recruitment” of unaffected areas in the brain and possibly the genitals (though no doubt some of that applies) but because the brain never works alone.

Its function is inextricably linked to the body and to the outside world. In the individual who lacks a large part of their cortex, the neurons in the cranial nerves, spinal cord, and other cells in the body (somatic cells, immune cells, etc.) form a network that is constantly communicating with the brain—or what’s left of it—and acts like a backup disk on a computer, containing snippets of memory and functionality that collectively contribute to near normal cognition and behavior.”

Well, there you have it.

Clearly, we’re going to have to rethink (no pun intended) a lot of things such as the “two heads are better than one” aphorism. It seems that sometimes two brain hemispheres are no better than almost no brain hemispheres.

I also think that the Cleveland Clinic needs to amend their Mission Statement to this:

“Caring for life, researching for health, and educating those who serve. Sadly though, we don’t know jack shit about how your brain works.”

Posted in zany, offbeat humor

They’re About As Big As You Thought They Would Be

Posted on by George Gillson

OK. Just to be clear, the man on the left in the Featured Image is not a farmer and the other guy is not a farmer either. For some reason I thought the guy on the right might be a Park Ranger, like from Yosemite or maybe Yellowstone. I also thought he might be a cowboy because it looked like he was wearing leather chaps. In fact, I toyed with the notion that he might even be a Texas Ranger but his hat didn’t cut it.

The two guys in the Featured Image are actually whale fishermen. You probably figured that out already. And in addition, you probably also figured out that the thing they’re holding is not one of the whale’s flippers.

That revelation should cause this question to spring to mind: why the dickens (no pun intended) did a photo of two men holding a whale penis get inserted (no pun intended) into this post?

TO find out the answer to the question, keep reading
Posted in zany, offbeat humor

Applied Materials Science

Posted on by George Gillson

I was sitting around a few days ago, chewing the fat with a buddy of mine, whom I’ll call Tim (not his real name), and the topic of weather came up. This inevitably led to a post that I wrote years ago, even before the Emedics days.

Here in The Department of Lateral Thinking we (well me, mostly) think laterally about a lot of stuff including Materials Science.  For those of you who don’t know, Materials Science is the study of materials, and this includes materials like Oobleck. 

Geisel T, Bartholomew and the Oobleck. Random House 1949

Anyone who has ever been a child whose parents read Dr. Suess books (and also read them to their kids) knows that Oobleck was the tenacious  green goo that fell out of the sky after bored King Derwin commissioned his magicians to conjure up a new kind of weather:

Don’t try this at home

A young lad named Bartholomew played a key role in the narrative as he finally had to go back to the magicians to undo their spell. Things were getting too sticky.

keep reading to find out what this has to do with anything
Posted in zany, offbeat humor

How To Psychoanalyze An Entire Country: Part II

Posted on by George Gillson

Well, here we are in Part II and as threatened, I’m going to discuss more Official State Attributes including, Buckminsterfullerenes (aka Buckyballs), Dessert, Fly-Fishing Flies, Glacial Erratics and Marsupials. Don’t be mislead into thinking that I’m going to start by taking a swing at Buckyballs though. Instead, I’m angling for a few laughs by starting with the Humuhumunukunukuapua`a, aka Triggerfish aka the Official State Fish of Hawaii. This fish really had to swim upstream to secure that perch.

Triggerfish still feeling a little sulky about the fact that it took so long to gain Official Hawaiian State Fish status
Keep reading To FIND OUT why it took so long for the Humuhumunukunukuapua`a to become a state fish
Posted in zany, offbeat humor

Exploding Pythons and Other Stories

Posted on by George Gillson

I don’t know about you but I feel like 2022 flew by like a video of a chinchilla taking a dust bath, played at 2X speed. And since you brought it up, here’s actual footage of a chinchilla taking a dust bath. You can play it at 2X or not. It starts slowly, then builds into a frenzy of activity, just like 2022! At least that’s my perspective.

This past Christmas was especially hectic, what with Nor’easters, Alberta Clippers and Polar Vortices wandering around and disrupting travel plans with reckless abandon. We had to rejig our travel plans at the last minute to avoid spending Christmas in the Toronto airport. I felt like a hatchling marine iguana fleeing for its life with a pack of ravenous snakes in hot pursuit: or maybe cold pursuit, since snakes are cold-blooded.

In fact, I wrote about an actual hatchling iguana caught on camera fleeing for its life from a pack of ravenous snakes in a previous post saying the following: “That clip is the best thing I have ever seen.  Seriously.  Even better than that picture in which two guys are dueling with van de Graaf generator-based weaponry.  You will be on your feet cheering your heart out for that iguana.”

Immediately after I embedded that clip (below) in this post I watched it again and sure enough, there I was, up on my feet, cheering my heart out for that feisty little bugger. If Tom Cruise and Gal Gadot (aka Wonder Woman) got together and somehow produced an iguana baby instead of a human baby, that hypothetical love child iguana’s butt would totally be kicked by the Planet Earth II iguana featured below. Trust me on this.

I know, I should get on with the python stuff but I also want to say that if Planet Earth II iguana had a Mom like the one in this next clip, the snakes would be a non-issue. Especially if they in any way resembled elongated, streamlined raccoons. The Mom in question, who I’m almost positive works part time as a baggage handler for (insert the name of any major airline here), starts her day by rushing out the front door when she hears her daughter Reilly screaming whilst waiting outside for the bus.

Mom finds a plus-sized raccoon clinging to Reilly’s leg and promptly disengages it while Reilly attempts a fairly complicated horizontal gymnastic manoeuvre against Mom’s hip. Mom calls for help, shouting something about rabies and shoos Reilly back inside after detaching her daughter from her hip with one arm whilst the raccoon clings tenciously to her other arm. After giving the raccoon, still clinging tenaciously to her arm, a practice swing, Mom yeets it a good 20 feet or so into the front yard. It’s awesome. Unharmed and possibly feeling a little sheepish, the raccoon gets up and waddles away nonchalantly. You actually wind up feeling a bit sorry for it. Reilly and Mom got away with a couple of scratches and a brace of rabies shots.

OK, now I REALLY need to get on with the python stuff.

Late in 2022, somebody in the know told me about a Burmese Python in Florida that died after eating a 5-foot alligator. I got the lowdown from the WSAZ News Channel site. Motto: We need better news correspondents. Or maybe just better proofreading.

Here’s a photo of the victim, freshly excavated from an 18-foot python:

According to Jeanne Moos, CNN National news correspondent: “The state of Florida encourages people to kill Burmese pythons because they eat so many other species and produce rapidly.”

OVERTHINKING ALERT!

“They” can be a dangerous word, sometimes leading to needless confusion. You’ll notice that I struggled a bit with the use of “her” in the description of the raccoon battle although I think I managed to avoid needless confusion.

Anyway, my first question is: Who’s doing the eating: the people or the pythons? My other question is, (assuming that they refers to the pythons) is: What do they produce?

Methane?

Ophidiophobia (fear of snakes)?

Herpetophobia (fear of reptiles in general)?

Vorarephobia (fear of being eaten alive/swallowed whole)?

I feel like a pretty good case could be made for any or all of the above phobias. And possibly the methane.

Interestingly, Rosie Moore, one of the scientists who necropsied the python, has also made a name for herself as a successful free-diving bikini model. I am not making this up. The footage Ms. Moore posted on Instagram pertaining to the necropsy rapidly went viral. For some reason.

Turns out that alligator-snacking pythons are old news. I got to poking around and located another article detailing the October 2005 discovery, made by South Florida Natural Resources Center researchers, of a dead, headless python sporting a mostly-intact alligator protruding out of a hole in its midsection. The headline on the Mongabay blog post was “Python explodes after swallowing 6-foot alligator in Florida Everglades”.

I swear on an Exploding Kittens card game that I am not making any of this up.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Tail of alligator protruding from midsection of headless python

There are various competing theories about what happened:

(a) The python successfully engulfed and suffocated the alligator but eventually exploded due to intestinal gas buildup.

(b) The alligator was engulfed but somehow remained alive and fought part way out of the python before expiring.

(c) The python successfully engulfed the alligator but a second alligator came along, ate the head of the python in retribution but was unable to free the imprisoned alligator.

Those are pretty improbable theories if you ask me because (a) and (b) don’t account for the missing head and in (c) we don’t know if the snacked-upon reptile was still alive or “just resting” as the saying goes. Why would the second alligator attempt to rescue a dead alligator? Admittedly, I might be overthinking this.

My theory, shamelessly modified from a theory posited by the person who told me about all this python-alligator stuff in the first place, is that the alligator in question may have contained the long-sought-after carcass of disappeared notorious former Teamster’s Union President and convicted felon, Jimmy Hoffa. Before his demise, and in an eerie twist of fate, Hoffa could have accidentally ingested a set of nesting Matryoshka dolls bearing the likenesses of, in no particular order, various ruthless political leaders such as Nancy Pelosi, Genghis Khan, Erik the Red, and Margaret Thatcher. The innermost doll probably contained a grenade which was eventually detonated by powerful pythonic contractions.

Maybe that’s not such a great theory but “The Pythonic Contractions” might seem like a pretty great name for a band. Or at least an OK name. If you happen to be somebody who was fifteen years old in the early 70’s.

Just saying.

Posted in zany, offbeat humor

Dog Days

Posted on by George Gillson

A couple of weeks ago, one hot afternoon in the dog days of summer, I was walking my dog Sarge. We were about 1/2 or 3/4 of the way home. I dunno. Maybe it was 7/8ths of the way. Or 15/16th. Anyway, in the interest of not splitting hairs, suffice it to say we were close to home and Sarge still hadn’t pooped. The immortal words of Dave Barry spring to mind here: “The objective is not so much to walk your dog, as it is to empty him.” Despite that we were walking along a stretch where he (Sarge) doesn’t usually poop, I said, “Sarge. Poo-poo dog.” I swear I’m not making that up. That’s what I said to him. It drives my wife nuts because Sarge is NOT a cute little puppy. He’s a115-pound, 15 month-old galoot of a Bernese Mountain Dog. She doesn’t think I should talk baby talk to him. She’s probably right.

to find out whether sarge pooped, keep reading