Starship Asterisk*

The world's 11 most unbelievable elevators. That's what THEY said.

http://www.emirates247.com/news-in-imag ... 4-1.439245

6-legged lamb born in Georgia Russia.
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?secti ... id=8519810

DOGGONE.

The death of the 2-foot hotdog.
http://www.wfsb.com/story/16617497/eate ... of-hot-dog

Beyond wrote:DOGGONE.

The death of the 2-foot hotdog.

16617497_BG1.gif

http://www.wfsb.com/story/16617497/eate ... of-hot-dog

Your making me hungry! It reminds me of the Foot-long Chile dog I used to get in my younger days!

Sometimes you get more than cash from an ATM.
A guy in northern Sweden got a mouse.
A Spanish fellow got a snake. But i didn't watch the video to find out what kind.

http://main.aol.com/2012/01/27/man-with ... 37454.html

I had a snake come in through the cat door at my dad's place, once. Actually, I'm not sure how it got into the kitchen. Maybe it went through two cat doors, because it had to get through the garage first. I can't tell you how pleased I was to have to pick the lost snake up and take it to a less dangerous location before heading off to college that day. I really do enjoy them! They are so interesting.

Some are more interesting than others. When i was a kid, i happened upon the tail end of a very long garter/garden snake that was slowly going into the stone foundation of the farmhouse my parents were renting. Well, i had seen them plenty of times and they aren't that big, so i figured i would just slowly pull it out. Heh, s--l--o--w--l--y was more like it. After i finally got some of it out, i was realizing that that sucker was a mite bigger than the ones that i had seen. By the time i had gotten a little over a foot of it out, i smelled my hands. What a s-t-e-n-c-h P-U. Never did finish pulling out the snake, so i don't know just how long it was. Washed my hands a whole bunch of times just to cut down on the stench and make it bareable. Even rubbed my hands in the dirt. The smell slowly faded away. That's the last time i ever tried to pull a snake out of anything.

Yeah, it was trying to play dead on you by emitting that foul smell. I've seen them empty their bowels (it's a cloaca so the solid and the liquid both come out) of whatever they could, as well. It's messy. Serves us right for scaring the crap out of them.

I didn't notice anything come out. I figured it stunk because where it lived in the stone foundation never got cleaned out. But what the heck did i know I was only a kid with a very smelly pair of hands. Especially the right one that had ahold of the snake the longest.

Beyond, I must say, you meet interesting animals where you live!

The only snake I've ever met in the wild was a huggorm, which, directly translated, would mean "bite-snake". It is the only poisonous snake we've got in Sweden. The one I saw was really little. Not only that, but I got plenty of warning, because a whole bunch of us teachers were out walking in the woods, and there the snake was, sunning itself on a sunny part on the path we were following. One of the teachers in the front called out to the rest of us, "Look out! There is a huggorm here!"

The little thing looked almost cute to me. I wouldn't want to get bitten by it, but most people will survive getting bitten by this snake. Not that it would be a pleasant experience, and you could die, if you were really unlucky. But this kind of snake will almost never attack you if you don't bother it first, deliberately or accidentally, as the case might be. But since I had had plenty of warning, I could be sure I wouldn't bother it, and therefore I could enjoy the sight of it.

I was looking for a picture of a huggorm, and learnt that its Latin name is Vipera Berus. But I couldn't find any pictures of cute-looking speciments of this kind of snake, so I'm not going to post any pictures here.

Ann

Beyond wrote:I didn't notice anything come out. I figured it stunk because where it lived in the stone foundation never got cleaned out. But what the heck did i know I was only a kid with a very smelly pair of hands. Especially the right one that had ahold of the snake the longest.

Yeah, there are some glands near the cloaca that emit that foul smell. I'm sure you ran your hand over it several times while pulling on its tail.

Ya know, something that is on parr with that smelly snake, is years later, at another house, when a big ole mamma coon was in back with her little ones, eating on stuff we put out for the critters. Well, for some reason, one of the little ones went about 5 ft up a big pine tree. So i quickly grabbed a pair of new work gloves and went out and 'skrunked' it up, while keeping an eye on mamma. ha-ha, poor little coon couldn't do anything but hang onto the pine tree. I skrunked it up good for about 30 seconds. It then got down from the tree and went over to mamma. I smelled the gloves. Don't remember if i coughed or not, but should have. PU It was just as bad as the snake, just a bit different. Must be because of their sweat glands and that they can't take off their fur coat and wash it. So much for that brand new set of work gloves. They were good for one skrunking. Then i threw them in the woods.
Oh, 'skrunked' is a term that a friend of mine uses to refer to like rubbing a cat fast and getting them really wound up. It's best to do it with gloves on, so you may not get scratched or bitten. My father found that out the hard way with my cat one day. My cat had double paws front and back. He caught a mouse in the house one day and had his paw on it in the living room. We could only see the ears to the nose on one end of the paw, and the tail sticking out on the other end of the paw. He was a decent sized cat. One day while he was stretched out on the floor sleeping, i measured him from nose to tail. It took the whole yardstick. Maybe i should have called him -Yardly

Beyond wrote:
Oh, 'skrunked' is a term that a friend of mine uses to refer to like rubbing a cat fast and getting them really wound up. It's best to do it with gloves on, so you may not get scratched or bitten.

You should be nice to your cat, Beyond! (Assumes stern school missus expression)














Ann

ha-ha-ha, i WAS being nice to my cat, Ann. He used to love being 'skrunked' up. My father used to do it quite frequently, once he started using gloves.
Can you imagine having your hand grabbed by four double paws with claws extended and biteing at the same time?? Once, the cat had such a good hold with his four paws and teeth, that my father raised his hand up and the cat was off the floor while biteing, holding on with the front feet and kicking like crazy with his back feet. When the cat was through having fun, he would just let go and dash a few feet away. Then my father would kinda rub and pat the floor. If the cat was still in the mood he would attack his hand again.
Now i don't have any pets. I have enough of a job just taking care of me.

I can sympathize. Taking care of oneself takes its man, or its woman.

Ann

Oh, but... maybe your father's cat has turned up again in a suburban yard. At least I found this as I googled "yard-long cat"!

Ann

Nope! MY cat was a very dark striped cat. You had to look really close to be able to tell there were stripes there. The white one you posted doesn't seem to have double paws either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_bu ... lo_buffalo

I love this article.

Whoa It would seem that there are heap plenty ways to be Buffaloed by Tatonkas.

Video and articule of flying robots called 'Nano Quadrotor' Drones.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/0 ... 49442.html

Cats like football - or at least soccer - too!
Ann

Well, they avoided that possible catastrophe very nicely.

A Canadian Beartastrophe.

For picture and story, click below.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/201202 ... ng-120207/

"The owner of the car said:

I'm kind of pro-bear."

Oh, and one other thing -- Hamilton may not be able to answer the age-old question about whether a bear poops in the woods, but he knows for sure they'll do it in an SUV.

Nice story, Beyond!


I still prefer cats, though.





Ann

Oh, and one other thing -- Hamilton may not be able to answer the age-old question about whether a bear poops in the woods, but he knows for sure they'll do it in an SUV

They must go in the woods; I saw the commercials; Mama bears doesn't like the paper flecks sticking to Jr's behind!