This is awesome. Next time you think your house is messy, just look at this slideshow.

(via Susan)

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Fire dancing …. now bringing feelings of empowerment to even the most hairy of participants.

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What’s up with all the freakishly large, and/or ancient, animals coming out of the wood work lately?! Have they been super-sizing it? Is it the Al Gore effect? Are we going to see Loch Ness and Bigfoot soon?

Check out this 550 lb, 26 ft long, squid that washed ashore in Tasmania a few days ago. WTF?!

What about “octo-squid”, the half-squid half-octopus that was discovered off the shore of Hawaii last week?!

And the 40,000 year old, almost fully intact, baby mammoth found in Russia. Amazing.

[Update, by Timbotron]:
Here’s a nice brief video of the giant squid (from Reuters and Scientific American).

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If you have the time, visit Safari West - an African animal preserve on the outskirts of the Napa Valley in California. My wife and I recently spent a night there; there’s nothing quite like waking up to the squawking of ring-tailed lemurs. The video will explain it all:

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If you find yourself swimming in the Amazon River, wearing loose shorts (or naked), and urinating in the water - you may be in grave danger. A candirú just might swim into your urethra and lodge itself there. Long considered a myth or “bush legend,” this fear has recently (and unfortunately) come to light as true. The name “candirú” actually refers to several species in the Trichomycteridae family and the Vandelliinae subfamily - they are tiny, parasitic, transparent catfish that subsist upon the blood of larger fish. Most of these species lodge themselves among the gills of larger fish (they have sets of backward-facing spines around their head) and live on the blood of their unfortunate hosts. Accounts* also note that some candirú species lodge themselves in the anuses of larger (and terribly unfortunate) fish. Perhaps as a case of mistaken identity, they seem to be attracted to human urine (which perhaps has a chemical signature similar to fish excreta or gill respiration) and will advance to the source, and at times lodge themselves in that source. A 1997 incident of a young man (23 yrs old) near Manaus, Brazil who had a candirú removed from his manhood is one of the first extensively and scientifically documented cases (gnarly web archive photos of the procedure here). The dead specimen (a species of Plectrochilus), which was removed with some difficulty, measured 133.5mm long and 11.5mm at the widest part of its head. The man and his equipment survived intact. A fish this size seemed to have little difficulty working its entire body into the urethra of the poor man. To offer a sense of scale, here is an illustration of a Trichomycterid candirú with an American quarter (specimen illustration redrawn from Spotte).

*The definitive work on this subject is marine scientist Stephen Spotte’s “Candiru: Life and Legend of the Bloodsucking Catfishes.” Spotte has left no stone unturned in this extensive collection of candirú accounts and current research. I got it for Christmas, an awesome read.

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The newest form of terrorism comes to us from the farmlands of America. Forget bridges and planes… I think we need to redirect all anti-terrorism funding to protect our nation’s cows.

Check out the site yourself.

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Two drug-sniffer dogs at northern Thailand’s Chiang Rai airport have been fired for peeing on luggage and sexually harassing female passengers.

Now the dogs live on a farm, herding chickens and pigs.  Now there’s an idea.  Let’s put some of these socially-challenged Transportation Security Administration workers out to pasture, where they can’t bother / harass / molest anybody.

You can thank me later.

Great White Snark

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There really are no words to describe this newscast, which is clearly from another era…

One memorable quote:

“The humor of the entire situation suddenly gave way to a run for survival as huge chunks of whale blubber fell everywhere.” –News Anchor

[postscript/update (by Timbotron)]:
“Son of Exploding Whale“ - Three years ago. Tainan, Taiwan. 60-ton dead spermwhale in transit to Cheng Kung National University for necropsy. Gasses from decay built up. The whale exploded. The 100+ bystanders (who had gathered to comment on its enormous penis) were flecked with decaying viscera.

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Bad puns aside, when I saw the description of this video on YouTube, I found it nearly impossible to believe. But low and behold, this is indeed a battle between about 6 lions and a herd of (30+) water buffalo. And if that wasn’t enough for you, even a few crocodiles get in the mix. Check out the insanity (though be warned that this video is 8 minutes long– even so, it’s worth it in my mind):

(via NegativeSpace; photo gallery available here)

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You have to see this to believe it.

The 11 year old Alabama boy said, “It’s a good accomplishment. I probably won’t ever kill anything else that big.”

You couldn’t get that much bacon at Costco. What I want to know is, what was the wild boar eating?!

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A kangaroo pleasuring himself looks so human that–for a second–you suspect that it might actually be a dude in a kangaroo costume.

Great White Snark

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NEW DELHI, India — An elephant in eastern India has sparked complaints from motorists who accuse it of blocking traffic and refusing to allow vehicles to pass unless drivers give it food, The Hindustan Times said Monday.

“The tusker then inserts its trunk inside the vehicle and sniffs for food,” local resident Prabodh Mohanty, who has come across the elephant twice, was quoted as saying.

“If you are carrying vegetables and banana inside your vehicle, then it will gulp them and allow you to go.”

“We are telling commuters regularly not to tease the elephant,” said Sirish Mohanty, a forest ranger working in the state. “But if people don’t heed to our advice and harass the tusker, then it can retaliate.”

(Story via CNN.com; Image via swanksigns.org– a site that deserves its own post, which it will soon get)

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