Archive for the ‘Mammals’ Category

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Camel bites Kan be pretti nasti.

Friday, July 15th, 2022

A worker at a central Minnesota zoo was flown to St. Cloud Hospital on Wednesday after a camel got the man’s head in its mouth and bit down.
A second man who helped free the first also was bitten.

…

Deputies were told an employee was escorting a camel through an alleyway to prepare it for transport when the animal got the employee’s head in its mouth and bit down. The camel then dragged him about 15 feet.
A second employee, a 32-year-old Texas man, placed a plastic board into the camel’s mouth to release its bite from the first man, who was able to run to safety. The camel then charged at the second man and bit his head. He was able to get away on his own and declined medical treatment at the scene.

Posted in Camels, Mammals | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: May 6, 2022.

Friday, May 6th, 2022

Mike Hagerty, character actor. Credits other than “Friends” include “Space Truckers”, two episodes of a spin-off of a minor SF TV series from the 1960s, and “Speed 2: Cruise Control”.

Lawrence emailed an obit for Kevin Samuels, a YouTuber I’d never heard of but who was apparently followed avidly by some and hated by others.

Edited to add: better writeup from NBC News.

Domino, popular and beloved University of Texas cat. (Hattip: FotB RoadRich.)

Posted in Mammals, Movies, Obits, TV | 1 Comment »

Three things I’m kind of looking forward to.

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2022

1. The Bunk lies down on Broadway.

Wendell Pierce is ready for another run as Willy Loman.
The American actor, best known for his work in “The Wire,” first took on the titanic title role in “Death of a Salesman” in London in 2019, and even then he hungered to bring the performance to New York.

Rod Dreher and his family saw the London production, and he raved about it. This might actually be enough to get me to go to NYC. (Also, Mike the Musicologist and Andrew the Colossus of Roads were talking about Peter Luger on Saturday, and I’d like to take a shot at that.)

2.

(The Last Dangerous Visions explained, for those of my readers who are not SF fans.)

3. There’s a movie tentatively scheduled for February 2023. It sounds like trash, but fun trash.

Cocaine Bear follows an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens converging in a Georgia forest where a 500-pound apex predator has ingested a staggering amount of the white powder and goes on a coke-fueled rampage seeking more blow — and blood.

That’s right, a movie inspired by the true story of Cocaine Bear. How can you not be entertained?

Posted in Beef, Books, Food, Mammals, Movies, Theatre | Comments Closed

Important safety tip (#24 in a series)

Wednesday, February 9th, 2022

Trigger warning for dog people, but: nature red in tooth and claw.

.380 is not a sufficient caliber for moose.

Also:

She said no musher would ever travel with a rifle or a large caliber gun, instead preferring to scare off animals with a flare gun. And with all the jostling of the sled, the larger guns could easily go off.

I’m sorry, but if your guns are going off because of the sled jostling, you’re doing it wrong, and should go find a qualified gunsmith.

Posted in Bagatelle, Guns, Mammals, Safety | 1 Comment »

Tweet of the day.

Friday, December 10th, 2021

I don’t live in NH, so I don’t have a roo in this fight. But I did read the text of the proposed legislation.

While I am generally supportive, my one concern is that the appeal process for denial of a permit is to the state fish and game commission. I think it would be better if the appeal process was handled by a separate dedicated judicial body…

…a “kangaroo court”, if you will.

(I’ll see myself out.)

Posted in Law, Mammals, Politics | Comments Closed

“I feel blessed to live in such times.”

Monday, December 6th, 2021

That was a comment from a friend of mine when I sent this story around last month.

I didn’t blog it at the time because it was all rumors and I had no reliable or semi-reliable sourcing on it. But ESPN published an article over the weekend, so now it can be blogged.

Jeff Banks, who is an assistant coach at UT, and his girlfriend are being sued.

Why?

Their monkey allegedly bit a child.

According to the lawsuit, the child, identified as C.C., was trick-or-treating with two friends on Halloween and was invited to attend a haunted house. The lawsuit says that, after completing the haunted house, the child and his friends were taken to a monkey that Thomas kept in the backyard. According to the complaint, the child was told the monkey was trained to give high-fives.
“Instead of giving a high five, Danielle Thomas’s monkey aggressively bit down on C.C.’s hand and refused to let go,” says the lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by ESPN on Saturday. “C.C. was forced to manually pry the monkey’s jaw open. There was so much blood that C.C. was unable to see the full extent of the injury.”

…

According to the lawsuit, “Instead of showing any semblance of care for an injured child, Danielle Thomas was instead worried about the risk of her monkey being taken away. … Danielle Thomas stated to the physician that the monkey had bitten her before and that she was fine, implying that the monkey therefore did not have rabies.”

The family claims that Ms. Thomas has not yet provided vaccination records for the monkey. It isn’t clear from the article if C.C. had to go through the whole series of rabies shots.

Interesting side note:

Thomas is also identified as “Pole Assassin” in the lawsuit, her stage name as a dancer. She once appeared on “The Jerry Springer Show” with the monkey.

Posted in Law, Mammals, Monkeys, Primates, Sports | Comments Closed

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

Sunday, December 5th, 2021

…and I’m getting into the spirit.

Again this year, Daddy didn’t drink all the Xmas money, or have to spend it on car repairs. Daddy got his car inspected (they didn’t even want to replace the windshield washers) and has renewed his registration online.

I don’t want it to sound like everything is coming up Millhouse. A close family member has been in the hospital since before Thanksgiving. I’m hoping that, if the doctors can get them up and walking, we might be able to get them out on bond the later part of this week. Which will be welcomed by me. And their little dog, which we will call “Toto” to protect the innocent.

(On the slightly positive side, this gives me a chance to make onion dip. Or hot buttered rum. Or real eggnog.)

And work is still giving me tsuris. The good news is, after December 17th, I will be officially out of the office and on leave until January 10th. I probably will check my emails from time to time, mostly for the “fiddling while Rome burns” feeling of it all.

But I got to go to a Christmas party/appreciation dinner last week. And today I got to meet up with the members of what Lawrence likes to call my “shadowy criminal conspiracy” for the first time in a while. I missed the last meeting because of Tulsa, then we took two weeks off for Thanksgiving…

…and then after I finished running errands, I went by Sportsman’s Finest. They’ve decided to open on Sundays for the month of December. Which makes sense, right?

Turns out, the gun I had bought in Tulsa and had to have shipped to a transfer dealer had come in. (There were some issues that delayed the process. Nothing criminal or anything, just a shipping foulup and a couple of other little things.)

I don’t know if my readers who are not People Of the Gun understand this, but: when you get a gun transferred to a dealer for you to pick up, the dealer has to open the package and log the gun onto their own record books. So they know what you’re getting when it arrives. Which is significant in this case because…

…the owners of Sportsman’s Finest happened to have a bunch of stuff lying around the shop for this particular gun, and gave me over $100 worth of stuff to go along with it. Free. Gratis. No charge. Seriously. (I’m being kind of coy about the gun here because I’ve actually been working on a post about this specific gun: I just had to wait until it arrived so I could take photos. If I’m lucky and the weevils don’t get into the eggnog, I might be able to post that this week. I will say, it is a really old gun that isn’t made any longer, but is still held in high regard.)

(Not a Garand, Borepatch. Sorry. But you got me thinking about that as a possible next purchase. I believe I meet all of the CMP qualifications, and they aren’t getting any cheaper.)

And they also didn’t charge me for the transfer.

None of this was stuff that I was expecting. I was fully prepared to pay the transfer fee, and thought about arm wresting one of the owners over it. But I decided to do something else instead. The spare parts were just an unexpected, surprising, and honestly quite moving bonus. I wouldn’t expect them to do this for just any random murder hobo. I guess it just happens that I’m one of the murder hobos that they like for some reason.

Made my heart grow five sizes, it did. Not three, because fark the Grinch, stealing the roast beast like that and tormenting that poor dog, but five sizes.

(Mike the Musicologist: “You should see a doctor about that.”)

Anyway, if you need guns or ammo or fishing gear or other outdoorsy type stuff during the holiday season, please consider shopping at:

Sportman’s Finest
12434 Bee Cave Road
Austin, TX 78738
(512) 263-1888
9:00 AM – 7:00 PN Monday-Friday
9:00 AM – 6:00 PM Saturday
11:00 AM – 5:00 PM Sunday during December

Don’t expect free stuff until you get to know them, but they’re really nice people, even if you’ve never been in before.

Posted in Christmas, Endorsements, Guns, Mammals | Comments Closed

Other people lead more interesting lives than I do.

Friday, December 3rd, 2021

At least, it seems that way according to the New York Post.

This bride went from blushing to barfing in a matter of seconds.
Wife Hollee Lynnea-Kolenda Darnell unintentionally put her groom’s “in sickness and in health” loyalty to the test when she passed out, puked and got pooped on during their wedding ceremony.

…

A woman who took a Delta flight recently wasn’t kitten around when she whipped out her breasts and started feeding her hairless cat.
The unidentified female flew from Syracuse, NY, to Atlanta, GA, where she was caught breastfeeding her feline on the plane. A flight attendant told her repeatedly to stop and put her cat back in its cage, however, the woman refused.

As a person with a strong cat allergy, hey, at least it was hairless. Also, what did she do wrong? Other than not obeying a flight attendant, but it isn’t clear to me what she was doing wrong. Delta policy allows cats on planes, and allows breastfeeding on planes…

A Florida mother was arrested after she allegedly fired a gun at her front door and left her infant home alone in his crib while she went out to a bar on Thanksgiving night, officials said.

The name of the bar is “Paddywagon Irish Pub”, which sounds like a fun place to go drinking on Thanksgiving night.

Posted in Bagatelle, Mammals | Comments Closed

Tiger, tiger…

Wednesday, May 12th, 2021

I missed this story the other day, but wanted to make note of it here, if only for this quote:

“Obviously, if you see a Cherokee with a big tiger in it, it would be good to call us,” Ronald Borza, a commander with the Houston Police Department, said at a news conference on Monday afternoon before Mr. Cuevas was taken into custody.

Also:

“We have reports that he does have monkeys,” Commander Borza said.

Also:

The emergency dispatcher wasn’t exactly sure how to handle the situation, he said.
“Who do you want us to send? The police, the Fire Department, you know, the priest?” Mr. Ramos said the dispatcher told him.

How about “all of the above”? Is “all of the above” an option?

Posted in Bagatelle, Mammals, Monkeys, Primates | Comments Closed

Quick update from the legal beat.

Friday, April 30th, 2021

Five people have been arrested on charges related to the shooting of Lady Gaga’s dog walker.

Three of them were actually involved in the robbery, according to police:

Detectives do not believe the men were targeting the dog walker because of the dogs’ owner, the police said. Evidence, however, suggests that the men knew that the dog breed was valuable and that this was the motivation for the robbery, according to the police.

The other two are charged as accessories after the fact. One of them is the woman who returned the dogs.

Posted in Law, Mammals | Comments Closed

Seriously, has everything gone completely nutso?

Thursday, February 25th, 2021

Headline:

Lady Gaga’s Dog Walker Shot and Critically Wounded, 2 French Bulldogs Stolen

I don’t want to seem like I’m making fun of the poor guy: he’s currently hospitalized in critical condition, and I hope he makes a full recovery.

Tara Bruno, founder of SNORT Rescue, a New Jersey-based organization that rescues bulldogs, pugs and Boston terriers, says French bulldogs are among the most stolen dog breeds because they’re very popular, are small and portable, and are expensive.
French bulldogs from reputable breeders cost between $3,000 and $5,000, she says, while dogs from puppy mills or overseas importers with designer coats in blue or merle can bring in about $10,000.

I’d like to think there would be some issues fencing bulldogs stolen at gunpoint. For example, I think most people who would pay money for a French bulldog probably want one with papers, which I’m sure the dog walker was not carrying around with him…

Posted in California Über Alles, Law, Mammals, Music | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 263

Saturday, December 19th, 2020

Going a little long again today, but this popped up, and I thought it was appropriate and timely.

From 1994, “Pancho’s Guest Ranch Hotel and Happy Bottom Riding Club”.

I’m sure almost all of my readers are familiar with the Happy Bottom Riding Club. But in case there are any teenagers out there…

The Happy Bottom Riding Club (1935–1953), was a dude ranch, restaurant, and hotel operated by aviator Pancho Barnes near Edwards Air Force Base in the Antelope Valley of California’s Mojave Desert. Barnes and the club were both featured in Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book, The Right Stuff, and the 1983 film adaptation.
Also known as the Rancho Oro Verde Fly-Inn Dude Ranch, the establishment was a favored hangout for both test pilots and the Hollywood elite during the 1940s, boasting over 9,000 members worldwide at the height of its popularity. When the United States Air Force intended to buy the club via eminent domain in order to extend their runways, a long and contentious series of lawsuits ensued. Barnes eventually won the lawsuits, but after the club was destroyed by fire in the 1950s, her plans to re-open in a nearby location never came to fruition.

Bonus: “Pancho Barnes – Return to the Ruins”. There’s an unexpected tie-in here, but I won’t spoil it for you as this one is only 10 minutes.

Posted in History, Mammals, Planes | Comments Closed

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