Today's Wackadoodle - The Anteater

The Giant Anteater never gets a chance to enjoy a meal.  Nearly blind and armed only by his long, sticky tongue, he has to vigorously lick up his food - ants and termites - as fast as possible before the insects have a chance to bite him.  As if that wasn't enough pressure, the anteater must find and consume up to 35,000 ants and termites each day to survive.

Anteaters are currently found only in South and Central America.  However, people living in areas with ant or termite problems might wonder if they can't employ a few anteaters to feast on the troublesome critters in their town.  This sounds logical, but the problem is that the anteater only eats a percentage of the ants from each mound he finds.  He never destroys the ant beds themselves, preferring to leave them intact for a later meal.

So you probably won't see an anteater cleaning up your local baseball diamond any time soon.  But in the meantime, here are a few fun facts about this funny-looking animal:

1) The anteater's closest relative is the sloth - ironic since anteaters are so busy.

2) Peter the Anteater is the mascot of the University of California, Irvine, but anteaters are not native to California.

3) Baby anteaters ride piggyback on top of their mothers for 9 to 10 months until they become independent.

4) Anteaters walk on their knuckles (as if they didn't have enough problems).

5) Male anteaters have hidden penises between their bladders and rectums, while female anteaters store their mammary glands in their armpits.  Weird!

Rob Ford Update - Part 2

Everyone's favorite crack-smoking Canadian politician continues to amaze. In recent days, Mayor Ford has shocked reporters with his vulgar language at a press conference and knocked down an elderly councilwoman during a meeting in City Hall.  To be fair, he did pick the woman back up after he accidentally bowled her over!  Meanwhile, the Toronto City Council continues its efforts to strip Rob Ford of his powers, which Mayor Ford describes as a "coup d'état."  

Rob Ford Update!

Toronto's favorite crack-addled mayor still refuses to step down.  At a recent city council meeting, Mayor Ford resisted the factions forcefully pressing for his resignation and countered by introducing a motion to drug test the entire city council!  Ford said he knows other council members are also drug users, and that while he "isn't a rat" and won't start naming names, he also won't stand for this hypocrisy.  So people of Toronto, don't worry that your mayor smokes a few rocks.  His replacement most likely would do the same! And since Ford's motion to drug test the council didn't pass, we can't even determine which members are clean.

Meet The 'Flume Dog'

I enjoy a log ride as much as the next person, but Jay Marc Harris, a.k.a.'Flume Dog,' really, really loves a log ride. From 1985 to 2006, Jay made an annual pilgrimage from his home in Connecticut to ride the log flumes at all the Six Flags theme parks around the country. This ritual came to an abrupt end when the self-styled 'Flume Dog' a.k.a 'Flumie' a.k.a 'The Great Flume' was banned for life from all Six Flags parks for repeatedly asking mothers if he could borrow their sons to accompany him in the log. Now, The Great Flume is suing Six Flags to try to regain access to his beloved log rides.

Flume Dog says he is just a misunderstood log ride fanatic. Because he is a Hasidic Jew and former rabbi, Harris says he can only ride theme park rides with another male and maintains he had no intention to abduct children or harm them in any way. As strange as this sounds, it is at least a plausible argument. The log flume ride seats two people, and single riders are routinely paired up by park staff with whoever is available. Flumie could easily be placed in a boat with a female rider, which would violate his religious beliefs. Unfortunately, this theory does not explain why Harris asked at least one mother if she could take pictures of him enjoying the ride with her son!

Another factor working against Flume Dog is the documentation of multiple instances when he illegally camped out in a Six Flags theme park without permission. In one incident in Atlanta, park employees found him chained to a tree along with his belongings. We'll have to follow Flumie's upcoming trial to see how stories like that might play to a jury.

The log ride in simpler days


San Antonio Express-News: In Court, 'Flume Dog' may have his day

Wild Boar Update!

We already know freakishly large feral pigs are taking over large swaths of Texas, Georgia, and Alabama, but now it looks like the oinking menace is moving west.  The Silicon Valley city of San Jose, California, has declared open season on wild boars roaming around ritzy neighborhoods; the wild hogs are scaring the country club crowd and damaging golf course fairways. San Jose is not going to stand for that.

Officials have given hunters three months to shoot or hog-tie as many of the marauding swine as they can. Oddly, city councilman Johnny Khamis tempered the announcement by saying, "It's not my intention to go out and commit a pig genocide." Genocide?  Has Khamis seen the stats on Hogzillas I and II?  When it comes to the wild hog menace, you have to stand your ground!

San Jose approves wild boar killings, not 'pig genocide'

Rob Ford, Toronto's Crack-Smoking Mayor

Toronto, Canada's Mayor Rob Ford is taking the sleazy politician vibe to a whole new level. I'm from Louisiana, so I don't have very high expectations. The majority of our elected officials end up doing time in prison after their terms end. But I'm still surprised when the mayor of a large city publicly admits he smoked crack during one of his many drunken stupors and expects everyone not to worry.  Ford gave a press conference about his drug use today, where he said he feels a million times better getting all this out in the open and doesn't have any plans to step down.  His argument seems to be that yes, he often gets black-out drunk and may smoke crack, visit a crack house, or who knows what when he's in such a state, but he doesn't believe this makes him any less effective as the mayor of 2.5 million residents.  Then again, should we listen to a guy that doesn't even remember the times he smoked crack?

Toronto Mayor Ford admits crack cocaine use, won't step down

Scary Pierre the Pelican

The NBA team the New Orleans Hornets changed their name to the New Orleans Pelicans, and last night they introduced their new mascot Pierre the Pelican.  Pierre is yellow and blue with an enormous red clown mouth and a giant mohawk.  In other words, he doesn't look anything like a pelican.  Pierre looks a lot more like a scary monster, and he has the internet on edge.

Here's a rundown of the different ways Pierre has struck terror into the hearts of bloggers everywhere:

The Pelicans' New Mascot Pierre Will Haunt Your Dreams (Bleacher Report)

The 10 Most Terrifying Pictures of Pierre the Pelican (Black & Gold Review)

Pierre the New Orleans Pelican is the scariest thing ever, the internet responds (SB Nation)

New Orleans Pelicans unveil terrifying new mascot (USA Today)

Pierre the Pelican draws a sharp social media reaction (Nola.com)

The New Orleans Pelicans' Mascot Is Here to Terrify Your Children (Dead Spin)

The New Orleans Pelicans' Mascot is Terrifying Everyone (Daily Dot)


We even have lone wolf Alex Woodward coming to Pierre's defense:

I support Pierre the Pelican, and so should you (Gambit Online)


Now, judge for yourself. Happy Halloween!!

A real pelican

Pierre the Pelican

Real Life 'Snakes on a Plane' Guy

I know what you're thinking, and no, William Wylly Lamar was not bringing hundreds of snakes on a plane in an attempt to kill a trial witness.  He was simply smuggling seven snakes from Lima, Peru, back to Tyler, Texas - in his jacket. I can't imagine why seven serpents on a multi-leg international flight wouldn't just cooperate and sleep quietly while squished tightly into a stuffy coat pocket, but there you go. The news report doesn't say how the TSA caught William with the snakes, but most likely, he had to send his jacket through the X-ray machine. Sorry, Mr. Lamar, but I don't think a technician is going to skip over an image that looks like the Nazi snake pit from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Willy Wylly, as I imagine his friends call him, works as an ecotourism guide - exactly the type of person who should know it's illegal to transport wild animals out of Peru without permission.  I don't think I'll be signing up for a tour!

Man Gets Probation for Smuggling Snakes on Planes

Oneal Morris & her bad butt injections

Fake plastic surgeon Oneal Morris will be spending 2014 in a Miami-Dade prison after her black market butt enhancement business was busted. The Floridian transsexual, born a man but living as a woman, was injecting her patients with a street silicone allegedly made up of a toxic bitch’s brew of Fix-a-Flat, cement, superglue, and bathroom caulk. Jeez.

Whether Oneal always mixed the home improvement items together according to some standard recipe or just filled her syringe with whatever was at hand is unknown. What is known is that one 32 year old patient under Morris’s care died of “massive systemic silicone migration” following one of her procedures. This means that the injected silicone made its way into the arteries in her lungs and ultimately caused respiratory failure, a syndrome tragically not unknown in the back alley injection business. By the way - if the silicone happens to migrate down into your leg, you might have to have it amputated.

Just because silicone is listed in a product's ingredients doesn't mean you're good to go. Deaths from bootleg silicone have occurred in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and New York. Oneal Morris is charged with manslaughter over her patient’s death, on top of her other charges for performing medical procedures without a license. 

This story is sad on so many levels.  It’s easy to make a villain out of Morris, but there was obviously a demand among her customers for this dangerous butt-plumping. This is troubling. Meanwhile, naturally fat-bottomed women everywhere are shaking their heads.

Defendant in Bad Butt Injections Case Pleads Guilty

Neil McArdle, the Bomb-Hoax Groom

Here's one that sounds like the plot line to a bad romantic comedy...

On his wedding day, Neil McArdle really, really couldn't face telling his fiancé he had forgotten to fill out the necessary forms for their marriage to take place. We've all been there - someone hands you a pile of papers and you shove them into a corner to do "later." Unfortunately, Mr. McArdle realized just the day before his nuptials that his betrothed would be parading around in a wedding dress for a wedding that had never been scheduled. As he saw it, the panicked groom had two options: confess he had botched the reservation and the wedding had to be postponed...or, call in a bomb scare at the marriage venue to buy time!  

Neil went with the bomb scare plan, which in retrospect, was a bad idea.  He's just now been released after spending a year in jail. The employees of St. George's Hall in Liverpool, where he should have been married, were utterly terrified after being told a deadly bomb would explode in forty-five minutes, and the authorities were definitely not amused. The one person who has forgiven Neil, however, is his fiancé, who stuck with him through the whole ordeal. It makes me wonder: is it possible she reacted more favorably to her husband-to-be being thrown in jail than she would have to learning he had forgotten to fill out the wedding forms?

Groom jailed over wedding day bomb hoax to try to prevent bride discovering failure to confirm venue