July 19, 2010

Friday Fun (v. 1.8)—
Monday Morning QB Edition

The last couple of weeks have been a little hectic, with some unexpected travel to Nebraska thrown in for good measure.  So, the crAAKKer Friday Fun feature is getting a special Monday roll out.  Enjoy!

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For our weekly fixes of Neatorama.com and cured meat, two items worthy of the Tao of Bacon:  a bacon air freshener, and a burger made entirely of ground bacon (no word if it comes in a version with bacon strips on top). 

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Do you hate playing poker with people who are perpetually slow to act?  Well, that problem may be getting worse, if some scientists are correct.  It seems that some physicists have postulated that time itself may be slowing down, and may ultimately cease to exist.  That's right, there may come a point in time where time literally stops.  Good luck calling the clock then ...

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I'm not a big fan of repressive, fundamentalist theocracies, but Iran might just be onto a good form of government crackdown ... against mullets.  That's right, it's Mullahs vs. Mullets in Iran, with an officially sanctioned list of approved haircuts.  Mullets are among the "decadent Western cuts" that are banned, along with ponytails, spiked hair, and excessively gelled or styled hair.  Obviously this will make it much more difficult to spot the fish at the major Vegas poker rooms, where the worst players generally sport one of these prohibited hairstyles.

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What is wrong with people these days?  When most of us see a venomous snake, we immediately get an evolutionarily hard-wired "flight" response to get the heck away from the thing before it kills us.  Well, a 44-year old British man, David Jones, is attempting to set a world record by living in a very small room with forty (40!) venomous snakes for 120 days (the current record for "insanity—poisonous animals division" is 113 days).  This yahoo is sharing an apartment with assorted nasty creatures, including puff adders, cobras, boomslangs, and mambas.  Now, some of these snakes can kill a water buffalo in one bite, while others will merely inflict permanent and painful nerve and muscle damage.  As Jones' own website notes:

He will not be able to leave the room for any reason unless the attempt has been terminated, making cabin fever a real possibility. David Jones must eat and sleep in the room while sharing his toilet and shower with the snakes.

In 2009, Natie Swart tried this death defying attempt but was bitten three times, twice by Puff Adders and once by a Snouted Cobra. The damage to his leg after the first bite is permanent and brings home the risk of the attempt.
Again, let me point out the blindingly obvious—these are venomous snakes that can kill you.  There's a really good reason why cobras, mambas, and puff adders are not as popular in the pet department as dogs, cats, and goldfish (hint—look up "venomous" in a dictionary).  This stunt is actually even more ill-conceived than Crocodile Hunter classics like "Island of Snakes" or "Africa's Deadliest Snakes", where Steve Irwin would intentionally track down and handle venomous snakes in the wild, for entertaiment purposes; at least he was getting paid handsomely for his stupidity!

(A similar stunt called "Venom in Vegas" occurred in January, with a man living with 50 deadly snakes on the Las Vegas Strip for ten days.  At least he could go play poker and hit the strip clubs after it was over.)

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Via Deadspin, a funny story of a straight guy playing gay ... softball, and loving it.  (Notable absence of messy litigation).

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Finally, via The Daily What, here is some sweet cow-tripping (seriously, wait for the line dance):

2 comments:

  1. (*Being a Deadspin reader, you may have already caught this, but...)

    I see your venomous snake living stupidity and offer you Ferret Legging:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferret_legging

    ReplyDelete
  2. @ CrabblerK3: I have seen a couple of articles on "ferret-legging" contests, but I had assumed (hoped?) they were pure farce. To the extent anyone does engage in ferret-legging, they might as well go whole-hog and invent a "mamba-legging" event. They all deserve to be Darwin award winners ...

    ReplyDelete