Archive for November 2009

Cow Takes A Dip…

November 19, 2009

– – In Spartanburg, South Carolina a woman was udderly surprised when she found a 650-pound cow in her covered swimming pool.  Once again, there was one incredulous 911 dispatcher.  No one was sure what the cow was doing in the swimming pool, although the dog paddle was mentioned…

It took five men from county rescue and a sling to get the cow out of the swimming pool.  The cow was unharmed (although water isn’t good for leather), and thought to belong to a neighbor.  It was speculated that the cow escaped, thought that the covered pool was solid ground, and just kept walking…


Wild Turkey Plays Chicken!

November 18, 2009

– – A wild turkey…the bird, not the booze…has been running across the New Jersey Turnpike at Interchange 14B, playing in traffic, pecking at the windows of the administration building, and jumping on parked cars (which it especially seems to enjoy)!  Efforts to capture and remove the elusive bird have been unsuccessful, and so for the present time at least, the turkey has been allowed to run rampant, the proud bird with the golden tail!

–Seems to me that this “bird brain” is giving the bird to the naked apes!

Patrick McGoohan Remembered…

November 17, 2009

– – The original Number Six from the ground-breaking series The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan, died in January this year at the age of 80.

The 1960’s television world boasted some of the  best and the worst, ranging from the heights of Star Trek and The Twilight Zone to the depths of…say, The Cowsills. The original Prisoner show was a heady mix of geopolitics, sci-fi, and psychedelia that even The Beatles loved…a mix of Kafka and Orwell that sadly only lasted for 17 episodes but left an enduring impact…

…and Patrick McGoohan was one of the great ones, cool, tough, and cerebral all at the same time!

We Soldier On…

November 15, 2009

Furry for Life!– -Thank ‘ya, Esteemed Readers, for helping Foxsylvania pass the 60,000 hits mark!  May chewy treats, cozy dens, warm huggles, and shiny things await you in the great furafter…

What?!–Did you think you’d get 72 virgins out of me, or sumptin’?!    😉

“The Prisoner” Returns!

November 14, 2009

The Prisoner– – Way back in 1967, a surreal series debuted on television called The Prisoner which was part spy series and part sci-fi drama. The British cult hit   featured none less than Patrick McGoohan playing a character called  Six who was held captive in a bizarre place called The Village, a community led by a man called (- -what else?) Two. The ambiguous show was unlike anything else on television of the day, and while incomprehensible to many,  it went on to profoundly  influence television, music, comic books, and movies for decades to come; echoes of The Prisoner reverberated in an episode of The Fantastic Four, in the Twin Peaks series, and even in the comic book and movie of Watchmen, where Rorschach adopted the prisoner’s “Be seeing you” as his personal sign-off.

In the series, a man finds himself inexplicably trapped in The Village with no recollection of how he arrived.  His fellow inhabitants are identified by number rather than name, and are under constant surveillance.  Not knowing who to trust,  Six is driven by a need to understand The Village, his reason for his being there, and how he can escape.  You can read all kinds of things into it…

With Jim Caviezel in the lead role as Six and Ian McKellen as Two, The Prisoner debuts this Sunday evening on the AMC channel…Be seeing you!

Crikey!

November 13, 2009

Steve Irwin– – The late conservation star Steve Irwin, known as the Crocodile Hunter, has received a tribute from an Australian scientist by having a rare species of snail named after him, “crikey steveirwini.” The snail has a khaki appearance,  much like Irwin’s trademark shirt and shorts.

Irwin, who died in a freak stingray incident in 2006, has already had a wildlife reserve, a road, a turtle, and an anti-whaling ship named after him...

Chimp Attack Victim Unveils Face…

November 12, 2009

abc_Charla_Nash3_091111_mn– – The images of Charla Nash from Oprah are extremely graphic and very disturbing, so much so that only the before and the veiled after-version are shown here; we do have standards here on Foxsylvania (although Lord knows not many)!   Last February the 56-year-old woman was savagely attacked and ravaged by her friend’s chimpanzee named Travis, a vicious attack which left the Connecticut woman without her eyes, nose, lips, and  hands.

In spite of her devastating injuries, the courageous woman remains remarkably positive and upbeat, is not angry, and seeks to move on with her life rather than dwell on the events of that horrific day.  Hopes are for Charla to get a face transplant and eventually a hand transplant as well. A $50 million lawsuit is in motion against the chimp’s owner for pain and suffering.

Charla Nash herself says that she wants to warn people about potential dangers posed by exotic animals.  “I’d like to put across to people’s minds that these  exotic animals are very dangerous and they shouldn’t be around,” Nash said on Winfrey’s show.  “There’s a place for them that is not in residential areas.”

The evidence could not possibly be any clearer…

The Lure of the Horrible

November 10, 2009

CreepshowThere’s a wonderful scene in the 1982 movie of Stephen King’s Creepshow showing a young boy who spots a monster outside of his window.  The expression on the boy’s face, however, is one of adoration rather than terror.- – I’m sure that many of us can relate to this!

– – Horror movies…why do we like them?–Well, social scientists suggest that we watch for different reasons which include the adrenaline rush, being distracted from mundane life, vicariously thumbing our noses at social norms, and enjoying a voyeuristic view of the horrific from a safe distance.– But above all, being scared is fun!

Neuroscientists like New York University’s Joseph LeDouz point out that fear is not merely a biological reaction, but an emotion derived from deep-seeded evolutionary factors as well as newly-learned cautions.  An interaction between the brain’s primitive amygdala and the higher cortex allows people to interpret an environmental event and respond with an emotion such as fear.  Once an emotion is aroused in the amygdala, it’s hard to turn it off, and if we like that sort of thing, we’re eager to turn that emotion on again.

…and this is why some of us suffer from a post-Halloween let-down, similar to that depression suffered by others after Xmas!–Ahh, for the Nightmare Before Christmas!

–You Hit a WHAT?!

November 7, 2009

ODD Elephant Sideswiped– – It’s not unusual for deer or cows to cross Oklahoma’s rural highways, but imagine driving home…from church, no less…and hitting an elephant!

I swear that I am not making this up! About 80 miles north of Oklahoma City in Enid, a guy in his late 60’s swerved his SUV at the last second and ended up sideswiping a 29-year-old pachyderm that had escaped from a nearby circus late Wednesday and wandered onto U.S. 81.  “Didn’t have time to hit the brakes.  The elephant blended in with the road,” said the driver.  “At the very last second I said ‘elephant!'” Now that’s something you don’t see every day…or hear said every day!

After sideswiping the elephant, the motorist’s wife flagged some people down and used their cell phone to call police, where the dispatcher didn’t quite believe her.  “You hit a WHAT?,” he said.  One can also imagine the reaction these folks  got upon calling the accident in to their friendly auto insurance adjuster.

“So help me Hanna, had I hit that elephant, not swerved, it would have knocked it off its legs, and it would have landed right on top of us,” summarized the motorist.  “We’d have been history.” Clearly, it would have been a no-win scenario.

Fortunately the couple, who own a wheat farm, weren’t history.  The 8-foot, 4,500-pound elephant suffered a broken tusk and a leg wound, with a local vet saying it appeared to have escaped major injury.

(- -I just love stories with happy endings, don’t you?- -This true story would have made a great episode of Courage, the Cowardly Dog…Eustace and Muriel are riding along in their truck, when Eustace screams, “Elephant!”  Courage also screams, his eyes leaving their sockets…

– -BTW, hear any good elephant jokes lately?)   😉

“Fantastic Mr. Fox!”

November 6, 2009

the-fantastic-mr-fox– -Worth a look and arriving November 13th is Fantastic Mr. Fox, an animated adaptation of the popular 1970 Roald Dahl children’s book by director Wes Anderson.

Voiced by George Clooney and Meryl Streep,  Mr. and Mrs. Fox have lived a peaceful life in the wilderness with their son, Ash.  Resorting back to his old ways as a cunning chicken thief,  Mr. Fox uses his formidable slyness to outwit three evil farmers who resort to extreme tactics to protect their chickens, endangering the animal community and forcing them to unite to fight for the land that is rightfully theirs.- – Fantastic Mr. Fox also features the voice talents of Bill Murray as a lawyer badger!