Bear Mugs Hiker For iPhone

The "geniuses" at the Apple Store in Vermont have probably run into all sorts of excuses for broken iPhones, but they just didn't believe Kris Rowley. "A bear ate my iPhone," she told them.
This summer, Rowley was hiking in the woods of Vermont when she felt a predator's eyes following her. Rowley stopped dead in her tracks. A young bear slowly emerged from behind an evergreen tree. Rowley, CISO for the State of Vermont, knows about facing down malware—not avoiding a mauling.

Bears love iPhones, too.

Rowley backed away slowly, the bear followed slowly. Then Rowley had a funny thought: I wonder what is its motivation? Curiosity? She quickly decided that it wasn't really important. She backed away a little faster, the bear followed a little faster.
Rowley went through her mental list of how to prevent bear attacks. Play dead? A good last resort. Pepper spray? Didn't have it. Drop a backpack to distract the bear? She wasn't wearing one. All Rowley had was her iPhone.
She could use one of her lifelines and phone a friend. Or maybe there was an anti-bear app among the 80,000 apps on the App Store. There's Battle Bears, Bears on a Wire, Bear Beware, Chicago Bears, Go Bears!, My Teddy Bears, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The bear closed within 30 feet. "In a semi-panic, I threw the phone at the bear," Rowley says.
Turns out the bear was an Apple fanboy.
The bear sniffed and pawed at the iPhone, as Rowley briskly made her exit. Apparently, Rowley was not too concerned that her iPhone was now in the possession of a dangerous teenager and considered a data security breech.
Two days later, armed with a baseball bat, Rowley returned to the scene of the crime. She wanted her iPhone back—and found it. Of course, it was marred with teeth and claw marks.
Rowley figured the good folks at Apple would understand and help her out. Heck, they might even applaud the iPhone's new application for self-defense. Alas, they didn't believe her. (If Apple doesn't believe the CISO of the state of Vermont, then the rest of us don't stand a chance.)
"I had to buy a new phone or forfeit my contract if I canceled, so I purchased a new phone at full price," Rowley says, although she doesn't seem too mad about it. "While saddened about my mangled iPhone, better the phone than me."


Add to the list of things the iPhone can do, Animal Uprising 2012 Defender App ... good only once, the Animal Uprising 2012 App can be used to fend off the animal of your choice ... warning, this app has not been tested on elephants, rhinos, hippos, or big cats.

In other news, the 'giant dickhead of the week award' goes to ... (drum roll) ... the douche behind the counter at the apple store who wouldn't replace this ladies phone in exchange for all the free pub they're getting out of this!  He's probably related to the chachbag that wouldn't exchange my iphone with the broken switches after telling me I had 'moisture damage' ...

dicks ...

Bees Hate Soccer

The World Cup qualifier between Mexico and El Salvador had to be temporarily halted when a swarm of bees invaded a goalmouth at the Azteca Stadium.

The match was barely three minutes old when the bees took refuge inside the goalposts at the EL Salvador end.
Play was held up for around six minutes as officials used fire extinguishers to clear the insects.
Mexico went on to win the match 4-1 to secure a place in the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.
The Mexicans will finish their Concacaf campaign away to Trinidad and Tobago on Wednesday.


Apparently, Mexican bees don't like El Salvador.  That, or Mexican soccer, tired of losing to the US over and over, has found a way to train animals to help them cheat.  Either way, the animals come out winners in this one ... until they get doused in anti-bee stuff from Mexico.  And BTW ... Mexican anti-bee stuff is also known as a 'fire extinguisher' in the US.  Crazy huh?

The game was delayed for about 10 minutes while the bees were sprayed with fire extinguishers, and play resumed shortly thereafter.  IMO, the only fair thing to do would have been to play the first half with the bees in the goal, then go ahead and let the second half start when the teams switched sides.  Would have been WAAAYYYY more interesting to watch that way, and both teams would have been equal! 

Long Video, but you get the jist of it ... there are bees, El Salvador is scared, Mexicans try to douse them with a fire extinguisher.

Animals Hate Golfers

WTF ?!?!?!?

A common complaint about golf is that a round at a nice course can cost an arm and a leg. Unfortunately for one man, that complaint has become more than a metaphor.

A 77-year-old man lost his arm below the elbow on Thursday when he was attacked by an alligator while playing golf on Fripp Island, the Island Packet reported on its Web site.The man, who was playing the 11th hole of the island's Ocean Creek Golf Course, leaned down to pick up his ball when a 10-foot long alligator grabbed his arm, said Kate Hines, general manager of the Fripp Island Property Owners Association, according to the report. The alligator then dragged the man into a nearby pond and went into a series of "death rolls," a technique it uses to tear apart its food, Hines told the paper. That was when the man lost his arm. The man's golf buddies were able to free him from the alligator's grasp and called 911, according to the report. Tracks worker killed the alligator and performed a necropsy on it to remove the man's arm from the animal's digestive track, Hines told the paper. The arm was stored in a cooler in the hopes of re-attaching it. The man's condition was still unknown late Thursday night.

Wow, this hits home ... I f**kin love golf.  The other day, I saw a huge turtle go into the pond at my local muni.  I think I'd flip shit if I saw something like this.  Jeezus, I mean ... think about this.  The gator knew the guy hit a bad shot into the pond.  They Learn this stuff!  People hit bad shots all the time!  I mean, not me, so I have nothing to worry about ... And hell, if my dog knows where we keep the food, you can bet your sweet golfing ass that a gator can figure this stuff out.  That gator waited for the guy to go try and get his ball, and then decided to eat him.  I mean, holy cow ... All that aside, I will be asking for one of these for Christmas ...

Farmers Under the Control of Cows

BRUSSELS — After months of complaints by European dairy farmers angry over low prices, protesters in Brussels on Monday poured milk onto the streets, hurled eggs and other missiles, and started fires that filled the air with black smoke.
Police helicopters hovered overhead as hundreds of tractors — and some cattle — blockaded the area outside the European Union’s headquarters while agriculture ministers met in an emergency meeting.
The gathering of ministers, convened after pressure from France, failed to produce any breakthroughs apart from a decision to set up a committee to report on the dairy industry in June.
Monday’s protest was the latest by farmers who dumped around three million liters of milk on fields in Belgium last month.
“There’s a very serious crisis in the milk sector,” said the Swedish agriculture minister, Eskil Erlandsson, who headed Monday’s discussion. “We didn’t take any decisions today, but we identified areas where the future policy needs to concentrate on.”
The protest organizers, the European Milk Board, said that more than 1,000 tractors and 5,000 people took part on behalf of “more than 80,000 dairy farmers”.
The group said milk prices are below 75 percent of production costs. Another European farm union organization, Copa-Cogeca, says that milk prices have plummeted 30 percent in a year and that dairy producers will lose up to 14 billion euros before the end of the year if nothing is done.
The European Commission, however, said that the average milk price increased slightly in the last two months and that the price of butter and skimmed milk powder had risen 7 to 9 percent in three months.
The commission said it expected to spend up to 600 million euros supporting butter and skimmed milk prices this year and proposed to continue this policy throughout the winter.
In recent years the European Union has sought to reform its subsidy system and aims to phase out milk quotas, which limit production, by 2015.
Some 20 of the 27 countries in the European Union have called for changes that would give producers the ability to organize more effectively so as to increase their clout in dealing with supermarket chains and dairy companies.
Other critics want more export subsidies and some would like to keep the quotas — though that has been ruled out by the European Commission.
Harald von Witzke, professor of international agricultural trade and development at Humboldt University in Berlin, said the protests were the symptom of the pain caused by a gradual reform of rigid controls on the dairy sector.
“The system has postponed the pain being felt, but now the pain is even greater,” he said adding that making concessions to the farmers “would make matters worse in the long run.”

Clearly, European Cows have found a way to control their 'masters'.

Farmers and Cows alike are quite pissed that their natural white gold is not worth nearly as much as it has been in the past, and are therefore rioting against the system.  I'd be pissed too if my most valuable asset (besides my ass on a bun) was no longer valuable, or deemed replaceable.  Seriously here, shouldn't the cows be rioting against Soybeans to prevent Soy Milk production, or better yet, against their own kind for pumping out this Lactose Free crap?  And Cheese?  Pshshhhhsssaaaa ... who needs cheese when you can just pay an arm and a leg, and a sirloin, and a rump roast for the real deal, valuable, white creamy goodness of milk.

In other news, I had Five Guys Hamburgers last night, which is freakin awesome.  Word is they have recently scored a great deal on European Beef ...

Reindeer (Insert random Rudolph, and/or Christmas Song joke here)

An angry reindeer knocked down its Cambridgeshire owner and trampled her after running loose near a road, an ambulance service spokeswoman said.

Kay Davies was reportedly leading the animal to a pen at Churchfield Farm, Whittlesey, when the incident happened.
Ms Davies owns the firm Wedding Horses, which supplies horses and reindeer for weddings and Christmas parties.
She was taken to hospital suffering head, chest and leg injuries. The reindeer was put to sleep by a vet.
'Urgent back-up'
A spokeswoman for the East of England Ambulance Service said: "We were called at 1142 BST on Tuesday.
"Reports were of a reindeer on the loose and, initially, that the woman had injuries to her head, chest, groin, legs and ribs, but these turned out to be superficial.
"The crew needed to call for urgent back-up, as the animal was very angry and wouldn't let them near the patient.
"But it was eventually captured and the woman treated at the scene.
"She was later conveyed to hospital."
A Cambridgeshire Police spokesman said: "The animal was running loose near to the road and was thought to belong to a nearby farm.
"Officers found the reindeer and called a vet, who put the animal to sleep." 


As I write this from my bunker, deep underground, I can't help but think; This is so freakin ridiculous, I don't even know if I can do it justice with my commentary.  A freakin reindeer turned on its owner, and people STILL deny the existence of the Animal Uprising 2012.

What the hell more can I say?  You people are doomed ...

(Insert another random Christmas Joke here)

Racoon Horror

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Duh ...

And, but of course ... another not so surprising news story involving a bear ... this doesn't start (or end) well ...

A northeastern Pennsylvania woman, whose husband is an exotic pet dealer operating on an expired license, was mauled to death by a black bear over the weekend. Authorities say Kelly Ann Walz, 37, of Ross Township in Monroe County, was attacked by her 350 pound pet bear while cleaning its cage at about 5 p.m. Sunday. Walz had reportedly thrown a shovelful of dog food to one side of the cage to distract the bear while she cleaned the other side, but the animal turned on her and attacked. Walz's children and the neighbor's children saw the attack and summoned help, and the neighbor shot and killed the bear while it was atop Walz, said Tim Conway, an information and education supervisor with the Pennsylvania Game Commission. "Why this woman chose to go in the same area that the bear was in is beyond me. It's a fatal mistake," he said. "These things are not tame animals, they're wild animals." Owners of wild animals typically have a two-section cage, allowing them to isolate the animal behind a locked gate while they clean the other part, Conway said. Conway said Walz's husband, Michael, had a license to keep and sell exotic animals, but it expired in June of 2008. He called the lapse a technicality. Walz, who has been licensed since 1994, reported to authorities in 2007 that he kept a lion, cougar, jaguar, tiger, black bear, leopard and two servals on the property in Ross Township, a rural area in the Pocono Mountains, about 20 miles northeast of Allentown. The incident remains under investigation.


Why is this news again?  Bears and people simply do not mix.  Unless you moonlight as 'The Hulk', or some other superhero gifted with well above human average strength and healing abilities, there is zero reason to willingly be this close to a bear.

I love how 'Exotic Pet' dealer is interchangeable with 'Seller of animals that should either be left alone in the wild, or if you must have them, in a freakin zoo'.  This list of 'Exotic Pet' dealings reads something similar to my revolving top ten list of 'Animals I want to be nowhere near when the Animal Uprising 2012 occurrs ...'

(Also, that is a picture of a Serval not a bear, because I had no idea what a Serval was until I read this and looked it up.  Apparently, these are real popular with people to keep as pets, because they have some sort of death wish.)

You have been warned ...