Another alligator story

Don't ya just hate uninvited lunch guests....


Alligator in Gainesville takes Off With Family's Lunch

GAINESVILLE, FL (AP) -- A Gainesville family says an alligator took a bite out of their lunch. Two women say they were picnicking by Lake Alice on the University of Florida campus with their children when the gator splashed out of the water and took off with their lunch. They were having spicy chicken. Garrett Bell says after grabbing the chicken, the gator went back in the water with it and then came back out for more. Bell adds that the gator was six to eight feet long. Signs at Lake Alice state that it's unlawful to feed alligators. But Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials say feeding alligators is a problem statewide. They say it makes alligators associate food with humans resulting in dangerous encounters.

As Fred Flinstone would say....."WILMA!!"

Since we are in the hurricane 'cone,' expect to hear some of the following terms dozens and dozens of times the next few days from the local tv weather forecasters...

- cone
- hunker down
- wobble
- storm surge
- feeder bands
- conditions are deteriorating rapidly
- millibars
- eye wall
- wind shear
- downgrade

Another reason to become vegetarian...

I didn't realize eating 'the other white meat' would be so dangerous! Yikes!




Bullet Found In Pork Roast
An Ormond Beach woman said she cooked a pork roast for her family on Monday night, but she got a big surprise.


Someone at the dinner table got quite a shock when he went to take a bite and found a bullet in the meat, WESH 2 News reported.
"My son-in-law was about finished with his meal, cut this piece of meat and said 'There's a bullet in here.' I said, 'Get out of here,'" Diane Johnson said.
Johnson said she bought the meat at Publix. A company representative said they have several checks to make sure meat is the best quality for their customers.
Johnson said she would just like a replacement, preferably one without a bullet.

New 'Real World' in Key West

When is MTV going to stop calling this series 'The Real World?' It's far from it. The only thing the peeps do on the show is drink, fornicate and never show up for their 'job.' The fact that they are having the show in Key West, known for it's wild behavior, indicates just low the standards have fallen since season one. Back then, everybody in the house had to find their own jobs and struggle for survival. Now, it's just another reality show where the booze flows and people hook up. How lame. Will I still watch? Of course!




MTV's 'Real World' gets dose of Key West reality
MTV's long-running reality show, The Real World, is in Key West filming its 17th season. The cast has opened a tanning salon on Duval Street -- and the producers turned back a legal challenge that sought to halt production.

By DANIEL CHANG
Miami Herald

KEY WEST - A tanning salon on a tropical island may not make a lot of sense, then again, neither does the premise that seven young strangers of meager means could afford to live in an oceanfront mansion.
But this is TV and the plots are not supposed to adhere to logic or plausibility, even if the show is called The Real World.
The popular MTV series that launched the reality TV craze in 1992 has descended on the nation's southernmost city. Key West has greeted The Real World cast and crew with laid-back amiability, curiosity and nonchalance -- and a dose of litigiousness.
Among the true-to-life developments was a courtroom drama triggered by one of the Keys' larger-than-life residents, Edwin O. Swift III, owner of the ubiquitous Conch Tour Train and Old Town Trolley. Swift, whose million-dollar home is next door to The Real World mansion on Key Haven, said that the klieg lights were so bright that he no longer had trouble finding his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
Swift complained that the show unleashed a parade of intrusive looky lous on his once-quiet street. But on Tuesday, Monroe Circuit Judge Mark Jones ruled in favor of Real World producers Bunim/Murray Productions, ensuring that the show will go on.
The Real World cast -- seven strangers between the ages of 18 and 24 who have agreed to live together for three months and have their every move filmed for later telecast -- does not spend all its time in the mansion. When the cast mates are not soaking in the indoor pool and spa or playing tennis out back, they can be found running a new spray-on tanning salon on Duval Street. Real World producers, who began filming in September, have struggled in vain to keep the cast's identities private and their actions hush hush.
Visitors to the salon, called Mystic Tan, are required to sign a contract acknowledging that they are being filmed for a TV ''documentary'' and promising not to disclose what they learn inside.
This being Key West, booze-loosened lips flap freely at the patio bar across the street, a restauranthotel-cabaret called La Te Da.
By most estimations, the cast is a likable bunch, maybe a little standoffish, but not unexpectedly so, given all the obvious attention of the camera and the pressure of their impending 15 minutes of MTV fame.
''They were great kids,'' declared Denise Dunbar, a Key West local at La Te Da with her husband, Greg. The Dunbars knew all about The Real World across the street. She had already visited the salon. ``The whole thing was a kick. I spent over $100.''
Greg Dunbar, 61, also had been. As he sipped his beer, he scoffed at the show's name. ''They call it The Real World,'' he laughed. ''It's really the unreal world: impossibly good-looking young people with no visible means of support . . .,'' his voice trailed, then thundered. ``You can't call it real.''
Soon after walking out of Mystic Tan, Stephanie Carney and Rema Shalan, a pair of 22-year-old students from the University of Dayton, in Ohio, said they were surprised to learn it was a front for The Real World.
''They just said it was a documentary,'' said Carney. Shalan described the salon's atmosphere as decidedly laid back, maybe a little too much so.
''We thought it was a little weird there's people just hanging out there,'' she said.
And the interior design?
''It's decorated by Pier 1,'' Shalan surmised. ``It looks like a Pier 1 store.''
Jason Vinkemulder, a bartender at La Te Da, described the cast as ''very well-behaved,'' if somewhat aloof, during bar visits.
They are usually trailed by a cameraman and a bevy of technicians carrying lights, microphones and clipboards with waivers.
''To some people it's a big deal,'' Vinkemulder said of the local reaction to The Real World, ``and they're trying everything to be on camera. But I realize they're trying to do their own thing and they don't want to be bothered.''
Just then, Gary Brown spoke up from behind his book and glass of wine. A train engineer on a three-week holiday from England, Brown offered that the cast and crew have been ``a bit too intrusive.''
''You're sitting somewhere and all of a sudden the doors swing open and it's lights, camera, action,'' said Brown, who encountered The Real World crowd at the gym and once while eating dinner.
Past seasons of The Real World have been filmed in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Miami and elsewhere. Key West is the smallest city to host the show. (The show airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m., although the season involving this cast won't be televised until early next year.)
Earlier this month, the cast extended a friendly ''how do you do'' to Key West, hosting a block party and ''tan-a-thon'' with live music, sandwiches and frozen drinks. The party was a combination grand opening for the salon and benefit for the campaign of Doug Stripp, a Key West local running for King of Fantasy Fest -- the annual Halloween carnival renowned for revelers who paint their private parts before exposing them.
Asked how he scored The Real World endorsement, the laconic Stripp just shrugged.
''I asked for it,'' he says.

Ummm, can I switch seats?

Dude has anger-management issues....

Venice man arrested for punching out airplane window in flight

TAMPA, Fla. - A passenger punched out an airplane window during an outburst on an American West flight from Las Vegas, authorities said. Ryan J. Marchione, 24, of Venice, shattered a plastic shield covering the glass window and disconnected its frame about 90 minutes into Tuesday's overnight flight, according to an affidavit by FBI Agent Daniel S. Wierzbicki.
The punch "basically exposed the exterior of the aircraft," Assistant U.S. Attorney Ernest Peluso said Thursday during a detention hearing. Marchione was arrested after the plane landed Wednesday morning at Tampa International Airport. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted of a charge of damaging or destroying an aircraft while it was operating. The damage delayed the aircraft's outbound flight for 65 minutes and caused about 40 people to miss connecting flights, according to Wierzbicki's affidavit.

About 90 minutes after the plane departed Las Vegas, Marchione "woke abruptly from his sleep and turned to the passenger seated in 7B ... raised a clenched fist to his shoulder as if he was going to strike the passenger in 7B, then suddenly turned and struck the exterior window," the affidavit said. "It appears to have come out of nowhere. Perhaps it was some sort of a psychotic episode as a result of drug abuse," said Marchione's attorney, Thomas Ostrander. U.S. Magistrate Thomas Wilson ordered Marchione released on $25,000 bail and home detention, with electronic monitoring.

Yo, G, it's all about the one-hundred dollar bills

I subscribe to word of the day from wordsmith.org. Today's word is benjamin.

Here's the description for all you non-street peeps out there. Peace out!


Benjamin (BEN-juh-min) noun

Benjamin is a nickname for the US one-hundred-dollar bill. The name
derives from Benjamin Franklin, US statesman, whose portrait adorns
the bill. The US currency notes are printed in the Bureau of Engraving and
Printing plants in Washington, DC and Fort Worth, Texas.

Note to self: Don't feed gators

A lesson for peeps moving down here: try to avoid dangling food near a gator. They like to eat stuff!

A Palm Bay woman who fed an alligator bread learned why that's both unwise and illegal.

Laurin Sellers
Orlando Sentinel Staff Writer
October 7, 2005

MELBOURNE -- A Palm Bay woman feeding a 31/2-foot alligator Thursday ended up with a nasty bite on her hand and a written warning from wildlife officers, who said the encounter could have been a lot worse.
Danielle Rivera, 25, said she was tossing slices of bread to the gator at about 11 a.m. while visiting Manatee Point near Melbourne Avenue with her mother and 3-year-old son.
The trio were in an area of the park where people often go to watch manatees and feed fish when Rivera said she "got the bright idea to feed the alligator by hand." Rivera was kneeling near where the reptile was floating when it suddenly came out of the water toward her.
"I didn't know he would lunge out of the water like that," said the lifelong Florida resident, who also said she had no idea it's against the law to feed alligators.
When the gator grabbed the bread, its teeth grazed Rivera's right hand, leaving bloody scratches on her fingers.
She was taken by ambulance to Holmes Regional Medical Center, where she received a tetanus shot and antibiotics.
While the wounds didn't require stitches, Rivera said, her hand was swollen and hurting."This is a classic example of why it is against the law to feed alligators in Florida," said Joy Hill, spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
"The good news is that Ms. Rivera was treated and released from the hospital within a couple of hours of the incident. If the alligator had been a couple of feet larger, this story may have had a much different ending."

Ewwww!

Ya'll probably have seen this already but had to post. It's a classic tale straight out of a bad japanese sci-fi flick.

GATOR VS. PYTHON, CLASH OF THE REPTILES!


October 6, 2005—Unfortunately for a 13-foot (4-meter) Burmese python in Florida's Everglades National Park, eating the enemy seems to have caused the voracious reptile to bust a gut—literally.
Wildlife researchers with the South Florida Natural Resources Center found the dead python last week after it apparently tried to digest a 6-foot-long (2-meter-long) American alligator. The mostly intact dead gator was found sticking out of a hole in the midsection of the python, and wads of gator skin were found in the snake's gastrointestinal tract.
The gruesome discovery suggests that the python's feisty last meal might have been too much for it to handle.
SOURCE: National Geographic

Fortunate Fido

This is one lucky pooch!
Check out the article from the Sun-Sentinel.


Lucky puppy survives after swallowing 13-inch knife
Veterinarian overcomes shock and removes blade surgically from voracious Saint Bernard
By Robert Nolin, Staff Writer

In a cabinet atop Jane Scarola's fridge, securely wrapped in a towel, lies a 13-inch serrated knife, the kind that cuts metal and concrete in those TV ads, that never needs sharpening.The blade's current resting place is far preferable to its previous one: The stomach of Scarola's mischievous Saint Bernard puppy, Elsie.
The knife remained undetected in Elsie's gut for about four days until her distraught owner sought the aid of a vet who, once he overcame his disbelief, surgically removed it."I'm surprised she's alive," said a relieved Scarola.
The 43-year-old Plantation woman noticed her six-month-old pup seemed depressed Tuesday. That night, Elsie trembled on the kitchen floor.
Scarola took herto the Imperial Point Animal Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, where veterinarian Jon-Paul Carew, baffled by Elsie's distress, ordered up some X-rays.
He couldn't believe what he saw. "I was just flabbergasted," Carew said. "I thought it was some kind of joke."There was the knife, lodged between Elsie's esophagus and stomach. The puppy had swallowed it handle first.
The only safe way to remove the blade was to cut open Elsie's belly, which Carew did the next morning in a two-hour operation."I've taken other things out of dogs, like shish kebab skewers, toys, small utensils, but never a blade," he said.
After plenty of antibiotics and intravenous feeding, Elsie was ready Thursday morning to go home to Scarola, her four teens and husband. "She was bright and alert, eating well, a goofy little puppy," the vet said.
Scarola said she had used the knife to carve a turkey last Saturday, and placed it on her counter far from the edge. Still, Elsie or one of Scarola's other dogs -- four Saint Bernards, a German shepherd and a Labrador -- must have somehow fetched it away."
She wants to eat everything and anything," said Scarola, who now keeps close watch on the pet's diet. Elsie's only memento is an 8-inch scar. Scarola has a vet bill of nearly $1,700 -- and the culprit knife."I'm going to frame it and give it to Dr. Carew," Scarola said. "
He should hang it. Everybody should know what puppies are capable of putting down their throats."

This is your life

Check out this company that offers a video show at your tombstone. The product is called the "Serenity Panel." Odd.

Sad? Mad? Happy? Who knows!

Since I am an archivist for the local rag...err...newspaper, I noticed a phenomenon when archiving pictures of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts. Dude does not change his facial expression a bit. I pity anyone playing poker with him. They would lose their home.

Dreaming of Cortona, again

Dinner last night made me long for Cortona again. We had the grocery variety tomatoes and mozzarella in a lame attempt to mimic the yummy caprese salads we ingested during our June Italy adventure. Needless to say, it flamed miserably. Nothing could replicate the freshness and tastiness of the food there. Unreal. Our fellow adventurers from London, Brenda and Jim, took some happy snaps of the Cortenese cuisine. One of the antipasta plates is above......ummmm antipasta...so antipastaee!

Knights win 2 in a row!!!

Way to go UCF! Maybe 17 wins in a row??

Check out the story at OrlandoSentinel.com

Jason Jones rocks!

Just saw Thursday's edition of The Daily Show with a segment from Jason Jones of Craft Corner Death Match fame. I could hardly contain my laughter. Dude is a comical genius! Check out the clip for yourself on Comedy Central's site.

My favorite Jason Jones line from CCDM: "Amber, take this crap over to the judges." How did that taste, crafters? Freakin' halarious!

Wifey and Me!

Here's a pic of my beautiful wife, Claudine and me during our Italy trip in June.

If you would like to see more pics, check out the following website