lets see how much damage you two fucking idiots can do
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
RIP Paul
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP)—Paul the Octopus, the tentacled tipster who fascinated soccer fans by predicting results at the World Cup, died Tuesday.
Paul had reached the octopus old age of 2 1/2 years and died in his tank on Tuesday morning at the Sea Life aquarium in the western German city of Oberhausen, spokeswoman Ariane Vieregge said.
Paul correctly tipped the outcome of all seven of Germany’s games. He made his predictions by opening the lid of one of two clear plastic boxes, each containing a mussel and bearing a team flag.
The octopus seemed to be in good shape when he was checked late Monday, but he did not make it through the night. He died of natural causes, Vieregge said.
“We had all naturally grown very fond of him and he will be sorely missed,” Sea Life manager Stefan Porwoll said in a statement.
The aquarium has not yet decided how best to commemorate their most famous resident, he said.
“We may decide to give Paul his own small burial plot within our grounds, and erect a mo
dest permanent shrine,” Porwoll said.
After rising to global prominence during the World Cup in South Africa in June and July, Paul retired from the predictions business after the final between Spain and the Netherlands—correctly picking Spain—and returned to his primary role of intriguing children who attend the aquarium.
The invertebrate was stepping “back from the official oracle business,” Tanja Munzig, a spokeswoman for the Sea Life, told AP Television News at the time.
“He won’t give any more oracle predictions—either in football, nor in politics, lifesty
le or economy,” she said. “Paul will get back to his former job, namely making children laugh.”
After his World Cup soothsaying skills were revealed, the English-born Paul was appointed as an ambassador to England’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup. He had English roots, having been hatched at Weymouth Sea Life Center on England’s south coast in 2008.
Imitators sprang up all over the world, including Mani the Parakeet in Singapore and Lorenzo the Parrot in Hannover, Germany.
The latest was a saltwater crocodile named Dirty Harry, who predicted Spain’s World Cup final win and called the result of Australia’s general election by snatching a chicken carcass dangling beneath a caricature of Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
“El Pulpo Paul” became so popular in Spain that the northwestern Spanish town of O Carballino tried to borrow him and made him an “honorary friend.”
Paul, who had an agent, got hundreds of requests to go to Spain. The Madrid Zoo asked Sea Life if it would be willing to make a deal to bring him in as a tribute to the Spanish soccer team
’s victory, either temporarily or for good. But the German aquarium turned down that offer, too.
Paul’s name will live on the Greek island of Zakynthos, where a permanent sea turtle rescue center funded in part by donations generated by the famous octopus is being established.
Associated Press writer David Rising in Berlin contributed to this report.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Big Machine
chris did a total of 31 push ups last night, beating jack denny's old push up record that didn't even exist.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
WARNING: Beach Closed
A shark attack in the waters north of Santa Barbara killed a 19-year-old college student Friday morning, Oct 22, 2010. Lucas Ransom, 19, was bodyboarding with a friend 100 yards from Surf Beach when a shark suddenly pulled him under.
Such deadly attacks are rare. According to California'sDepartment of Fish and Game, there have been 12 fatal shark attacks since the 1920's.
According to the Associated Press, Ransom was a junior at the University of California, Santa Barbara, majoring in Chemical Engineering. The Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department reports that Ransom's friends and other bystanders pulled him from the water. He had a severe leg wound and died a short time later.
This is the time of year that many adult white sharks return from long open-ocean forays and begin to feed on seals and other pinnipeds at coastal and island rookeries off Central and Northern California.
But the top-level predators can lurk off the coast at any time. The last fatal attack by a great white off California was in late April of 2008, involving a swimmer off Solana Beach in San Diego County.
Previously, a scuba diver was killed by a white shark off Mendocino in Northern California in August of 2004. A year earlier, also in August, a woman was killed as she swam near seals off Avila Beach, which is about 30 miles north of Vandenberg.
Though shark attacks are rare, there's a consensus among some scientists that white shark population off California is increasing.
Christopher Lowe, who runs the Cal State Long Beach Shark Lab, attributes this to a longstanding ban on fishing for white sharks, a longstanding ban imposed on gill-net fishing in white shark nursery areas close to the coast, and the phenomenal rise in the number of California sea lions, which constitute a readily available food source for large white sharks.
Lowe, however, has not implied that this will translate into more attacks on humans, because white sharks have evolved over millions of years into such specialized predators.
Patric Douglas, CEO of Shark Diver, which is a California-based commercial shark-diving company that has extensive experience with white sharks, has witnessed the predators' behavior up-close dozens of times and can attest to their cautious, investigatory approach to possible prey.
Douglas agrees with scientists that most, if not all white shark attacks on humans involve mistaken identity, and advises people to stay out of the water very early in the morning when the sun might be at such an angle as to make it difficult for sharks to discern people from prey -- notably pinnipeds.
other shark news: howard absolutely loves my washing machine
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
