Running at the Mouth

Shocka! Ill-Conceived, Overpriced Mobile ESPN Hemorrhaging Money

ESPN has lost $25 million so far on its laughably overpriced, astonishingly useless and pain-in-the-ass-to-get Mobile ESPN, reports Sports Business Daily.  Thinking about it, what's surprising is not that no one is buying the product, but that ESPN spent $30 million on those monumentally stupid commercials with the greasy-haired sportsdork loitering outside of ESPN headquarters.  What keen advertiser hatched this campaign, anyway?  Who thought it would be a good idea to portray the people who want this product as unwashed, jobless, fast-food-physique-having, couldn't-pick-a-vagina-out-of-a-police-lineup douchenozzles?

I'm just not sure what niche ESPN is trying to fill.  As one of the Deadspin commenters pointed out, how many people have no access whatsoever to sports news for more than a few minutes a day, such that sports to your phone becomes a necessity?  Degenerate gamblers, maybe?

I have to stop now.  I've reached my rhetorical question quota for the post.

Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw -- Even in European Zoos

You know what the thing about Europe is?  It's the little differences.  They got the same shit over there that we have over here, but there it's just a little different.  Example:  in Europe, zoo animals are apparently allowed to hunt and kill one another:  Bears Eat Monkey in Front of Zoo Visitors.

The zoo released a statement saying that the bears and Barbary macaques had coexisted peacefully for a long time before today.  You would think that the so-called "experts" would know that bears are a proud race, and the macaques would someday have to pay for their intrusion.

The statement also says that the animals "almost never" kill one another.  Oh, well fine, then.  I feel so much better.

Runner Killed by Alligator

You know that old joke about the two hunters, where the one says that he doesn't have to be able to outrun the bear, he just has to be able to outrun his buddy?  That's true, apparently, with alligators, too, so always run with someone slightly slower than yourself:

MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) -- An alligator grabbed and killed a Florida woman who disappeared while jogging near a canal, a medical examiner determined Thursday.

Construction workers found the woman's dismembered body floating Wednesday in a canal in Sunrise, a northwest suburb of Fort Lauderdale.

An autopsy showed she died of bleeding and shock from alligator bites.

It doesn't look like she was just running along and the alligator came after her:

Perper said the woman, 28-year-old Yovy Suarez Jimenez, had been very close to the canal's edge when the alligator bit her, because her body showed no signs of having been dragged.

Relatives said the victim had gone jogging on Tuesday evening along a bicycle path near the canal. Wildlife officers said no one saw the attack.

"The way it happened, we just don't know," said Dani Moschella, a spokeswoman for the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Ms. Moschella must not be a runner, because I think I know how it went down:  the unfortunate Ms. Jimenez stepped off the path to relieve herself, and the gator got her.  It's a grim way to go in any event, and my sympathies to her family.

Wildlife officers and commercial trappers were still trying to find the alligator, which was estimated to be 8 to 10 feet long, based on the woman's injuries. If captured, it will be killed, they said.

What I don't understand is why they're trying to hunt down the alligator and kill it.  Will alligator capital punishment somehow deter other 'gators from eating people?  "I want to eat that guy, but damned if I want them to do to me what they did to Ralph."  Whatever the reasons, rest assured an alligator is going to die for this, even if it's the wrong one.  Animal profiling is what it is.

If You Don't Stop Laughing, I'll Give You Something to Cry About

What the hell is wrong with German people?

After joggers complained that Joachim Bahrenfeld was disturbing the peace, a German court ordered the 54-year-old accountant to stop laughing out loud in the woods.

"It's part of living for me, like eating, drinking and breathing," Bahrenfeld said, telling ananova.com that he headed to the woods after work and on weekends for a good belly laugh. "I feel much better when I laugh. It's freeing and healthy."

Unfortunately, it's no longer a laughing matter: He faces a fine or six months in jail if he laughs out loud again.

It's not clear whether Bahrenfeld was laughing at the runners, himself, or just laughing like a loon.  I'm also not completely buying that the only thing he was doing out in the woods was laughing.

Headline of the Day

Spider-hunting nudist ends with ring of fire.

Click the link.  You won't regret it.

Stereotypes Confirmed

Western Kentucky University's Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity chapter has been suspended surrounding, as the news story puts it, an "alleged goat sex hazing incident."  But it's no big deal.  The chapter president denies that anyone was actually going to have to bang the goat, saying that it was just a joke to make pledges think they'd have to bang the goat.  He also denied that this was a hazing incident.  Well, I'm satisfied.

See, this is how cliches become cliches.  So don't ever wonder why Kentuckians get made fun of for porking livestock and fraternity members are thought of as vicious a-holes.

[Link via Everyday Should Be Saturday]

"Yaargh. From now on I be requirin' hairnets."

Ahoy, me hearties.  Today be Talk Like a Pirate Day, savvy?  T' title of this post be me favorite line ever spoken by Captain McAllister, one o' me favorite native Pirate-speakers thar be.  In honor of t' tide, we be recallin' Whil Piavis.  "Who?" says you.  Whil Piavis be t' sea dog who ran for student body president of N.C. State University as "T' Pirate Captain."  And he won.  But t' best part is, the lad has stayed in character since taking t' helm.  He's even won a prestigious pirate award (Avast!  Who even knew such a thing existed?) from bilgemunky.com.

So celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day.  Watch Pirates o' t' Caribbean:  The Curse o' t' Black Pearl.  Or T' Princess Bride.  Or both.  Or jus' talk like a pirate.  Whatever you do, take advantage o' t' one tide a voyage t' show off your pirattitude.

(Yes, I realize that my Pirate sucks.  No, I don't care.)

WATFO

I am constantly fascinated by what passes for "news," especially when it comes to celebrities.  I particularly enjoy when the inevitable comes to pass (that's what WATFO means:  "what are the f**kin' odds?").  Here are four items that, basically, any one of us could have predicted would eventually happen:

1. Courtney Love Reportedly Fails Drug Test
2. 50 Cent's Posse Charged with Gun Possession;
3. Rushdie Calls for Muslim Reformation; and
4. Stolen Segway Scooters Prove Virtually Impossible to Fence (link via Obscure Store).

That last one is my favorite.

Marine Cleared in Fallujah Shooting

Power Line reports that the Marine that Kevin Sites videotaped shooting a terrorist during a sweep of a Fallujah mosque has been cleared of all charges.  (See the backstory here.)  He will not be court-martialed, as the investigation concluded that he acted reasonably under the circumstances in defense of himself and fellow Marines.  How this is different from what was reported back in February, I don't know.  But it seems like good news.

RIP Frank Perdue (1920-2005)

Chicken magnate Ross Perot Frank Perdue died yesterday at home.  He was 84 years old.  From the AP's obit, he sounds like a cool guy as well as a savvy businessman.  Farewell to the tough man who made tender chickens for over sixty years.