Harp's Blog

2 hours, 19 minutes ago

Think rush hour is bad enough? What if a three-foot python were part of the drive home? The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Friday that biochemical engineer Marika Suominen-Yeh got the surprise of her life last week when a motorist flagged her down after seeing a snake drop from beneath her minivan.

Danny Markadakis, a former snake owner, waited for a lull in traffic, then scooped up the snake and took it home.

Markadakis took the three-foot ball python to Avian & Exotic Animal Care, where it was treated for a mild abdominal burns and adopted this past weekend.

Suominen-Yeh doesn't know where the snake came from, but she said she now checks around her van before getting in.

___

1 hour, 6 minutes ago

Cries for help inside a Trenton, N.J., home turned out to be for the birds. Neighbors called police Wednesday morning after hearing a woman's persistent cry of "Help me! Help me!" coming from a house. Officers arrived and when no one answered the door, they kicked it in to make a rescue.

But instead of a damsel in distress, officers found a caged cockatoo with a convincing call.

It wasn't the first time the 10-year-old bird named Luna said something that brought authorities to the home of owner Evelyn DeLeon.

About seven years ago, the bird cried like a baby for hours, leading to reports of a possible abandoned baby and a visit to the home by state child welfare workers. But it was only Luna practicing a newfound sound, DeLeon says.

DeLeon says her bird learns much of her ever-growing vocabulary from watching television, in both English and Spanish.

___

Regular readers know that I love video games as much as the next guy. In fact, my right ankle is still sore from drumming my way through a marathon Rock Band session last night (who knew calibrating the TV would make such a difference!?), and I'm always looking for the latest titles to pop into my Xbox.

But how much gaming is too much? For North Carolina native Blake Peebles, there's no such thing. Guitar Hero is his title of choice. "I usually play till I can't anymore," he says, in this profile from the News & Observer.

In fact, young Mr. Peebles is dropping out of high school... in order to focus on Guitar Hero full time. Peebles hopes to join the small but growing crew of players looking to make gaming a job. Citing his victories in Guitar Hero tournaments, which include "gift certificates, gaming equipment, and chicken sandwiches," Peebles thinks he has the chops to play competitively and earn actual money in the process. As the story notes, top gamers on the competitive circuit can earn up to $80,000 a year (though $25,000 is more common). Peebles, of course, can count his 52 Chick-fil-A combo meals toward that total.

I was at first inclined to disparage the decision by his parents to let Peebles drop out of school, but it seems a little less ridiculous when you delve into the facts. Peebles hahdn't been doing well in school and wasn't liked, and even now he isn't gaming full time. He has a tutor that provides a private education, and his parents say he's doing well with the more focused instruction and that their son now even does his homework without complaint. (Presumably he can hit the axe sooner after he's finished his studies.)

However, I worry that Peebles, who's just 16, may have a tough road ahead trying to break into competitive gaming. The costs of traveling to tournaments alone can totally outstrip earnings, and the amount of training can be grueling. Sponsorships are often a pipe dream. And then there's the issue of games going out of date and being replaced by something new. Traditional athletes never have to worry about, say, distance running being upgraded with a new version, but many games can go out of style, fast. In the end, there's just not much cash there: One gamer, quoted at the end of the linked article, says that in eight years his total earnings are about $25,000 total, and that's including a national championship in Halo 2.

What do you think, parents? Did Peebles' folks do the right thing in letting

New York authorities didn't see this one coming. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says the driver of a tractor-trailer rigged the front license plate of his vehicle so that it would "disappear" as he drove through a toll plaza, allowing him to avoid paying the $40 fee.

The Port Authority said driver Orlando Payano ran a cable from the license plate to the dashboard cigarette lighter inside the cab of the vehicle.

Pulling on the lighter flipped the plate under the truck. Cameras are used to capture images of license plates to identify fare beaters.

Police charged Payano with toll evasion and license plate destruction. He told the Daily News that he didn't have "any cable or anything" and that "it's not true."

___

HAPPY LABOR DAY EVERYONE

I was looking at old videos I made and saw this it was my first time to use a Video cam and trying to figer out how to edit it..Never did learn that till months later and mom said it was cute and funny..So put it online and thought  show it on here agin...LOL

Tue Aug 19

A Puerto Rican man has been granted his wish to remain standing — even in death.

A funeral home used a special embalming treatment to keep the corpse of 24-year-old Angel Pantoja Medina standing upright for his three-day wake.

Dressed in a Yankees baseball cap and sunglasses, Pantoja was mourned by relatives while propped upright in his mother's living room.

His brother Carlos told the El Nuevo Dia newspaper the victim had long said he wanted to be upright for his own wake: "He wanted to be happy, standing."

The owner of the Marin Funeral Home, Damaris Marin, told The Associated Press the mother asked him to fulfill her dead son's last wish.

Pantoja was found dead Friday underneath a bridge in San Juan and buried Monday. Police are investigating.

Dog dies after traffic cop apathetic to owner's pleas THIS MAKES Me MAD NO REASON TO DETAIN THEM  

SAN MARCOS, Texas -- A police officer was accused of inappropriate behavior after his misconduct may have resulted in a dog's death, ABC News reported.

Officer Paul Stephens pulled over Michael Gonzalez for speeding at 100 miles an hour down an interstate highway, prompting the driver to get out of the car, saying, "He's dying."

Gonzales and his girlfriend Krystal Hernandez explained that they were speeding to reach a veterinary clinic because their pet poodle Missy was choking.

The dashboard camera of the police car shows Officer Stephens yelling and criticizing the couple for putting other people's lives at risk for a dog.

"You're driving down the highway at 100 per hour," he said. "It's a dog, it's OK. You can get another one. Relax."

Stephens kept Gonzalez on the roadside for 15 minutes. The dog died as the couple waited for Stephens to issue a citation.

The couple tried to convince the officers several different ways to allow them to save their pet, KWTX Channel 10 News reported.

Gonzalez and Hernandez said they begged Stephens to let them go to the vet and turn themselves in for the speeding ticket later.

Gonzalez also offered to stay behind with the officer while Hernandez took the dog to the vet.

But Stephens ignored their pleas.

Police supervisors called the incident a "rookie mistake" and did not found Stephens guilty of any misconduct.

"This was not our finest hour," said San Marcos Police Chief Howard Williams.

However, Williams did say that Stephens behavior was less than stellar.

"His world was collapsing. And what the officer says to him, basically, is, 'I don't care,'" Williams said.

Earlier this week, a police officer in Arizona was acquitted of charges of animal cruelty after leaving a police dog in a patrol car for 13 hours on a hot day last summer, the Associated Press reported.

Recent examples of police misconduct towards people are unfortunately no less appalling and usually include the use of tasers.

Police in South Carolina punched a teenage boy 13 times in the face before tasering him as he lay prone on the ground.

Police tasered an injured teen from Ozark, Missouri up to 19 times after he fell from a highway overpass in late July.

The 16-year-old had broken his back and heel when the officers began tasering him.

In yet another bizarre instance of police violence, a 66-year-old minister was tasered and beaten by hospital security guards for what he claims was a joke.

In that incident, hospital security cameras caught five officers kicking Rev. Al Poisson on the ground for at least five minutes.

By KRISTEN GELINEAU, Associated Press WriterMon

Life can get a little lonely for bachelors in the Australian Outback mining town of Mount Isa. So the mayor has offered up a solution: recruit ugly women.

Mayor John Molony found himself under attack Monday over comments he made to a local newspaper that read: "May I suggest if there are five blokes to every girl, we should find out where there are beauty-disadvantaged women and ask them to proceed to Mount Isa."

The mayor added that many women who already live in the remote Queensland state town seem quite happy.

"Quite often you will see walking down the street a lass who is not so attractive with a wide smile on her face," he continued. "Whether it is recollection of something previous or anticipation for the next evening, there is a degree of happiness."

The quotes, published Saturday in the Townsville Bulletin, sparked outrage among the town's female population, led to furious online debates and drew criticism from the local chamber of commerce.

"There's a lot of anger circulating among the community at the moment — a lot of passionate anger," Mount Isa Chamber of Commerce manager Patricia O'Callaghan said Monday. "There's a lot of women voicing their opinions."

Molony declined to elaborate on his comments Monday except to say they were "twisted and warped" by the newspaper.

"I've been shredded," he added, before hanging up the phone.

The situation may not be quite as dire as Molony noted. According to the 2006 census, males made up 52.6 percent of the town's population of nearly 20,000.

And several local women said there aren't a lot of gems to be found among Mount Isa's men, either.

"We've got a saying up here that the odds are good, but the goods are odd," 27-year-old Anna Warrick told The Brisbane Times.

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

LOOK INSIDE TO SEE SOME FUNNY VIDEO'S..

I want to herd cats I think it be fun and I love all animals..it's right up my alley and it is what I want to do...

LOOK INSIDE TO SEE HOW TO HERD CATS...

There are monsters invading the fox 2 blogs so if you see any of them please do not panic..

They can attack if you panic or make a boring blog so please be very carful of what you blog about..

you do not want a blog monster to get you look inside to see what they look like..

they come from Sporedom; to Kill out Boredom

Sue helped me out she came up with the idea I made the mosters you may tke and use al you want it is ok with me..At the end it will tell you how I made em..All you gotta do is go to that web site and you too can make monsters..

By MALIA WOLLAN, Associated Press WriterSat Aug 16, 1:02 AM ET

Bigfoot or big fat lie? Whenever someone reports sighting the hairy beast of yore (details always fuzzy) or capturing the hirsute humanoid on film (images always grainy), it scares up a dubious debate of international proportions. Friday was just the latest episode in the Sasquatch show, as unreal as it may be.

Two men who claim to have stumbled across a Bigfoot corpse in the woods of northern Georgia indignantly stood by their story at a news conference in Palo Alto during which they offered an e-mail from a scientist as evidence and acknowledged they wouldn't mind making a few bucks from the "find" they have kept stuffed in a freezer for over a month.

"Everyone who has talked down to us is going to eat their words," predicted Matt Whitton, an officer on medical leave from the Clayton County Police Department.

Whitton and Rick Dyer, a former corrections officer, announced the discovery in early July on YouTube videos and their Web site. Although they did not consider themselves devoted Bigfoot trackers before then, they have since started offering weekend search expeditions in Georgia for $499. The specimen they bagged, the men say, was one of several apelike creatures they spotted cavorting in the woods.

As they faced a skeptical audience of several hundred journalists and Bigfoot fans that included one curiosity seeker in a Chewbacca suit, the pair were joined Friday by Tom Biscardi, head of a group called Searching for Bigfoot. Other Bigfoot hunters call Biscardi a huckster looking for media attention.

Biscardi fielded most of the questions. Among them: Why should anyone accept the men's tale when they weren't willing to display their frozen artifact or pinpoint where they allegedly found it? How come bushwhackers aren't constantly tripping over primate remains if there are as many as 7,000 Bigfoots roaming the United States, as Biscardi claimed?

"I understand where you are coming from, but how many real Bigfoot researchers are out there trekking 140,000 miles a year?" Biscardi said.

Biscardi, Whitton and Dyer presented what they called evidence supporting the Bigfoot theory. It was an e-mail from a University of Minnesota scientist, but all it said was that of the three DNA samples sent to the scientist, one was human, one was likely a possum and the third could not be tested because of technical problems.

At least one other Bigfoot researcher, Idaho State University anthropologist Jeffrey Meldrum, called the trio's claims "not compelling in the least." He told the Scientific American that photographs posted on the Web site "just looks like a costume with some fake guts thrown on top for effect."

Whitton and Dyer have offered three different accounts of how they found the beast's remains.

In early videos, the animal was shot by a former felon, and the men followed it into the woods. In a second version, they found a "family of Bigfoot" in the north Georgia mountains. In the third, the two were hiking and stumbled upon the corpse with open wounds.

In one of their YouTube videos, they are shown speaking with a man they identify as a scientist. Earlier this week, they admitted that the man was Dyer's brother. Dyer said they were simply having fun.

Asked why anyone should believe his claims when he already had shown a flair for tomfoolery, he suggested that skeptics simply are jealous.

"They don't have a choice to believe us. We have a body," Dyer said.

___

Associated Press writer Juanita Cousins in Atlanta contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

Bigfoot Tracker: http://www.bigfoottracker.com

Big Foot Field Researchers Organization: http://www.bfro.net/

Bigfoot remains as elusive as ever.

Results from tests on genetic material from alleged remains of one of the mythical half-ape and half-human creatures, made public at a news conference on Friday held after the claimed discovery swept the Internet, failed to prove its existence.

Its spread was fueled by a photograph of a hairy heap, bearing a close resemblance to a shaggy full-body gorilla costume, stuffed into a container resembling a refrigerator.

One of the two samples of DNA said to prove the existence of the Bigfoot came from a human and the other was 96 percent from an opossum, according to Curt Nelson, a scientist at the University of Minnesota who performed the DNA analysis.

Bigfoot creatures are said to live in the forests of the U.S. Pacific Northwest. An opossum is a marsupial about the size of a house cat.

Results of the DNA tests were revealed in an e-mail from Nelson and distributed at the Palo Alto, California, news conference held by Tom Biscardi, host of a weekly online radio show about the Bigfoot.

Also present were Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, the two who say they discovered the Bigfoot corpse while hiking in the woods of northern Georgia. They also are co-owners of a company that offers Bigfoot merchandise.

Despite the dubious photo and the commercial interests of the alleged discoverers, the Bigfoot claim drew interest from Australia to Europe and even The New York Times.

Biscardi said the DNA samples may not have been taken correctly and may have been contaminated, and that he would proceed with an autopsy of the alleged Bigfoot remains, currently in a freezer at an undisclosed location.

(Reporting by Clare Baldwin in Palo Alto; writing by Jim Christie; editing by Mary Milliken and Peter Henderson)