Category / observations

Chupacabra found in South Texas?

Someone call Fox and Mulder. Phylis Canion, a rancher in South Texas, has a body in her freezer, and it’s the body of a bloodsucker. “[It] opened [the cage] reached in pulled the chicken head out, sucked all the blood out, left the chicken in the cage,” she said.

She thinks the body she has is an example of the elusive, possibly mythical, chupacabra (which means, literally, “goat sucker” in Spanish.) These animals have been spotted several times over the years, and even more often in recent days around this small Texas town. Some experts think this particular animal is a mangy grey fox. For her part, Canion isn’t convinced. She’s sent the specimen off to the University of Texas where DNA tests are currently underway.

New, mysterious, blood-sucking species? Or just a sick fox?

[See the story from KENS-TV]
[Read about the Chupacabra on Wikipedia]
[Read about another, similar find from Elmendorf, Texas]

NC Beach Photos

Just another reason to love Apple: newly released iPhoto ’08 makes publishing web galleries simple and the result… well, let’s just say it’s amazing. You can view the photos in a variety of ways (just choose your favorite), you can download hi-res photos for printing, and with some galleries, you can even upload your pictures to add to the mix.

Very, very cool.

[See the gallery]

Searching for "How To…"

I’m always intrigued to lurk around and see what types of things people are searching for. Luckily, there are some sites out there like Hitwise that make it fairly easy.

What kind of insights can be gleaned through this type of voyeurism? Good question. Try visiting Google and searching for… (Just kidding.)

A recent Time Magazine article examined the emerging use of search engines to do more than perform simple queries. Increasingly, we’re asking these tools to sort through mountains of data to answer philosophical questions (why?) and instructional ponderings (how to?) It’s the second of these that recently caught my eye.

Did you know, for instance, that over the last two years, the How To question asked most often has been “How to tie a tie?” Seriously, haven’t we gotten this down yet?

Other notables:

“How to make out?”
“How to kiss?”
“How to have sex?”
(Those seem obvious, but I might be missing something. Now I’ll have to check.)

“How to levitate?” (That’s one I’d actually like to know.)

“How to get pregnant?” (No comment.)

Regardless, it’s an interesting look at culture through our common queries, which now account for almost three percent of all searches.

Neighbors Still

I stand at the open door,
one child – exhausted – with her head on my shoulder
another burning energy and adrenaline
by endlessly circling my legs
like a kite whose string has been cut.

It’s late.
We’ve stayed too long, had too much fun,
and we all know we’ll pay for it in some measure in the morning,
but this is the very definition
of the long goodbye.

These are not “wave from the door friends”
they are “walk you all the way ‘til the sidewalk ends” friends,
and so we stand at the car, only slightly awkward,
offering hugs and thanks and promises to do this more often.

And we pause before leaving
grasping at the tenuous bonds of friendship
knowing our attention will only become more diverted over time
and these times together will certainly become more rare.

Yet they are precise, nearly priceless moments of perfection
where we strike a careful balance
between reminiscing about the past
and marveling at the future.

So even though six large men and a moving truck
have scrambled our zip codes,
we linger and we promise and we hope
because we are – after all – friends, family, and neighbors still.

Proof that we're losing our minds…

Thirteen-year-olds facing jail time and sex offender label
First, the story out of Oregon about two 13-year-old boys who ran down the hallway in school swatting girls on their butts. The were marched to the principal’s office, questioned for a few hours, handcuffed and hauled off to juvenile detention where they spent the next five days. Turns out, if they’re convicted of sexual assault at their August 20 trial, they’ll face additional jail time and be required to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives. There are far too many bizarre things in this case to repeat, so I just suggest you read this article from The Oregonian.

Patrolman sentenced to five years for defending himself
Chicago Patrolman Mike Mette was off-duty in Dubuque, Iowa, where he attended a party. At this party, he and his younger brother got into an argument with another partygoer. (This other partygoer, by the way, was 20-year-old college student Jake Gothard, who had a blood-alcohol level of .30, which would be nearly four times the legal limit in Indiana.) Gothard begins yelling at Mette, berating him for coming to the party without any women. Mette and his brother and their four friends decide to leave. Gothard follows them outside… well, here’s how the story plays out:

Gothard and his roommate began chasing Mette and the five other men, claiming they had stolen his cell phone, until they all ended up on the front lawn of Marc Mette’s house.

“Mr. Gothard approached me and told me he was going to beat the crap out of me, and he actually hit me with his two fists like this in the chest. Hit me three times. I pushed him away from me. Told him to leave. He comes back at me a fourth time and that’s when, you know, when I hit him. I hit him in the left side of the face,” said Michael Mette.

Moments later, when city police arrived on the scene, Gothard was still on the ground, having been cold cocked by Officer Mette’s right hook. When Mette and the others described what happened, Dubuque Police arrested Mette, charging him with felony assault causing serious injury.


Last week, this police officer was sentenced to five years in prison. If you can stand it, read the ABC News story.