Google, You Have Some 'Splaining To Do

Hey, Google? Yeah, um, what the hell, man?! All I wanted to know is whether or not you're supposed to wash fish after you buy it. That's all. Verrrrrry simple inquiry. Could have really been satisfied with a simple yes or simple no. But that's not what happened, Google. And you know what happened! You did it! Would you like to explain yourself? Don't look at me like that. You know exactly what I mean! The second result! The second result! (Click to enlarge.) HOW does that end up as one of my choices?! Get it out of there! I don't want to know!

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Best Picture On The Internet

According to the Internets, this is the best picture on the Internets. And while I can't totally agree with them, I'm finding it a little hard to outright disagree, you know what I mean? You will after careful consideration of what may actually be the best picture on the Internets. Behold!

See what I mean? Hard to know, really. Hard to know.

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Do You Have Any Jewelry? Nope, Go Fish.

Many relationships are unequal. Sometimes the guy puts more into the relationship than the girl. Sometimes the girl puts more into the relationship than the guy. Sometimes both are just lazy asses and nothing gets put into anything. (Wait. That sounds bad. Just by the nature of the relationship, you'd think that something has to get put into something. I mean, that's just....oh, look. Never mind. Where was I? Oh, right! The woman whose former common-law husband put more into the relationship than she did so that when they broke up, there wasn't anything for her to take back and so she fried up and ate his goldfish instead. That's right.

Wait. Wh...wha...um....what now?

Correct. Welcome to Pasadena, Texas, where the women are scarce and the cows are afraid. (OK, so maybe that's not the official motto, but it was probably in the running when they were trying to decide!) Now, you know that when a sentence contains the term "former common-law husband/wife" that it's going to be a tale of class and dignity. Of course it is. No, actually, when you hear the term "former common-law" anything, it's usually going to be a tale of the sort of domestic altercation that takes place in mobile home parks and involves individuals doing what is known as the "whiskey tango". Although this little gem of a story didn't involve the particulars, I have every reason to believe that at least one of the participants has danced the whiskey tango on at least one other occasion.

What we have here is a couple who have broken up after an elongated period of time spent living together until it became sooooo long that the state of Texas just considered them to be married. (It's like Texas's way of just saying, "Fine! You don't have to get up off of your ass and go down and get married. We'll just do it for you. OK, we're done. Congratulations.") And after the break-up, the guy did what a lot of immature individuals in a break-up situation did and he took back some of the jewelry that he had given the woman.

Oh, come on, man! You're going to give her jewelry but you're not going to give her a wedding ring and make an honest woman out of her?! What is wrong with you sir? Are you not familiar with the term "a gift"? "A gift" doesn't mean that you're letting someone borrow something of yours. It means you gave it away to them! Then again, he's probably unfamiliar with the concept of something being "given away". It's not like anyone "gave away" the woman to be his bride or anything.

The woman, being fully aware of what a gift is, went over to his place to reclaim her gift (also known as "what is hers"). The man, being fully aware of what a jackass does, refused. That's when the woman decided that what's good for the goose is what's good for the gander (or is it that it "takes one to know one"?) and probably would have taken back jewelry that she gave him, only I guess that there wasn't any. So she did the most reasonable thing she could in that sort of an awkward situation and took his seven goldfish.

Wait. She what? Took his goldfish? Took his goldfish how? Took his goldfish why? Is she a mermaid? Were they their children?

The "how" is unclear, but I'm guessing that she just picked up the bowl and carefully ran away with it.I don't know how you don't stop a woman from running off with a bowl full of your goldfish, but he didn't. Instead he called the police and they went over to the woman's place in search of the abducted water creatures.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Officers went to the woman's home to see if they could retrieve the fish. A one Pasadena Police Department spokesman Vance Mitchell said that the woman said, " ‘They're in there,' and pointed to the kitchen." Finding a plate with four fried fish, officers asked where the others were. The woman answered, “I already ate those." Well, then!

Seriously, what do you say about that?! Offer her some tartar sauce? A lemon wedge perhaps? Apparently, if you're the Pasadena Police Department, you don't say much. The fish, it would seem, were bought by the couple during happier times. Thus the fish were considered to be community property. Huh. Most couples buy houses or cars together. These folks bought seven goldfish. Either that or did really well at seven carnival games. (I'll bet her ex-common law husband can flick a mean ping-pong ball into a cup of water on a rotating tray. She's probably not too bad herself!) Mitchell said, “There was nothing we could do. If he wants to pursue it, it's a civil case.”

Are you sure about that, Officer? Are you sure it's a civil case? Sounds like it might be a bit of a psychiatric case to me. Definitely a nut case!

If I were to bet on this one, I'd bet heavily that she didn't really eat the other three. It's not like it isn't easy to dispose of goldfish. They're a disposable animal to begin with. I mean, I know that there's all different kinds of crazy out there, but is there really the goldfish eating kind of crazy? There might be, but I'm guessing that this is just the goldfish stealing kind of crazy that's going on here.

Say, where's PETA when you need them?! Though even if they showed up in this instance, the woman could have thought that PETA stood for People Eating Tiny Animals and it still would have turned out the same. Guess that man knew what he was doing when he didn't marry her-marry her, eh? If only he could have warned the fish.

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Slow News Day In China

Slow news day in China, apparently. Hence the headline: "Most Beautiful Bottom In The World". (Yes, of course there's a photo. Behold! Beautiful bottoms!)

According to the folks over there at China Daily, it is Brazil's Melanie Nunes Fronckowiak and France's Saiba Bombote who have honed or grown the Most Beautiful Bottom in the World. (I'll give the Chinese points for using the term 'bottom'. You know darn well that if this was in the US it would be the "Baddest Booty Call" or "Number One Ass In America" or something else that sounded just a little less polite. Politeness is important, you know.) And judging from some of the photos of the "event", it seems to be a pretty big deal. (Kind of odd for a Communist country, but maybe it's the New Communism.) Just look at all of the..press? That can't be the press, can it? The coverage? Look at all of the coverage? No..no...there isn't a whole lot of that either. I don't get it.

That photo up there just kills me. What are those? Disposable cameras? Clearly those folks are at the low end of the paparazzi food chain. And for a contest whose title makes it clear that it's for the most "beautiful bottom", the paparazzi seem unaware that the "bottom" that is the most "beautiful" is on the side of the contestant that they are not photographing. This may be one of the reasons we've never heard of this contest before. (That and a lot of good luck!)

So, clearly this is an odd competition to say the very least. And thankfully, the likes of which are possibly only seen in China. (Though it's starting to make a little more sense with all of the Communism. Perhaps this is the only sort of odd contest that is based upon physical appearance that they allow). And the photo below? What the hell is she doing? Is that a pH test strip?! Why is acidity important in this competition? Is it a Far East thing? So many questions.


Here we have all of the contestants facing the wrong way. Does it matter what their face looks like? Just wondering. I mean, you could have a great ass, er, bottom, but if your face looks like you got hit with the Ugly Stick one too many times, can you still win? I'd guess that you could, because the chick below is the one who won and she's wearing high heels and socks, a fashion never before seen outside of Billings, Montana.

And some things are just universal, I suppose. There she is, all happy to have won and looking at the press (which I'm guessing, judging from the looks of the photographers earlier, consists of two guys with pocket sized spiral notebooks and a crayon) and there's the guy next to her. Checking out her ass. Typical.
But here's what's not typical, for China or anywhere else I would imagine. (And it's one hell of a segway into the rest of this post. It's not often one can combine a Best Ass contest with carps and ducks. Just in case you overlook the smoothness of transition between the subjects, I had to point that out.) So to give you an even clearer picture of just how slow of a news day it actually was, here's more content from China Daily, this time about nature. It's media coverage of "Duck v. Carps". Wait. What?

Correct. Here we have the lone duck. It is a duck without a cutesy media-given nickname, which is the practice here in the US. If there is a story about an animal, the animal or animals must be given names. Especially whales. Man, if a damn whale goes the wrong way and ends up in someone's backyard pool or something, that thing has a name within nanoseconds of being spotted by a human.

But back to the duck. The caption about this poor waterfowl reads "A duck attempts to attack a fish in a park lake in Changsha, Hunan Province November 16, 2008. Then, swarms of carps surrounded and counterattacked the duck, and the duck fled away." If that's how a "duck attempts to attack" anything, it's a wonder he's made it this far as a duck. The duck might want to set his sights a bit lower in the future, perhaps.

But look at all the damn fish! It's like a koi pond in hell. You kind of have to wonder what in the world the duck was thinking. Actually, he probably saw all of those fish there and was thinking, "Buffet!"

Kind of makes me think that the duck (or ducks, since they rarely travel alone unless they're lost or stupid) has visited that section of the pond a couple of times before. And judging from the reaction of the carp, they seem to have tired rather quickly of members of their school getting eaten. (And really, I can't blame 'em for that. It would get old kind of fast.)

It's a good thing the bird was able to get out of there. Otherwise, he would have been ducked.

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Rock, Bottle, Fish, Pe.....???

Given the nature of this incident, it may surprise you that it didn't take place in Florida. No, this fine example of ill advised confrontational behavior comes to you from Fredericksburg, VA.

It would seem that a guy, his girlfriend and another friend were in the girlfriend's SUV and stopped to get gas. The friend that was pumping the gas became the target of some guy who walked out of the convenience store where all of the gas pumping was going on and "verbally challenged" him. (Verbally challenged him to do what? Pump faster than he could? Spin that pump around like you're pumping gas in the Wild West and then slam it into your holster? I don't get it.) I guess the guy didn't get it either because he didn't respond. That's when the Unknown Challenger threw a rock at the guy and hit him in the neck. Brilliant.

Well, naturally, this ticked off Gas Pumping Guy who went towards Rock Throwing Unknown Challenger. Rock Throwing Unknown Challenger reached into his car and pulled out his next weapon of choice. A fish. Wait. What?

Yes, he pulled out a fish and threw it at Gas Pumping Guy and hit him in the face with the fish. That's when things start to get weird.

He then reaches back into his car and pulls out a beer bottle and throws THAT at the SUV. Geez, this guy's car is like a magician's hat! He reaches in and pulls out something different every time. A rock! A beer bottle! A fish! What's next?! Oh, you shouldn't have asked. Now it has to be clear to you by now that this man is clearly a genius and obviously knows what he's doing. So, just think for a minute. What would logically come next in this sequence: Rock. Fish. Bottle.........??? Well, if you answered "penis" you are correct! Wait. Wait! Wait!! WTF?!?!

Yes, apparently the next logical thing for this guy to do was to pull his pants down and whip it around a bit before taking off "in a blue car". (He should have stuck with the fish.) OK, who in the hell does stuff like this?! HOW is that anything that anyone would even THINK of doing. "Hmmm...let's see....I've thrown a rock and a bottle....I've hit him in the face with a fish.....What next?....I know, I'll show him my penis!" No! Dude, one of those things is not like the others! (And while you might be tempted to say the fish, it's not! It's the penis! The penis is not like the others!)

The store's surveillance camera was able to record what the guy looked like when he was inside the store. (Sadly, no video of the rock throwing, bottle hurling, marine life slapping, penis waving portion of the afternoon.) And Einstein over there on the left was later identified as Marcellus Coleman, 21 and a resident of Fredericksburg. (Ah, I'm sure his mother is proud.)

They eventually found him as you would expect a man of this sort of character to be found...hiding in an abandoned house somewhere. He was charged with malicious wounding, indecent exposure and destruction of property. And he was later charged with simple assault when, as he was in handcuffs and being led to the police car, he spit on a guy that was standing there. He's now being held without bail. Fish everywhere rejoice.

They should have also charged him with cruelty to animals for the fish incident. Or at least with battery. Mmmm....battered fish.

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The Smartest Soccer Playing Goldfish Ever

I think I can safely say that it's perfectly all right to assume that the UK is officially whacked. Whacked as in looped. As in lost it. As in "What in the hell is going on over there?!" Read this and tell me that I'm wrong.

Over yonder at telegraph.co.uk, is a story about a goldfish that plays soccer. That is correct. A goldfish. The universal disposable pet of childhood. Apparently, this particular goldfish, whose name is Comet (cute), can fetch with a hoop, slalom around a series of poles and push a rugby ball over a set of posts. Huh. Diverse. Comet can also play basketball and football, fetch and even "limbo dance under a bar". OK, um, it's a fish. If by "limbo" you mean "swim", I can buy that. If by "limbo" you mean "limbo" you're out of your freaking mind, Jack. Anyway, Behold! Comet, the soccer playing goldfish.

So who is responsible for this fiasco? Apparently, Comet the goldfish has been trained by a one Dr. Dean Pomerleau a 41-year old man whose specialty under which he sports the "Dr." title is unclear and who lives in Los Angeles. He says that he trained Comet by using a "technique" called "positive reinforcement". He continues by telling us that "This involves rewarding the fish with food when it successfully completes a task." Duh.

Just because Dr. Pomerleau has the moniker "Dr." in front of his name doesn't necessarily mean that the laypeople are going to be impressed with words like "positive reinforcement". You want to impress us with big words? Try something that we have no idea what in the hell it means. We can pretty much surmise "positive reinforcement". But try throwing something like "oligotrophic gyres" at us and watch our eyes glaze over in awe and wonder. But back to the fish.

Dr. Pomerleau says that anyone can do this with their own disposable pet. With just a little bit of time and the right amount of food to dole out for the "positive reinforcement", the fish can very quickly learn the complex tricks. I'm beginning to wonder if that's how the "Dr." got to where he is today.

But who am I to talk? I had fish sticks for dinner and this guy has a fish that plays underwater soccer while doing a limbo. Or something like that. Whatever it is, Dr. Pomerleau already has an official world record for having the fish who knows the most tricks. That underwater genius would be Albert Einstein, a three year-old calico fantail fish. But Al better not be getting too comfortable over there in the World's Smartest Fish Throne. That's because Comet already knows all of Al's tricks! Soon Comet could be the World's Smartest Fish. But until then, Behold! Albert Einstein, the World's Smartest Fish!

It doesn't really seem fair to Al that Comet gets to take over. I mean, if Dr. Pomerleau kept teaching Al, Al would continue to reign. Though I don't know what the average lifespan of a goldfish is (or a calico fantail for that matter), I would imagine it's pretty short (those things last about a day after you get them home from the pet store in that Ziploc bag). So perhaps preparing the next fish to hold the title is a good idea, Doc.

I'm off to teach my Sea Monkeys to line dance.

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