"He was carrying what looked like a weapon," homeowner/gun entusiast Frank DiCassi said. "It turned out to be a basket full of boiled eggs and marshmallow chicks, but those could have been placed into a pillowcase to form a deadly improvised club. Well, maybe not deadly, but still, no one wants to get socked in the face with a painted egg."

Actually...

In a tale reminiscent of the last Wallace and Gromit movie, furious villagers in northeast England have hired armed guards to protect their beloved communal vegetable gardens from a suspected monster rabbit.

Leeks, Japanese onions, parsnips and spring carrots have all been ripped up and devoured by the mystery were-rabbit -- prompting the 12 allotment holders in Felton, north of Newcastle, to hire two marksmen with air rifles and orders to shoot to kill.

"It is a massive thing. It is a monster. The first time I saw it, I said: 'What the hell is that?'" the Northumberland Gazette newspaper quoted local resident Jeff Smith, 63, as saying on its website (www.northumberlandtoday.co.uk).

Ultimately, no weapons against it were effective, until finally they consulted the Book of Armaments and used the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. Police say the Holy Hand Grenade was one of the artifacts carried by Brother Maynard.

The story of the enormous rabbit will be told in an upcoming Samuel L. Jackson action thriller, Bunny On A Bullet Train.

Posted by: Ace at 12:41 PM | Comments (33)
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Funny used-car-ad parody. Content warning for profanity. Thanks to Allah.

Rap song set to Thundercats cartoon. Thanks to JD.

Wikipedia entry on famous people who've died in the bathroom. Thanks to Craig.

Man sentenced for "underwear incidents:"

Police received a complaint in August from Parks Department Director Bill Duncanson, who said bras and panties of all different sizes had been hung on the departmentÂ’s vehicles 30 to 50 times at night while they were parked on River Drive. Some of the underwear is new and some seemed to be worn, according to the police report.

Thanks to Craig for that, too.

Star Wars Kid settles lawsuit against classmate tormentors:

As Ghyslain Raza recalled, whenever he walked by his high school's common areas, other students would jump on tables and chant, "Star Wars Kid! Star Wars Kid!"

There would be a commotion as they shouted and poked at him, trying to get a reaction. "It was simply unbearable," he said.

An otherwise ordinary teen in this Quebec small town, Mr. Raza had become a worldwide object of ridicule when schoolmates put on the Internet a video of him clumsily pretending to be a Star Wars character.

Three years later, Mr. Raza and his parents this week reached an out-of-court settlement with the families of three former schoolmates they had sued for $351,000 in damages.

The settlement annuls a civil trial set to begin on Monday that would have scrutinized one of the world's first and most-publicized cases of cyber-bullying.

$351,000? The force is greedy in this one. Thank to Matthew.

A Brokeback Mountain sequel we'll all want to see.

Motley Crue tribute band drummer called up to replace Tommy Lee. Thanks to Craig.

Not at all silly, and not at all for the squeamish. Colonoscopy camera video shows parasitic worms inside patient's colon. Yucch. Thanks to JohnS.

Posted by: Ace at 12:14 PM | Comments (6)
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Three and a half stars. I'd actually give it four stars, but I don't want to come off all gushy.

Brick is pretty much the best hard-boiled detective mystery they've made since... well, Miller's Crossing, I guess, though they don't seem to make too many of them.

It's a classic hard-boiled detective thriller, borrowing elements of its plot from Dashiel Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and Red Harvest (the infinitely-remade plot of an outsider infiltrating a gang in order to destroy it from within). The main character, Brandon, is the archetypal tough-guy sleuth -- he cracks wise when he shouldn't, is smarter than everyone else, can beat the shit out of most people but (most importantly) can also take a ferocious beating and still keep getting up, because he's fearless and undauntable.

The twist is that the movie is set in high school, and Brandon is a 17-year-old loner.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:57 AM | Comments (26)
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Couldn't you at least have the courtesy to say something rude? Or maybe sneer or scowl a bit? Flip the bird, fer crissakes?

But noooooo, suddenly when the secret hidden cameras are on, you're all paragons of civic tolerance, you sanctimonious bastards.

JUSTIN, Texas -- On Friday morning, Jimmie Johnson had no idea about the swirling controversy concerning Dateline NBC's trip to Martinsville Speedway last weekend to gauge NASCAR fans' tolerance to Arab-Americans.

When he found out the network had followed two fans that appeared to be Arab-Americans throughout the weekend -- and that no incidents took place -- he was proud of his sport and its fans.

What did they think would happen? Why did they choose a NASCAR event?

After the confusion wore off from not getting any film of brown people being accosted by the trog hordes, I bet the Dateline guys were mighty peeved.

Because Arab rental is not cheap, my friends.

Anyway, read the whole thing.
NASCAR was not amused.

UPDATE: Christopher Taylor and JannyMae bring the funny:

Posted by: LauraW. at 03:41 PM | Comments (82)
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Which wouldn't be so bad, except he's calling people who frequently have gay-rumors floated about them gay. Good lefties are stridently anti-homophobia, unless it's in their political interests or they can get a cheap joke out of it:

You know when they first started trying to come up with a way to discredit me, which we now know started in March of 2003, they went through the old standbys. "He's had 3 wives, he's a womanizer, he's done drugs." But then they realized they couldn't use those because I've never actually denied them. I mean I'm the first to admit that, unlike Ken Mehlman and David Dreier, I really like women.

I don't know. They guy seems to like to share unnecessary details about his supposed heterosexual couplings. He told Vanity Fair about the really, really hot make-out session he had with his eventually-to-be-wife, SuperSpy Valerie Plame, when they first began dating.

Maybe he's covering up for something. Just sayin'.

Top Ten Things Alleged Heterosexual Joe Wilson Really, Really Likes About Women

10. The way they dress all enticing and provocatively, in a way you wish you had the courage to dress yourself

9. Those strange, pendulous orb-bags dangling from where their rock-hard marble-cut pectoral muscles ought to be

8. That way they arch their backs when they're all aroused, the way Joe Wilson has seen them do in Warrant videos

7. How they know that sometimes you just want to cuddle, unlike men, who always expect "it" (although, you know, God bless men for that, too!)

6. Women, like Joe Wilson, live by the creed "Shop till ya drop!"

5. That mysterious, erotic... thing they have going on "down there;" Joe Wilson just can't get enough of that... thing, whatever the the hell it is, or, for that matter, whatever the hell you're supposed to do with it. What's that... thing for, anyway?

4. They way they smell all sweet and feminine, an enticing mix of musk, weightlifting sweat, and Old Spice

3. Their gorgeously-shaped legs, resembling, in a less attractive way, the heavily muscled legs of male Holy Cross Lacrosse players

2. The way women crush you with their powerful arms and pull your head into their broad chests, bristling with downy-soft hair, and whisper into your ear, "Don't worry, Baby, Daddy's gonna take care of you tonight"

...and the Number One Thing Joe Wilson Really, Really Likes About Women...

1. Seriously, what the hell are you supposed to do with that... thing? It's kind of like a change-purse, but there's no clasp, and it simply won't accessorize with anything. You try matching shoes to... that

Update: "LL Cool Joe" (Lady Lover Cool Joe, that means) also says that William Kristol is a "drunk" and that Ann Coulter is a very "manly" woman.

Which means he really, really, really likes her.

Posted by: Ace at 11:42 AM | Comments (84)
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A guy told it would be easy to set up a website that got 200,000 hits. She called him an idiot. (She was right; it's not easy.)

But they made a bet. If he can't get 200,000 hits (no end-date specified), he agrees that he is an idiot.

If he does get 200,000 hits, his girlfriend has agreed, in writing, to have a menage a trois with him. (And another chick, of course. The good kind of menage a trois, not the dirty, kinda-gay kind.)

So, it's a lady or the tiger thing. I'll leave it up to you. I'll link it, but I'm not clicking on it. You decide whether you want this guy to have All Of His Dirty-Filthy Dreams Come True or not.

Personally, I'm in the "not" category. What the hell did he ever do for me? What do I get out of this, exactly?

Nothing at all, that's what.

Thanks to Craig.

Posted by: Ace at 10:16 AM | Comments (43)
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I got "Belegarth" right, and that should count for something.

Look, not to go all Andrew Sullivan on everyone, but there's a low-calorie sweetener called a suger alcohol, all right? And last night I ate a whole damn bunch of it. Like a full back of sugar-free Twizzlers, and a full pack of sugar-free M&M knock-offs.

If anyone's on Atkins, or a diabetic, they probably know what happens to the digestive system when a buttload of sugar alcohols are pumped into it. Let's just say I got about three hours of sleep last night, in between five hours of being in the bathroom, or groaning doubled-over with painful abdominal bloating and fever-sweats.

So, look, Typo Patrol, I'm barely able to even type. It's only because I've got a Constitution of 20 I'm able to even blog at all.

I will never do that again. I don't know what I was thinking. I think I thought it was a sometime thing, that maybe it would happen some time, but not all the time.

Nope. It's an all-the-time thing. Have more than a few pieces of candy with sugar alcohol in them and your GI tract is going to feel it's the venue for this year's Lollapalooza concert.

Posted by: Ace at 10:03 AM | Comments (52)
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Yes, D&D is dorky, so many more manful geeks flee from it. Into "Belegarth," a "Medieval Combat Sport," featuring "Mixed Martial Arts (MMA)" combats in which the participants just happen to be wearing pontaloons and curly-toed elf slippers.

See-Dubya at Patterico has the scoop on the sport that's sweeping the Tough Geek Nation (all six of them), and a video of a guy's knee getting blown right the hell out as he engages in some goofy "Medieval Mongonlian Wrestling."

He didn't make his saving throw against ACL injuries.

Posted by: Ace at 09:53 AM | Comments (4)
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Everything in sci-fi movies is becoming real, except flying cars.

March 28, 2006 The Eye Ball is about the size of a baseball (roughly 3.25 inches), weighs less than one pound and is encased in a rubber and polyurethane housing that enables it to be thrown through windows or doors and bounced off walls. ItÂ’s when the Eyeball lands that it becomes incredibly useful as it can capture video up to 25 metres distance and audio up to five metres, and then wirelessly send that real-time info up to 200 metres to handheld device. .... It doesnÂ’t even need daylight as it also has night vision capability. Warfighters or Law enforcement officers can roll, toss, or drop the rugged Eye Ball into virtually any hazardous situation - providing the immediate visibility required for users to make safe, intelligent decisions in dangerous environments.

Once deployed, the Eye Ball captures and transmits real-time audio and video to the Eye Ball's Personal Display Unit (PDU). In addition to serving as a wireless receiver, the easy-to-use PDU enables users to direct the Eye Ball with precision, focusing the video camera throughout the Eye Ball's 360-degree viewing area. The PDU also activates the Eye Ball's near-infrared "night vision" for dark operations.

Too cool. I see usefulness in the civilian sector, too. How much would you pay for one of those so you could just roll it under your couch or bed and immediately find your television remote?

Thanks to JohnMc.

Posted by: Ace at 09:44 AM | Comments (23)
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Deroy Murdock sums up the latest bombshell revelations. Worth a read, even if you haven't missed any of this.

I'd quote it, but what would there be to not quote? Every paragraph has Hussein meeting with Osama bin Ladin respresentatives and training terrorists and recruiting suicide bombers to hit "American interests."

This word "containment" you keep using. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Thanks to Rocket's Brain Trust.

Posted by: Ace at 09:39 AM | Comments (29)
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