First Day of Spring and this Happens...

First day of Spring today, and already a tragedy. It seems one can't even ride a boat without being attacked by huge flying venomous fish.
And they complain that too many species are becoming endangered because of overfishing and pollution. I say, not enough, sir.



Jumping eagle ray kills boater off Florida Keys
Thu Mar 20, 2008 2:00pm EDT

MIAMI (Reuters) - An eagle ray leaped onto a boat off the Florida Keys on Thursday and stabbed a woman with its barb, knocking her to the deck and killing her, a Florida wildlife investigator said.

"It's a bizarre accident," said Jorge Pino, an agent with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The woman and her family were aboard a boat in the Atlantic Ocean, off the city of Marathon in the Florida Keys, he said.

"A large ray jumped out of the water and collided with the victim and somehow the barb penetrated some part of her body, which caused her to fall back and hit her head on some portion of the vessel," Pino said. "We don't know exactly which one of those things caused her death."

Local media said the animal's barb had impaled the woman through the neck.
Eagle rays are common in warm or tropical waters and are often seen near coral reefs. The spotted creatures can grow to more than 8 feet across and have two to six short, venomous barbs near the base of their whip-like tails, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History's Web site.

The rays often swim near the water's surface and can leap out, especially when pursued, but are generally shy of humans.

"All rays leap out of the water from time to time but certainly to see one collide with a vessel is extremely unusual," Pino said.

Extremely unusual, or the wave of the future?

Here's a picture of the SOB. You decide:

Notice the woman's visor. Would not want to get by one of those...

Reminding you to watch out for the rays this Spring,

--Barry

Skyscrapers Scraping

Today is a wonderfully warm day here in Rogers Park.





Also, it was a pretty decent day for me, a student attending the "Yale of Rogers Park," aka Loyola University Chicago.





But that's besides the point. Did you hear they finally released pictures of New York Governer Mike Spritz's prostitute friend?





I love the photos chosen for this AP story. Please notice the contrast:

Dang, she's fine. Him, not so much.

Apparently, this Ashley Alexanda Deprey has a well-maintained MySpace page, but I was unable to find it. He also has three teenage daughters. Ha.

I wonder if she used MySpace to find clients. And I wonder if she was free-lance or worked for somebody...but I bet she's pretty expensive either way.

Hmmm.....I wonder if I could become a MySpace Pimp.

There is money to be made. Any honeys looking to make a little scrilla? Send me a headshot, and then maybe we'll talk.

I love spring,

--Barry

The Epic Voyage to Sonic

Last night, friends, was an epic night.

It all revolves around my first ever visit to Sonic, aka "America's Drive-In." You see, here in Toledo they constantly show the commericials for Sonic, but there is none to be found around here. The closest one is in miniscule Van Wert, Ohio, approximately 2 hours away from my house.

And, boy, the stuff they show in these commercials is tantalizing. Shakes and ice cream and double cheeseburgers and slushies. Mmmm. Obviously, my friends and I do not want to be put out of "the loop," so we have made multiple vows to visit Sonic. However, none of those came to fruition. That is, until last night [triumphant music].

I was bumming around my house after dinner, texting multiple friends to see if anything sexy was going on. That's when I caught wind of the trip, and it seemed the just thing to do. So I ventured off in my humble Mercury Voyager to Bowling Green, Ohio, home of the BGSU Falcons and my old high school friends' apartment. There we made our plans.

We departed at about 9:20 PM, "we" including myself, my friend Erik, my friend Chris and his new beau Kelly. Mind you, the Sonic we were going to closed at midnight, so if we got lost and attacked by the Van Wert zombies, we could easily miss the time frame. Nevertheless, it was a risk we were willing to take to have our first taste of Sonic.

We made it to Van Wert after an hour and twenty minutes of reminiscing and poking each other (we went to an all guys school, so it's cool). Then we saw the Sonic's beacon of welcoming light and we zoomed over and pulled up right next to one of the talker-majigers. We ordered cheeseburgers all around, and some onion rings, fries, and tator tots, and root beers. Delicious.

We waited about ten minutes, getting more and more thirsty for beef. Finally, an overweight middle-aged woman comes to our window, saying she dropped our food and that she will make us some more. We said, "wha?" Then we looked behind us and saw the fiasco, a tray, bags of food, smashed soft drinks. I then felt the instant pangs of regret that I did not see the woman fall.

Alas.

I sat there studying the bags, noticing how the cheeseburgers were probably still edible. Then I proposed, kinda jokingly in case anybody thought I was weird: "You know, ha, I bet those burgers are still good, it's a shame that there just going to waste, hahaha." Luckily, I got the reaction I was fishing for: "Go get 'em!" So I scampered out of the car, making sure no employees saw our theft of garbage, grabbed the bag and dashed back to my seat. I was right, the cheeseburgers were delicious. We scarfed them down quickly, in case people saw us and were pissed (which was pretty unfounded, considering a guy came out soon after with a snow shovel and shoveled the remains into a garbage can).

A guy later came out with our new food, and said that the lady had hurt herself pretty bad but wanted to make it up to us by giving us free Sonic Blasts. Not being one to refuse Van Wert hospitality, I was like, "Wa-hoo! Free Ice Cream!"

We finished our Round 2 of food and headed for the drive-thru window. There we met the woman, who had obviously been crying. We ordered our blasts and acted really concerned, and, man, was she laying down the guilt. "Yeah, I hurt myself pretty bad. I never felt pain like that before. It was like a flashing light...I'll probably hafta go to the Emergency Room, but I want to give you guy some ice cream first." I was like, "c'mon, just get us the ice cream already, lady..." (not really, but I was thinking it). She went to make our blasts, and we were discussing and praising how great a trip that was, but at some point we decided that we shouldn't be laughing at her misfortune while waiting to get our free guilt-ice cream.

And that was it. We drove the hour and twenty minutes back to BG happy as clams, with bellies full of free road-burgers and ice cream, talking about the wonderfulness of the Saga of Sonic.

I'm not sure if I can ever go back, because my experience will never be as great.

I hope she didn't die.

Here's to you, head-trauma Sonic lady,
--Barry

Break is Sprung!

I am awful, I know. I haven't posted in over ten days. Whatevs.

But, in the good news, it is spring break! Wahoo! Spring Break 08! Lift your top!

Not cool.

Actually, I'm I just Megabused it back here last night. It was on one of them new-fangled double-decker Megabuses, and I got to sit on the top level. Frickin' sweet. Basically, if I had to make a dramatic exit, I could've just busted out the window and lept onto a passing semi. Unfortunately, the other passengers would probably then steal all my clothes. I did not trust them.

So now I'm home, and it's really cold here. My little sisters have been having snow days left and right, and the ground's pretty firmly covered. And I'm sitting home alone here, cold. My parents refuse to have the thermostat on during the day when no one's here, which makes good sense. But they also turn it off when I'm home, which means my fingers are about to fall off. I could go and turn it on myself, but I'm unsure of my abilities to work the thermostat, so I just shiver here until Mom comes home.

Spring break has been, and most likely will remain, pretty low key. We had Guys and Dolls rehearsals up until Tuesday, and then there was a healthy amount of drinking each night.

Tuesday night, my last night in town and a good friend's 21st birthday, I decided to stumble around the city alone at 3:30 AM. I discovered a place where I can get a real decent Gyro at 4 AM. That made me really happy. I was really intoxicated.

I have no plans for this week--probably eat at Wendy's and Taco Bell to get ma fix, maybe drink a little in BGSU, and catch up on a lot of required reading. Yikes.

Again, I apologize for my tardiness. I shall keep this place more updated in the future.

Peace on Earf,
--B@rrY