15 | July | 2011 | FridayFunnyLoL

Yeaaah, so we’re welcoming a new member to the Friday Funny LOL family mostly due to our recent debates on the existence of mysterious creatures. Our topics have been regarding Bigfoot and Loch Ness Monster thus far, and the debate has ranged against what is possible and impossible vs. probability dashed with a healthy dose of empirical evidence (or lack there of).

I decided this tied in nicely with the past Friday Funny regarding Whale of a Tale and the photo-shopped photos and altered images of the past.

Now, before we get to Sasquatch (due to time constraints for my research Nessie will have to be later), lets look at a recent attempt of a ‘professional’ trying to pass off a home as being recently painted (and with roof work).

Try to not piss yourself laughing.

"They paid *a lot* of money to have their house painted."

Okay, so this is a little bit digitized from the increase in photo size from when it was downloaded, but you can clearly see:

1. The blue paint is all one even color (no shadow or contrast) despite the shadows you can see cast on the ground and you can tell the person dragged the mouse cursor around the edges of the white trim-boards with a not-so-steady hand applying smurf blue ‘paint’ to the home to give it that ‘fresh’ look.

2. Note the shingles; they are actually very worn and the roof had patches. Basically this person used the ‘spray-can’ technique on Microsoft Paint pallet to spray over the darkened areas and then went back and drew in little wobbly rectangles to simulate shingles.

3. Over the front door and at the peak of the roof directly above that the ‘artist’ gave up drawing rectangles and just opted to coat the roof with a solid gray color from the MS Paint brush pallet again.

To summarize: a toddler with crayons could have done a better job hiding the degraded condition of this home.

Now what I’ve not shown you are the other photos of the home. At the back of the house the ‘artist’ didn’t bother to ‘color’ the house because it wasn’t as bad as the front from the original inspection.

The only other time I’ve seen a representative try to manipulate the system by blatantly lying and using forged images was when a home had a boarded up garage door and they provided a copy of the GOOGLE street view facing the home and then cropped the image to get rid of the “GOOGLE” water-mark that is latent in all their street scenes. Too bad for them, I spend more time then I care to driving GOOGLE streets looking at wild brush, I could tell right away the image was from the GOOGLE car-cam even without the water-mark.

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Lets get back to Bigfoot. I know, I know, there are a lot of other ~~mysterious~~ creatures, but lets keep it to Bigfoot for now.

As a kid growing up I was totally into Bigfoot, and nothing would make me happier knowing that Oregon did in fact contain a fascinating throw-back, or possible missing link, to a different era of humanity. I just can’t bring myself to believe anymore given the information that I’ve read. But, I’ll let you decide.

My little neck of the woods. 13 acres in Dilley, Oregon

versus

Pacific NW Bigfoot Territory

There was this one time I totally convinced my friend I saw Bigfoot outside our barn window while we were feeding the horses and barn cat. I feel only a little bad about that, because it was really funny.

Mr. Bigfoot was a creation originating in the 50’s out of Canada, and then sightings shortly there after from miners in the California area. Indeed there are numerous reports in the Northern, CA area where the red-wood forests are especially dense. The classic video of Bigfoot walking across the dry creek bed is from that location. Dr. Karl Shuker of “The UneXplained” goes into further detail on this video.

Roger Patterson filmed the incident on October 20’th 1967 in the company of fellow rancher Bob Gimlin in Bluff Creek, CA. Professor Grover Krantz, from Washington State University, believes the Patterson film is genuine, stating that a human wearing a bigfoot suit could not achieve the muscle movements and precise striding gait performed by the creature.

Nay sayers claim that it is common special effects knowledge to stick someone in a suit and get the same results.

Yet when bigfoot researcher John Green contacted experts at the Disney Studio, always at the forefront of cinematic special effects, for their opinion as to whether the techniques for creating such a film were available in 1967, they told him that they could not have duplicated it at the time.

However, the footprint found by workmen at Bluff Creek in 1958 is disputed as being a fake as a result of a prank.

What makes this so significant, if true, is that reports of such creatures in the US had previously been few and far between. Not only that, this was the case that earned the creature its name of bigfoot. Hence if this pivotal episode is indeed founded upon a hoax, how dependable are the countless bigfoot sightings and numerous discoveries of giant footprints found in the US since then?

For example, the alleged samples of bigfoot hair obtained during the 1987-88 in the Blue Mountains of Washington and Oregon were revealed by physicist Edward Winn in 1991 to be synthetic fibers.

Despite many hoaxes being performed both for the sake of photos, other videos (as I’ve never heard anyone come forward and admit the ‘Patterson Video’ to be a hoax), and the notorious Bigfoot foot prints believers point to the fact that Native Americans from California through British Columbia have tales and depictions of a large beast man in the woods.

Bokwus

On Bigfoot-lives.com they go on to describe many aspects of the Bigfoot legend. According to local Native Americans the name of Bigfoot in their native language is: Kwakliutls call it ‘Bokwas,’ Hoopa call it ‘Omah,’ and Shalish tribes call it ‘Sasquatch.’

Fascinatingly the numerous BLOGS out there about Bigfoot contradict themselves. Another blog article I found: http://www.theastralworld.com/cryptozoology/bigfoot-history.php goes on to say that ‘Sasquatch’ is a made up word that is a derived from a different Native American word ‘Sasquaec’ among others.

Both blogs above report that the Natives of British Columbia had fierce masks and totem poles that resemble more beast then man.

Again, from “The UneXplained” goes on to hypothesize that there is a better chance that Sasquatch in Canada is more feasible then the existence of Bigfoot in the lower 48.

These include a sasquatch mask carved from red cedar and dating from 1850-70, which was originally worn by the Niska branch of the Tsimshian nation in British Columbia. Now housed in Harvard University’s Peabody Museum, it is the oldest known Canadian sasquatch mask. By offering the closest match to eyewitness descriptions of the creature, it is also the most realistic; other sasquatch masks on record from this region are noticeably stylized.

Tsimshian mask found on the James Randi Educational Foundation blog. Along with the Bokwus mask above.

Tsimshian Mask

Really? I love native art, think it is fascinating, but you know what it isn’t? Realistic. They are beautiful artistic expressions of the surrounding area, from trees to wild-life to people, they do not reflect an accurate or proportional representation of any of those things.

Observe:

Pacific NW Native American Art piece.

Canadian Black Bear sculpture by Mathias

compared to an actual Black Bear.

Courtesy of http://www.firstpeople.us

Here we have a more contemporary painting of a Black Bear.

Painting by Paul Wolber

Ta-dah. Moving along now…

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From various news sources, one of which being Huff Post of Los Angeles.

Catherine Kieu Becker of Garden Grove reportedly prepared dinner for her husband and put a poisonous substance or drug in his food to make him drowsy, reports KTLA. While the man was sleeping, Becker allegedly tied him to the bed. When he awakened, Becker cut his penis off with a knife and threw it into the garbage disposal, turning it on as she did so.

Lt. Jeff. Nightengale told NBC LA that Becker called 911 at around 10 p.m. requesting emergency assistance. Nightengale said that Becker “told responding officers that he ‘deserved it.'” Nightengale also revealed that the married couple was going through a divorce.

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From Chuck Shepherd’s News of the Weird.

Seed Demon, ROFL…

Todd Whitehurst may be the “father” of from 42 to 60 children, based on statistical probability that recognizes his virtuosity as a sperm donor, according to a June New York Post profile (though one website, Donor Sibling Registry, claims to have documented 129 children sired by an unnamed seed demon, who is one of 92 highly productive men with 10 or more). Whitehurst, who like the others, was selected based on his sperm’s profile and speed, donated weekly for about three years in the late 1980s (for $50 a session), and has been contacted so far by nine teenagers who sent him their photos after piecing together evidence identifying him (despite sperm banks’ promises of confidentiality). Whitehurst, acknowledging the resemblances to his “offspring,” seems to find the relationships fulfilling, however limited they are. Said he, “I love Father’s Day.” [New York Post, 6-19-2011]

Smarmy bastards…

Bank of America (BA) had the tables turned on it in June after the company wrongfully harassed an alleged mortgage scofflaw in Naples, Fla. BA had attempted to foreclose on homeowners Warren and Maureen Nyerges last year even though the couple had bought their house with cash — paid directly to BA. It took BA a year and a half to understand its mistake — that is, until the Nyergeses sued and won a judgment for expenses of $2,534, which BA promptly ignored. The Nyergeses’ attorney obtained a seizure order, and two sheriff’s deputies, with a moving truck, arrived at the local BA branch on June 3 to load $2,534 worth of furniture and computer equipment from the bank’s offices. After about an hour on the phone with higher-ups, the local BA manager issue a check for $2,534. [Naples Daily News, 6-3-2011]

Slither, slither, slither…

China’s sleepy Zisiqiao Village in Zhejiang province is actually headquarters for the country’s revered snake industry, with 160 families raising about 3 million serpents a year, mostly to harvest livers and gall bladders for soup, wine, and other products consumed for their immunity-building properties. In a June Reuters dispatch, one farmer described the 25-year evolution of “Snake Town” from a place where farmers simply threw males and females together for breeding to today’s sophisticated production facilities that supply proper snake diets, research measures to enrich female fertility, and provide enhanced incubation conditions. [Reuters, 6-20-2011]

Hating just to hate, and being really stupid about it in the process…

Alleged gang members Barbara Lee, 45, and Marco Ibanez, 19, were arrested in Hallandale Beach, Fla., in April and charged in the assault and stabbing of four deaf people. Lee was at the Ocean’s Eleven Lounge one evening when she saw several people in a group make hand signs that she interpreted as disrespecting her own gang’s signs, and, according to police, left to recruit Ibanez to come administer retribution. Unknown to Lee or Ibanez, the group were deaf people using sign language and had no idea they were making “gang” signs. [New York Daily News, 5-1-2011]

Stuck on you…

A 93-year-old woman was rescued by medics in Philadelphia in April after spending several days stuck in her own toilet. (According to KYW-TV, she had to be carried out with a portion of the toilet still stuck tightly to her body.) [KYW-TV (Philadelphia), 4-5-2011]

In Tooting, England, in May, an unnamed senior was rescued by firefighters after he got his testicles caught in a shower seat in which he was sitting while bathing. [The Guardian, 5-11-2011]

Parkridge Medical Center in Chattanooga, Tenn., apologized and paid the bill in June for exhuming the body of the recently deceased Kenneth Manis. The man who had shared Mr. Manis’ hospital room during his final days had reported that his dentures were missing, and the hospital determined that they had been mistakenly buried with Mr. Manis. [Commercial-Appeal (Memphis)-AP, 6-23-2011]

Seriously, what the crap is going on in Japan?

Toshihiko Mizuno, 55, was arrested in Tokyo in June after three girls, ages 9 and 10, reported that he had talked them into spitting for him so that he could record it on video, to assist with “research” he was doing on “saliva.” Police later discovered 26 videotapes, featuring about 400 young girls spitting. According to local media sources, Mizuno has had the obsession for 17 years, successfully getting at least 500 girls to spit, among the estimated 4,000 he propositioned. [NDTV (New Delhi, India)-Agence France-Presse, 6-14-2011]

Ha! and Double Ha!

Eric Cogan, 33, was arrested in Port St. Lucie, Fla., in June after (according to police) presenting a holdup note to a teller at a TD Bank. To get to the teller, Cogan walked right by a sheriff’s cruiser parked in front of the bank and a deputy in uniform seated inside the bank’s entrance. [TCPalm.com (Stuart, Fla.), 6-11-2011]

In April, Matthew Hudleston, 33, pleaded guilty in Mobile, Ala., to robbing a Regions Bank, using a holdup note that mentioned a gun. He got away but was arrested after he returned a few minutes later to ask for the holdup note back. [Mobile Press-Register, 4-25-2011]

Self-described anarchist Luciano Pitronello Schuffeneger was hospitalized and placed in a medically induced coma after a bomb he was planning for a Banco Santander bank in Santiago, Chile, exploded prematurely. He suffered third-degree burns and lost both hands and his eyesight, after accidentally tripping the bomb’s trigger before entering the bank. [Daily Mail (London), 6-3-2011]

Mr. Isabel Gutierrez, 53, died of a heart attack in Refugio County, Texas, in June, after taking a break during the act of raping a 77-year-old woman. He told his victim that he didn’t feel well, moved away from her, and stopped breathing. [Corpus Christi Caller-Times, 6-13-2011]

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Hmmph, I was going to leave off the trivia questions, but I decided I liked having them, so here you go. Trivia answers below. 🙂

Twisting it up, I’ll show you a picture you: Name that Land Mark! Bonus points if you can name where they are found. (Don’t cheat by putting your mouse cursor on the image!)