Loyal
blog readers, thank you for making this a great first year for Devils Walk
Among Us. We started in August and have
grown every month with loyal readers and loyal Floridians feeding us material. As a year-end wrap-up, here are the top five
stories of the first (partial) year of the blog, 2013:
Drunken feral hogs had an
early, and really, unchallenged lead as top animal scourge of the blog. Drunken feral hogs in Australia, North
Carolina and Texas were all wreaking havoc.
Florida also had a solid lead among states represented on the blog, but
Oklahoma and Louisiana were coming up strong and vying for the title. That is,
until loyal reader Matt Sawicki sent in story about surfing rattlesnakes in
Florida.
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| Florida snake, after a surf |
In New Smyrna Beach,
Florida, beachgoers saw a surfing rattle snake.
It was in the waves. It moved to
the beach. An actual Florida wildlife
official said this was not odd behavior (at least for Florida). A future all-star Floridian boy said how cool
it was that part of the snake raised out of the waves. We admonished the boy
that it was not, in fact, cool to have poisonous, land-based snakes in the
surf. Poisonous land-based snakes were
for boots. The story had it all, and was
the number one story of the year. Thank you
Florida. Thank you Matt Sawicki.
This
story about a brazen devil in a huge SUV in suburban north Houston struck a
chord in the blog’s loyal Houston cycling readers who ride their bikes,
practically unprotected through bucolic neighborhoods, trying to get out of
Houston’s urban sprawl for some exercise.
They did no harm. They broke no
traffic laws. They had been in this guy’s neighborhood before. There weren’t hundreds of them, Critical
Mass-style.
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| Ralph Clark - hates cyclists |
No,
Ralph Clark, 74, went insane in suburban Texas style and tried to mow down cyclist
with a huge SUV, swung a bat at the group of them, then added insult to injury
by riding over the bike of one guy, destroying.
Clark was arrested and got to sit in jail, likely muttering about those
city-slickers moving north into the country with their tight-fitting bike
clothes. It was a warning to the loyal
cyclist readers that evil lurks out there, even when you ride peacefully.
Here
was a story that intersected a good sports rivalry with wedded bliss and
things-you-don’t-make-bets-on-with-the-wife. Husband bet wife that the bears
would win. Wife was going for the
Packers. Stop right there. Never should have gotten married. Seriously.
Twice a year, you are guaranteed a massive fight. It’s gonna happen. They
also are long-haul truckers so have to live in a cab together. But they did it anyway, thinking that love
could conquer all. Love couldn’t. He bet her that if the Bears won, he got to
pop her with a stun gun he kept in the cab.
Aaron Rogers went down with a broken collar bone in the first quarter
and the Packers folded like the Cowboys in December.
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| Bears fan who gave one for the team |
Husband
popped her with the stun gun. And like the
Packers fan she is, she welched on the deal, called the cops and claimed
assault. The police looked over texts back and forth, then she finally
admitted, “I didn’t think he’d do it” which probably really meant “I didn’t
think that Aaron Rogers would get hurt and the Packers would fold like the
Cowboys in December.
Husband
got arrested anyway because he didn’t have a permit for the taser. So, get a
permit for the taser, and don’t make taser-related bets on football games with
your spouse unless you’re sure she’s into that sort of thing.
iPhones
aren’t that awesome. I said it. I have an Android. I had a Blackberry before that. Before that,
I had an iPhone for two years and it kept breaking and being not that
awesome. So I don’t understand the
craze. I just don’t. I also don’t get selling your baby for $2500
and using the proceeds to buy an iPhone, gym shoes, and other fancy
things. But a Chinese couple did it, got
arrested, and likely got their iPhone and fancy shoes taken away. They should have just put the baby up for
adoption and gotten an Android which are generally much cheaper, open sourced,
and have a bigger range of options, but less consumer cache.
This
early post about the Northampton, England Clown, dressed as Pennywise, holding
balloons, standing on street corners, staring at people and then knocking on
people’s doors and offering to paint their windows (without any painting
equipment in sight) touched a lot of readers nerves. It led to a deluge of
emails and facebook messages from others (like me) with Coulrophobia (fear of
clowns). Because this guy makes me want
to punch him in the face.
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| Clown who should be punched |
This
is not a happy clown. This is not even
Shakes The Clown, who seemed to be trying hard to please but his drunkenness
got in the way. This was someone playing
with Coulrophobics. The clown liked the publicity.
He said later he was misunderstood and just wanted to be loved. I called B.S.
He was trying to intimidate Coulrophobics and he was doing it. He deliberately choose to dress like a
fictional, murderous clown from a Stephen King novel. And he seemed to set off a clown crime
wave. While he may have been number five
on the list. He is number one in my
book.
ALL TIME SPIRIT ANIMAL OF BLOG: Devil Swine Among Us: Drunk Wild Pigs Wreak Havoc, Attack Cows
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| RIP, with plenty of beer |
The
Australian feral hog got loose in a campsite, broke into a cooler of beer and
drank it, then went berserk. It attacked
a cow and got its butt kicked by the cow before retreating to nurse its
hangover under a tree. We raise a cold one to you, our fallen spirit animal,
the drunken feral hog of Australia.
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