A fish out of water
The United States is being invaded by a creepy invasive species of fish that can breathe on land. The state of Georgia is taking no chances, and its Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Resources Division announced last week that the public should destroy any occurrences of the fish they see. The fish can grow up to three feet long, spawns multiple times a year, and eats everything from other fish to crustaceans and amphibians. It can live for days outside of water. In the past, the freaky fish has inspired two science fiction movies: Snakehead Terror and Frankenfish.
Unwanted brew
Among the tenets of the Mormon faith is to swear off all alcohol, but a vehicle accident near a Latter-day Saints church in a Salt Lake City suburb has complicated things. A truck carrying cases of beer was struck by a pickup truck which ran a red light and veered into the empty church parking lot, strewing cans of the banned liquid across the premises. The driver of the truck was taken to the hospital with non life threatening injuries. No word on whether alcohol was a factor in the crash.
Poo flags
The city of Springfield, Missouri, is getting serious about poo. The city is now cracking down on abandoned dog poop in a campaign to get residents to pick up their pet’s feces in the downtown area by planting flags near the abandoned dookie. The flags, which are made of bamboo and recycled paper, contain messages such as “Is this your turd? ‘Cuz that’s absurd,” and “This is a nudge to pick up the fudge.” According to the city, it picks up nearly 25 pounds of poop a week from downtown parks and parking lots, which costs the community about $7,500 every year.
If they only had a brain
As Halloween approaches, a city in Tennessee is putting 4,000 scarecrows on display in an attempt to break an important record: most scarecrows in a municipality. Residents of Gatlinburg, southeast of Knoxville near Great Smoky Mountains National Park, is attempting to break the current Guinness World Record of 3,812 scarecrows in a single community, which was set by a town in Great Britain in 2014. Why? “A couple years ago, we expanded our fall decorations to include these really cute scarecrows,” Gatlinburg’s public relations manager, Marci Claude, told a local TV station. “We set up those all over town for people to take pictures and create memories … this year we decided to amp up our scarecrow presence and really just go for the world record.” According to city officials, a film crew would document all the scarecrows for Guinness.
What the F?
After hearing a customer swear at one of his newest establishments, the owner of one of the United Kingdom’s largest independent brewery and pub chains has shut down the Fox and Goose in Droitwich Spa, Worcestershire. The 74-year-old owner has previously banned profane language and mobile phones at all 200 of his pubs, and when he overheard a customer telling a fellow patron a joke that included the F-bomb, he decided to immediately close the place. “No one can quite believe the pub’s been shut,” a local told The Independent. “It’s a bit daft really because a pub’s where you go to let off steam and enjoy a bit of banter with other people.”
A chocolate lover
How much do you love chocolate? Probably not as much as the 44-year-old Seattle man who broke into a downtown office building last week and chowed down on $200 worth of chocolate, according to the city’s police department. The man proceeded to take off his shoes, watch, and jacket and relax on a couch, in the dark mind you, inside an upper floor office. When police arrived, the man reportedly told them, “You will have to kill me to take me to jail.” He was arrested without incident, however, and booked on suspicion of burglary, malicious mischief and two other warrants.
Burning nuts
A Pennsylvania woman discovered some squirrels had decided to prepare for winter by storing their stash of walnuts in a strange place: under the hood of her car. The Pittsburgh woman said she smelled something burning while recently driving to an auto dealership. She stopped her car, got out and popped the hood, and found roughly 200 walnuts — which the small rodents had evidently taken from a walnut tree in her own yard — around the engine. The animals had also padded the hood with mounds of grass, she said. “They were everywhere, under the battery, near the radiator fan,” her husband told CNN. “The walnuts on the engine block were black and smelled like they were definitely roasting,” he added. The couple pulled out most of the nuts, but mechanics at a local garage removed even more — enough to fill half a trash can — from areas the couple couldn’t reach. The vehicle was otherwise undamaged.
Goat on the loose
A teen in Ohio returned home to see their home’s sliding glass door smashed open with a billy goat taking a nap in the family’s bathroom. Ashland County sheriff’s deputies responded to the goat break-in and, with some help from a local humane society, they were able to capture the goat in a large dog cage. Authorities were able to find the goat’s owner, who said the animal had been missing for several days.
