I went to Vegas and woke up married

Well I'm back from my vacation/wedding/honeymoon. It was good overall, but I have to say that Vegas was both good and bad. First off, don't bother seeing it in the daylight. The trash and homeless people are a lot less noticeable in the dark, and the buildings are a lot prettier. Second, the cocktail waitresses are all ugly and old. I think the reason people at the slot machines drink so much is that since the drinks are free (as long as you gamble) you might as well put your beer-goggles on and enjoy yourself. Third, they only gave us about 8 channels on our tv (two of which were the service menu and the preview channel). Despite that, we did have a nice room and we were so close to the strip that we could easily walk to it and up and down it. I'll have to write more about the trip, but I thought the most memorable part of Vegas was all the advertisements for "escorts". There were billboard trucks driving down the streets with ads, there were little business cards strapped to light poles, there were newspaper holders for the larger ads (free of course) and there were guys trying to hand us stuff in front of the casinos. I got some samples to show you guys.

I just want to stop seeing Bot Flies

So I'm posting this in the hopes it will descend on the screen. How about some happier pictures? The internet considers these pictures to be "happy". The really long picture was titled "Ron Jeremy's first goatse".

Bot Flies

Alright guys, its time for some more disturbing news. Except for Nat-Wu, who's probably been infected a time or two, most of you probably aren't aware of how sick nature can be. I learned about these critters back in a veterinary entomology course when I was attending Texas A&M. Here's a definition of a bot fly from a website:

"Bot Fly, common name for any member of a family of large, stout-bodied, parasitic flies, also called warble flies. Bot flies are believed to be the fastest-flying of all insects and attain speeds of 64 to 80 km/h (40 to 50 mph). Although harmless in the adult stage, the larvae, called bots, are parasites that live in the body-cavity tissues of mammals, usually causing severe pain and sometimes death. The adult horse bot fly resembles a bee. It lays its eggs on the shoulders or flanks of the animal; the eggs are licked off by the horse and enter the digestive tract, where the larvae quickly hatch and attach themselves to the walls of the stomach and intestines. The sheep bot fly lays eggs in the nostrils of sheep. When hatched, the larvae can block the respiratory tract, thereby causing the animal's death. The human bot fly affects humans and members of the deer family in the Tropics. The female lays her eggs on mosquitoes and other biting insects, which carry them to the actual host. When the eggs come into contact with the warm host, the larvae hatch, burrow beneath the skin, and lodge in the muscles.
Scientific classification: Bot flies constitute the family Oestridae, order Diptera. The horse bot fly is classified as Gasterophilus intestinalis, the sheep bot fly as Oestrus ovis, and the human bot fly as Dermatobia hominis."

Sounds gross enough, but wait there's more. Cattle bot flies burrow into the legs of cattle, crawl up through the animals body over a period of weeks and burst from the tissue of the back in the final stages. When they are at the bursting stage they near the size of a quarter. We're not talking about just the African jungle, we're talking about North America. Here's a diary account of someone's trials:

"As I type, I am ready to puke. I can feel them wiggling around in my arm. The larvae have sharp spines to help them stay lodged in their new home, so whenever they move around it hurts like hell. They also have a little breathing tube that I can actually see emanating from the puncture made by the mosquito. I have been told that the larvae are quite harmless and that there is nothing to fear. If I like the little darlings, I can simply let them grow to maturity whereupon they will pack their bags and leave the roost, kissing daddy goodbye. But the ongoing nauseous feeling of maggots growing in me is a total turn-off. It is creeping my girlfriend out and I am not allowed in the same bed as her. She is afraid they may hatch in the middle of the night.
I have three more days to go before I return to the clinic. So for three more days I will attempt to forget about these things at every opportunity. That is, until one of them decides to wiggle around. I wonder what the folk on the subway would think if they knew.

THE BIG DAY
Today's the big day. Iggy and Squiggy get their walking papers. I've had it. These things have long outgrown their usefulness as the ultimate gross-out tool. Besides I no longer enjoy the dubious distinction of being a medical freak. I simply want to go back to my life prior to becoming a maggot-infested host.
The larvae seem to have grown. At least the bumps on my arm are growing so we suspect it is the little critters gobbling away on my tender bod. The doctor's scalpel cannot strike soon enough...
It was not to be. Apparently cutting out the larvae is a last resort, and one other step was recommended. I was instructed to take beer caps, fill them full of Vaseline, place the beer caps over the spot, and tape them tightly against my skin. Amazingly, this method of treatment has a long and positive history. The idea was that the maggots would start to suffocate and voluntarily leave the host searching for air. The bugs enter the vaseline-filled bottle cap where they eventually die of asphyxiation. So much for modern medicine.
I needed no encouragement to generate new beer bottle caps for my treatment. I got home and made a beeline for the fridge. Equipped with the tools for an offensive strike, I felt confident. My journey was almost over.
But wait: perhaps this was an opportunity for me to do some research and experimentation. The doctor said that the maggots didn't like tobacco resin. If I smother their nest with the resin, they might exit on their own accord. I lit up a smoke and drank my beers. It made sense somehow. Tobacco is used by the Indians of the Lacandon jungle to ward off insects and snakes as well. Many Indians plant tobacco around their huts for this very purpose. They also eat lots of hot peppers which when sweated out coats the body with a natural anti mosquito repellent, but it was a little too late for me to try that trick.
Soon I had enough resin --- two smokes worth, to be precise. I covered one of the large red sores on my arm and waited. Magnifying glass in hand, I searched for any sign of movement. Nada, Iggy wouldn't budge.
Plan B. We filled two beer caps with Vaseline and taped them to my arm. I felt a little movement after about twenty minutes, then nothing. I watched TV, then took my baby bot-flies off to bed.

LIBERATING IGGY
The next morning I was off to the hospital again. The small room was filled to capacity with curious students and interns. The doctor removed the beer caps and inspected the area. Nothing. The larvae were still in me. However, there had been absolutely no wiggling at all for many hours. We assumed that the beasts were dead. The doctor then started squeezing one of the wounds to extract the carcasses. If you would like to know how this feels, ask somebody to pinch you as hard as they can and not let go for at least ten minutes.
The doctor pinched and pinched. Everyone watched in anticipation. Then all of a sudden part of the maggot popped out of the hole. It was like a scene out of the movie Alien. I screamed. Not because it hurt but because it was the grossest thing I had ever witnessed in my life. The doc gave another big squeeze and more of the thing popped out. I let out an even bigger scream as the thing's body was now clearly oozing out of the hole.
As everybody in the room jostled to get a closer look, the doctor advised me not to watch anymore. I agreed. Finally, the whole thing popped out. One down, one to go. The doc started a new squeezing frenzy but after a few minutes he was exhausted. A new doctor took over. The pinching intensified. My arm felt like one big bruise!
Squiggy would not budge. No matter how much the doctors squeezed, the maggot would not exit. My arm was numb with pain. We finally agreed to let him stay there and my white blood cells would have a picnic on the maggot's body. The doctor bottled my former house-pet for me to show everyone at home, and off I went, Fly-Boy no more. Over time the swelling in my arm has subsided.

POSTSCRIPT
You could say that I possess a deeper affinity with the insect world after my ordeal, although I am not eager to repeat the experience of serving as a maggot host. Instead, the words of my jungle brother now have come into sharper focus. He once told me that it was not so much the big things in the jungle that you have to worry about, but the little things. How right he was. "

Don't torture animals!

Mouse thrown into fire sets house ablaze
06:09 PM CST on Sunday, January 8, 2006
Associated Press


FORT SUMNER, N.M. - A mouse got its revenge against a homeowner who tried to dispose of it in a pile of burning leaves. The blazing creature ran back to the man's house and set it on fire.

Luciano Mares, 81, of Fort Sumner said he caught the mouse inside his house and wanted to get rid of it.

"I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire, and the mouse was on fire and ran back at the house," Mares said from a motel room Saturday.

Village Fire Chief Juan Chavez said the burning mouse ran to just beneath a window, and the flames spread up from there and throughout the house.

No was hurt inside, but the home and everything in it was destroyed.

Unseasonably dry and windy conditions have charred more than 53,000 acres and destroyed 10 homes in southeastern New Mexico in recent weeks.

"I've seen numerous house fires," village Fire Department Capt. Jim Lyssy said, "but nothing as unique as this one."

In other news...

I have to put this up because it relates to some co-workers (and one former one) of ours, namely the boys of Lame, our library's future rock stars. I wouldn't put this link up just because they were mentioned, but because this critic absolutely hated everyone who took part in Trees' closing concert. It led to quotes like "but this closing concert reached a level of suck that would make even Curtain Club's worst schedules blush". However, I'm most amused because of this phrase: "the butt-rock circus repeatedly jabbed its poop-stained knives into Trees' dwindling heart."

How poetic. I just love that "butt-rock circus" part. I have no idea what it means.

Sick, nasty, dirty man

Just read this first paragraph because it speaks better for itself than I can, and I'm sure it will compell you to read the rest of the article.

I have waited patiently for the holiday season to expire. Now I'm afraid I must bring up the guy who got caught sprinkling his own dried feces on the doughnut display last summer at Fiesta Mart. For some weeks I have been in possession of new information--a haunting burden for me. I kept expecting him to appear among the carolers.

Rest of article here.

Hey guys, this story does touch us in a small way. The alleged perpetrator also "vandalized" the Dallas Central library. Miriam Rodriguez, who used to work with us is quoted in the article.

Tight Anal Ticket?

That was the title of a spam email I just received. Should I accept it? Where do you think this ticket will take me?

Also, I got another spam mail the other day from a "Lindsey Foster." Lindsey was the name of my recently ex-girlfriend and Foster is the last name of her's and my hot friend. How do they do that?

Lou Rawls dead; we mourn

I know when Alex heard the news he shed big, blubbery tears. John would have, but he was too busy whipping himself for living when such a great man has died!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060106/ap_en_mu/obit_rawls

LOS ANGELES - Lou Rawls, the velvet-voiced singer who started as a church choir boy and went on to record such classic tunes as "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine," died Friday of cancer. He was 72.

However, I think this could be a case of an artist going into retirement by faking his death, just like Tupac. See here:

Rawls' family and Shefrin said the singer was 72, although other records indicate he was 70.

So who was it that died? Alex, dry your tears. John, stop whipping! He may not be dead and life may return to normal as we know it. We must research this issue and bring all the investigative powers of the Horadrim to bear!