Zac Pradel

You presumably deal with a lot of weird stuff when you work at a urology clinic. But dealing with a walk-in patient who's severed his arm with a homemade guillotine is probably a new one.

The man in Bellingham, Washington, was living in a transient camp near the clinic when he used his guillotine to lop off his arm just below the shoulder, after which he strolled into the clinic to receive treatment. When police went to the camp where the man had been living, they found the missing arm and the guillotine, which they say was built with "2-by-6s at least 12 feet long, a few 2-by-4s and a construction-grade cutting device that was 2-feet-by-3-feet and half-an-inch thick." The man told police the wound was self-inflicted, and the gauze and tape they found near the guillotine pretty much jives with that story.

The man was airlifted to a hospital to try to have his arm reattached, but his status isn't known. The guillotine itself was dismantled with a chainsaw in what is probably the baddestass intersection of cutting devices the town of Bellingham will see for the rest of the year. [King5 via Fark, Washington Post, Seattle Times]

Today’s commercials are blurring the line between lies and really big lies.

Seattle, Wash. — As the work begins to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) announced that they will use demolition techniques learned from playing countless hours of the video game Angry Birds.

Civil engineer Michael Bastion explained how the viaduct deconstruction would proceed, “We’re going to start with the big red birds, they’re awesome for taking out large concrete superstructures. Then, when you get down to rebar, you have to zing some of those quick yellow guys in there to slice it up.”

Safety Concerns

WSDOT community liaison, Bill Campeau, assured waterfront businesses that the plan was completely safe, explaining, “The drawn out disputes and delays over a viaduct replacement option have allowed our entire department the time necessary to focus on gaining critical expertise at flinging angry birds.”

WSDOT has determined–through hundreds of hours of simulations–that they will unfortunately not be able to use the black bomber birds, for fear of taking out Ivar’s and potentially destabilizing the sea wall.

Alternate Methodologies Considered

Some of the old guard engineers within WSDOT have expressed concerns over deploying Angry Birds within the confines of the city. Instead, they would prefer to use traditional demolition techniques, by employing Super Mario and his brother Luigi to safely smash the viaduct from below. Still, other engineers are pushing for a “pong-like” solution.

Oink! Oink!

However, some swine activists are trying to derail the entire project, calling for an immediate halt to demolition efforts. They expressed concerns that the viaduct is the natural habitat for a rare species of green pigs.

The Back Side Of The Force of the Day: An Offbeat Bride reader recently shared a rather heartwarming story about an autistic flower girl at a friend’s wedding who overcame her apprehension with a little help from the littlest Jedi.

“T” was understandably anxious about having to perform her flower girl duties in front of so many wedding guests, and expressed it by hiding under her bed.

It was only after her aunt promised her a Yoda backpack that she agreed to come out.

“Her aunt took her to the toy shop,” the reader writes, “and from that moment on Yoda sat on her shoulder and she seemed to feel safe with him there.”

She continues:

When it came time to put on the dress and head to the church T flat refused to go without Yoda on her shoulder. Her mother, the bride, said to her family “If Yoda helps T get to the church and walk down that aisle with all those people watching, then Yoda is coming!”

[offbeatbride.]

Thanks to my friend Eric Horton for today’s comic idea (plus for the seven hours of rigorous coffee tasting needed to verify this comic).

Ryan Watkins has snagged himself quite a lady. She wanted to have a Mario Bros-themed wedding, so she solicited her friend Larry Quatch to helm them design some really unique retro cartridge invitations.

Needless to say, you can add these invitations right to our Nerdy Ways To Say “I Do” feature from yesterday.

Obviously, what came up with is truly fantastic—but what you see in the image above is only part of the design. Check out Quach’s website for more detailed pics.

(via Reddit)

Not the first Star Wars alphabet of course, but still—where was this crap when I was learning my ABCs?

(Fabian Gonzales via Laughing Squid)

Star Wars fans have strong opinions about Ewoks. They love or hate without a lot of feelings in the middle gray area. Monday night on How I Met Your Mother Neil Patrick Harris’ character Barney Stinson explained why.

He said there was an Ewok Line: people born after May 25, 1973 love Ewoks because the furry creatures remind them of the teddy bears they are stilling cuddling at night. Anyone born before then recognizes Ewoks were just added to Return of the Jedi solely because they were cute and appealing to kids.  Accompanying this theory was a whole presentation on Ewok culture. You have to admit that’s fabulous even if you don’t like the furry creatures.

Watch the entire presentation about Ewok culture and the Ewok Line after the break.

(Bleeding Cool via Blastr)

Endless Origami.

(via Dueling Analogs)

Click on the map to enlarge it.

How About That of the Day: When President Obama and Sgt. Dakota Meyer sat down for a pint outside the Oval Office they weren’t quaffing commoner swill — they were imbibing White House Honey Ale from the Executive Mansion’s homemade stock.

That’s right: Since February, the White House has been brewing its own beer using equipment purchased by the Obamas, and serving it up at various functions.

Historians say this is first time beer has been made in the White House.

[cbsnews.]

Pandas. Zoos want them, other bears want to be them (maybe?). But are they really worth all the trouble? Let's fight about it:

Point: Pandas Are Awesome!

The panda bear, above all, is a survivor of the keenest degree. You might deride it for its sloth, for its listlessness, for its struggle to spread its seed. But what you call laziness, I single out as a sign of a fighter. The panda bear is slow, the panda bear falters—but the panda bear has defeated every obstacle thrown in its way by that Queen Bitch Mother Nature. It has survived in spite of its own genome. Let us consider the following:

• 99% of the panda's diet is bamboo, yes. It's extremely low in nutrients. But the bear's guts are built to process meat—it's a carnivore, at its foundation. But through millions of years evolutionary battling and environmental change, its found itself inhabiting bamboo-rich regions. What'd it do—give up on eating and perish? No. It just ate the fucking bamboo—up to 40 pounds of it every single day—and shut up about it. Would humans do the same? No, we'd complain that there weren't enough GroupOn deals for bamboo.

• Pandas are fucking adorable. They look like humans wearing bear suits—WHICH IS REALLY, REALLY CUTE. They have sharp teeth, but choose to use them only for peaceful purposes.

• They're a boon for the perennially tense US/Chinese relations—sharing pandas between our countries shows that we have more in common that we'd ever imagine. Namely, a love for pandas and a concern for their wellbeing.

• They're a boon for the local economy for Washington DC, our nation's capital, my hometown, and a city with unsung fiscal problems due to shoddy congressional policy.

• They're really cute. Scientists don't even know why they have black spots! C'mon!

Pandas are victims of their own tenacity. Where other species have been eliminated by the slow, dark hand of natural selection, the panda has stood up and said "O, ye forces of the cosmos—unhand me. I stand on my paws a Free Bear, unburdened by my genome. Behold my bamboo chomps and despair." Evolutionary excellence. The unbridled determination to live another day. To eat another shoot. The lethargic king of all furred beasts. -SB

Counterpoint: Pandas Are Terrible!

I just want to get this straight right off the bat: I really don't hate pandas.* I just love nature. And nature has made it clear in no uncertain terms that pandas need to die. Now.

Here are the valid reasons for humanity's continued propping up of Ailuropoda melanoleuca:

• They are kind of cute.

And here are the reasons we should let them die out the way sweet Gaia intended:

• Female pandas can expect a solid 16 years of fertility, but they only ovulate once a year, and can only handle one set of offspring every two years. There's no clearer recipe for extinction. Even their ovaries are lazy!

• It's cool, though, because they won't have sex. That's the most popular charge leveled against pandas, and for good reason! They have no libido, no interest in repopulating the species. They'd rather sit and chew, chew and sit, even when there's panda porn shoved in their faces (which is a real thing that actually happened).

• Not only do pandas not procreate, they have fake pregnancies, presumably to get zookeepers off their backs about having all that free casual sex.

• When they do bother having sex, it's generally with family members. That's right: the one kind of sex pandas can't get enough of is incest.

• And when they manage to have babies? It's usually twins. One of whom is raised to be a good panda adult, the other of whom is left to die. Seriously. They almost always actively let one of their children die.

• Pandas are technically carnivores, but they chose to subsist almost entirely (we're talking 99% of intake) on bamboo, which is terribly difficult for them to digest. But they still spend 16 hours a day eating it. That's like if you decided to chew on styrofoam for 90% of your waking hours.

• There are accredited professional animal people out there who feel the same way! BBC wildlife expert Chris Packham recently—and rightly—noted that "giant pandas should be allowed to die out." Expert opinion! Expert British opinion!

• We fetishize them to an unhealthy degree. Do you know how much this Banquete Chair made of panda stuffed animals costs? $75,000. Gross. Pointless. Pandas.

• We spend millions—seriously, millions!—of dollars every single year propping up a species that has no discernible will to survive. Money which could go towards other, more ambitious species. Like homo sapiens! Or emu or whatever. Anything but these these giant depressive raccoons.

And so on. This is not an animal that wants to survive. This is the overstuffed, lobotomized Hamburgler of the animal kingdom, desperate to go lazy into that good night. And we simply won't let them.

Look, I'm not saying let's go kill some pandas, or let's kick them out of our zoos. I'm saying let's stop interfering with them, even if it's just for a little bit. Let's spend our conservation energies on species that actually give dodo about being conserved.

*Okay maybe I do hate pandas a little. A lot. I hate pandas a lot and so should you. -BB

What is your stance on pandas?

Photo: Life