Saturday, November 11, 2006

Teaching English, Firefox 2.0, dying in sewage tanks, chocolate beer, quizzes

Ah, a free day... I've caught up on laundry / blogs, and things are going okay in people's lives. Jen has musings about love / breaking up and a certain someone and Dawn has her own reflections on teaching English to Korean students. Vivian has IN FLANDERS FIELDS up, plus stuff about a rambly little kid who mixes people up.. gotta love those Sunday School kiddies! Oh yes, the church now has a new mouse... I heard about it from Chris Lam last week, yuck! Spoz has the usual weekender things, and stuff about a surprise birthday party for W which seems to have been fun... Kempy eating off the floor?! EWWWW!

I've also upgraded to Firefox 2.0, which Corey says should get rid of my annoying problem with the saved sessions not restoring after the browser crashes. Well, I hope it does! Now he's telling me about beer pong: it's a game where you throw ping pong balls at cups of beer. If you get one in, the other team drinks it. When all the cups are gone on one side, the game is over. So basically, you drink a lot of beer. That reminds me that some American beer companies are coming out with chocolate malted beer... Jon and Jeremy might like that, but I bet they like chocolate stout even better. ;)


Morbid Facts

Today's Undignified Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

For nearly 30 years, septic services contractor Kermit Dale Lancaster earned good money going places most people dread. A former Marine, Lancaster, 67, joked about his gritty job, but never complained about the work that supported his wife and three sons. The Thonotosassa man died at Tampa General Hospital at 9:20 PM Monday after becoming trapped in an underground tank at Acorn Trace Apartments, 11115 N. Nebraska Ave., slipping neck-deep into sewage. "It's pretty hard to deal with," his son, Troy Lancaster, 29, a St. Petersburg computer engineer, said Tuesday through sobs. "You kind of hope for dignity at the end."

Tampa Fire Rescue officials said Lancaster was wearing rubber boots about 1:15 PM when he entered the tank, which is about 4 feet wide and 12 feet deep and pumps sewage to the city's sewer lines. He had retired about a year ago, but went to work with his youngest son, Travis, 27, who was taking over the business, Dale Lancaster Inc. "I don't think he realized his limits had changed," Troy Lancaster said.

He became disoriented and yelled for help possibly because of the heat in the sweltering tank and methane, which deprives the heart and brain of oxygen. "My father had always warned me about methane," he said. "He used to say, 'If you get to where you're feeling lightheaded, get out.'"

A co-worker passed the man a ladder and tried to grab his hands, but they were slippery and he slid farther into the sewage, Troy Lancaster said. At some point, he inhaled and ingested the material, he said. Firefighters gave him oxygen and pulled him from the tank, Capt. Tracy Walker said. The rescue took about 25 minutes.

Culled from: TBO.Com News
Generously submitted by: Stickysnake

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The son's line about hoping for some dignity in the end really made me sad. Poor guy. People with jobs like this are the ones who should be making millions, not lawyers and CEOs!

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Wretched Recommendations!

Jennifer has a book recommendation for us:

Cannibal Killers: The History of Impossible Murders
by Moira Martingale

"... a deliciously morbid book. The author gets a little preachy about gun control sometimes, but it's worth it."

Here's the Amazon synopsis:

"It is a crime that shocks and stuns more than any other. It is the ultimate in criminal depravity. It runs like a blood-red thread through novels like The Silence of the Lambs. Now, take a grim and terrifying journey into the world of the cannibal killer.... Ed Gein, the twisted trophy hunter and role model for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, who liked to keep his victims' lips in a small bowl. Issei Sagawa, a real natural-born killer, celebrated in song by the Rolling Stones and toasted by the Japanese art world after he killed and ate a Dutch co-ed. Jeffrey Dahmer, the Milwaukee Murderer who kept souvenirs from most of his 17 victims, including three human heads in his refrigerator. Andrei Chikatilo, history's worst cannibal killer who delighted in boiling and eating sawn-off body parts of his victims, often not bothering to kill them before the mutilation began. A chilling look at history's most repugnant criminals, Cannibal Killers is a horrifying story too shocking to believe -- except that it's true."

Sounds fun to me!

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Morbid Mirth Du Jour!

Here's a game for those of you who, like Sheryl, are very fond of pointy things!

Thanks to Sheryl for the link.

Dude... I would SO read that cannibal book! :D


Your Movie Buff Quotient: 38%

You're a very typical moviegoer. You like movies, but you are by no means a movie buff.
You've seen many of the biggest blockbusters, but you haven't really started digging into the classics.







What will happen in Leslie's game of life?
Watch Leave it to Beaver for the rest of your life
'What will happen in your game of life?' at QuizGalaxy.com

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