Crappie World

I know that sounds crazy, but it's true, and here's the proof! 

It probably shouldn't rank as an accomplishment that a player display common sense, ambition, and a willingness to learn, but anyone who has given even a cursory glance at sports news in the past can attest that those qualities are in short supply in the world of professional athletics.  That's what makes Matt Elam's decision to take an entry-level position in a thoroughly unglamorous profession so admirable:  not only did he have a goal, but he actually put in the thought to identify the experience and information that would be necessary to succeed in the endeavor, and then went one step further and took the time to get that experience and information first-hand.  It's the lack of entitlement and self-consciousness that really makes this story so enjoyable to me:  Elam didn't demand special treatment or try to talk himself into some sort of P.R.-stunt position with the company; he took a regular job so he could observe how the business works at the level that he would be operating his own (in this case, an individual store).  And in his time off from his regular (and extremely stressful and demanding) full-time employment, no less. 

I had heard of Elam before this story, but I'm damn sure going to keep my eye on him now.  He's my all-time favorite Raven.*

Bear witness to this harrowing account of a Greyhound bus ride gone horribly wrong!  OK, OK:  even more horribly wrong than usual, because each and every trip on a Greyhound bus is nightmarish in its own way.  My freshman year in college was marked by several Greyhound trips between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, roughly 30 miles away, to visit a girlfriend.  How bad could a 30-mile bus ride be, you ask?  Well, I remind you that Eastern Iowa is one of the primary meth-producing regions of the country, and has been for quite some time.  So, if you like riding around in a large metal tube with several rail-thin, foul-smelling degenerates, then you’re in luck…and you also have horrible taste in leisure-time activities; trust me, it’s bad.  But at no point in any of those trips did a fellow passenger decapitate and eat parts of his seat-mate. 

"They returned to the back of the bus to find that the person who was stabbing the person in the neck had now sawed off the head of (the victim)."

Yeah, that would really throw a wrench in your whole day.  I’ve been stabbed before (albeit in the shoulder and with a sharpened stick), and while it sucked, it wasn’t something I wanted to turn into a big deal.  But once somebody’s head gets cut off, the stakes have been raised.  And while I applaud the passengers for taking a risk and confronting this stabbing enthusiast, I was a bit surprised by this part:

The man, with the head in one hand and the knife in the other, then tried to attack the other passengers, said Oliver.

The group was able to exit the bus and slammed the door behind them.

They only took off after he started threatening them?  I hate to say it, but my reaction probably would have been, “Oh, snap:  this dude’s cutting people’s heads off; let’s get the hell out of here.”  It would not have been “Oh, snap:  this dude’s cutting people’s heads off; let’s see if we can reason with him and…uh-oh, now he’s turned on us; we’d better go.”  But wait, there’s more!

The man then stabbed the door with his knife but was unable to break through and get off the bus. Eventually, he attempted to start up the bus to drive away but the operator had hit a switch, disabling the vehicle.

Two things:

1)  Not to make light of the situation, but I love the idea of a crazed, blood-soaked decapitator driving a Greyhound bus.  Kind of wish that had happened.  Not that it would have been all that different from a standard-issue Greyhound driver, but still…

2)  There’s a button to prevent Greyhound bus theft?  That’s either very forward-thinking of them, or the result of a shutting-the-barn-door-after-the-horse-has-escaped situation.  I’d love to know what precipitated the decision to install that device. 

Oh, we’re not done yet: 

Oliver said a truck driver then arrived at the scene and handed out wrenches and crowbars to several men. The small group gathered around the door to the bus and prevented the man from exiting until police arrived.

Cool!  Now we’ve got armed vigilantes and the potential for frontier justice?!  This story has everything! 

Cody Olmstead, a Nova Scotia man who was on the bus, said that the killer taunted the men who were blocking the door from the outside.

"He cut (the victim’s) head off and then walked up to the door holding it and just looked at them crazy-like and then dropped the head and walked back to the body and started cutting it some more," Olmstead told CTV News from outside a hotel in Brandon, Man., where he and other passengers were taken.

I’m actually starting to like this decapitator.  That’s a stone-cold move, taunting your next intended victims with the previous one’s head like that.  I also really appreciate the use of the phrase “crazy-like” in that guy’s quote; it adds a lot of character to the tale, and if I was turning this situation into a movie*, Cody Olmstead would play the Bill Paxton-in-Aliens role of the hot-headed fool who eventually redeems himself in a pressure situation.  And we haven’t even gotten to the best part of the article yet!

The man was left alone with the body and witnesses say that he performed further indignities to the victim.

"We have word from people on the scene … that when the killer was alone with the body … that there may have been some small acts of cannibalism on the body," Oliver said.

Boom!  Obviously, I’m not happy that a guy got stabbed, decapitated, and cannibalized.  But, oh mama, do I love how that quote is worded!  “Some small acts of cannibalism” is a lot of things, including but not limited to:  a heroic feat of understatement; a fantastic black-metal song title; the way Woody Allen would have described the scene; and so much more!  Despicable though his actions may have been, you have to admit that the killer really went all out with this crime.  Sports, businesspeople, and Del Taco all tell us to go bold or go home, and this fellow went bold. 

There’s more, but I’ve taken up enough of your time already, so I’ll just leave you with a few other choice quotes from the piece.  Enjoy, and remember:  you have so many choices when you travel, and while all transportation providers offer you the possibility of having your head forcibly removed and your body partially consumed by a psychotic, knife-wielding maniac, only Greyhound can safely say that they’ve been there before!

A number of witnesses referred to the suspect’s actions as “robot-like.”

Witnesses said the suspect was tall, large and wearing sunglasses, even though it was dark.

Can we verify Corey Hart’s whereabouts on the night in question?  Are we sure the killer isn't a T-800 Terminator unit?  And also, are you still a “suspect” when you’re covered in blood and a bus full of people just saw you cut off a guy’s head and taunt them with it?  What’s your defense?  “Whoa, you’ve got it all wrong:  he had a headache, so he asked me to help him take his head off for a minute!  He asked me!  And then I just got caught up in the heat of the moment and I might have taunted those other guys a little; I feel bad about that part, but once I had the head in my hands, I was just so proud!  I just reacted how anyone else would have in that situation!” 

Greyhound provides counselling

This should just be a blanket statement covering all Greyhound passengers, regardless of whether or not a decapitation occurs during their trip. 

David Eastwick, a passenger on the bus, told CTV News that he noticed that there seemed to be something “wrong” with the suspect even before the attack.

"He look kind of suspicious when I saw him," a clearly-tired Eastwick said Thursday. "Most people if you say ‘Hi’ to them they say ‘Hi’ back to you but this one just looked back and (stared.)"

This gentleman has clearly never ridden on a Greyhound bus, or any other form of public transit, before.  By his logic, everybody riding the Red Line in Chicago from November 2004 through April 2005 was also a knife-wielding decapitator waiting for their chance to strike.  Actually, he’s probably right about that.

I'm bidding a sad farewell to one of my favorite NFL players, Henry Hynoski--AKA "the Hynoceros"--who fractured his shoulder and is likely done for the year.  I don't like the Giants, nor do I really watch Hynoski play that often, but he carved out a place in my heart for having created the only touchdown celebration that I've ever enjoyed.  The rest of the season will be that much less fun without the possibility of seeing this happen from time to time: 

Stare in slack-jawed amazement at the wonder that is Duke the Super Action Dog!

I was talking to a friend recently about the '80s G.I. Joe figures, and I mentioned my confusion over the fact that, despite my deep and abiding affection for all things animal-related, I never really got super-excited about the Joe figures that included companion animals.  There were many of them:  a couple of dog handlers with their canine buddies, a ninja with a wolf, an enemy general with a buzzard (yeah, I wouldn't do that either), a Native American fellow with an eagle, a sailor with a parrot (even less likely than the buzzard; those things are annoying), and those are the normal ones.  There are guys with bobcats, coyotes, crocodiles, dolphins, and probably a few others that I'm forgetting right now.  The figures themselves were all fine, but the animals got the short end of the deal:  they were basically animal-shaped lumps of plastic with none of the joints or painted details that made the figures so cool.  I think this was the source of the disconnect:  I couldn't do anything with the animals, so they didn't seem that exciting. 

A lack of excitement is not one of the problems facing Duke the Super Action Dog:

He's sliding down a goddamn zipline with his mouth, folks; if you need more excitement than that, you'd better find a PCP dealer post-haste.  And he doesn't even look that affected by the situation, either:  that's steely determination in his eyes, and it's very admirable.  The only problem here comes in the text: 

Duke holds the Canyon Slide in his mighty jaws to cross imaginary canyons and gorges as he is thrust into action by his boy master.

Now, hold on a second:  I was under the impression that Duke was calling his own shots here; now I find out he's acting under orders from some dumb-ass kid!?!  That's not the Duke I know:  if some turtleneck-wearing little bastard with a Beatles haircut told him what to do, he'd bark out a stern "cram it" and jump onto his zipline to go find someone who isn't a total control-freak wiener to hang out with.  In fact, the picture on the package is probably depicting that very scenario; they just didn't feel the need to spell it out for the viewer. 

But Duke isn't just a tough-as-nails maverick who doesn't take crap from anyone; he's also a benevolent sort of fellow who isn't afraid to risk his own hide to help a finned, feathered, furry, or clothes-wearing friend in need.  He's coming to the rescue, and he's bringing hell (and a cart) with him:

Text-wise, this is more like it: 

Once on the scene Duke's boy master can put the search beam into Duke's mouth and the two can look for action.

Damn straight:  this scenario paints the kid as more of an assistant to Duke, performing simple tasks for him and basically being an extra set of hands (or, really, the only set of hands).  I love this image:  Duke certainly looks like he's having a good time, and the idea of a harness with a winch attached is pretty awesome.  If my dog wasn't quite so fearful of wearing things, I'd consider giving her a winch harness just in case we found ourselves in a situation where I had to pull her to safety as we ran for our lives from a group of murderous bandits whose lair we had stumbled upon while hiking.  Not that I've thought about that sort of thing happening...*

When you've got a dog of action like Duke, you can't expect him to just curl up at the foot of your bed after a hard day of saving lives and biting the crap out of bad guys; he needs a place of his own to relax and regroup, something befitting his status as an unparalleled canine bad-ass.  Something, for example, like this:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen:  Duke's got his own cave.  And not just any cave (which would probably be enough for a regular dog of action):  a cave with a periscope, an elevator, and a bunch of computers.  Duke isn't just going off half-cocked when he races into danger:  by the time he gets there, he's already gathered data, researched his options, and game-planned for the emergency.  And like a true professional, he's prepared to execute that game-plan to perfection.  The idea of a dog having his own cave headquarters is wonderful, and I'm tempted to excavate my backyard to make one for my dog.  I've even got an old laptop she can use, and I can probably rig up a makeshift periscope with some mirrors and PVC pipe. 

Finally, as was the case with so many people, Duke must have been moved by the tragic events of 9/11.  But unlike most of those people, Duke actually did something about it:  he saw a void of true heroism, and he filled that void.  Big-time.  

Mm-hmm:  he's a firefighter, too.  This is probably the most plausible of the Duke sets:  my dog loves playing with the hose.  And while our efforts usually involve me holding said hose and her chasing the water, I suspect that if I could teach her to handle my part of the job, she'd probably enjoy it just as much (I, on the other hand, would not). 

From what I understand, the Duke the Super Action Dog line was a mild success but hardly a goldmine.  The lack of a villain for Duke to battle probably didn't help.  Two ideas immediately come to mind:  a vicious pitbull named "Jaws," loosely based on (OK; directly ripped off from) the Bond character and featuring a set of vac-metalized teeth; and a nefarious cat character to reinforce one of my favorite stereotypes about the animal kingdom.  Even without a yang to Duke's yin, this is as good an idea for a toy as I've ever seen, and one that's long overdue for a revival.  Maybe if Duke had a harness with a Playstation 4 on it and a toy-sized cell-phone that he could use to sext his poodle girlfriend, the line would be the rousing smash hit today that it deserved to be all along.