Heart Attack Made To Order

I recently came across a certain news piece that began with the sentence: “A man has had a heart attack … while eating at the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas.” Given the name of the restaurant, one might be forgiven for wondering why this would qualify as news, given the deadly intent of the restaurant is so clearly signposted.

The victim was eating the 6000-calorie Triple Bypass Burger – 6000 calories being more than 3 times an average adult’s daily food requirement – when he began exhibiting symptoms of the medical emergency from which the restaurant takes its name. That in fact is a lightweight burger, dwarfed by the Heart Attack Grill’s ultimate meal, the 8-patty Octuple Bypass Burger, which has enough calories to feed an average man for 12 days! (Side of Flatliner Fries optional). Customers, known as ‘patients’ are served by underdressed waitresses, known as ‘nurses’ in the Heart Attack Grill ‘restaurant’.

“It was no joke,” the restaurateur who calls himself “Doctor Jon” was quoted as saying. Funny that – it certainly seems like it’s supposed to be a joke, given the whole premise of the restaurant is to laugh in the face of both nutritional guidelines and death. If a real doctor was serving ‘patients’ burgers with 4 beef patties and 8 slices of cheese, with a side of fries (deep-fried in pure lard), vodka butterfat shakes, and cigarettes (yes, they really do sell cigarettes), he probably needs to be assessed for signs of psychopathy.

According to ‘Dr Jon’, when the customer started exhibiting symptoms of a heart attack “one of the nurses came back to me and said, ‘Dr. Jon, we’ve got a patient who’s in trouble’”. At least that is reassuring. These sound like exactly the kind of experienced medical professionals you’d want around in an emergency.

The man was taken to hospital by paramedics, but his condition was not disclosed. Dr Jon said he felt “horrible” for the man, and was quoted as saying “even with our own morbid sense of humour, we would never pull a stunt like that”. Yes, of course, they never intended any connection to be drawn between their heart attack themed burgers and actual heart attacks. I’m sure the names are purely coincidental. I’m guessing they never even considered that quadruple-decker 10,000 calorie burgers could cause heart attacks.

In fairness to the restaurant, they are a charitable institution, offering free meals to all people who weigh over 159 kilograms. This is clearly a selfless institution. Because otherwise they have a terrible business model, considering most of their customers will surely be over that weight threshold soon enough.

And don’t worry – the Heart Attack Grill also shares the community’s concern about health and nutrition. They even have a ‘diet program’ on their website. It states:

“NO MORE YO-YO EFFECT! Doctors agree that continually cycling body weight up and down is one of the very worst things a person can do to themselves. That’s why our program is focused upon keeping your weight in an extremely stable, gradual, and constant upward slope. OVER 350 POUNDS? EAT FOR FREE!”

See?! “Doctors agree”!! You just can’t argue with that logic.

http://www.heartattackgrill.com/

http://m.smh.com.au/entertainment/restaurants-and-bars/customer-has-heart-attack-at-heart-attack-restaurant-20120216-1ta3y.html

http://www.smh.com.au/world/heart-attack-grill-claims-another-victim-20130217-2eku2.html

Promiscuous Squids

To all those conservatives out there who say homosexuality is not natural, I have some shocking news for you. It’s time for you to get the placards out and start demonstrating your outrage to the fullest extent. Squids are super gay. Or rather, bisexual. Apparently they’re also more than a little but promiscuous, with a study stating that, “Equivalent numbers of both sexes were found to have mated, indicating that male squid routinely and indiscriminately mate with both males and females.”

Well that is just shocking. Who would have ever thought that the most phallic looking animal on the planet would be a sex-crazed manic!

The scientists who reported the discovery said that “this behaviour further exemplifies the ‘live fast and die young’ life strategy of many cephalopods.” So it turns out that squids are rock stars… and that rock stars will have sex with anyone.

Apparently the solitary nature of squids makes it hard for them to find mates, so they will latch on to any other squid they can find in the hopes of reproducing, even if that means on occasion they end up accidentally mating with another man-squid. So these squids are basically like a socially awkward guy in a club at 3am who’s had too much to drink and is  grabbing onto anything that moves.

To add to the potential for social awkwardness, cannibalism is a significant threat among these squids. So in all fairness, loving and leaving their partner squid in the fastest possible time is presumably considered a socially acceptable move in squid-land.

So, now that the word is out I am expecting at any minute for radio shock-jocks, politicians, and conservative interest groups to make their voices heard. Surely they will not stand by and let these flaming, decadent squids with their ‘alternative lifestyles’ make a mockery of their argument that homosexuality is unnatural!

More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/sep/21/male-squid-mate-sex-dark

Misogynist Birds

A new scientific study has found that the males of a species of bird known as blue tits lose interest in their mates when their partner’s beauty begins to fade.

The birds have feathers on the top of their heads that reflect UV light, creating a lustrous blue colouring. In the experiment scientists smeared an oil with UV-blocking chemicals on the females’ heads to dim their colour.

So basically they turned all the lady birds into greasy-haired housewives, and lo and behold, the men started staying out longer and neglecting their offspring. Jerks!

I can picture them now… deliberately staying back at work, saying they had to do foraging overtime. They start taking detours on the way home, sometimes staying out the whole night, just flying around bars. Before long the lady bird will catch him tweeting a picture of his man-parts to some young chick.

You’d think with the word ‘tit’ in their names these birds would be more sensitive to the needs of their women. Then again, perhaps they’re overcompensating for their perceived lack of manliness by womanizing around town.

Either way, lady blue tits, you’ve been warned! If you want to keep your jerk husbands around you’d better start preening! Or alternatively you could just smear all your younger rivals with scientist oil, thus leveling the playing field…

More: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/06/25/3532482.htm

Cuttlefish Drag

It was already well-known that many octopi, squids and cuttlefish have the ability to change their colour to help them hunt prey or avoid becoming the prey of some bigger creature. But it turns out cuttlefish have developed a much more inventive application for this skill. Male cuttlefish have recently been observed to dress up in drag as a way to deceive other male cuttlefish when in the process of courting a mate.

Cuttlefish don’t get a lot of opportunities with the ladies, and if they find one and start looking all sexy around her chances are he’s going to be spotted by another male who can swoop in and steal his thunder. Or worse, the two dudes end up in a round of fisticuffs and spend all their time fighting and none of their time mating.

So instead, cuttlefish worked out a new plan. Once a male cuttlefish has shimmied up alongside a lady cuttlefish he displays his hot dude stripe pattern in an attempt to woo her. At the same time he splits his colour down the middle so that his other side is displaying the ordinary brown colour of a female, giving the impression to the other alpha dudes nearby that this is just two lady cuttlefish on a girl’s night out. So the male cuttlefish orients his body in a way that means the lady is only seeing his ultra-male display, while the other competing male sees only the female side.

Imagine for a moment, if you will, a human male attempting such a strategy. He’s out at the club, doing a little dance, and across the dance floor he sees a lady he’s rather keen to get together with. Quickly, he dashes to the dingy club bathroom for an emergency costume change. Then he emerges, and before she knows what’s going on, a handsome man with a sharp suit and good hair is cosying up beside her. Only he seems strangely insistent they only ever stand side by side. She tries to step in front of him to see his whole face but he deftly moves aside so that she continues to see only his right side. Little does she know that on his left side he has half an above-the-knee cocktail dress, makeup and a long, blonde wig. Men across the dance floor are checking ‘her’ out with great interest, but she just seems to be having such a great time dancing beside that other woman that they don’t dare interrupt them. This leaves him with just enough time to convince her with his stellar personality that she really should go home with him, at which point he manages, in a feat of acrobatic proportions, to change back into his regular clothes without her noticing, and leave the club with her arm in arm as all the other men stare on in envy and disbelief. As far as mating strategies go you can’t improve on nature…

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/07/04/3538157.htm

Movies Made Me Do It

An American man recently robbed a Bank of America branch, stealing a grand total of $425, then proceeded immediately to a police station with the money where he confessed to the crime. He explained to police that he had been so outraged by the documentary Inside Job, which details the causes of the global financial crisis, that it had inspired him to carry out the crime.

As a fellow lover of film, I can understand how it can sometimes be difficult to prevent oneself from getting swept up in the magic of cinema. I can only imagine that the world’s legal fraternity is watching the resulting case with baited breath. Imagine the kind of precedent a lenient sentence or even a ‘not guilty’ verdict could create.

People who got swept up in the hysteria that accompanied the release of The Hunger Games could be excused if they felt suddenly compelled to enslave children for the joys of watching them battle each other Roman-style to the death, or fans of Sacha Baron Cohen’s The Dictator may find themselves inspired to enslave a small Middle Eastern nation. And who are we to judge, really? Now that I think about it, it wouldn’t be all downsides if we were to legalise all film-inspired actions. As long as it means I get to meet Batman…

More: http://www.smh.com.au/world/strangebuttrue/robber-compelled-to-hold-up-bank-after-watching-oscarwinning-film-20120626-2104j.html#ixzz1zMn4D38x

How to Enjoy Your Funeral

In May a funeral was held for a 28 year old waiter in Egypt, who had suffered a heart attack at work and been pronounced dead. While the family was preparing his body at home for burial according to Islamic traditions a doctor came by to sign the death certificate. Upon inspection the doctor found that this man seemed to be unusually warm for a corpse, and after a brief inspection declared that he was in fact alive. His family was of course overjoyed, his mother so much so that she fainted.

Still, once she came around I would imagine there would have been a number of questions needing answers. I mean, how can you even trust this doctor saying the man is now alive? Either they were right when they declared him dead, or they were wrong, in which case they are such terrible doctors, so devoid of credibility, that surely they cannot be trusted when they say the man is now alive!

On the other hand, perhaps the man knew what he was doing all along. He wouldn’t be the first guy on earth to wonder what his own funeral might be like, and what better way to find out how much people really care than to fake your own death?! Of course there’s always the risk of eternal awkwardness if your family and friends don’t live up to expectations. Imagine if you woke up at your own funeral and it was a dud?! The humiliation! Of course your parents would insist “It’s not our fault! You didn’t give us any notice!” but you’d look around at the supermarket-bought hors d’oeuvres, the cask wine, and the shabby gaggle of your relatives and least-cool acquaintances and declare miserably “I wish I was dead”, channeling the sullenness of your teenage years as you slump back into your coffin.

There is also a very important question regarding this story that has been left shockingly unanswered. Did anyone with access to this man search for medical evidence of zombie or vampirification? It is alarming beyond belief that these safeguards are not in place. It seems beyond obvious that if someone awakes from the dead they must immediately be quarantined and examined for the whole range of undead-related conditions, lest humanity be unsuspectingly overrun in the night by gangs of marauding zombie-vampires. It’s just common sense.

More: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2143513/Hamdi-Hafez-al-Nubi-Dead-waiter-28-wakes-FUNERAL.html

Sauna Diplomacy

There was some controversy recently when the European commissioner handling the Eurozone debt crisis held a briefing for journalists in a sauna beneath his office in Brussels. Olli Rehn was accused of sexism, because in line with Finnish tradition the sauna party was for men only.

What’s striking about this story is that Rehn’s defence is that in Finland sauna culture and its corresponding rules is so intense it borders on being the country’s unofficial religion. There are an estimated 3 million saunas in Finland, a country of 5.3 million people. That’s more than 1 sauna for every 2 people in the country. 95% of Finns have had a sauna by their second birthday and the average Finn takes 1.5 saunas a week!

Not only does Finland have a sauna in nearly every building, including parliament, hospitals and schools, they take saunas with them when they travel abroad too. Finnish peacekeepers have taken BYO saunas along with them to Egypt, Eritrea, Lebanon, Cyprus, Namibia, Liberia and Chad, as well as in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Kosovo. During WWII it was officially determined that it should take 8 hours for a battalion of Finnish soldiers to build a brace of saunas, heat them up and bathe in them. Not even being in a war zone battling both Soviets AND Nazis was enough to prevent Finnish soldiers from indulging in their favourite pastime.

Having said that, sauna diplomacy in Finland has helped in the past to keep Finland out of war, thus saving them from the tedious hassle of having to set up temp saunas on the battlefield. In 1960, during the Cold War, then Finnish president Urho Kekkonen kept Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev sweating in a sauna until 5 in the morning until he unexpectedly released a communique supporting Finland’s integration with the west. No wonder Finns like saunas, they helped the country escape the Soviet Union! I mean, Finnish ‘sauna diplomacy’ does sound more like a hostage situation than a health spa (and I’m assuming vodka was involved, which believe me, would make the sauna situation much, much worse), but it does seem like those guys were on to something. There is clearly something about saunas that causes Russians to lose their better judgement. Forget nuclear weapons, if the US had just had saunas in the White House they could have ended the Cold War 30 years earlier.

More: http://www.smh.com.au/world/strangebuttrue/for-finns-a-sauna-is-one-of-lifes-bare-necessities-20120309-1upca.html#ixzz1zMrCcGTU